“I can’t. I need to go home!”
“Do you have any idea how bad that will look? The police are already suspicious of you.…”
“What?” The noose around my neck tightened. I desperately needed somebody to explain what the hell was happening.
“Don’t you know?” Andrew asked. “The paramedics found you a few blocks away from Mom’s house last night. That’s where you were struck by lightning. Eva, the police think you might have been there when Mom was killed!”
six
kat
London
25 years before
THE FIRST TIME I MET Laura, she bit me.
I had taken Eva to the playground at Hyde Park, which, in retrospect, was an utterly ridiculous decision, as she had a dreadful cold. But that day the sky had been washed a spectacular blue by the previous night’s rain, golden light filtering through the trees. Daffodils were blooming along the footpath, dancing on the cusp of spring’s breath. As Eva trotted over to the sandpit, I pulled a fresh handkerchief from my bag and wiped moisture from a green bench before sitting.
Eva walked her teddy bear, Barnaby, across the pockmarked sand, murmuring childish secrets to him. She sneezed, her wispy blond curls bouncing in the breeze, and I instantly regretted bringing her outside when she was ill. A good mother would have stayed home, cuddled up on the couch watching cartoons on the telly. But I was going mad after days trapped inside by torrential rain.
I lifted my glasses off my nose and polished them on my coat sleeve as I watched her play. Suddenly a searing pain sliced through my shin.
“Ow!” I jumped up, holding my leg. A little girl peered up at me from under the bench, her eyes glittering with cheeky delight.
She was a tiny thing, about the same age as Eva, nearly four. Her hair was an unusual shade of red, a cross between cinnamon and mahogany. It was long and wild, knotted with leaves and twigs. She had mud smudged across one cheek and was wearing a pink, gauzy ballerina outfit under her jacket.
I glared at the child, but she seemed immune to my fury. She grinned at me from her position on all fours.
“I’m a dog!” She stuck her tongue out and panted.
“Don’t be daft!” I huffed, rubbing my sore shin. “I’ve certainly never seen a dog ballerina before.”
The child’s face fell, and I felt cruel in that way I often didn’t understand. Socially awkward, my husband, Seb, always called me.
A woman with long, flame-red hair broke off from a group of yummy-mummys—black clothing, oversize designer prams, each with a takeaway coffee in one hand and a baby in the other. She was immaculately presented, full makeup on, gauzy, figure-skimming dress swirling, dangly earrings flashing. Her four-inch stacked heels sucked into the thick mud as she tottered toward us. I looked down at my practical, mud-splattered Wellington boots and couldn’t help feeling ever so frumpy.
“Laura, what have you done!” She scooped the child up and kissed her forehead. She was beautiful, feminine in a way I would never be, with soft curves and the same delicate bone structure and milk-pale skin as the girl. The neckline of her dress had slipped to expose the white lace of her bra. I looked away to preserve her decency, but she seemed not to have noticed one bit.
“I’m being a dog, Mummy!” Laura exclaimed.
“I hope you aren’t biting again, Laura-loo!” she scolded, looking mortified.
“It’s fine,” I said.
“Mummy, look!” Eva shouted from the sandpit. “I wrote my name!”
“Well done, darling!” I called.
Laura wriggled out of the woman’s grasp and went over to examine what Eva was doing. Eva showed her the letters, then handed her a stick and told her to have a go.
“Wow!” the woman said. “How old is your daughter?”
“She’ll be four in a few months.”
“And already writing her name? That’s astonishing! You must be chuffed to bits! Laura’s four in August, but she isn’t even close to writing her name yet.”
“I was training to be a teacher before I fell pregnant.” I couldn’t help the curl of pride that rose in me. “I’m preparing her for school in September.”
“Laura’s starting as well.”
I pushed my glasses up my nose, my face feeling stiff as I struggled to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth. She was so exquisitely beautiful, so alluring that it was quite intimidating.
“I’m Rose.” She extended a hand and smiled. When I shook it, it was smooth and cool, her fingers long and tapering to nails that were perfect pink ovals.
