Girls of Glass
Page 32
But Ruby’s heel had connected with Alice’s kneecap, and she’d loosened her grip enough for the girl to wiggle free. Ruby had sprinted toward the steps with the perverse disobedience of someone very young. Her feet had tangled beneath her, though. Her arms pinwheeled while she desperately fought gravity, fought the downward pull of her small body. The air had turned to molasses, and Alice had been unable to push her limbs through it to get to the girl before the inevitable smack of skull against concrete.
She’d gone limp in an instant.
One wrong step, that’s all it had been. One flawed plan. One bad decision by an evil man. One moment of distraction when Lila had been able to dart away from her at the mall that day. One flutter in her womb that promised life. One breath, one heartbeat. One wrong step. It had all led them here.
Charlotte was watching Alice now, and Alice didn’t want to tell her what had happened because she knew it would just hurt more. But the woman had asked for those frayed lifelines, the ones that would snap under the force of desperate hands tugging at them. Even if Charlotte didn’t realize that they wouldn’t help, Alice at least owed her an answer.
“Ruby tripped.”
Out of everything Alice had said, that was what took Charlotte to her knees. She brought the heels of her hands to her eyes, pressing hard, but the tears streamed down her face anyway.
“Fuck you,” she whispered, and then she screamed it again—a raw, guttural cry that came from deep in her belly and echoed off the walls—the very walls that had held the story Alice hadn’t wanted to tell. “Fuck you.”
The hatred in the words was a hand pressing against Alice until her own legs gave out and she was on the floor. This had to end. It had to. Why wouldn’t this end?
She stared across the distance to Charlotte, this mother who was no longer a mother. And she saw herself so clearly in the curve of the woman’s back, in the arm that was still bleeding, in the shallow breathing that was so loud in the quiet room, in the sobs that trembled through delicate muscles. She saw herself so clearly that she thought perhaps they were one person, one overwhelming grief that was slowly suffocating both of them.
“You piece of shit,” Charlotte gasped out. “You think you can just . . . look me in the face and make excuses? You killed my daughter.”
It hurt, it hurt, it hurt, but Alice didn’t protest even as she curled over her organs as if to protect them from the blow. She hadn’t pulled a trigger, hadn’t wrapped fingers around the girl’s throat, hadn’t pushed her. But she’d killed her just the same. “Yes,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.
Charlotte swallowed once, and they locked eyes. Alice thought that just for a moment Charlotte saw herself in Alice as well. Saw herself in the arch of her neck and the sorrow in her shoulders and the acceptance in the tilt of her head. Mothers who were no longer mothers.
Then Charlotte blinked and pushed herself to her feet, the connection broken.
“Everyone’s going to know what you did,” the woman said, so similar to what Alice had told Sterling earlier that the words jumbled and lost their meaning. “They’re going to know what kind of monster you are.”
Charlotte crossed over to the small coffee table, and that’s when Alice heard the sirens. They weren’t close, but they would be soon. The woman held up the phone, and Alice could see now what she’d missed earlier. There had been someone listening in the whole time.
“Please,” Alice begged. She just wanted this to end, wanted relief from the enormity of all that she had done as it crashed to pieces around her. “Please.”
There was tinny screaming now through the speaker, and Alice realized it was Nakamura. He was telling Charlotte to wait, to not do anything rash.
The helplessness he had to feel at that moment would be immense, and Alice felt sorry for him. But more than anything, she needed Charlotte to not listen to his pleas.
The sirens blared. Had this been Charlotte’s plan? To get Alice to confess and then see her arrested? If it was, then Alice would need to move. Now. She’d been given a chance to end it on her terms, and she thought that’s what Charlotte wanted as well.
But instead of reassuring Nakamura, Charlotte hung up the phone. Then she stepped closer.
“I care nothing about what you want,” Charlotte said, reaching over to the gun that had been only a few feet away from Alice the whole time. “I’m not doing this for you.”
Alice breathed out once, relief turning her hands shaky. She sat back on her heels so that she was kneeling at the feet of this woman, this woman who’d had her whole life torn from her because of Alice. This woman whom people thought of as weak, who was told she was made of glass, who believed it for far too long.
Alice tipped her face up so that she could meet Charlotte’s eyes. “I always knew.”
“Knew what?” Charlotte asked slowly, like she thought it was a delay tactic.
“That you were stronger than anyone thought you were,” Alice said, her palms relaxed against her thighs. For the first time in days, months, years, she felt at peace.
Something flickered in Charlotte’s eyes. Surprise. A protest. Acceptance. But she didn’t say anything as she brought the gun to Alice’s head.
Alice finally closed her eyes.
The snapshots came. Of Ruby. Dimples in baby-fat cheeks. Red curls tangled by sea-salt air. An upturned nose that would have forever doomed her to cuteness. Strawberry shampoo and sticky hands. Of Lila. Chubby legs racing toward the waves. Cupid-bow lips that were just as quick to pout or laugh. Skinned knees and stuffed animals clutched in tiny hands.
She thought of elephants and favorite shoes.
She thought of crocodile tears and tantrums and voices turned scratchy from screaming.
She thought of pigtails and a quick smile and the solid weight of a little girl against her hip as they raced against butterflies.
They came in snapshots, those moments. And they told a story.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A deep and sincere thank-you to Charlotte Herscher, my amazingly talented editor. Not only was your voice in my head while writing this, but you also helped shift me in the exact direction the story needed to go. You keep me grounded in the best ways, even when I am panicking and considering moving to the Himalayas to never write again. This would be a lesser book without your constructive insights and spot-on questions. Thank you for always making me a stronger writer.
To Megha Parekh, your tireless support and enthusiasm mean the world to me. I am so lucky to have you on my team and forever grateful for all that you’ve done to get my books from idea to finished product. I could not ask for a better editor.
I’d also like to thank the entire team of people it takes to put out a book: from the eagle-eyed copyeditors who deserve armfuls of awards for the mistakes they catch, to the proofers who see things literally everyone else has missed, to the incredibly talented designers who create a cover to perfectly capture thousands and thousands of words, to the marketing team who makes sure the book gets into readers’ hands, to the dozens of people whose hard work goes into making this a reality. Thank you.
And none of this would have been possible without my agent extraordinaire, Abby Saul. Apart from your sharp editing skills, your professionalism, your kindness, and your humor, I am eternally thankful that you always have my back. I cannot overstate how grateful I am to have you in my corner.
Finally, to my family and friends, thank you forever and always.
To Katie Smith and Abby McIntyre, I am thankful beyond belief to have such trustworthy first readers as you.
To Dana Underwood, who is my biggest cheerleader, always—your encouragement gives me the courage to even do any of this. You don’t realize how grateful I am for that.
And to Deb and Bernie Labuskes, a thank-you will never be enough.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brianna Labuskes is also the author of the psychological thriller It Ends With Her. Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, she graduated from Penn State University with a d
egree in journalism and has worked as an editor at both small-town papers and national media organizations such as Politico and Kaiser Health News, covering politics and policy. She lives in Washington, DC. Visit her at www.briannalabuskes.com.