And if—if—Sarah was his, he’d never take her from me. I’d raised her, loved her, always been her father. That would never change. We’d move away, far away from the Jeffersons. Hell, I’d call Paul and see what Switzerland could offer. Anything to get us away from him. I would not lose my family. He would never split up my family. I had to be strong, be calm. Show Abby I could forgive her and we could move on. I took a deep breath as I turned the last corner.
But then I saw the flashing lights of the police cars, one of which was in our driveway.
* * *
It’s strange how easily a person can slip into survival mode. A police officer tells you your wife has been seriously hurt, that she’s on her way to the Princess Royal Hospital with your daughter, and they’ll take you, too. All I could say was, “Will you move your car out of my driveway so I can park, please?”
I don’t remember the name of the policeman, only that his brown eyes kept checking on me in the rearview mirror. At the hospital, with his hand on my shoulder, he escorted me to one of the waiting rooms, and when we got there, I still hadn’t spoken another word.
“Dad!” Sarah hugged me tight and buried her face in my shoulder as I wrapped my arms around her. “Mum got hit by a van and...” Her sobs muffled the rest of her words.
“Nate... I—”
“You!” I shouted as I saw Liam, who’d been standing in the corner behind Sarah. I let go of my daughter and pushed her out of the way. “You bastard.” I got two punches in—one in the face and one in the gut—before the doe-eyed police officer held me back, releasing me only once I’d promised I’d calm down.
“I’m so sorry,” Liam said as he rubbed his reddening cheek, and I realized he hadn’t even put a hand up to protect himself from my blows. “I’m so sorry.”
“Fuck you, Liam,” I growled. “Fuck you, you—”
“Dad.” Sarah’s voice sounded small, insignificant. Scared. “Please.” She put her arms around me again as I hung my head.
“Mr. Morris?” A petite woman in a white coat, red stethoscope around her neck, stood in the doorway, her face the smooth perfection of a porcelain doll. She looked at me, Sarah, then Liam. “Mr. Morris?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “Where’s Abby? When can we see her?”
She came over to me, her head barely reaching my shoulder. “I’m Dr. Khan.” She swallowed. “Your wife...I’m afraid she suffered massive internal trauma. The bleeding was so severe we couldn’t—”
“No,” I said. “No.”
“Dad?” Sarah gripped my arm. “Daddy?”
“I tried... We tried...” Dr. Khan said, looking up at me. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Morris, but your wife passed away. She—”
“No!” I shouted. “No! You have to do something. Please. Can’t you do something?”
Dr. Khan shook her head. “I’m so sorry... She’s gone.”
I watched as Liam pushed his way past everybody, running down the corridor, and Sarah crumpled to the floor, sobbing. “It’s my fault, it’s my fault,” she cried, her shoulders shaking hard. “It’s my fault.”
“Shhh.” I knelt down and scooped my little girl into my arms, rocking her and kissing the side of her damp head. “Shhh. It’s not your fault. It’s not.”
“It is.” Sarah looked at me. “I ran into the road, Dad, after...after I heard them talking,” she whispered. “Mum said...she said...she doesn’t know if...if you’re my...”
“I know, sweetheart,” I said, pulling her closer, our tears mixing together as they dropped into our laps. “I know. But everything will work out. Everything will—”
“No.” Her face scrunched up as she whispered again, “No it won’t, because, because...”
And as I listened to my baby girl tell me about Zac, the tiny piece of my world that hadn’t yet fallen imploded entirely.
NOW
NATE
“NATE,” LIAM SAID when I opened the door a few days after Abby’s accident. “Are you alone?”
I didn’t answer.
“Can we talk?” he said. “Please.”
The exhaustion on his face told me he’d had about as much sleep as me, and his eyes were a shade of pink I’d never seen before. He looked like he hadn’t touched a razor for days, and his clothes were badly crumpled. But most noticeable was the shiny bruise on his left cheek. It made me want to give him a fresh one on the other side.
I didn’t want to look at him, let alone hear him speak. But he had answers. And I needed them. I turned my back but left the front door open. I crossed the hallway, walked through the kitchen filled with food and other goodwill gestures people had dropped off, past Abby’s sneakers I couldn’t yet touch. I sat down but Liam chose to stand, and I watched as he fiddled with the cuffs of his shirt.
“Is Sarah...?”
“She went to Claire’s. Needed to get out of the house.”
He nodded. “That’s probably for the best. How are you?”
A snort escaped my throat as I stared him down. “What the hell do you care?” I paused. “Man, you look like shit.”
“Yes.”
“I hope you feel like shit, too.”
“Far worse.”
“Good. I hope it lasts forever.”
He lowered his eyes. “I deserve that. I deserve all of it.”
I shrugged. “What do you want? Paul will be back soon, so whatever you’re here for you’d better get on with it. He’d be quite happy to beat the crap out of you, too.”
Liam looked at me. “I want to tell you the truth about what happened.”
I laughed. “Come to off-load your guilt, have you?”
“It’s not that.”
