Chapter Eight

Madelaine sat at the edge of the couch, her bare feet pressed together, her cold hands locked in her lap. It was Saturday morning, and she’d gotten up early to fix a good, healthy breakfast. She’d dressed carefully in baggy sweats and an oversized T-shirt. She looked as casual as she knew how.

But inside, she felt jittery and afraid.

I promise I’ll contact your father.…

She heard the toilet flush down the hall and she jumped to her feet. Scrambling into the kitchen, she whisked out the cutting board and started busily cutting carrots.

It wasn’t until she’d peeled and cut three of them that she realized she didn’t need carrots for breakfast.

She pushed the vegetables aside and stared at the closed door. Her anxiety hitched up a notch. What if she couldn’t pull it off—what if she couldn’t lie well enough to protect her daughter?

The bathroom knob turned, the door swung open. Lina stood in the doorway, wearing a tight-fitting ribbed sweater and a pair of pants that an NFL linebacker couldn’t have filled out. The crotch hung between her knees, and the frayed, cut-off hem dragged on the floor.

“Hey, Mom,” she said, slamming the door shut with an army-booted foot. Dragging a backpack, she headed down the hall toward the living room. “I’m going to the mall.”

Madelaine’s throat went dry. “Wait until you eat something.”

Lina stopped dead. “You’re cooking?”

“I-I am. Ham and cheese omelet and toast.”

“Made with fake eggs and turkey ham? Yum, yum.”

“You used to love turkey ham.”

Lina rolled her eyes. “Get real, Mom. I was too young to know the difference.”

“Well … you can eat the toast.”

Lina tossed her backpack on the couch and shrugged. “Whatever.” She started to head back into her bedroom.

Madelaine wanted to breathe a sigh of relief and let Lina go, but she refused to give in so easily. It was exactly that kind of cowardice that had broken their relationship—it would take a little bravery to bring it back.

Rules. She reacts well to discipline.

“I’d like you to set the table,” she called out to her daughter’s back.

Lina slowly turned around. “You want me to what?”

Madelaine wet her lips. “Set the table.”

Lina eyed her. Ramming her hands in her baggy pockets, she crossed the room. “Mom?”

Madelaine forced herself to stand still for the scrutiny. “Yes?”

“Did we move to Stepford?”

Madelaine burst out laughing. “Go on, set the table.”

Lina didn’t move, just stood there, staring. Finally Madelaine couldn’t help herself, she started to squirm. It was a mistake to try to pretend to be a family, to pretend that a little thing like Saturday brunch could fix what was wrong between her and Lina.

“Did you call my dad yesterday?”

Madelaine flinched. There it was, the question she’d wanted to avoid, thrown down on the table like a gauntlet. “Father,” she snapped. She cleared her throat and tried to sound more rational. “He’s your father. A dad is … different.”

“Yeah, whatever. Did you call him?”

Madelaine’s gaze fell. She stared down at the carrots, little bits of orange against the jade-green tile counter.

“Mom?”

Madelaine forced herself to meet her daughter’s suspicious eyes. She tried to smile, tried and failed. A tiny headache pricked behind her eyes. “What?”

“Did you call him?”

“Did I call him?”

Lina bit nervously on her lower lip. “Don’t do this to me, Mom.” Her voice broke, and for a second Madelaine saw her daughter’s stark, painful desperation.

It was more than who is he? It was who am I?

She set the knife down and walked around the edge of the counter. Looking steadily at Lina, she forced herself to reach out. Lina stared at her mother’s hand, then her gaze lifted and their eyes locked.

Madelaine felt a rush of emotion in that single heartbeat. It had been so long since they’d looked at each other, really looked at each other. They’d spent months looking past, around, beyond.

Her eyes pleaded with Lina for a chance. She tried to answer, but found that she couldn’t.

“You didn’t contact him,” Lina said dully. “Why?”

Madelaine maintained eye contact for as long as she could, until her guilt became a strangling hand around her throat. “I had such a busy day. This new patient is really—”

Lina lurched to her feet. She started laughing—or was it crying? Madelaine couldn’t tell until Lina turned around, and she saw that her daughter was laughing through her tears. “Priceless, Mom. You were too busy to call my dad.” She grabbed her backpack and slung it over her shoulder. Sniffing hard, she ran for the front door and wrenched it open. At the last second she stopped and turned back around, giving Madelaine a look that was drenched in hurt. “I don’t know why I believed you.”

Then she ran.

Francis leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Later, he had to go see Ilya Fiorelli, but he didn’t want to think about that yet. And so he sat quietly, listening to Phantom of the Opera.

Music filled the rectory’s common room, pulsed and pounded and then fell silent again. Slowly the next song started. “Music of the Night.”

