“Go home, Porter!” I yell. “Goddamnit, go home! If you don’t know where my dad is, then go!”
Porter rolls his eyes. “Mrs. Calloway,” he turns to my mom, “my dad said we won’t report the boat missing for now, but if you hear from Mr. Calloway, to please call him.”
“Thank you, Porter,” my mom says through a thin smile. She walks over and closes the front door right in his face.
“What kind of fucking twilight zone shit is this?” Coop exclaims. “Sorry about the mouth,” he says again to my mom. “But Jesus.” He takes a seat right in the middle of the foyer floor and puts his head in his hands.
“Mom, Dad didn’t up and disappear. The Channings, they aren’t good people. You have to believe me. Mr. Channing—I swear he knows where Dad is. He’s lying. And today, someone was in Dad’s office looking for something—”
“I was with her,” Bodhi makes clear. “Someone went crazy in that office, and someone came back and cleaned it all up like nothing ever happened in there. If it wasn’t Mr. Calloway, if he’s been gone since last night … then who was it? Who else could have been in your house?”
My mom puts her head in her hands and lets out a loud growl. “I need to think!”
“Mom,” I plead. “Mom, let us help. Tell us what we can help with. What can we do?”
“Nothing,” she says. “I need some quiet and I need to think.”
My blood is now boiling. “This is bullshit! All the secrets! Why can’t you answer me truthfully? Why do I feel like there’s so much you aren’t telling me? Like, what’s your relationship with Calvin? And how long did you know Lenora? Did you know her when I was crying every night because I missed her and Bodhi so much? Did you know her then? Because there’s shit you aren’t telling me, and there’s shit I overheard Dad and Mr. Channing talk about, and then all this shit that I don’t know, it’s just all bullshit!”
There’s a low mumble behind me. “Maybe we’ll go wait by the jeep?” Beck suggests. He grabs Coop’s arm and yanks him off the floor. Bodhi throws him the jeep keys.
“Sorry about the foul language again, Mrs. Calloway,” Coop says as Beck drags him out the door. “You have a lovely home.”
It’s just Bodhi and I now, standing in the foyer with my mom. I’m fuming. I’ve never had an outburst like this before, and I can tell it’s shocked her.
“I followed you,” my mom says to me. “When you were twelve. I saw you leave on your bike a few months after you started photography lessons with Lenora. I followed you to their house, and I watched the three of you that entire day. You were at the beach, taking pictures of the surfers—”
“You followed me?” I repeat, making sure I heard her correctly. “When I was twelve? You knew the whole fucking time?!”
She winces at my words but nods her head. “I was so jealous. The pregnancy with the twins … it was so hard. I was so sick those first few months. I lost you during that time. When I had the energy to follow you that day, it killed me. I thought you were up to something and I wanted to find out what that was—”
“Why didn’t you ask?” I cry out.
Her eyes narrow on mine. “Would you have told me, Eva? If I had asked?”
No. No, I wouldn’t have. “Eventually!” I exclaim.
She shakes her head at me. “Seeing you so happy with Lenora, and you,” she points to Bodhi. “My heart shattered. It was so obvious how much they loved you. I’ve never felt that type of jealousy before in my entire life. To see these complete strangers loving on my daughter, who I barely even spoke to for months.”
“You were too busy throwing up,” I remind her, not trying to sound angry, but that’s exactly how it comes across. Bodhi grabs my hand and gives me a concerned look.
“I went back home, and the next day while you were at school, Eva, I went to their house,” she turns to Bodhi. “You weren’t there, but your mom was. My god, I was so pissed. I went over there with every intention of telling her that Eva was not allowed to come over anymore.”
“Obviously that didn’t happen,” I grunt.
“No. It didn’t. She recognized me right away. She said Eva and I were twins.” My mom’s tone has changed now. She takes a deep breath. “She invited me in, my nauseous, pregnant, angry self, and showed me Eva’s work. Your photos,” she says to me, “they were beautiful. I’d never seen your photos before. I didn’t even realize you liked photography. What kind of mother doesn’t even know her daughter’s hobbies?”
