by Carrie Ryan
TWENTY-NINE
The end of the Wellses’ driveway is cluttered with news vans, most of them parked haphazardly off the side of the road. When the reporters catch sight of the cop car, they rush it, cameras at the ready. Officers push them back, forcing a gap large enough for Morales to ease through, her foot heavy on the brake.
I glance out the window, long enough for most of them to get a good shot of my face to run on the evening news. My expression is one of surprise, a bit of “deer in headlights” mixed with a healthy dose of “youthful innocence.” I want them to think of me as the everyday girl who just happened to rescue a prominent politician’s wife.
I want them to love me. Everything is so much easier if you have the media on your side.
A few of the reporters shout questions but it’s all a muffled blur and then we’re through the throng and accelerating down the road. “You’ll have to watch out for them—they can be vultures,” she says, flicking her eyes toward the rearview mirror. “Aggressive as hell and rarely care much for the law. Or common decency for that matter.”
“I know,” I say, still staring out the side window at the scrub trees skimming past.
“Right,” she says. “I guess this wouldn’t be the first time you’ve been the center of media attention.” She pauses a moment. “Though I guess you’re pretty good at avoiding them. I don’t remember seeing any pictures of you after the Persephone.”
On the surface her question sounds like idle curiosity, but I detect an undercurrent to it. One that’s constantly pushing and pulling at the edges of my story, searching for weakness. What I can’t figure out is why. Whether her inherent skepticism is part of the job description or whether there’s something about me in particular that’s piqued her suspicion.
“My dad took me to Europe. He thought it would be easier for me to recover if I didn’t have to worry about the attention.”
“Lucky you,” she says, and I have to clench my teeth together to keep from snorting in response.
As we near the O’Martin estate, there’s a smaller camp of reporters, and judging from the vans following along behind us, it’s about to grow. “Guess they’ve ID’d you already,” she grunts, not bothering to slow this time before turning into my driveway. “I’ll see if we can get an officer down here to keep them in line.”
She pulls around to the front of the house and puts the car in park. Turning toward me she says, “Be sure to keep your doors locked and it might be a good idea to cover your windows. They really have no shame with what they’ll photograph and sell.” She fishes in her pocket and holds out a card. “This has my direct number and cell on it. Don’t hesitate to use it.”
“Thank you,” I tell her, taking it.
Before I’ve even stepped out of the car, the front door opens and Shepherd rushes out, anxious. “Are you okay?” he asks.
“I’m fine,” I mumble.
A loud dinging sounds from the cop car as Morales unlatches her seat belt and climbs out, leaving it running. “Mr. Sheep, nice to see you again. Though I guess it’s probably a good thing it’s been a while, huh?” She smiles, almost teasing.
Shepherd laughs, jogging down the front stairs toward the car. He reaches across the roof, shaking Morales’s hand. “She okay?” he asks her, nodding his head back at me.
“Yes,” I tell him from my place on the porch. But he ignores me. I watch as they fall into an easy conversation and frown, wondering how they know each other.
“She’s a new local hero,” Morales tells him. “Saved Senator Wells’s wife from drowning.”
“I saw that on the news—noticed there were a lot of helicopters floating around and turned on the TV just in time.”
She glances back toward the road. “You’ve already got media circling. As I told Libby, I’ll send an officer out to make sure none of the reporters get any ideas.” She looks back to Shepherd. “But you have my number, so call if you need anything.”
He grins, hand rubbing over his head. “Yeah, will do.”
She starts to get back into the car but pauses. “You seem like you’re doing well, Mr. Sheep. I’m glad to see it.” She says this earnestly but Shepherd only laughs and waves in response before climbing the steps to the porch.
“‘Mr. Sheep’?” I ask him, eyebrows raised.
He shrugs. “She thought it was funny my last name was Oveja and everyone calls me Shepherd.” He waits for me to get it and when I don’t he adds, “Shepherd Sheep.”
I remember Libby telling me the story of how Shepherd had gotten the nickname. Not long after Cecil became his guardian, one of the maids had remarked, “That boy follows you around like a puppy.”
“A German shepherd,” Libby had said with a giggle. And the name had stuck.
“How do you know Morales?”
His expression shifts into something more serious, clouded. “We’ve had some dealings in the past.”
Before I ask more, Morales rolls down her window. “You did good, Libby,” she calls out to me. “Not a lot of girls your age can keep a level head like that. Even fewer would take the risk of putting themselves in danger to help someone else out.” She hesitates. “I’m sure if your parents were alive, they’d be really proud.”
I’m barely able to bite back a cringe at the mention of my parents before I can force a smile to my lips. “Thank you,” I respond. But I’m pretty sure Morales didn’t miss my initial reaction.
She pulls away, waving, and I start into the house. Shepherd takes in my expression—my lips pressed tight, my eyes beginning to burn with tears—and frowns. “Frances?” he asks cautiously.
His using my real name is what makes it unbearable. “Don’t,” I say. Pushing past him I sprint up to my room and into the bathroom. I flip the knobs on the shower, not bothering to take off my clothes before stepping under the frigid spray. It’s the only place I ever allow myself to really cry.
