“I should have known something like this would happen,” Mum murmured, more to the broken window than to Emmy.
“What?”
“I should have guessed that when you put you and me together, this is what comes of it.”
Emmy didn’t know what she meant. She didn’t want to know.
“I sent you away with Julia when you didn’t want to go and you came back with her when you should’ve left her where she was,” she said, her voice strangely emotionless.
“I’m sorry, Mum,” Emmy said for the hundredth time. “I didn’t know this was going to happen. I thought she’d be safe. I thought you were...” Her voice trailed away.
“Yes, you thought I’d be coming home. To my empty house, like I do every night because that’s the life I have.”
Her detached manner scared Emmy. She said nothing.
Her mum turned to face her. “Don’t you want to ask me where I was last night? Don’t you want to know since it’s my fault this happened?”
Emmy wanted the floor to open up beneath her and swallow her whole. She wanted to scream and scream until she had screamed all the oxygen out of the room and she could simply keel over dead in the chair.
“That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? That it’s my fault?”
“That’s not what I’m thinking,” Emmy whispered. “I didn’t know this would happen. I just wanted to make something of myself. I just... I just wanted you to be proud of me.”
Mum stared at Emmy for several long seconds, her arms crossed loosely over her chest. “Is that really what you wanted? Wasn’t it instead to prove to yourself that you’re better than I am? You’ve always been ashamed of what I am. No wonder you jumped at the first chance to get the hell out of life here with me.”
“That’s not true!” Emmy yelled.
“Of course it’s true. And who can blame you. You were never meant for this. Not this.”
She turned back to the window.
They were quiet for a few minutes, each lost in private regrets.
When she turned back around, Emmy could see that her mother had made a decision. She strode purposely past Emmy.
Emmy heard her on the stairs. She got up from the kitchen chair and limped up to the second floor. Mum was in her bedroom, looking through her wardrobe. Glass crunched beneath Emmy’s feet as she walked in.Mum pulled out a heather gray dress she’d come home with last spring. If she had noticed Emmy was wearing one of her dresses, Emmy couldn’t tell. She said nothing.
“What are you doing?” Emmy asked.
Mum tossed the dress onto her bed, reached up to the buttons on her maid’s uniform, and undid them. She stepped out of her work clothes and pulled on the dress. “I can’t do this alone. I need help.”
“But we’ve already been to the police and they—”
“I’m not talking about the police. They don’t care about me or Julia. I’m no one to them. Just another pitiful soul they don’t have the time or the means to pay attention to. I need someone who has connections.”
She grabbed a hairbrush off her bureau, shook the dust from it, and ran it through her hair. Even after a night of hell and a day of torment, she still looked so beautiful.
“Where are you going?” Emmy asked softly.
Mum picked up a bottle of perfume and squeezed the ball. The room filled with a sweet scent. “Stay here,” she said. “I don’t want Julia coming home to an empty house.”
She moved past Emmy, who turned to follow her.
“Where are you going, Mum?”
“If the sirens go off again, go to the shelter at the corner. When they stop, get back here as quick as you can.”
“Mum!” Emmy rushed to keep up with her.
