But I’ll wait, patiently, for you to come to me. To talk. To meet me, really. Because even though we’ve met in the most basic sense of the word, we are strangers.
So. Happy birthday, daughter. Happy birthday to the most beautiful stranger I have yet to meet.
Love, your adoring mother
I drop the letter to my lap.
The wind continues to howl outside, but in here, everything is quiet. Too quiet. There’s far too much room for my thoughts to invade, my insecurities, my frustrations.
I was supposed to read this letter three months ago.
Tess has been waiting for me for three months.
So many things make sense to me all of a sudden: the absence of questions during my first week of school, the way she holes herself up in her office but leaves the door cracked, the tensing of her shoulders when we run into each other in the kitchen.
That isn’t to say that I forgive her for the things she’s done. She has a lot to apologize for. But then … maybe I do, too?
I reread the letter several times before opening my nightstand drawer and slipping it in along with the key and the drawing from Parrish. Part of me wants to go to him, to let him hold me and rub my back while I feel this situation out, but … I can’t. I can’t let him hold me that way if he’s just going to push me back.
Instead, I slip my earbuds in, start up Cry by Ashnikko—guess I really am a simp, huh?—and curl up to go back to sleep.
In my dreams, I relive that moment in the basement with Parrish over and over and over again.
Delphine wakes me up in the morning, as she usually does. Saturdays and Sundays be damned; it’s early to rise in the Vanguard house as always. I feel bad for Delphine though; she’s here six mornings a week now.
“Whatever happened to that other girl you mentioned, the one that used to clean on weekdays?” I ask on the tail end of a yawn, reaching up to scratch at my head as I blink through sleep-blurred eyes. Delphine is already whisking the curtains open and spraying the already-clean glass with Windex.
“JJ?” she asks, glancing back at me with a nervous expression. “Nobody’s seen her for months.”
That perks me up a bit. If I had cat ears, they’d have swiveled forward at the news.
“She’s missing?” I ask, feeling this pit open up in my stomach. I wonder if the Seattle Slayer got her? The way Delphine’s looking at me makes me wonder if she’s thinking the same thing. Even if it wasn’t him, there’s a chance it’s something worse.
“The police think she took off, but I don’t know if I believe that. She’d just started dating—” Delphine begins, pausing at the sound of a knock on the door. Tess enters without waiting for me to call out which annoys me … until I remember the letter. She left it for me on purpose, right?
A bit of hope fills me, but it’s squashed out just as quickly by the look on Tess’ face. She seems worried about something. Hopefully nothing to do with me. I’m not sure how much more I can take.
“Have you spoken to Lumen today?” she asks me, and I cock a brow. She should know if I have: she has spyware all the fuck over my phone, and I (supposedly) don’t have any other electronics to use at the moment. “Apparently there was a party last night, and she didn’t come home.”
Alarm spikes through me as Delphine stops scrubbing the window. I hadn’t realized how loud the squeaking of the glass was until just now. It feels almost stiflingly quiet in here.
“Lumen is missing?” Parrish asks, coming out of his room dressed in a bunch of expensive Whitehall gear. He looks like he’s about to head out for a run. Only, I know he doesn’t go running because Tess won’t let him; he has to use the home gym instead. Poor little rich boy, am I right? “What’s so unusual about that? This happens all the time.”
“Not since I’ve known her,” I retort, forgetting for the briefest of seconds there that we had a moment in Bend. And not just an emotional moment, but a physical one. Those were all firsts for me. I swing my legs out of bed as Tess sighs.
“Lumen Hearst has gone missing once or twice …” she hazards, but I can see that her mama bear instincts are flaring. She’s a bit more bear than mother in my opinion, but whatever. Also, the letter, Dakota. The letter. My face heats up and Parrish notices. His gaze sharpens, but not in a bad way, and then he … hooks a smile at me?
Wow.
Wasn’t expecting that.
