Dad squeezed my arm.
“I know you remember enough of her to know that she loved you and Sadie more than anything in the world,” he said. “There was nothing more important to her than you. Absolutely nothing, you understand? If she was alive, she wouldn’t have letmego on thinking she was dead, much less you two girls. I don’t know the truth of what happened to her out there—Lord knows I wish I did—so I have nothing to convince you. But Iknow she wouldn’t have left you this long on purpose.”
One of his hands moved to my elbow, the other to my face. “Zora, look at me. I’m not trying to hurt you again, not after everything, but I don’t think it’s good for you to keep doing this. This kind of hope isn’t the helpful kind. It eats at you. It makes you wait for something that won’t come, when you should be looking forward. We have to move on. You can believe she’s still alive because the alternative upsets you, but sometimes wehaveto be upset. It’s okay to be sad, and scared, and angry. I was scared, after she was gone. I didn’t know what to do without her. And that’s okay. We can figure it out.”
I pulled my face away from his hand. “Mom can’t be dead.”
His eyebrows furrowed. “Why not?”
“Because she—” A knot stuck in my throat.
“Because she what?”
I looked away.
“Zora.”
“Because she’s not here.”
He went quiet. His grip on my elbow tightened. “What does that mean?”
“She’s nothere!”
I watched understanding light his eyes, swiftly overtaken by pity. “Zora...”
We never admit these things for a reason, but it was too late now.
“She’s nothere. Everyone comes back here. It’sAddamsville; that’s what they do. That’s what they’re supposed to do. You die; you’re here. In the streets, in the high school, in the woods. If she was dead she’d be here, she’d be with us, and she’s not, she’s notfucking here, so she’snot fucking dead—”
When you’ve trained yourself not to cry, there’s nothing you can do to stop the release when the pressure becomes too great. Nothing to be done for the noise you make or the tears that pour from you like rain. Here is the overwhelming tide. Here it crashes down and carries you out to sea.
You have no choice but to let it, because you have been fighting it for so long you have no strength left to swim.
27
Iwas glad Dad was the one there for the release, because he was the one who understood it. He let me cry myself out without judgment. When I was done, I wanted to sleep. Just curl up on the carpet and sleep for days, knowing he’d be watching over me, keeping me safe. I thought maybe that was why Sadie had kept taking his side: even when she knew he’d done wrong, she didn’t stop seeing the parts of him that were good.
Dad tucked my hair behind my ears and pushed me up the long, curving staircase of Hillcroft House. The place really was beautiful on the inside. Small chandeliers hung from soaring ceilings, rich oak and mahogany paneled the walls, an actual rug covered the stairs instead of carpet. Aunt Greta had made sure everything was restored as it should be. A few ghosts—Hillcroft family servants, according to Artemis—stood in doorways or rocked in chairs, their faces turned away from me for once, used to Aberdeens living under their roof. At the top of the stairs, Dad took me down the second-floor hallway to another staircase at the end. The stairs creaked horribly.
At the top was the third floor. A crow’s nest of a bedroom, with windows on two sides, curtains closed over all but one of them. There was a tidy desk next to a bookshelf, a yoga mat rolled up in the corner, a large trunk at the end of a queen-sized bed, and a nightstand holding a tube of lip balm, a retainer case, and a picture of Artemis and her mother on a boat on Addams Lake. At the foot of the nightstand was a row of Artemis’s shoes, neatly lined up and standing at attention.
Artemis sat on the edge of the bed, pretending to look through something on her phone.
“Knock knock,” Dad said. “Have space for one more?”
Artemis sprang up, throwing the phone onto the nightstand. “Yeah, of course. Zora, I didn’t know which side of the bed you prefer, so you can make yourself comfortable. Mom washed your clothes.” She motioned to where my clothes were neatly folded and stacked on the trunk at the end of the bed, my boots balanced on top. “Mom said I could take off school tomorrow, too, until all this gets figured out, and then you don’t have to stay here alone.”
“I’m good,” I said to Dad, who hesitated at the door for a moment before kissing me on the temple.
“Night, Zoo. Night, Artemis.”
“Good night, Uncle Lazarus.”
He disappeared back down the stairs. Artemis said, “You can close the door if you want.”
I did.
She scooted aside to give me room on the bed. I took it. My right hand ached. I pulled my remaining glove off and dropped it on the trunk next to my boots. Next came the prosthetics. Artemis watched as I flexed my hand and massaged the stumps, and I found I was too tired to care what she thought.
