The Night Olivia Fell
The Night Olivia Fell
Christina McDonald
They said it was an accident. Her mother knows they’re lying. But the truth comes with a price…A fast-paced and action packed psychological thriller that is full of twists and turns you won’t see coming. The Night Olivia Fell is the most gripping suspense mystery you’ll read this year.IT’S EVERY PARENT’S WORST NIGHTMARE.Abi Knight is startled awake in the middle of the night to a ringing phone and devastating news – her teenage daughter, Olivia, has been in a terrible accident.Abi is told that Olivia slipped and fell from a bridge into the icy water below, and now she lies silent, dependent on life support.But then Abi sees the angry bruises around Olivia’s wrists and learns that her sensible daughter is in fact three months pregnant . . .WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT IF THEY TOLD YOU IT WAS AN ACCIDENT?
CHRISTINA McDONALD worked as a freelance journalist for several newspapers in Ireland and Seattle, including The Sunday Times, Dublin, The Connacht Tribune, Galway, The Galway Independent, The Seattle Post Intelligencer, and Colures Magazine. She later moved to London and started a digital copywriting company where she worked as a consultant and writer for brands such as British Telecom (BT), Travelex, Wood Mackenzie, Pearson Publishing, TUI Travel, Expedia and USAToday.com (http://www.USAToday.com). She now lives in London with her husband, two sons and their Golden Retriever. The Night Olivia Fell is her debut novel.
Copyright (#ulink_6a06f062-c501-5f7c-a1ef-2a7bc81c4b8c)
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019
Copyright © Christina McDonald 2019
Christina McDonald asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © February 2019 ISBN: 9780008307677
For Richard, always and forever
Also for every single parent out there doing the most difficult jobalone; but especially for my mom, the strongest and most inspiringsingle mother I know. Thank you.
Contents
Cover (#uefd17717-dd8c-5b6d-9f45-230571124d7e)
About the Author (#u762e7d1d-13c5-54c9-a644-6158de7b9c09)
Title Page (#u3ca0ab00-089b-5d91-a2c0-e9212d2dbed9)
Copyright (#ulink_c78f8bb0-5516-5767-bf7d-0edb63ddc48a)
Dedication (#u99cf5412-e87b-54d8-b85a-4692ae534a84)
PROLOGUE (#ulink_63664755-99e8-54e6-afc5-cace8ffdbf07)
1. ABI (#ulink_ab9e8ec5-48ac-5cf1-a615-17897838c015)
2. OLIVIA (#ulink_37074426-d526-54db-a4ba-c7ad15f187b3)
3. ABI (#ulink_a7636b1f-2713-54d9-bd41-0abba97f3959)
4. OLIVIA (#ulink_015e5619-a895-53a3-8b5d-e8c9427b0e21)
5. ABI (#ulink_ce645fc0-d58f-52d9-a4c2-a6ead5d66db3)
6. ABI (#ulink_49a5fa4f-b086-549f-bf45-86299862c2e9)
7. OLIVIA (#ulink_5d1ff35b-dc37-557b-9fc5-b16ee59585e7)
8. ABI (#ulink_a3a37c12-d753-5cb1-9752-badc02bed66f)
9. ABI (#ulink_ff864225-8058-5200-9069-44ad9c2cd150)
10. ABI (#ulink_630b7472-40ee-5171-8641-5c5c02ed5a22)
11. OLIVIA (#ulink_35e8ec75-5812-5468-b2f9-321cffb174e8)
12. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
13. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
14. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
15. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
16. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
17. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
18. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
19. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
20. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
21. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
22. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
23. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
24. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
25. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
26. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
27. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
28. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
29. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
30. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
31. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
32. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
33. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
34. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
35. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
36. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
37. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
38. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
39. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
40. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
41. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
42. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
43. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
44. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
45. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (#litres_trial_promo)
READERS GROUP GUIDE (#litres_trial_promo)
Introduction (#litres_trial_promo)
Topics and Questions for Discussion (#litres_trial_promo)
A Conversation with Christina McDonald (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE (#ulink_ac059fcc-9b79-569d-b983-fcf1323eb8e8)
‘You want the truth? I’m –’ My admission was cut off by a streak of blazing hot pain as something exploded against the side of my head. My brain barely registered the blow, my vision a dusky blur of red, pain searing into my skull and down my jaw. I felt my body spin with the force of it.
I reeled backward until my legs whacked against the low cement wall and I tumbled over, my body hurtling sideways across the ledge. A dark fog pressed against my outer vision, and before I knew it I was falling, plunging into empty space.
I hit the river on my back, my eyes fastened on the bridge’s soaring spires illuminated by a flickering streetlamp.
Then the shadowy water tipped me under.
1 (#ulink_12ab870e-4d97-57c3-be8b-ffdb09040298)
ABI
october
I woke abruptly, dreams tumbling from me in cottony wisps. I couldn’t remember falling asleep, but the lamp on my bedside table had been switched off, the only light a full, glowing moon outside my window.
The phone was ringing.
‘Olivia?’ I murmured, hoping she’d get it so I wouldn’t have to. My daughter was one of those people who could wake up and fall asleep as if flipping a switch.
I rolled over and peered at my alarm clock. The red lights blinked 4:48 a.m. Nobody called at this time of night with good news.
I bolted upright and grabbed the phone, the feather duvet sliding from my body, leaving my bed-warmed arms cold and exposed.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello, is this Abigail Knight?’ The voice – a man’s – was low and tight, coiled like a viper about to strike.
‘Yes.’
‘This is Portage Point Hospital. It’s about your daughter, Olivia. I’m afraid there’s been an accident.’
× × ×
I ran down the hall to Olivia’s room, cold wings of fear fluttering in my stomach.
Her door was shut and I threw it open thinking, irrationally, that she’d sit up in bed blinking her eyes at me sleepily. I imagined, hoped, that she’d be angry at me for invading her teenage space. She’d throw a pillow at me, and I’d laugh weakly, clutching my chest with one hand as my heart rate returned to normal.
‘I had a terrible dream,’ I’d say.
‘I’m fine, Mom,’ she’d reply, looking at me with all the scorn a seventeen-year-old could muster. ‘You worry too much.’
But her room was silent and empty, her bed a jumble of blankets. Dirty clothes spilled from the laundry basket in her half-open closet. Sheaves of paper were scattered in a disorganized jumble on her dresser.
I lurched out of the room, down the stairs, and into my car.
Last night, at the Stokeses’ barbecue, she’d been fine.
But, no. I shook my head, really remembering. No, she wasn’t fine. She hadn’t been fine for a while.
Maybe it was just the typical moodiness of a teenager, but this felt different. Olivia was usually sunny and sweet. She was an easy teenager. The girl who never partied, got straight As, helped all her friends with their homework.
Lately she seemed distracted and temperamental, irritable whenever I asked what was wrong. And then there were the questions about her father.
She wants the truth.
The thought came fast, an ugly surprise. I set my teeth against it. I’d worried for so long that all the lies I kept hidden on the dark side of my heart would one day be washed into the open. These lies, my past, kept me always on guard.
× × ×
October drizzle coated the car, and a handful of brown leaves covered the windshield. The acidic feeling in my stomach clawed its way up toward my throat as I wrenched the car door open and threw myself inside. For once my old beater car started without any hesitation, as if it too knew we had to hurry.
I tore out of the driveway, my tires spinning in the gravel. I flicked the wipers on, but a single dead leaf was caught, wiping a jagged, wet arc across the windshield, back and forth, back and forth.
I thought of the last time I’d gone to the hospital with Olivia – she’d broken her arm falling out of the ancient willow tree in the backyard when she was ten. My guilt had been overwhelming. I’d failed at the most important job I would ever have: keeping her safe.
I gripped the leather steering wheel hard, securing myself to the present while the past threatened to overtake me. My car squealed as I whipped around a corner too sharply. I was being reckless, I needed to slow down, but Olivia . . .
I couldn’t even finish the thought. My daughter was my center of gravity, the only thing tying me to this earth. Without her, I’d surely float into space, a kite with its string severed by glass.
I pressed my foot hard against the accelerator as my knees began to shake. The decaying leaf was still stuck to the wiper but it had been ripped in half now, leaving the shape of a broken heart behind.
I braked sharply as I rounded the last corner and skidded into the hospital parking lot. It was nearly empty, one ambulance parked at the front, a handful of cars scattered across the lot. Streetlamps glinted against the wet pavement. I slammed on my brakes in a spot near the entrance just as the last half of the leaf in my windscreen was mercilessly ripped away.
× × ×
I staggered into the hospital, cracking my elbow hard on the sliding door. Pain seethed toward my fingertips but didn’t slow me down. I needed to find Olivia.
Please, please be okay.
A doctor appeared suddenly from a set of swinging doors. His steps were brisk, the swift, resolute walk of a man who knew what he was doing. Behind wire-rimmed glasses, his eyes were bloodshot when they landed on me.
‘Abigail Knight?’ I could just make out the clipped voice I’d heard on the phone. He had thinning white hair and a close-shaven face. Around his neck hung a stethoscope. His white coat had a rust-colored smear across the front.
He stepped closer and held one hand out to me. His eyebrows, thick as caterpillars, were pinched together.
‘Where’s Olivia?’ I gasped, feeling like I would hyperventilate. People were staring, but I didn’t care. ‘Where’s my daughter?’
I tried to sidestep him, but he moved his body to block me.
‘I’m Dr Griffith.’ He took a step closer. I could see the flecks of gold in his brown eyes. ‘Will you come with me?’
‘Why?’ My voice sounded too high, the words crushed on my tongue. ‘Where’s Olivia?’
‘I’m going to take you to her, but first we need to talk. Perhaps somewhere a bit more private.’ The doctor’s tone conveyed the gravity of what he had to say. The weight of it kept the frantic questions in my throat from vomiting out.
I looked around at the busy waiting room. A handful of people openly stared at us, while the rest fiddled with cell phones or pretended to read newspapers.
I nodded, a small jerk of my chin.
Dr Griffith led me through the swinging doors and down a brightly lit corridor to a private meeting room. The room smelled of floral potpourri and was decorated in pale pastels. The floor was shiny, the color of cinnamon, the walls a washed-out cream.
‘Please. Sit.’ Dr Griffith motioned toward a cushioned taupe chair. I sat stiffly on the edge.
He crossed to a water cooler in the corner of the room. A hulking tower of plastic cups, white, like vertebrae, leaned on a low black table next to it. He swiped one and filled it with water. The cooler gurgled and belched as air drifted to the top.
He thrust the cup toward me, but I just stared at it. I couldn’t seem to get my hand to take it. Eventually he set it on the table.
Dr Griffith dragged a plastic chair from the wall and placed it across from me. The scraping of its feet against the floor set my teeth on edge. He sat, planted both feet on the ground, pressed his elbows against his knees, and steepled his fingers, as if in prayer.
‘There’s been an accident –’ he said, repeating his earlier words.
‘Is Olivia okay?’ I interrupted.
But the way he was looking at me. With pity. I knew.
An intense desire to run hit me. My shins still burned from my run yesterday morning, my thigh muscles ached, but I felt the pang hit my body hard.
I jumped up, looking around wildly. The doctor stood, eyeing me as if I were a wild animal. But the urge to know kept me rooted to my spot.
‘Tell me. . .’ I rasped.
‘Your daughter . . .’ Dr Griffith touched my forearm. His hand was heavy, cool against my clammy skin.
He said something about an accident.
Somebody finding Olivia at the bottom of an embankment near the ZigZag Bridge.
Something about a grand mal seizure, corneal reflexes, and a Glasgow score of four.
He said something about a head wound, about fixed and dilated pupils and a CAT scan.
That they’d taken her in for surgery as soon as she’d arrived.
I couldn’t make sense of any of it.
I collapsed on the chair, bending forward until my head was between my knees, as if preparing for a crash landing. I could hear my heart throbbing in my chest, the blood roaring in my ears, the harsh hiss of my breath as it rushed in and out of me in sharp, hollow gasps. My elbow throbbed painfully where I’d banged it.
‘No . . . no . . .’ I pleaded over and over, clenching and unclenching my sweat-soaked hands.
The doctor sat next to me, his voice breaking through the heavy, viscous bubble surrounding me.
‘–sustained severe head trauma. I’m really sorry, Mrs Knight, but your daughter has suffered permanent and irreversible brain damage.’
My mind reeled, trying to assimilate these facts into something that made sense. Shards of his words assaulted me through a roar of panic.
‘Is there someone we can call . . . ?’
Who was there? My mom was dead. I never knew my dad. There was no husband, no boyfriend. I was too busy being a mother to date, too busy to have friends. There was only . . .
‘My sister.’ My voice sounded very far away, as if it came from down the hall rather than my own mouth.
I wrote Sarah’s number on a scrap of paper. He took it and opened the door, handed it to somebody, then sat back down across from me.
‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Knight, we did everything we could to save her, but Olivia won’t wake up. Right now she’s attached to life support that’s keeping her body alive.’ He licked his lips, on the verge of saying something else. ‘But she . . .’
‘She’s an organ donor,’ I whispered numbly.
It was what they wanted, wasn’t it? The day she got her driver’s license Olivia had signed up to save another’s life. ‘You know,’ she’d said, shrugging with the confidence the young have that they’re impervious to death. ‘If it ever came to that.’ My kind, gentle girl.
‘No, that’s not – What I mean to say is, we can’t legally turn Olivia’s life support off in her condition.’
I didn’t understand. It was as if he had suddenly started speaking Urdu. A throb began pulsing under my eyes.
He cleared his throat, his eyes scurrying momentarily away from mine. ‘We can’t turn life support off from a pregnant woman. Not in Washington State.’
‘Wh –?’ I breathed. My body went limp, boneless, my head spinning.
‘Olivia was – is – Olivia’s pregnant.’
2 (#ulink_09e8800a-2093-522c-8d76-7aa74ffd6e20)
OLIVIA
april, 6 months earlier
The yellow school bus swayed slowly past the glimmering sea that fringed Portage Point and headed toward Seattle: our day-trip destination.
‘Ughh, the bus is so bo-o-oring.’ My best friend, Madison, flopped back in her seat next to me. She took a compact from her purse and started sweeping powder across her already-matte nose.
We were heading to the University of Washington for the start of our two-day college tour. I didn’t know why she was complaining. Being away from school was like a vacation.
Madison tossed her long dark hair and peeked over her shoulder. I knew she was looking at Peter and barely resisted rolling my eyes. Madison could be totally ADD when it came to guys.
I slid the cool metal of my charm bracelet through my fingers. ‘At least we’re out of school,’ I said.
‘Too bad we can’t do something fun.’ She applied a shiny layer of cotton-candy-pink gloss to her lips and smacked them loudly. ‘Filling out college applications is totally lame.’
I bit my cheeks so I wouldn’t say anything. Madison’s parents were rich. She didn’t really feel the same pressure I did about college.
My mom, on the other hand, scrimped and saved every penny so I could go to college after I graduated next year. Four years of tuition was totally going to break her. I kept offering to get a part-time job, but she’d just say my job was to study hard and do well in school.
I stared past Madison out the bus window and chewed a lock of hair. Sunlight slid through the window, interrupted every so often by the shade of passing trees.
‘Did you see Zitty Zara’s new zit this morning?’ Madison stage-whispered. ‘I think there’s a science experiment happening on her forehead.’
‘Don’t be mean!’ I smacked her softly, trying not to laugh. Zara did have gross skin, but I felt bad for her.
‘Don’t they have Accutane now?’ Madison continued. ‘Why doesn’t she take it?’
She’d dropped all pretense of whispering, so I shot her a warning look. Zara was only a few rows in front of us. I didn’t want her hearing.
But Madison ignored me. She could be mean. Like, hurtfully mean. Once in fourth grade we got in a fight, and Madison got all the girls in our class to stop talking to me. Girls who’d been my friends just ‘forgot’ to save me a seat on the bus or invite me to their sleepovers. I’d never forgotten that feeling of not belonging, like wearing someone else’s shoes and feeling the pain all over. Since then I’d made sure never, ever to get on Madison’s bad side.
‘What’s in a zit anyway?’ she asked.
I snickered. ‘It’s pus, you idiot.’
‘Eww. God, even the word is gross. Puh, puh, puh-sss.’ She leaned hard on the p sound. I laughed out loud. ‘Puh-ss,’ she enunciated. ‘It’s like an ejection from your mouth. A voiding of puh-ss from a puh-stule.’
‘Oh God! Gross!’ I gasped, breathless from concealing my laughter.
A few rows ahead, Zara turned around. We both ducked below the seat in front of us, laughing hysterically.
My phone beeped, and I pulled it from my backpack. It was my mom.
Knock knock
Who’s there? I texted back.
Mom: Olive
Me: Olive who?
Mom: Olive ya Olivia!
I laughed and sent her a row of x’s and o’s just as Tyler’s head popped up over the back of our seat.
‘Hey, babe.’ His amber-flecked hazel eyes crinkled in a smile.
My boyfriend was your typical high school athlete. He was captain of the football team, had lettered in every sport he did, and was working toward a football scholarship to UW. He was way popular, and he knew it. Like, in a confident way, not in a dickhead way.
He leaned down and licked my earlobe, trying to be seductive. I giggled and lurched away from him. He frowned, looking slightly put out.
‘God, you guys! Get a room!’ Madison huffed loudly.
Heat spread up my neck and into my cheeks. Madison could be such a bitch sometimes. Mom told me I should stand up to her. Tyler said I always saw the best in people.
The truth was, neither of them was right. I was just scared of not being liked.
Just then Tyler’s friend Peter leaned over the seat next to Tyler. ‘Jesus, you’re the color of a tomato, Liv!’ he hooted.
He reached out to touch my flaming cheek, but Tyler smacked his hand away, eyes blazing. ‘Don’t touch her, man.’
My cheeks burned even hotter, but Peter just laughed.
‘You’re such a lunatic.’ Madison rolled her eyes flirtatiously.
Tyler’s eyes tightened and his jaw clenched. ‘Shut up, Madison. You’re just salty ’cause you can’t get a boyfriend.’
I forced a loud laugh. ‘At least my face isn’t as red as your hair, Peter,’ I joked, trying to defuse the situation.
‘Whatever, asshole.’ Madison twisted in her seat so she could scowl out the bus’s window. She popped the earbuds to her iPhone in her ears and turned the volume up until I could hear the tinny beat of pop music.
‘Ignore her.’ Tyler tugged me from my seat and sat in my place, pulling me onto his lap and nuzzling my cheek. Tyler and Madison had never really gotten along. She thought he was way too needy.
With his wavy blond hair and hazel eyes, Tyler was the hottest guy in school. I’d worked hard for my seat at the popular table, but that seat had only been firmly cemented when Tyler and I started dating. And it felt nice being his girlfriend. But it was still mortifying when he tried to make out with me in front of everybody.
‘I’ve been thinking about yesterday,’ Tyler whispered in my ear.
I blushed again, blood pulsing in my ears. I looked around, hoping nobody could hear him.
Yesterday we’d had a heavy make-out session in my room before my mom got home from work. He got a little too excited, and I’d felt so pressured I burst into tears. He could be like that sometimes: too insistent and intense. But weren’t all boys?
He leaned away from me and cracked his neck. I shuddered, grossed out by the sound of his bones popping.
‘I’m sorry about . . . you know,’ he said. ‘It’s just, I love you. I think we’ve been together long enough to show it that way.’
‘Soon, okay? I’m just not ready yet.’
‘I was thinking. . .’ He leaned closer and kissed my cheek wetly. ‘Maybe one of these weekends we could make it extra special? Go somewhere, just us? You could tell your mom you’re spending the night at Madison’s.’
I wanted to laugh at how ridiculous he sounded. What would we do, rent a hotel room for the night? Besides, I didn’t want to have sex yet. I wasn’t going to be one of those stupid knocked-up teenagers – like my mom was.
But I didn’t say that. Instead I smiled and said: ‘Sure, yeah, maybe.’ I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, and if it would make him happy, I’d let him think we could go away for a night.
The bus lurched to a stop, and I realized we’d arrived at the University of Washington.
‘We’re here!’ somebody shouted from the front of the bus.
Madison pulled her earbuds out and pointed out the window. ‘There’s everybody else!’
I followed her gaze. A group of about forty teenagers was gathered at the end of the parking lot. Half of them were wearing casual clothes, but the other half were dressed in matching uniforms: the girls in green tartan skirts with green blazers and knee-high stockings, the boys in gray pants and green ties.
‘Preppy dicks!’ Peter shouted. A slice of sunlight shone on his red hair and lit the smattering of freckles across his face. He was watching Madison, waiting for a reaction. For his sake, I hoped he stayed away from her. She would eat him alive, and Peter was actually a pretty nice guy. Tyler called her a thot behind her back. If she weren’t my best friend, I’d probably agree. She’d go out with a different guy every weekend, then dump him the next day.
‘Fuckheads!’ Tyler’s friend Dan shouted.
Bold and bullish, Dan was a fat little tryhard, but his overconfidence and arrogance meant nobody stood up to him. Tyler thought Dan was hilarious. I thought he was a jerk.
‘Watch your mouth, guys!’ Mr Parks, our PE teacher who was running this little field trip, yelled from the front of the bus. ‘Come on, off the bus.’
We stepped out into the glorious spring sunshine. It was one of those pristine Seattle days when the rain has finally stopped, leaving behind a scrubbed blue sky. The air had just a hint of warmth in it, a promise that more days like this would soon follow.
Cherry trees coated in frothy pink and white blossoms peeked from between towering evergreens. In the distance I could see the start of Greek Row, a collection of Tudor, Gothic, and Georgian fraternity and sorority houses.
‘Over here, guys!’ Mr Parks waved his arms to us, his beefy biceps rippling under his white polo shirt. We shuffled over, and Mr Parks made introductions: Portage Point High, Ballard High, and Seattle Catholic Academy, the Catholic kids in the uniforms.
Somehow we’d faced off so we were separated into three groups, but once we’d been introduced, everybody started talking to each other.
Tyler had an arm draped around my shoulder, tucking me tightly against his body. Madison was just to the right of me. I felt comfortable, safe, secure in my world.
And then I saw her.
Just steps from me was a girl wearing the green school uniform of Seattle Catholic Academy. She had long, pale blonde hair, sharp Slavic cheekbones, a pointed nose, and a slightly off-center dimple in her chin.
As she swung her eyes toward me, I felt my world slipping toward the edge of a cliff I didn’t even know existed.
She looked like she could be my sister.
The girl’s eyes widened when she saw me, emphasizing the unusual shade of forest green: just like mine.
In that instant, as I looked at the face I’d known my entire life, I felt myself tumble over that cliff. I didn’t know how far I would fall or how hard I would crash, only that nothing would ever be the same.
3 (#ulink_47033620-d6eb-5ddb-9489-a034567b4179)
ABI
october
‘Do you understand what I’m saying, Mrs Knight?’
I blinked at Dr Griffith, not sure I’d heard him right.
‘Your daughter is pregnant.’ He spoke slowly, as if I were a child unable to grasp his words. ‘Olivia’s suffered irreversible brain damage and she won’t wake up, but Washington State law prohibits us from turning off life support. We have to give the fetus the best chance at surviving. Do you understand?’
I nodded and shook my head at the same time. I did understand, but it made no sense, as if he’d grabbed random words from a dictionary and pasted them into a sentence.
‘Wha –?’
A knock at the door interrupted me, and a pink-scrub-clad nurse with the sad, droopy face and flabby jowls of a Saint Bernard entered.
‘Mrs Knight, your sister –’
Sarah burst past the nurse, elbowing her way into the room. Her blue eyes were laced with red, the translucent skin of her lids as raw and puffy as mine. She grabbed my hand, and I stared at her fingers. Her nails were smooth and perfectly oval, shining red, the color of fresh blood. Even now in the middle of the night, her long, perfectly highlighted hair swung and shone under the anemic hospital lights.
She pulled me in for a hug so hard it hurt my ribs. I stiffened and she dropped her arms, a shadow of hurt crossing her face. It had always been there, this slight distance between us. My fault, admittedly, but I no longer knew how to stop it.
‘Where’s Olivia? Is she okay? What happened? Why was she out in the middle of the night?’
The questions were rapid as a machine gun, asked in Sarah’s most demanding mom voice. The one she’d been practicing since I was ten and she was twenty, when our mother left me on Sarah’s front step with nothing but a backpack of dirty clothes. She’d gone home and killed herself that very day, leaving Sarah to raise me.
I shook my head, tears rising in my throat.
‘She . . . she . . .’
I didn’t know why Olivia was out in the middle of the night.
After my bath, I’d had some wine and then gone to bed with a book. I was asleep while my daughter was out doing . . . what?
The dark fog of anxiety swirled violently around me.
Panic: my old friend.
‘Mrs Knight?’ I heard from somewhere far away.
My vision blurred and a high-pitched whining droned in my ears. I couldn’t hold it away anymore. I crashed to the ground.
‘Abi!’ People rushed around me, hands lifted me up, pushed me into a chair.
I was sweating heavily. The air was like molasses, weighted like water.
Somebody pressed a paper bag into my hands, and I heard Sarah’s soothing voice speaking to me from a great distance.
‘Breathe. There you go. In, then out. In, then out.’
I used to have panic attacks all the time as a kid. But I’d learned to control my emotions, stamping them out like the flames of a fire. Sarah always said I should talk about my feelings, get them out there, but I knew it was better to push them away, pretend everything was okay. It was better not to feel anything.
Somehow, without me even wanting to, my breathing evened, my heart rate slowed. And then my hearing came back. Dr Griffith and Sarah were talking.
‘What happened?’ Sarah asked.
Sarah was good at being composed in tough situations. She never seemed desperate or panicky. I felt a stab of anger that she could manage this. I couldn’t even ask the right questions.
‘A retired paramedic found Olivia on the banks of the ZigZag River, next to the bridge. We don’t know if she fell from the bridge or – well, the police will investigate,’ Dr Griffith replied. He was crouched in front of me, holding one of my hands tightly in his. His skin felt dry and cool against my sweaty palm.
Sarah shifted in her seat next to me, her hand holding the paper bag to my mouth. ‘People come out of comas all the time –’ she began.
‘Olivia isn’t in a coma,’ he interrupted gently. ‘Comas are usu ally from a localized injury. Olivia’s suffered a massive bleed, which has damaged almost every part of her brain. I’m so sorry, I know this is hard to understand and even harder to accept, but Olivia isn’t going to wake up.’
Grief hurtled toward me, crashing into me and beating inside my chest like a giant, furious animal.
‘And she’s pregnant?’ I whispered.
‘Yes,’ Dr Griffith replied.
I looked at Sarah. Her jaw worked, as if she were chewing leather.
‘How far along?’ I asked.
‘We’ll do an ultrasound to find out for sure, but the HCG hormone indicates about thirteen or fourteen weeks.’
I thought back to what we were doing three months ago. It would’ve been July. Olivia was out of school. She was studying for her driver’s test, taking practice SAT tests, swimming, hanging out with her friends.
