“There’s a computer in the office.” I can feel the ice in her stare as it bores into me, and I shiver. “Please do not make any noise that will bring my daughter downstairs.”
I sink my teeth hard into my lip and nod. I heard Grace’s voice. It’s not enough, but it has to be right now. I get my momormy sister. Laura won’t give me both.
We follow her to another room, and Malcolm practically dives at the computer when he sees it.
“This is yours?” he asks with a note of awe. There are three monitors, and the entire setup looks impressive even to my untrained eye. I don’t even recognize the logo embossed on the backs.
“My husband’s. He’s out of town.”
“What does he do?” Malcolm’s hands hover above the keyboard like he’s afraid to touch it.
“Computer stuff” is the flat answer Laura gives him. I’m sure she could perfectly recite his job title and the parameters of his work, but she’s determined to tell us as little as possible.
Malcolm nods, then flicks his gaze to me. “I can find her.”
His words and the promise behind them help thaw the cold from Laura’s glacial stare as Malcolm starts working.
“How did you find me?” she asks.
Without looking up from the computer screen, Malcolm raises a few fingers to claim his due.
“Computer stuff,” I say, and her gaze snaps back to me. I take in the slight but noticeable tremble in her body. She’s holding herself together by sheer force of will, and I’m suddenly, shamefully, reminded that she has every reason for acting the way she is. “I’m sorry,” I add. “I wouldn’t have come here if I had any other choice. I only just found out about…about everything. I didn’t know about any of you.” My gaze drifts upward. “I never dreamed I had a sister.”
Like lightning, she crosses the room and seizes my upper arm in a grip so tight I cry out. The sound jerks Malcolm from his chair, ready to come to my aid if I need him. Laura leans in to me, her grip not loosening in the slightest.
“My daughter is nothing to you. Do you understand me? She is notyouranything.” Her teeth click together as she bites off the last word, and I flinch. “I can’t call the police. From the very first, I made a choice that cut off that possibility for me. But I will protect my daughter.” Her fingers dig deeper, like she wants to crush the bone. Just as fast as the assault came, she releases me, and I’m the one left shaking. “You stay away fromher.”
My head is moving, nodding, agreeing to something I can’t possibly agree to. I stop rubbing my arm the second I realize I’m doing it. I’ve never even laid eyes on my sister and I’m giving her up? Is this what my mom did, cower under the threat of this formidable woman?
And yet,she’safraid ofme.I can see it in the way she’s trying not to start whenever I shift my weight.
I remember the false fierceness I had to put on with Malcolm when we were first thrown together, the hardness I could only begin to play at, because the truth was that he terrifiedme.
I terrify Laura.
But why?
Grace has to know that her father died before she was born. She would have grown up in a world where her paternity wasn’t a secret. She could have Googled him and watched the exact same news story I had, and so many more. She had to know who my mom was too, or at least who the police and press said she was. None of this would have been kept from her the way it had me. Grace isn’t a child. She’s older than me, almost nineteen. As for me personally, finding out about my existence might be a shock, but not the earth-shattering one that Laura is treating it as.
It doesn’t make sense.
I’m missing something.
“Can I use your bathroom?” I say.
A burst of panic shows me the whites of her eyes. “The one on this floor is being remodeled.”
That leaves upstairs. Where Grace is. Grace, who Laura wants me as far away from as possible.
In the end, she has no choice but to take me there. Malcolm is the lesser threat in her mind, and she isn’t about to take her eyes off me.
This time, my gaze sweeps methodically over every inch of the tastefully decorated home: the cream paint, the subtle cornflower-blue accents, the plush white furniture. I’m not looking at the decor though; I’m looking for pictures. I don’t see any on the way to the stairs, and none line the pin-striped wallpaper as we ascend to the second floor.
Laura moves slowly, cautiously, in front of me. Her shoulder blades are pulled so tightly together I think they might burst through the back of her cardigan. I can hear Grace—wecan hear Grace—presumably in the bedroom at the end of thehall.
The door is only half closed, and if I lean all the way to the right, I can glimpse a sliver of her room. Her walls are purple, like a hazy sunrise that’s still caught up in the night before. My heart beats faster. She’d hear me if I called out now. I wouldn’t even have to yell.
But Laura is stopping, opening a door to a bathroom, and we’re still a dozen feet from Grace’s room. I hesitate, and Laura doesn’t have to voice a threat. Every inch of her promises a lethal response if I fail to do exactly what I swore: keep quiet.
