“It’s a charm—Sabrina must have worn it to meet Damien. He must have taken it back from her.”
“Holy shit. Lorraine’s bracelet.” That first dinner. Callie had asked Lorraine about her charm bracelet, an attempt at making conversation.This one is from Damien, my sweet boy. He was just a teenager. I almost fell off my chair when he gave it to me. Gold fill!
The look between him and Luke across the table. And the tension outside.
It was all right there at the beginning.
Callie groans. “You knew he must have hurt Sabrina. You were trying to call me. You couldn’t talk with him around.”
“And he was always around. Or Frank, or Lorraine. You know how that family is. And he was watching me, God, like he knew something. I couldn’t find a minute.”
That family.Herfamily. “Jesus, Jane. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. I think Lorraine is the only one who doesn’t know. It’s going to kill her.”
“You think she’s oblivious?”
“I mean, I was. It’s really hard to see who your family is sometimes. Like standing too close to a painting.”
“Amen.”
They get to Jane’s car—only then does Callie notice that they’ve walked the opposite way she came.
“There’s an access road from one of the old cranberry bogs, so the trucks could get in. But most people don’t know about it. It’s not on the map. It’s why I figured I’d beat the cops here. Even a gimp like me.”
Opal is strapped in her car seat, her mouth open in sleep. Her hand is wrapped around a magic wand, pink with a star at the top. She knows without either of them having to say it that they are both struck by how tightly her fingers are curled around it. For a moment Callie lets herself miss her own innocence. The time when she believed the world was hers to put in order, by magic, or more recently, by the law, by her own arbitrary code of rules.
“What will I tell her, Callie? What am I going to tell my kid about this?” Jane’s face goes blotchy, the way it always does when she cries. Callie hugs her as close as she can. Jane’s ribs heave under her palms and Callie grips her tighter.
What would have happened had Jenna told Callie the hard truths of her life years ago? It would have hurt, and it would have spared them all so much more pain down the line.
But, if Callie had known the truth, or some of the truth, she would have warned Jane about the Caputos. There wouldn’t have been Opal. Callie lets her eyes settle on Opal’s cheeks, still curved with baby fat. And she’s never loved anyone like she loves that little girl.
Her cousin, she realizes, with a start.
“It’s going to be hard. Probably for a long time. But you’ll tell her the truth. And she’ll know that her mother is the strongest woman in the world.”
ANNABELLE
Ben sits on the edge of the bed. He’s been sleeping downstairs in the study, though by his puffy face you knowsleepingisn’t the right word.
“Iris—I mean—God. I don’t even know what name to call you.”
You don’t know either. The name Annabelle you had gotten rid of had felt like a stain you couldn’t wash off. You had tried to proceed through life with it, in the weeks after. But you couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t bear to be the girl that all those things happened to. If you hadn’t been Annabelle, you hadn’t walked away from your child. You hadn’t had a twin and then lost her.
“Tell me everything,”Ben says. “Please. Just tell me.” You hear in his voice that you might break something so finally and irrevocably in this man you did love so much, and who had loved you so well, if you did not tell the truth.
So you do.
How you carried the child to the side of the road, waiting for headlights to find you.
The baby had stopped moving. She looked too small.
You walked and walked, dizzy and disoriented in the night.
And then, the clouds blew past the moon for a second, and just enough light came back into the sky. Enough so that you could see the bracelet a few steps in front of you. As if Sabrina was trying to warn you, take care of you, one last time.
Your mother’s precious beads scattered in the dirt, the string broken.