We hadn’t done anything special. Money was always tight, and I was saving for the tuition I knew I’d have to pay when Olivia went to college. I couldn’t put my finger on when something might’ve changed, when she would’ve gotten pregnant. She must not have known. She would’ve told me if she’d known.
‘Surely the baby’s been exposed to radiation, chemicals . . . ?’ Sarah trailed off.
Dr Griffith winced. ‘Yes. Possibly. Probably. We do a standard pregnancy test when female patients are admitted, but it was delayed by the surgery.’
A dusty vent blew stale air into the room, the noise an obnoxious whine. Sarah and Dr Griffith had lapsed into silence.
‘I want to see her. Right now.’ My voice was hollow and flat.
‘Of course,’ Dr Griffith said immediately.
Sarah helped me to my feet, and we followed the doctor down the corridor, toward the ICU.
Despite the harsh reality of the stark white hallway, a part of me still clung to the faint hope that Olivia wasn’t here – that this was all some horrible mistake, some silly clerical error. Not my daughter.
Dr Griffith walked briskly to the end of the hallway and turned left, then waved a security badge at a locked door. Inside the ICU Jen Stokes, Olivia’s best friend’s mother, hovered over a bed that was surrounded by beeping, clunking machines. A stethoscope dangled from her neck.
‘Dr Stokes,’ Dr Griffith greeted her.
‘Jen?’ I stared at my neighbor. Just a few hours ago, I’d been at a barbecue at her house, and now we were standing in the ICU. She was wearing faded jeans and an old Seahawks jersey under a lab coat. Her eyes were red, her dark curls a messy halo around a pale face. Her hands were clasped into tight fists and pressed into her belly.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.
‘I called her,’ Sarah explained; then I remembered that Jen was the senior doctor in the emergency room here.
‘Abi, I’m so sorry.’ Her mouth worked as if she wanted to say more, but nothing else came. She broke eye contact and looked down.
I followed her gaze, but it took me a moment to realize that the person she was staring at was Olivia. My daughter was as white as the sheet she lay on. Her body was too still, as if all her dynamic energy had been trapped beneath the sheet draped over her.
A tangle of IV bags and pumps surrounded the hospital bed. So many tubes and lines I couldn’t count them: down her throat, breathing for her, up her nose, keeping her stomach empty, flowering from her chest, recording her heartbeat. The ventilator next to the bed made rhythmic blip, shhhh noises.
Her head was swathed in white bandages, stark against her face. She had a deep cut above her right eyebrow, a sickening black and purple bruise blooming across her left temple, and a spray of scratches across her nose and cheekbones.
I stared at my daughter, and the agony I felt wasn’t just emotional but physical. A sharp pain wrenched in my chest so it seemed my heart must’ve stopped, but I could feel it, I could hear it; it betrayed me by continuing to beat when it should have frozen in my chest. The pain and impotence were white lightning searing through me.
My gaze drifted to Olivia’s abdomen, still flat and smooth, no hint of the baby tucked within.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I registered Jen leaving the room. The emotions piled up, threatening to crack me open, splintering me into a billion little pieces. I reached for Olivia’s hand, wanting – no, needing – to be connected to her.
Her wrist lay limply in my hand, but something was missing. The silver charm bracelet Olivia always wore was gone.
In its place was a string of black and purple bruises.
4 (#ulink_985a3d07-9dca-509b-a16d-6229af81740a)
OLIVIA
april
‘That girl. Jesus. That was creepy,’ Tyler said the Monday after our field trip to the University of Washington. We were eating lunch at our usual table in the cafeteria, the one next to the neatly stacked towers of orange chairs used for pep assemblies.
‘I know, right!’ Peter said. His carrot-red head bobbed in agreement. ‘What was that about? Do you have a sister we don’t know about, Liv?’
I shook my head emphatically. ‘No way.’
Next to me, Tyler shoved a handful of fries into his mouth. ‘She was totally your doppelgänger,’ he said. ‘My dad says everybody has one somewhere.’
‘I guess.’ I set my peanut butter and jelly sandwich down, my appetite suddenly gone. I didn’t want to talk about this. Why wouldn’t they just shut up?
‘She had the same butt chin, too,’ Peter added. ‘She looked just like you.’
Tyler frowned at Peter. I ground my teeth together, waiting for Tyler to make some snappy clapback. Tyler always called my chin dimple a butt chin. Not in a mean way, just in a Tyler way. But I knew he wouldn’t like anybody else saying it.
But Tyler went back to his fries. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
Madison laughed and bit into a carrot stick. ‘Having a chin dimple doesn’t mean you’re related to somebody, you idiot.’
‘She’s not my sister, all right?’ I snapped. ‘I’ve never even met her before.’
Everybody went quiet. My heart pulsed in my neck and I looked down. I felt them all exchanging looks. I was the peacemaker. I never lashed out or got involved in arguments.
I picked at the edge of my sandwich until it was as bare as a stone. I hated the dry feel of crust in my mouth. When I was a kid my mom would cut the crusts off my sandwich, snip away the square edges, and cut a little bite-size hole in the middle so it looked like an O. I suddenly wished she were here to reassure me.
Madison abruptly changed the subject. ‘Sooooo, my brother’s coming home next week.’
My head snapped up and blood rushed to my cheeks. I let my hair swing in front of my face to hide it, chewing hard on a strand of hair.
Tyler snorted and dropped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me closer to him. ‘Can he score us some pot?’
‘Tyler!’ I shushed him.
‘Shut up, fuck-face.’ Madison’s dark eyes flashed. ‘It was only one time. He was just stupid enough to get caught.’
‘Wait. I thought he was in New York. Isn’t that where your parents sent him after he got caught dealing?’ Peter’s freckled face creased with confusion.
Madison scowled. ‘Once! And it was only pot.’
She was mortified that everybody knew Derek had been sent to a private East Coast school to ‘reform’ him. We all drank sometimes and a few of our friends smoked pot, but only stoners and losers actually dealt it.
Peter’s eyes darted between Madison and Tyler, sensing the tension.
‘Olivia,’ he said, changing the subject quickly. ‘You don’t have swimming practice tomorrow, right? Could you help me with some chemistry shit later? I’m on that homework grind, trying to catch up again.’
‘Sure.’ I darted a look at Tyler. His brows folded down. I could tell he wasn’t happy with me studying alone with Peter.
He could be a little possessive sometimes. It wasn’t like I’d ever cheated on him or anything. He was just like that: all macho on the outside but sort of insecure on the inside. I knew it was just because he loved me, though.
‘Thanks, dude.’ Peter grinned at me.
I scraped myself out of the hard metal chair. ‘I’m going outside for some fresh air. Wanna come, Mad?’
Madison unfolded her slender frame and stood, brushing off her black leggings and black sleeveless sweater. She tossed a hard glare at Tyler and Peter and huffed toward the door.
We stepped into the cool belly of April and headed for the quad, huddling on a bench near the fountain. We were the only students around, the air still too crisp to sit outside.
Clouds raced overhead as if they were on a conveyor belt; one minute it was sunny, the next threatening rain. Squinting at Madison, I tried to judge her mood.
I fiddled with the bracelet on my left wrist, pulling the cool metal through my fingers, back and forth.
‘Sorry about Derek,’ I offered.
‘’S okay. Sorry about that girl.’ She picked a hangnail. ‘I’m sure she isn’t, like, your sister or anything.’
I appreciated her saying it. No matter how moody Madison could be, I knew I could always count on her. It’s probably why we were still best friends all these years later.
We’d met in kindergarten and became friends when it turned out we both hated playing dress-up. I didn’t want anyone knowing my mom made me wear long underwear under my clothes all winter. Madison just wanted to play outside.
‘Do you think you’ll, you know, look her up?’ Madison asked.
I shrugged. I didn’t want to admit I’d talked to her in the bathroom at the University of Washington.
Up close she didn’t look quite as much like me as I’d thought. Even though her eyes were the exact same shade of green as mine, hers were slightly wider spaced. The dimple in her chin wasn’t as pronounced as mine, her cheekbones not as sharp, her nose a little smaller. Still, she made me uncomfortable.
She’d dried her hands, then leaned casually against the sink.
‘I’m Kendall Montgomery,’ she said. She flipped her long blonde hair over one shoulder in that way bitchy rich girls did.
‘I’m Olivia,’ I replied.
There was an awkward pause. ‘My dad’s dead,’ I blurted, afraid she was going to say something about how alike we looked. ‘Just in case you thought we might be related. And there’s no way we have the same mom.’
‘That’s too bad.’ She smirked. ‘My parents are assholes. It’d be awesome if I could replace them.’
I laughed, a rush of surprised air bursting out of me. At least I was always glad my mom was my mom. Her entire life was dedicated to me. Sometimes a bit too much.
‘Where do you live?’ she asked.
‘Portage Point. It’s this tiny town just south of –’
‘I know Portage Point. That’s where my mom’s from.’
There was a heavy silence as we both realized what she’d said.
‘Your mom?’ My palms suddenly felt hot and damp.
‘Well, not from. . .’ She hesitated. ‘That’s where she lived when she was in high school, I guess.’
I didn’t know what to say.
‘Anyway,’ Kendall said, heading for the door, ‘it was nice meeting you, Olivia.’
‘Yeah, you too. See you around.’
She’d waved, a little flick of her fingers, and left.
On the bench, I turned to Madison and shook my head. ‘Naww. I don’t think I’ll look her up. What would be the point? I already know she isn’t related to me.’
‘You don’t know know that,’ Madison countered.
I stared at her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, what if you have a long-lost dad out there and a whole other family? What if your mom had, like, some illicit affair or something?’
The idea was so ridiculous I laughed out loud. I couldn’t imagine my mom having some passionate affair. She was like a study in self control – she frowned but never yelled; she smiled but never laughed too loud; her makeup was always lightly done, her clothes neatly ironed.
Mom was as steady as a statue. There was none of that flighty, hyper-gossipy vibe that some of my friends’ moms had. She was the type of mom who was always there for me, ready with a tissue if I needed to cry or sitting in the stands cheering me on at swim meets.
‘Yeah, right!’ I snorted. ‘She wouldn’t know how to flirt, let alone have an affair. Plus, she’d be all worried she’d get an STD or something.’
Madison laughed too. ‘Okay, maybe that girl’s your dad’s daughter.’
‘My dad’s dead, Mad.’
‘I know, but maybe he had another family before he died? Or he was cheating on your mom? Or’– she widened her eyes dramatically –’maybe he isn’t dead.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘You really need to lay off the soap operas.’
‘Get woke, Olivia. You’re so naïve. Sometimes people lie, and you don’t even know why,’ Madison replied.
I flinched as the insult hit me. ‘I really don’t think my mom would lie to me about my dad.’
‘How do you know? Sometimes the truth hurts.’
‘So do lies,’ I said under my breath.
× × ×
That night, Mom came home with an armful of groceries and announced she was going to cook. I cringed. Martha Stewart she was not. Usually her cooking experiments ended in disaster.
Once she tried to bake these Cornish game hens with this gross, gloopy sauce, but she turned the oven on broil instead of bake. Within a half hour the whole house was filled with a smoke so thick you could almost chew it.
I wished we could just order pizza.
‘So, what’re we making?’ I put my game face on and started unpacking ingredients from the paper bags. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings or anything.
‘Spaghetti bolognese.’ She reached for the other bag and pulled out fresh basil, a bulb of garlic, an onion, one carrot.
I smiled. Mom hated carrots, but I loved them. She always got one and cooked it up to put on the side for me.
‘Okay, I’ve got a good one,’ she said, peeling the skin from an onion. ‘Knock knock.’
‘Who’s there?’
‘Puma.’
‘Puma who?’
‘Hurry up or I’ll puma pants.’
‘Eww, yuck, Mom!’ I laughed. ‘That’s totally gross!’
She chuckled. ‘Thought you’d enjoy that.’
‘So. What’s the occasion?’ I waved at the ingredients.
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She shrugged and laughed. ‘I’m off work early, and you’re going to be a senior in high school pretty soon, and I’m just so proud of my girl.’ She pulled me in for a hug and kissed me on the forehead.
My mom was a toucher. She patted my shoulders, stroked my hair, kissed my cheek, hugged me. She held my hand when we crossed the road until I was ten and started getting teased about it. Once I asked her why she always touched me and she said, ‘I guess it makes me feel more connected to you.’
Sometimes it felt weird hugging my mom, like I was too old for hugs, but it was nice, too.
‘How was your day?’ she asked as I minced garlic.
‘Good. I got an A on my history test, and we finished the layout for the yearbook.’
She’d stopped chopping onion and looked at me intently. She had this way about her where she really listened, even to the most trivial things.
Soon the scent of garlic and onion sizzling in butter mingled with the rich smell of hamburger. The diced carrot was boiling in a small pot on the stove. Mom popped the french stick in the oven to warm, and we piled our plates high with pasta and took them to the dining room table.
‘Mom.’ I dumped my carrots over my sauce and stirred them in, trying to seem casual. ‘Can I ask you some stuff about my dad?’
A noodle slid off the edge of Mom’s fork and landed with a soft plop on her plate. She stabbed at it and cleared her voice.
‘Sure, sweetie. What do you want to know?’
‘Well . . .’ My mind whirled.
Usually she didn’t want to talk. Not that I asked often. She’d always get this funny frozen half-smile on her face, like she was in pain. But since seeing that girl Kendall, I don’t know, I guess it got me thinking more about him.
‘How far along with me were you when he died?’
Mom took another bite of her pasta and screwed up her face into her thinky look – lips twisted to one side, eyebrows down, eyes up.
‘Only a few weeks. I never got the chance to tell him.’
‘Was he hot?’ I smiled slyly. ‘You know, when you first met him, did you get all fluttery inside?’
‘Very!’ She fanned her face with her hand and laughed. ‘He made my knees weak. All that blond hair and those brown eyes. I could just fall into them.’
I paused, my brain jamming on that one word. ‘Brown?’
‘Yeah.’
I stared at her hard. She’d told me before that his eyes were green, just like mine. I remembered the day, the very moment, she said it. I’d held that nugget of information in my heart since I was thirteen, proof that I was connected to the father I never met in some tangible way.
I waited for her to retract it, to assure me she wasn’t lying. But she didn’t.
I stared at her, scrambling to untangle the threads overloading my brain.
‘Did he have, like, another family?’ I asked finally.
Late-afternoon sunlight flooded in through the open curtains and beamed across the dining room table. The light fell on Mom’s face, landing in lines carved so deep she suddenly looked twenty years older.
Mom burst out laughing. ‘No, of course not! What on earth gave you that idea?’
I watched her carefully, looking for any cracks.
‘Well, like, maybe I have brothers or sisters out there I don’t know about.’
For a moment the prospect of her reply opened under me like a gaping hole. What she said now, I knew, could change everything.
Suddenly she jumped up, eyes wide. ‘Oh my goodness! The bread!’
She threw the oven open and a cloud of black, acrid smoke billowed out. I slipped the oven mitts on and grabbed the charred french stick, tossing it in the garbage while Mom threw open the sliding glass door and started fanning the air with a kitchen towel. Chilly spring air blew through the house, dissipating the smoke. But the bitter smell of something burning remained.
Mom pushed at a lock of blonde hair stuck to her forehead with sweat. ‘I’m sorry, sweetie. I guess we won’t be having bread with our pasta.’
‘It’s okay. It wouldn’t be a homemade dinner if we didn’t burn something,’ I joked.
She laughed sheepishly. ‘Why don’t you tell me about school? Not too long and you’ll be a senior. How does that feel?’
Her words tumbled out too fast, her voice edgy as a serrated knife.
‘Mom, you haven’t answered my question. Did my dad have other kids?’
A puff of clouds rolled over the sun, shifting the light and casting sporadic shadows over Mom’s face. I felt a quiver in the air, a vibration like electricity that weaved its way through the burnt toast smell.
Mom met my gaze, her blue eyes innocent. ‘Nope,’ she said. ‘Your dad died before he even knew about you and he most certainly didn’t have any other children.’
I stared at her smooth face, trying to get a handle on the emotions rolling through me: fear, panic, confusion, anger. Mostly anger, because something told me she was lying.
A dark horror slid into my heart. I’d always trusted my mom. Trusted everything she said, obeyed everything she told me to do. I’d never thought twice about questioning her.
But now I felt that trust disappearing like evaporating mist. If she could lie to me about something as fundamental as this, what else had she kept from me?
5 (#ulink_9f5c1b6b-8948-5bc3-b50c-8586197ee4bd)
ABI
october
As the hours bled into each other, I alternated between numbness and sorrow, each as intense and debilitating as the other.
‘I need to know what happened,’ I said to Sarah.
She was so still, barely moving since we’d settled in the family waiting room the doctors gave us. I couldn’t hold still, pacing the floor, counting the ceiling tiles, pouring water from one cup to another. I needed to move, to do something. My analytical brain needed to make sense of things, to question the facts and frame the story, to make the columns align, the numbers add up.
‘You should go home. Get some rest,’ she replied.
I glared at her. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ Olivia and I were linked by birth, by life. I wouldn’t leave her in death.
More time passed. ‘Why does she have bruises on her arms?’ I asked Sarah, slamming an empty cup to the ground. I sucked my lips over my teeth, trying to steady myself. ‘Do you think somebody hurt her?’
Sarah looked startled. ‘I don’t know. The police – they’ll investigate.’
Tears tumbled down my cheeks, sliding into the hollow of my neck. I could barely breathe, whimpers racking my body as I sank into a chair. Sarah came to me, slid her arms around my shoulders. We held each other like that for a long time, our bodies shaking.
‘I wanted to keep her safe!’ I sobbed.
‘This isn’t your fault, Abi,’ she replied, her voice raw with pain.
I pulled away and looked into her reddened eyes.
‘What if it is?’
× × ×
Night washed over Olivia’s room. The hospital lights turned on one by one, and still I didn’t move from my seat next to her bed, the intermittent bleeps and swooshes keeping Olivia connected to this world a bizarre lullaby to my pain. Despair swirled inside me, a relentless fog that made me incapable of anything: eating, drinking, moving.
I stared, lost, at the bruises circling Olivia’s wrists. They were ringed with blue and purple, as if someone had grabbed her, staining her beautiful skin with the color of anger.
I laid my forehead on the edge of her bed, grateful to be alone with her. All day the doctors had encouraged me to go home, get some rest. Sarah had brought me a ham sandwich, left untouched and eventually tipped into the garbage, and then relentless cups of coffee. But it just made me need to pee, and I didn’t want to leave Olivia. So I stopped drinking altogether.
My head pounded from tears and dehydration, but I couldn’t leave. Not yet. I felt like I was living inside a tear in the fabric of time, the real world outside on pause.
Two days had passed since my dash to Olivia’s broken body, time shuffling past with excruciating slowness. More doctors trundled in, more reports, another CT scan, an ultrasound showing a fetal heartbeat. Cautionary whispers that she might miscarry and more whispers that if her heart held up long enough, they could save the baby.
Save the baby? I wanted them to save my baby.
I slept in fits and spurts, my forehead pressed against Olivia’s stomach. Night inched by. Alarm bells rang intermittently, and I imagined the people being told their loved one hadn’t made it. I imagined what would happen when it was Olivia’s turn.
I awoke with a start when somebody shook my shoulder.
‘Mrs Knight?’ Dr Griffith held a cup of water out to me. ‘Why don’t you have a drink?’
‘It’s Miss,’ I corrected him. ‘I’m not married.’ My voice rasped, my throat barren of any moisture. But still I refused the water.
He slid a chair across the room and sat next to me, the cup clasped between both hands. ‘Miss Knight. You need to take care of yourself. You need to eat, drink, get some rest.’
‘Why does everyone keep saying that?’ I burst out. Pain ripped through me, undiminished by the passing hours, and I pressed my fingers hard into my temples.
‘You have a long road ahead of you.’ He glanced at Olivia. ‘All three of you.’
I stared at him for a long moment, tried to lick my cracked lips.
‘Olivia isn’t coming back,’ he said gently. ‘But there’s a chance your grandchild could survive.’ It hurt him to say this, I could tell by the tightening of his eyes, and it made me like him. Or at least respect him.
‘How long?’ I finally said.
‘How long what?’
‘How long does Olivia have to be on life support for the baby –’ I broke off, the words skewering my heart.
‘We’d aim to get her to thirty-two weeks’ gestation.’
I did the math quickly. Eighteen more weeks on life support.
‘Is it possible?’
Dr Griffith hesitated. ‘As far as I’m aware, it’s never happened before. But I think it’s possible.’
I tried to breathe, but a solid lump had formed in my chest, squeezing all the oxygen out. I clenched my eyes shut, then opened them.
‘Why haven’t the police come? Where are they?’
Dr Griffith looked surprised. He took his glasses off and polished them on his lab coat.
‘The hospital doesn’t report . . . accidents.’
‘Accidents? This wasn’t an accident!’ My voice pitched high, anger and pain surging through my body. ‘You’ve seen the bruises on her wrists!’
‘My apologies.’ Dr Griffith shook his head vigorously. ‘I just mean that the hospital isn’t legally required to report anything other than gunshot or stab wounds, and this is likely why you haven’t heard anything from them.’
I pressed my palm to my forehead, a tingle of panic buzzing in my fingertips. But this time I won, pushing the anxiety away. I would report it myself.
‘Olivia’s a good girl. What happened?’ I asked.
I heard myself using the present tense, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want her to slide into the past yet. She was still here.
His eyes were kind but calculating, the eyes of a lawyer rather than a doctor.
‘I don’t know. But I promise you this’ – he held the cup of water out to me – ‘you’ll need your strength to find out.’
I took the water and gulped down every drop.
× × ×
It started raining as soon as I left the hospital. It was almost night, black clouds edging over the horizon.
I turned onto my street, slowly rolling toward my Victorian-style three-bedroom. Mine was the smallest house on the street, perched at the end of a row of grander ones.
My neighbors were middle-class professionals, lawyers, doctors. Their wives stayed home and raised chubby-cheeked toddlers. They had playdates and did hot yoga and went for coffee dates. I, a single working mother, pregnant at eighteen, stuck out like a sore thumb.
I never would’ve been able to afford the house on my own. But everything I did was for Olivia, to give her a better chance in life: middle-class neighbors, a good school, low crime rate, and right by the beach. I wanted her to have all the things I’d never had. So I couldn’t regret any of it. Not now, not ever.
I imagined Olivia on our last morning together. I’d watched her swaying to silent music in the living room, her eyes closed, the earbuds of her iPhone pressed deep into her ears. A scarf I’d never seen before was draped around her neck. It was silk, scarlet, like a flame around her throat. She was wearing a baggy sweatshirt, loose-fitting sweats. Dark circles were smudged like half-moons beneath her eyes, her face pale as a tissue.
‘Are you feeling okay?’ I’d pressed the back of my hand to her forehead, concern washing over me. It was smooth and cool. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and drew her close for a hug.
‘I’m fine. Just studying.’ She pulled away sharply, her brow crinkling.
I caught the undercurrent of her words: Would you ever just stop asking? My mom used to tell me that I never let things go. Sarah said that too.
I almost started questioning Olivia. Everything was something to be worried about. She was sick, she had cancer, she was being bullied. My stomach gave a panicky spasm. I did that sometimes: worried and questioned and analyzed until I found a rational reason. I needed the whole picture to understand the details. The problem was that it never changed anything. Like when my mom died.
Get a grip, Abi, I said to myself. She’s just being a teenager.
I busied myself with my laptop bag, the cold slice of her rejection smarting.
‘I know it’s Saturday, but I have to go into work for a bit.’ I hated leaving her alone, but as a single mom sometimes I had no choice. ‘You know the rules. No riding in your friends’ cars. Don’t walk on the main road.’
I waited for her to point out that I never worked on the weekend. I wanted to tell someone about a new case I was working on at my CPA firm, Brown Thomas and Associates.
It was the first time I’d felt excited about work in years. Accounting wasn’t what I was supposed to do with my life. Once upon a time, I’d been a journalist. I’d had fire, ambition, ideas. I loved the buzz of investigating, seeing my byline under a headline.
But the antisocial hours of a journalist didn’t work for a single mom with a baby who battled severe ear infections. I was a mother first. I would never abandon my daughter the way my mom had abandoned me – loving me, then turning away; being there, then . . .
So I’d switched to accounting. It allowed me regular hours and more time with my daughter. I’d come to accept the trade-off years ago.
‘Do you want me to stay?’ My smile slipped a notch. ‘You know you come first.’
‘No, honestly, it’s fine, Mom.’ She’d already dismissed me. ‘I have to study for this calculus test anyway.’
I looked at her, feeling strangely lost. I wondered suddenly when the last time was that we’d talked properly. I opened my mouth to find out what was going on. We were closer than other mothers and daughters; we told each other everything. But Olivia stood abruptly and stretched, yawning big.
‘I’m gonna take a shower, Mom. See you at the barbecue later.’
She’d plucked up the red scarf from where it lay on the table, turned, and walked away, the slip of silk dragging like a discarded teddy bear across the floor.
Within seconds, she’d disappeared into the shadows at the top of the stairs.
× × ×
The memory sliced through me. It seemed so obvious now. Of course she was pregnant. I hated myself for not seeing it, for walking away when I should’ve stayed. Guilt suffocated me, pressing down on me like a crippling fog.
I slowed outside my driveway as lights flashed around me. Cars and vans overflowed along the street outside my house. A microphone was shoved in my face as soon as I opened my car door, and people started shouting my name.
‘Abi! Rob Krane, KOMO-TV. Can you tell us more about Olivia’s condition? Will her doctors try to keep her on life support? Will they be able to save the baby?’
‘I-I-,’ I stammered, edging toward my front porch. How did they know? My elderly neighbor, Mrs Nelson, stared at me from across the road, her mouth hanging open, the evening newspaper in her hand.
‘No comment,’ I said, my voice wobbly and unsteady.
I raced up the steps and let myself inside, black dots dancing across my vision from the flashbulbs. Exhaustion swept over me and I leaned against the door, the voices now muted to a dull mumble.
Finally I staggered to my feet. I needed a distraction from the creeping anxiety threatening to overwhelm me. I went into the kitchen and pulled a bottle of vodka from the freezer. I poured a finger into a glass and swallowed it fast. It burned, but I poured another and took it upstairs to Olivia’s room.
I snapped on the light. It was still messy, like an explosion in a clothes factory. It smelled of lemony shampoo and dirty socks. Her blankets trailed off the bed.
I set the glass of vodka on Olivia’s dresser and draped the blankets neatly over the bed, then sat on the edge. Something on her bedside table caught the afternoon light. Olivia’s cell phone. It was attached to a charging cord, but when I picked it up, the plug dropped out. The battery was dead.
The sound of a knock at the front door startled me. I slipped Olivia’s phone into my hoodie pocket as I went downstairs. I looked through the peephole, expecting it to be a reporter, but instead it was a tall, broad-shouldered teenager wearing a wrinkled blue shirt halfway untucked from his jeans. His fair hair was disheveled, his hazel eyes so raw and swollen I almost didn’t recognize him.
The football build of Olivia’s boyfriend looked like it had been put through the washing machine and shrunk. I took in his red eyes – the dark circles, the tear tracks trailing his putty-colored cheeks – and felt a swell of compassion. This inexorable tide of grief was his as well. It was something we shared.
