Let Her Lie, page 12
“Are you there?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m here,” she said, her tone flat.
“You heard me, right? Meg called. She—”
“Who’s Meg?” she interrupted.
“Oh, sorry,” I said. “Miracle Jones’s mother.”
“So, you’re buddies now?”
“No,” I protested. “Well, I mean … she called. Her daughter is missing.”
“And what does this have to do with me?”
“You’re still mad. I can tell. This is about Cassandra, isn’t it? You heard about the film she’s working on.”
“No,” she said.
“It’s on … Bender. And me, I guess.”
She laughed again. “You?”
I wasn’t sure if she was concerned or amused.
“I think she’s just mad that I jumped her,” I said. “Look, maybe the project’s dead. Who cares? I just told Meg that we could help. And if you won’t, then I will.”
“You’re diving a little deep here, Theo.”
And there it was. Concern or judgment, I was sure I’d lost her. It dripped from her terse tone. To be honest, I couldn’t even blame Zora. I’d become a pariah. Regardless, I waited, hopeful. The line remained silent. Shaking my head, I sighed a second time, a little louder.
“Okay,” I said. “I understand.”
“Theo, just listen to me for a minute,” she said. “I really like you. And I don’t say that very often. And … I can’t believe you got me to talk. No one’s ever done that. You have mad skill. I mean it. The best I’ve worked with. So please, take this as advice from someone that actually cares. Slow down.”
“I hear you,” I said. “And thanks.”
I heard Zora. And in my own way, I listened. I thought about what she said. She might be right. But it didn’t sway me. The funny thing is, I think she knew it wouldn’t.
We ended the call. And I searched for the nearest rental car place and dialed that number.
“Yeah, I need a car. Right now.”
* * *
Three hours later, I arrived at Meg Jones’s home and knocked. A dog barked, then slammed into the closed door. When it opened, he bolted out, almost knocking me over, before rushing to the edge of the street. There, he sat, as if waiting for someone.
“He’s done that since Miracle left.”
I turned back around and saw Meg Jones for the first time, in her angler’s vest and thick-soled hiking boots. She stood in her doorway, as solid a foundation as I had ever seen, with a fat little baby clinging to her neck.
“Is that …?”
“This is my grandson, Owen. Miracle named him after the man that found her when she was a baby.”
I stepped closer, staring at the child. For some reason, I felt overwhelmed. Like everything had taken on vastly more importance.
“I … I want to see what I can do.”
“Did you speak with your investigator?” she asked.
“I did,” I said. For some reason, I glanced over my shoulder. Max sat exactly where he had, but I saw Ginny Harris on her porch across the street, watching us. I waved, then turned back to Meg. “I’m not sure she’s going to help.”
“Why?”
“That’s a long story,” I said.
I half expected Meg to mention Bender or Cassandra. The way things were going for me, I might not have been shocked if she brought up Geri. Then again, I felt like she might be one of the first people I’d spoken to who had never heard of The Basement.
“What can we do?” she asked instead.
“Maybe if you tell me more about what happened. You mentioned that you knew something was wrong. That your daughter wasn’t being truthful. When did you first notice that?”
A troubled look cracked her stoic facade. Meg stepped back into the house.
“Let’s come inside. Away from the audience. And let me get Owen down for his nap. Because that’s a long story too.”
I laughed, despite myself. “I have the time.” Then I looked back again. “What about the dog?”
She shook her head. “Max isn’t going anywhere without his mom.”
* * *
ACT TWO/SCENE 7
EXT. PARKING LOT—DAY
The sun bakes the same dark asphalt, those same faded white lines. The outhouse still juts from the corner of the lot. Miracle Jones steps out from behind it, her dog by her side. The weight of the entire world in her eyes.
From the day her mother handed her that article to the day Miracle took her first pregnancy test, her truth never rested more than a question away. At any time, all she had to do was ask. Her parents would have answered anything. She could have gotten on their desktop computer and used the dial-up connection to search the burgeoning internet for more news. Not long after that, all she would have had to do was pull the phone out of her pocket and surf for endless facts. Every detail was there for the taking. Yet she never dared look.
Maybe that doesn’t seem realistic. How could someone fight that kind of temptation? Hold off those kinds of demons? For so long, all Miracle knew was the story she’d read, with its heartwarming photo and poetic flare. She was well aware that it hid a much darker truth. But she also knew that whatever that truth might be, it would define the rest of her life. No matter how much she wished it wouldn’t. From that day in the sixth grade on, she was no miracle. And no Jones, either.
For years, she flirted with the edges. She wrote college papers diving deeply into the nature-versus-nurture debate. She marched for a woman’s right to choose. She joined an adoptee support group but never attended the second meeting. When things got too close, she ran.
That second pregnancy test opened the door. There would be no more hiding. No more denying her past. Standing in that lonely outhouse, she got out her phone. After taking a deep breath of the late summer air, she finally did it. Miracle Googled herself.
Within the flood of initial search results, she found the article her mother had clipped from the newspaper. Staring at the other headlines, she opened that page first. Utterly alone, Miracle read that part of her story over and over again as the phone shook in her hand. Reality coiled around her, constricting her chest. The more she fought to leave that article and move to the others, the harder it became to breathe.
