LIZ
“YOU’RE BACK EARLIER than I expected,” Liz said, not even bothering to look up from where she was bent over Lucy’s little feet. She had propped up the girl’s heels on a fat pillow in her lap and was holding one tiny toe between her thumb and forefinger. With her other hand she carefully applied Pixie Dust Green in quick, light strokes. Funny, but Liz couldn’t remember doing this with her own girls. Probably because Nora had been such a tomboy. And by the time Quinn came around, Liz was just plain tired. But really, who could blame her? Three kids and one man-child. Sometimes Liz thought she deserved a medal for surviving those years. And sometimes, like now, when she held Lucy’s perfect, miniature-sized foot in her hand, Liz worried that she had let them slip through her fingers.
“We need to talk.” Quinn’s voice was choked, and Liz looked up quickly, smearing polish on Lucy’s toe.
“Shoot. Hand me a Q-tip, will you?” Liz asked, straining for normalcy, but over Lucy’s head her eyes searched out Quinn’s. Her daughter looked ragged, her face pinched and drawn.
Quinn complied and Liz dabbed at the skin around Lucy’s pinky toenail. It was roughly the size of a fresh green pea and was now the same approximate color.
“There you go,” she said, giving Lucy’s feet a gentle pat. “All done. Just sit still while they dry for a few minutes, okay? Then you and your lucky toes can hop down.”
“Look,” Lucy said, swiveling her torso so she could wriggle her fingers in front of Quinn’s face. “My fingers look like Princess Frostine.”
“They do.” Quinn tried to smile, but it flickered out before it formed. “And your toes remind me of Tinker Bell.”
Liz could feel Lucy stiffen at the mention of Tinker Bell. Her slight body went still, rigid beneath Liz’s hands still cupping the arches of her feet.
“Hey, you okay?” Quinn asked. But Lucy ignored her. She shook her feet out of Liz’s grip and slid off the stool. Then she walked carefully toward the living room, favoring her freshly painted toenails even as she disregarded Liz’s instructions to sit still. Liz opened her mouth to stop her, to tell her to be extra careful not to get nail polish on anything, but Quinn laid a hand on her mother’s arm. Let it go, her touch warned.
“So,” Liz said, picking up the bottle of green polish and twisting the cap on. She made sure it was tight and then wrenched it one more time just to be safe. Her hands were trembling. “How’d it go?”
“It was nothing,” Quinn whispered, waving the question away. Louder, she called to Lucy: “You can turn the TV on if you’d like.”
The four-note measure of the television powering on tinkled through the air.
“Where’s Walker?” Liz asked.
“Putting a dead bolt on the boathouse.”
“But—”
“He has one for the cabin, too.” Quinn lifted her chin defiantly, daring Liz to object.
She didn’t.
“I saw Nora,” Quinn said.
“You did? When?”
“Just now. She’s in Key Lake, but we didn’t have much time to talk.”
Liz didn’t know what to think. “Did she at least admit that Lucy is her daughter?”
“About that.” Quinn’s gaze flicked over to where Lucy sat clicking through channels on the TV. The girl was thin-lipped, and Liz thought maybe even a bit pale. Why? What had set her off? But she didn’t have time to contemplate. Quinn was talking again. “I think we were wrong.”
“What do you mean?” Liz had lost the thread of the conversation.
“I think we were wrong about Nora being Lucy’s mother.”
Liz humphed. “That’s ridiculous. It all fits. Lucy has Sanford eyes.”
“Listen.” Quinn seemed nervous, jittery even. “Nora made me leave, but before she did, she and Ethan were talking about Tiffany Barnes.”
That name made all the fine hairs on Liz’s tanned arms stand on end. But she seized the less problematic issue. “Who’s Ethan?”
“A friend of Nora’s. He came to Key Lake with her. But—”
“Tiffany,” Liz whispered. It was almost reverent. Why did that girl keep coming up? “What does she have to do with all of this? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know. I haven’t seen her since the summer Nora graduated high school. I didn’t realize that they kept in touch, but I think they must have.”