“Well, let me spare you the trouble.” I said. “You and Abby met in the Cotswolds. You fuc—” I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them again. “And then my daughter was born. Voilà.”
He looked away and swallowed.
“Don’t tell me there’s more,” I spat. “There can’t possibly be anything else.”
“We knew each other before. Before the Cotswolds.”
I could feel my pulse thumping in my neck. “The hell are you talking about?”
“We were together before she met you. Before the accident when...when—” I opened my mouth—in shock or to speak I wasn’t sure—but he continued “—when I killed him.”
“Who? What are you talking about?”
He took a deep breath. “Tom. I was the one driving that night. It was me.”
It felt as if the air had instantly been sucked out of the room. I was unable to move any part of my body, including my lips, rendering me incapable of saying anything at all. Part of my brain wondered if I’d misheard, trying to decide if I found myself in the middle of a continuous nightmare, but Liam spoke again, every word revealing my new reality.
“Abby and I had been together for months. We were in lo—” His eyes darted around the room. “That night...I met them outside the pub just as they were leaving. They were both wasted, so I said I’d drive and we’d take Tom home first instead of him getting a cab.” He gulped. “But a deer ran into the road and...and I swerved. I lost control.” He was sobbing now. “Neither of them were moving. I thought they were dead. And I’d had a few drinks earlier...so...so I panicked and ran. I fucking ran.”
More seconds passed before he looked at me, and my voice finally returned. “You left her in the middle of the road? Deserted her brother who was trapped inside the car?” I tried to get up, wanted to punch him in the gut repeatedly, but my arms and legs still felt like dead weights, and I was sure I’d collapse before I even got to him.
“I was scared,” Liam whispered. “I’d already lost my license once before. I thought I’d be locked up. I’d lose my job. I thought I’d already lost Abby. But I was selfish...so bloody selfish. And I’m sorry.” His eyes were
pleading with me now. “Christ, I’m so, so sorry.”
“But that means...”
“It wasn’t her fault,” Liam said. “None of it was ever her fault.”
“Jesus.” I managed to get up, pressed the palms of my hands over my face for a few seconds to stop the room from spinning. “I don’t know what to do with this information. I can’t—”
“I loved her, Nate,” Liam said, and I forced myself to unclench my fists before they connected with his face. “We were going to move in together, but after the accident...” He exhaled. “She left me anyway. She said she couldn’t be with me.”
“And so you punished her? Let her think she’d killed her brother? What the f—”
“No! You’ve got it wrong.” Liam drew a breath.
“Oh, please. You say you loved her! How could you do that to her? How?”
“I wanted to tell her. But I knew she’d never forgive me. If I told her, we wouldn’t stand a chance. I thought if I gave her time...enough space... But then she left—”
“With me.” I laughed bitterly as I paced the room. “And I took care of her, put her back together. And all these years, all this time, she blamed herself when all along it was you.”
“Yes,” he whispered. “And I’ve wanted to make it up to her every single day ever since. I thought you should know. I thought it might help you understand why—”
“Oh, fuck you, Liam.” I pointed at him. “You’d never have told her the truth, would you? You’d have let her believe she was responsible forever. Christ, your fling with Abby was built on nothing but lies, you manipulative coward.” I planted my feet on the ground, dug my fingers into the back of my chair. “Get out of my house.”
He swallowed and looked at his feet. “Nate, I need to know about Sa—”
“What? Taking Abby from me wasn’t enough? Now you want my daughter, too?”
Liam’s head snapped upward, and he met my eyes. “No, I’d never—”
“But you want to know if she’s yours.” I stared at him. “Don’t you?”
“If she’s mine,” he said, aging a decade with every passing moment, “then she’s the only part of Abby I have left.”
“You have nothing of Abby left. And Sarah’s mine,” I said through gritted teeth. “She’s mine.”
“Nate, it’s not just about us. Zac...he’s a mess. The kids...they need to know.”
“What about your wife? Where does she fit in? I haven’t seen her around lately. What did you do, kill her, too?” I stared at Liam, momentarily satisfied when I saw him flinch.
“Nancy’s devastated, Nate, she’s beside herself. She, uh, she took Zac to her mum’s. We’re selling the house. Getting divorced.”
I stared at him. “Is that what Abby was going to do, too? Divorce me? For you?”
Liam closed his eyes and kept his head down.
“Jesus Christ, this keeps getting better and better. You’re such a bas—”
“I loved her, Nate,” he said quietly. “From the first moment I saw her. I loved her.”
“Yeah,” I said with a shrug. “She had that effect on people.”
“She loved you, too. She told me you—”
I shook my head, my voice a growl. “No. Don’t you fucking dare.” I closed my eyes. “You need to leave, Liam. Get out now. Before I do something I won’t regret.”
NOW
NATE
IT HAD BEEN two weeks since the funeral. Abby’s father, Patrick, flew over from Boston, and Sarah and I recognized him instantly when we picked him up at the airport. His face looked like Abby’s, but by the way he walked we’d already suspected he was her dad, and his sad smile confirmed it well before we shook hands. He sobbed as he hugged Sarah and me, whispering over and over how sorry he was, and we clung to him like drowning men to a lifeboat.