I hear the sound of Mrs. Wells’s panic as water choked her lungs. The way her body fought for life. All because of me.
Morales’s words run an endless circuit through my mind, pummeling incessantly against the barrier I’ve erected between my old life and new. Between Frances and Libby. All I can think about is my parents, now nothing more than silt at the bottom of the ocean.
They would never be proud of what I’ve become.
THIRTY
After my shower, I come downstairs to find Shepherd in the kitchen, knife flashing as he chops an onion. The TV above the refrigerator is turned to a news station where reporters continue to drone on about the rescue this morning. The latest update is that Martha Wells is stable but will stay in the hospital overnight for observation.
Shepherd doesn’t seem to be paying attention to it, nor does he realize I’m here. When the reporter mentions the Persephone, his shoulders tense, the knife going still as he looks up at the TV.
A news clip from several years ago begins to play. One so familiar I have it memorized. I bite my lip as the camera zooms in on the deck of a large coast guard ship, focusing on a small group making its way down the gangplank.
The Senator leads the pack and then there’s Grey. The way he’d been years ago, with the same hungry, haunted look in his eyes that I’d seen in mine when I first glanced in the mirror after being rescued.
It’s the first time I’ve watched the clip since seeing him again and I’m struck most not by all the ways he’s changed since then, but by the ways he’s still the same. There’s a flicker of uneasiness that still hovers about him. It’s tucked behind a veneer of confidence and bravado, but if anyone is an expert in masks, it’s me.
I suck in a deep breath, loud enough that Shepherd turns. When he realizes it’s me, he drops the knife and fumbles for the remote, silencing the TV.
“I’m sorry,” he says, shaking his head at himself. “I shouldn’t have been watching—”
&
nbsp; I shrug. “No worries.”
There’s an awkward pause as Shepherd stares at the silent TV still showing the old news clip with Grey and his father. We watch a moment while the Senator answers questions, his mouth moving, saying nothing.
“It’s strange,” Shepherd finally says, cutting off the television entirely. “Seeing that now—knowing what you told me about everything. He just lies so blatantly. Both of them.”
“I know.” I slip onto a stool across the kitchen island. “So you believe me now?”
He studies me a moment. “I don’t not believe you,” he finally says. Which I guess is good enough for the time being.
He picks up his knife and returns to chopping his onion, but his forehead still furrows in thought. Finally, his hand stills and he looks up at me. “Can I ask you something?”
I nod, bracing myself.
“How do you do it?” His eyes rove across my face, examining me as one might a forgery of a painting or sculpture—critically, searching out the flaws. As though in his eyes I’m now an object rather than a person.
“How are you her?” he adds.
It’s not a question I really know how to answer, so I grab a banana from the fruit bowl and begin to peel it slowly.
“I mean, knowing who you are now, I’m surprised I didn’t figure it out earlier,” he continues. “It just seems so obvious. But then you walk into a room and the first thing I think is, Libby.”
The way he says it sounds like both a compliment and an insult.
I shrug again, focused on my banana. Trying to mentally stop the flush of chagrined heat creeping up the back of my neck. “I’ve been Libby for four years,” I tell him.
“Is everything about you her now?” It’s as though he’s discovered some sort of new species and is intent on studying it. “I mean, what’s Frances like?”
My hands still, the dangling banana peel trembling slightly. I force myself to take the bite even though my stomach has turned sour.
What am I supposed to tell him? That there is no such being as Frances? That she died out on that life raft four years ago?
Except that I feel her still here, pushing against me.
“Who Frances is doesn’t matter,” I finally tell him.
This seems to take him aback. “That can’t really be true.”
I twist my lips bitterly. “Well, take it up with the Senator and Grey. They’re the ones who killed her.”
He’s quiet, lost to his own thoughts, as he pulls a bag of green peppers from the refrigerator and begins to clean them over the sink. I carefully fold my discarded banana peel and stand to throw it away.
He doesn’t even turn to look at me when he says, “I’ll help you with the Senator and Grey.”
I freeze, my foot pressed against the trash can. With a sigh, he pushes from the sink and faces me. Water drips from his fingers, collecting in tiny pools on the floor. “I’m still pissed at you and I’m not okay with what you’ve done. For the past four years I’ve thought about Libby, wondering if she’s okay, and what I did wrong.” He shakes his head. “You’ve put me through hell, frankly.”
I drop my eyes. “I’m sorry.” He needs me to say it and so I do. Even though I don’t wholeheartedly believe it.
“But regardless of everything you’ve done,” he continues, “the truth is that Libby didn’t deserve to die.” He draws a shaky breath. “And she certainly didn’t deserve to die like that,” he says, voice rough around the edges with tears he’ll never let fall in front of me.
“Libby deserves to have the truth. And if I can help her get it, I will.”
I nod. “Thank you.”
“But one thing,” he adds. I tense, waiting. “I don’t want anyone else getting hurt.”
I frown, not understanding.