“Shit,” she hissed.
The fire was lit. The future already in motion. Miracle hesitated only a moment. Then she dove into her story. She devoured every detail she could find, eating the tragedy as if she had starved her entire life. The ache inside her continued.
Abandoned her infant daughter in the filthy sink of a public restroom.
Doctors marvel at child’s survival.
Who would do something like that?
What kind of mother …?
Horror!
Miracle.
As tears rolled down the curves of her cheeks, she let the hand holding her phone drop. It rested at her side as she looked up at her cloudy reflection in the mirror. Her other hand slipped up to her shirt. Her fingers reached. But at the first touch of the fabric flowing over her stomach, she recoiled as if burned.
In uneven strides, she left that outhouse. Walking out onto the sand-dusted pavement of the lot, she lifted her phone again. She stared at the blank screen, her mind racing. She knew what she should do. She should call her mother. Tell her the truth, that she was pregnant. Meg Jones’s desire to be a grandmother was epic. She had been bugging her brother for years. Her mother would be happy. She would be supportive. Maybe Miracle could tell her everything. Maybe, even, Meg would understand.
Her finger actually moved. Miracle nearly opened her phone and called her mother. But the gaping wound inside her might as well have severed the nerves in her hand. Clouded her mind. Shutting down one pathway and throwing open another.
Her head tilted upward as tears streamed down both cheeks. She screamed out at a life that she’d never asked for. At a world in which she could not exist.
“I can’t do it!”
* * *
She was already tumbling through her past, gaining speed, careening toward something that she couldn’t yet see. That she couldn’t yet understand. There was no way of knowing how far the fall would take her. At some point, as surely as the force of gravity itself, the bottom would come. And the truth would obliterate her one way or another.
Honestly, she didn’t think about her next action. Instead, lost in a tangle of forbidden thoughts, she called her mother. Meg answered with her usual excitement.
“Hi, baby.”
“Hi, Mom.”
Miracle paused. She had been about to ask Meg to pick her up. Then the reality of it dawned on her. If her mother came to this place, it would break her heart.
“Hi … hey, what’s up?” The nervousness Miracle had heard the day before slipped back into her mother’s voice. “Is everything okay?”
From where she sat, Miracle could see the highway. If she started walking, she might be able to get to Dewey before her mother. She looked down at Max, saw the foam around his lips and listened to his heavy panting. The thought of walking all the way home again was too much.
“Can you pick me up?”
“Where are you?”
“I … went for a walk with Max. Down to the ocean so he could play. We went a little too far.”
“Where are you?” Meg repeated with the slightest edge of suspicion.
“Ah, Dewey. Indian Beach.”
Meg paused on the other side of the line. “I’m just leaving Mrs. Hanson’s house. We had a planning meeting this morning.”
Miracle’s eyes closed slowly. Mrs. Hanson lived on the south side of Dewey, one block from Indian Beach.
“I’m outside now,” Meg said, her tone growing more suspicious. “Where are you exactly?”
With a sigh, Miracle told her. “We’re at the state beach. Just south of you.”
Mrs. Jones didn’t answer right away. When she did, her tone was flat, unreadable.
“Just stay still. I’ll be there in a minute.”
* * *
The car ride was silent. Meg clutched the wheel and hummed to soft music from the radio. Miracle stared out the window, afraid to blink, because each time she did, a vision of the outhouse flashed on the backs of her lids, jagged lines and ominous sky, like a drive-in horror movie. The mood oppressed even Max, who lay curled in a tight ball on the back seat, moaning occasionally to remind everyone of his empathic discomfort.
Miracle had thought they were going home. She’d thought that was what she wanted. Instead, still humming, her mother turned onto Rehoboth Avenue. When she nosed into a parking spot, Miracle turned her head.
“Let’s get lunch,” Meg said, her tone impressively normal.
“Mom, you don’t have to—”
Meg’s eyes flared. “Oh, hush. We do.”
“What about the dog?”
“We’ll sit outside. It’s nice.”
The smile creeping across Miracle’s own face surprised her. “Okay.”
They walked down the main street. They even made small talk as Max trotted along beside them, his swagger returning with each step.
“I was going to take you to get oysters …”
Miracle stiffened. She wasn’t sure, but she assumed pregnant women didn’t eat raw shellfish. At the same time, the idea that she cared, considering her current mind-set, almost caused her to laugh out loud. A third thought popped into her head. Could her mother know?
“It’s okay,” Miracle said. “The café sounds good.”
Her mother nodded. “It does, doesn’t it?”
They sat outside and Max slipped under Miracle’s chair, his jowls spreading out on the warm noon concrete. For a time, their lunch played out like all the others they’d had over the years. Then, out of nowhere, Meg’s eyes took on the focus of a hunter.
“Are you still mad at me?” she asked.
Miracle’s head did a quick shake. “What?”
“Are you still mad?”
“About what?” her daughter asked, genuinely confused.
“About not telling you. Before that little shit of a girl did.”