“You were sick, Mom. Trust me, I remember how sick you were those first few months,” I remind her. “Photography sort of happened during that time. It gave me something to do.”
“Not an excuse, Eva,” she shakes her head. “I was in bed for months. Your dad was gone, and you were on your own. At twelve, you had to take care of yourself. But you had Lenora, and you had Bodhi, and I went over there to take them away from you,” she admits. “It was only a few minutes of me being with her though, when I changed my mind. You needed them, and I needed to be okay with that. Lenora made me feel okay with that. She was amazing with how she made me realize I needed to let you continue going over there.”
I sigh. I bring my hands up to my face and shake my head. I can tell by how she’s acting, that she didn’t just go over there once and never go back. “You and Lenora,” I say to my mom, looking at her in between my fingers, “you became friends?”
“We did. I was honored to have known her.”
Bodhi looks down at his hands. The emotions evident on his face as my mom talks about his mom, hurts me more than anything I’ve just heard.
“You were fucking friends with Lenora?” I ask appallingly. “Friends, Mom? With Lenora?”
“Eva,” my mom continues. “Please try to understand—”
“No! I don’t understand!” I cry out. “You were friends with Lenora all this time, yet you never told me!”
“Did you tell me?” she asks. “Did you ever once think about telling me what you were doing for two years?”
I glare at her. “I was a kid. A kid who was ignored at home every single day. A kid who had no one to talk to. What was your excuse?”
My mom leans up against the railing of the stairs. She shakes her head and looks like she’s fighting back tears.
“When did you even have the time to see her?” I question.
“My Wednesdays,” she answers. “The Wednesdays that everyone thought I was at the chiropractor and out with friends?”
“Wow,” I sigh. “I can’t even—”
“She would show me your work,” my mom interrupts me. “We would talk about life. We would go to Ormond Beach for coffee or go shopping. We kept it a secret. We shouldn’t have, but we did and I’m sorry, Eva.”
“Why the hell did you keep it a secret?” I ask her.
“You, Eva!” she points to me. “I didn’t want you to find out because I was afraid you’d be upset and not want to continue your lessons with her, or even just be with them—”
I throw my hands up in the air. “Are you kidding me?!”
She continues. “I wasn’t sure how angry you’d be at me, knowing that I was friends with Lenora, that she wasn’t just a part of your life. The longer this went on, the harder it was to tell you. Does that make sense at all?”
“No. It does not make sense.”
“What would you have done, Eva?” she asks. “What would you have done if I had showed up at Lenora and Bodhi’s during one of your days with them?”
I don’t want to answer her. But I do. “I would have been fucking pissed.”
Her eyes go wide and she nods her head. “And would you have kept going over there if you found out Lenora and I were friends?”
I glance at Bodhi. He raises his eyebrow at me. I turn back to my mom. “Yes. But I would have hated you.”
I see tears form in her eyes and I have to look away.
“You already hated me, Eva. And I knew that. You hated me the moment I told you I was pregnant. I wanted you to have that time wit
h her. That secret time. I could see how much you loved it and you had such amazing talent. I wanted you to have that, without me being involved in any way.”
“Dad?” I question. “Dad didn’t know? Because if you tell me Dad knew this whole time—”
She shakes her head. “Definitely not. I didn’t want your dad to know because—it’s your dad. He wouldn’t understand why I was letting you run around with Lenora and Bodhi. He was hardly ever home anyway. He’d be mad you lied, mad I didn’t tell him, mad I had a friendship with someone so opposite of what he deems is perfect. What was the point of telling him?”
I agree with her on this. I absolutely understand how telling my dad would have blown up in her face.
“The accident? What happened the day of the accident?” I ask.
The tears that had formed in my mom’s eyes rapidly drip down her cheeks. “There was no way I could tell your dad that day. After what happened to you. I was scared of how he’d react if he knew I had let you go over there for two years without telling him. If he knew I let you out on that boat that day, like I was responsible for you breaking your leg. It was just an accident. I never once, not even for a second, blamed Lenora. But your dad, Eva, didn’t see it that way. He just wanted someone to be held responsible for what happened.”
