Chapter Thirty-Three
thirty-three
AUGUST 1990
ADA backed away from the library door. She bolted up the stairs and nearly ran into Rennie, who was just leaving her room.
Rennie started after her. “Ji? Jie—”
Ada ignored her and continued to her room. She’d thought that Mā had been scolding Sophie again about their relationship. Ada had been poised at the door, ready to stand up to her mother for once and defend Sophie. But they hadn’t been talking about Ada at all. Their voices were muffled, but she could make out Sophie’s pleading tone and her mother’s own stony responses.
Everything will be fine. Do as I say. We keep this to ourselves.
Ada paced her bedroom for what seemed like hours. It was dark out when she finally walked back down the stairs and snuck across the large foyer.
The light was on in Sophie’s room, and there was a rustling and muted clatter from within.
Ada knocked. “Sophie?”
It went quiet. Ada tried to open the door, but it was locked.
“Sophie, what’s going on?”
“Go away.”
“Sophie—”
The door suddenly flung open. Sophie looked around wildly and put her finger to her lips.
Ada glanced past her into the room. Drawers were overturned. A bag was open on the floor. She pushed inside. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
“You’re—leaving?”
Sophie stood with her arms crossed, wearing a tank top and jean shorts, her chest heaving. Sweat dripped down her forehead.
“What did Mā tell you? What were you two talking about? Is she making you leave?”
“No. She doesn’t know I’m going.”
“What about your parents? You’re just going to leave them?”
Sophie went back to shoving clothes into her duffle. “I don’t want them to come with me.”
“And what about me ?”
Finally, Sophie stopped. Her eyes were red from crying, and Ada wanted to hold her. But she knew Sophie wouldn’t let her.
Ada whispered, “Do you hate me?”
Sophie’s eyes welled. “How could I hate you? I love you.”
The air between them stilled.
Ada took in a small breath. Oh. She reached out and laced her fingers through Sophie’s, elated by her confession. “Then we’ll figure something out. We’ll reason with Mā.”
Sophie’s fingers clamped around Ada’s wrist. “You don’t understand. Your mother wants me dead.”
Ada frowned. “What?”
“Listen. You’re not going to believe me. But someone has to know the truth. I’ll tell you, and you’ll let me go. I’ll disappear out of your life forever. Okay?”
“Hold on. Wait, wait, wait. You can’t just—”
“ Listen ,” Sophie yelled, then brought her voice under control again. “Your mother had me grow something for her. I didn’t know what it was at the time.”
“What was it?”
“This flower.” Sophie’s voice started to quiver. “They use it in—in traditional medicine.” Sophie lowered herself to the bed, grimacing. “It’s all poisonous. The roots, the flower…” She looked up. “I swear I didn’t know, Ada. Until after…”
Ada became very still. “After?”
“Until after your dad’s funeral.”
The room expanded and contracted in front of her. Sophie seemed to get farther away. “ What? ”
“It wasn’t an overdose.”
Ada dropped Sophie’s hand and stepped away. “You’re not making sense.”
Sophie’s words were rushed. “Your dad was abusing her, Ada. She said he was going to kill her. So she needed to…” Her words were coming out faster than Ada could process them. “I didn’t know any of this. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She was trembling uncontrollably now. “And she found out about us. She was so kind to me, and I thought… maybe… we could be together for real.” Her voice dissolved into a sob as she clapped the heels of her palms over her eyes. “But I didn’t know what the flowers were! She was just using me. I didn’t know what she was planning, I swear—”
She stopped mid-sentence, her hands clenched around her own waist.
Ada remembered the night when she stood in the doorway of the library. Something had been going on between Mā and Dad. She remembered the glazed look in Dad’s eyes, as if something had possessed him; how he had lunged for her. It all made sense now: the rising voices, the distance between them, the terror on Mā’s face.
Had he hurt her? How had they not seen the signs? The bruises? Maybe Mā had covered them up. She knew how to do stage makeup. Mā had endured this all alone, and Ada had never asked. Ada was always the one who noticed things. But this time had been different; Mā had needed her, and she had been preoccupied with her own fantasy. It broke her to think about her mother living in fear like that. She remembered how quickly her mother wanted to leave the funeral and sink into her own grief.
If Sophie was telling the truth—
If.
Then everything in her family was a lie.
Her father was an abuser who had threatened her mother until she had killed him. Her mother had used Sophie to do it.