He sighed in anticipation. The music began leisurely, deftly, rolling in around him, drawing him into the world of the phantom. A lonely place, that world, filled with heartache and longing and unrequited love.

He remembered—as he always did—the first time he’d heard this music. He and Madelaine had gone to the theater together. Sitting beside her, feeling her presence, seeing the sparkle of the floodlights reflected in her eyes, he’d felt close to Heaven.

Let your fantasies unwind in this darkness which you know you cannot fight.…

Francis sang the words loudly, pretending for a second that he had talent. That he had a lot of things. The music built again, swirling, gathering power. High, pure notes as quivering and sweet as the song of a bird perched in the air, then they dove and tangled and became melancholy.

And the sadness came, as it always did, twisted in the midst of the glorious chords. Francis understood the pain in the phantom’s song, the agony of living in the shadow of the woman you loved.

Ah, Madelaine, he thought with another sigh.

“Francis?”

He jerked upright, blinking at the sudden glare of sunlight that spilled through the rectory’s open front door.

Lina stood in the doorway, backlit by the morning’s golden glow. She looked impossibly young and fragile, dwarfed in her baggy pants and army jacket. But it was her eyes that drew his attention, made him frown in sudden concern.

He kicked down the La-Z-Boy’s velour footrest and shot to his feet. “Lina, honey, what is it?”

She didn’t answer.

“Lina?” He moved closer, and as he approached, he saw the little things the sunlight had blurred. The way she stood, hooked to one side, half in and half out of his doorway, the swollen redness of her eyes, the cheeks stained blue-black by mascara and tears.

And he knew. Lord help him, he knew why she was here, looking broken and lost. Madelaine had told her the truth.

Oh, Lord … He felt almost sick to his stomach at the thought. Unsteadily he flicked off the stereo and moved toward her.

And still she stood in the doorway, motionless. Pale, so pale, her bloodshot eyes filled with sadness. He remembered a hundred other visits. Times she’d come to him, laughing, bounding through his door, launching herself into his waiting arms.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” she said, biting her thumbnail, watching him through those sad, sad eyes.

He reached out for her and she seized his hand, squeezed hard. He saw a glimmer of fresh tears glaze her eyes.

He shut the door and led her to the brown and gold sofa. Sitting beside her, he slipped an arm around her shoulders and drew her close. She pressed her cheek against his chest. He felt her shuddering, indrawn breaths. “Shh,” he murmured.

He wanted to make everything better for her, the way he’d done a thousand times in her life.

She drew back suddenly, sucked in a rattling breath, and stared up at him. “Muh-Mom didn’t call my father. She puh-promised, and then she didn’t call him.”

For a split second, all Francis felt was relief.

Tears squeezed past her lashes, fell one after another in a muddy smear down her pale cheeks. “I don’t know why I believed she would.”

“He walked out on you guys. Maybe it’s best if you don’t think about him.”

“Tell me who he is,” she asked quietly.

There would be no going back from this moment on; he knew it. Fear tightened in a band around his chest. Defeat rounded his shoulders, slipped from his mouth in a ragged sigh. He plucked a single tear from her cheek. “Oh, Lina-ballerina …”

“Don’t do this to me, Francis, not you, too.”

He felt shame welling up, spilling through him. “I can’t tell you his name.”

“Can’t?” The word was a whisper of breath. “Or won’t?”

“Lina—”

“Don’t.” She stared at him, and he saw, in that instant that felt like an eternity, he saw that she hated him. It hurt. Sweet Jesus above, it hurt.

“I used to watch the ‘Brady Bunch’ reruns when I was a kid.” She bit her lip and looked past him. It was a long, long time before she spoke again. “It used to make me cry. That silly, stupid sitcom used to make me cry.”

Francis understood. Even as a child, she’d wanted that sense of family, of belonging. But he and Madelaine hadn’t given it to her. They’d wanted to protect her with their silence, but it had only hurt her more. “I’m sorry, Lina.”

She gave a bitter, trilling laugh. “Yeah, well, so am I.” She got to her feet and snagged her backpack. Slinging it over her shoulder, she pushed past him and headed for the door.

He lurched to his feet. “Lina, wait—” He knew it wasn’t the right thing to say, that there was no right thing left, and the words echoed in the room and fell into a frightening silence.

She gave him a hard, cold look. “What for?”

He moved toward her. She didn’t move, just stood there, staring at him through those hurt blue eyes. Gently he took her face in his hands, brushed the tears away with his thumbs. “I love you, Lina. Always remember that.”

“Yeah, sure you do.” Her voice broke. “You and Mom both love me. But neither of you will tell me the truth.”

Lina screeched to a stop in front of Savemore Drugs. The store stared silently back at her; its big, sprawling, well-lit face invited her in. She tossed her bike into the bushes.

