Look Closely (31 page)

I told them what I remembered—Mom in the sky-blue suit, tel ing me she was leaving for the night; two long car horns from outside; Mom answering the door, holding her head; the next morning in her bed.

My body grew cold with fear. I ignored my father, stil standing. I kept staring at Dan and Caroline. They were adults. They were here in front of me. They were my family.

“But you don’t remember what happened other than that?” Dan said.

“Daniel,” my father said, a sharp word that he seemed to have dredged out of his chest.

But Dan just gave him a cautionary look and shook his head, the way you might warn a two-year-old not to throw his food. Dan was in charge.

But then Caroline spoke again. “I should tel her. I was the one who was there.” She wiped her eyes again and looked at me. “You’re so pretty, Hailey.”

I wanted to cry but I only blinked a few times. “I… Thank you.”

“Mom was going out with her boyfriend,” she said. “I don’t know if you understood that at the time, but I did, and I was angry about it.”

Shekepttalking.Andasshedid,mypictureofthat nighttrickledinalongwithherwords,anunearthing of long-buried, intentional y forgotten memories.

“Caroline is here,” my mother said. “She’ll watch after you.” She gave me a warm smile, and for a second, I thought maybe everything would be okay, but then came the sound.

Mymotherjerkedherheadalittlesothatherear was

toward

the

stairs,

toward

the

door.

It

came

again,andIrecognizedthesoundasacarhorn,but

notfromDad’scar.Thesehonksweretwolongtones.

When my mother turned to me again, her face had changed. Her eyes were wide, her cheeks pink as if she’d been running in the cold. “I have to go now, but I’ll be back tomorrow,
okay?”

“No.” I started to cry. I hated it. I knew I wasn’t being a big girl, like she’d asked, but I also knew that she wouldn’t be back tomorrow. She was leaving for good. Everyone was leaving.

“Stop that, Hailey Belle.” Her voice was irritated now, and I tried to control my tears.

The horn sounded again, the same long tones.

Caroline came out of her room then. I didn’t see her, but I heard the door close, and I heard her light tread. Caroline made very little noise and said even less, but I’d grown used to
the sounds of her—the catch of the door when she opened it, the creak of the porch swing, the soft scrape of the brush through her hair.

My mother gave Caroline a strange look I had never seen before. It was the same expression Caroline wore the time she accidentally dropped Mom’s favorite vase.

I glanced at Caroline, and it was as if they had changed roles somehow, because Caroline leaned against the wall and crossed her arms over her chest, staring at us, the way Mom
stared when one of us had done something wrong. I moved my eyes back and forth between the two of them, but they seemed not to notice me. They seemed to be watching each
other, waiting for one to drop her eyes.

It was my mother who did so. She squeezed me around the middle, then stood up. “I’m going now, Hailey.”

“No!” I said, the tears falling down my cheeks again. “Don’t go. Please don’t go.”

She started to back away. “I have to.” She glanced at Caroline, who hadn’t moved, then at me. “You’ll understand one day. You both will.”

I heard Caroline give a harsh laugh, like a dog’s bark, a foreign, ugly sound coming from my sister’s throat.

Isawmymothernarrowhereyesatmysister,then the menace in her eyes fell away, leaving only hurt.

“Goodbye, girls.” She bowed her head, and in that instant, I rushed to her.

I meant to hug her, to try to hold her there with us, but I was moving too fast. When my hands reached out to her, I pushed her instead. She wobbled on the high heels. I looked up
and saw her eyes slide from sadness to panic. Her neck strained, her arms flailed. I grabbed the edge of her sky-blue jacket, and heard Caroline gasp, and in that instant, she
disappeared, no longer in front of me. I didn’t hear the sounds of her tumble down the stairs. For a second, I heard nothing. I just watched helplessly as she slid and bounced down
the grand staircase, a vivid blur of blue. And then my ears worked again, and I heard the crack of her head on the marble floor.