I opened the door and flashbulbs instantly started popping, reporters shouting questions. I ignored them, pulling Tyler inside. Word traveled fast in a town as small as Portage Point, and it looked like every major Seattle media outlet was on this story.
‘Is it true what they’re saying about Olivia?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’ I pressed my fists into my eyes. ‘There was an accident.’
Tyler swayed on his feet. I grabbed his elbow and directed him to a chair at the kitchen table, pressed a glass of water into his hands. He gulped it down.
‘An accident?’ he echoed.
‘I don’t know. The police . . . I have to report it . . .’
‘What happened?’ he asked thickly.
‘Nobody knows. She might’ve fallen off the bridge. But . . .’ I hesitated, unsure if I should share my suspicions. ‘Did she leave the barbecue with anyone?’
‘No. She was by herself.’
‘Madison didn’t drive her?’
‘I’m pretty sure she walked.’
Olivia knew she wasn’t allowed to walk home alone in the dark. It was a firm rule of mine – one she’d never broken before.
‘What time was that?’
‘Like, ten thirty? Maybe more like ten forty-five?’
‘Tyler, there’s something I need to tell you.’
He stared at me. Waited.
‘Olivia’s pregnant.’
His arms dropped to the sides of the chair, heavy and limp. He looked like I’d punched him in the stomach.
‘Did you know?’ I needed information. Anything he could tell me mattered intensely.
He swallowed, then balled his hands into fists and stood. He turned away from me and hunched his shoulders.
‘Tyler?’ I walked to him, touched his back with my fingertips. ‘I promise I won’t be mad. Did you know she was pregnant?’
The muscles under his shirt jumped, and he pulled away from my touch. When he finally looked at me, his eyes were wide, the whites dominating his face.
‘I’m sorry, Miss Knight. There’s no way that baby’s mine.’
6 (#ulink_599a84f5-4369-55d3-82dd-d9c74e4599e1)
ABI
october
‘I don’t understand,’ I said.
Fear crept over me, sliding along every muscle and bone as a new realization settled over me: maybe I didn’t know my daughter at all.
‘How?’ I asked Tyler. ‘How could – how do you – ?’
‘I know it’s not mine,’ he cut me off, his voice rough. ‘Because Olivia and I never . . .’ He looked away.
I pressed my fingers hard into my eyeballs, stars exploding on the undersides of my lids. The vodka I’d gulped earlier burned bitterly in my empty stomach. ‘You never had sex.’
‘Right.’
Olivia was cheating on her boyfriend. It explained so much. She’d been so different lately. Distant. I had a sudden memory of her at the Stokeses’ annual neighborhood barbecue. I’d arrived late, work a handy excuse.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like people, just that I didn’t really have anything interesting to talk about. Once I’d ticked off Olivia’s achievements, the conversation went stale. Besides, I was really more of an observer than a participator. I was better at standing on the sidelines.
Jen Stokes had opened the door, a glass of champagne in each hand and a wide smile on her lips. Her dark corkscrew curls bounced around a heart-shaped face.
‘Hi, Jen.’ I smiled hard, the muscles in my jaw twinging painfully.
Jen and I had known each other since the girls were five. Even after all this time, we were friendly but not friends. Truth be told, Jen intimidated the hell out of me. Standing next to her made any bravado I had disappear, as if it had been sucked into the black hole of her self-confidence. She reminded me of what it was like being in junior high and high school.
Back then I was an outcast. The Girl Whose Mom Committed Suicide. Nobody knew what to say to me, nor I to them. I never wore the right clothes or had the right hair or makeup. I spent lunch alone in a corner of the cafeteria, was never picked for teams in PE, was the last to get a partner for school projects. My teenage years were even worse, lonely until I developed breasts and learned to use my looks to get guys to like me.
As I got older, I learned I was perfectly fine on my own. In fact, I preferred it that way. I didn’t need any better friend than my daughter.
‘Abi, so glad you could make it!’ Jen leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, then handed me a glass of champagne.
I took a tiny sip. It was sweet and crisp, obviously expensive.
‘How are you?’ I asked. My voice was too quiet, lost in the chatter of people inside, so I said it again. ‘How’ve you been?’
‘Oh, you know, kids, work, life.’ She rolled her eyes and laughed drily, but I knew she loved it. Jen was an ER doctor; she thrived under pressure.
I followed Jen through her tastefully decorated living room, my feet sinking into thick, oatmeal-colored carpet. We exited the back door to a sprawling deck that overlooked a shade-dappled yard. A shimmering rectangular swimming pool glinted in the waning light. The rich scent of barbecued ribs and burgers wafted up toward me.
‘Have you seen Olivia?’ Jen asked. Something in her voice made me look up sharply. I felt my face freeze, determined not to show that her words sent a gush of worry flooding through my veins.
‘No,’ I said slowly. ‘Why?’
‘Oh, no reason.’ Her eyes skated sideways, and she set her glass on a table. ‘I’m gonna grab you a plate of food. Then we can catch up. Here –’ She turned to a leggy blonde woman wearing a short sunset-colored caftan and high canvas wedges and pulled her over to me.
‘Marie, this is Abi. Abi, Marie Corbin.’
Before I had a chance to reply, Jen had headed down the stairs and disappeared into the crowd. I frowned, feeling inexplicably abandoned. I tidied a few loose strands of hair behind my ears.
Marie was gorgeous, and I felt my shoulders round as nerves pinched my stomach. She smiled at me, her sapphire eyes crinkling, her blonde hair a sleek mane perfectly framing an angular face. ‘Oh, Abi, yes. I remember you. You’re –’
‘Olivia’s mom.’ I forced a smile.
‘I was going to say an accountant at Brown Thomas and Associates. You did the books for my new interior design company, and I was so pleased at how quickly you got them done.’
‘Oh,’ I said, startled. Usually people only knew me as Olivia’s mom, the mother of the rising star of the swim team. I tried to think of the last time I was anything else, and couldn’t. ‘I’m glad to hear it.’
Across the yard, Jen’s husband, Mark, raised a hand in greeting. Mark was a square-jawed business type, handsome in an aging frat-boy sort of way. I waved back.
‘I’ll just go say hi.’ I pointed at Mark, glad for an excuse to leave. ‘Nice to meet you.’
I went downstairs, grabbed a Coke from an ice bucket, and huddled next to a tall shrub in the corner of the backyard. If Sarah were here, she’d push me to go talk to people. She said I used work and Olivia as bricks in a wall I’d built around myself.
Sarah was always right and she did everything in the proper order. She’d finished college with a degree in psychology, then got a job, then a husband, a kid, and so on. Now she was a counselor for victims of traumatic cases. Most of her clients were referred from the Seattle Police Department. I was a wrecking ball in comparison: a single mom with a job I’d settled for and no real friends.
Just then something cold splashed against my arm.
‘Hi, Abi!’
‘Derek. Hi.’ Mark and Jen’s son used to call me Miss Knight. I remembered when he was a chubby-cheeked second-grader with perpetually grass-stained knees, and now here he was, calling me by my first name. I suddenly felt rather old.
He grinned sheepishly. ‘Sorry about that.’
I brushed the liquid from my arm. ‘When did you get old enough to drink?’ I teased.
‘I’m nineteen now,’ Derek said, proud in that way teenagers get when they think they’re all grown-up.
I smiled fondly at him. ‘Have you seen Olivia?’
His smile faded. ‘No. Why? Is she in some sort of trouble?’
‘No!’ I laughed at the thought. Olivia never got in trouble. ‘Nothing like that. We were planning to meet here.’
‘Oh. . .’ He ran a hand over his jaw and I noticed how much he looked like his mother. He had the same intense beauty: shaggy, dark curls; a narrow, heart-shaped face. His dark-blue eyes were piercing and intelligent. He was a good-looking kid. Probably already breaking hearts.
Somebody – a young woman – came up next to him then, touched his shoulder. He glanced at her, then at me, then stepped back. The entire exchange probably only lasted seconds, but it took me all that time to realize that the young woman next to him was Olivia.
My brain felt like it was spinning in mud. Her long, silky blonde locks were gone, cropped into a pink-streaked pixie cut. Gone also were her usual T-shirt and jeans, replaced with black leggings and a low-cut peasant top that plunged into her cleavage.
I remember looking at Olivia in the fading evening light and feeling like I didn’t know her anymore. I knew then that something had been shaken loose, something I had no power to put back together. . .
‘Whose baby is it?’ I asked Tyler now, my insides tight as a fist.
He didn’t answer. He looked very far away.
‘Tyler. Whose baby is it?’
He didn’t look at me. Didn’t answer. Instead he said: ‘I wish I could’ve saved her.’
‘Saved her from what?’
His eyes crashed into mine.
‘From everything.’
7 (#ulink_12ab870e-4d97-57c3-be8b-ffdb09040298)
OLIVIA
april
After dinner, Mom went upstairs to take a shower. The house still smelled of burned bread even though all the windows were cracked open. It clawed at my throat and seared my nose, making me feel sick.
As soon as I heard the shower turn on, I ran to the desk in the corner of the living room and shuffled through the neatly organized paperwork and alphabetized, color-coded files. Nothing there. I took the stairs two at a time to Mom’s bedroom. I pushed through electric cords and notebooks in her bedside table drawers. I dropped to my knees and checked under her bed. Just a scattering of dusty, mismatched hand weights, random books that didn’t fit on the bookshelf downstairs, a box with cards and notes I’d given her.
Obviously I’d been in Mom’s room loads of times, but I wasn’t a weirdo. I’d never searched through her personal things. It felt gross. Disgust slithered up my throat, but then I remembered her lie: . . . those brown eyes.
There must be some proof somewhere about who my father was. The minutes crawled by. I was running out of time.
In her closet, I shuffled through clothes and shoes, ran my hand along the top shelf. Suddenly my fingers knocked against something. I stood on my tiptoes and pulled it out. It was an old shoebox, a thick layer of dust across the top. I sat cross-legged on the floor with it on my lap. My heart pounded wildly in my chest. The shower was still going but I knew I didn’t have much time.
The box was light. I almost thought it was empty. But when I took the lid off and pushed a layer of tissue paper aside, I saw a thick piece of paper. It was my birth certificate. I looked at the spot where my parents’ names were listed, but only my mom’s was there.
I put it down and lifted out the tissue paper. Underneath was a hospital ID bracelet with my name in pale blue letters.
And then I saw it: a small square piece of plain white card, the type you might find in a bunch of flowers delivered to your doorstep. On one side it was blank. On the other, in thick capital letters, it said:
SORRY.
G
× × ×
The next day I stayed after school to help Peter with our chemistry homework. Tyler gave me the silent treatment all day, but I just pretended everything was fine. It was the best way to deal with Tyler. Pretend everything was all right, and pretty soon it would be.
I didn’t really want to go home after that, so I texted Mom and told her I was still studying, then grabbed the late bus to Madison’s. I wanted to tell her about the card I’d found and the lies my mom had told.
I pulled the hood of my coat up over my head as the mist thickened into rain. Storming down the quiet suburban road toward Madison’s house, I passed elegant mock Tudors and Pacific Northwest timber homes and dove into the dripping green pines spread out lush and thick above the ZigZag Bridge.
The ZigZag Bridge wasn’t really a zigzag – it was only called that because the river that ran underneath it twisted back and forth until it reached Puget Sound. When I was a kid, we used to call it the Cinderella Bridge because it looked like something out of a fairy tale. The suspension cables were hung from four silver towers, two at either end, crowned by soaring spires, while the gleaming metal framework was decorated with lacy arches and ornamental railings.
I hunched my backpack higher on my shoulders and headed over the bridge, my feet echoing loudly against the wooden slats of the pedestrian walkway. Usually I took the shortcut from my house through the woods to Madison’s instead of looping up and around, walking over a mile along the ZigZag Road. Mom had made me promise never to take the shortcut – she thought the woods were full of murderers or something – but the paved road took way too long.
For her peace of mind, I told her I always went the long way to Madison’s. I didn’t want to lie to her or anything, but I didn’t want her worrying either. Sometimes she could be a bit overprotective. Besides, it wasn’t exactly lying. It just wasn’t the whole truth.
I leaned on the doorbell at Madison’s house, my breath coming in short bursts until the door flew open.
Madison’s brother, Derek, looked like he’d been facedown in a pillow for a really long time. His face was crinkled with sleep, and he blinked his eyes fast, as if the late afternoon light burned his retinas.
‘Olivia? What are you doing here?’ His voice was raspy, and he raked one hand through his dark, tousled curls.
I stared at Derek, totally speechless. I hadn’t seen him in almost three years. He looked so different. And by different, I mean really, really hot.
Gone was the lanky, awkward teenager I’d known. His chest had filled out, his face slimmed down. He’d grown a few inches and now towered over me. He was wearing skinny black jeans and a fitted black T-shirt that was tight at the biceps. A silver chain necklace was coiled twice around his neck.
‘Derek, hey.’ My voice squeaked, and I coughed to cover it. ‘I forgot you were back from New York. Sorry about pushing on the doorbell. I thought Madison would answer.’ The words rushed out of me too fast, and I knew I sounded like a dumb little kid.
I was desperate to know whether he’d thought about me while he was away the way I’d thought about him. Last time I’d seen him, I’d declared my undying fourteen-year-old love. He’d kissed me gently on the cheek and said, ‘See you later.’ The next day he’d left for New York.
I never told Madison about my crush on her brother. She’d hate it. She could be jealous and nasty when it came to Derek. Once I was at their house and I didn’t feel well, so I played Nintendo with Derek instead of hide-and-go-seek with her. She went to his room and took all his certificates he’d glued into a scrapbook and shredded every one of them.
‘You want to come in?’ Derek asked.
I followed him through the dining room into the designer kitchen. The stainless steel shimmered in the afternoon light. An expensive watercolor of trees hung above the mahogany dinner table.
I shrugged out of my wet jacket, draping it over a chair. He pulled two bottles of water out of the refrigerator, tossing one to me.
‘So.’ I took a sip of my water. ‘You back for good?’
‘Yep.’
‘Did you like it?’
He shrugged.
‘Well, what was it like?’ I had so many questions, but this new Derek wasn’t like the one I’d known three years ago. Plus, all the things Madison had told me about him . . . maybe I was a little bit scared of him.
‘It was fine, it’s a big city, so it’s pretty busy, but yeah, I liked it.’ He sounded bored. Or maybe annoyed. ‘Madison isn’t here,’ he added.
‘Where is she?’
‘Auditioning for some play or something.’
I hit my forehead with my hand. ‘Oh yeah. Shoot. I forgot about that.’
He set his water on the counter. ‘So, what’s up?’
‘Nothing much. Just school and finals, getting ready for senior year and stuff.’
‘No.’ He looked exasperated, like I was the dumbest person ever. ‘I meant, why’d you come storming over here?’
I hesitated, not sure I wanted to tell Derek about my mom.
‘Did you get in a fight with your boyfriend?’ He smirked.
Anger boiled in me, and I clenched my fists. I wasn’t used to feeling angry. But I felt like it was leaking from me, set free by the acid of my mom’s lies. I couldn’t control it, and suddenly it took a new direction.
How dare he? The last time I was with him, I’d thought – well, it didn’t matter now, but I’d thought we shared something special. It was silly, just the slight brush of our arms against each other while watching a movie. A long gaze. It was stupid.
I didn’t even recognize this new Derek.
‘I’ll come back later. Sorry I bothered you.’ I put my water bottle on the counter and spun around, heading for the door.
Derek stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.
‘No, I’m sorry.’ The smirk fell off his face, and for the first time since I’d arrived he looked like the Derek I used to know. ‘Honestly, you’re not bothering me.’
He was so earnest, it reminded me of when we were little kids and I got stuck in the washing machine trying to hide from him during hide-and-seek.
‘So. Boyfriend problems?’
‘No,’ I snapped. ‘For your information, my mom lied to me and I’m really pissed off about it.’
Derek leaned away, as if blown back by the force of my anger. ‘Shit. Sorry. What about?’
When I didn’t reply, he headed toward the stairs. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go downstairs.’
I hesitated, confused by his quick change of personalities. Maybe he was more like Madison than I’d thought. I followed him to the far side of the kitchen, across the hall, and down the stairs to the basement.
‘My mom and dad gave me the downstairs. I think they’re just hoping I’ll disappear down here.’ He chuckled, but the laugh didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Downstairs was more welcoming than upstairs, all blond wood and worn brown leather. A grunge band blasted on a massive surround-sound stereo system. A huge entertainment center and two leather chairs took up one side of the basement, while the other side had an unmade king-size bed. At the back of the room, a hallway led to darkness.
He shoved clothes off a leather chair. ‘Here, sit down.’
He picked up a set of remote controls and turned off the stereo, then pressed a button. The ornately carved walnut doors of the entertainment center opened slowly, revealing a huge plasma-screen television. He flopped onto the other chair and flicked through the channels until he found a rerun of Family Guy.
He looked up at me. ‘You gonna sit?’
‘Um, sure.’ If Madison came home and found me hanging with her brother, she’d totally flip. I perched on the arm of the chair and tugged on the tail of the silver bracelet at my wrist.
‘So, what’d your mom lie about?’ he asked.
‘Well, last week some kids from my school and I were at U-Dub at this thing to get juniors ready for college. We saw this girl – Kendall – and she looked just like me. I’m not even kidding. Everybody said it. Like sisters.’
‘That’s weird.’
‘Yeah. So yesterday I asked my mom about my dad. Like what was he like and did he have any other family and she mentioned that he had brown eyes.’
‘So?’
‘First of all, I’m in advanced biology. My mom has blue eyes, so if my dad had brown eyes, it’s pretty unlikely I’d have green eyes. Not impossible, but genetically unlikely.’
‘And second?’
‘Second of all, I asked her when I was thirteen what color eyes he had, and she said green. And now she said brown.’
‘But why would she tell you two different colors?’
I threw my hands up and slid into the chair. ‘She’s getting confused with her lies.’
‘And this girl, Kendall. She has green eyes too?’
‘Yeah. And this same chin dimple.’ I pointed at the cleft in my chin. ‘I Googled it. It’s genetic. But my mom doesn’t have it.’
‘So Kendall looks a lot like you, she has a chin dimple, she has the same color eyes as you, and now your mom lied about what color your dad’s eyes were – and you think, what? That you’re related to this girl?’
‘Well, yeah.’ Saying it that way made it sound really stupid.
‘It seems a bit, you know, Hollywood.’
‘I know,’ I admitted. ‘But my mom lied to me. We never lie to each other. . .’
I chewed my lip.
‘At least, I thought we didn’t,’ I amended. ‘But now I’m wondering what else she’s lied about. And . . .’ I pulled the piece of white card out of my back pocket. ‘I found this in her room. It was in a shoebox in her closet.’
I held it out to Derek, and he read the text. ‘Sorry. Sorry for what?’
‘I don’t know. But it was with my birth certificate. It must have something to do with me.’
‘Have you looked her up on Facebook?’
‘My mom?’
‘No. Kendall.’
I shook my head. The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind.
‘Well, did you ask her who her father is? Find out his name?’
‘I didn’t think of any of that stuff when I met her.’
Derek grabbed a shiny silver MacBook from his bedside table. He brought it back to the chair, flipped the lid up, and opened Facebook.
‘Do you want to look?’ Derek asked.
Madison said I was a doormat. Mom said I let Madison walk all over me. Maybe they were both right. Maybe it was time I stood up and did something for myself.
I nodded. ‘Yeah, okay.’
I leaned over his shoulder and typed in my log-in details, aware of how close we were. He smelled just faintly of pine trees and the clean, soapy smell of shaving cream.
Kendall Montgomery’s page popped up right away. In her profile picture she was pouting, her eyes creased as if she was about to smile. I didn’t want to know her. And yet I did.
‘Holy shit.’ Derek’s eyes popped open wide. ‘She does look just like you.’
‘I know. It’s creepy. What should I do?’
‘What do you want to do?’
I was surprised. People never asked me what I wanted. I usually just went along for the ride.
I looked into Derek’s midnight-blue eyes. Something in them made me feel safe enough to find out things I should probably leave alone.
I leaned over him and pressed Add Friend.
‘I want to talk to her,’ I said.
8 (#ulink_95c9a298-e9f6-558f-882d-7833e65990a4)
ABI
october
The sound of Tyler’s feet thumping down the front steps jolted me out of my stunned trance.
‘Wait!’ I flung myself out the open front door and into the rain, crashing into the driver’s door of his Jeep as the engine vroomed to life.
A flash went off from my front yard, but I ignored it.
‘Wait!’ I smacked my open palm against Tyler’s door.
Tyler rolled the window down, his eyebrows drawn together. His eyes flicked up to the reporters watching our exchange.
‘What do you mean?’ I hissed so only he could hear. ‘Saved her from everything?’
He glared at me, but kept his voice down also. ‘You had all these rules. You controlled her. She said you were writing the script for her life and she was sick of it. If you weren’t trying to run her life, maybe she wouldn’t have done stupid things.’
My fingers slipped off the edge of the window, and I stumbled backward, propelled by the vitriol of his words. Tyler reversed out of the driveway quickly, his wheels skidding in the gravel.
Another flash went off near me. I turned my face to my shoulder and raised my hand as if I could ward it off.
God only knew what the reporters would write about this. I looked like a lunatic, my blonde hair a nest of damp tangles sticking up in every direction, the scent of alcohol on my breath.
I looked up as I heard the crunch of tires on the gravel. Two police detectives, badges clipped to their belts, got out of the car.
‘All right, guys, get out of here. You know the rules. Get off her property now,’ the male detective said.
He was squarely built with short legs and a squat body. Dark circles were etched beneath watery blue eyes that appraised me from under thick eyebrows. His wrinkled black suit covered an equally wrinkled blue shirt and tie. His thinning hair was a mess, as if he’d only just woken.
Just behind him, the female detective waved a reporter edging closer to my house back to the road. She was a complete contrast to him: crisp black business suit, starched white collar. She was tall as an Amazon with cropped, pale blonde hair, a chiseled jaw, and ice-blue eyes. Her face was completely blank: the picture of professional detachment.
Once the reporters were a safe distance away, they crossed the grass to me.
‘Abigail Knight?’ the man said, extending his hand to shake mine.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m Detective Phillip McNally, and this is Detective Jane Samson.’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Samson gave me a brief, firm handshake. Her hands were warm and large, making mine feel small and childish in comparison.
‘We’d like to speak with you about your daughter’s accident. Can we come inside?’ McNally asked.
I stared at them, blinking. Accident? Why did they think they were here if it was an accident?
‘Yes . . . come in.’
I led them inside and shut the door, then stood awkwardly in the living room for a minute. I couldn’t immediately recall what I was supposed to do.
‘Would you like a drink?’ I finally asked.
‘No, we’re good,’ Detective McNally said. ‘Can we sit?’
‘Of course.’ I showed them to the couch and sank onto the recliner.
‘We’re very sorry for what’s happened to your daughter,’ Detective McNally said. He blinked slowly, as if trying to wake himself up. ‘Also for the delay. We’ve only just been alerted to what happened by a’ – he glanced down at his notepad – ‘Dr Griffith. I know this must be a difficult time for you, but we’d like to take an official statement. Is now okay?’
‘Yes. Of course.’
He pulled a pen from a pocket on the inside of his coat.
‘Let’s start with that last night you saw Olivia. Can you tell me what happened?’
My eyes flicked to Detective Samson’s face, but she didn’t say a word.
My hands shook, and I pressed them under my thighs. I wanted my daughter. I missed her so much it was physical, like scraping cotton wool over an acid burn.
I started at the beginning, telling them about our Saturday: work, homework, the barbecue.
‘Did everything seem normal?’ Detective McNally asked.
‘Yes. I mean, except – well, she got a haircut.’
‘A haircut?’ McNally echoed. I could see he thought grief had driven me a little bit crazy.
‘Yes. It was unusual.’
‘Unusual how?’
‘Olivia’s sensible. She doesn’t drink, she’s on the swim team, and she gets straight As. She never does stupid teenager stuff like walk home alone in the dark or sneak out at night to go drinking. It was just weird that she suddenly cut all her hair off. But teenagers do these things, right?’
‘Sometimes.’ He didn’t look at me, just kept staring at his notepad. ‘Is there anybody who didn’t like her or had a grudge against her?’
‘No,’ I said, shocked. ‘Everybody likes Olivia. I’m not just saying that. Last year at school, she was voted ‘most likable.’ She was homecoming queen. She’s happy and popular and, and –’ My voice broke, and for a second I couldn’t continue.
Both detectives nodded, their heads moving up and down like bobble-head dolls.
‘Do you think –?’
‘We don’t think anything yet,’ Detective Samson cut me off. It was the first time she’d spoken, and it startled me. ‘We’re just building a picture, gathering evidence.’
‘Something happened! She has bruises!’
‘Do you have any reason to think anybody would hurt Olivia?’ McNally asked, his eyebrows raised.
I stared at him, dismayed. They’d been here ten minutes, and already they didn’t believe me.
McNally continued asking me questions: Who were her friends? Her boyfriend? Had they had any problems? Had she ever tried to harm herself? Had anybody ever tried to hurt her? Had she been having problems at home? At school?
Occasionally he’d jot something down. The longer we sat there, the more unsettled I felt. Samson barely said a word, and McNally was the picture of a frazzled, overworked cop. How would these two find out what had happened to my daughter?
I showed them upstairs, and the detectives searched Olivia’s room, put random items into little plastic bags. They took her laptop and some of her school notebooks, asked me more questions.
By the end, my neck ached from carrying the weight of my pounding head. I wanted everything to go back to the way it was. I wanted my daughter back.
‘Did you find her bracelet?’ I asked Detective Samson.
Her brow creased.
‘A silver charm bracelet. Olivia always wore it. Always. But it wasn’t on her wrist.’ I brushed a hand over my eyes.
‘No, we didn’t find it, but I’ll check again.’
‘Was Olivia with anyone that night? Drinking with friends?’ Detective McNally asked. Neither of them had bothered to sit down after searching Olivia’s room. They towered over me in the living room, and my toes curled at the invasion of my personal space.
‘What? No!’ I replied, startled. Olivia wasn’t a drinker. ‘All her friends were at the barbecue. And she doesn’t –’ Then I remembered the scarf, her haircut, her pregnancy.
Bile, thick and acidic, rose in my throat.
I jumped up and raced to the bathroom, slamming open the toilet lid just in time to heave up every last drop of vodka, retching again and again into the white porcelain bowl.
Afterward, I shut the toilet seat and rested my head on the lid. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. The insides of my eyelids were red. I was sweating, hot moisture covering my entire body. I shoved Olivia’s phone into the back pocket of my jeans and stripped off my hoodie, tossing it on the floor.
When I opened my eyes, I saw a slip of white plastic sticking up from the mess of tissues in the trash can. I sat up slowly, reaching for it. It was a pregnancy test. A pink plus sign practically glowed on the end.
Olivia knew she was pregnant. And she hadn’t told me.
