In Another Life

by C. C. Hunter

  I walk out the door. I guess the gloves are off. I’m breaking eggs with Mom now.

  Lindsey is standing by my car, looking at me almost the same way Mom looked at me. Damn, I forgot all about getting mad at her.

  “Are you still giving me a ride?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have said that about your dad.”

  We get into the car. I look at her. “I’m sorry I exploded like that. I do not like Jonathon. I don’t think I was wrong in what I said, but neither is it my place to tell you what to do.”

  She frowns. “I know. I just wish you weren’t right. We still friends?”

  “Yeah.” I almost tell her about Mom, but it just seems too heavy a topic for the morning. For the same reason, I put my phone on silent and head to school. But I feel it buzzing right now in my back pocket. Probably Dad.

  I haven’t even turned off the engine when I see Cash walking toward the car. He’s smiling, and my heart swells. I know he’s thinking about last night. And while I’m not sorry I did it, I’m embarrassed. I never was the one to initiate things with Alex.

  Lindsey sees Cash. “I’ll go so you’ll get your morning kiss.”

  Cash says hello to Lindsey and then climbs in my car. He leans over the console and kisses me. It’s sweet. It’s somehow hotter than before.

  “I didn’t sleep a wink after I left.” He touches my face.

  “Sorry.” I grin.

  “Don’t be. I put on some music and lay in bed and thought about you.”

  “About how terrible I am?” I duck my head.

  He laughs. “You can be terrible with me anytime you want.”

  I bump his chest with my palm.

  “How was your mom this morning?” he asks.

  I told him about our argument.

  After a few minutes, things get quiet and he says, “Something happened last night. I didn’t tell you, because … you were already upset.” His tone is dead serious.

  “What?”

  “Remember the photocopy of the article we left at the print shop?”

  “Yeah.”

  He tells me about finding the detectives at his house, and I immediately start panicking. “What are they going to do?”

  “All they said was that they were going to look into it.”

  “But how? What could they do?”

  “They could put something on the local news. Ask people if they’ve seen you.”

  “Crap. People would recognize me.” My stomach knots, thinking about how this would affect Mom. “My mom can’t handle this right now, Cash. She swears she wasn’t trying to kill herself, but I don’t know for sure. She’s a walking skeleton with no reason to live. Nothing but me. I’m all she has. And if she’s thinking she’s losing me—” I bat tears off my face.

  “I’m not saying they’ll do it. That’s just the worst-case scenario.”

  “I hate this,” I say, and a lump forms in my throat.

  “What about your dad? Do you think you could ask him to go with you to the agency?”

  “Ask him? I’m not even talking to him now! And I don’t think he’d do it without telling Mom.” Emotions swirl in my gut. “I thought she was dead. I can’t risk making her worse right now. I just can’t.” The lump in my throat becomes a lump in my heart. A big ball of pain I don’t want.

  “Then can you at least ask him to find your adoption papers? If we had them—”

  “How will I explain that?”

  “I don’t know, but we have to do something. Mrs. Fuller is—”

  “You said you were going to talk to the nanny’s niece again.”

  “I tried. No one is answering the phone. I left a message, but they haven’t returned it.”

  “Then call again. I want to do this, but I can’t hurt my mom.”

  He stares at me, and the sympathy I always feel from him isn’t there right now.

  “And then what?” he asks.

  “What?”

  “When you find out the truth? Are you going to tell your mom? Tell the Fullers?”

  A surge of anger washes over me. “You promised it was my choice when I told.”

  “I know, but you don’t get it, Chloe. Your mom isn’t the only one hurting. Mrs. Fuller can’t handle this either.”

  He gets out of the car and leaves me there to cry alone.

  26

  All day I was scared the police had released my photo and someone at school would recognize me. I’m hurting. I’m angry. At the world, even at Cash. He didn’t even talk to me in American Lit, but he finds me right as I’m walking to my car after school. He doesn’t say anything at first. Just hugs me. My anger melts away.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean—”

  “I know. I’m sorry, too.” I lift up on my toes and kiss him.

