My defenses flare on his behalf. “Maybe he has another approach to getting on the bike again.”
“This show could change his life.”
“You meanyourlife?” I challenge.
“We share a life,” she snaps. “Something I hope one day you’ll understand.”
And yet they don’t share a life,I think. At least not the one my mother assumes they share. My father is doing one thing and telling her another. I don’t know if she deserves such behavior or if he’s the one out of line. At some point, does a daughter have a role to mediate with her parents, or is she out of line? It’s confusing, too confusing for someone who just witnessed a murder and has no idea when her stalker—and Adamisa stalker—will reappear. As if I’ve willed him into existence, my phone buzzes with a text message.
I dig it from my pocket, and my lips curl around my teeth, my stomach locking up as I read:Morning, Mia. Don’t worry about anything. That spill washed right up, never to be seen again. I’ll take care of it all. What are you doing today?
I just stare at the message. And stare some more.
“Honey?” my mother asks. “Is everything okay?”
I wet my dry lips. “Yes.” I glance over at her. “Yes. Of course.”
But I’m already reading Adam’s message again. How can he act as if nothing happened? And what is he telling me? That Kevin is gone, never to be seen, or found, again?
Mia?he prods.
I have to reply, I tell myself. If I don’t, who knows who he’ll kill. I quickly type:Going to my parents’ place for lunch.
His reply is as quick and sharp as the blade he used to kill Kevin:And how are you going to take control of the situation with your mother?
Panic punishes me, heat burning my cheeks. I told him she was cheating on my father. Is he threatening her for her perceived sins the way he did Kevin? Is he trying to get rid of any problem in my life, eventhe normal ones all of us live with, like family squabbles? I hate the way he forces me to engage with him as if we were still just as we were before, prospective dates, but I quickly reply with:I’m not sure everything is what it seems. She appears really worried about him. I think he might be trying to surprise her with his success.
Interesting,he replies.Call me tonight and tell me all about it.
It’s not a casual text like that one from Jess or Jack, who just care and want to know more. This message is a threat. Call or else.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
My mother pulls us into the driveway of the family home, and that weeping willow tree drags and sways against the pull of a windy day, a reminder of that night when I’d felt someone was here, watching the house. Watching me. Chills run down my spine, and I hug myself with the certainty that, yes, someone was watching me, and that someone was Adam.
When will he want to meet in person? When will I be forced to face him, kiss him, even touch him, just to stay alive? None of these things are options, and yet I am more captive now to him than I ever was to my own fears and insecurities.
My mother pulls the sedan into the garage of the family home and kills the engine. “Please tell me you will at least try to talk sense into your father.” She glances over at me. “If he comes out on top this time, all his hard work pays off. Finally he will see his worth. He will believe in himself.”
There is something in her voice, raw and raspy with emotion. She really is worried about him. She loves him. I don’t know why I doubted that. I really never did. I just thought—I don’t know what I thought. I guess it was more about them breaking down and falling apart over his self-induced hermit condition, which, she’s right, isn’t healthy. It’s like not getting back on the bike. Or did he? He does have a new path to success. I’m confused by what is going on with the two of them andemotionally twisted in ways that I’m not sure will allow me to discover answers.
For now, I do what I can. I glance over at her and say, “What if he’s humiliated again? Does he even come back from that?”
“I believe in him more than that. Don’t you?”
It hits me that maybe, just maybe, she believes in him more than I do, and that carves a hole in my heart. I should be his biggest cheerleader. I’m not sure I have been. Maybe she has, and she simply isn’t enough for him anymore, after all he went through. That idea twists me into knots. “I’ll talk to him,” I promise.
She surprises me and squeezes my hand. “Thank you. He’s really shut me out.” She sucks in a breath. “I don’t know how to deal with it.” She pulls back and grips the steering wheel, and in a rare confession she admits, “It hurts.”
Vulnerability.
Raw, real, and uncalculated.
I don’t know if ever in my entire life my mother has shown me that emotion, let alone been as real with me as she is now.
A ping in my chest comes with a question. Was my father so low afterLion’s Denthat he was thrown into a midlife crisis, and he is the one who sought outside attention? Is that where the confidence to say no toLion’s Dencame from?
I don’t know the answers, but I know one thing: if I don’t have them when I talk to Adam later tonight, there will be consequences. But the answers I seek are not from Adam. They are from my parents. To bring them together again. To ensure their happiness. To keep them safe.
