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Carey nudged her. “We should stay here until Dad comes home.”
But then their mother’s eyes snapped open. “It’s okay. Let’s go.”
“See?” Rhiannon said to Carey, her body deflating with relief.
Except Joanna didn’t know where the car keys were. Her movements were slow, messy. Rhiannon did—she’d stumbled upon the extra set in a coffee can on her father’s workbench in the basement when she’d been looking for some shiny things she could use as jewelry for her dolls. Funny place for him to mislay the keys. Never did it occur to her that it was a hiding spot.
In the car, Joanna gripped the wheel hard. She leaned over the dashboard like an old lady. Several times, she lingered too long at red lights; cars behind her honked. “Go, Mommy!” Rhiannon cried, trying to sound lively. The car jerked forward. Carey chomped on his fingernails like they were made of Swedish Fish.
In the video store parking lot, Rhiannon bounded out and headed toward the front door. Inside, she perused the DVD cases, trying to figure out which one would be best. Something they’d never seen? Or maybe something familiar?
The store’s front door beeped, indicating it had opened. Carey glanced over his shoulder. His mouth made a flat line. He took off. “Mom?” he called out. “Mom!”
Carey made a beeline to the front door just as their mother’scar squealed out of the parking lot. Rhiannon got out there just in time, though she wished she’d missed it. She would never forget her mother’s blank look behind the windshield. Joanna saw them, but she didn’t hit the brakes and turn back. The car lurched forward, and she turned onto the road, driving fast.
There was a halfhearted search for Joanna, but she didn’t want to be found. Based on hints their father gave, Joanna had pretty much said she was going to do this. Which filled Rhiannon with guilt. She never would have made the video store suggestion. She never would have fetched those keys from the coffee can.
Joanna ended up resurfacing: first in Utah, where she’d met a man, and then in Denver, with another man. Every few years, it was another place, another guy. She’d call them, sometimes—at first, Rhiannon looked forward to the calls, thinking Joanna was going to tell them she was coming home. But she never did. Their conversations were always light and evasive and always,alwayscut short on Joanna’s terms. A few years after she started calling, Rhiannon refused to speak to her anymore. Not long after that, the calls stopped.
Rhiannon grew to hate Joanna. There wasn’t even a good story to explain her mother’s absence. It was humiliating to sayYeah, she just didn’t care enough about us, so she left.
Around this time, a story broke that a car had crashed over a nearby bridge and plummeted into the water, killing a child. The driver was a mother named Jackie Cook—same last name as Rhiannon’s. Jackie lived, and so did her daughter, who was also in the car—and who was also right around Rhiannon’s age.
She pored over the story. People were up in arms about Jackie Cook’s negligence, and those poor children, andHow could a mother do such a thing?The little girl who’d survived the crash was never featured in the news, but Rhiannon had to think she was being pitied, coddled, cared for by people in her town. Yet noone pampered Rhiannon because of whathermother did. And was it really that different?
For high school, Rhiannon was accepted into a private academy across the river, all tuition paid. There was no way she would have been able to go otherwise—her dad still worked, but they didn’t havethatkind of money. In his lucid moments—he hit the bottle even harder after Joanna left and had become increasingly weepier, though never angry—he encouraged her to go. There was nothing in this town for her, he said. If she had the chance to get out, she should take it.
The school was small, and no one she knew attended. Everyone there had something that made them stand out; she was loath to start another year being her same old self, motherless and inadequate and broken. If she was going to be broken, she’d rather be broken with some style. The first time she told someone that she was the daughter of Jackie Cook, the mother who drove her children off the bridge…well, it felt good. The reactions. And then the pity. And then the understanding—it was understanding shedeserved,for hadn’t her mother done essentially the same thing? It made her stand out, too. People remembered her for it. They made exceptions for her, scholastically and socially, exceptions Rhiannon believed were completely deserved.
Eventually, Carey heard what she was going around saying. He was furious. “Why would you say Mom is the woman who drove her kids over a bridge?” he cried. “And are you telling people I’m the dead brother?”
But Rhiannon felt that Joanna Cook and Jackie Cook were the same person, more or less. Her brother didn’t see it that way. He thought Rhiannon was sick. It changed their relationship, going forward—they were still in touch, though sporadically, and Carey had the grace not to ever mention it to Rhiannon’s father, who she tried to check in with once a week. Rhiannon doubted Careywould be proud if he knew she was still telling that story. And to important people, too—friends. Lenna.
And Lenna was right—it was absolutely why she wanted to join an intentional community if she ever was financially stable enough. She didn’t want to go forever—she also wanted a career—but at least for a little bit, just to see what it was like to live in a house and function…well, like a family. With support. Kindness. Predictability. Was it terrible to want a do-over?
Now, she bubbled with rage. How dare her mother drop back in like this and interrupt her calm life! But even so, she stabbed the contact information in the text. It was like an invisible hand was forcing her to do it.
The phone started to ring. A voice answered. Her mother’s voice.
“Rhiannon!” her mother gasped. “Oh my God. Is it you?”
Rhiannon stopped walking. It was a hand reaching out from the long, dark tunnel of her past. This was a voice she dreamed about. Tried to re-create. Still out there. Still alive. Saying her name.
“Hi,” she croaked.
“You got my text, then. I’m so glad. So I was wondering if you’d like to visit,” Joanna went on. “I’m in Oregon. You’re still in Cali, right? So not so far. How’s your father, by the way? He still kickin’?”
Get off the phone,Rhiannon’s rational mind screamed. “It’s actually not a great time,” she said. “To visit, I mean. I’m in the middle of all this work stuff…”
“It’s just…I regret things, baby girl. I know that doesn’t make up for anything, but I’d really like to see your face. And say I’m sorry.”
Rhiannon’s feet had carried her to a crosswalk. She stared emptily at cars whizzing past. Even when the light flashed that she could cross, she didn’t move.
“And also, I need you,” Joanna said in a small voice. “I need your help with something.”
“What?” Rhiannon asked suspiciously.
“Life stuff. I’ll explain when you get here. Really, honey, I’m not sure who else to turn to.”
