She replayed it. Huh. The statement still seemed acceptable to her. Friendly and complimentary. Of course, it was possible that thathadbeen an awkward thing to say and had only seemed normal to her.
If so, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t warned him about her lackluster social skills.
And, of course, it could have been worse. She could have confessed her fascination with his lips or, unforgivably, failed to solve a quadratic equation in his presence.
Where was she driving?
She’d been so preoccupied with Sebastian that she’d failed to type Trina and Jonathan’s address into her GPS before leaving the hospital. Smoothly, she pulled into a strip mall and parked. She peeked at her reflection. Even now, after the gale force winds of her parents’ identity and Sebastian’s nearness, it mollified her to see that she looked calm.
She typed11482 Riverchase Roadinto her phone.
“Turn right at Beverly Road,” her phone’s Irish male voice instructed her. She had a closer relationship with that voice than she’d ever had with a boyfriend.
She followed the Irishman’s directions.
A twenty-minute drive brought her to the well-established Morningside Lenox Park neighborhood. Hilly tree-lined streets harbored homes that had been built in the first half of the twentieth century. This neighborhood would have been pricey for a young family three decades ago, just as it was now.
Leah parked a little ways down and across the street from 11482.
Feeling conspicuous, like a cop on a stakeout, she scoured the length of the street, then eyed Trina and Jonathan’s house. What if one of her family members walked out that door? Or spotted her from inside and came out to question her?
Stillness encased the entire block. Nothing moved, except for gently swaying branches. Most likely, she could stay here for a short period of time without anyone noticing.
The Dutch blue trim of the home emphasized its muted brick exterior and charming black front door. Planting beds tucked tidy shrubs against the base of the structure. The flowerpots on the front step burst with geraniums.
When she was brought home from the hospital as a newborn, she ought to have been brought here, to this stately Americana home. It was easy to picture a baby nursery in that front right room. It would have a big window, wood floors, crown molding.
In her earliest memories, she’d lived in an uninspiring two-bedroom apartment. Dad had had the design aesthetic of a frat boy; Mom had accessorized their hodgepodge furniture with international treasures from places she’d never had the opportunity to visit. A wall hanging from India. Art from Venezuela. A tablecloth from Thailand. Those items had been colorful, but they’d also reinforced the message Mom had communicated in a million subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Namely,I’d rather be anywhere other than here.
How different would her childhood have been, had Leah grown up in this place?
Very different.
Memory-laden minutes slid past.
She had enough familiarity with Zillow.com from when she’d been shopping for a house in Misty River to know that the site provided data on a property’s prior sales. She accessed the site on her phone and ran a search. After some scrolling and clicking, she discovered that this house had been purchased by new owners five times since the year of her birth.
In fact, it had been sold just four years after she’d been born, ostensibly by Trina and Jonathan, if they’d been owners and not renters when they’d lived here. Either way, Trina and Jonathan hadn’t resided here in a long, long time.
She was glad she’d come, nonetheless. This detour had provided insight into her biological mother and father and what her upbringing might have been like had they been the ones to raise her.
Her family life hadn’t been wretched. Her needs had been met. That said, her family life hadn’t been as pretty as the picture this house presented, either.
Just because the house looks ideal on the outside doesn’t mean that the Brooksides’ life was ideal, Leah.
Yes, but what if the family life on the insidedidmatch the ideal on the outside? If so, how was she supposed to reconcile herself to that?
When Leah arrived home from Atlanta that evening, her house welcomed her with silence and a lingering whiff of pineapple from her unlit candle. Dylan was gone, hanging out with his friend Braxton.
She hurried to her computer the way she’d hurried to Math Olympiad contests in fifth grade and opened Facebook. She hoped the Brooksides were the type of people who, unlike her, shared their lives often and freely on social media without regard for privacy settings.
She enteredTrina Wallace Brooksideinto the search bar. Only one of the results looked like she could be the right fit. However, Leah opted to rule out the more unlikely candidates first. A few of them were too young. One had been born in England and lived there still.
Finally, anticipation mounting, she brought up the most likely Trina. The woman had created a close-up profile picture from her larger cover photo. The photo captured her solo, standing on a balcony overlooking a beautiful Italian-looking town. She was half turned to the camera with a relaxed smile.
Leah went still. Trina’s face was lined with years, but her facial structure, height, and body type were very similar to Leah’s. She’d styled her blond hair in a long bob that was slightly shorter in back than in the front. She wore a navy-and-white-striped boatneck shirt with roomy sleeves.
Unfortunately for Leah’s purposes, Trina was indeed someone who had regard for privacy settings. She’d made zero information about herself available to people she hadn’t approved as Facebook friends.