  “I’m going to figure this out,” he says.

  Lindsey walks up, and Cash kisses me again and leaves. Lindsey and I head home.

  Mom’s car is in the driveway when I get there.

  I pull in. My palms are sweating. I wonder if it’s because I’m nervous Mom didn’t get her medicine or I’m worried that the cops have already put my face on the news.

  Backpack over my shoulder, reminding myself Mom’s sleeping pills are still tucked inside so I can’t drop it on the kitchen table, I walk in.

  I get a weird no-one’s-home vibe. But her car’s here. “Mom?”

  She doesn’t answer. I drop my backpack in my bedroom, then walk toward Mom’s bedroom. The door’s open. The bed’s made. That’s a first in a while.

  “Mom.” I tap on her bathroom door.

  No answer. My heart skips a beat. My gaze goes back to her bed. I remember the longest seconds I ever lived when I thought Mom was dead. I’m about to start panicking. Then I realize that Buttercup isn’t home either. She probably went for a walk.

  Right then, the front door opens. I walk into the living room.

  “Hi.” Mom’s unleashing Buttercup. She’s wearing a wig and her one pair of jeans that actually fits. “How was school?”

  “Okay.” I stand there, waiting for her to tell me. Please, Mom, tell me you got the pills! “Mom?”

  “I got my prescription. It’s on the kitchen table.”

  I lean back until I see it there beside her laptop.

  “One of the side effects is it may make me gain weight. So that’s good. Oh, I have doctor’s orders to start back writing, too.”

  At least part of the tightness I’ve been carrying in my chest evaporates. She did it. She got the pills. I’m so relieved, a rush of tears stings my eyes. I blink. “You loved writing.”

  “I know. I read the first three chapters.” She smiles. “It’s actually pretty good. I thought I’d read it and realize it was terrible. But it’s not.”

  “Weren’t you almost done with the book when…” When you realized Dad was cheating on you? “… when you stopped writing?”

  “Yeah, I only have two more chapters to finish. But I’m going to reread it first. I even went online and found there’s a writing organization here. They meet on Thursday evenings. I think I’ll go.”

  “That’d be good.” I remember when Mom was involved with a writing group in El Paso. She was happy.

  She looks down a second, then up. “I know this has been hard on you and it’s not fair. I know I’ve promised before, but I mean it this time. I’m going to get better.”

  There’s something about the look in her eyes. Call me an optimist, but I believe her. I hug her. It’s tight. And long. I can’t blink away my tears. Then a big sweeping wave of fear hits. If that age-progression photo shows up on the news, will that knock Mom back down?

  * * *

  Later, I sneak into my room to call Cash. “Did you get anything on your camera?” I ask. I know he’s checking it every day and hoping to catch Paul. I’m hoping he does, too. The jerk hasn’t said anything to me since he asked me out, but I still don’t like
him.

  “No. But I’m not giving up. Every time I pass him in the hall, he just smirks at me as if wanting me to react.” He pauses. “How’s your mom?”

  “She actually seems good.” I lean back on the bed. Felix jumps up and curls up in my lap. “She wants me to go to dinner and grocery shopping with her. She’s even reading the book she wrote, like she might start writing.”

  “Good,” he says. “Maybe she’ll get her shit together.”

  “Yeah,” I say, and then ask, “How are things there?”

  “No one’s home yet. Which is odd, because they both get off early on Fridays. Felix is following me around like a kitten.”

  A crazy question hits. Would the Fullers’ cat remember me if I’m Emily? I push that thought away. “You work tonight, right?”

  “Yeah. At five.”

  “Remember we’re going out with Lindsey and David tomorrow.”

  “I remember.” He doesn’t sound thrilled.

  I pull my Felix beside me. “What are we going to do if they post that progression photo on the news?”

  “If someone recognizes you, we’ll have to tell the truth.”

  “What if they accuse my parents of kidnapping me? And won’t the Fullers be pissed at you for not coming to them in the beginning?” My line beeps. “Shit,” I say when I hear it.