Ada wished, desperately, to go back to earlier in the summer. She could have talked to her mother. She could have stopped those fights. She didn’t know how bad it was. She should have known.
Finally, what she’d overheard made sense: Everything will be fine. Do as I say. We keep this to ourselves.
Sophie watched Ada as the pieces came together in her mind. “Now you understand. And now I’m going to disappear. I promise. I’m so sorry.”
She zipped her bag and looked at Ada, her eyes imploring. “Please don’t tell your mother that I told you the truth. Please. For me. I don’t know what she’ll do to my parents. Just pretend I never existed.”
“What will your parents say?”
“I told them I’m going to stay with my sister for a bit. She has an apartment.”
Sophie was going to be gone. Ada couldn’t stay behind. No, she couldn’t possibly wake up in the morning and continue her life as it was. The walls were closing in on her. She couldn’t stay here knowing this.
“I’m going with you,” she told Sophie.
“You can’t,” Sophie said. “They’ll come looking for us—”
“Your parents were going to come looking for you anyway,” Ada said. “We’ll go to San Francisco. Both of us.”
“You can’t leave them. Your family.”
To stay here and say nothing was unbearable. But so was confronting Mā with the truth. Who knew what she would do? There was no other way forward.
“I can’t stay either,” Ada said. “We’ll be eighteen soon. They can’t force us to come back here then.” She clutched Sophie’s hands. “I’m going to get some money and pack a bag of my own. Meet me downstairs in an hour.”
Ada had never thought about what it would be like to leave. To be unmoored from Lucille, from Rennie, from her parents. She had once been scared at even the thought of going to college. But now a terrifying new clarity flooded through her. Looking around her childhood bedroom in the darkness, she didn’t know if she would ever come back.
Ada heaved her bag up and stepped into the hallway. She tiptoed down the stairs. On the first floor she headed for the library, where she knew her mother kept extra cash for emergencies. To think she had imagined she’d known all the secrets in this house. She unlocked the top drawer of the desk and wrote a note. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Her handbag sat on the desk. Ada reached in and plucked out her wallet. She swiped a credit card. They would get found out for sure, but this would buy them time.
She entered the hallway of the left wing right as Sophie closed the door to her room. Sophie held up her right hand, and Ada could see the glint of car keys. Of course Sophie was driving. All this time and Ada still didn’t have her license because she was too scared. She’d always been so scared of everything. It was time for that to end.
“Ready?” Ada whispered. Sophie nodded.
They slipped out the door and crept to the car, each of them wincing as they opened and closed the doors as softly as they could. They threw their bags in the back seat and sat in the car for a moment, breathing. Then Sophie reached over and gave Ada’s hand a squeeze.
Behind them, the foyer light switched on.
“Shit,” Sophie said. She jammed the keys in the ignition. The engine revved and the car jerked into motion.
“Go!” Ada shouted, looking back. The front door opened. Mā ran out. “Go!”
They hurtled out of the driveway and onto the road. Ada trained her gaze on the yellow lane markers in front of them. The mist pressed against the windows, as if to offer them some kind of protection. Terror burned away into pure, insane adrenaline. They were speeding, away from the estate, away from her mother, away from the horrible things that her family had done.
They were free. They were seventeen and they could go anywhere.
“You think she’s gonna call the cops on us?”
Ada shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know my mā anymore.” As soon as she said it, she knew it was true. “She might come chase us herself.”
Sophie’s light smile was long gone. Instead, she gritted her teeth with grim determination. Her hand tightened on the steering wheel. The other clenched around Ada’s fingers.
“I’m sorry for what my mā did to you,” Ada said.
“I’m going to hell,” Sophie said. They lurched through one light, and then another. “I know it.”
“It’s not your fault.”
There was a long silence.
“I need to tell you something.” Sophie’s fingers tightened. The car jerked and sped onto the ramp to the highway. Sophie was driving erratically, and Ada started to get scared. “I—” Sophie’s words were cut off as she doubled over the wheel and groaned in pain.
“The poison… I think I’m—I think she—”
Sophie jerked back into her seat with a sharp cough and blood spurted out of her mouth, splattering onto her lap and the steering wheel.
“Sophie!” Ada heard herself shouting. They swerved into the opposite lane. “Pull over!” She grabbed for the wheel. She didn’t know how to drive. She didn’t know how anything worked.
Too late.
Sophie let go and Ada jerked the wheel to right, but the car swung out too far. They spun toward traffic, the oncoming lights flooding the inside of the car as Ada screamed.