“For all Bellanger’s precision,” Patricia said, “he only managed to create miracles in a few of you. I don’t understand why. Look—look at Fiona. Look at you, Cate.” Patricia was reverential but also hostile. “Why not Isabelle?”
“What happened to all those books you and Margaret had? About the lost art of self-conception,” Cate asked. “Those could help you understand some of this.”
“They burned. They were at the Homestead during the fire. I couldn’t save them.”
Another loss, one I hadn’t even known about. Not just Bellanger’s work, his research, his notes. But this other part of our genesis. All of it gone in the fire that Ricky Peters had set. Devouring more of my history than I’d even realized.
“Perhaps it’s something about us,” Patricia said, the bitterness deepening. “About Margaret and me. Maybe as your mothers, we should hold ourselves responsible for your lack. There’s no bond like the one between a mother and child.”
“Maybe so,” I said, suddenly impatient, and Patricia snapped to attention. “You both went about this the wrong way. You and my mother. Where did all that ambition go? All those dreams? My mother just let it vanish. She’s spent years trying to pretend we’re normal. And I’ve resented her for it. But now I look at you and Isabelle, and … maybe my mother was right to just forget the past. That ambition’s only hurt Isabelle. Would your past self be proud of that?”
The room felt too still after my outburst. Through her hair, Isabelle stared at me with her diluted blue eyes, uncertain, looking like she didn’t know whether to be scared of me or grateful.
Then she put her hand out, palm up, laying it on the table like an offering. Her fingers blossomed open, waiting. Patricia gave her daughter a small smile, the two of them communicating privately, as if Cate and I had vanished. She placed her own small hand in her daughter’s and they locked fingers, staring at each other, and I didn’t know whether what was happening was forgiveness or apology, accusation or challenge.
Patricia broke the gaze first. “If you’ll excuse me, Girls.” She rose, leaving the dining room without another glance, her posture very straight. Isabelle waited a few seconds, sitting there surrounded by the drying bloodstains, all the leftover proof of a wound that didn’t exist anymore. She stood and followed her mother out of the room, leaving Cate and me alone.
24
Tom still wasn’t back. I had no idea where he’d gone. Maybe he’d abandoned us to the Bishops, driving off as easily as he’d appeared on that Kansas freeway. It was late, shadows overtaking the inside of the house. Cate and I sat on the sofa in a single pool of lamplight. The isolation drew a tighter and tighter noose around us. The closest outpost, a forlorn convenience store, was miles back. I imagined the crunch of gravel as the maroon sedan crawled up to this defenseless house. Patricia hadn’t shed any light on who was following us. He was still a mystery, a ghost who could pop up any second.
Sensing my uneasiness, Cate took my hand. I thought of her hand on Isabelle’s arm, all her power concentrated in one spot. My skin warmed in response. A quick fluttering deep in my belly. The lizard necklace nestled between her collarbones. “What is that necklace, anyway?” I asked, as much to distract myself as anything else.
“Oh, this? A whiptail lizard. They can reproduce without male lizards. A whole community of lady lizards. My mother had this made for me.” She tapped the necklace softly with her free hand. “A reminder of what we could be, someday. Not just the eight of us scattered around the country, god knows where, but a community. Kind of like your mother’s theory.” She smiled, half to herself. “I wish my mother had been alive when you went off to school, Morrow. It hurt her that the Homestead never went anywhere after ’77—that we just stayed stuck. She would’ve loved to see one of us grow up to put everything back together.”
“Well, I’m no Bellanger.”
“No Bellanger?” Cate’s grip loosened. “You’re still comparing yourself to him? We just learned that we weren’t even his idea.”
I hesitated for a moment. “Look, I’m not going to discount Bellanger’s work over what we’ve learned. That seems like an overreaction.”
“Shit, seems like a perfectly reasonable reaction to me. We just found out that the test subjects were the masterminds. If that doesn’t change anything for you, then you’re…”