“Whitney, you’re hurting me,” I said.
She pulled me toward her forcefully, encircling me in her skinny arms. Her grip was too tight. She smelled of lilies. I remembered resting my head on my mother’s chest, the smell of her: cigarettes, the tang of last night’s alcohol in her sweat, and the Werther’s caramels she loved.
What if I couldn’t escape who I was?
What if, even though they were poor and screwed up, my blood family was the only family I could have?
What if, instead of devoting myself to making a new life entirely, I had tried to stay?
In Whitney’s feverish embrace, I was pierced with yearning. I missed my mom.
Get out.
My heart spoke to me clearly.
For the first time in a very long time, I overrode my desire to be someone I was not, and I listened.
Get Charlie and get out.
Over Whitney’s shoulder, I scanned the room, noted the fake windows. I took in the staircase, where I knew a door led to the Packers’ outdoor pool. I saw a patio, which was lit with natural light—or a near-perfect facsimile.
When Whitney’s hold on me loosened, I took a tentative step toward the staircase.
She reacted immediately, grabbing a remote from the desk and pushing a button. Metal walls descended, blocking the patio and the windows.
“What the hell?” said Charlie.
“Whitney!” I said.
She looked crazed, her eyes moving quickly between Charlie and me. “I didn’t know what else to do,” she muttered, her voice almost robotic. “She tried to kill him. She’s going to keep trying.” Her face changed before me, growing older, exposing her private desperation. She looked haggard, exhausted, and suddenly real.
Charlie was staring at her, his mouth slightly open.
“I pretended Roma sold drugs. I was just going to report her to the police. I thought it would give me…I don’t know…a few weeks. She poisoned Xavier. She’s going to kill him, Liza. She’s going to kill him.”
“Whitney—”
“You’d do the same, right?” said Whitney, raising her deadened gaze to me. “If someone were trying to hurt Charlie, you’d do anything…wouldn’t you?”
-8-
Annette
ANNETTE HEADED TOWARD LAREDO, but her son said, “Stop.”
“We’re going to see Grammy and Pops,” said Annette.
Robert held up his phone, showing her a message from Xavier: MEET ME AT SECRET CAVE ASAP? I NEED YOU.
“Mom, I need to go back,” said Robert.
“No,” said Annette.
“Xavier says he needs me,” said Robert, and Annette felt a twinge.
The highway rolled out before them, blinding in the afternoon sun, filled with trucks and car exhaust and the hovering fumes of gasoline. It was her way out.
She paused, approaching a U-turn.
-9-
Cellphone Transcript Record
512-XXX-XXXX
XAVIER
Meet me at Secret Cave ASAP? I need you.
CHARLIE
What’s up?
CHARLIE
Xavier?
CHARLIE
Omw
BOBCAT
Did you mean to text me too?
BOBCAT
Xav?
BOBCAT
Omw
-10-
Liza
“I WAS THE ONLY one,” said Whitney. “I was the only one who could stop her.”
“Oh, Whitney,” I said. I knew that Whitney was telling the truth, maybe for the first time in a long time. I understood how terrible it felt to have no plan—to accept that life was an uncontrollable chaos—and how powerful the belief that you were in control of your children’s lives could be. How you could desire the illusion of control so much that to keep it intact, you would become someone you didn’t even recognize.
“It’s the same as what you did,” said Whitney, her voice crackling with anger, gaining strength. “You made up a story about Patrick, and then you lived in that story—you made me help you.”
Charlie looked directly at me. “We don’t have to pretend anymore, Mom,” he said. “Not about Dad, not about anything. I’m OK. I’m good. Look at me, Mom. We’re OK.”
My son. I had taught him to be scared. I had believed I could buy his way to safety, keep all my sad secrets from him. But everything I’d built—the patchwork of employment straining to rip, a house with a fancy address but duct-taped pipes, rich and feckless friends—it was worthless. None of these people or things belonged to me.
Only Charlie, who was mine.
As I looked at his face, I began to see my sister. My blood sister, the one I had left in Cape Cod. Charlie’s cheekbones were the same as Darla’s, his red hair her shade, and his expression—defiant yet hopeful—reminded me powerfully of her.
My sister, so small, looking up at me, starting to realize her life was tough, but still clinging to a belief that I would be the barrier between her and the ugliness beyond. She’d grip my hand when we left our trailer, assuming I could hold her.
But I had let her go.
I had run.
Where were my mother and Darla now? Could I find them and begin to mend what I had ripped apart?
Charlie waited, watching me, to see if I would let him down again.
“Please,” said Whitney. “Charlie, if you can just stay quiet, just do nothing…”
“Mom,” said Charlie in a low but audible voice.
I turned to him.
“Choose me, Mom,” said Charlie.
Whitney’s demeanor changed as she slipped her regal persona back on like a royal costume. She breathed through her nose, raised her chin. “I wish you were a real friend,” she said.
“Whitney, I am a real friend—” I said. I reached down and gripped a chair for balance, the leather sickeningly soft and warm beneath my palm. My other hand landed on the desk, fingering the edge of a decorative sculpture, a two-foot-tall brass replica of the Eiffel Tower.
Whitney stared at me for a long moment. And then she said, “Goodbye.”
Charlie turned to me. I knew the walls of this bunker were made to withstand a nuclear explosion. Whitney would leave us down here, because she would always take care of herself. I had thought Whitney, Annette, and I had been as close as sisters, but every one of us had chosen fear over love.
Including me.
It was simple to paint Whitney as evil—and I understood Charlie’s view of her—but as a mother, I understood why Whitney had tried to fix things. It was what we did—it was how we bore the terror—we pretended we could keep our beloved ones safe. I was sorry that I hadn’t been a good enough friend to see how Whitney was struggling. I’d wanted to believe she was perfect. I’d wanted to think she was in control.
Because if Whitney couldn’t save me, no one could.
No one is coming to help you.
No one is coming.
It was up to me to save myself.
And so I did.
-11-
Salvatore
SALVATORE PARKED IN FRONT of Liza Bailey’s home. He was feeling light, which was absolutely the wrong emotion for the situation. His weird good cheer made no sense.
It felt like hope.
Liza opened her door. There would be a time to tell her he had never forgotten her. That the memory of her filmy dress and the way she peeled her beer label off with her fingernails had stayed with him, the promise of possibility, of joy. But now was not the time.