Apples Never Fall

by Liane Moriarty

  You wouldn’t think she’d grown up in that nice family home with the flowerbeds and garden gnomes, except for the fussy way she hosted them, insisting that she make them cups of tea and bringing out brownies and side plates and napkins.

  Christina bit down on the brownie, which was sweet and nutty and gave her an instant sugar rush. She was highly susceptible to sugar highs. Also sugar lows. Nico used it to his advantage. When he proposed he gave her a diamond ring and a Caramello Koala.

  The coffee table was too far away to reach the cups of tea that Amy had made them.

  “Oh, sorry!” said Amy, noticing, and she got on her knees and tried to shove the coffee table closer to them. The tea sloshed onto the table.

  Amy swore under her breath, and looked close to tears.

  “It’s okay, I’ve got it,” said Ethan soothingly, and he got to his feet and tugged the table closer in one smooth move.

  “Thank you!” Amy fidgeted with the fabric of her pants. “This room isn’t very well set up for guests. Anyway. Thank you for coming to me. That was nice of you. I don’t know if I can give you any more information than I already have. I mean, I’m not really that worried. I’m sure Mum is fine. She told us she was going off-grid. When she comes home she’ll be so cross with us for wasting your time like this! She’ll be so embarrassed. I feel kind of embarrassed, to be honest.”

  Her words said one thing, but her body language said something else entirely.

  “I’m curious. If you’re so sure your mother is fine”—Christina asked the same question she’d asked Amy’s brother—“then why report her missing?”

  “Well, I guess just in case she isn’t fine.” Amy’s gaze slid all over the place. She clutched her hands together as if to stop them escaping. Christina ran a practiced eye over her for signs of drug use and didn’t find any physical signs except for her skittishness and the shadows under her eyes, which could easily be attributed to her concern for her mother.

  Amy said, “Expect the best but prepare for the worst. I thought you’d check out the hospitals, put out an alert, that sort of thing.”

  “We’re doing all that,” said Christina. “You were obviously there at the press conference.”

  “Yes, I know I was there! That was a great press conference, thank you! It was really … professional!” She looked around wildly for inspiration. “But, um, I guess what I’m saying is, I really didn’t expect you guys to treat my parents’ house like an actual crime scene.”

  Christina said nothing. She waited.

  “Those scratches on my dad’s face are from the hedge out the back of our house. I can show you the hedge! They’re not from my mother’s fingernails.”

  Yes, they are, thought Christina. I’d put a million bucks on it.

  Amy shuddered so convulsively at the thought of her mother’s fingernails that for a moment Christina thought she was having an actual seizure.

  Ethan glanced uneasily at Christina as Amy closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and grimaced like a weight lifter, as though she were physically taking control of her mental state.

  She opened her eyes, and when she spoke again her voice was steady. “Here’s the thing. You don’t know my father. He’s a stranger to you. All you see is a grumpy old man. He suppresses his emotions. That’s what men of his age do. That’s probably why he looks guilty to you.”

  Actually, Stan Delaney was not behaving like a guilty person. Guilty people overexplained. They talked too much and gave unnecessary detail. They were too polite and tried too hard to hold eye contact for too long. Stan answered their questions with terse impatience, as if he had somewhere else to be.

  Amy said, “I mean, you haven’t found anything at the house, have you? Like, you haven’t found any actual … evidence?”

  There was a tiny flinch on the word evidence, as if she’d burned her tongue.

  Christina ignored the question. Instead she threw out a piece of information like a fishing line.

  “Amy, were you aware that your father had his car washed and detailed the day after your mother went missing?” she asked. “He took it to a car-wash café he’d never visited before and he got the most expensive service they had to offer. Their ‘premium’ treatment. Normally only people with luxury cars choose that option. It cost him four hundred dollars.”

  “Four hundred dollars?” The color left Amy’s face. “You’re saying my dad spent four hundred dollars getting his car washed? Are you sure?”

  Christina said jovially, “Would you say that was out of character?”

  She didn’t need to hear the answer.

  From a forensics point of view the car told Christina nothing. The car detailers had done an excellent job. No one at the car café remembered anything unusual about the car. They did proudly confirm the use of oxidizing cleaners, which would have removed all evidence of blood stains.

  But a man who gets his car cleaned the day after his wife goes missing has something to hide.

  “Do you know a Dr. Henry Edgeworth?” she asked Amy.

  “Doctor who?” said Amy.

  “Edgeworth,” said Christina. “Henry Edgeworth. Your mother had a long telephone conversation with him on the day she disappeared.”

  “Really?” said Amy. She brightened. “We should call him!”

  It was like she honestly thought they hadn’t considered this idea.

  “We’ve been trying to contact him,” said Christina. “But he’s out of the country. At a conference.”

  “Wait, do you think my mother could be with him?”

  “We can’t find any record of your mother having left the country,” said Christina. “We also know she hasn’t got her passport with her.”

  “Unless she traveled with a fake passport?” said Amy.

  Christina couldn’t tell if she was serious.

  “Does that seem likely?” Ethan spoke up. “That your mother would have a fake passport?”