“How did you explain it to him?”
She wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands. “I took the blame. I told him you had asked me if you could go out with friends, that I was half asleep when you asked. That I gave you permission but wasn’t listening to the details. I would never let him blame Lenora or Bodhi.”
“He still did though,” I make known. “Behind your back.”
“I know,” she says, looking ashamed. “I realize this now.”
I fold my arms across my chest. What I’m going to ask her next is going to determine if my mom and I will ever have a normal relationship again.
“After the accident …” I start. “The three years I spent living in hell in this house. The last three years of Lenora’s life … did you still see her every Wednesday?”
She doesn’t want to answer me. She’s looking between Bodhi and I, realizing that by telling us the truth, she’s driving this wedge between her and I deeper and deeper into the point of no return.
“You did,” I answer for her.
“I did,” she replies.
I instantly start crying. She goes to walk over to me, but Bodhi steps in front of her, in front of me. “It’s okay, Eva,” he says, wiping my tears with his fingers.
“It is not fucking okay!” I cry out.
“Eva,” my mom painfully says my name. “It was never my plan to have you not go back over there! I was going to tell your dad everything! After you got home! But when I mentioned them, he said you never wanted to see them again! That you were angry about what had happened … that you threw your camera in the pool when he tried to talk to you—”
“He threw my camera in the pool!” I scream at her. “He did! And you believed him that I’d be that shallow? To Bodhi and Lenora? Knowing how much I loved them?”
She looks embarrassed. “I believed him at first, just for a bit. Especially as you recovered from your broken leg. It was weeks before you could even walk again. Recovery was so rough, and once you were home from the hospital you were so different. It was like day and night with you. You were here, but gone. I could see the change in you, Eva. I knew something was wrong with you. I just couldn’t figure out what—”
I cover my ears and shake my head. “I don’t want to hear anything else!” I cry out.
But she doesn’t listen. “I thought it was the leg … I thought you were angry at them about what happened to you, about how long it was taking you to recover. You never talked about them anymore … you never asked to go see them and I thought it was because of the weeks of pain and torture you went through trying to get back on your feet … but now I know why. I know what your dad said to you, and it all makes sense now. You were gone, because your father took Lenora and Bodhi away from you, not because of your leg. And I’m sorry, Eva. I’m so sorry I didn’t know any of this.”
I start to cry harder and have to look away from her.
Bodhi’s hands come up to my face. “It’s okay. Please don’t cry, Eva.” His forehead rests on mine as he whispers, “It’s you and me now. I promise. It will always be you and me.”
I bring my hands to his waist and bury my head in his chest.
“I’m so sorry, to both of you,” my mom apologizes. “I understand how different this all would have been, if you would have known all these years that Lenora and I were friends. If you both would have known that I knew every single time you all were together, or that we were still friends after the accident. If I would have known what your dad threatened you with, Eva. God, why didn’t I know that? I’m so sorry, both of you. I’m so sorry.”
I can’t look up. I can’t look at her. I don’t know how I will ever look at her again.
“This past year,” she goes on, “the sicker Lenora got … our Wednesdays out didn’t happen together as often. Instead, I would run errands for her, grocery shop, drop off things to the house that she needed, sit with her and watch movie after movie. I found the nurses for her when she refused to be admitted.” She turns to Bodhi and takes a deep breath. “Bodhi, she just wanted to stay with you as long as possible.”
He doesn’t answer her. He just turns his attention back to me, the mess that I am soaking his bare chest with my tears, but then he spins his head back towards her. “Wednesdays,” he says. “Ten to three. I’ve worked at Dolly’s every Wednesday during the summer since I was twelve. Was that because of you?”
“That was your mom’s idea,” she answers him. “She wanted our friendship, especially after the accident, to remain a secret for the same reasons I did. She didn’t want to upset Eva. She wanted Eva to come over for lessons, and after the accident she wanted her to come back when she was ready. We both thought she needed time, time to recover from the accident.”