She lay there, her body curved, her head slightly cocked to one side.

Caroline and I rushed down the stairs. Her eyes were closed, and she wasn’t moving.

“Oh, no! Mom!” Caroline shook her, then raised her hands away from her body, as if maybe she shouldn’t do that. “Mom, can you hear us?”

The grandfather clock in the drawing room began seven long chimes that seemed to echo through the house.

Caroline poked her in the shoulder with a finger. “Mom. Please wake up. Please be okay.”

I stood up and moved a foot away, scared to touch her, scared of hurting her again.

Caroline looked over her shoulder at me, her eyes large and alarmed.

We heard her moaning, and Caroline hunched over her again. “Mom, Mom. Can you hear me?”

My mother’s eyes fluttered open, an expression of bewilderment. Slowly, slowly, she pushed herself up on her hands, and glanced down as if surprised to find herself in the fancy
clothes. Then she looked at me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. My voice was so small I didn’t know if anyone could hear me.

“I’m fine,” she said, but she held a hand to the back of her head and winced.

“Are you sure?” Caroline said.

She nodded.

The bell rang then. Whoever had been honking must have come to the door.

Mymotherlookedatherwatch.Itseemedtotake her a long time to read it. “You girls go upstairs.”

“I’ll get the door,” Caroline said, moving toward it.

“No.” She held both hands to her head now, flinching as she touched her scalp. She was quiet, her breath coming through her open mouth in short bursts. “I’m not going anywhere
tonight. Now go upstairs and wait for me.” Her voice seemed to catch on her last few words.

Caroline hesitated, but my mother gestured with a sluggish throw of her arm. “It’s all right,” she said again. “Go on.”

Caroline took me by the hand and led me back up the stairs. We both stopped at the landing and looked down. My mother struggled to stand. She sank once back onto the marble,
but the next time she was able to right herself. She walked slowly, oddly, holding the back of her head with her right hand until she was standing in the doorway, opening it, blocking
it, it seemed. Her hand was at her headstill,andshewastalkingsoftlytosomeone.The other voice was lower, much lower than my mom’s.

“Let’s go in your room,” Caroline whispered in my ear.

Ishookmyheadno,andsowestoodthereonthe

landing,

peering

around

the

post,

Caroline’s

hand

onmyshoulder.Andjustthen,Isawahandappear

onmymother’sshoulder,aswell.Largeandtanned. Not my father’s hand, but definitely that of a man.

Their voices rose for a second, and I heard my mothersay,“Notnow.”Iheardtherumbleofaman’s voice, but couldn’t make out his words. “No!” my
mothersuddenlycriedout,hervoiceperfectlyclear. “Why? Why?” and then “No! That’s not true!”

Something glittered then, reflecting off the porch light. I narrowed my eyes and saw that it was a ring on the man’s hand. A gold ring with an oval face, something black set into the
gold in the shape of a diamond. I stared at that ring, at the hand on my mother’s shoulder, but then my mother swayed and nearly fell. The man caught her, and I saw the back of his
dark hair bending over her. She righted herself. The man kept talking, whispering, my mother shaking her head no, her shoulders shuddering. Finally, she closed the door.

She leaned with her back to the door, her head bent. I heard her whimpering.

She raised her tear-streaked face and saw us on the stairs. “Hailey, come help me to bed.”

I ran down the stairs as fast as I could and let my mother lean on me. Slowly, we moved across the foyer and began climbing. Caroline watched us from the landing, quiet as usual,
but when I looked up, I saw something like fear in her eyes.

“I’ll call a doctor, the hospital,” Caroline said.

My mother leaned on me more. “I’m fine.” Her words trembled.

“I think I should call Dr. Wainer,” Caroline said.

My mother pressed harder on my shoulder. “I said, no, Caroline. I just need to rest.”

