I needn’t have worried, though. They only had eyes for each other as Leo walked briskly to the table and leaned over to kiss Evie and Piper before sitting down. Anyone else looking at them would think them the perfect family. Even Stelli was smiling. Had she won him over as well? A crushing jealousy choked me, taking my breath away. I thought my heart would break. But then I realized—Piper wasn’t being sweet to the children because she wanted a mother-daughter or mother-son relationship. She was lulling everyone into complacency. How much easier to put whatever her plan was into action if the children felt safe with her? I fought the feeling of helplessness that was making me light-headed and unsteady and ran to the parking lot.
By the time I reached my car, I was sobbing hysterically, and I leaned my head against the steering wheel and cried and cried. When I was finally able to stop, I took a deep breath and started the car. The clock on the dash said one thirty. My appointment with Celeste was at two, which gave me plenty of time to get there. I arrived with five minutes to spare and took a seat in the small waiting room. I felt so alone. I needed desperately for someone to hear me, someone to tell me I could protect my family.
Celeste opened the door to her office. “Hello, Joanna. Come in.”
She sat down in the familiar red chair and waited for me to seat myself before she began. “You look like you’ve been crying. Has something happened?” she asked gently.
I tried to control my breathing. “Yes . . . I mean no, not really, but something is going to happen. Something bad. I went to see Piper’s mother. And even her own mother didn’t really defend her when I voiced my suspicions about the two dead husbands.”
“Did her mother indicate she’d ever been violent?”
“Not in so many words, but . . . And now Evie seems to be trusting her.”
She crossed her legs and looked at me intently. “What do you mean?”
“Piper took Evie out to lunch. At the mall. Leo left work early and met them there. He had Stelli with him.”
“And you know this how?”
I bit the inside of my lip. “A friend of mine saw them. She called to tell me.” There was no way I was going to admit I was following Piper. Even though our conversations were confidential, I didn’t want to lose credibility in Celeste’s eyes.
“Okay, let’s think about this. It’s not helping you to hear from other people what Piper or Leo or the children are doing. It upsets you needlessly because there’s nothing you can do about it. I think it would be wise of you to tell your friends that you don’t want to hear any more stories or gossip.”
“My friends are as disturbed as I am at what’s going on—they’re only trying to help me.”
“But here’s the problem. It doesn’t serve you in any way. It only makes things worse for you. I think you have to accept that Leo is not going to leave Piper, for your own sanity.”
“I can’t simply stop thinking about my family, especially not when my friends and I see Piper all over town acting like the adoring wife and mother we know she isn’t. No way in hell.”
“Maybe that’s the issue—seeing her around. What would you think about getting away somewhere? Somewhere you wouldn’t run into her. You could take some time on your own, maybe think things through without all the noise. You might even come back with a fresh perspective.”
The heat started in my chest and rose to my face. “This woman is dangerous. She’s planning something bad. She’s got two dead husbands and a dead child in her past”—I could hear my voice turning toward the hysterical, so I took a breath—“and who knows what she has planned now? The children are in danger, and you’re telling me to take a vacation?”
Celeste said nothing for a minute, pursing her lips. “You say you believe Piper has divulged nothing of her past to Leo, is that right?”
“Why would he be with her, let her be around the children, if he knew?”
Celeste locked her fingers together and brought her hands to her chin, seeming to ponder this. “Your concerns could be legitimate. Her past doesn’t look good, I agree. On the other hand, it is possible to make assumptions that are false.”
“So I should just give her the benefit of the doubt and wait until something horrible happens? I don’t think so.”
I could see sympathy in her eyes as she looked at me. “You’ve told me yourself that the accidents were investigated, and that Piper was cleared. She’s done nothing to give you cause to worry as far as the children are concerned. Yes, Stelli had that accident at the playground, but children fall every day. I really think you need to begin to focus on yourself and your own well-being. It might do you some good to take a step back just for a few days.”
I was incredulous. “You must be joking.” I stood up from the chair, the blood rushing through my veins like a raging river. I felt like I was being gaslighted. I had seen the looks on the faces of all the people in Piper’s past, had seen the havoc she had wreaked. How was I the one being told to stay away?
I left without saying anything else. This would be my last session with Celeste.
47
Piper
Piper knew before she even looked at the date that it was Ethan’s birthday. She always got a weird feeling in her stomach and woke up knowing something was bothering her, and then she’d remember. She supposed it didn’t matter how many years had passed—the feelings of guilt and regret would always bubble up when she thought of him.
Their lives together had started with such romance and excitement. She and Ethan had run away at eighteen, driving cross-country in the Jeep he’d gotten as a high school graduation present. They’d left with twenty-five hundred dollars between the two of them—his trust fund wouldn’t mature for three more years.
