Her chin hits her chest. “I asked the man to handle it. I gave him all the money I had left.”
I cradle my head with my hands and close my eyes. The web of lies and betrayal is growing larger and clouding my brain. The more she speaks, the harder it is for me to breathe. I allow myself a few minutes of silence to process what I’ve heard so far, then I lift my head and brace myself for whatever comes next.
To make it through the conversation, I force my mind to pretend I’m not my mother’s daughter, that I’m a neutral party who’s trying to get to the truth. A detective, a cop, a stranger. If I don’t do that, I’ll fall apart.
“The body was found in the woods close to the school,” I say. “The police and the locals had searched that area shortly after Brittney went missing. Why did they not find it?”
My mother stands up, wraps her arms around her body, and moves back to the window. “I think the man brought it from somewhere else and buried it near the school, close to where Alex worked.”
She can’t even get herself to say body, corpse, or even Brittney.
“I’m guessing he’s the one who called the cops?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I made an anonymous call to the police. He planted the evidence. He said he knew what he was doing.”
I grab my knees tight. “And now that man wants more money from you.”
“I don’t have any.” She shakes her head. “I have no more money.”
She should have known that asking someone to commit murder would be expensive. The hitman must have smelled her fear and used it to his advantage.
“I’m so sorry, Jia Li. I’m sorry for everything.”
“So am I.” I say and leave the room.
As I walk away from her, it’s like I’m losing her all over again.
Maybe I should stay. I can tell she wants to continue the conversation, to get me to understand why she did what she felt she had to do. But I doubt anyone would blame me for wanting to get away, to distance myself for a while.
What needed saying is out in the open, words that can never be unsaid, bombs ready to blow our futures into a million pieces.
What I need is a chance to digest it all.
She’s my mother. I don’t doubt that she loves me, that she wanted to protect me, but what she did is unforgivable. Committing the wrong act for the right reasons doesn’t make it right. She went too far.
To save her child, she sent someone else’s child to the grave. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to forgive her or myself. My mother committed the sin, but we have to share the guilt.
My eyes are swimming as I stumble through the house to the front door. Her car keys are hanging from a hook next to the coat rack. I grab them and a trench coat.
For the first time in days, I step out of the house and get into my mother’s Toyota. Before I drive away, I glance up at the window.
She’s watching me, her palms on the glass. She must be thinking I’m going to the cops.
I tear my eyes away from the window and start the car.
* * *
For a full hour,I drive blindly through the dark streets until I figure out where I need to be.
Half an hour later, I’m nearing Alex’s childhood home, the house where my parents had been employed for many years, the home of the people who broke my family.
I never thought I’d return to the place that witnessed the beginning of a love story that had gone completely wrong.
I imagine my father walking the grounds, tending to the garden, and fixing things around the house—a leaking tap, a broken doorknob, a hole in the roof.
He was their everything man, then they asked him to do something that was outside his job description.
With both Alex and his mother in custody, the lights are off and a blanket of darkness is suffocating the proud mansion.