The knowledge was raw inside me, jagged as a broken windowpane. As scared as I was when I found out I was pregnant, at least I’d had Sarah.
Memories of the day I’d told Sarah I was pregnant bubbled in my mind, like a pot of water boiling over.
‘Do you know who the father is?’ Sarah had asked.
The old mattress sagged under her weight as she sat next to me on the edge of my bed.
‘Yes,’ I snapped. Okay, maybe I used to sleep around a bit. I used sex as a way to get guys to like me. I drank and dabbled in drugs and stayed out late smoking and partying. But it wasn’t going to be like that anymore.
‘Have you told him?’
‘Of course!’
‘And?’
I looked away, and Sarah sighed heavily.
‘He doesn’t want to be in the picture,’ she stated.
I didn’t answer. The worst part was that he’d cemented everything I felt all over again – that everybody eventually left me.
Sarah slapped her hands on her legs and stood. ‘I’ll come with you to sort it out.’
I stared at her, horrified. ‘Are you telling me to get an abortion?’
Sarah looked confused. ‘Of course not. I just –’
‘This is my baby. I won’t abandon it. I’m nothing like . . .’
I didn’t have to finish the sentence. We both knew the ending. Mom had abandoned me, and I had been powerless to stop her.
Sarah’s face softened, and she sat back down. ‘Abs, of course you’re nothing like her. But a baby? You can’t . . .’ Her voice trailed away and she searched my face.
That was exactly what he had said, right before he threatened to hurt my baby and me if anybody found out it was his. So I’d gone to the abortion clinic and was going to do it. But I couldn’t go through with it. Being abandoned was my life’s greatest fear. I couldn’t do it to my own baby.
I looked around at the tiny storeroom I’d used as a bedroom in Sarah’s apartment since I was ten. A baby wouldn’t fit here. But I had a way to get out now. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken it, but I wanted my baby to have everything I never did, a stable home, a solid middle-class upbringing, good opportunities.
‘I’ve registered at Valley,’ I said, referring to the local community college. ‘I’ll get a certificate in journalism. I like writing and I’m good at it. I can get a job at a newspaper.’
Sarah looked surprised. I was usually more of a joiner than a planner. She struggled with words for a minute, but I knew she’d give in. She was the only parent figure I’d had for most of my life, and she was nothing if not supportive.
Finally she said, ‘You know I’m here for you whatever you decide.’
‘Thanks, Sar.’ I leaned into my big sister, and she put her arms around me.
She brushed my hair off my forehead, and I pulled away, getting up and crossing to look out the window at the Christmas lights stringing the neighborhood. I hated it when she did things my mom used to do.
I’d looked down at my stomach, the first hint of a bump pushing out from my sweater, and imagined my baby curled under my heart. I would have someone to be with me no matter what. I’d love her more than I’d ever been loved. . .
In the bathroom, I stood shakily and splashed cold water on my face to help the memories fade. I grabbed Olivia’s pregnancy test and took it to Detective Samson in the living room. For a second, her professional mask slipped, and I thought I saw compassion flare in her eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. She pulled a plastic bag from her pocket, then zipped the proof of my grandchild away inside.
‘I don’t know if Olivia was with anyone that last night,’ I said, sinking back into the recliner. ‘I didn’t know she was pregnant. She didn’t tell me.’ The admission scraped like razor blades across my raw, aching throat.
Neither detective spoke for a minute, but when I looked up I saw them exchange a look.
‘Well.’ McNally stood and moved toward the door. ‘That’s all we need for now. We’ll be in touch if we have any other questions.’
‘Wait.’ I sprang to my feet and put a hand out. ‘The bruises, her bracelet – are you going to investigate?’
McNally sighed, and I wanted to scream. ‘We’re still in the early stages,’ he said, but he wasn’t looking at me anymore. ‘We’ll speak to witnesses, process the scene, analyze the bruises. . .’
Both detectives moved toward the door, but at the last second Samson turned and spoke. ‘We’re very sorry for your loss. We’ll be in touch, keep you up-to-date if we find anything new.’ She slid a business card into my palm. ‘Call me anytime. And, Miss Knight, just ignore the reporters. They’ll go away in a few days.’
I stood frozen in place, the front door flapping in the increasing wind, and watched as they got in their unmarked police car and drove slowly away. I hunched my shoulders against the cold and shoved my hands into the back pockets of my jeans. My fingers knocked against something hard.
They hadn’t asked for Olivia’s phone.
9 (#ulink_a6636afe-cfba-5924-8a7c-79ff7b626b67)
ABI
november
November arrived abruptly in Portage Point. The sky was gray and wet; the wind tossed leaves across the ground in angry flurries. I scurried across the parking lot toward the hospital. By the time I reached the front, my hair clung to my forehead in damp tendrils.
Inside I headed for the elevators while dialing the numbers on the business card Samson had left me. It was the third time that day, but still it went to voicemail. I knew there were budget cuts; I knew other cases were important too, that the investigative process took time; but surely, surely Olivia’s case would take priority.
Even on the rare occasion when a detective answered, they just told me to be patient, they’d let me know if anything new came up. They were always fobbing me off like that. And I didn’t have time for it. Four weeks had passed since Olivia’s fall. Only four-teen weeks until the baby would be born. And that was if we were lucky. I needed answers sooner, not later.
I took the elevator to the floor Olivia had been moved to last week. Now that she was out of the ICU, the baby had a better chance at surviving; but seeing the ventilator and feeding tube was no less of a shock each time I arrived.
I steeled myself against the pain and pushed open the door. Sarah was slumped over the edge of Olivia’s bed, her mouth hung open in sleep, a deep crease denting the middle of her forehead.
‘Sarah,’ I whispered. My sister jumped when I touched her shoulder. ‘You should go home. Go see Dylan and Brad.’
She rubbed her arm over her eyes. ‘I couldn’t sleep. What time is it?’
‘Six.’
‘They’re sleeping. You should be too.’
I put my purse down and slipped out of my coat, sitting in the chair next to her as the pale light edged the darkness from the room. I picked up Olivia’s hand and inspected her wrist. The bruises had faded, the broken skin mostly healed; her skin renewed itself, even though her brain never would.
‘I’m thinking of going back to work,’ I told Sarah.
I realized with some surprise that I missed the rhythm of my job. The predictability. At least I knew what I was doing in accounting, what to expect. There was no guesswork, only right or wrong. Right now I was just waiting through my days, but for what? The police rarely responded to my calls. Olivia’s case was still open, but it felt like they weren’t really investigating.
The last four weeks had passed in a slow, nauseating spin. I slept and ate little, sobbed a lot. I shoved fistfuls of sedatives in my mouth, washing them down with red wine and vodka until I’d drunk everything in my house and had no pills left to take.
The dull lethargy that had plagued me immediately after Olivia fell was being replaced by a crazed adrenaline and an urge to know the truth. People throughout Portage Point had heard the news. They wanted to ask questions, to know what had happened, but I had no answers and no energy to explain that the police had yet to piece together any intelligible reason for Olivia’s fall.
At least Samson had been right about the reporters – they’d eventually trickled away, in search of more urgent stories.
The cost of caring for Olivia was mounting. My insurance was already balking and I knew I’d have to find a way to pay for everything for another three months at least. And then there was the baby. . .
‘I can’t lose my insurance,’ I said.
Sarah nodded. She, of all people, knew that the weight of unexpected responsibility could be as heavy as water.
I looked at Olivia in the hospital bed, a pale, shriveled version of herself. Eyes closed. Intubated. The incessant mechanized hush of the machines keeping her alive.
‘I don’t understand why the police aren’t working harder on this,’ I said, anger and frustration simmering inside me.
‘I’m sure they are,’ Sarah reassured me. She stood and rolled her neck in slow circles. ‘Investigations take time.’
‘They said the bruises were probably from the fall. But you saw them, right? They were fingerprints. Somebody did this to her.’
Sarah looked away, and I could tell she didn’t really agree.
I didn’t like everything I said second-guessed, my emotions and my sanity questioned. I knew what I’d seen. I just had no way to prove it meant what I thought it did.
‘They’re still investigating,’ she repeated. ‘We have to let them do their job.’
I glared at her. ‘I know you don’t understand, but I need to know what happened.’
Flames of anger curled in my stomach, and the air between us tightened. After our mother died, it was me who acted out and raged. Sarah had stayed calm and composed. She’d organized the funeral, taken care of the will, boxed up all my things and moved me in with her.
I was a basket case in comparison. I wailed and wept, wanted to know why Mom was dead, who I could blame. When I didn’t get answers I wallowed, sinking into the grief and letting it hold me like a warm bath. That’s what losing your only parent when you’re ten does – it makes it so you can’t ever let go.
Sarah didn’t want to talk about Mom at all. She wasn’t interested in remembering and certainly didn’t want me talking about that day. Her emotionless, brisk efficiency made me doubt my feelings. I wondered why I cared so much, but she didn’t.
Over time I’d learned to hide my emotions. But on the inside I was still just a wreck, barely keeping it together.
‘Of course I understand,’ Sarah said, her forehead creasing with hurt. ‘I get it. I want to help. I know people at the Seattle Police Department through work. I’ll call around. See if anybody there can help.’
‘I don’t need a shrink picking my brain apart.’ I gritted my teeth. ‘I need to know what happened to Olivia. Besides, I can’t pay for it.’
‘I don’t mean a counselor. And I don’t mean in an official capacity, just as a favor. Maybe they can ask around, get some insight into what the Portage Point police are doing, what they’re thinking.’
My pulse raced through my clenched muscles. I looked away, wanting her to stop talking.
‘The baby’s doing well,’ she said, changing the subject.
She reached over and touched Olivia’s stomach. Somehow, despite so many tests, drugs, and X-rays, the baby was healthy. It was growing at a normal rate, swimming in the space beneath where my daughter’s heart pumped blood around her body.
I dug my fingernails into the skin of my upper arms until they left pale, moon-shaped dents, then raked them across my upper arms, scratching at the invisible itch. The pain was sharp, intense, but in a way that felt good.
‘Abi, stop!’ Sarah exclaimed, her voice sharp as a ragged hangnail.
‘Then stop talking about the baby!’
‘Why?’ Her brow puckered.
‘Don’t you get it?’ I exploded. The spark of anger lit and consumed my insides, suddenly so bulky that I couldn’t sit still. I launched out of my chair and crossed the room to stare out the window. The maple trees that lined the park across the street were nearly bare, slowly losing the last of their crimson and gold leaves.
‘Get what?’
I whirled to face her. ‘When the baby’s born, Olivia will die! So stop harping on about the baby, because that deadline means my daughter fucking dies!’
I didn’t wait for her reply. I pushed past her and ran out the door, down the stairs, back into the driving rain.
× × ×
Back at home, I felt a deep, dark self-loathing stealing over me. I shouldn’t have blown up at Sarah.
Whatever problems I’d had with my sister, whatever resentment I’d held in my heart, Sarah had always been my rock. Even when my mom was alive, it was Sarah my teachers called if I was sick, Sarah who helped me with my homework. When I was five and got lost when we were picnicking at the beach, it was Sarah I howled for under the hot white sun. I was alone and she ran to me, shouting my name, and I knew I was safe. I never felt that way with my mom.
A sudden, vivid memory of my mother the day she died flashed through me: the blood, the screaming – was it Sarah or me? – the gun still hanging from her finger. I’d lost my mother and my childhood in one cruel day. I guess being angry and blaming Sarah was easier than moving on.
Fuck. I scrubbed my hands over my eyes. I was such a mess.
I crossed the living room to the small oak desk in the corner next to the fireplace and sat down. Once my old laptop had booted up, I opened my e-mail, prepared to send a request for another leave of absence to my boss.
I had thirty-four new e-mails: a mix of junk mail, persistent interview requests, well-wishers at work, friends and acquaintances in the community who were too scared to talk to me face-to-face. And then my eye fell on something else.
Your invoice from Apple – Invoice APPLE ID
olivialouiseknight@gmail.com.
Tears sprang to my eyes. It was yet another reminder that Olivia wasn’t here anymore. I didn’t need to pay this bill anymore, but I didn’t want to stop because that would be an admission that my daughter wasn’t coming back.
I wanted to drop my head to the desk and let my broken heart overwhelm me. Instead I took a deep breath and typed iCloud.com into the browser. I logged in with her e-mail and password, which I’d insisted she give me when I bought us both the iPhones, and a number of brightly colored icons filled my screen: e-mail, contacts, calendar, photos. The guts of Olivia’s life were here.
I clicked the Mail icon, but the mailbox was empty except for a welcome e-mail. I shut it and moved on to Contacts. There were hundreds of people listed. Some I knew, but a lot I didn’t. I scrolled slowly down the page, staring hard at each name. Who were they? Had one of these people hurt Olivia? Next I opened Photos.
At first I didn’t understand what I was seeing. Horror stole over me like a mist, uncurling deep within. And then a fiery knot began to burn in my stomach.
I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, then opened them again. The pictures were still there. The first one was slightly blurry, as if it had been zoomed in from far away. Olivia was standing outside her school staring at something in the distance. Somebody had drawn devil horns over her head and a red line across her throat with what looked like drops of blood below.
Die bitch! was written across the bottom.
In the second one, Olivia’s face was colored over in hard, angry scribbles, a red noose twisted around her throat. But I could tell it was Olivia by the clothes she wore, her favorite swim-team shirt. I leaned closer to read the red text.
Kill!
And another: a knife drawn plunged into Olivia’s heart, blood dripping down her chest. The words U die! were scrawled on the picture.
Shock rippled through me.
There were a handful more, all variations of the first three: pictures of Olivia with her neck slit, blood dripping down the image, her eyes whited out, bloody intestines vomiting from her mouth. All with die, kill, and fuck you scribbled across them.
‘Oh my God,’ I whispered. A rush of adrenaline thumped hot and silent in my blood.
Someone had been cyberbullying Olivia.
10 (#ulink_d3a5570b-c15e-51d3-978f-71c5acf815a0)
ABI
november
I started to shake all over, a shocked and angry vibration that started at the very core of me and radiated out.
Why would somebody send these to Olivia? And who?
I scrolled down through the rest of the photos, but there was nothing else there. Nothing threatening, anyway.
I rested my head on the desk and thumped it softly against the edge, as if that would knock loose rational thoughts that might solve this puzzle.
‘Think, Abi. Think!’
Her phone. I bolted upright. Maybe there were more on her actual phone. I racked my mind, trying to think where I’d put it. I barely remembered what had happened since Olivia fell. It felt like I’d been sleepwalking since then.
I ran to the kitchen and grabbed Olivia’s phone from the coun ter I’d thrown it on after the detectives left. The fact that the police hadn’t even asked for or looked for Olivia’s cell was further proof they weren’t taking the investigation seriously.
I plugged the phone in to charge, and after a few seconds it chimed and burst to life.
There were two unread text messages.
The most recent was from someone Olivia had saved as K at 10:42 a.m. later the same morning Olivia was found: You ok? I’m so sorry. I seriously didn’t know. Anyway, he’s a dick. If you’re like me you’ll cut him out for good!
I brushed a hand over my face, more baffled than ever. I scrolled down and read the other text.
It was from Tyler at 11:20 p.m. the night Olivia fell.
I scrolled up to read the whole thread.
Olivia: You’re right. We need to talk. You still at bbq? Meet in 15?
Tyler: Yep. See you in a few.
I paused, letting the part of my brain that allowed me to analyze numbers so well take over. I latched on to something as my mind anchored and examined it. The thought crystallized into something cold and hard.
‘Fuck,’ I whispered out loud. Tyler had told me Olivia left at 10:45 p.m. and he hadn’t seen her after that. But according to this text, they’d met up at around 11:30 p.m. ‘Tyler lied to me.’
I scrolled back through some of Olivia’s old texts. The most recent ones were from K and a string of texts from somebody called only D. As I read, I realized they were sweet, some rather romantic, and I remembered Tyler telling me the baby wasn’t his. Perhaps this D was the baby’s father.
The shock of finding the disturbing images in Olivia’s iCloud account and the texts from Tyler had begun to dissipate, leaving behind a completely clear view.
This was the proof I needed. Somebody had hurt Olivia on purpose. I had to go to the police.
× × ×
The Portage Point Police Department was situated in a miniature antebellum-style brick building on the far side of town, nestled under tall pine trees and fronted by a series of low boxwood shrubs.
I drove too quickly up Main Street, flying past the white, steepled church, a handful of indie coffee shops, a yoga studio, and the small town square, then turned right past a children’s playground and baseball diamond. I parked outside the station, between a police SUV and an American flag flapping aggressively in the wind.
Carol-Ann, the police station receptionist, recognized me as soon as I walked in.
‘Abi!’ She came around the desk and reached for me, folding me against her massive, doughy bosom. She smelled of lavender and soap, which made me suddenly aware of how long it had been since I’d showered. When Carol-Ann pulled away, her soft brown eyes sparkled with tears.
Carol-Ann was like the police department’s built-in grandma, complete with thick glasses and permed graying hair that poufed around her face. She’d run the front office as long as I could remember, helping the town’s four police officers and two detec tives organize legal paperwork, answer the phones, and comfort victims.
‘Carol-Ann, I need to see Detective Samson or McNally. Are they here?’
I took a step toward the half-open inner door and caught a glimpse of Samson sitting in a small kitchen, a sandwich in front of her as she stared at her cell phone. The murmur of police radios floated out to me.
Carol-Ann stepped in front of me and put her hand on my elbow, gently guiding me to a chair by her desk. ‘Let me see if they’re free. I’ll be right back.’
A few minutes later she returned with Detective Samson.
I jumped up, anger flaring in me. ‘Where have you been?’ I snapped. ‘I’ve left a thousand messages for you guys, and nothing! No wonder you haven’t solved Olivia’s case if you’re sitting here eating lunch and checking your phone all day!’
Samson’s ice-blue eyes flashed something I couldn’t immediately recognize. Not anger, exactly. Surprise.
She nodded at Carol-Ann, then jerked her head toward the door. ‘Please come with me.’
I followed her down the hallway past the kitchen to a characterless room painted a cold gray. There were no pictures on the walls, no decorations, nothing except a window to the hallway with half-closed blinds and a table like the kind you’d find in a cafeteria with a handful of folding chairs around it.
I pulled Olivia’s phone out of my purse, set it on the table with a loud thunk, then glared at her as she sat down.
‘You didn’t take Olivia’s phone.’
Samson crossed one leg over her knee and studied me for a long minute. ‘Didn’t Detective McNally ask you for it?’
‘No.’ I started to shake my head, then stopped. I couldn’t actually remember. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘We are pursuing a number of leads, Miss Knight.’
I gritted my teeth, knowing that was code for We haven’t found anything.
‘Olivia’s boyfriend, Tyler, he lied to me. He told me they didn’t see each other after she left the barbecue, but there’s a text here.’ I clicked into the text thread and handed the phone to her. ‘See? She says she’s going back to the barbecue. She would’ve met him at eleven thirty. And . . .’ I dug in my purse for the threatening pictures I’d printed from Olivia’s iCloud account and laid them on the table. ‘Somebody sent her these.’
Samson scrolled through the phone for a moment, then picked up the pictures, her face a cold, hard mask. She studied them for a long moment. ‘Were these on her phone?’
I shook my head. ‘No, they were in her iCloud account, which was synced with her phone. They must’ve been deleted from her phone.’
‘Any idea who sent these?’
‘No. None at all.’
Samson leaned forward and handed me her notebook and a pen. ‘Can you write down her log-in details for me?’
I did, then started to ask if she believed me now, but a knock at the door interrupted me. McNally’s head poked in, his flabby jowls stretched into what I assumed was meant to be a smile. He looked as exhausted and unkempt as usual, but this time there was something else I hadn’t noticed before: an unmistakable edge of animosity.
‘If I could just borrow Detective Samson for a minute.’
Samson carefully folded the printed pages and slipped them into her blazer pocket, along with Olivia’s phone and her notebook. The door closed with a sharp snap behind her.
I sat on one of the metal chairs and watched them through the slats of the cheap metal blinds. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. McNally was speaking forcefully to Samson. He looked angry. Samson gestured with both hands, more animated than normal. She lifted Olivia’s phone, but he shook his head and batted it away. Samson glanced at me, gave me a small tight smile, but something tilted inside of me when I saw it. I felt a sense of foreboding. Of time running out.
And right then I knew, with a dark certainty, that if I left it to them, I would never know the truth about what had happened to Olivia.
I’d spent my whole life hiding, just existing behind the walls I’d built around myself. I never got the answers I needed when my mother died. I was powerless to stop my mom killing herself. Powerless to make Olivia’s father choose me. Powerless to stop my daughter from – the pain of reality hit me in the stomach.
But I couldn’t afford to feel that way now. Self-pity was fine when you were ten, but in a few months I’d have Olivia’s baby to take care of. Wallowing was an indulgence I didn’t have. I needed answers now.
What do you do when you know something and nobody will listen? When you need answers and nobody will provide them? When you can’t trust anybody to help you?
I stood at a crossroads, half aware that my choice now would send me down a path from which there would be no turning back. The decision wasn’t a hard one. I didn’t want to be powerless anymore. I wanted answers.
I slammed the interview room door open, and Samson and McNally turned to me, eyes wide with surprise.
‘Something’s wrong,’ I said, a crazed fury surging through my body. Rage had hijacked the rational part of my brain, the part that never stood up to people, that sat back while others told me what to do. ‘I know something’s wrong. And you both know it. Whether you help me or not, I’m going to find out what happened to my daughter.’
11 (#ulink_7ef01cf0-004e-5186-9c39-1b07500edec8)
OLIVIA
may
‘D’you guys wanna go to Java Café?’ Madison raised her voice to be heard over the racket of teenagers spilling into the hall. With its exposed brick walls and mismatched array of cushy couches, Java Café was our usual hangout.
It was one of the first really hot days of the year and everybody was either going there or heading for the beach. ‘I’m dying for a smoothie.’ She slammed her locker door next to mine and faced Tyler and me.
‘Can’t. It’s “Dad’s night with me.”’ Tyler air-quoted, his words laced with sarcasm. His parents had announced their divorce just a few weeks ago, and he already had to split his time between them. He didn’t talk about it much, but I could tell he was super pissed. I was trying to be nice. Honestly. But he was so grumpy I mostly just stayed away from him.
‘Umm . . .’ I thought fast, scrambling for a believable lie. Derek was taking me to Seattle after school so we could look up Kendall, who still hadn’t responded to my Facebook friend request.
Since I’d met Kendall a few weeks ago, I’d spent a ridiculous amount of time Googling her. I felt kinda stalkerish. She played tennis for her private Catholic school, was on the debate team, volunteered in the community.
Half of her pictures showed her with an older man – her dad, I presumed – but the weird thing was, I recognized him. At first I couldn’t figure out how I knew him. It was only when Derek saw his picture that he reminded me he was Gavin Montgomery, our state senator.
Duh! An election was coming up in a few months. His billboards were posted all over the place; his political ads ran constantly on TV. And then a thought had crashed into me: if I looked like Kendall and this Gavin guy was her dad, maybe he was my dad too.
Then I totally started tripping. Maybe my dad wasn’t dead. Maybe he was happily living in Seattle with his other family.
So I’d decided to talk to Kendall and see if I could find out anything else.
‘Ugh, I have to get an hour of swim practice in and then study for a math test. I can’t even.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘Plus I promised Mom I’d fill out some applications for volunteering tonight.’
‘What?’ she exclaimed. ‘Volunteering’s such a waste of time!’
‘Mom says it’ll help me get into college or whatever.’ I defended her half-heartedly, but made a face. ‘Anyway, if it makes my mom happy –’
‘–it’ll keep her off your back.’
I laughed. ‘Exactly.’
It was a weird thing we’d started doing lately. Madison would make fun of some stupid rule my mom had, and I’d say at least it kept her off my back.
Madison and my mom had never really gotten along. It wasn’t like they fought, exactly. My mom was way too nice for that. She was a worrier, overprotective, but she wasn’t a hater. But Madison was always throwing shade.
I shut my locker and gave Tyler a quick peck on the cheek. ‘See you tomorrow.’
Outside the sun was splitting the sky, cheerful puffs of cotton clouds wafting overhead. The air had that sharp, grassy smell to it, like somebody had just mowed the lawn. I walked around the side of the school, cut across the track and into a residential neighborhood, then ducked into Derek’s car.
His black leather biker jacket creaked as he turned toward me.
‘Hey,’ he said, a molasses-slow smile creeping over his face.
I was being a stupid girl. Of course my insides weren’t melting. Okay, my heart sped up a little, but that didn’t have to mean anything. I loved my boyfriend. I did. Derek was just a friend.
Anyway, it wasn’t like I could tell Madison we were friends. She’d told me some crazy shit. Like, that he’d threatened a guy in New York with a knife. She’d majorly freak if she found out I was hanging with him.
‘Hey yourself,’ I replied, grinning at him like an idiot.
‘Where to?’
‘I thought we could find the Starbucks in Mercer Island. If her friends are anything like mine, that’s where they’ll go after school.’
‘Good thinking.’ Derek nodded like he was impressed. ‘Here, do you want to drive?’
‘What?’
‘Drive.’ He waved at the car. ‘Do you want to?’
‘Uh, no. I don’t know how,’ I admitted. I was the only one in my class who didn’t have a license. Considering I’d be seventeen next month, it was totally mortifying. ‘You think my mom would let me do something as normal as drive? She made me wear a helmet in T-ball. I’m surprised she doesn’t make me take a snorkel to swim meets.’
He snorted a laugh. ‘D’you wanna learn? I can teach you.’
I hesitated. I did want to, but I also wanted to talk to Kendall Montgomery.
Derek made the decision for me. ‘Drive it is.’ He got out, walked around to my side of the car, and opened the door.
‘What about Kendall?’ I asked.
‘We’ll talk to her another time.’
‘Okay,’ I agreed uncertainly. ‘But don’t let me forget to text my mom at four. Otherwise she’ll freak.’
‘Why?’
‘She just worries.’ I couldn’t help the note of defensiveness that crept into my voice.
He didn’t say anything, which I liked. It was pretty annoying when Madison and Tyler made fun of me for still having to call or text my mom.
I got into the driver’s seat and clicked my seat belt on.
‘Let’s do this!’ Derek said, trying to pump me up. ‘Ready?’
I inhaled, already aware that he could probably get me to do just about anything. ‘Ready.’
I put my hand on the stick shift, and he put his hand over mine. It was warm and rough.
‘A bit of enthusiasm, please,’ he joked.
‘Woo-hoo!’ I shouted.
Derek threw his head back and laughed. The afternoon sunlight spilled like melted butter across his face, lighting his dark-blue eyes. They penetrated deep inside of me, promising something different than the safe, sheltered life I’d lived so far.
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Christina McDonald
They said it was an accident. Her mother knows they’re lying. But the truth comes with a price…A fast-paced and action packed psychological thriller that is full of twists and turns you won’t see coming. The Night Olivia Fell is the most gripping suspense mystery you’ll read this year.IT’S EVERY PARENT’S WORST NIGHTMARE.Abi Knight is startled awake in the middle of the night to a ringing phone and devastating news – her teenage daughter, Olivia, has been in a terrible accident.Abi is told that Olivia slipped and fell from a bridge into the icy water below, and now she lies silent, dependent on life support.But then Abi sees the angry bruises around Olivia’s wrists and learns that her sensible daughter is in fact three months pregnant . . .WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT IF THEY TOLD YOU IT WAS AN ACCIDENT?