Piper had been suffocating under the viselike control of her high-achieving parents. She’d had to be in all honors and advanced placement classes. They didn’t care that that meant she was up past midnight every night studying, and then up at six to be at school by seven every morning. She played a sport in every season, was in debate club and model UN. She had no free time, and that’s exactly how they liked it. When they sat around the dinner table, they’d grill her about her coursework. She felt like they were automatons, devoid of emotion, only there to account for her movements. By the time she graduated, she knew she had to go far away. She’d been accepted to all seven universities she’d applied to, but her parents had insisted she choose Virginia Tech.
Ethan’s home life was vastly different from hers, but no happier. His father had struck gold when he’d invested heavily in Microsoft and was able to retire early, buy a huge sailboat, and stay home and manage his investments. By the time Ethan was old enough to be somewhat self-sufficient, his parents decided to recapture their lost youth and cram in all the fun they’d missed. Instead of family dinners, he’d come home to a fifty on the table with a note telling him to order in and look after his younger brother. Don and Trish Sherwood spent most of their evenings at the Annapolis Yacht Club and were often too hungover in the mornings to get the boys up for school. Ethan said it was like living in a frat house. The two of them used to joke that if they could somehow merge their sets of parents, they might end up with one decent pair.
They made a plan to leave together on the Fourth of July, their own Independence Day. Piper’s parents would be ensconced on the Naval Academy grounds watching the fireworks, and Ethan’s parents would be anchored in the Severn River, partying as they took in the show in the sky overhead. She had left a note for her parents telling them that they should not look for her, that she was going to start her own life. As they sped away from Maryland, she’d kept a tight hold on her cell phone, expecting them to call and insist she come home. But they never did. It was as though she’d ceased to exist for them. After a week with no attempt on their part to contact her, no call to Ethan’s parents or to any of her friends, she decided they were dead to her forever. At least Ethan’s parents had wished him luck on his “adventure” and showed a modicum of
interest in his life by giving him a check for two thousand dollars to get him started.
It had taken them ten days to reach Los Angeles, and they’d been awestruck when they arrived. It was a bustling mix of high-end stores, gorgeous and fashionable men and women, scruffy vagabonds, and snarling traffic. Crazy exciting, but not quite the shining, palm-tree-lined paradise Piper had expected. She kept her eyes peeled all the time at first, looking for a celebrity at every corner, but that instinct wore off after they’d lived there awhile.
Ethan’s friend Wally let them stay on his pull-out couch in West Hollywood. Piper got a job waitressing, while Ethan began work on his screenplay, and after a couple of months, they’d saved up enough to get a small studio apartment of their own. They reveled in their freedom, staying up late, drinking wine, smoking pot, and spending hours in front of the television—all the things she’d never been allowed to do at home. For the first time in her life, she felt free and happy. They decided to get married, and she was eager to shed her last name and the last vestiges of the family she’d been born into. Wally and his girlfriend, Carina, were their witnesses on the beach that night, as another friend officiated, and then they drove to Santa Monica for the weekend to honeymoon. They stayed in bed the whole time, making love and making plans for their bright futures.
Three years passed. Ethan finished his screenplay and tried to sell it, becoming more and more depressed with each rejection. Piper was getting disillusioned as well, losing out at every audition and wondering if she was going to spend the rest of her life waiting on other people. They began to argue, mostly over money. Piper told him it was time for him to get a real job. He called her a dream killer. But she was just being practical: it wasn’t going to happen for either of them, and she’d already decided that she was going to go back to school in the fall. He needed to grow up.
By the time of his twenty-first birthday, they’d negotiated a tentative peace, and they planned to head to Cahuenga Peak in the Hollywood Hills to see the Wisdom Tree. The three-mile hike would give them time to talk without all the distractions of the city. And the view from the top was supposed to be spectacular. Piper liked the idea of the Wisdom Tree, hoping it would somehow impart some sage guidance to them.
The day started out on a good note. It was beautiful and sunny—not too hot, not too cool. They were both in happy moods, playful and teasing each other. When they reached the top and looked down, she felt like anything was possible and was hopeful for the first time in months. They’d embraced and kissed—a real kiss, not the quick pecks they’d become accustomed to in recent months—and she lingered in his arms for a few moments, enjoying the feel of the sun on her face and the breeze in her hair.
She forced herself to remember the good part of the day, the part where they had reconnected and everything felt good—the part right before he went flying off the mountain to his death. She didn’t like to think about what came after, either. The police. Their suspicious looks as she told them how he had been standing at the edge of the precipice, and that when she called out to him to be careful, he’d given her a mischievous smile and balanced on one leg, then lost his footing. She would never forget the sound of his scream as he fell eighteen hundred feet.
After he was gone, she’d wanted to leave L.A. immediately, but she had to wait until the investigation into his death was closed. Then she quit her job at the restaurant and moved to San Diego. The hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars she’d inherited from his trust fund was enough to help her forge a new life.
Snapping back to reality, Piper sighed, dragged herself out of bed, and threw on her workout clothes. Yoga wouldn’t cut it today. She needed a long run. Something to clear her head and get those endorphins flowing. As she laced up her Nikes, she caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror. Smiling at her reflection, she recited the words she’d spoken to herself every year for the past fourteen years: “You’re not responsible. Don’t let the past drag you down. Life is for the living.”