Excitement pushed past the anger and heartbreak. She needed that excitement now, needed another emotion to sweep her up, embrace her. She swiped at her eyes, trying to erase the last of the useless tears. With the touch, she knew she had no mascara left on her eyelashes, knew it was all on her cheeks in a caked, blue-black smear. Probably all that was left of her “Oregon Cherry” blusher was two streaks of war paint on either side of the blurred mascara.

Yeah, she had to look hot.

Sniffing, Lina jerked her chin up and narrowed her eyes. Just let someone say something. In fact, the way she was feeling, she wished they would.

She didn’t even care enough to call him. A lousy seven numbers, fifteen minutes out of her day …

And Francis, the closest thing to a dad she’d ever known, betraying her. I can’t tell you his name.

Lina felt the horrifying sting of fresh tears and she spun away from the store. Stumbling sideways, she slipped behind a holly tree and sat down on a pile of wooden pallets. Curling forward, she pressed her damp face into her knees and cried.

Her mother knew how important this was to her. She had to know. And yet, she was too busy to make a phone call.

Lina had always bent over backward to accommodate her mother’s schedule. She was proud of her mother’s job—it was way cooler than anyone else’s mom. Lina had put up with all of the missed dates, the lonely nights, the rushed family meals. But enough was enough; she couldn’t put up with any more.

She reached into her book bag and pulled out a Cover Girl compact. Flipping it open, she stared at the small reflection of herself. Electric blue eyes, slashing black eyebrows, small, bow-shaped lips.

“Who are you?” she whispered to the girl in the glass. And who was he—this father who had left his mark on her face, her thoughts, her personality, and then moved on? He was the answer to it all. The loudness, the dissatisfaction, the anger—they were all personality traits that must have come from him, must be his living legacy.

She kept remembering her question. Am I like him?

And her mother’s sad, reminiscing smile, the one that excluded Lina from her birthright, from the memories that should have belonged to her. You’re exactly like him.

Her fantasies spun out again, capturing her in a silken web. They were alike, she and her daddy—her mom had said so. She was like her father. They would be more than just father/daughter. They would be best friends. Her father wouldn’t lie to her or discipline her. He wouldn’t work all hours and come home tired or care if her homework wasn’t done on time.

She didn’t know how long she sat there, dreaming about him. Long enough for her tears to dry, for her bleeding sadness to harden into anger. Her mother had no right to keep this information from her. Not this.

Tired, depressed, she got to her feet and emerged from the bushes.

There was the store. She thought about turning away, just going home to think, but the store was so close.

She needed the jolt of adrenaline that came from outsmarting everyone. With a quick look in both directions, she repositioned her backpack over one shoulder and headed toward the store, down the wide, azalea-lined cement walkway.

Twin glass doors whooshed open in an electronic greeting. She slipped into the bright lights of the super-drugstore, feeling glaringly noticeable. A punk kid in ratty clothes in yuppie Heaven.

She grinned, knowing they were watching her, cataloging her, making a note of her for their detectives. She followed her own routine. First thing she did was buy a newspaper—it looked good to spend money right off the bat. She put two quarters in the slot and eased the front plate open, grabbing the newest edition of the small community newspaper. Tucking it under one arm, she strolled down the main aisle, then she turned off, glided down the makeup aisle. She touched everything that interested her, weighing it, feeling how it fit in her palm. Looking.

She touched a dozen things, putting each one back in its proper place.

Then she saw it, touched it, and her heart sped up. Excitement brought a quick, furtive smile.

A thin tube of Lash Intensifier in a clear plastic package.

Lina glanced around, saw no one. Her heart sped up even more, started thundering in her chest. A damp, itchy sweat broke out on her palms. The first, niggling sense of fear crept in, muttered that she couldn’t do it, that she wasn’t good enough.

Then came the other emotions—the cocky self-confidence she could only find in the overlit aisle of a drugstore, the pulse-pounding jolt of adrenaline.

Can you do it, can you?

She walked around for a while, just casually holding the mascara. Her fingers were so slick with sweat, she had to change hands three or four times. Once or twice she pretended to replace the mascara on the shelves—once with the deodorants, once with the aspirins.

In the toothpaste aisle she made her move.

She slipped the makeup in her pocket and yanked her hand back out.

It was done.

Breathing hard, heart pounding, she forced herself to keep moving casually down the store. She paused in front of the videos, flipped through a few horror books. The magazines captured her interest, so she stood there, leafing through the current issue of Rolling Stone.

Then, very calmly, she walked down the aisle, past the checkout counter toward the door. With a quick sideways glance, she saw that she was alone, and a grin broke across her face as the automatic doors whooshed open.

At the last second, a hand grabbed her shoulder and squeezed hard. A loud male voice said, “Just a minute, miss.”