CHRISTINA McDONALD worked as a freelance journalist for several newspapers in Ireland and Seattle, including The Sunday Times, Dublin, The Connacht Tribune, Galway, The Galway Independent, The Seattle Post Intelligencer, and Colures Magazine. She later moved to London and started a digital copywriting company where she worked as a consultant and writer for brands such as British Telecom (BT), Travelex, Wood Mackenzie, Pearson Publishing, TUI Travel, Expedia and USAToday.com (http://www.USAToday.com). She now lives in London with her husband, two sons and their Golden Retriever. The Night Olivia Fell is her debut novel.
Copyright (#ulink_6a06f062-c501-5f7c-a1ef-2a7bc81c4b8c)
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019
Copyright © Christina McDonald 2019
Christina McDonald asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © February 2019 ISBN: 9780008307677
For Richard, always and forever
Also for every single parent out there doing the most difficult jobalone; but especially for my mom, the strongest and most inspiringsingle mother I know. Thank you.
Contents
Cover (#uefd17717-dd8c-5b6d-9f45-230571124d7e)
About the Author (#u762e7d1d-13c5-54c9-a644-6158de7b9c09)
Title Page (#u3ca0ab00-089b-5d91-a2c0-e9212d2dbed9)
Copyright (#ulink_c78f8bb0-5516-5767-bf7d-0edb63ddc48a)
Dedication (#u99cf5412-e87b-54d8-b85a-4692ae534a84)
PROLOGUE (#ulink_63664755-99e8-54e6-afc5-cace8ffdbf07)
1. ABI (#ulink_ab9e8ec5-48ac-5cf1-a615-17897838c015)
2. OLIVIA (#ulink_37074426-d526-54db-a4ba-c7ad15f187b3)
3. ABI (#ulink_a7636b1f-2713-54d9-bd41-0abba97f3959)
4. OLIVIA (#ulink_015e5619-a895-53a3-8b5d-e8c9427b0e21)
5. ABI (#ulink_ce645fc0-d58f-52d9-a4c2-a6ead5d66db3)
6. ABI (#ulink_49a5fa4f-b086-549f-bf45-86299862c2e9)
7. OLIVIA (#ulink_5d1ff35b-dc37-557b-9fc5-b16ee59585e7)
8. ABI (#ulink_a3a37c12-d753-5cb1-9752-badc02bed66f)
9. ABI (#ulink_ff864225-8058-5200-9069-44ad9c2cd150)
10. ABI (#ulink_630b7472-40ee-5171-8641-5c5c02ed5a22)
11. OLIVIA (#ulink_35e8ec75-5812-5468-b2f9-321cffb174e8)
12. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
13. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
14. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
15. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
16. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
17. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
18. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
19. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
20. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
21. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
22. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
23. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
24. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
25. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
26. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
27. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
28. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
29. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
30. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
31. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
32. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
33. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
34. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
35. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
36. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
37. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
38. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
39. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
40. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
41. OLIVIA (#litres_trial_promo)
42. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
43. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
44. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
45. ABI (#litres_trial_promo)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (#litres_trial_promo)
READERS GROUP GUIDE (#litres_trial_promo)
Introduction (#litres_trial_promo)
Topics and Questions for Discussion (#litres_trial_promo)
A Conversation with Christina McDonald (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE (#ulink_ac059fcc-9b79-569d-b983-fcf1323eb8e8)
‘You want the truth? I’m –’ My admission was cut off by a streak of blazing hot pain as something exploded against the side of my head. My brain barely registered the blow, my vision a dusky blur of red, pain searing into my skull and down my jaw. I felt my body spin with the force of it.
I reeled backward until my legs whacked against the low cement wall and I tumbled over, my body hurtling sideways across the ledge. A dark fog pressed against my outer vision, and before I knew it I was falling, plunging into empty space.
I hit the river on my back, my eyes fastened on the bridge’s soaring spires illuminated by a flickering streetlamp.
Then the shadowy water tipped me under.
1 (#ulink_12ab870e-4d97-57c3-be8b-ffdb09040298)
ABI
october
I woke abruptly, dreams tumbling from me in cottony wisps. I couldn’t remember falling asleep, but the lamp on my bedside table had been switched off, the only light a full, glowing moon outside my window.
The phone was ringing.
‘Olivia?’ I murmured, hoping she’d get it so I wouldn’t have to. My daughter was one of those people who could wake up and fall asleep as if flipping a switch.
I rolled over and peered at my alarm clock. The red lights blinked 4:48 a.m. Nobody called at this time of night with good news.
I bolted upright and grabbed the phone, the feather duvet sliding from my body, leaving my bed-warmed arms cold and exposed.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello, is this Abigail Knight?’ The voice – a man’s – was low and tight, coiled like a viper about to strike.
‘Yes.’
‘This is Portage Point Hospital. It’s about your daughter, Olivia. I’m afraid there’s been an accident.’
× × ×
I ran down the hall to Olivia’s room, cold wings of fear fluttering in my stomach.
Her door was shut and I threw it open thinking, irrationally, that she’d sit up in bed blinking her eyes at me sleepily. I imagined, hoped, that she’d be angry at me for invading her teenage space. She’d throw a pillow at me, and I’d laugh weakly, clutching my chest with one hand as my heart rate returned to normal.
‘I had a terrible dream,’ I’d say.
‘I’m fine, Mom,’ she’d reply, looking at me with all the scorn a seventeen-year-old could muster. ‘You worry too much.’
But her room was silent and empty, her bed a jumble of blankets. Dirty clothes spilled from the laundry basket in her half-open closet. Sheaves of paper were scattered in a disorganized jumble on her dresser.
I lurched out of the room, down the stairs, and into my car.
Last night, at the Stokeses’ barbecue, she’d been fine.
But, no. I shook my head, really remembering. No, she wasn’t fine. She hadn’t been fine for a while.
Maybe it was just the typical moodiness of a teenager, but this felt different. Olivia was usually sunny and sweet. She was an easy teenager. The girl who never partied, got straight As, helped all her friends with their homework.
Lately she seemed distracted and temperamental, irritable whenever I asked what was wrong. And then there were the questions about her father.
She wants the truth.
The thought came fast, an ugly surprise. I set my teeth against it. I’d worried for so long that all the lies I kept hidden on the dark side of my heart would one day be washed into the open. These lies, my past, kept me always on guard.
× × ×
October drizzle coated the car, and a handful of brown leaves covered the windshield. The acidic feeling in my stomach clawed its way up toward my throat as I wrenched the car door open and threw myself inside. For once my old beater car started without any hesitation, as if it too knew we had to hurry.
I tore out of the driveway, my tires spinning in the gravel. I flicked the wipers on, but a single dead leaf was caught, wiping a jagged, wet arc across the windshield, back and forth, back and forth.
I thought of the last time I’d gone to the hospital with Olivia – she’d broken her arm falling out of the ancient willow tree in the backyard when she was ten. My guilt had been overwhelming. I’d failed at the most important job I would ever have: keeping her safe.
I gripped the leather steering wheel hard, securing myself to the present while the past threatened to overtake me. My car squealed as I whipped around a corner too sharply. I was being reckless, I needed to slow down, but Olivia . . .
I couldn’t even finish the thought. My daughter was my center of gravity, the only thing tying me to this earth. Without her, I’d surely float into space, a kite with its string severed by glass.
I pressed my foot hard against the accelerator as my knees began to shake. The decaying leaf was still stuck to the wiper but it had been ripped in half now, leaving the shape of a broken heart behind.
I braked sharply as I rounded the last corner and skidded into the hospital parking lot. It was nearly empty, one ambulance parked at the front, a handful of cars scattered across the lot. Streetlamps glinted against the wet pavement. I slammed on my brakes in a spot near the entrance just as the last half of the leaf in my windscreen was mercilessly ripped away.
× × ×
I staggered into the hospital, cracking my elbow hard on the sliding door. Pain seethed toward my fingertips but didn’t slow me down. I needed to find Olivia.
Please, please be okay.
A doctor appeared suddenly from a set of swinging doors. His steps were brisk, the swift, resolute walk of a man who knew what he was doing. Behind wire-rimmed glasses, his eyes were bloodshot when they landed on me.
‘Abigail Knight?’ I could just make out the clipped voice I’d heard on the phone. He had thinning white hair and a close-shaven face. Around his neck hung a stethoscope. His white coat had a rust-colored smear across the front.
He stepped closer and held one hand out to me. His eyebrows, thick as caterpillars, were pinched together.
‘Where’s Olivia?’ I gasped, feeling like I would hyperventilate. People were staring, but I didn’t care. ‘Where’s my daughter?’
I tried to sidestep him, but he moved his body to block me.
‘I’m Dr Griffith.’ He took a step closer. I could see the flecks of gold in his brown eyes. ‘Will you come with me?’
‘Why?’ My voice sounded too high, the words crushed on my tongue. ‘Where’s Olivia?’
‘I’m going to take you to her, but first we need to talk. Perhaps somewhere a bit more private.’ The doctor’s tone conveyed the gravity of what he had to say. The weight of it kept the frantic questions in my throat from vomiting out.
I looked around at the busy waiting room. A handful of people openly stared at us, while the rest fiddled with cell phones or pretended to read newspapers.
I nodded, a small jerk of my chin.
Dr Griffith led me through the swinging doors and down a brightly lit corridor to a private meeting room. The room smelled of floral potpourri and was decorated in pale pastels. The floor was shiny, the color of cinnamon, the walls a washed-out cream.
‘Please. Sit.’ Dr Griffith motioned toward a cushioned taupe chair. I sat stiffly on the edge.
He crossed to a water cooler in the corner of the room. A hulking tower of plastic cups, white, like vertebrae, leaned on a low black table next to it. He swiped one and filled it with water. The cooler gurgled and belched as air drifted to the top.
He thrust the cup toward me, but I just stared at it. I couldn’t seem to get my hand to take it. Eventually he set it on the table.
Dr Griffith dragged a plastic chair from the wall and placed it across from me. The scraping of its feet against the floor set my teeth on edge. He sat, planted both feet on the ground, pressed his elbows against his knees, and steepled his fingers, as if in prayer.
‘There’s been an accident –’ he said, repeating his earlier words.
‘Is Olivia okay?’ I interrupted.
But the way he was looking at me. With pity. I knew.
An intense desire to run hit me. My shins still burned from my run yesterday morning, my thigh muscles ached, but I felt the pang hit my body hard.
I jumped up, looking around wildly. The doctor stood, eyeing me as if I were a wild animal. But the urge to know kept me rooted to my spot.
‘Tell me. . .’ I rasped.
‘Your daughter . . .’ Dr Griffith touched my forearm. His hand was heavy, cool against my clammy skin.
He said something about an accident.
Somebody finding Olivia at the bottom of an embankment near the ZigZag Bridge.
Something about a grand mal seizure, corneal reflexes, and a Glasgow score of four.
He said something about a head wound, about fixed and dilated pupils and a CAT scan.
That they’d taken her in for surgery as soon as she’d arrived.
I couldn’t make sense of any of it.
I collapsed on the chair, bending forward until my head was between my knees, as if preparing for a crash landing. I could hear my heart throbbing in my chest, the blood roaring in my ears, the harsh hiss of my breath as it rushed in and out of me in sharp, hollow gasps. My elbow throbbed painfully where I’d banged it.
‘No . . . no . . .’ I pleaded over and over, clenching and unclenching my sweat-soaked hands.
The doctor sat next to me, his voice breaking through the heavy, viscous bubble surrounding me.
‘–sustained severe head trauma. I’m really sorry, Mrs Knight, but your daughter has suffered permanent and irreversible brain damage.’
My mind reeled, trying to assimilate these facts into something that made sense. Shards of his words assaulted me through a roar of panic.
‘Is there someone we can call . . . ?’
Who was there? My mom was dead. I never knew my dad. There was no husband, no boyfriend. I was too busy being a mother to date, too busy to have friends. There was only . . .
‘My sister.’ My voice sounded very far away, as if it came from down the hall rather than my own mouth.
I wrote Sarah’s number on a scrap of paper. He took it and opened the door, handed it to somebody, then sat back down across from me.
‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Knight, we did everything we could to save her, but Olivia won’t wake up. Right now she’s attached to life support that’s keeping her body alive.’ He licked his lips, on the verge of saying something else. ‘But she . . .’
‘She’s an organ donor,’ I whispered numbly.
It was what they wanted, wasn’t it? The day she got her driver’s license Olivia had signed up to save another’s life. ‘You know,’ she’d said, shrugging with the confidence the young have that they’re impervious to death. ‘If it ever came to that.’ My kind, gentle girl.
‘No, that’s not – What I mean to say is, we can’t legally turn Olivia’s life support off in her condition.’
I didn’t understand. It was as if he had suddenly started speaking Urdu. A throb began pulsing under my eyes.
He cleared his throat, his eyes scurrying momentarily away from mine. ‘We can’t turn life support off from a pregnant woman. Not in Washington State.’
‘Wh –?’ I breathed. My body went limp, boneless, my head spinning.
‘Olivia was – is – Olivia’s pregnant.’
2 (#ulink_09e8800a-2093-522c-8d76-7aa74ffd6e20)
OLIVIA
april, 6 months earlier
The yellow school bus swayed slowly past the glimmering sea that fringed Portage Point and headed toward Seattle: our day-trip destination.
‘Ughh, the bus is so bo-o-oring.’ My best friend, Madison, flopped back in her seat next to me. She took a compact from her purse and started sweeping powder across her already-matte nose.
We were heading to the University of Washington for the start of our two-day college tour. I didn’t know why she was complaining. Being away from school was like a vacation.
Madison tossed her long dark hair and peeked over her shoulder. I knew she was looking at Peter and barely resisted rolling my eyes. Madison could be totally ADD when it came to guys.
I slid the cool metal of my charm bracelet through my fingers. ‘At least we’re out of school,’ I said.
‘Too bad we can’t do something fun.’ She applied a shiny layer of cotton-candy-pink gloss to her lips and smacked them loudly. ‘Filling out college applications is totally lame.’
I bit my cheeks so I wouldn’t say anything. Madison’s parents were rich. She didn’t really feel the same pressure I did about college.
My mom, on the other hand, scrimped and saved every penny so I could go to college after I graduated next year. Four years of tuition was totally going to break her. I kept offering to get a part-time job, but she’d just say my job was to study hard and do well in school.
I stared past Madison out the bus window and chewed a lock of hair. Sunlight slid through the window, interrupted every so often by the shade of passing trees.
‘Did you see Zitty Zara’s new zit this morning?’ Madison stage-whispered. ‘I think there’s a science experiment happening on her forehead.’
‘Don’t be mean!’ I smacked her softly, trying not to laugh. Zara did have gross skin, but I felt bad for her.
‘Don’t they have Accutane now?’ Madison continued. ‘Why doesn’t she take it?’
She’d dropped all pretense of whispering, so I shot her a warning look. Zara was only a few rows in front of us. I didn’t want her hearing.
But Madison ignored me. She could be mean. Like, hurtfully mean. Once in fourth grade we got in a fight, and Madison got all the girls in our class to stop talking to me. Girls who’d been my friends just ‘forgot’ to save me a seat on the bus or invite me to their sleepovers. I’d never forgotten that feeling of not belonging, like wearing someone else’s shoes and feeling the pain all over. Since then I’d made sure never, ever to get on Madison’s bad side.
‘What’s in a zit anyway?’ she asked.
I snickered. ‘It’s pus, you idiot.’
‘Eww. God, even the word is gross. Puh, puh, puh-sss.’ She leaned hard on the p sound. I laughed out loud. ‘Puh-ss,’ she enunciated. ‘It’s like an ejection from your mouth. A voiding of puh-ss from a puh-stule.’
‘Oh God! Gross!’ I gasped, breathless from concealing my laughter.
A few rows ahead, Zara turned around. We both ducked below the seat in front of us, laughing hysterically.
My phone beeped, and I pulled it from my backpack. It was my mom.
Knock knock
Who’s there? I texted back.
Mom: Olive
Me: Olive who?
Mom: Olive ya Olivia!
I laughed and sent her a row of x’s and o’s just as Tyler’s head popped up over the back of our seat.
‘Hey, babe.’ His amber-flecked hazel eyes crinkled in a smile.
My boyfriend was your typical high school athlete. He was captain of the football team, had lettered in every sport he did, and was working toward a football scholarship to UW. He was way popular, and he knew it. Like, in a confident way, not in a dickhead way.
He leaned down and licked my earlobe, trying to be seductive. I giggled and lurched away from him. He frowned, looking slightly put out.
‘God, you guys! Get a room!’ Madison huffed loudly.
Heat spread up my neck and into my cheeks. Madison could be such a bitch sometimes. Mom told me I should stand up to her. Tyler said I always saw the best in people.
The truth was, neither of them was right. I was just scared of not being liked.
Just then Tyler’s friend Peter leaned over the seat next to Tyler. ‘Jesus, you’re the color of a tomato, Liv!’ he hooted.
He reached out to touch my flaming cheek, but Tyler smacked his hand away, eyes blazing. ‘Don’t touch her, man.’
My cheeks burned even hotter, but Peter just laughed.
‘You’re such a lunatic.’ Madison rolled her eyes flirtatiously.
Tyler’s eyes tightened and his jaw clenched. ‘Shut up, Madison. You’re just salty ’cause you can’t get a boyfriend.’
I forced a loud laugh. ‘At least my face isn’t as red as your hair, Peter,’ I joked, trying to defuse the situation.
‘Whatever, asshole.’ Madison twisted in her seat so she could scowl out the bus’s window. She popped the earbuds to her iPhone in her ears and turned the volume up until I could hear the tinny beat of pop music.
‘Ignore her.’ Tyler tugged me from my seat and sat in my place, pulling me onto his lap and nuzzling my cheek. Tyler and Madison had never really gotten along. She thought he was way too needy.
With his wavy blond hair and hazel eyes, Tyler was the hottest guy in school. I’d worked hard for my seat at the popular table, but that seat had only been firmly cemented when Tyler and I started dating. And it felt nice being his girlfriend. But it was still mortifying when he tried to make out with me in front of everybody.
‘I’ve been thinking about yesterday,’ Tyler whispered in my ear.
I blushed again, blood pulsing in my ears. I looked around, hoping nobody could hear him.
Yesterday we’d had a heavy make-out session in my room before my mom got home from work. He got a little too excited, and I’d felt so pressured I burst into tears. He could be like that sometimes: too insistent and intense. But weren’t all boys?
He leaned away from me and cracked his neck. I shuddered, grossed out by the sound of his bones popping.
‘I’m sorry about . . . you know,’ he said. ‘It’s just, I love you. I think we’ve been together long enough to show it that way.’
‘Soon, okay? I’m just not ready yet.’
‘I was thinking. . .’ He leaned closer and kissed my cheek wetly. ‘Maybe one of these weekends we could make it extra special? Go somewhere, just us? You could tell your mom you’re spending the night at Madison’s.’
I wanted to laugh at how ridiculous he sounded. What would we do, rent a hotel room for the night? Besides, I didn’t want to have sex yet. I wasn’t going to be one of those stupid knocked-up teenagers – like my mom was.
But I didn’t say that. Instead I smiled and said: ‘Sure, yeah, maybe.’ I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, and if it would make him happy, I’d let him think we could go away for a night.
The bus lurched to a stop, and I realized we’d arrived at the University of Washington.
‘We’re here!’ somebody shouted from the front of the bus.
Madison pulled her earbuds out and pointed out the window. ‘There’s everybody else!’
I followed her gaze. A group of about forty teenagers was gathered at the end of the parking lot. Half of them were wearing casual clothes, but the other half were dressed in matching uniforms: the girls in green tartan skirts with green blazers and knee-high stockings, the boys in gray pants and green ties.
‘Preppy dicks!’ Peter shouted. A slice of sunlight shone on his red hair and lit the smattering of freckles across his face. He was watching Madison, waiting for a reaction. For his sake, I hoped he stayed away from her. She would eat him alive, and Peter was actually a pretty nice guy. Tyler called her a thot behind her back. If she weren’t my best friend, I’d probably agree. She’d go out with a different guy every weekend, then dump him the next day.
‘Fuckheads!’ Tyler’s friend Dan shouted.
Bold and bullish, Dan was a fat little tryhard, but his overconfidence and arrogance meant nobody stood up to him. Tyler thought Dan was hilarious. I thought he was a jerk.
‘Watch your mouth, guys!’ Mr Parks, our PE teacher who was running this little field trip, yelled from the front of the bus. ‘Come on, off the bus.’
We stepped out into the glorious spring sunshine. It was one of those pristine Seattle days when the rain has finally stopped, leaving behind a scrubbed blue sky. The air had just a hint of warmth in it, a promise that more days like this would soon follow.
Cherry trees coated in frothy pink and white blossoms peeked from between towering evergreens. In the distance I could see the start of Greek Row, a collection of Tudor, Gothic, and Georgian fraternity and sorority houses.
‘Over here, guys!’ Mr Parks waved his arms to us, his beefy biceps rippling under his white polo shirt. We shuffled over, and Mr Parks made introductions: Portage Point High, Ballard High, and Seattle Catholic Academy, the Catholic kids in the uniforms.
Somehow we’d faced off so we were separated into three groups, but once we’d been introduced, everybody started talking to each other.
Tyler had an arm draped around my shoulder, tucking me tightly against his body. Madison was just to the right of me. I felt comfortable, safe, secure in my world.
And then I saw her.
Just steps from me was a girl wearing the green school uniform of Seattle Catholic Academy. She had long, pale blonde hair, sharp Slavic cheekbones, a pointed nose, and a slightly off-center dimple in her chin.
As she swung her eyes toward me, I felt my world slipping toward the edge of a cliff I didn’t even know existed.
She looked like she could be my sister.
The girl’s eyes widened when she saw me, emphasizing the unusual shade of forest green: just like mine.
In that instant, as I looked at the face I’d known my entire life, I felt myself tumble over that cliff. I didn’t know how far I would fall or how hard I would crash, only that nothing would ever be the same.
3 (#ulink_47033620-d6eb-5ddb-9489-a034567b4179)
ABI
october
‘Do you understand what I’m saying, Mrs Knight?’
I blinked at Dr Griffith, not sure I’d heard him right.
‘Your daughter is pregnant.’ He spoke slowly, as if I were a child unable to grasp his words. ‘Olivia’s suffered irreversible brain damage and she won’t wake up, but Washington State law prohibits us from turning off life support. We have to give the fetus the best chance at surviving. Do you understand?’
I nodded and shook my head at the same time. I did understand, but it made no sense, as if he’d grabbed random words from a dictionary and pasted them into a sentence.
‘Wha –?’
A knock at the door interrupted me, and a pink-scrub-clad nurse with the sad, droopy face and flabby jowls of a Saint Bernard entered.
‘Mrs Knight, your sister –’
Sarah burst past the nurse, elbowing her way into the room. Her blue eyes were laced with red, the translucent skin of her lids as raw and puffy as mine. She grabbed my hand, and I stared at her fingers. Her nails were smooth and perfectly oval, shining red, the color of fresh blood. Even now in the middle of the night, her long, perfectly highlighted hair swung and shone under the anemic hospital lights.
She pulled me in for a hug so hard it hurt my ribs. I stiffened and she dropped her arms, a shadow of hurt crossing her face. It had always been there, this slight distance between us. My fault, admittedly, but I no longer knew how to stop it.
‘Where’s Olivia? Is she okay? What happened? Why was she out in the middle of the night?’
The questions were rapid as a machine gun, asked in Sarah’s most demanding mom voice. The one she’d been practicing since I was ten and she was twenty, when our mother left me on Sarah’s front step with nothing but a backpack of dirty clothes. She’d gone home and killed herself that very day, leaving Sarah to raise me.
I shook my head, tears rising in my throat.
‘She . . . she . . .’
I didn’t know why Olivia was out in the middle of the night.
After my bath, I’d had some wine and then gone to bed with a book. I was asleep while my daughter was out doing . . . what?
The dark fog of anxiety swirled violently around me.
Panic: my old friend.
‘Mrs Knight?’ I heard from somewhere far away.
My vision blurred and a high-pitched whining droned in my ears. I couldn’t hold it away anymore. I crashed to the ground.
‘Abi!’ People rushed around me, hands lifted me up, pushed me into a chair.
I was sweating heavily. The air was like molasses, weighted like water.
Somebody pressed a paper bag into my hands, and I heard Sarah’s soothing voice speaking to me from a great distance.
‘Breathe. There you go. In, then out. In, then out.’
I used to have panic attacks all the time as a kid. But I’d learned to control my emotions, stamping them out like the flames of a fire. Sarah always said I should talk about my feelings, get them out there, but I knew it was better to push them away, pretend everything was okay. It was better not to feel anything.
Somehow, without me even wanting to, my breathing evened, my heart rate slowed. And then my hearing came back. Dr Griffith and Sarah were talking.
‘What happened?’ Sarah asked.
Sarah was good at being composed in tough situations. She never seemed desperate or panicky. I felt a stab of anger that she could manage this. I couldn’t even ask the right questions.
‘A retired paramedic found Olivia on the banks of the ZigZag River, next to the bridge. We don’t know if she fell from the bridge or – well, the police will investigate,’ Dr Griffith replied. He was crouched in front of me, holding one of my hands tightly in his. His skin felt dry and cool against my sweaty palm.
Sarah shifted in her seat next to me, her hand holding the paper bag to my mouth. ‘People come out of comas all the time –’ she began.
‘Olivia isn’t in a coma,’ he interrupted gently. ‘Comas are usu ally from a localized injury. Olivia’s suffered a massive bleed, which has damaged almost every part of her brain. I’m so sorry, I know this is hard to understand and even harder to accept, but Olivia isn’t going to wake up.’
Grief hurtled toward me, crashing into me and beating inside my chest like a giant, furious animal.
‘And she’s pregnant?’ I whispered.
‘Yes,’ Dr Griffith replied.
I looked at Sarah. Her jaw worked, as if she were chewing leather.
‘How far along?’ I asked.
‘We’ll do an ultrasound to find out for sure, but the HCG hormone indicates about thirteen or fourteen weeks.’
I thought back to what we were doing three months ago. It would’ve been July. Olivia was out of school. She was studying for her driver’s test, taking practice SAT tests, swimming, hanging out with her friends.
We hadn’t done anything special. Money was always tight, and I was saving for the tuition I knew I’d have to pay when Olivia went to college. I couldn’t put my finger on when something might’ve changed, when she would’ve gotten pregnant. She must not have known. She would’ve told me if she’d known.
‘Surely the baby’s been exposed to radiation, chemicals . . . ?’ Sarah trailed off.
Dr Griffith winced. ‘Yes. Possibly. Probably. We do a standard pregnancy test when female patients are admitted, but it was delayed by the surgery.’