Standing, she walked briskly from the room, shutting the door behind her and pushing the memory of that day from her mind. She hadn’t hiked since then, but when she’d discovered that Leo had a house in Bar Harbor right near Acadia Park, she’d thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get back on the horse, so to speak. She’d always loved to hike but had stopped after Ethan; it was time to embrace it as a hobby again.
She’d seen pictures, and the house was stunning. Nestled in acres of green, it perched on a cliff overlooking the ocean. The gray-shingle facade was all windows and white trim with decks boasting views of the water from all sides.
She wanted to go the day after Christmas and have a nice holiday break, where they could really start to bond as a family, and had brought it up to Leo back in November.
“It’ll be perfect. A wonderful getaway for our new family to spend some time together bonding. We can play board games with the kids. Go hiking. Just relax. What do you say?”
“It will be too cold to hike in December. Besides, I’ve already booked our trip to St. Barts. The children like to get away somewhere where they can swim and be warm. It’s really much nicer at the Maine house in the spring and summer; we can go there then.”
She’d let the subject drop and resigned herself to heading to St. Barts the day after Christmas. A couple of days before the twenty-fifth, though, she’d checked the forecast for Maine and seen that it was supposed to be unseasonably warm all week—in the fifties. Later that evening, right after she and Leo had made love, she ran a finger lightly up his arm. “I want to talk to you about something.”
“What is it, my love?”
She leaned up on one elbow and looked into his eyes. “It’s something I want for Christmas.”
He smiled. “I’ve already gotten your presents.”
“I’m not talking about presents. You know how much I want for Stelli and Evie to accept me, to think of me as a mother.”
His expression grew serious. “Of course.”
“Well, I think it’s important that we have some quiet time together to reflect and plan our goals for the new year. Going to the islands is your old tradition. The children are still going to see me as an intruder replacing their mother there. I want to start a new tradition. Instead of airports and hotels, let’s finish the holidays in a more old-fashioned way. Board games, popcorn, and movies. And hiking together as a family experience. It’s going to be in the fifties in Bar Harbor all week.”
He sighed. “I can see your point. I can cancel the trip to St. Barts if you really want, but I don’t know about hiking. I worry about Stelli. He’s not great with boundaries, and the trails are so high up. If he fell . . .”
“We’ll watch him. We’ll make sure he’s safe.”
“I’m not so sure about that. He didn’t know better with the slide . . .”
Was he really bringing that up again? “Well, I know better now. We won’t take our eyes off him. I want us to make new memories there. Family memories.”
He got a faraway look and was quiet. “Maybe it would be good. But I know the kids were really looking forward to the island.”
“I’ll talk to them tomorrow,” she said, nestling back against his chest. “If they really object, then we’ll go with the original plan, okay?”
The next day, she gathered the children around the kitchen table. She’d given Rebecca the afternoon off and had made their snacks—green smoothies with some liquid vitamins—and they sat contentedly, Evie swinging her legs back and forth under the table.
“This looks weird. Why is it so green?” Stelli asked when she put the glasses down on the table.
She’d forgotten to buy blueberries, which made it purple normally. “Because I put in Hulk powder,” she said, smiling.
His eyes widened. “Like the Incredible Hulk?”
She nodded. “Yup. It will make you strong like him. And it’s got yummy fruit, so it’s sweet. Try it.”
He reached for the one farthest from him, b
ut she stopped him. “Not that one. That’s Evie’s.” She pushed the other one toward him. “Different vitamins for different kids. This one’s yours.”
He took a sip with the straw. “Not awful,” he said.
“Told you,” Piper said, taking a seat. “Listen, Daddy and I were talking yesterday, and we thought it would be fun for us to do something different for Christmas break this year. How would you like that?”
Evie stopped drinking and sat up straighter. “What do you mean?”
“Well, we were thinking it might be fun to go to the cottage in Maine.”
“That sounds boring. I want to go to St. Barts,” Stelli said.
“If we do go to Maine, I was thinking we could get the new Oculus Rift virtual reality system and play games together. We could get the new Xbox, too,” Piper told him.
Stelli’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
Piper turned to Evie. “And we could read by the fire, and watch lots of movies.”
“That does sound kind of fun,” Evie said.
“And we’ll do some hiking, too. There are some beautiful trails with wonderful views,” Piper added. “Stelli, what do you think?”
“Okay, I guess, if you let me pick out the games to buy. But I don’t want to go hiking! What if I fall?”
“Well,” Piper said, “I will keep you safe. It’ll be fun, and we’ll all be together.”
“I fell at the playground. Rebecca said you should have been watching me better.”
Piper felt her cheeks burn. What else had Rebecca been filling his head with? She would deal with her later. “You did know that you weren’t supposed to go on that slide, right? You won’t do something silly like that on the trails, will you?” She was sick and tired of being blamed for something that wasn’t her fault.
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