“She disappeared in Colorado for three fucking days during freshman year.” Parrish lifts up a hand as Tess gives him a look that clearly says watch your language, bro. Maybe without the ‘bro’ part though. She isn’t that interesting. “Then, on our sophomore class trip to Disneyland, she left the park and somehow ended up in San Francisco. If there was a party last night, and Lumen was at it, then she probably took off with some new friends to the Bahamas. She’ll turn up.”
“Either way, I’d like for both of you to call and text her,” Tess says, glancing over at Delphine. She gets right back to cleaning, as if she wasn’t listening in on the entire conversation. “And please let me know as soon as you hear from her. Her father’s out of his mind with worry.”
Tess disappears down the hall without mentioning the letter, without so much as giving away with a single furtive glance that she left it here last night. No mention of getting my door back either.
“She’ll probably call you in the morning, bitching about a hangover,” Parrish tells me, but I’m worried anyway. I grab my Tess-phone from the dresser and type out a quick message before giving her a call. No answer. Parrish watches, arms crossed, as he moves over to lean in my doorway. Like Tess, he doesn’t mention the drawing he left for me either. “Do you think we could talk later?” he asks me, flicking his gaze up to Delphine.
Nausea overtakes me in a wave because I know what this is about. And I’m scared. Terrified, maybe, is a better word.
“Yeah, for sure. I should probably talk to Tess first though. I finally got around to reading that birthday letter she gave me and … it’s heavy.” Parrish watches me while I talk, his slight smile turning back into that neutral pout he enjoys so much. He has the mouth to pull it off, I’ll admit. He nods as I glance his way.
Our eyes meet, and I swear, the air between us starts to ripple with heat.
Before I decide to say fuck it and go after Parrish first, I force myself to open the topmost dresser drawer, snatch some clothes, and disappear into the bathroom. Once I’ve showered, brushed and dried my hair, and gotten dressed, I finally emerge.
Both Delphine and Parrish are gone, so I decide that now’s the time.
I’m going to talk to Tess.
I’ll tell her I read the letter. Maybe we can actually have a conversation where she doesn’t threaten me the way she did at Laverne’s house? I’d like that. A lot, actually.
Since she spends a good sixty hours a week in her office, I decide to look for her there first.
“Tess?” I ask, knocking on her office door and pausing as it swings open of its own accord. The room is empty, sunlight slanting across her desk and over the typewriter with a nearly full page hanging out of it. I hesitate briefly, intending to turn around and go downstairs to look for her.
Instead, I find my eyes drawn to that page of blocky text, to the words that I used to admire so damn much. With every one of Tess’ books, my admiration grew. The way she weaves such beautiful words together, the humanity in her emotions, you’d never expect such a cold and distant person to be responsible. I’d even been looking ahead at her book tour schedule to see if I couldn’t make it to NYC or something to meet her.
Hah.
Now? I’d do almost anything to unmeet her.
Then I think of the letter, of the way it made me feel to have her pretty words directed at me. I could just glance at the page to see what she’s working on?
There’s something about it that calls to me, some lingering spark of admiration. If I read those beautiful words, maybe I can find a way to connect with her? Maybe something about her
writing will reveal itself to me and I’ll understand her better, the same way I did with the letter?
It’s a stupid idea and really, shame on me for invading my bio mom’s privacy.
It’s inevitable, what happens next.
Each step I take into that room is like a knife, inching closer and closer to my heart. You never know when it’s going to happen, do you? That agonizing pain of betrayal, an emotional wound that rips open inside of you like a chasm. Beside the typewriter, there’s a stack of paper with a cover page: Returned Under the Guise of Night.
I pause in front of the desk, reaching out to straighten the curled length of the page, careful not to smudge the ink with my fingers.
Nothing about our reunion was what I thought it would be. The way she looked at me, the coldness and detachment in her gaze, it was what made the DNA test necessary. The girl was like a reflection of myself as a young woman, with eyes the color of damp earth, high cheekbones, and a proud nose. Her mouth and my mouth were matching shapes, even our hands were synonymous. Every part of her was like an extension of me and yet, I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear the idea that this person, this stranger, was my Mia.