A laugh burst from Miracle. “Mom!”
“What?”
“She was eleven … maybe twelve. You can’t call her that!”
“Well, what would you call her?”
Miracle considered that for a moment, then shook her head. “A little shit.”
“Exactly,” Meg said, smiling proudly. “So, are you?”
“Of course not,” she answered.
“You can be honest. Your father and I understand. We’ve talked about it so many times. I can remember that day I gave you the article like it was yesterday. Waiting for you to finish reading was like torture. All the questions you might ask just kept going through my head. Then … you came out and never asked a thing. Not once. Ever.”
Miracle reached under the table and scratched Max’s head. “I don’t think I wanted to.”
“I spoke to someone back then. A professional. And she told me that I should let you make the first move. It was so hard. I wanted to talk to you about it every day. But I …” Meg laughed, this time nervously. “Listen to me, saying how hard it was for me. That doesn’t even matter. Not at all. All that matters is you. That’s all that’s ever mattered.”
“Mom,” Miracle protested, her cheeks flushed. “Don’t worry about it. It’s all good.”
“I listened to that lady back then. And it felt wrong. Every day. Now, I … see it again.”
Miracle’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“You’re back in that place.”
“I am not.”
Meg’s head shook. “You just happened to take a five-mile walk on your birthday? And you just happened to end up … there.”
The air seemed to drain out of Miracle’s body. She tried to look away. Tried to recoil from the rawness she felt burning inside her. But then she saw her mother, the concern on her face, the love in her heart. And she couldn’t do it. Not this time, with the pregnancy and how she felt about it.
“I’m okay.” She pushed the words out as if they had been lodged in her throat for over a decade. “I promise. I just … You’re right. I never asked. I never wanted to know. I didn’t want anything to … change.”
“Oh, sweetie!”
Tears came to Meg’s eyes. She rose, rushing to her daughter and wrapping her in an awkward hug. Max, disliking the sudden change in mood, sprung to his feet and tried to pry his way in between them. His efforts sent one of the wrought-iron chairs tumbling to the sidewalk. He jumped. Miracle jumped. And ever-pragmatic Meg let go of her daughter and lifted the chair back to its legs.
“Sorry,” she said to the only other table of diners out there.
Miracle watched her mother return to her seat. She saw the tears. And she wondered where her own were. Why she felt so empty inside.
“Nothing will ever change. You’re my daughter. I chose you!”
“I know. I do. When I have those thoughts, I just get mad, really. I feel like some stupid kid.”
“Don’t think that. Look, maybe I shouldn’t say this. Or maybe I should have said it sooner. What happened to you … what you survived, it’s real, Miracle. It happened, and it’s big. It had to change you.”
“I was a baby,” she said. “All I remember is everything you and Dad did for me. That’s all that matters.”
Meg’s head shook slowly. “I wish that was true. But what I do know is that we love you and we always will. You will always be with us. And you will always be Miracle Jones. All of you.”
With a fierce determination painting the lines of her face, Meg leaned down. She pulled a neatly wrapped present from her bag and laid it on the table between them. It was about the size of a thick paperback book. But her mother’s eyes told Miracle it was something far more important than that.
“Open it,” she said.
Slowly, Miracle reached out and picked up the gift. It was surprisingly light, more like the pregnancy test she’d bought than a book. That thought set her on edge again. What if it is? The fear almost made her laugh. Maybe Meg knew. But she certainly wouldn’t buy her a pregnancy test for her birthday. Her mom deserved far more credit than that.
Miracle’s fingertips brushed the smooth paper, finding the seam. Always one to enjoy a good unwrapping, Max put his paws on the edge of her seat and thrust his nose under her forearm.
With a quick look at her mother, Miracle tore away. Within seconds, she saw the label on the box—Ancestry.
“It’s a DNA test,” Meg said, removing any last bit of uncertainty.
Miracle stared at it for a second in utter disbelief. She looked up at her mother. How could someone be so connected to her? How could Meg know that it was exactly Miracle’s genes that weighed so heavily on her mind? It was as if she could sense every thought Miracle ever had. Yet the box sat between them, the physical embodiment of their own unrelated DNA.
“I …” Meg’s voice broke with emotion. “I’ve thought about this for a long time. I thought you might want to know. I mean, it would be a good idea, right? Even if you don’t want to find your mother. That’s up to you. But it’s still good. See if you can find out your medical history … you know.”
Miracle couldn’t speak. She could barely think. Meg was motherhood as it should be. Someone who cared so deeply and understood her child so implicitly. Who put her child’s needs above her own, no matter the cost.
But Miracle’s biology hinted at something far different. Not something to pass on, like a beautiful bassinet or a lovingly knitted blanket. Maybe, instead, something that should have been left in a filthy sink to die. Forever.
CHAPTER
8
“A GENETIC TEST?”
“Yes,” Meg said.
“But didn’t she already know about her mother—and what happened to her?”
“No,” Meg said. “She knew nothing then, except that her biological mother had abandoned her. The ancestry test revealed her mother’s name, at least—I think. It was a month after that when the article was published about the Halo Killer.”
