Chapter 80 Jane
Jane
It’s ten in the morning, already blistering hot, and I’m coated in sweat. I’ve been at it all morning in the barn, grooming Indy and mucking Cookie’s stall, which I’m almost finished with.
I can’t believe I’m leaving them both behind, the only downside to getting out of here. So the least I can do is make sure I’ve taken care of these last few things for them.
I stab the pitchfork into the ground, wipe my forehead with my shirt again.
We are leaving first thing in the morning.
When Luke got home last night, late, which I was so annoyed by, I told him our plan.
We can’t stay here one second longer than we have to.
He was bombed, weaving on his feet; I drilled him about his date with Nellie and why the hell he was out so late with her.
“I promise, n-nothing happened,” he hiccupped. “But I had to make it a good time, worth all that money her crazy-ass mom gave me!”
I let him stagger off, pass out in his shed.
Whatever. We’ll be gone and away from all this bullshit before the light of day tomorrow, before anybody else wakes up, notices we’re gone.
“Morning, Sunshine.” Pa stands at the opening of the barn, grinning at me sheepishly. “Wanna talk about it?”
“Not really,” I say, not making eye contact. I grab the pitchfork again.
After Mom told me the truth, I was too burned up at Pa to even ask for the full story. So I’ve been punishing him, giving him the cold shoulder. But now I feel myself softening. This might be the last time I see him.
Or at least the last time for a while. Also, I do want to know the truth.
He takes a step forward. “I’m so sorry I kept it from you all this time. I just thought it’d be easier if you didn’t know all that—”
“All what? Who is she, Pa? Didn’t you think I deserved the chance to know her?
To get to meet her? Especially with Mom acting like such an atrocious bitch to me all my life?
You and I have always had a pact: Be straight with each other.
And I’ve damn well kept up my end of the bargain.
Acting as your front woman, putting myself out there—”
His honey-colored eyes scan my face, and dammit, they mist with tears. He walks over to me, lifts me in his arms. Then I start crying, too.
“You’ve been the best girl ever. The girl of my dreams, Sunshine, and I just never wanted to hurt you. I’m sorry I lied, kept it from you. But I thought it was for the best. For your own good.”
He keeps clutching me, which makes me sob harder.
I’m crying not just because my whole life has been a lie and I feel like I can’t trust anything or anyone anymore, but also because I’m gonna miss him.
And for a second, I’m not so sure: Do Luke and I really need to go through with this?
Run off? I can’t imagine a world without Pa in it. We’re a team. Always have been.
But then I think of Blair, of the letter j, like a glowing neon sign hanging over this family.
I know if anyone had anything to do with it—if it wasn’t just some crazy accident—then it was her.
Pearl Jameson’s mangled body flashes across my mind again.
She was the popular rich-bitch queen bee of Highland Park, and like Blair, she had her eyes on Luke. Flirting with him, competing for him. Luke flirting back, playing along so we could keep our secret. To an outsider, it might appear that Luke and Pearl were a thing. It definitely did to Julia.
She couldn’t stand it, would thrash around our room, mooning over Luke while tearing Pearl apart.
Then, one Friday night, while Pearl was driving alone, down a steep hill from White Rock Lake back to her house, her brakes went out, and she crashed, wrapping her shiny convertible Mercedes around a tree.
No one could prove a thing, but it seemed pretty clear that her brake lines had been cut.
I knew, of course, that Julia was behind it all.
We’d all been hanging out at the lake that night, drinking. Julia was there.
But…she wasn’t at the boathouse when Blair hit her head.
So, even though my gut has been sick with suspicion that she might’ve been behind this accident, too, how could she be involved, unless she snuck out there the night before, untied the canoe, and then it magically drifted out just as Blair was diving into the water?
She was riding Cookie that day, shopping.
Or was she?
Either way, and regardless of how hard it will be to leave Pa, we really do have to get the hell out of this town, away from all this.
What if the police want to ask me some questions, keep me stranded here?
Will I really turn on my sister? And what if someone finds out about the money and we lose it?
No, we are leaving first thing, even if it hurts me to say bye to Pa, to Cookie, to Indy.
I pat Pa on the back, then pull away. “You owe it to me to tell me the truth.” Now I stare him straight in the eye. “Who is my real mother, Pa?”
He whistles out a sigh, shakes his head. Then stares at me straight back. “I’m gonna level with you, but promise me this, that you’ll never breath a word to anyone. And I mean anyone.”
“Okaaay,” I say, genuinely baffled at what it could be, and even more curious now than I was when Mom first told me.
“Her name was Marissa. She was gorgeous, just like you. Same green eyes, same smile. Beautiful. And, I’m ashamed to admit this, but when your mom was pregnant with Julia, I fell in love with Marissa.”
I nod, not blaming Pa one bit for cheating on Mom. My mind swirls with thoughts of this beautiful woman, my real mother, and where she might be and when I might be able to meet her. “Where does she live?”
Pa shakes his head. “I’m getting to all that. So, she was as pretty as a summer daisy, and I was smitten. And I’m not proud of this, but after Mom gave birth to Julia, we found out Marissa was pregnant. With you. I’d gotten her pregnant, and it was a mess.”
“Okay, so what’s her last name?”
“Smith. But that doesn’t matter anymore—” Pa’s face is sad now.
“What do you mean?”
“Because she’s no longer with us, I’m sorry to say.”
My head reels. “Cancer? She must not be very old.”
“This is the part you can’t tell anyone. Hear me?”
“Yes.”
“I was gonna run off with her—that’s how in love I was—start a family with her. I know it sounds terrible, but she was just like you. Same spirit, same brilliant mind, an artist. But then—”
“But then, what?”
“Your mom caught wind of our plan, stormed away in the middle of the night while I was sleeping. You had just been born; you were just a few weeks old. And—”
“And tell me!”
“And there was a horrible accident.” Pa shakes his head, stares at the ground. “And your mom was there.”
“An accident?” I shrill. “What, did she poison her? Take her out with one of her freaky potions?”
“God, no. It wasn’t anything like that, anything premeditated. You have to understand, life was harder on the prairie. It was…different. Rougher. Like I said, it was an awful acci—”
A shadow sweeps across the barn floor.
Pa looks up.
Mom’s standing at the entrance, scowling at us. I don’t think she’s heard us because she just got here, but it’s enough to shut us up.
“Molly’s crying. I need you to bounce her on your knee so I can get everyone’s goddamn breakfast ready.”
I need to hear the rest; waiting is going to be torture. And what does he mean, Mom was there? But I’ll have to wait; I have no choice. Mom never uses the Lord’s name in vain, and Pa has closed up like a clam.
“Talk later,” he mouths to me before turning and trailing her into the cabin.
I jerk the pitchfork back out of the ground, start mucking again. What in the hell does he mean by an awful accident? I’ll call him from New York, first chance I get, make him tell me everything.
After a half hour of this, I’m completely drenched in sweat. When the tines of the pitchfork strike something solid, I shift the pine needles around to see what it is.
A blue snorkel mask.
What the hell?
It’s not like we’ve ever done much pool swimming or have a pool of our own, so we don’t have gear like this.
And then it hits me, so crystal clear that it makes me shudder.
Julia was there the day of Blair’s accident. Except no one saw her, because she swam underwater. Was hiding in the boathouse.
She must’ve tied Cookie up to a tree, out of sight, then swum her way down river.
No one saw her, that is, except for Blair.