“I apologize for Laura’s behavior.” She rolled her eyes. “The girl can be positively feral sometimes.”
“Not a bother.”
“Do let me take you out to coffee to make it up to you!” She clapped her hands like a child and grinned. “Look, there’s a café just over there!”
“But, your friends—”
“I don’t really know them.” Rose waved a dismissive hand. “We were just chatting about children. Do say yes! It would make me feel so much better about Laura using you as a chew toy!”
“Very well, then.”
Rose called Laura to her, and I had no choice but to follow with Eva. She led us to a wooden pavilion with gray cladding and white trim overlooking the park. She ordered hot chocolate with marshmallows for the children and coffees for us from a spotty teenage boy running the till. I watched her, marveling at how easy she found conversation. It was quite extraordinary. Her tongue did not trip; her gaze did not waver. I found socializing all quite beyond me, really.
The boy behind the cash register seemed a bit overwhelmed by Rose’s attention, his gaze occasionally dropping to the triangle of creamy cleavage exposed where her neckline dipped a little too low. I itched to tug it higher or to scold the boy, but Rose did nothing to discourage him, giving him a five-fingered wave as we headed to an empty table at the back of the café to await our drinks.
As soon as we sat, Rose slipped her heels off, setting them on an empty chair, then stretching her legs out and wiggling her toes. I wrinkled my nose, glancing at the filthy floor.
“Goodness! What was I thinking, wearing heels to the park?” Rose exclaimed with a charmingly self-deprecating laugh. “But I was simply desperate to feel more myself! You know how it is caring for small children. You lose such a piece of yourself!”
The waitress brought our drinks, sloshing liquid onto the table in her hurry to leave.
“Mummy, I wanted marshmallows!” Laura thrust her lower lip out.
Rose looked annoyed, although I could not be certain if it was at Laura or the waitress. She beckoned the waitress back.
“I ordered marshmallows with these,” she said.
The waitress narrowed her eyes. “They sank. You’ll have to go purchase more.”
“Certainly.” Rose began rummaging in her handbag.
“What? No.” The injustice of it upset me greatly, though perhaps it wasn’t my business to intervene. “The air bubbles in marshmallows mean they are less dense than the cocoa. They will float unless you squeeze them into balls to make them more dense than liquid. Did you do that?”
The waitress scowled and stormed away, returning a moment later with a small handful of marshmallows. She dropped them into both mugs of hot chocolate. They bobbed once, twice, then floated to the top. The waitress shuffled away looking embarrassed.
Rose burst out laughing. “That was amazing!”
I smiled and looked down at my coffee. I liked the sound of her laughter and how it made me feel: as if I had just awoken, somehow. There was something about her. She was … magnetic. I was utterly drawn to her.
“Physical laws are infallible,” I said. “It is one of the few certainties in life.”
“Mummy, may I have your biscuit?” Eva asked.
“Certainly, my darling.” I plucked the biscuit off my coffee saucer and handed it to her.
Laura looked expectantly at Rose, but Rose shook her head and laughed
, giving a little shrug. “Sorry, I already ate mine!”
She shook three packets of sugar into her coffee, stirred, and took a massive gulp. “I really shouldn’t have another coffee. This is my fourth today!”
Bored with the hot chocolate, Laura grabbed Barnaby from Eva, causing Eva to cry out in dismay. Her eyes, Seb’s sapphire blue, welled with tears. I rummaged in my bag and extracted a pad of paper and some crayons, handing them to Laura whilst retrieving Barnaby for Eva. She was far too old for a security object, but I couldn’t bring myself to take him away. The bear was becoming quite bedraggled these days, the yellow daffodils on his tie fading to a dirty gray. His hat, the trumpet-shape of a daffodil, had detached on one side.
“Oh, do stop being beastly!” Rose exclaimed crossly. She touched her fingertips to her temple and scowled at Laura. “I swear, some days I think about hiring a nanny!”
I tried to imagine the luxury of having someone else do all the dirty work.
“Why don’t you, then?” I asked. “Hire a nanny, I mean.”
