Chapter 2
“Phe, what’s wrong?” Beau asks as my laughter escalates until tears stream down my cheeks, and I realize I’m not laughing—I’m crying. It’s a hysterical mix of shock and humiliation, because Beau—of all people—is here as a witness. I need to pull myself together.
“Nothing,” I choke out, gasping to catch my breath. “I’m good.” I wave my hands over my face. “I’m great.”
Beau glances at me from behind his thick lenses, shrewd eyes trying to crack me like a code. “You’re not. But if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. I can call my mom if you’d rather talk to her.”
The last thing I need is Leilani Augustin storming in, and Beau knows it. Lani would call me an ambulance, enlist a work party, and force me to talk about my feelings.
I wipe at my eyes as my breathing slows.
Beau’s staring at me, his focus cutting through my panic with precision.
I weigh my options. Perhaps I need help making sense of this, preferably from someone who isn’t in my day-to-day life and won’t have the opportunity to bring this up again if I pretend this new information doesn’t exist.
My family scandal can’t lessen Beau’s opinion of me—he already thinks I’m tragic. And pompous ass or not, he’s the smartest person I know. Perhaps he could help me puzzle this out.
I exhale and hold the document out to him like a smoking gun at a murder trial. Your Honor, I submit to you proof that my life is a lie.
“What’s this?” he asks.
“My ghost,” I say.
Beau takes the paper but quirks his eyebrow at me.
He adjusts his glasses and squints while reading.
I watch Beau’s eyes scan the page, once, twice.
Then he reads aloud, as if the words will make more sense if spoken.
I track the headlines as he mumbles. “In the Matter of Ophelia Rose Dahl, a minor child ... Department of Human Services, Petitioner v. Mary Ann Johnson ... Jackson County, Oregon, Circuit Court ... Termination of Parental Rights by default judgment ... failure to appear ...”
“I don’t understand.” He offers an apologetic shake of his head. There was a small piece of me that wondered if he knew. If everyone knew but me. But I’m surprised I can still read him like he’s my native language—he’s as shocked as I am.
“This is dated the year after the car accident. My mom isn’t dead.
She gave me up.” Saying it aloud, the information hurts as much on the way out as it did on the way in.
Nausea rolls in as the realization lands anew.
I press one hand to my belly and clasp the circular pendant at the hollow of my throat.
The honed gold is as familiar as the silk of my skin; I’ve touched it so often that the M on its face has faded. I thought it was all I had left of her.
“That can’t be true, Phe,” Beau says in a shaky voice.
“That’s what I thought. But I’ve had some time to let it settle.” I tick off the evidence on my fingers. “Dad never talked about Mom unless I asked. I don’t remember a funeral. And we never visited a grave.”
Beau twists his face in concentration. “But she was buried in Oregon, right?”
“Yeah. Medford. But it’s a short flight from San Diego—it doesn’t explain never visiting your wife’s grave.” We’d moved here right after Mom “died.” I assumed Dad was running from loss—not from lies.
“Maybe your dad was so traumatized by her death that—”
“She didn’t die, Beau.” I point to the document. “At least, not in the accident.”
“Your scar,” he says, his voice dropping to a register that strikes me as kind. His focus drifts to the white gash along my hairline.
I instinctively bring my fingertips to trace the ridge.
Beau asked about my scar the day his parents dragged him along to welcome Dad and me to the neighborhood all those years ago.
The scar was red and angry then—as fresh as my loss.
But it took me months to tell Beau I’d gotten it in the same accident that killed my mom.
At least that’s the story Dad told me. I was four years old when the EMTs pulled me from the sedan on an icy highway in Oregon.
I never saw Mom again, and Dad said she was gone. Why would I doubt him?
“Maybe this document was drafted before the accident. Are you sure you calculated the dates correctly?”
“I know I was never great at math like you were, but I can subtract, Professor.”
He growls. “I mean, do you remember the timeline correctly? You were very young.”
“I spent Christmas in the hospital after the accident. Dad brought me gifts and a small Christmas tree to cheer me up. I have a picture of it here somewhere.” I wave to the calamity I’ve made of Dad’s office.
“This document is dated the summer afterward, right before we moved here. I found the deed to the house yesterday, and the dates line up.”