I respected both Patrick and Dolores immensely to have put what must have felt like insurmountable differences aside, at least for one day, so they could say goodbye to their daughter. But now Abby’s parents, Paul, Lynne and the girls had all gone home, resuming their normal lives, and Sarah and I had to start our own.
My daughter and I sat in front of my laptop. The light gave her skin an eerie, bluish tinge making the rings under her eyes darker still. I was glad it would be the end of the school year soon. We were going to Europe next month; both of us had decided we had to get away, make some new memories, just the two of us, and then with Paul and Lynne in Switzerland. Kevin had already arranged it all, no expense had been spared. But before that, we had something else to take care of.
“You’re sure about this?” I said, the cursor hovering over the Submit button. “You’re absolutely sure you want to do this?”
“Dad,” Sarah said. “It’s not about him.” She still refused to say Liam’s name. “You’re my dad. You always will be. But I have to know about Zac.” She squeezed my hand. “I have to.”
“But he’ll be at university soon,” I said quickly. “And the house will sell. You never have to see him again. We’ll never see any of them again.”
“Dad,” she whispered, then swallowed and said, “I need to know.”
* * *
The package from GeneTech arrived in a plain envelope a few days later. “Don’t make me do the cheek swabs, Dad,” Sarah said as we went through the instructions. “Please don’t make me feel like a criminal.”
I hugged her. “We’ll use hair samples instead,” I said. “Will that be okay?”
She nodded, her eyes welling up as she looked over the rest of the pamphlet. “It says it’s better if we send a sample from Mum, too.” Tears spilled over her cheeks. “How do we...?”
“I’ll take care of it.” I kissed the top of her head and went to our—my—bathroom, opened one of the drawers and stared at Abby’s brush. I picked it up, pulling and unraveling the long blond strands, my pounding heart filling with hatred and anger.
Sometimes I thought if she were still alive I’d want to kill her. Slip my hands around her dainty little neck and squeeze until I watched the life seep out of her. But before that I’d shout and rant at her, yell about how I’d tried to make her happy every single day since I’d laid eyes on her in the middle of that godforsaken road. I’d tell her I should have left her to die, like her precious, perfect Liam had.
But then the anger vanished and was replaced by a feeling of absolute, drowning despair, and I whispered a pathetic “sorry” to my dead wife, apologizing for the terrible thoughts over and over, begging her to come back, to lie down next to me so I could tell her I still loved her. Grief, I knew, was a slippery, fickle little bastard, difficult to get hold of, almost impossible to tame.
I took a deep breath and went back to the kitchen, put Abby’s hair into the envelope and hugged my daughter.
She looked up at me. “What do we do now?”
“Now?” I said with a faint smile. “Now we wait.”
NOW
SARAH
Dear Diary,
It’s been a year—twelve months exactly—since the Jeffersons moved in next door.
It feels more like twelve years.
My therapist says I’m doing well. He thinks I’m “making progress in accepting your mother’s death wasn’t your fault.” I smiled and thanked him. It’s easier that way.
Zac tells me it’s not my fault either, it’s his father’s, whom he still refuses to see. Zac emails me every day, tells me he wants to see me again. He wrote “I love you” today, and said what happened between his father and my mother shouldn’t keep us apart. He said we’re meant to be together. And it makes me cry because I feel the same.
Dad cries a lot, too. He doesn’t know I can hear him, but I do, late at night, when I can’t sleep either, when I’m lying in bed, thinking about everything that’s happened.
When Dad saw the DNA results his tears we
re different, because he was smiling, and he hugged me so tight I felt like I couldn’t breathe. He whispered that everything was going to be okay. He promised from now on everything will be all right.
And I asked him what he’d have done if the results were different, and he said it wouldn’t matter, he loved me no matter what. But he was lying, I’m sure he was. When I looked into his eyes I knew I’d made the right decision. I mean, what other choice did I have?
And I’ll never tell Dad the truth.
He’ll never know how I sneaked into Zac’s house and took his father’s hair the day after my mother died. That I sent two packages to GeneTech, both with Dad’s name, but one with my signature a tiny bit different so I could tell them apart... Or that I shredded the results from the test with Dad’s sample.
I had to. It would destroy him if he knew he’s not my real father. And he’d stop loving me, I know he would. How could he still love me, knowing I’m half of Lia him.
But Dad will never know. Nobody will ever know. My mother might not have been able to keep her secrets properly, but I will. Which is why, Dear Diary, tomorrow morning you’ll be a smoldering pile of paper.
Ashes to ashes.
Dust to dust.
Lies stay secret.
And so they must.
Later,
Sarah x.
PS. Word of the day: risorgimento, noun.
1: often capitalized: the 19th century movement for Italian political unity.
2: a time of renewal or renaissance: revival.
As in: It’s time for my own risorgimento to begin.
* * * * *
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people helped shape this novel, and I will be forever grateful to every single one. But first, I want to extend my gratitude to you, the reader. You picked this book when there are so many others vying for your attention. A million times thank you.
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