  “No,” admitted Amy. “But I guess it’s possible she could have a secret life that I know nothing about, right? I mean, your parents can surprise you, can’t they?”

  “Is it possible your mother was having an affair?” asked Christina.

  Amy’s mouth dropped. “Absolutely not.”

  “You did just say it was possible that she had a secret life.” Christina finished the brownie and licked her fingers.

  Amy scratched an insect bite on her arm so hard she drew blood. She pressed her thumb against the spot of blood and said, “I did just say that, didn’t I? Do you really think that’s possible? That’s she’s having an affair with this doctor? I guess stranger things have happened, right? You probably see lots of strange things in your line of work. It’s just that my parents, my parents—” She dropped her thumb from her arm and looked back at them, her face open and earnest. “My parents were the only parents holding hands at school events. They kiss, in public, all the time! They worked together, they played doubles together. Their marriage isn’t perfect, I’m not saying that, but it’s a good marriage, I know that for a fact. Their marriage is my benchmark.”

  There was something almost childlike about her view of her parents’ marriage. Christina thought of her mother’s google search: How does a divorce affect adult children? No wonder Joy Delaney was worried.

  “When you first reported your mother missing you mentioned that things had been ‘a little tumultuous’ lately between your parents,” Christina reminded her.

  “Did I?” said Amy vaguely, and, it seemed to Christina, regretfully. “Well, you know that Mum and Dad argued before she left. Dad isn’t hiding that from us. He told us that straight away.”

  “Right,” said Christina. “But what did you mean when you said things had been a little tumultuous lately?”

  There was a pause. Amy fidgeted. “Just that they’d been kind of snappy.”

  “So no hand-holding then,” said Christina dryly, and she saw Amy flinch again, as if she’d hurt her feelings.

  “Not so much re
cently,” admitted Amy, and she avoided eye contact.

  “Well, obviously we’ll keep trying to get in touch with this Dr. Edgeworth. We’re also trying to track down the woman who stayed with your parents last year,” said Christina. “She seems to be a woman of mystery.”

  “Savannah,” said Amy heavily. “I had a number for her, but it’s disconnected.”

  “I’m trying to understand what went on with her.”

  “What do you mean?” said Amy evasively.

  “Your brother said she caused some dramas in the family.”

  “Did he?” said Amy. “Is that all he said?” She looked at Christina warily.

  “Is there more to say?”

  “No. I don’t know.” She curled a long strand of blue-dyed hair around her finger as she considered her next words. “I don’t think it’s relevant, though. To you. I mean to … this.”

  It was relevant all right. Christina could taste the relevance, as sweet as sugar.

  She waited. Ethan quietly cleared his throat.

  “Do you remember when you first met her?” asked Christina.

  “It was Father’s Day last year,” said Amy. “I made brownies.” She paused. “So did she.”

  Chapter 22

  FATHER’S DAY

  Brooke Delaney parked outside her parents’ place and sat with her hands on the steering wheel, willing herself to move, to open the car door, to get out, go inside, and be introduced to this girl, this Savannah, to whom she would try to be kind and welcoming. She didn’t want to make conversation with a stranger on Father’s Day, especially this particular Father’s Day, her first family event since the separation.

  She considered putting on lipstick, just to please her mother. Brooke didn’t like to wear any makeup. She’d always found the whole concept peculiar. Why paint your face like a clown?

  She found the lipstick that had been rolling about in the console of her car ever since her mother had pressed it upon her at least two years ago. She put it on, smacked her lips together, and looked at herself. Yep. Clown.

  She felt hollowed out, scooped out, empty, and not only that, there was a sharp, digging-like sensation at the center of her chest, like inflammation of the costal cartilage, as if she’d been doing too many plyo push-ups, except she hadn’t been doing plyo push-ups, she’d been looking at social media.

  That’s where she’d seen a photo of her husband, sitting next to a woman she didn’t recognize.

  There was nothing to say there was anything significant about this woman—and so what if there was, it’s a separation, Brooke.

  Right now the word separation felt as violent and irreversible as an amputation.

  Just something about the tilt of her husband’s head. The angle of it.

  The woman had a heap of long hair tumbling about her shoulders, and she wore a lot of makeup. Like, a lot. Grant always said he didn’t want a “high-maintenance” girl. He wanted a girl who camped, who hiked, and who didn’t need to blow-dry her hair each morning. Brooke “ticked a lot of boxes,” he said, on their second date.

  Three months after she and Grant started dating, they climbed to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. Grant’s previous girlfriend could never have done that climb, because she wasn’t “outdoorsy” and she had a bad knee. The pain went away when she took the weight off her leg. Cartilage issues, presumably. Brooke didn’t know why she was still diagnosing her husband’s ex-girlfriend’s knee. Maybe it was because Lana’s knee had been so present in the early days of their relationship. Brooke had liked hearing about how much more athletic and easygoing and better in bed she was than Lana. She was a Delaney, she liked winning. Was it possible that this competitive rush had propelled the momentum of her entire ten-year relationship? But how had Grant managed to establish himself as the prize?

  Would the next woman in Grant’s life hear about Brooke’s inconvenient migraines, in the same way that Brooke had heard all about Lana’s inconvenient knee?

