“Just let me tell you this one thing, please.”
She sighs, pacing the deck like we’re caged here. I feel like we are.
“I was searching for a belt to wear to the dance and I found a photo with some old things of Mum’s. It was from when she was young, with a boyfriend.”
Trauma jolts to the surface like it happened yesterday. I can trace everything that happened to Mum back to that one moment when I forced her to face this truth. It’s why I’ve been so studiously avoiding lobbing any triggers at Evie all this time. I can’t hurt someone else I love like that.
All sensation leaves my limbs.
Someone I love.Still?
What else would keep me hooked for more than a decade, regardless of every relationship that has come and gone since. Why else am I even here, in Adelaide, pretending it’s about “off-loading” her, but soaking up every possible second? I swallow down the revelation and force the next words out.
“The man in the photo with Mum was my father. And he was the image of Oliver.”
Her mouth falls open. At least the shock has absorbed all the tears.
“I didn’t want it to be true. There had been no relationship at all. No birthday cards. No expressed desire to meet. I was an inconvenience—the evidence of a relationship that should never have happened.”
“You’re Oliver’sbrother?” Evie says, finding her voice again.
She can’t know how much I wish I wasn’t. And that I hadn’t kept this from her.
“This is why you were at the church? You said you shared history …”
“It’s … a complex situation.”
“Youthink? My God, the things I’ve been thinking …”
What things?
We’re in the eye of a storm, everything whirling around us uncontrollably. Dangerously. “I need you to understand I couldn’t just launch every chapter of your past at you. We needed time … If I kept things back, it was always to protect you.”
“Every chapter? What else haven’t you told me, Drew? Bree?”
She is wild now. Furious. Crushed at how I’ve betrayed her, even if it was all for her own good.
“Seriously, what other family secrets are you hiding? Are you going to tell me I’ve got some kid stashed away somewhere, because I swear if I am a mother and you haven’t told me, and I’ve abandoned some child the way I’ve felt abandoned by all of you since I woke up in that hospital …”
Bree tries to rescue us. “Evie, stay calm. Take a breath, okay? You’ve never given birth.”
Evie falls back into the chair again, white as a sheet and shaking. “And Oliver and I never adopted, either?”
Bree shakes her head. “You didn’t adopt.”
“Bree, stop,” I say under my breath. Hiding the truth from Evie so far hasn’t worked. It’s only traumatized her even more to find out later that I lied. I’ve got nothing left to lose now—she needs to know everything. We have to tell her about Harriet.
age TWENTY-SEVEN
67
Evie
It’s Saturday morning at home and I’m up early, as usual. Also as per usual, Oliver was out late working on some corporate merger in the city, so he slept in the other room when he eventually got in after 2 a.m., which is when I finally fell asleep.
I’m worried about you, Evie—you’re burning the candle …Mum’s words echo in my head as I try not to make noise while I set up the coffee machine and then watch as the liquid drips into the glass jug. It’s her job to worry. And surely this insomnia is just a temporary patch.
But as I fill my favorite mug, it triggers what has become a daily morning observation:Another twenty-four hours has passed and he hasn’t left me.