A dusty vent blew stale air into the room, the noise an obnoxious whine. Sarah and Dr Griffith had lapsed into silence.
‘I want to see her. Right now.’ My voice was hollow and flat.
‘Of course,’ Dr Griffith said immediately.
Sarah helped me to my feet, and we followed the doctor down the corridor, toward the ICU.
Despite the harsh reality of the stark white hallway, a part of me still clung to the faint hope that Olivia wasn’t here – that this was all some horrible mistake, some silly clerical error. Not my daughter.
Dr Griffith walked briskly to the end of the hallway and turned left, then waved a security badge at a locked door. Inside the ICU Jen Stokes, Olivia’s best friend’s mother, hovered over a bed that was surrounded by beeping, clunking machines. A stethoscope dangled from her neck.
‘Dr Stokes,’ Dr Griffith greeted her.
‘Jen?’ I stared at my neighbor. Just a few hours ago, I’d been at a barbecue at her house, and now we were standing in the ICU. She was wearing faded jeans and an old Seahawks jersey under a lab coat. Her eyes were red, her dark curls a messy halo around a pale face. Her hands were clasped into tight fists and pressed into her belly.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.
‘I called her,’ Sarah explained; then I remembered that Jen was the senior doctor in the emergency room here.
‘Abi, I’m so sorry.’ Her mouth worked as if she wanted to say more, but nothing else came. She broke eye contact and looked down.
I followed her gaze, but it took me a moment to realize that the person she was staring at was Olivia. My daughter was as white as the sheet she lay on. Her body was too still, as if all her dynamic energy had been trapped beneath the sheet draped over her.
A tangle of IV bags and pumps surrounded the hospital bed. So many tubes and lines I couldn’t count them: down her throat, breathing for her, up her nose, keeping her stomach empty, flowering from her chest, recording her heartbeat. The ventilator next to the bed made rhythmic blip, shhhh noises.
Her head was swathed in white bandages, stark against her face. She had a deep cut above her right eyebrow, a sickening black and purple bruise blooming across her left temple, and a spray of scratches across her nose and cheekbones.
I stared at my daughter, and the agony I felt wasn’t just emotional but physical. A sharp pain wrenched in my chest so it seemed my heart must’ve stopped, but I could feel it, I could hear it; it betrayed me by continuing to beat when it should have frozen in my chest. The pain and impotence were white lightning searing through me.
My gaze drifted to Olivia’s abdomen, still flat and smooth, no hint of the baby tucked within.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I registered Jen leaving the room. The emotions piled up, threatening to crack me open, splintering me into a billion little pieces. I reached for Olivia’s hand, wanting – no, needing – to be connected to her.
Her wrist lay limply in my hand, but something was missing. The silver charm bracelet Olivia always wore was gone.
In its place was a string of black and purple bruises.
4 (#ulink_985a3d07-9dca-509b-a16d-6229af81740a)
OLIVIA
april
‘That girl. Jesus. That was creepy,’ Tyler said the Monday after our field trip to the University of Washington. We were eating lunch at our usual table in the cafeteria, the one next to the neatly stacked towers of orange chairs used for pep assemblies.
‘I know, right!’ Peter said. His carrot-red head bobbed in agreement. ‘What was that about? Do you have a sister we don’t know about, Liv?’
I shook my head emphatically. ‘No way.’
Next to me, Tyler shoved a handful of fries into his mouth. ‘She was totally your doppelgänger,’ he said. ‘My dad says everybody has one somewhere.’
‘I guess.’ I set my peanut butter and jelly sandwich down, my appetite suddenly gone. I didn’t want to talk about this. Why wouldn’t they just shut up?
‘She had the same butt chin, too,’ Peter added. ‘She looked just like you.’
Tyler frowned at Peter. I ground my teeth together, waiting for Tyler to make some snappy clapback. Tyler always called my chin dimple a butt chin. Not in a mean way, just in a Tyler way. But I knew he wouldn’t like anybody else saying it.
But Tyler went back to his fries. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
Madison laughed and bit into a carrot stick. ‘Having a chin dimple doesn’t mean you’re related to somebody, you idiot.’
‘She’s not my sister, all right?’ I snapped. ‘I’ve never even met her before.’
Everybody went quiet. My heart pulsed in my neck and I looked down. I felt them all exchanging looks. I was the peacemaker. I never lashed out or got involved in arguments.
I picked at the edge of my sandwich until it was as bare as a stone. I hated the dry feel of crust in my mouth. When I was a kid my mom would cut the crusts off my sandwich, snip away the square edges, and cut a little bite-size hole in the middle so it looked like an O. I suddenly wished she were here to reassure me.
Madison abruptly changed the subject. ‘Sooooo, my brother’s coming home next week.’
My head snapped up and blood rushed to my cheeks. I let my hair swing in front of my face to hide it, chewing hard on a strand of hair.
Tyler snorted and dropped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me closer to him. ‘Can he score us some pot?’
‘Tyler!’ I shushed him.
‘Shut up, fuck-face.’ Madison’s dark eyes flashed. ‘It was only one time. He was just stupid enough to get caught.’
‘Wait. I thought he was in New York. Isn’t that where your parents sent him after he got caught dealing?’ Peter’s freckled face creased with confusion.
Madison scowled. ‘Once! And it was only pot.’
She was mortified that everybody knew Derek had been sent to a private East Coast school to ‘reform’ him. We all drank sometimes and a few of our friends smoked pot, but only stoners and losers actually dealt it.
Peter’s eyes darted between Madison and Tyler, sensing the tension.
‘Olivia,’ he said, changing the subject quickly. ‘You don’t have swimming practice tomorrow, right? Could you help me with some chemistry shit later? I’m on that homework grind, trying to catch up again.’
‘Sure.’ I darted a look at Tyler. His brows folded down. I could tell he wasn’t happy with me studying alone with Peter.
He could be a little possessive sometimes. It wasn’t like I’d ever cheated on him or anything. He was just like that: all macho on the outside but sort of insecure on the inside. I knew it was just because he loved me, though.
‘Thanks, dude.’ Peter grinned at me.
I scraped myself out of the hard metal chair. ‘I’m going outside for some fresh air. Wanna come, Mad?’
Madison unfolded her slender frame and stood, brushing off her black leggings and black sleeveless sweater. She tossed a hard glare at Tyler and Peter and huffed toward the door.
We stepped into the cool belly of April and headed for the quad, huddling on a bench near the fountain. We were the only students around, the air still too crisp to sit outside.
Clouds raced overhead as if they were on a conveyor belt; one minute it was sunny, the next threatening rain. Squinting at Madison, I tried to judge her mood.
I fiddled with the bracelet on my left wrist, pulling the cool metal through my fingers, back and forth.
‘Sorry about Derek,’ I offered.
‘’S okay. Sorry about that girl.’ She picked a hangnail. ‘I’m sure she isn’t, like, your sister or anything.’
I appreciated her saying it. No matter how moody Madison could be, I knew I could always count on her. It’s probably why we were still best friends all these years later.
We’d met in kindergarten and became friends when it turned out we both hated playing dress-up. I didn’t want anyone knowing my mom made me wear long underwear under my clothes all winter. Madison just wanted to play outside.
‘Do you think you’ll, you know, look her up?’ Madison asked.
I shrugged. I didn’t want to admit I’d talked to her in the bathroom at the University of Washington.
Up close she didn’t look quite as much like me as I’d thought. Even though her eyes were the exact same shade of green as mine, hers were slightly wider spaced. The dimple in her chin wasn’t as pronounced as mine, her cheekbones not as sharp, her nose a little smaller. Still, she made me uncomfortable.
She’d dried her hands, then leaned casually against the sink.
‘I’m Kendall Montgomery,’ she said. She flipped her long blonde hair over one shoulder in that way bitchy rich girls did.
‘I’m Olivia,’ I replied.
There was an awkward pause. ‘My dad’s dead,’ I blurted, afraid she was going to say something about how alike we looked. ‘Just in case you thought we might be related. And there’s no way we have the same mom.’
‘That’s too bad.’ She smirked. ‘My parents are assholes. It’d be awesome if I could replace them.’
I laughed, a rush of surprised air bursting out of me. At least I was always glad my mom was my mom. Her entire life was dedicated to me. Sometimes a bit too much.
‘Where do you live?’ she asked.
‘Portage Point. It’s this tiny town just south of –’
‘I know Portage Point. That’s where my mom’s from.’
There was a heavy silence as we both realized what she’d said.
‘Your mom?’ My palms suddenly felt hot and damp.
‘Well, not from. . .’ She hesitated. ‘That’s where she lived when she was in high school, I guess.’
I didn’t know what to say.
‘Anyway,’ Kendall said, heading for the door, ‘it was nice meeting you, Olivia.’
‘Yeah, you too. See you around.’
She’d waved, a little flick of her fingers, and left.
On the bench, I turned to Madison and shook my head. ‘Naww. I don’t think I’ll look her up. What would be the point? I already know she isn’t related to me.’
‘You don’t know know that,’ Madison countered.
I stared at her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, what if you have a long-lost dad out there and a whole other family? What if your mom had, like, some illicit affair or something?’
The idea was so ridiculous I laughed out loud. I couldn’t imagine my mom having some passionate affair. She was like a study in self control – she frowned but never yelled; she smiled but never laughed too loud; her makeup was always lightly done, her clothes neatly ironed.
Mom was as steady as a statue. There was none of that flighty, hyper-gossipy vibe that some of my friends’ moms had. She was the type of mom who was always there for me, ready with a tissue if I needed to cry or sitting in the stands cheering me on at swim meets.
‘Yeah, right!’ I snorted. ‘She wouldn’t know how to flirt, let alone have an affair. Plus, she’d be all worried she’d get an STD or something.’
Madison laughed too. ‘Okay, maybe that girl’s your dad’s daughter.’
‘My dad’s dead, Mad.’
‘I know, but maybe he had another family before he died? Or he was cheating on your mom? Or’– she widened her eyes dramatically –’maybe he isn’t dead.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘You really need to lay off the soap operas.’
‘Get woke, Olivia. You’re so naïve. Sometimes people lie, and you don’t even know why,’ Madison replied.
I flinched as the insult hit me. ‘I really don’t think my mom would lie to me about my dad.’
‘How do you know? Sometimes the truth hurts.’
‘So do lies,’ I said under my breath.
× × ×
That night, Mom came home with an armful of groceries and announced she was going to cook. I cringed. Martha Stewart she was not. Usually her cooking experiments ended in disaster.
Once she tried to bake these Cornish game hens with this gross, gloopy sauce, but she turned the oven on broil instead of bake. Within a half hour the whole house was filled with a smoke so thick you could almost chew it.
I wished we could just order pizza.
‘So, what’re we making?’ I put my game face on and started unpacking ingredients from the paper bags. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings or anything.
‘Spaghetti bolognese.’ She reached for the other bag and pulled out fresh basil, a bulb of garlic, an onion, one carrot.
I smiled. Mom hated carrots, but I loved them. She always got one and cooked it up to put on the side for me.
‘Okay, I’ve got a good one,’ she said, peeling the skin from an onion. ‘Knock knock.’
‘Who’s there?’
‘Puma.’
‘Puma who?’
‘Hurry up or I’ll puma pants.’
‘Eww, yuck, Mom!’ I laughed. ‘That’s totally gross!’
She chuckled. ‘Thought you’d enjoy that.’
‘So. What’s the occasion?’ I waved at the ingredients.
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She shrugged and laughed. ‘I’m off work early, and you’re going to be a senior in high school pretty soon, and I’m just so proud of my girl.’ She pulled me in for a hug and kissed me on the forehead.
My mom was a toucher. She patted my shoulders, stroked my hair, kissed my cheek, hugged me. She held my hand when we crossed the road until I was ten and started getting teased about it. Once I asked her why she always touched me and she said, ‘I guess it makes me feel more connected to you.’
Sometimes it felt weird hugging my mom, like I was too old for hugs, but it was nice, too.
‘How was your day?’ she asked as I minced garlic.
‘Good. I got an A on my history test, and we finished the layout for the yearbook.’
She’d stopped chopping onion and looked at me intently. She had this way about her where she really listened, even to the most trivial things.
Soon the scent of garlic and onion sizzling in butter mingled with the rich smell of hamburger. The diced carrot was boiling in a small pot on the stove. Mom popped the french stick in the oven to warm, and we piled our plates high with pasta and took them to the dining room table.
‘Mom.’ I dumped my carrots over my sauce and stirred them in, trying to seem casual. ‘Can I ask you some stuff about my dad?’
A noodle slid off the edge of Mom’s fork and landed with a soft plop on her plate. She stabbed at it and cleared her voice.
‘Sure, sweetie. What do you want to know?’
‘Well . . .’ My mind whirled.
Usually she didn’t want to talk. Not that I asked often. She’d always get this funny frozen half-smile on her face, like she was in pain. But since seeing that girl Kendall, I don’t know, I guess it got me thinking more about him.
‘How far along with me were you when he died?’
Mom took another bite of her pasta and screwed up her face into her thinky look – lips twisted to one side, eyebrows down, eyes up.
‘Only a few weeks. I never got the chance to tell him.’
‘Was he hot?’ I smiled slyly. ‘You know, when you first met him, did you get all fluttery inside?’
‘Very!’ She fanned her face with her hand and laughed. ‘He made my knees weak. All that blond hair and those brown eyes. I could just fall into them.’
I paused, my brain jamming on that one word. ‘Brown?’
‘Yeah.’
I stared at her hard. She’d told me before that his eyes were green, just like mine. I remembered the day, the very moment, she said it. I’d held that nugget of information in my heart since I was thirteen, proof that I was connected to the father I never met in some tangible way.
I waited for her to retract it, to assure me she wasn’t lying. But she didn’t.
I stared at her, scrambling to untangle the threads overloading my brain.
‘Did he have, like, another family?’ I asked finally.
Late-afternoon sunlight flooded in through the open curtains and beamed across the dining room table. The light fell on Mom’s face, landing in lines carved so deep she suddenly looked twenty years older.
Mom burst out laughing. ‘No, of course not! What on earth gave you that idea?’
I watched her carefully, looking for any cracks.
‘Well, like, maybe I have brothers or sisters out there I don’t know about.’
For a moment the prospect of her reply opened under me like a gaping hole. What she said now, I knew, could change everything.
Suddenly she jumped up, eyes wide. ‘Oh my goodness! The bread!’
She threw the oven open and a cloud of black, acrid smoke billowed out. I slipped the oven mitts on and grabbed the charred french stick, tossing it in the garbage while Mom threw open the sliding glass door and started fanning the air with a kitchen towel. Chilly spring air blew through the house, dissipating the smoke. But the bitter smell of something burning remained.
Mom pushed at a lock of blonde hair stuck to her forehead with sweat. ‘I’m sorry, sweetie. I guess we won’t be having bread with our pasta.’
‘It’s okay. It wouldn’t be a homemade dinner if we didn’t burn something,’ I joked.
She laughed sheepishly. ‘Why don’t you tell me about school? Not too long and you’ll be a senior. How does that feel?’
Her words tumbled out too fast, her voice edgy as a serrated knife.
‘Mom, you haven’t answered my question. Did my dad have other kids?’
A puff of clouds rolled over the sun, shifting the light and casting sporadic shadows over Mom’s face. I felt a quiver in the air, a vibration like electricity that weaved its way through the burnt toast smell.
Mom met my gaze, her blue eyes innocent. ‘Nope,’ she said. ‘Your dad died before he even knew about you and he most certainly didn’t have any other children.’
I stared at her smooth face, trying to get a handle on the emotions rolling through me: fear, panic, confusion, anger. Mostly anger, because something told me she was lying.
A dark horror slid into my heart. I’d always trusted my mom. Trusted everything she said, obeyed everything she told me to do. I’d never thought twice about questioning her.
But now I felt that trust disappearing like evaporating mist. If she could lie to me about something as fundamental as this, what else had she kept from me?
5 (#ulink_9f5c1b6b-8948-5bc3-b50c-8586197ee4bd)
ABI
october
As the hours bled into each other, I alternated between numbness and sorrow, each as intense and debilitating as the other.
‘I need to know what happened,’ I said to Sarah.
She was so still, barely moving since we’d settled in the family waiting room the doctors gave us. I couldn’t hold still, pacing the floor, counting the ceiling tiles, pouring water from one cup to another. I needed to move, to do something. My analytical brain needed to make sense of things, to question the facts and frame the story, to make the columns align, the numbers add up.
‘You should go home. Get some rest,’ she replied.
I glared at her. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ Olivia and I were linked by birth, by life. I wouldn’t leave her in death.
More time passed. ‘Why does she have bruises on her arms?’ I asked Sarah, slamming an empty cup to the ground. I sucked my lips over my teeth, trying to steady myself. ‘Do you think somebody hurt her?’
Sarah looked startled. ‘I don’t know. The police – they’ll investigate.’
Tears tumbled down my cheeks, sliding into the hollow of my neck. I could barely breathe, whimpers racking my body as I sank into a chair. Sarah came to me, slid her arms around my shoulders. We held each other like that for a long time, our bodies shaking.
‘I wanted to keep her safe!’ I sobbed.
‘This isn’t your fault, Abi,’ she replied, her voice raw with pain.
I pulled away and looked into her reddened eyes.
‘What if it is?’
× × ×
Night washed over Olivia’s room. The hospital lights turned on one by one, and still I didn’t move from my seat next to her bed, the intermittent bleeps and swooshes keeping Olivia connected to this world a bizarre lullaby to my pain. Despair swirled inside me, a relentless fog that made me incapable of anything: eating, drinking, moving.
I stared, lost, at the bruises circling Olivia’s wrists. They were ringed with blue and purple, as if someone had grabbed her, staining her beautiful skin with the color of anger.
I laid my forehead on the edge of her bed, grateful to be alone with her. All day the doctors had encouraged me to go home, get some rest. Sarah had brought me a ham sandwich, left untouched and eventually tipped into the garbage, and then relentless cups of coffee. But it just made me need to pee, and I didn’t want to leave Olivia. So I stopped drinking altogether.
My head pounded from tears and dehydration, but I couldn’t leave. Not yet. I felt like I was living inside a tear in the fabric of time, the real world outside on pause.
Two days had passed since my dash to Olivia’s broken body, time shuffling past with excruciating slowness. More doctors trundled in, more reports, another CT scan, an ultrasound showing a fetal heartbeat. Cautionary whispers that she might miscarry and more whispers that if her heart held up long enough, they could save the baby.
Save the baby? I wanted them to save my baby.
I slept in fits and spurts, my forehead pressed against Olivia’s stomach. Night inched by. Alarm bells rang intermittently, and I imagined the people being told their loved one hadn’t made it. I imagined what would happen when it was Olivia’s turn.
I awoke with a start when somebody shook my shoulder.
‘Mrs Knight?’ Dr Griffith held a cup of water out to me. ‘Why don’t you have a drink?’
‘It’s Miss,’ I corrected him. ‘I’m not married.’ My voice rasped, my throat barren of any moisture. But still I refused the water.
He slid a chair across the room and sat next to me, the cup clasped between both hands. ‘Miss Knight. You need to take care of yourself. You need to eat, drink, get some rest.’
‘Why does everyone keep saying that?’ I burst out. Pain ripped through me, undiminished by the passing hours, and I pressed my fingers hard into my temples.
‘You have a long road ahead of you.’ He glanced at Olivia. ‘All three of you.’
I stared at him for a long moment, tried to lick my cracked lips.
‘Olivia isn’t coming back,’ he said gently. ‘But there’s a chance your grandchild could survive.’ It hurt him to say this, I could tell by the tightening of his eyes, and it made me like him. Or at least respect him.
‘How long?’ I finally said.
‘How long what?’
‘How long does Olivia have to be on life support for the baby –’ I broke off, the words skewering my heart.
‘We’d aim to get her to thirty-two weeks’ gestation.’
I did the math quickly. Eighteen more weeks on life support.
‘Is it possible?’
Dr Griffith hesitated. ‘As far as I’m aware, it’s never happened before. But I think it’s possible.’
I tried to breathe, but a solid lump had formed in my chest, squeezing all the oxygen out. I clenched my eyes shut, then opened them.
‘Why haven’t the police come? Where are they?’
Dr Griffith looked surprised. He took his glasses off and polished them on his lab coat.
‘The hospital doesn’t report . . . accidents.’
‘Accidents? This wasn’t an accident!’ My voice pitched high, anger and pain surging through my body. ‘You’ve seen the bruises on her wrists!’
‘My apologies.’ Dr Griffith shook his head vigorously. ‘I just mean that the hospital isn’t legally required to report anything other than gunshot or stab wounds, and this is likely why you haven’t heard anything from them.’
I pressed my palm to my forehead, a tingle of panic buzzing in my fingertips. But this time I won, pushing the anxiety away. I would report it myself.
‘Olivia’s a good girl. What happened?’ I asked.
I heard myself using the present tense, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want her to slide into the past yet. She was still here.
His eyes were kind but calculating, the eyes of a lawyer rather than a doctor.
‘I don’t know. But I promise you this’ – he held the cup of water out to me – ‘you’ll need your strength to find out.’
I took the water and gulped down every drop.
× × ×
It started raining as soon as I left the hospital. It was almost night, black clouds edging over the horizon.
I turned onto my street, slowly rolling toward my Victorian-style three-bedroom. Mine was the smallest house on the street, perched at the end of a row of grander ones.
My neighbors were middle-class professionals, lawyers, doctors. Their wives stayed home and raised chubby-cheeked toddlers. They had playdates and did hot yoga and went for coffee dates. I, a single working mother, pregnant at eighteen, stuck out like a sore thumb.
I never would’ve been able to afford the house on my own. But everything I did was for Olivia, to give her a better chance in life: middle-class neighbors, a good school, low crime rate, and right by the beach. I wanted her to have all the things I’d never had. So I couldn’t regret any of it. Not now, not ever.
I imagined Olivia on our last morning together. I’d watched her swaying to silent music in the living room, her eyes closed, the earbuds of her iPhone pressed deep into her ears. A scarf I’d never seen before was draped around her neck. It was silk, scarlet, like a flame around her throat. She was wearing a baggy sweatshirt, loose-fitting sweats. Dark circles were smudged like half-moons beneath her eyes, her face pale as a tissue.
‘Are you feeling okay?’ I’d pressed the back of my hand to her forehead, concern washing over me. It was smooth and cool. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and drew her close for a hug.
‘I’m fine. Just studying.’ She pulled away sharply, her brow crinkling.
I caught the undercurrent of her words: Would you ever just stop asking? My mom used to tell me that I never let things go. Sarah said that too.
I almost started questioning Olivia. Everything was something to be worried about. She was sick, she had cancer, she was being bullied. My stomach gave a panicky spasm. I did that sometimes: worried and questioned and analyzed until I found a rational reason. I needed the whole picture to understand the details. The problem was that it never changed anything. Like when my mom died.
Get a grip, Abi, I said to myself. She’s just being a teenager.
I busied myself with my laptop bag, the cold slice of her rejection smarting.
‘I know it’s Saturday, but I have to go into work for a bit.’ I hated leaving her alone, but as a single mom sometimes I had no choice. ‘You know the rules. No riding in your friends’ cars. Don’t walk on the main road.’
I waited for her to point out that I never worked on the weekend. I wanted to tell someone about a new case I was working on at my CPA firm, Brown Thomas and Associates.
It was the first time I’d felt excited about work in years. Accounting wasn’t what I was supposed to do with my life. Once upon a time, I’d been a journalist. I’d had fire, ambition, ideas. I loved the buzz of investigating, seeing my byline under a headline.
But the antisocial hours of a journalist didn’t work for a single mom with a baby who battled severe ear infections. I was a mother first. I would never abandon my daughter the way my mom had abandoned me – loving me, then turning away; being there, then . . .
So I’d switched to accounting. It allowed me regular hours and more time with my daughter. I’d come to accept the trade-off years ago.
‘Do you want me to stay?’ My smile slipped a notch. ‘You know you come first.’
‘No, honestly, it’s fine, Mom.’ She’d already dismissed me. ‘I have to study for this calculus test anyway.’
I looked at her, feeling strangely lost. I wondered suddenly when the last time was that we’d talked properly. I opened my mouth to find out what was going on. We were closer than other mothers and daughters; we told each other everything. But Olivia stood abruptly and stretched, yawning big.
‘I’m gonna take a shower, Mom. See you at the barbecue later.’
She’d plucked up the red scarf from where it lay on the table, turned, and walked away, the slip of silk dragging like a discarded teddy bear across the floor.
Within seconds, she’d disappeared into the shadows at the top of the stairs.
× × ×
The memory sliced through me. It seemed so obvious now. Of course she was pregnant. I hated myself for not seeing it, for walking away when I should’ve stayed. Guilt suffocated me, pressing down on me like a crippling fog.
I slowed outside my driveway as lights flashed around me. Cars and vans overflowed along the street outside my house. A microphone was shoved in my face as soon as I opened my car door, and people started shouting my name.
‘Abi! Rob Krane, KOMO-TV. Can you tell us more about Olivia’s condition? Will her doctors try to keep her on life support? Will they be able to save the baby?’
‘I-I-,’ I stammered, edging toward my front porch. How did they know? My elderly neighbor, Mrs Nelson, stared at me from across the road, her mouth hanging open, the evening newspaper in her hand.
‘No comment,’ I said, my voice wobbly and unsteady.
I raced up the steps and let myself inside, black dots dancing across my vision from the flashbulbs. Exhaustion swept over me and I leaned against the door, the voices now muted to a dull mumble.
Finally I staggered to my feet. I needed a distraction from the creeping anxiety threatening to overwhelm me. I went into the kitchen and pulled a bottle of vodka from the freezer. I poured a finger into a glass and swallowed it fast. It burned, but I poured another and took it upstairs to Olivia’s room.
I snapped on the light. It was still messy, like an explosion in a clothes factory. It smelled of lemony shampoo and dirty socks. Her blankets trailed off the bed.
I set the glass of vodka on Olivia’s dresser and draped the blankets neatly over the bed, then sat on the edge. Something on her bedside table caught the afternoon light. Olivia’s cell phone. It was attached to a charging cord, but when I picked it up, the plug dropped out. The battery was dead.
The sound of a knock at the front door startled me. I slipped Olivia’s phone into my hoodie pocket as I went downstairs. I looked through the peephole, expecting it to be a reporter, but instead it was a tall, broad-shouldered teenager wearing a wrinkled blue shirt halfway untucked from his jeans. His fair hair was disheveled, his hazel eyes so raw and swollen I almost didn’t recognize him.
The football build of Olivia’s boyfriend looked like it had been put through the washing machine and shrunk. I took in his red eyes – the dark circles, the tear tracks trailing his putty-colored cheeks – and felt a swell of compassion. This inexorable tide of grief was his as well. It was something we shared.
I opened the door and flashbulbs instantly started popping, reporters shouting questions. I ignored them, pulling Tyler inside. Word traveled fast in a town as small as Portage Point, and it looked like every major Seattle media outlet was on this story.