Caroline opened her mouth, then closed it again. We’d reached the top of the stairs by this time, and she moved to allow my mother to lean on her, as well. We walked down the
hallway like that, Mom between us, until we reached her bed. She slumped onto it, and seemed to fall asleep immediately,butthenraisedherselfupforamoment.

“You girls,” she said. “There’s no need to tell anyone about tonight.”

Neither Caroline nor I said anything.

“I want you next to me,” my mom said. “Please come sleep next to me.”

I looked at Caroline, who was staring at my mother. Caroline’s forehead was knotted, her eyes still scared. When she climbed onto the bed, I did, too. We lay on either side of my
mother, and I held her hand, until I fell asleep.

For my flight out of La Guardia, I upgraded myself to first class. I thought it was fitting. I put the seat belt into the metal opening and pushed it until it made a sharp click.

A flight attendant strode down the aisle. “Can I get you something before we take off?” she said.

I shook my head no. I turned to look out the window. Maintenance crews moved around the plane next to us, quickly unloading suitcases and duffels onto a trol ey before they hurried away.

If only it was so easy to rid yourself of your own personal baggage.

I kil ed my mother. Not intentional y, of course, but there it was, an undeniable and hideous fact.

It was apparent in the first week after her death that I was quickly forgetting what had happened, my seven-year-old psyche doing what it could to protect me. My father decided it would be best if I continued to forget, if there was nothing and no one to remind me. So off Caroline went to boarding school and Dan to col ege. And they stayed away. Not intentional y at first.

It wasn’t part of an elaborate scheme. But when my father saw that I had truly blocked it al , that I was growing up like a young girl should—free from blame, free to be happy—he pushed them away, little by little. Caroline and Dan died in a sense. Certainly their family died a slow death over the years, as it became clear things would never change. But they went along with it so that I could live without guilt. So that I could live.

My father blackmailed Ty’s dad with the chief of police position, and the case was quickly closed. And he let Sean McKnight blackmail him for information on the Fieldings Company because McKnight had been there that night, and my mother had told him exactly what had happened, how I’d inadvertently pushed her down the stairs. In fact, that evening was supposed to be McKnight and my mother’s first time together in public, the first time they would spend the whole night together. McKnight apparently did love my mother very much, and he couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t tel Leah that, before he loved her, he’d been trying to use her. So he told her that night at the door. Later, he regretted it. He always wondered if she would have gotten medical attention if he hadn’t devastated her with his news. But he blamed me more than he blamed himself.

My father and I moved around the country, around the world. Caroline and Dan crafted their own lives as best they could. But then I was hired by McKnight, who thought it was time for me to know, to remember, to understand what I’d set in motion. As far as McKnight could tel , his life, as wel as the lives of al the Sutters, crumbled on that night my mother died. Al those lives dashed, except for mine.

His letter had the intended effect—I started looking for answers. My father panicked, but he blindly hoped for the best, just as he had my whole life. Yet he knew this time was different, that I was more driven to discover the truth, and he had to protect me. He figured I would try to find Dan and Caroline eventual y, and so if they weren’t around for a while, if no one knew where they were, maybe I’d get tired and give up. He asked Caroline and Dan to step away from those lives they’d created, because if they didn’t try to keep me from the truth now, then what had been the point of it al ? But when I showed up in New Orleans that day, they knew their plan wouldn’t work any longer.

* * *

Perhaps cal ing them “new chapters” is too grand, because for many of us nothing changed outwardly. Dan, for example, went home to Albuquerque and found a new sales job. He made amends in the form of stepped-up child-support payments to Sharon, and once some extra cash was coming in, he was al owed to resume his weekends and his Wednesday nights with Annie. Most of the people who vaguely know him, his neighbors, for example, might have noticed that he was gone for a few weeks, but to them very little about Dan’s life would look different. Yet, isn’t that how it is? We rarely know what other people go through in their lives.

I’l soon get to find out firsthand what Annie is like. Dan is bringing her to visit my new home next week. My heart threatens to leap out of my body every time I think of it. Annie. Dan.