Blood was drawn.
DNA was matched.
Not once, but three times.
I had to be sure, because my dreams and hopes were being dashed to pieces all around me. How could my daughter be alive and well and yet look at me like I was the enemy? How could my daughter look at me like the interloper in her life, like I was the true villain in this story, the real kidnapper.
She may be my child by blood, and my love might be eternal, but that doesn’t mean I have to like her. It doesn’t mean I can’t wish for things to be different, that I can’t have regrets. Sometimes—oftentimes, really—I wonder if it might’ve been better for both of us if we’d never found each other.
She’d have the fantasy of her false family; I would have my dreams.
For now, they are dashed. For now, I must live with the fact that this person, this Mia-impersonator, is the one that I am bound to, obligated to, related to. Because even as I find myself crying at night over the person I wish she was, I know that I will never be able to let her go.
Without thinking, I tear the page from the typewriter, holding it up to hazy eyes. I’m not sure if I’m tearing up or if I’m just angry or …
“What are you doing?” a voice asks from behind me. I don’t have to turn around to know that it’s Parrish. When a tear finally falls onto the page in front of me, I look back at him. There must be something in my face that mollifies his usual bitterness because he doesn’t mock me when the tears begin to flow like saltwater rivers, carving grooves of pain into my face.
I turn and move toward him, handing out the paper in my hand before sweeping past him without a word. I’m slipping into my room when he catches up to me, blocking the door from closing and stepping in behind me.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” he says, shaking the page like it’s thoroughly pissed him off. Clearly, it’s a follow up to Abducted Under a Noonday Sun; clearly, it’s based in reality. “It doesn’t.”
A small, wry smile takes over my mouth, but it just tastes like salt and misery when I lick it away. Did I think things were going okay here? I mean, school isn’t nearly as bad as I’d expected. But home? Home is much, much worse. That letter last night gave me false hope, but it was written three months ago, right? Things have changed since then.
Somehow, I’d been under the notion that no matter how much Tess and I squabbled, that there was some spark of unconditional love inside of her that would allow me to rebel and express my feelings without facing any repercussions. Somehow, I thought that I could fight back until I was too tired to fight anymore and she’d … I don’t know, be there to help pick up the pieces?
“Parrish,” I start, because I’m not really sure what else to say. Instead, I turn away from him and move over to the wall of windows, suddenly hating that I’ve got the lake view and he doesn’t. My fingers rest against the glass as I gaze out at the water and try to ignore the sick, hollow feeling inside my chest.
I put my forehead to the cool panes and close my eyes for a moment. I’m not sure what I expect out of Parrish, but it isn’t for him to leave. He does, however, storming out without another word and letting the door slam into the wall. He doesn’t even bother to close it.
That doesn’t mean I have to like her.
Tess’ words ring in my head like the chiming of a bell, a constant clanging that I can’t shut out, not even when I put my hands over my ears to drown out the sound. It’s impossible to escape from, a cacophony that exists only inside my own head.
As quickly as he left, Parrish comes back. As soon as I hear his footsteps, I open my eyes and look back, watching as he walks in and slams down the black metal trash can from his room. In his right hand is the stack of Tess’ manuscript. He throws it into the can and then looks up at me, slipping a lighter from his pocket.
“Here,” he says, holding it out to me on the palm of his hand. His face is impossible to read, a closed book with no cover, no title, no hint of genre. All that’s discernable there is that he has a story to tell, that he’s a book worth cracking open. “Burn it.”
“Burn it?” I repeat, feeling that hollowness inside of me echo with anger. How dare she?! How dare she tear me away from everything I’ve ever known and completely upend my life then have the audacity to hate me for my feelings toward her? It isn’t right; it isn’t fair.