She looked surprised. “Well, it … it isn’t what mums do, is it?”
I didn’t know how to respond. Who was I to say what a real mum would do? Mine certainly had been no example to live by.
She took a sip of coffee. “My mum fell ill when I was young and she died a few years later. I suppose I always wanted to create the traditional home I didn’t get.” She looked away. “Hiring a nanny would mean I’d failed at that. That I was a bad mother.”
My gaze leapt to Laura. Her long hair was tangled, her nose crusty with snot, her ballerina outfit streaked with mud. A piece of the gauze at the shoulder was torn. The child desperately needed a bath.
“I reckon it would make you a better mother.” I bit my cheek, embarrassed. “Goodness, that sounded horrible! I do apologize. What I meant is, more hands make light work and all that!”
Rose threw her head back and laughed, exposing her slender neck. “I never thought of it that way. My husband agrees with you,” she admitted. “He’s recently rebranded his art gallery and he’s away on business a lot, so he’s no help whatsoever.”
“Look! I drew a rocket!” Laura interrupted, holding her picture out to us.
“Well done,” I said. I slid a blue crayon from the box and drew a rocket next to hers. “Did you know that rockets make it rain?” I drew a cloud under the rocket. “The smoke from the exhaust turns into clouds, and eventually, after the rocket has disappeared, the clouds start to rain!”
“Wow!” She picked up the crayon and drew clouds and rain in a frenzy of blue swirls.
Rose looked at me over the rim of her coffee mug. Her steady gray gaze made me feel itchy and hot all over, but also, strangely, like a cat being stroked. “This is a crazy thing to say, I know, but—would you want to be our nanny?”
I lifted my glasses off my nose to polish them, letting my eyes sweep over her face. She didn’t appear to be joking. But Seb would never allow it. He liked me home with Eva, dinner on the table when he got home, laundry washed and neatly folded. It was our deal: he kept us financially secure; I took care of our daughter and made our house a home.
“I don’t …”
“Of course.” Rose smiled and shrugged. “That was too forward. I do apologize.”
“No, it isn’t that.” I laughed, a surprised whoosh of air. “To be perfectly honest, I’m not certain we could afford to put Eva in nursery while I work.”
“Why, bring her with you! The children would have each other to play with. And look how well they get on!”
We watched Laura and Eva coloring together.
“We wouldn’t want to impose.…”
“Not at all. It would be lovely! I could start painting again, and Laura could learn so much from you before school starts!”
A gentle thrill buzzed through me. But I would have to ask Seb before I replied.
“I’ll give you my number.” Rose jotted her number on a crumpled receipt and handed it to me. “Do think about it. I’m afraid I must dash. We have a playdate organized soon.”
We left the café, and Laura and Eva bounced over to a clutch of daffodils swaying in the soft breeze, their hands knitted together. Laura picked one and tucked it behind Eva’s ear. Eva giggled.
“Thank you for the drinks,” I said.
Rose leaned forward and hugged me, her lips brushing my cheek. A gentle shiver raced down my spine as her hair tickled my ear. A strange, heady flush climbed my throat and stained my cheeks. I pulled away abruptly.
“It was lovely to meet you.” Rose’s eyes twinkled. “Please do phone me. My offer is genuine.”
I called Eva to me, and we said good-bye and headed in the opposite direction. As we walked, her gaze strained backward over her shoulder, at Laura and Rose.
Eva brought that daffodil home and put it on her bedside cabinet. It stayed there until it withered and shrank, eventually crumbling into tiny fragments that were cleared onto the floor and forgotten.
I am aware that the mind plays tricks. Brains are strange and capricious things, and we humans are deluded to purport to be in control of them. A memory is no more reliable than the weather, broken, warped by the teller’s view. But I remember that daffodil. The incandescent yellow glow against Laura’s skin as she inhaled its scent before she gave it to Eva. Perhaps that’s why daffodils always remind me of her.