  “What?” he asks.

  “My phone beeped. It’s probably my dad.”

  “You have to talk to him sooner or later,” Cash says.

  I remember him saying I should go to Dad about the whole adoption thing or at least ask about my papers.

  “You make it sound easy.”

  “I don’t mean to. I know it’s hard.”

  The phone beeps again, telling me I got a message.

  “Go call him. We’ll talk when I get off work.”

  Ten minutes later, I lie there on the bed, gathering my courage to call Dad. Then I hit the messages to make sure it was him.

  It is. I listen to him insist I call him. He’s worried. He loves me. I’m his daughter. He’s worried about Mom.

  Seriously! He’s worried about Mom? He didn’t care when she had cancer. I cut the message off and call him. He answers on the first ring.

  “Chloe. I’ve been worried sick.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t hear your call.” I test my palms to see if they’re damp. They are. Damn, Cash was right about the sweaty palms and lying.

  “I called before school and texted five times last night.”

  “Sorry. I was … with Mom.”

  He sighs. “Is she okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She was drinking last night, wasn’t she?”

  “No.” I stare at my bedspread.

  “She had to have been. She wasn’t making sense.”

  I close my eyes. Felix rubs his face against mine. “She took some sleeping pills.”

  “Too many of them?”

  “She hasn’t been sleeping,” I say, not answering his question.

  He doesn’t say anything. Silence lingers, and I wonder if he’s feeling guilty, knowing he’s the reason she can’t sleep, the reason she has to take pills to forget.

  All of a sudden, Buttercup barks and lifts his front paws on the window seal to look out. I remember him doing that last night, too. I thought Cash had come back, but he hadn’t.

  Dad continues, “I’m going to Fort Landing for a sales call on Wednesday. I’m going to stop in Joyful on my way back. Can we have dinner on Thursday?”

  I hesitate. Will that upset Mom? Then I remember she’ll be at a writer’s meeting. Hopefully, anyway.

  “Yeah,” I say, and I think about telling him I want him to go to the adoption agency with me. Just the thought makes my lungs seize, air locks inside.

  “Good,” he says. “We can talk then.”

  Talk? That’s when I realize he’s probably coming to tell me about his engagement. “Just you?” I ask in a not-so-loving tone.

  “Yes,” he snaps.

  And—bam!—I’m annoyed because he is. No, I’m more than annoyed. I’m pissed, and I’m back to that breaking-eggs point again. “If you’re coming to tell me that you’re marrying Darlene, you—”

  “I’m not marrying Darlene!” Dad spits out.

  “But Mom said—”

  “Yeah, she told me that, too. And when I denied it, she called me a liar. Then she tells me she’s seen my credit card bill. What the hell is she—?”

  “You didn’t buy Darlene a ring?”

  “No. My credit card was stolen. There was all kinds of other stuff charged, too.”

  Relief comes as my lungs release air. “Really?”

  “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  I want to ask if he’s planning on asking her to marry him in the future but decide to be happy with what I’ve got.

  Happy until Thursday, when deep down, I know I need to talk to him about the adoption. I just have to figure out a way that he won’t tell Mom.

  * * *

  Cash was starving when he got home from work that night. He walked into the Fullers’ kitchen. Opening the refrigerator, he saw a white carryout box with his name on it. Mrs. Fuller brought him dinner again.

  He frowned, but was too hungry to turn it down.

  He emptied what looked like chicken parmesan on a plate and popped it in the microwave. While it heated, he ate a cold bread stick.

  Then he heard voices and footsteps entering the living room. No, not just voices, angry voices. He stopped the microwave before it dinged.

  “Don’t you want to find our daughter?” Mrs. Fuller yelled.

  “I loved her, too, Susan,” Mr. Fuller said. “I lost my little girl. But I can’t go through this again.”

  “Go through what?” Mrs. Fuller’s voice shook.

  “Watch you crawl back into depression. Lose you.”

  “Someone saw her!”