I look up from Bodhi’s chest and straight to my mom. “What I needed, was for my mom to tell me what she was doing behind my back! Do you know how much it kills me that Lenora thought I was angry at her all this time?”
Bodhi squeezes my hand. “She never thought that, Eva.”
I want to believe him, but I don’t.
“My grandpa Calvin,” Bodhi mumbles, he turns to my mom. “Did you call him?”
She nods. “Lenora didn’t know I called him. She didn’t know until one of the very last times I saw her.”
“You waited almost three years to tell her?” I question in disbelief.
“I did.” She comes closer to Bodhi and I. She tries to put her hand on my shoulder, but I jerk it away. “Listen, there are some things that Lenora told me over our years of friendship, things she trusted me with, things that don’t matter right this second and that don’t need to be discussed while you’re both standing here so upset. And you might not agree with that, but you have to trust me.”
“I’m sorry,” I angrily respond. “But I don’t trust you at all.”
Bodhi squeezes my hand again. “It’s okay,” he says to my mom.
She looks at him with relief. “I called your grandpa when your mom got sick, because you needed someone else to look out for you in case things didn’t get better. I promised your mom I’d always look out for you, and that was one way I was keeping my promise. I didn’t tell her because I was afraid of how she’d react, knowing who Calvin was.”
Bodhi nods. “Because of my dad?”
“Yes,” she replies. “Calvin’s a good guy, Bodhi. A really good guy. Your mom—I wasn’t sure if she’d understand that.”
There’s silence from Bodhi. I can tell he wants to ask her something, but is too nervous to say what’s on his mind. He looks at me, then my mom as he finally questions, “Did my mom talk about my dad to you?”
I jerk my eyes to my mom. She nods her head. “I might know a f
ew things, Bodhi.”
He shakes his head and mutters, “She told you, but not me. I don’t want to hear it right now,” he makes known. “Whatever you might know. I don’t want to hear it.”
Her face softens. “Okay, Bodhi,” is all she says.
“When you told her about Calvin,” he then continues, “what did she say?”
My mom gives Bodhi a small smile. “When she found out that Calvin lived right next door to me, to Eva, she immediately called her lawyer. I was there when she did it.”
I catch my breath a little.
Bodhi looks down at me, wiping the remaining tears from my eyes. “That sounds like my mom.”
“Yes,” my mom agrees. “It does. She thought having you visit him once she was gone … she thought you’d at some point run into Eva again.”
I don’t know why this makes me so emotional, to hear that Lenora was thinking about me even when she was so sick, but I can’t stop the tears from falling again.
“Eva,” my mom says gently. “I hope that one day—”
I raise my one hand up, wiping my tears with the other. “Please, please don’t tell me that these last five years, everything you did was for me. I don’t want to hear that right now.” I glance up at Bodhi. “Can we get out of here? Please?”
He grabs my hand. “Of course, Eva.” He then turns to my mom. “Is that okay?”
She nods her head, and we start heading to the door. “Wait! The office!” she calls out. “Was it really a mess?”
“It was,” Bodhi tells her. “Destroyed. But now it looks like no one was ever in there.”
She looks towards the office. “I don’t understand how, and I don’t understand who would find his office so interesting. Or who would let themselves into our house. Henry Channing is the only person who comes to mind. I’ve caught him in there a few times before. I’m pretty sure he has a key to our house now that I think about it …”
“You should get that back from him,” Bodhi raises his eyebrow. “Or even change the damn locks. Or lock your doors. We walked right in earlier.”
“I will,” my mom agrees.
“Maybe you shouldn’t stay here tonight?” Bodhi suggests, looking between my mom and I. “If someone came into your house looking for something in that office, even if it was just Mr. Channing, what if he comes back? He doesn’t seem like a very stable person if you ask me. And didn’t you say your alarm is broken or something? I think you should be taking this more seriously.”
Confession Page 18