‘Is it true what they’re saying about Olivia?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’ I pressed my fists into my eyes. ‘There was an accident.’
Tyler swayed on his feet. I grabbed his elbow and directed him to a chair at the kitchen table, pressed a glass of water into his hands. He gulped it down.
‘An accident?’ he echoed.
‘I don’t know. The police . . . I have to report it . . .’
‘What happened?’ he asked thickly.
‘Nobody knows. She might’ve fallen off the bridge. But . . .’ I hesitated, unsure if I should share my suspicions. ‘Did she leave the barbecue with anyone?’
‘No. She was by herself.’
‘Madison didn’t drive her?’
‘I’m pretty sure she walked.’
Olivia knew she wasn’t allowed to walk home alone in the dark. It was a firm rule of mine – one she’d never broken before.
‘What time was that?’
‘Like, ten thirty? Maybe more like ten forty-five?’
‘Tyler, there’s something I need to tell you.’
He stared at me. Waited.
‘Olivia’s pregnant.’
His arms dropped to the sides of the chair, heavy and limp. He looked like I’d punched him in the stomach.
‘Did you know?’ I needed information. Anything he could tell me mattered intensely.
He swallowed, then balled his hands into fists and stood. He turned away from me and hunched his shoulders.
‘Tyler?’ I walked to him, touched his back with my fingertips. ‘I promise I won’t be mad. Did you know she was pregnant?’
The muscles under his shirt jumped, and he pulled away from my touch. When he finally looked at me, his eyes were wide, the whites dominating his face.
‘I’m sorry, Miss Knight. There’s no way that baby’s mine.’
6 (#ulink_599a84f5-4369-55d3-82dd-d9c74e4599e1)
ABI
october
‘I don’t understand,’ I said.
Fear crept over me, sliding along every muscle and bone as a new realization settled over me: maybe I didn’t know my daughter at all.
‘How?’ I asked Tyler. ‘How could – how do you – ?’
‘I know it’s not mine,’ he cut me off, his voice rough. ‘Because Olivia and I never . . .’ He looked away.
I pressed my fingers hard into my eyeballs, stars exploding on the undersides of my lids. The vodka I’d gulped earlier burned bitterly in my empty stomach. ‘You never had sex.’
‘Right.’
Olivia was cheating on her boyfriend. It explained so much. She’d been so different lately. Distant. I had a sudden memory of her at the Stokeses’ annual neighborhood barbecue. I’d arrived late, work a handy excuse.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like people, just that I didn’t really have anything interesting to talk about. Once I’d ticked off Olivia’s achievements, the conversation went stale. Besides, I was really more of an observer than a participator. I was better at standing on the sidelines.
Jen Stokes had opened the door, a glass of champagne in each hand and a wide smile on her lips. Her dark corkscrew curls bounced around a heart-shaped face.
‘Hi, Jen.’ I smiled hard, the muscles in my jaw twinging painfully.
Jen and I had known each other since the girls were five. Even after all this time, we were friendly but not friends. Truth be told, Jen intimidated the hell out of me. Standing next to her made any bravado I had disappear, as if it had been sucked into the black hole of her self-confidence. She reminded me of what it was like being in junior high and high school.
Back then I was an outcast. The Girl Whose Mom Committed Suicide. Nobody knew what to say to me, nor I to them. I never wore the right clothes or had the right hair or makeup. I spent lunch alone in a corner of the cafeteria, was never picked for teams in PE, was the last to get a partner for school projects. My teenage years were even worse, lonely until I developed breasts and learned to use my looks to get guys to like me.
As I got older, I learned I was perfectly fine on my own. In fact, I preferred it that way. I didn’t need any better friend than my daughter.
‘Abi, so glad you could make it!’ Jen leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, then handed me a glass of champagne.
I took a tiny sip. It was sweet and crisp, obviously expensive.
‘How are you?’ I asked. My voice was too quiet, lost in the chatter of people inside, so I said it again. ‘How’ve you been?’
‘Oh, you know, kids, work, life.’ She rolled her eyes and laughed drily, but I knew she loved it. Jen was an ER doctor; she thrived under pressure.
I followed Jen through her tastefully decorated living room, my feet sinking into thick, oatmeal-colored carpet. We exited the back door to a sprawling deck that overlooked a shade-dappled yard. A shimmering rectangular swimming pool glinted in the waning light. The rich scent of barbecued ribs and burgers wafted up toward me.
‘Have you seen Olivia?’ Jen asked. Something in her voice made me look up sharply. I felt my face freeze, determined not to show that her words sent a gush of worry flooding through my veins.
‘No,’ I said slowly. ‘Why?’
‘Oh, no reason.’ Her eyes skated sideways, and she set her glass on a table. ‘I’m gonna grab you a plate of food. Then we can catch up. Here –’ She turned to a leggy blonde woman wearing a short sunset-colored caftan and high canvas wedges and pulled her over to me.
‘Marie, this is Abi. Abi, Marie Corbin.’
Before I had a chance to reply, Jen had headed down the stairs and disappeared into the crowd. I frowned, feeling inexplicably abandoned. I tidied a few loose strands of hair behind my ears.
Marie was gorgeous, and I felt my shoulders round as nerves pinched my stomach. She smiled at me, her sapphire eyes crinkling, her blonde hair a sleek mane perfectly framing an angular face. ‘Oh, Abi, yes. I remember you. You’re –’
‘Olivia’s mom.’ I forced a smile.
‘I was going to say an accountant at Brown Thomas and Associates. You did the books for my new interior design company, and I was so pleased at how quickly you got them done.’
‘Oh,’ I said, startled. Usually people only knew me as Olivia’s mom, the mother of the rising star of the swim team. I tried to think of the last time I was anything else, and couldn’t. ‘I’m glad to hear it.’
Across the yard, Jen’s husband, Mark, raised a hand in greeting. Mark was a square-jawed business type, handsome in an aging frat-boy sort of way. I waved back.
‘I’ll just go say hi.’ I pointed at Mark, glad for an excuse to leave. ‘Nice to meet you.’
I went downstairs, grabbed a Coke from an ice bucket, and huddled next to a tall shrub in the corner of the backyard. If Sarah were here, she’d push me to go talk to people. She said I used work and Olivia as bricks in a wall I’d built around myself.
Sarah was always right and she did everything in the proper order. She’d finished college with a degree in psychology, then got a job, then a husband, a kid, and so on. Now she was a counselor for victims of traumatic cases. Most of her clients were referred from the Seattle Police Department. I was a wrecking ball in comparison: a single mom with a job I’d settled for and no real friends.
Just then something cold splashed against my arm.
‘Hi, Abi!’
‘Derek. Hi.’ Mark and Jen’s son used to call me Miss Knight. I remembered when he was a chubby-cheeked second-grader with perpetually grass-stained knees, and now here he was, calling me by my first name. I suddenly felt rather old.
He grinned sheepishly. ‘Sorry about that.’
I brushed the liquid from my arm. ‘When did you get old enough to drink?’ I teased.
‘I’m nineteen now,’ Derek said, proud in that way teenagers get when they think they’re all grown-up.
I smiled fondly at him. ‘Have you seen Olivia?’
His smile faded. ‘No. Why? Is she in some sort of trouble?’
‘No!’ I laughed at the thought. Olivia never got in trouble. ‘Nothing like that. We were planning to meet here.’
‘Oh. . .’ He ran a hand over his jaw and I noticed how much he looked like his mother. He had the same intense beauty: shaggy, dark curls; a narrow, heart-shaped face. His dark-blue eyes were piercing and intelligent. He was a good-looking kid. Probably already breaking hearts.
Somebody – a young woman – came up next to him then, touched his shoulder. He glanced at her, then at me, then stepped back. The entire exchange probably only lasted seconds, but it took me all that time to realize that the young woman next to him was Olivia.
My brain felt like it was spinning in mud. Her long, silky blonde locks were gone, cropped into a pink-streaked pixie cut. Gone also were her usual T-shirt and jeans, replaced with black leggings and a low-cut peasant top that plunged into her cleavage.
I remember looking at Olivia in the fading evening light and feeling like I didn’t know her anymore. I knew then that something had been shaken loose, something I had no power to put back together. . .
‘Whose baby is it?’ I asked Tyler now, my insides tight as a fist.
He didn’t answer. He looked very far away.
‘Tyler. Whose baby is it?’
He didn’t look at me. Didn’t answer. Instead he said: ‘I wish I could’ve saved her.’
‘Saved her from what?’
His eyes crashed into mine.
‘From everything.’
7 (#ulink_12ab870e-4d97-57c3-be8b-ffdb09040298)
OLIVIA
april
After dinner, Mom went upstairs to take a shower. The house still smelled of burned bread even though all the windows were cracked open. It clawed at my throat and seared my nose, making me feel sick.
As soon as I heard the shower turn on, I ran to the desk in the corner of the living room and shuffled through the neatly organized paperwork and alphabetized, color-coded files. Nothing there. I took the stairs two at a time to Mom’s bedroom. I pushed through electric cords and notebooks in her bedside table drawers. I dropped to my knees and checked under her bed. Just a scattering of dusty, mismatched hand weights, random books that didn’t fit on the bookshelf downstairs, a box with cards and notes I’d given her.
Obviously I’d been in Mom’s room loads of times, but I wasn’t a weirdo. I’d never searched through her personal things. It felt gross. Disgust slithered up my throat, but then I remembered her lie: . . . those brown eyes.
There must be some proof somewhere about who my father was. The minutes crawled by. I was running out of time.
In her closet, I shuffled through clothes and shoes, ran my hand along the top shelf. Suddenly my fingers knocked against something. I stood on my tiptoes and pulled it out. It was an old shoebox, a thick layer of dust across the top. I sat cross-legged on the floor with it on my lap. My heart pounded wildly in my chest. The shower was still going but I knew I didn’t have much time.
The box was light. I almost thought it was empty. But when I took the lid off and pushed a layer of tissue paper aside, I saw a thick piece of paper. It was my birth certificate. I looked at the spot where my parents’ names were listed, but only my mom’s was there.
I put it down and lifted out the tissue paper. Underneath was a hospital ID bracelet with my name in pale blue letters.
And then I saw it: a small square piece of plain white card, the type you might find in a bunch of flowers delivered to your doorstep. On one side it was blank. On the other, in thick capital letters, it said:
SORRY.
G
× × ×
The next day I stayed after school to help Peter with our chemistry homework. Tyler gave me the silent treatment all day, but I just pretended everything was fine. It was the best way to deal with Tyler. Pretend everything was all right, and pretty soon it would be.
I didn’t really want to go home after that, so I texted Mom and told her I was still studying, then grabbed the late bus to Madison’s. I wanted to tell her about the card I’d found and the lies my mom had told.
I pulled the hood of my coat up over my head as the mist thickened into rain. Storming down the quiet suburban road toward Madison’s house, I passed elegant mock Tudors and Pacific Northwest timber homes and dove into the dripping green pines spread out lush and thick above the ZigZag Bridge.
The ZigZag Bridge wasn’t really a zigzag – it was only called that because the river that ran underneath it twisted back and forth until it reached Puget Sound. When I was a kid, we used to call it the Cinderella Bridge because it looked like something out of a fairy tale. The suspension cables were hung from four silver towers, two at either end, crowned by soaring spires, while the gleaming metal framework was decorated with lacy arches and ornamental railings.
I hunched my backpack higher on my shoulders and headed over the bridge, my feet echoing loudly against the wooden slats of the pedestrian walkway. Usually I took the shortcut from my house through the woods to Madison’s instead of looping up and around, walking over a mile along the ZigZag Road. Mom had made me promise never to take the shortcut – she thought the woods were full of murderers or something – but the paved road took way too long.
For her peace of mind, I told her I always went the long way to Madison’s. I didn’t want to lie to her or anything, but I didn’t want her worrying either. Sometimes she could be a bit overprotective. Besides, it wasn’t exactly lying. It just wasn’t the whole truth.
I leaned on the doorbell at Madison’s house, my breath coming in short bursts until the door flew open.
Madison’s brother, Derek, looked like he’d been facedown in a pillow for a really long time. His face was crinkled with sleep, and he blinked his eyes fast, as if the late afternoon light burned his retinas.
‘Olivia? What are you doing here?’ His voice was raspy, and he raked one hand through his dark, tousled curls.
I stared at Derek, totally speechless. I hadn’t seen him in almost three years. He looked so different. And by different, I mean really, really hot.
Gone was the lanky, awkward teenager I’d known. His chest had filled out, his face slimmed down. He’d grown a few inches and now towered over me. He was wearing skinny black jeans and a fitted black T-shirt that was tight at the biceps. A silver chain necklace was coiled twice around his neck.
‘Derek, hey.’ My voice squeaked, and I coughed to cover it. ‘I forgot you were back from New York. Sorry about pushing on the doorbell. I thought Madison would answer.’ The words rushed out of me too fast, and I knew I sounded like a dumb little kid.
I was desperate to know whether he’d thought about me while he was away the way I’d thought about him. Last time I’d seen him, I’d declared my undying fourteen-year-old love. He’d kissed me gently on the cheek and said, ‘See you later.’ The next day he’d left for New York.
I never told Madison about my crush on her brother. She’d hate it. She could be jealous and nasty when it came to Derek. Once I was at their house and I didn’t feel well, so I played Nintendo with Derek instead of hide-and-go-seek with her. She went to his room and took all his certificates he’d glued into a scrapbook and shredded every one of them.
‘You want to come in?’ Derek asked.
I followed him through the dining room into the designer kitchen. The stainless steel shimmered in the afternoon light. An expensive watercolor of trees hung above the mahogany dinner table.
I shrugged out of my wet jacket, draping it over a chair. He pulled two bottles of water out of the refrigerator, tossing one to me.
‘So.’ I took a sip of my water. ‘You back for good?’
‘Yep.’
‘Did you like it?’
He shrugged.
‘Well, what was it like?’ I had so many questions, but this new Derek wasn’t like the one I’d known three years ago. Plus, all the things Madison had told me about him . . . maybe I was a little bit scared of him.
‘It was fine, it’s a big city, so it’s pretty busy, but yeah, I liked it.’ He sounded bored. Or maybe annoyed. ‘Madison isn’t here,’ he added.
‘Where is she?’
‘Auditioning for some play or something.’
I hit my forehead with my hand. ‘Oh yeah. Shoot. I forgot about that.’
He set his water on the counter. ‘So, what’s up?’
‘Nothing much. Just school and finals, getting ready for senior year and stuff.’
‘No.’ He looked exasperated, like I was the dumbest person ever. ‘I meant, why’d you come storming over here?’
I hesitated, not sure I wanted to tell Derek about my mom.
‘Did you get in a fight with your boyfriend?’ He smirked.
Anger boiled in me, and I clenched my fists. I wasn’t used to feeling angry. But I felt like it was leaking from me, set free by the acid of my mom’s lies. I couldn’t control it, and suddenly it took a new direction.
How dare he? The last time I was with him, I’d thought – well, it didn’t matter now, but I’d thought we shared something special. It was silly, just the slight brush of our arms against each other while watching a movie. A long gaze. It was stupid.
I didn’t even recognize this new Derek.
‘I’ll come back later. Sorry I bothered you.’ I put my water bottle on the counter and spun around, heading for the door.
Derek stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.
‘No, I’m sorry.’ The smirk fell off his face, and for the first time since I’d arrived he looked like the Derek I used to know. ‘Honestly, you’re not bothering me.’
He was so earnest, it reminded me of when we were little kids and I got stuck in the washing machine trying to hide from him during hide-and-seek.
‘So. Boyfriend problems?’
‘No,’ I snapped. ‘For your information, my mom lied to me and I’m really pissed off about it.’
Derek leaned away, as if blown back by the force of my anger. ‘Shit. Sorry. What about?’
When I didn’t reply, he headed toward the stairs. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go downstairs.’
I hesitated, confused by his quick change of personalities. Maybe he was more like Madison than I’d thought. I followed him to the far side of the kitchen, across the hall, and down the stairs to the basement.
‘My mom and dad gave me the downstairs. I think they’re just hoping I’ll disappear down here.’ He chuckled, but the laugh didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Downstairs was more welcoming than upstairs, all blond wood and worn brown leather. A grunge band blasted on a massive surround-sound stereo system. A huge entertainment center and two leather chairs took up one side of the basement, while the other side had an unmade king-size bed. At the back of the room, a hallway led to darkness.
He shoved clothes off a leather chair. ‘Here, sit down.’
He picked up a set of remote controls and turned off the stereo, then pressed a button. The ornately carved walnut doors of the entertainment center opened slowly, revealing a huge plasma-screen television. He flopped onto the other chair and flicked through the channels until he found a rerun of Family Guy.
He looked up at me. ‘You gonna sit?’
‘Um, sure.’ If Madison came home and found me hanging with her brother, she’d totally flip. I perched on the arm of the chair and tugged on the tail of the silver bracelet at my wrist.
‘So, what’d your mom lie about?’ he asked.
‘Well, last week some kids from my school and I were at U-Dub at this thing to get juniors ready for college. We saw this girl – Kendall – and she looked just like me. I’m not even kidding. Everybody said it. Like sisters.’
‘That’s weird.’
‘Yeah. So yesterday I asked my mom about my dad. Like what was he like and did he have any other family and she mentioned that he had brown eyes.’
‘So?’
‘First of all, I’m in advanced biology. My mom has blue eyes, so if my dad had brown eyes, it’s pretty unlikely I’d have green eyes. Not impossible, but genetically unlikely.’
‘And second?’
‘Second of all, I asked her when I was thirteen what color eyes he had, and she said green. And now she said brown.’
‘But why would she tell you two different colors?’
I threw my hands up and slid into the chair. ‘She’s getting confused with her lies.’
‘And this girl, Kendall. She has green eyes too?’
‘Yeah. And this same chin dimple.’ I pointed at the cleft in my chin. ‘I Googled it. It’s genetic. But my mom doesn’t have it.’
‘So Kendall looks a lot like you, she has a chin dimple, she has the same color eyes as you, and now your mom lied about what color your dad’s eyes were – and you think, what? That you’re related to this girl?’
‘Well, yeah.’ Saying it that way made it sound really stupid.
‘It seems a bit, you know, Hollywood.’
‘I know,’ I admitted. ‘But my mom lied to me. We never lie to each other. . .’
I chewed my lip.
‘At least, I thought we didn’t,’ I amended. ‘But now I’m wondering what else she’s lied about. And . . .’ I pulled the piece of white card out of my back pocket. ‘I found this in her room. It was in a shoebox in her closet.’
I held it out to Derek, and he read the text. ‘Sorry. Sorry for what?’
‘I don’t know. But it was with my birth certificate. It must have something to do with me.’
‘Have you looked her up on Facebook?’
‘My mom?’
‘No. Kendall.’
I shook my head. The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind.
‘Well, did you ask her who her father is? Find out his name?’
‘I didn’t think of any of that stuff when I met her.’
Derek grabbed a shiny silver MacBook from his bedside table. He brought it back to the chair, flipped the lid up, and opened Facebook.
‘Do you want to look?’ Derek asked.
Madison said I was a doormat. Mom said I let Madison walk all over me. Maybe they were both right. Maybe it was time I stood up and did something for myself.
I nodded. ‘Yeah, okay.’
I leaned over his shoulder and typed in my log-in details, aware of how close we were. He smelled just faintly of pine trees and the clean, soapy smell of shaving cream.
Kendall Montgomery’s page popped up right away. In her profile picture she was pouting, her eyes creased as if she was about to smile. I didn’t want to know her. And yet I did.
‘Holy shit.’ Derek’s eyes popped open wide. ‘She does look just like you.’
‘I know. It’s creepy. What should I do?’
‘What do you want to do?’
I was surprised. People never asked me what I wanted. I usually just went along for the ride.
I looked into Derek’s midnight-blue eyes. Something in them made me feel safe enough to find out things I should probably leave alone.
I leaned over him and pressed Add Friend.
‘I want to talk to her,’ I said.
8 (#ulink_95c9a298-e9f6-558f-882d-7833e65990a4)
ABI
october
The sound of Tyler’s feet thumping down the front steps jolted me out of my stunned trance.
‘Wait!’ I flung myself out the open front door and into the rain, crashing into the driver’s door of his Jeep as the engine vroomed to life.
A flash went off from my front yard, but I ignored it.
‘Wait!’ I smacked my open palm against Tyler’s door.
Tyler rolled the window down, his eyebrows drawn together. His eyes flicked up to the reporters watching our exchange.
‘What do you mean?’ I hissed so only he could hear. ‘Saved her from everything?’
He glared at me, but kept his voice down also. ‘You had all these rules. You controlled her. She said you were writing the script for her life and she was sick of it. If you weren’t trying to run her life, maybe she wouldn’t have done stupid things.’
My fingers slipped off the edge of the window, and I stumbled backward, propelled by the vitriol of his words. Tyler reversed out of the driveway quickly, his wheels skidding in the gravel.
Another flash went off near me. I turned my face to my shoulder and raised my hand as if I could ward it off.
God only knew what the reporters would write about this. I looked like a lunatic, my blonde hair a nest of damp tangles sticking up in every direction, the scent of alcohol on my breath.
I looked up as I heard the crunch of tires on the gravel. Two police detectives, badges clipped to their belts, got out of the car.
‘All right, guys, get out of here. You know the rules. Get off her property now,’ the male detective said.
He was squarely built with short legs and a squat body. Dark circles were etched beneath watery blue eyes that appraised me from under thick eyebrows. His wrinkled black suit covered an equally wrinkled blue shirt and tie. His thinning hair was a mess, as if he’d only just woken.
Just behind him, the female detective waved a reporter edging closer to my house back to the road. She was a complete contrast to him: crisp black business suit, starched white collar. She was tall as an Amazon with cropped, pale blonde hair, a chiseled jaw, and ice-blue eyes. Her face was completely blank: the picture of professional detachment.
Once the reporters were a safe distance away, they crossed the grass to me.
‘Abigail Knight?’ the man said, extending his hand to shake mine.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m Detective Phillip McNally, and this is Detective Jane Samson.’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Samson gave me a brief, firm handshake. Her hands were warm and large, making mine feel small and childish in comparison.
‘We’d like to speak with you about your daughter’s accident. Can we come inside?’ McNally asked.
I stared at them, blinking. Accident? Why did they think they were here if it was an accident?
‘Yes . . . come in.’
I led them inside and shut the door, then stood awkwardly in the living room for a minute. I couldn’t immediately recall what I was supposed to do.
‘Would you like a drink?’ I finally asked.
‘No, we’re good,’ Detective McNally said. ‘Can we sit?’
‘Of course.’ I showed them to the couch and sank onto the recliner.
‘We’re very sorry for what’s happened to your daughter,’ Detective McNally said. He blinked slowly, as if trying to wake himself up. ‘Also for the delay. We’ve only just been alerted to what happened by a’ – he glanced down at his notepad – ‘Dr Griffith. I know this must be a difficult time for you, but we’d like to take an official statement. Is now okay?’
‘Yes. Of course.’
He pulled a pen from a pocket on the inside of his coat.
‘Let’s start with that last night you saw Olivia. Can you tell me what happened?’
My eyes flicked to Detective Samson’s face, but she didn’t say a word.
My hands shook, and I pressed them under my thighs. I wanted my daughter. I missed her so much it was physical, like scraping cotton wool over an acid burn.
I started at the beginning, telling them about our Saturday: work, homework, the barbecue.
‘Did everything seem normal?’ Detective McNally asked.
‘Yes. I mean, except – well, she got a haircut.’
‘A haircut?’ McNally echoed. I could see he thought grief had driven me a little bit crazy.
‘Yes. It was unusual.’
‘Unusual how?’
‘Olivia’s sensible. She doesn’t drink, she’s on the swim team, and she gets straight As. She never does stupid teenager stuff like walk home alone in the dark or sneak out at night to go drinking. It was just weird that she suddenly cut all her hair off. But teenagers do these things, right?’
‘Sometimes.’ He didn’t look at me, just kept staring at his notepad. ‘Is there anybody who didn’t like her or had a grudge against her?’
‘No,’ I said, shocked. ‘Everybody likes Olivia. I’m not just saying that. Last year at school, she was voted ‘most likable.’ She was homecoming queen. She’s happy and popular and, and –’ My voice broke, and for a second I couldn’t continue.
Both detectives nodded, their heads moving up and down like bobble-head dolls.
‘Do you think –?’
‘We don’t think anything yet,’ Detective Samson cut me off. It was the first time she’d spoken, and it startled me. ‘We’re just building a picture, gathering evidence.’
‘Something happened! She has bruises!’
‘Do you have any reason to think anybody would hurt Olivia?’ McNally asked, his eyebrows raised.
I stared at him, dismayed. They’d been here ten minutes, and already they didn’t believe me.
McNally continued asking me questions: Who were her friends? Her boyfriend? Had they had any problems? Had she ever tried to harm herself? Had anybody ever tried to hurt her? Had she been having problems at home? At school?
Occasionally he’d jot something down. The longer we sat there, the more unsettled I felt. Samson barely said a word, and McNally was the picture of a frazzled, overworked cop. How would these two find out what had happened to my daughter?
I showed them upstairs, and the detectives searched Olivia’s room, put random items into little plastic bags. They took her laptop and some of her school notebooks, asked me more questions.
By the end, my neck ached from carrying the weight of my pounding head. I wanted everything to go back to the way it was. I wanted my daughter back.
‘Did you find her bracelet?’ I asked Detective Samson.
Her brow creased.
‘A silver charm bracelet. Olivia always wore it. Always. But it wasn’t on her wrist.’ I brushed a hand over my eyes.
‘No, we didn’t find it, but I’ll check again.’
‘Was Olivia with anyone that night? Drinking with friends?’ Detective McNally asked. Neither of them had bothered to sit down after searching Olivia’s room. They towered over me in the living room, and my toes curled at the invasion of my personal space.
‘What? No!’ I replied, startled. Olivia wasn’t a drinker. ‘All her friends were at the barbecue. And she doesn’t –’ Then I remembered the scarf, her haircut, her pregnancy.
Bile, thick and acidic, rose in my throat.
I jumped up and raced to the bathroom, slamming open the toilet lid just in time to heave up every last drop of vodka, retching again and again into the white porcelain bowl.
Afterward, I shut the toilet seat and rested my head on the lid. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. The insides of my eyelids were red. I was sweating, hot moisture covering my entire body. I shoved Olivia’s phone into the back pocket of my jeans and stripped off my hoodie, tossing it on the floor.
When I opened my eyes, I saw a slip of white plastic sticking up from the mess of tissues in the trash can. I sat up slowly, reaching for it. It was a pregnancy test. A pink plus sign practically glowed on the end.
Olivia knew she was pregnant. And she hadn’t told me.
The knowledge was raw inside me, jagged as a broken windowpane. As scared as I was when I found out I was pregnant, at least I’d had Sarah.
Memories of the day I’d told Sarah I was pregnant bubbled in my mind, like a pot of water boiling over.
‘Do you know who the father is?’ Sarah had asked.
The old mattress sagged under her weight as she sat next to me on the edge of my bed.