“No more poisoning people.”
I roll my eyes. “It’s not like she was in any real danger—”
He steps forward, cutting me off. “I’m serious. I won’t be involved in anyone getting killed. I may know you’re really Frances Mace, but to the rest of the world you’re Elizabeth O’Martin and I won’t allow you to do anything that would make others think poorly of her.”
This causes my skin to burn with indignation. “They killed a ship of innocent people,” I spit.
He holds up his hands, fending off my rage. “That may be so. And you can be as reckless as you want with your own life. But not with mine or Libby’s or anyone else’s. Not until we’re sure they deserve it.”
“That’s not the plan,” I tell him.
“Then change the plan.” His words are shot through with steel. “Or make sure you have a plan to deal with the cops because I won’t hesitate to call Morales.”
My first instinct is to fight, but it’s obvious Shepherd has no intention of backing down. And perhaps the reality is, I don’t need him to. Not yet. So I tuck my anger away and let the tension ease from my shoulders. “Okay,” I tell him.
He watches me a moment and then nods, picking up his knife and starting in on a pile of carrots. For a moment I watch the way his fingers curl expertly against each one, knife moving in perfect precision.
“Can I help?” I ask, hoping to diffuse the tension.
He pauses before answering and for a moment I think he’s about to tell me no. “Yeah,” he says instead. “Sure.”
I pull the peppers from the sink and begin cleaning out the seeds. “What are you making?”
“Libby’s favorite.” He says it aggressively, like a test.
I smile, remembering the Italian-themed dinner on the cruise. “Spaghetti sauce.”
Shepherd nods.
“Even though she hated pasta,” I add.
His lips twitch. “She’d just order bowls of sauce.”
“And somehow she made it seem eccentric rather than weird.”
He laughs. “That was Libby.”
For a while, the silence between Shepherd and me isn’t exactly strained. But it’s not particularly comfortable either. I can feel just how aware of my every movement he is. How he compares everything about me to the Libby he knew. Cataloging the similarities and differences.
Wondering about it all.
It’s like there’s a ghost of her in the room shadowing me and for the first time after Cecil’s death, I’m not the only one who can see her. “Libby kept a lot of journals,” I finally offer. “She wrote about everything. Which you probably know . . .” My voice trails off.
His knife pauses, hovering just against the skin of a ripe tomato before resuming its precise slicing. He says nothing, but also doesn’t stop me as I continue.
“You asked how I was able to become her,” I explain. “A lot of it came from those days we spent together on the life raft. You’d be amazed at the amount of ground you cover when you think you’re going to die. And of course a lot came from Cecil. Though obviously he didn’t know about the wild blackberries,” I add ruefully.
“But most of it is from her journals.” I think back to reading through them for the first time. How invasive it felt. I remembered wondering at the time what had happened to my own journals, crowded in a crate under my bed at home in Ohio.
Who’d been the one to go through our house, collect our things? Did that crate still exist somewhere? The entire encapsulation of Frances Mace, inscribed in a few dozen diaries. The only place she still lived on.
It’s the same for Libby, I guess. I’m just this shell of her—a badly formed replica.
“Was it hard becoming her?” he finally asks.
I ponder the question. Growing up middle class in Ohio—the daughter of a teacher and local banker. Clothes bought off the sale rack without concern about label or what was in fashion. Dinners as a family around the kitchen table, Sunday mornings at church, Tuesday afternoons at Brownies. It was just such a different life.
I’d assumed that was just the way of things for a girl still getting used to being a teenager. Certainly all of my friends faced the same issues.
But then Cecil had come along and I learned that there was little in life that couldn’t be smoothed down with the introduction of true wealth of the kind Cecil possessed.
“Some things were hard,” I tell him. “Learning to override my own likes and dislikes with hers, remembering the way she talked, adopting her mannerisms.”
It’s why I had to stay away, out of the spotlight for so long. People’s memories of Libby had to fade so that they could be overwritten. Enough time had to pass that any aberrant tastes, mannerisms, or habits could be ascribed to “that’s just what happens as kids grow up.” Any changes in my appearance could be the passing nature of time—eyes can shift color slightly, a new haircut can frame the face differently, features can meld and change as a girl’s body matures.
“Other things were easier,” I admit. “Libby had everything.” He snorts and I blush. “At least that’s what it felt like to me. She wasn’t Frances Mace,” I tell him. “That’s what really made it easy to become her.”
He glances at me, surprised. “Do you really hate who you used to be so much?”
I let out a rueful laugh. “It’s not hate. I was fine with my life before. But that’s the thing—after the Persephone that life didn’t exist either. Frances as she’d been before—that was no longer an option for me. My choice was a gaping black hole of uncertainty or Libby.”
I lift a shoulder, as though the decision were meaningless. “I chose Libby.”
“You know, not everything is black-and-white like that. Either/or.”
“But some things are,” I counter. “Alive or dead. Here or not. Libby or no one.”
He looks like he wants to argue, but he doesn’t. Instead he resumes his chopping, and I do the same, preparing the rest of the meal in silence.