Of the beginning of the end.
seven
eva
“THE POLICE THINK I was at Mom’s house?” I asked Andrew, stunned. I pressed my phone against my good ear, my palms slippery with sweat as I stared at the ferry dock looming closer. Fear and adrenaline made my fingers tingle. “What does that mean? They don’t think I … ?” I couldn’t even finish the sentence.
“Eva!” Liam called from the car as the ferry horn blared. I waved that I was coming.
“Don’t worry, they aren’t preparing an arrest warrant or anything yet,” Andrew said. “They have to finish collecting evidence, do lab tests, interview witnesses. But I think they’re suspicious of you. My buddy on the force said the fact you were near Mom’s—”
“I wasn’t there! I got the ferry home after we had dinner!”
“The paramedics picked you up right by Mom’s house.” My brother’s voice was flat.
I opened my mouth to deny it, to swear that I would never physically harm our mother.
But it wasn’t the truth.
Because I had harmed her before.
Badly.
* * *
“Everything all right?” Liam asked when I slammed the car door.
“Apparently the paramedics found me right by Mom’s house around the time she was killed. My brother thinks the police are suspicious of me!”
Liam scowled, fingers flexing on the steering wheel. “That’s why the detective was trying to question you! I knew he was up to no good. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it. I’ll call my lawyer when we get home.”
I chewed my thumbnail, ripping the nail to the quick. Blood oozed from it, tasting of salt and rusted metal.
“Won’t I look guilty if I call a lawyer?”
“You have to defend yourself. Trust me, we can’t just sit here and do nothing.”
A thin sliver of my fingernail splintered into my mouth, making a sharp snapping sound.
“Gross.” Liam pulled my hand out of my mouth, reminding me, suddenly, of my mom.
The ferry docked with a low thud. Liam put the car in gear, maneuvering into the lane of disembarking traffic. Twenty minutes later we turned into our driveway, gravel crunching under the tires.
I looked up at the three-story Washington log and timber-frame house Liam had built before we met. The house was nestled in the belly of the island. Red Douglas fir timbers perfectly complemented the surrounding evergreen trees. The pitched roof, gabled dormers, wraparound porch, and leaded windows were illuminated by the last rays of light peeking through a smattering of clouds that chugged slowly across the sky.
Liam opened my door and helped me out of the car. Mr. Ayyad, our nearest neighbor, was jogging along the lake’s edge with his Siberian husky. Mr. Ayyad couldn’t have been a day younger than ninety-five, yet he moved smoothly and gracefully, with none of the stiffness you’d attribute to the elderly. He slowed as he caught sight of us and raised a hand, his long gray beard dancing in the wind. I waved back as Liam cupped his arm gently over my shoulders and led me up the porch stairs.
Inside, Liam turned all the lights on. The polished hardwood floor and fir beams overhead gleamed in the light. On the far side of the living room, an aged stone fireplace bisected floor-to-ceiling walls of glass that overlooked our private slice of Hidden Lake, spread like a quilt at the bottom of the yard.
I kicked my tennis shoes off automatically, losing my balance and almost knocking over the red-and-yellow art nouveau lamp I’d put on the entry table. I’d bought it at a garage sale a few years ago and I adored it. It was the only decoration here that was mine.
I crossed the living room and went into the garage. The pavement was cold under my bare feet. I threw the side door open and my cat, Ginger, streaked inside. She stretched her claws up my jeans and meowed.
I’d found Ginger in a box on the side of the road shortly after I moved here. She was badly malnourished and had a broken hind leg. Liam had told me to leave her at a vet’s, but I couldn’t abandon her when she was so obviously traumatized. I knew too well what that felt like.
I scooped Ginger up and pressed my face to her neck. Her motor instantly turned on, comforting against my cheek. Putting her down, I filled a bowl with cat food and set it on the floor. When I returned to the living room, Liam had moved my shoes off the carpet to the shoe rack, a gentle reminder to clean up after myself.
“Sorry! I don’t know where my head is.”
Liam smiled. “It’s all right. You were just struck by lightning, after all.”
Our eyes met, and we both burst out laughing. It felt good, like I’d found an island of normalcy in this chaotic world I’d woken up in.
Behind Every Lie Page 4