‘Yes,’ I snapped. Okay, maybe I used to sleep around a bit. I used sex as a way to get guys to like me. I drank and dabbled in drugs and stayed out late smoking and partying. But it wasn’t going to be like that anymore.
‘Have you told him?’
‘Of course!’
‘And?’
I looked away, and Sarah sighed heavily.
‘He doesn’t want to be in the picture,’ she stated.
I didn’t answer. The worst part was that he’d cemented everything I felt all over again – that everybody eventually left me.
Sarah slapped her hands on her legs and stood. ‘I’ll come with you to sort it out.’
I stared at her, horrified. ‘Are you telling me to get an abortion?’
Sarah looked confused. ‘Of course not. I just –’
‘This is my baby. I won’t abandon it. I’m nothing like . . .’
I didn’t have to finish the sentence. We both knew the ending. Mom had abandoned me, and I had been powerless to stop her.
Sarah’s face softened, and she sat back down. ‘Abs, of course you’re nothing like her. But a baby? You can’t . . .’ Her voice trailed away and she searched my face.
That was exactly what he had said, right before he threatened to hurt my baby and me if anybody found out it was his. So I’d gone to the abortion clinic and was going to do it. But I couldn’t go through with it. Being abandoned was my life’s greatest fear. I couldn’t do it to my own baby.
I looked around at the tiny storeroom I’d used as a bedroom in Sarah’s apartment since I was ten. A baby wouldn’t fit here. But I had a way to get out now. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken it, but I wanted my baby to have everything I never did, a stable home, a solid middle-class upbringing, good opportunities.
‘I’ve registered at Valley,’ I said, referring to the local community college. ‘I’ll get a certificate in journalism. I like writing and I’m good at it. I can get a job at a newspaper.’
Sarah looked surprised. I was usually more of a joiner than a planner. She struggled with words for a minute, but I knew she’d give in. She was the only parent figure I’d had for most of my life, and she was nothing if not supportive.
Finally she said, ‘You know I’m here for you whatever you decide.’
‘Thanks, Sar.’ I leaned into my big sister, and she put her arms around me.
She brushed my hair off my forehead, and I pulled away, getting up and crossing to look out the window at the Christmas lights stringing the neighborhood. I hated it when she did things my mom used to do.
I’d looked down at my stomach, the first hint of a bump pushing out from my sweater, and imagined my baby curled under my heart. I would have someone to be with me no matter what. I’d love her more than I’d ever been loved. . .
In the bathroom, I stood shakily and splashed cold water on my face to help the memories fade. I grabbed Olivia’s pregnancy test and took it to Detective Samson in the living room. For a second, her professional mask slipped, and I thought I saw compassion flare in her eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. She pulled a plastic bag from her pocket, then zipped the proof of my grandchild away inside.
‘I don’t know if Olivia was with anyone that last night,’ I said, sinking back into the recliner. ‘I didn’t know she was pregnant. She didn’t tell me.’ The admission scraped like razor blades across my raw, aching throat.
Neither detective spoke for a minute, but when I looked up I saw them exchange a look.
‘Well.’ McNally stood and moved toward the door. ‘That’s all we need for now. We’ll be in touch if we have any other questions.’
‘Wait.’ I sprang to my feet and put a hand out. ‘The bruises, her bracelet – are you going to investigate?’
McNally sighed, and I wanted to scream. ‘We’re still in the early stages,’ he said, but he wasn’t looking at me anymore. ‘We’ll speak to witnesses, process the scene, analyze the bruises. . .’
Both detectives moved toward the door, but at the last second Samson turned and spoke. ‘We’re very sorry for your loss. We’ll be in touch, keep you up-to-date if we find anything new.’ She slid a business card into my palm. ‘Call me anytime. And, Miss Knight, just ignore the reporters. They’ll go away in a few days.’
I stood frozen in place, the front door flapping in the increasing wind, and watched as they got in their unmarked police car and drove slowly away. I hunched my shoulders against the cold and shoved my hands into the back pockets of my jeans. My fingers knocked against something hard.
They hadn’t asked for Olivia’s phone.
9 (#ulink_a6636afe-cfba-5924-8a7c-79ff7b626b67)
ABI
november
November arrived abruptly in Portage Point. The sky was gray and wet; the wind tossed leaves across the ground in angry flurries. I scurried across the parking lot toward the hospital. By the time I reached the front, my hair clung to my forehead in damp tendrils.
Inside I headed for the elevators while dialing the numbers on the business card Samson had left me. It was the third time that day, but still it went to voicemail. I knew there were budget cuts; I knew other cases were important too, that the investigative process took time; but surely, surely Olivia’s case would take priority.
Even on the rare occasion when a detective answered, they just told me to be patient, they’d let me know if anything new came up. They were always fobbing me off like that. And I didn’t have time for it. Four weeks had passed since Olivia’s fall. Only four-teen weeks until the baby would be born. And that was if we were lucky. I needed answers sooner, not later.
I took the elevator to the floor Olivia had been moved to last week. Now that she was out of the ICU, the baby had a better chance at surviving; but seeing the ventilator and feeding tube was no less of a shock each time I arrived.
I steeled myself against the pain and pushed open the door. Sarah was slumped over the edge of Olivia’s bed, her mouth hung open in sleep, a deep crease denting the middle of her forehead.
‘Sarah,’ I whispered. My sister jumped when I touched her shoulder. ‘You should go home. Go see Dylan and Brad.’
She rubbed her arm over her eyes. ‘I couldn’t sleep. What time is it?’
‘Six.’
‘They’re sleeping. You should be too.’
I put my purse down and slipped out of my coat, sitting in the chair next to her as the pale light edged the darkness from the room. I picked up Olivia’s hand and inspected her wrist. The bruises had faded, the broken skin mostly healed; her skin renewed itself, even though her brain never would.
‘I’m thinking of going back to work,’ I told Sarah.
I realized with some surprise that I missed the rhythm of my job. The predictability. At least I knew what I was doing in accounting, what to expect. There was no guesswork, only right or wrong. Right now I was just waiting through my days, but for what? The police rarely responded to my calls. Olivia’s case was still open, but it felt like they weren’t really investigating.
The last four weeks had passed in a slow, nauseating spin. I slept and ate little, sobbed a lot. I shoved fistfuls of sedatives in my mouth, washing them down with red wine and vodka until I’d drunk everything in my house and had no pills left to take.
The dull lethargy that had plagued me immediately after Olivia fell was being replaced by a crazed adrenaline and an urge to know the truth. People throughout Portage Point had heard the news. They wanted to ask questions, to know what had happened, but I had no answers and no energy to explain that the police had yet to piece together any intelligible reason for Olivia’s fall.
At least Samson had been right about the reporters – they’d eventually trickled away, in search of more urgent stories.
The cost of caring for Olivia was mounting. My insurance was already balking and I knew I’d have to find a way to pay for everything for another three months at least. And then there was the baby. . .
‘I can’t lose my insurance,’ I said.
Sarah nodded. She, of all people, knew that the weight of unexpected responsibility could be as heavy as water.
I looked at Olivia in the hospital bed, a pale, shriveled version of herself. Eyes closed. Intubated. The incessant mechanized hush of the machines keeping her alive.
‘I don’t understand why the police aren’t working harder on this,’ I said, anger and frustration simmering inside me.
‘I’m sure they are,’ Sarah reassured me. She stood and rolled her neck in slow circles. ‘Investigations take time.’
‘They said the bruises were probably from the fall. But you saw them, right? They were fingerprints. Somebody did this to her.’
Sarah looked away, and I could tell she didn’t really agree.
I didn’t like everything I said second-guessed, my emotions and my sanity questioned. I knew what I’d seen. I just had no way to prove it meant what I thought it did.
‘They’re still investigating,’ she repeated. ‘We have to let them do their job.’
I glared at her. ‘I know you don’t understand, but I need to know what happened.’
Flames of anger curled in my stomach, and the air between us tightened. After our mother died, it was me who acted out and raged. Sarah had stayed calm and composed. She’d organized the funeral, taken care of the will, boxed up all my things and moved me in with her.
I was a basket case in comparison. I wailed and wept, wanted to know why Mom was dead, who I could blame. When I didn’t get answers I wallowed, sinking into the grief and letting it hold me like a warm bath. That’s what losing your only parent when you’re ten does – it makes it so you can’t ever let go.
Sarah didn’t want to talk about Mom at all. She wasn’t interested in remembering and certainly didn’t want me talking about that day. Her emotionless, brisk efficiency made me doubt my feelings. I wondered why I cared so much, but she didn’t.
Over time I’d learned to hide my emotions. But on the inside I was still just a wreck, barely keeping it together.
‘Of course I understand,’ Sarah said, her forehead creasing with hurt. ‘I get it. I want to help. I know people at the Seattle Police Department through work. I’ll call around. See if anybody there can help.’
‘I don’t need a shrink picking my brain apart.’ I gritted my teeth. ‘I need to know what happened to Olivia. Besides, I can’t pay for it.’
‘I don’t mean a counselor. And I don’t mean in an official capacity, just as a favor. Maybe they can ask around, get some insight into what the Portage Point police are doing, what they’re thinking.’
My pulse raced through my clenched muscles. I looked away, wanting her to stop talking.
‘The baby’s doing well,’ she said, changing the subject.
She reached over and touched Olivia’s stomach. Somehow, despite so many tests, drugs, and X-rays, the baby was healthy. It was growing at a normal rate, swimming in the space beneath where my daughter’s heart pumped blood around her body.
I dug my fingernails into the skin of my upper arms until they left pale, moon-shaped dents, then raked them across my upper arms, scratching at the invisible itch. The pain was sharp, intense, but in a way that felt good.
‘Abi, stop!’ Sarah exclaimed, her voice sharp as a ragged hangnail.
‘Then stop talking about the baby!’
‘Why?’ Her brow puckered.
‘Don’t you get it?’ I exploded. The spark of anger lit and consumed my insides, suddenly so bulky that I couldn’t sit still. I launched out of my chair and crossed the room to stare out the window. The maple trees that lined the park across the street were nearly bare, slowly losing the last of their crimson and gold leaves.
‘Get what?’
I whirled to face her. ‘When the baby’s born, Olivia will die! So stop harping on about the baby, because that deadline means my daughter fucking dies!’
I didn’t wait for her reply. I pushed past her and ran out the door, down the stairs, back into the driving rain.
× × ×
Back at home, I felt a deep, dark self-loathing stealing over me. I shouldn’t have blown up at Sarah.
Whatever problems I’d had with my sister, whatever resentment I’d held in my heart, Sarah had always been my rock. Even when my mom was alive, it was Sarah my teachers called if I was sick, Sarah who helped me with my homework. When I was five and got lost when we were picnicking at the beach, it was Sarah I howled for under the hot white sun. I was alone and she ran to me, shouting my name, and I knew I was safe. I never felt that way with my mom.
A sudden, vivid memory of my mother the day she died flashed through me: the blood, the screaming – was it Sarah or me? – the gun still hanging from her finger. I’d lost my mother and my childhood in one cruel day. I guess being angry and blaming Sarah was easier than moving on.
Fuck. I scrubbed my hands over my eyes. I was such a mess.
I crossed the living room to the small oak desk in the corner next to the fireplace and sat down. Once my old laptop had booted up, I opened my e-mail, prepared to send a request for another leave of absence to my boss.
I had thirty-four new e-mails: a mix of junk mail, persistent interview requests, well-wishers at work, friends and acquaintances in the community who were too scared to talk to me face-to-face. And then my eye fell on something else.
Your invoice from Apple – Invoice APPLE ID
olivialouiseknight@gmail.com.
Tears sprang to my eyes. It was yet another reminder that Olivia wasn’t here anymore. I didn’t need to pay this bill anymore, but I didn’t want to stop because that would be an admission that my daughter wasn’t coming back.
I wanted to drop my head to the desk and let my broken heart overwhelm me. Instead I took a deep breath and typed iCloud.com into the browser. I logged in with her e-mail and password, which I’d insisted she give me when I bought us both the iPhones, and a number of brightly colored icons filled my screen: e-mail, contacts, calendar, photos. The guts of Olivia’s life were here.
I clicked the Mail icon, but the mailbox was empty except for a welcome e-mail. I shut it and moved on to Contacts. There were hundreds of people listed. Some I knew, but a lot I didn’t. I scrolled slowly down the page, staring hard at each name. Who were they? Had one of these people hurt Olivia? Next I opened Photos.
At first I didn’t understand what I was seeing. Horror stole over me like a mist, uncurling deep within. And then a fiery knot began to burn in my stomach.
I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, then opened them again. The pictures were still there. The first one was slightly blurry, as if it had been zoomed in from far away. Olivia was standing outside her school staring at something in the distance. Somebody had drawn devil horns over her head and a red line across her throat with what looked like drops of blood below.
Die bitch! was written across the bottom.
In the second one, Olivia’s face was colored over in hard, angry scribbles, a red noose twisted around her throat. But I could tell it was Olivia by the clothes she wore, her favorite swim-team shirt. I leaned closer to read the red text.
Kill!
And another: a knife drawn plunged into Olivia’s heart, blood dripping down her chest. The words U die! were scrawled on the picture.
Shock rippled through me.
There were a handful more, all variations of the first three: pictures of Olivia with her neck slit, blood dripping down the image, her eyes whited out, bloody intestines vomiting from her mouth. All with die, kill, and fuck you scribbled across them.
‘Oh my God,’ I whispered. A rush of adrenaline thumped hot and silent in my blood.
Someone had been cyberbullying Olivia.
10 (#ulink_d3a5570b-c15e-51d3-978f-71c5acf815a0)
ABI
november
I started to shake all over, a shocked and angry vibration that started at the very core of me and radiated out.
Why would somebody send these to Olivia? And who?
I scrolled down through the rest of the photos, but there was nothing else there. Nothing threatening, anyway.
I rested my head on the desk and thumped it softly against the edge, as if that would knock loose rational thoughts that might solve this puzzle.
‘Think, Abi. Think!’
Her phone. I bolted upright. Maybe there were more on her actual phone. I racked my mind, trying to think where I’d put it. I barely remembered what had happened since Olivia fell. It felt like I’d been sleepwalking since then.
I ran to the kitchen and grabbed Olivia’s phone from the coun ter I’d thrown it on after the detectives left. The fact that the police hadn’t even asked for or looked for Olivia’s cell was further proof they weren’t taking the investigation seriously.
I plugged the phone in to charge, and after a few seconds it chimed and burst to life.
There were two unread text messages.
The most recent was from someone Olivia had saved as K at 10:42 a.m. later the same morning Olivia was found: You ok? I’m so sorry. I seriously didn’t know. Anyway, he’s a dick. If you’re like me you’ll cut him out for good!
I brushed a hand over my face, more baffled than ever. I scrolled down and read the other text.
It was from Tyler at 11:20 p.m. the night Olivia fell.
I scrolled up to read the whole thread.
Olivia: You’re right. We need to talk. You still at bbq? Meet in 15?
Tyler: Yep. See you in a few.
I paused, letting the part of my brain that allowed me to analyze numbers so well take over. I latched on to something as my mind anchored and examined it. The thought crystallized into something cold and hard.
‘Fuck,’ I whispered out loud. Tyler had told me Olivia left at 10:45 p.m. and he hadn’t seen her after that. But according to this text, they’d met up at around 11:30 p.m. ‘Tyler lied to me.’
I scrolled back through some of Olivia’s old texts. The most recent ones were from K and a string of texts from somebody called only D. As I read, I realized they were sweet, some rather romantic, and I remembered Tyler telling me the baby wasn’t his. Perhaps this D was the baby’s father.
The shock of finding the disturbing images in Olivia’s iCloud account and the texts from Tyler had begun to dissipate, leaving behind a completely clear view.
This was the proof I needed. Somebody had hurt Olivia on purpose. I had to go to the police.
× × ×
The Portage Point Police Department was situated in a miniature antebellum-style brick building on the far side of town, nestled under tall pine trees and fronted by a series of low boxwood shrubs.
I drove too quickly up Main Street, flying past the white, steepled church, a handful of indie coffee shops, a yoga studio, and the small town square, then turned right past a children’s playground and baseball diamond. I parked outside the station, between a police SUV and an American flag flapping aggressively in the wind.
Carol-Ann, the police station receptionist, recognized me as soon as I walked in.
‘Abi!’ She came around the desk and reached for me, folding me against her massive, doughy bosom. She smelled of lavender and soap, which made me suddenly aware of how long it had been since I’d showered. When Carol-Ann pulled away, her soft brown eyes sparkled with tears.
Carol-Ann was like the police department’s built-in grandma, complete with thick glasses and permed graying hair that poufed around her face. She’d run the front office as long as I could remember, helping the town’s four police officers and two detec tives organize legal paperwork, answer the phones, and comfort victims.
‘Carol-Ann, I need to see Detective Samson or McNally. Are they here?’
I took a step toward the half-open inner door and caught a glimpse of Samson sitting in a small kitchen, a sandwich in front of her as she stared at her cell phone. The murmur of police radios floated out to me.
Carol-Ann stepped in front of me and put her hand on my elbow, gently guiding me to a chair by her desk. ‘Let me see if they’re free. I’ll be right back.’
A few minutes later she returned with Detective Samson.
I jumped up, anger flaring in me. ‘Where have you been?’ I snapped. ‘I’ve left a thousand messages for you guys, and nothing! No wonder you haven’t solved Olivia’s case if you’re sitting here eating lunch and checking your phone all day!’
Samson’s ice-blue eyes flashed something I couldn’t immediately recognize. Not anger, exactly. Surprise.
She nodded at Carol-Ann, then jerked her head toward the door. ‘Please come with me.’
I followed her down the hallway past the kitchen to a characterless room painted a cold gray. There were no pictures on the walls, no decorations, nothing except a window to the hallway with half-closed blinds and a table like the kind you’d find in a cafeteria with a handful of folding chairs around it.
I pulled Olivia’s phone out of my purse, set it on the table with a loud thunk, then glared at her as she sat down.
‘You didn’t take Olivia’s phone.’
Samson crossed one leg over her knee and studied me for a long minute. ‘Didn’t Detective McNally ask you for it?’
‘No.’ I started to shake my head, then stopped. I couldn’t actually remember. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘We are pursuing a number of leads, Miss Knight.’
I gritted my teeth, knowing that was code for We haven’t found anything.
‘Olivia’s boyfriend, Tyler, he lied to me. He told me they didn’t see each other after she left the barbecue, but there’s a text here.’ I clicked into the text thread and handed the phone to her. ‘See? She says she’s going back to the barbecue. She would’ve met him at eleven thirty. And . . .’ I dug in my purse for the threatening pictures I’d printed from Olivia’s iCloud account and laid them on the table. ‘Somebody sent her these.’
Samson scrolled through the phone for a moment, then picked up the pictures, her face a cold, hard mask. She studied them for a long moment. ‘Were these on her phone?’
I shook my head. ‘No, they were in her iCloud account, which was synced with her phone. They must’ve been deleted from her phone.’
‘Any idea who sent these?’
‘No. None at all.’
Samson leaned forward and handed me her notebook and a pen. ‘Can you write down her log-in details for me?’
I did, then started to ask if she believed me now, but a knock at the door interrupted me. McNally’s head poked in, his flabby jowls stretched into what I assumed was meant to be a smile. He looked as exhausted and unkempt as usual, but this time there was something else I hadn’t noticed before: an unmistakable edge of animosity.
‘If I could just borrow Detective Samson for a minute.’
Samson carefully folded the printed pages and slipped them into her blazer pocket, along with Olivia’s phone and her notebook. The door closed with a sharp snap behind her.
I sat on one of the metal chairs and watched them through the slats of the cheap metal blinds. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. McNally was speaking forcefully to Samson. He looked angry. Samson gestured with both hands, more animated than normal. She lifted Olivia’s phone, but he shook his head and batted it away. Samson glanced at me, gave me a small tight smile, but something tilted inside of me when I saw it. I felt a sense of foreboding. Of time running out.
And right then I knew, with a dark certainty, that if I left it to them, I would never know the truth about what had happened to Olivia.
I’d spent my whole life hiding, just existing behind the walls I’d built around myself. I never got the answers I needed when my mother died. I was powerless to stop my mom killing herself. Powerless to make Olivia’s father choose me. Powerless to stop my daughter from – the pain of reality hit me in the stomach.
But I couldn’t afford to feel that way now. Self-pity was fine when you were ten, but in a few months I’d have Olivia’s baby to take care of. Wallowing was an indulgence I didn’t have. I needed answers now.
What do you do when you know something and nobody will listen? When you need answers and nobody will provide them? When you can’t trust anybody to help you?
I stood at a crossroads, half aware that my choice now would send me down a path from which there would be no turning back. The decision wasn’t a hard one. I didn’t want to be powerless anymore. I wanted answers.
I slammed the interview room door open, and Samson and McNally turned to me, eyes wide with surprise.
‘Something’s wrong,’ I said, a crazed fury surging through my body. Rage had hijacked the rational part of my brain, the part that never stood up to people, that sat back while others told me what to do. ‘I know something’s wrong. And you both know it. Whether you help me or not, I’m going to find out what happened to my daughter.’
11 (#ulink_7ef01cf0-004e-5186-9c39-1b07500edec8)
OLIVIA
may
‘D’you guys wanna go to Java Café?’ Madison raised her voice to be heard over the racket of teenagers spilling into the hall. With its exposed brick walls and mismatched array of cushy couches, Java Café was our usual hangout.
It was one of the first really hot days of the year and everybody was either going there or heading for the beach. ‘I’m dying for a smoothie.’ She slammed her locker door next to mine and faced Tyler and me.
‘Can’t. It’s “Dad’s night with me.”’ Tyler air-quoted, his words laced with sarcasm. His parents had announced their divorce just a few weeks ago, and he already had to split his time between them. He didn’t talk about it much, but I could tell he was super pissed. I was trying to be nice. Honestly. But he was so grumpy I mostly just stayed away from him.
‘Umm . . .’ I thought fast, scrambling for a believable lie. Derek was taking me to Seattle after school so we could look up Kendall, who still hadn’t responded to my Facebook friend request.
Since I’d met Kendall a few weeks ago, I’d spent a ridiculous amount of time Googling her. I felt kinda stalkerish. She played tennis for her private Catholic school, was on the debate team, volunteered in the community.
Half of her pictures showed her with an older man – her dad, I presumed – but the weird thing was, I recognized him. At first I couldn’t figure out how I knew him. It was only when Derek saw his picture that he reminded me he was Gavin Montgomery, our state senator.
Duh! An election was coming up in a few months. His billboards were posted all over the place; his political ads ran constantly on TV. And then a thought had crashed into me: if I looked like Kendall and this Gavin guy was her dad, maybe he was my dad too.
Then I totally started tripping. Maybe my dad wasn’t dead. Maybe he was happily living in Seattle with his other family.
So I’d decided to talk to Kendall and see if I could find out anything else.
‘Ugh, I have to get an hour of swim practice in and then study for a math test. I can’t even.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘Plus I promised Mom I’d fill out some applications for volunteering tonight.’
‘What?’ she exclaimed. ‘Volunteering’s such a waste of time!’
‘Mom says it’ll help me get into college or whatever.’ I defended her half-heartedly, but made a face. ‘Anyway, if it makes my mom happy –’
‘–it’ll keep her off your back.’
I laughed. ‘Exactly.’
It was a weird thing we’d started doing lately. Madison would make fun of some stupid rule my mom had, and I’d say at least it kept her off my back.
Madison and my mom had never really gotten along. It wasn’t like they fought, exactly. My mom was way too nice for that. She was a worrier, overprotective, but she wasn’t a hater. But Madison was always throwing shade.
I shut my locker and gave Tyler a quick peck on the cheek. ‘See you tomorrow.’
Outside the sun was splitting the sky, cheerful puffs of cotton clouds wafting overhead. The air had that sharp, grassy smell to it, like somebody had just mowed the lawn. I walked around the side of the school, cut across the track and into a residential neighborhood, then ducked into Derek’s car.
His black leather biker jacket creaked as he turned toward me.
‘Hey,’ he said, a molasses-slow smile creeping over his face.
I was being a stupid girl. Of course my insides weren’t melting. Okay, my heart sped up a little, but that didn’t have to mean anything. I loved my boyfriend. I did. Derek was just a friend.
Anyway, it wasn’t like I could tell Madison we were friends. She’d told me some crazy shit. Like, that he’d threatened a guy in New York with a knife. She’d majorly freak if she found out I was hanging with him.
‘Hey yourself,’ I replied, grinning at him like an idiot.
‘Where to?’
‘I thought we could find the Starbucks in Mercer Island. If her friends are anything like mine, that’s where they’ll go after school.’
‘Good thinking.’ Derek nodded like he was impressed. ‘Here, do you want to drive?’
‘What?’
‘Drive.’ He waved at the car. ‘Do you want to?’
‘Uh, no. I don’t know how,’ I admitted. I was the only one in my class who didn’t have a license. Considering I’d be seventeen next month, it was totally mortifying. ‘You think my mom would let me do something as normal as drive? She made me wear a helmet in T-ball. I’m surprised she doesn’t make me take a snorkel to swim meets.’
He snorted a laugh. ‘D’you wanna learn? I can teach you.’
I hesitated. I did want to, but I also wanted to talk to Kendall Montgomery.
Derek made the decision for me. ‘Drive it is.’ He got out, walked around to my side of the car, and opened the door.
‘What about Kendall?’ I asked.
‘We’ll talk to her another time.’
‘Okay,’ I agreed uncertainly. ‘But don’t let me forget to text my mom at four. Otherwise she’ll freak.’
‘Why?’
‘She just worries.’ I couldn’t help the note of defensiveness that crept into my voice.
He didn’t say anything, which I liked. It was pretty annoying when Madison and Tyler made fun of me for still having to call or text my mom.
I got into the driver’s seat and clicked my seat belt on.
‘Let’s do this!’ Derek said, trying to pump me up. ‘Ready?’
I inhaled, already aware that he could probably get me to do just about anything. ‘Ready.’
I put my hand on the stick shift, and he put his hand over mine. It was warm and rough.
‘A bit of enthusiasm, please,’ he joked.
‘Woo-hoo!’ I shouted.
Derek threw his head back and laughed. The afternoon sunlight spilled like melted butter across his face, lighting his dark-blue eyes. They penetrated deep inside of me, promising something different than the safe, sheltered life I’d lived so far.
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Christina McDonald
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: They said it was an accident. Her mother knows they’re lying. But the truth comes with a price…A fast-paced and action packed psychological thriller that is full of twists and turns you won’t see coming. The Night Olivia Fell is the most gripping suspense mystery you’ll read this year.IT’S EVERY PARENT’S WORST NIGHTMARE.Abi Knight is startled awake in the middle of the night to a ringing phone and devastating news – her teenage daughter, Olivia, has been in a terrible accident.Abi is told that Olivia slipped and fell from a bridge into the icy water below, and now she lies silent, dependent on life support.But then Abi sees the angry bruises around Olivia’s wrists and learns that her sensible daughter is in fact three months pregnant . . .WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT IF THEY TOLD YOU IT WAS AN ACCIDENT?