Beau is silent for a few minutes, and I can see him processing. I reach for the paper and take it back from him.
“Besides, even if this doesn’t mean what I think it means, there are a whole lot of lies packed into this piece of paper.
Dad made me believe we were a happy little family when she died.
This document uses her maiden name—and her parental rights were terminated .
” My mom’s maiden name is in block letters: Mary Ann Johnson —clear, legible, unmistakable.
“Johnson” is the answer to all my password security questions—email, bank account, the workout app I never use.
The name is so common, unlike Dahl, the often-misspelled surname Dad gifted me like an inherited pet peeve.
“Do you want to look for her?” Beau asks. “You could try to track her online.”
“Yes.” At least, I think so. “But the search hits for Mary Johnson would be infinite. This might take better detective work than Google.”
“But you know other things about her, surely?” He shoves his hands deep into the pockets of his joggers.
They’re the expensive kind—soft, clingy, and revealing all the quad muscles he didn’t have when we were young.
I drag my eyes away. I’m not attracted to Beau, of course.
But this new body of his sure is distracting. I refocus on what he asked.
“Not much. Her birthday was March 8, and she was born somewhere back East—New York, New Jersey, maybe? But I don’t know what year she was born, her Social Security number, profession, or .
..” I silently curse myself. It seems so obvious now.
Dad didn’t like to talk about Mom. And I didn’t like to make Dad uncomfortable.
So it’s laughable how little I know. “I might find more information in there.” I point to the office.
“But I’ve gone through most of it already. ”
Beau scoffs, peering at the garbage heap of paperwork on the floor. “With the grace of a honey badger.”
“Yeah, well, next time you find out your life is a joke, let’s see if you can search for the truth like a detached detective.”
Beau scowls and crosses his arms over his impressive chest. Wanna bet?
he seems to say. And yeah, if Beau’s perfect life ever imploded and he found himself in a similar situation, he’d uncover the truth through a methodical, organized quest using qualitative and quantitative data.
He definitely wouldn’t tear into the evidence room like a feral animal.
“It will probably help you to get her side of the story.”
I wave the paper. “She didn’t care enough to fight for me. ‘Failure to appear.’ It’s here in black and white.”
Beau lets the truth sit for a few moments.
“And my dad let me grow up thinking I was motherless.” I scrape my mom’s pendant across the chain again, and Beau’s eyes catch on the movement. He, more than anyone alive, knows how much her absence wrecked me.
Beau speaks his next words while watching my fingers glide over the gold. “Your dad loved you more than anything, Phe. I’m sure he didn’t intend to hurt you. If he lied to you, he must have done it to protect you, and to give you a childhood marked with loss but still filled with love.”
Grief—heavy, discordant—pushes on my shoulders and yells in my ear. “Maybe, but I can’t even ask him why.”
Beau moves to me until we’re so close it’s like we’re friends again, when it was normal to reach in for a hug or whisper in each other’s ears.
“I know, Phe. I can’t believe you have to deal with this, too, after everything you’ve been through.
” His voice reeks of pity, and my hackles rise.
“I can imagine how terrible it must feel to be lied to.”
His words are a match to my emotional gas line, which has been leaking for weeks.
“How, Beau? How could you possibly imagine how I feel?” He’s had nothing but luck and light since we parted ways.
I get the reports from his mom. “Do you understand what it feels like to have a dead dad, a not-dead mom, and no fucking answers? Your pity and condescension are bad enough, but don’t pretend to understand.
” My words tumble out of me with the repressed rage of my childhood, the petulance of my adolescence, and the pain I’ve restrained since my dad took his last breath.
Beau’s expression hardens—and we’re instantly strangers again. He steps away, and I shiver as the temperature drops. “All right. That’s my cue. Let me know when you figure out what you want from me.”
His tone feels like a slap, even though I threw the first punch. It occurs to me too late that I may have overreacted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He steps away, pausing in the open doorway before his dark eyes land on mine.
All softness is gone. “I’m trying to give you grace because you’re dealing with a lot.
But you showed me the paperwork despite my propensity for—what did you call it?
Pity and condescension? You dragged me into your crisis like you always have.
Not the friends you ditched me for. Me. In my experience, it’s because you want something. ”