“So like,” Tegan begins, wetting her own lips before she continues, “how have you been?”
Salem’s hands clasp together more tightly where they rest on the table. Mom smiles, not showing teeth. An indulgent smile.
“I’ve been okay. I work at a local greenhouse nearby, keep busy. The people here are friendly.”
What the fuck, is all I can think.What the fuck, what the fuck.
I strain to hear Adam’s breathing. A life preserver in this watery landscape.
“You look so grown-up, Tegan,” Mom says. “You’re beautiful.”
Tegan flushes anew. I can tell she’s concentrating on not touching her hair; she hardly ever wears it down for this long. She says, “I’m going to college next month. I was going to major in biology. But now I’m thinking about journalism.”
Don’t tell her that, I’m thinking.Don’t tell her anything.Remember what you said, about what she deserves to get from us after all this time.
There’s silence, and I realize it’s because Mom has shifted her attention to me. She’s looking at me expectantly, as though I might also offer something about my life. My career or whatever other thing she must think is normal to talk about after all this time.
“You can’t be serious,” I say.
Mom only looks sheepish for a second. “I am happy to see you. I know you won’t believe me, but I mi—”
“Don’t,” I snap.
I can’t hear her say it, that she missed me. She used to say it a lot, after she came back the first time. My dad would drop me off with her for a visit and she’d come out to the driveway and open her arms for the split-second, perfunctory hug I’d give her. She’d say,I missed you, Jessie!but she must’ve never really meant it. Not even back then.
Mom’s gaze drifts over my shoulder at the same time I feel Adam’s warmth at my back. He’s not touching me, but I know he’s gotten closer all the same.
She looks back at Tegan.
“Of course I understand you’re angry at me.”
Tegan blinks again, and Salem cocks her head, looking at my mother with a sharp, predatory curiosity that suddenly, to me, seems the only appropriate behavior in the room. Better than Tegan’s shock, than my tenuous self-control, better even than Adam’s stoic silence.
If anyone would have told me two weeks ago that I’d be almost desperate for Salem to take over a conversation, I wouldn’t have believed them. But right now, I want to watch her do her worst. Ask a question about every single month my mother spent away from me and Tegan. Make her really feel how many days it was.
“Six years?” Tegan says.
All of us shift our eyes to her. The flush in her cheeks has faded; the shock in her eyes dimmed. Maybe the journalism major would be a good idea for her, not that I have time to think about that now.
“You said Lynton has been dead for six years?”
“Six years ago next month,” Mom says, in a way that suggests she marks the day. Probably she lights candles around her fucking picture frames.
Tegan’s brow furrows, and I’m pretty sure mine does, too. I’ll admit, ever since Adam talked to Dad’s doctor friend, or at the very least since New Mexico, I figured Lynton hadn’t lived for long. I figured it even more since no one Salem talked to yesterday remembered ever seeing him around.
“Did you get married?”
Mom shakes her head. “No. Well, not legally.”
I don’t know what that means. I’m pretty sure there’s only the one way to be married. Then again, maybe when you’re wanting to marry a guy with multiple identities, it’s not—
“So you just lived here with him? On a boat? And then he died?”
Behind me, I feel Adam shift on his feet. I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing I am. I wonder if he’s thinking about how Tegan’s questions—and the lilting, casual cadence she’s asked them in—is somehow more incisive, more wholly eviscerating, than any ask we’ve ever seen Salem present to a source.
Mom swallows. “It’s not really that simple. I took care of him. He was ill. Lung cancer.” She looks at Salem. “He actually was diagnosed while he was in prison. Stage one, at that time. I know he never mentioned that to you.”
Tegan ignores that detail, drawing Mom’s attention back to her.