  Grant’s responses to Brooke’s migraines had been exemplary. He helped her into bed in a darkened room. He brought her medication and homemade soup. She couldn’t be offended when he joked to friends, his arm lovingly about her shoulder, “She’s just a little defective.” That wasn’t nasty. It was witty. It was funny! It was her cue to say how supportive Grant was when she had a migraine. She’d never missed her cue.

  She imagined him chatting to that woman with the bright red lips and long fake eyelashes. He’d be up-front and honest. He made an excellent first impression. “I’m very recently separated,” he’d say. No lies. He’d be respectful when he spoke about Brooke. He’d say that although he supported Brooke’s career aspirations, a healthy work–life balance was important to him. “I just think there’s more to life than work,” he’d say, and the tumbling-haired girl would agree that there was so much more to life than work, and their eyes would meet for just long enough.

  “It sounds risky,” Grant said, when Brooke first said she wanted to go into practice on her own, but he didn’t try to stop her. He never said I told you so when she fretted about cash flow. When she said she couldn’t go riding with him on Saturday mornings anymore, because she’d volunteered to be on-site at the local sporting grounds in case of injuries, in hope of injuries, that might lead to patients and raise her profile, he never complained, he just looked faintly bored.

  She was no longer ticking quite as many boxes.

  There had been no counseling, no tears, no shouting. It was an amicable, grown-up separation. “We should feel proud about that,” Grant had said. It was strange how he’d always made her feel like they were winning as a couple, even when they were breaking up.

  “Do you want me to give up the clinic?” she’d asked him.

  “Of course not,” he’d answered. “I just think maybe our paths have diverged and we need some time apart to think.”

  To think about what? She didn’t have time to think.

  When her family asked her about Grant today she planned to tell them he was sick at home with a cold. She wasn’t going to announce the separation on Father’s Day, not with a strange girl at the table. This was going to be a shock for both family and friends. She and Grant had not been a couple who ever fought in public, or even snapped at each other. They were affectionate, without being over the top about it. (There was something suspect about people who were too lovey-dovey.) They socialized and exercised together. They had mutual friends and peaceful dinner parties. She thought people would probably have described their marriage as “solid.”

  It was not in her nature to shock people with developments in her personal life. That was for Amy. Brooke preferred to go under the radar. She realized she felt ashamed, as if by separating from her husband, she’d done something slightly distasteful and seedy, which was ridiculous. This was not Regency England. It was the twenty-first century. Her own brother was divorced. Her friend Ines was divorced.

  She undid her seatbelt.

  Where’s Grant? He’s at home. He has a bad cold.

  She was the worst liar in her family. She used to think it was because she was the youngest, and therefore everyone could see right through her feeble attempts at deceit thanks to their superior knowledge of how the world worked.

  She still sometimes caught herself watching for circumspect glances between her older siblings, listening for the nuances of the conversation, as if they might still be keeping secrets from her about sex and Santa, death and Grandma. (Her brothers and sister once convinced Brooke she was adopted because she was the only left-handed member of the family. Brooke believed it. For months! “Have you not looked in the mirror, you foolish child?” Joy said when Brooke finally tearfully asked if she could please meet her real parents. “You’re all identical!”)

  If she got through the questions about Grant, the next question from her family would be about the clinic, and she’d have to lie about that too. Over the last few days she’d had four no-shows and three last-minute cancellations. It was unbeli
evable. It felt like a concerted attack. What was wrong with people? She had a carefully worded cancellation policy on her website, but it was difficult to charge patients who she’d never even seen for an initial consultation. If she told her parents, they would be so enthusiastically sympathetic. They would remind her of the ladies who used to book private tennis lessons and then cancel five minutes before. It was selfish of her not to give her parents the opportunity to pleasurably reminisce about the early days of Delaneys, but Brooke couldn’t bear to hear their helpful tips, to see their furrowed brows as they brainstormed strategies. The added weight of their hopes for her success was too much to bear.

  She opened her car door a fraction, put one foot on the ground, breathed in the scented spring air, and wondered if she should text Grant to remind him about his hay fever medication. Was that the way one behaved during an “amicable” separation?

  Logan’s car was already parked in the driveway. The others would be arriving any minute. The Delaneys were extraordinarily punctual, even Amy, who might arrive hungover or depressed or in some other way incapacitated, but right on time. A good tennis player was punctual. Don’t leave the other competitors sitting around waiting for you.

  As she watched, Logan came out the front door. He smiled, lifted a hand, and walked toward her car. He looked kind of old today. His gray sideburns glistened in the sunlight as he ducked down to see her.

  “Have you been sent out on an errand already?” she asked.

  “Mum wants me to buy two bottles of mineral water.” Logan opened her car door the full way and stood back. “You need me to take anything inside for you?”

  “We don’t need mineral water,” said Brooke. She picked up the green salad she’d made that no one would eat from the passenger seat, together with her Father’s Day gift: a travel-sized massage ball her dad would say was what he’d always wanted, but that her mother would probably re-gift back to Brooke one day. “We can just drink tap water.”