Then again, nothing in life is fair, is it? It isn’t fair that Saffron’s baby—the real Dakota Banks—died. And it isn’t fair that Tess had her child stolen away because of it. It isn’t fair to the Banks who raised me and loved me and taught me so many things to lose me. It isn’t fair that I somehow got caught in the middle of it all.
Burning Tess’ manuscript won’t change that. Besides, she might enjoy writing on a typewriter for novelty’s sake, but surely she has other copies of the book? Only an idiot or a narcissist would write a single paper copy and leave its integrity up to chance.
I look from the lighter to the manuscript, and I wonder. I wonder if this really is Tess’ only copy. I wonder what she’d do if I burned it. I wonder what she’d do if she knew that I read it.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask Parrish, and he frowns at me, like he’s absolutely furious somehow. At me or at Tess, I’m not sure. Maybe with himself? It’s impossible to tell. I turn all the way around to face him, absently playing with the diamond tennis bracelet around my left wrist. The sun hits the metal heart pin that’s attached to my book bag, reminding me of yet another one of Tess’ random gifts, of her secret birthday letter that was essentially an antonym of the novel she planned to publish for the whole world to read. “You always choose Tess over yourself.”
My words seem to have a strange effect on Parrish. His brown eyes darken substantially, and he looks away, his jaw clenched, his fingers tightening around the lighter.
“Just take it before I change my mind,” he growls at me, but I can’t do it. I can’t seem to move from that spot. I don’t care about Tess. At least … I told myself I didn’t care about Tess. What does it matter if some random woman likes me or not? Only, she isn’t just a random woman. And she isn’t just my bio mom. She’s a woman who carried me for nine months, who gave birth to me, who raised me for two years until I was stolen, a woman who never stopped searching, a woman whose love for me didn’t seem to be able to be questioned.
Now that I’ve lost it, I’m not even sure where to go from here.
With a huff and a sigh, Parrish pockets the lighter just in time for Tess to pop her head into the room. She doesn’t look very happy.
“Is that my manuscript?” she asks, choking on the words as she steps inside, her eyes going from the trash can to my face, to Parrish’s. He turns toward her, his expression something I’ve never seen around Tess before: disappointment.
“I didn’t want her here at first, but I
do now,” he says, taking the lighter back out of his pocket and chucking it in the can beside the stack of papers. “It seems like you’re of the opposite opinion? You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Without another word, Parrish turns and leaves my room, closing his bedroom door behind him and leaving me alone with Tess Vanguard formerly Tess Patterson, mother of Mia Patterson who, apparently, is me.
I am Mia Patterson.
“Dakota,” Tess starts, the name foreign on her lips, some curse in another language that she doesn’t understand but for the distaste it leaves as it rests on her tongue. “Did you read this?”
“I read enough of it,” I say, because I don’t care what else is in that book. The part that I just read was written today. Today. I know I haven’t been the easiest person in the world to get along with lately, but I’ve tried. I went along with the birthday celebration even though I felt sick the whole time. I went along with the talk show even though it turned into a monumental disaster. Tess won’t let me talk to my family back home; I had to sneak out just to see my sister for coffee, and now I’ve lost even that.
I hate all of this. I hate it.
The silence between us is more than enough of an answer.
“So you brought me here and you don’t even want me?” I ask. Then and only then does it really and truly hit me, how lost I feel, how disconnected from fucking anyone except maybe Parrish. Parrish. Of all people.
“You’re an eleven, you know? At least for me.”
“I’ve never wanted anything more.” Tess says the words, but they don’t show on her face. It’s that perfect blend of desperation and frigidity that she seems to specialize in. It’s like she’s two different people at the same time: the mother I always wanted and my worst enemy, wrapped into a single package. “But I can’t apologize for the things I wrote. Dakota, it’s no secret that we’re having trouble connecting. That’s not unexpected.”
A harsh laugh escapes me, and I end up sitting down heavily on the edge of my bed. I’m so fucking glad in that moment that it’s my real bed, the one that my grandmother made for me. It gives me strength somehow, even though she’s nearly three thousand miles away from me.
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