  “No. Someone saw a girl who looked like her. It’s a trick, just like the cops said. Just like the last guy you gave money to.”

  “We don’t know that. And all I did was ask the police to get the video from Walmart to see who took down her picture last month. It might lead us to her.”

  Cash’s stomach clenched. Why the hell had he taken down that photo?

  “It would have been nice if you could’ve at least seemed supportive of me,” she said.

  “I was. I went with you to the police station, didn’t I?”

  “But if you’d insisted—”

  Mr. Fuller moaned. “I didn’t insist, because I knew they wouldn’t do it. Just because something disappeared off a bulletin board, doesn’t mean anything.”

  “They saw her!” Mrs. Fuller yelled.

  Cash leaned against the counter. Damn. He’d caused this. This was his fault.

  “All they had to do was look at the video,” Mrs. Fuller said.

  “For how long, Susan? You don’t know when it went missing. It could have been months ago. The store’s open seventeen hours a day, seven days a week.”

  “I’d have looked at them. I’d have stayed up night and day to find my little girl.”

  “This is what I’m talking about. What about work, Susan? What about your patients? What about me? And Cash. I thought you said he was your main goal, to prove to him that he’s part of our family. If you get lost in grief again…”

  Cash felt the sting of their words.

  “I don’t understand why you don’t want to look for her!” Pain and desperation came with her words.

  “She’s gone, Susan!”

  “No! She’s alive!” Mrs. Fuller yelled. “A mother would know if her baby was dead.”

  Footsteps pounded up the stairs. Cash swallowed a gulp of guilt. Guilt for doing this to them. Guilt because he’d done this to a mother of a little boy who looked like him.

  Then came more footsteps.

  Cash turned around. Mr. Fuller stood there. “Sorry. We didn’t know—”

  “It’s okay.”

  “There�
��s food in the fridge for you.”

  “I’m microwaving it now.”

  Mr. Fuller walked to the fridge and grabbed a beer. “Someone was making copies of an article that was published about Emily. Our daughter. The article had the age-progression photo. They left a copy there, and the guy working the counter said the girl making copies looked like the age-progression photo.”

  Cash nodded as if he hadn’t known. “What are the cops going to do?”

  “Nothing. They are certain it’s a con. And I’m so afraid of what this will do to Susan. She’s going to crawl back into that dark hole.”

  Cash wanted to tell him. Tell him about Chloe. Tell him Mrs. Fuller wasn’t crazy. To come clean. Confess he’d been the one to take down the photo and leave the copy of the article behind in the printer. However, it wasn’t just about them. It was about Chloe now, too.

  Mr. Fuller looked at Cash. “Before we took you in, she … All she thought about was Emily. She lost it again when the other asshole conned us. Because of you, she didn’t … she got over it. I don’t know if we’ll get lucky this time!” Desperation sounded in his voice. “See you tomorrow.” He walked out.

  Cash watched him leave, and he felt the same helplessness in his chest as he’d heard in Mr. Fuller’s voice. Curling his hands into fists, he wanted to hit something. No, what he wanted to do was fix it.

  Surely if Chloe saw the truth, if she knew for certain she was the Fullers’ daughter, she’d do the right thing. He’d called the nanny’s phone again on the way to work, but no one answered again. Even if he talked to the nanny, would that really prove anything?

  He needed proof. Solid proof.

  Right then, Cash knew what he had to do. He had to get them. He had to get the adoption papers.

  He pulled the plate out of the microwave and took it up to his room.

  He and his dad had broken into museums. An adoption agency should be a piece of cake. In fact, he recalled how he and his dad worked the museum job. That’s what he needed to do.

  27

  Saturday afternoon, Rodney pulled in front of Jack’s house. He’d gotten the address from his ex-wife, Jack’s sister. Jack had obviously done well for himself these past fifteen years, because he’d upgraded his lifestyle. The two-story brick home was in a nice neighborhood. It rubbed Rodney the wrong way. He should have profited as well. He’d helped the man build his business by supplying kids in the man’s first years in the adoption business.