“So what were Nora and her friend talking about?” Liz asked, her mouth unusually dry. She could feel something buzzing at the corners of her consciousness, distant alarm bells that were starting their high, insistent whine. But she had no idea what they meant.
“They were talking about Lucy, I think. And Tiffany. And some guy . . . He was there, Mom. He was the reason Nora made me leave.”
Liz shook her head in an effort to clear it. “Tall, thick, built like a wrestler? Dark hair, dark eyes?”
“That’s the guy.”
Liz gave her hands a little shake, trying to dislodge the hysteria that was creeping across her skin. “Where does Tiffany Barnes fit into all of this?”
Quinn’s attention swept to Lucy. It was an innocuous shift, but Liz followed her daughter’s gaze and saw Lucy through a different lens.
The truth clicked into place like a bolt sliding home.
Liz closed her eyes very deliberately for a moment, trying to shut out her own suspicion. It was no use. She snapped them open and met Quinn’s quiet gaze. “Tiffany is Lucy’s mother. Then . . . ?”
“JJ.”
Quinn said it so quietly Liz didn’t actually hear her daughter utter the two syllables that felt like an indictment—she watched her mouth them. But, really, Quinn didn’t have to say anything at all. Liz knew. Maybe she had known all along.
JJ had been obsessed with Tiffany. A crush, Liz had thought. And why not let them give it a try? Go out on a few dates so JJ could get her out of his system? Tiffany wasn’t right for him at all and everyone knew it. If he could only realize that obvious truth for himself, the strange, almost magnetic pull she had on him might be broken. But Nora forbid it—and Jack. Sr., too. For once, they were aligned on something, and Liz didn’t stop to wonder at the motives behind their sudden alliance. She just relished the fact that her husband and their firstborn daughter had finally found a square inch of common ground. JJ, on the other hand, was outraged.
If Liz remembered correctly, and she knew that she did, Tiffany was just as enamored with JJ as he was with her. Classic good boy, bad girl scenario. Or something like that. It all made perfect sense. A secret relationship? A one-night stand? Did it matter?
And did it change anything if JJ was Lucy’s father instead of Nora being her mother? Liz figured she was probably being politically incorrect, but yes, this changed everything. JJ was married, expecting a baby of his own. He—presumably—had no idea that there was a gorgeous little girl who might someday call him Daddy. But what if he did? What if he had known all along?
Liz’s heart sank like a stone as another detail clicked into place. The phone call she had overheard all those years ago wasn’t between Jack Sr. and Nora—it was between her husband and Tiffany Barnes. He had sent her away, had threatened her. Jack Sr. had known all along and had done everything in his power to protect his son. Oh, JJ. Liz’s throat tightened around tears, but she refused to let them fall. Let him be ignorant, she wished. Please, let him be stupid and insensitive and immature instead of malicious and hateful and cruel.
Let us be a part of Lucy’s life, even if that’s the last thing Tiffany wants.
Liz was surprised at the depth of her own emotion. Hadn’t she been ambivalent only hours ago? But how could she be? The affection she felt for Lucy was fresh as a bud and just as precious. Blood was thicker than water, or so they said, and Liz felt like she suddenly, irrevocably knew exactly what that meant.
“What are we going to do?” Quinn rasped.
Liz tapped her lips with her fingertips, willing herself to come up with a solution, to once again step in and clean up the mess that someone in her life had made. That was her job, after all: righter of wrongs, fixer of all things broken. It was what mothers did.
“I’m going to call him,” she said, finally. Her phone was on the counter and she grabbed for it, but Quinn got there first. She snatched it up and held it away from Liz.
“Really? You think a phone call is the right way to tell JJ he has a daughter?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not going to tell him anything. I’m going to tell him we need to talk.”
“But—”
The doorbell interrupted their argument before it could heat up.
“Are you expecting someone?” Liz asked warily, eyeing the hallway that led to the door.
“No. But I’m sure it’s Nora.” Quinn stalled for a moment, looking back and forth between her mother and the concealed entryway. “Just, listen, okay?” she urged. “Let Nora talk. Let her say what she needs to say.”
“Are you implying that I don’t—”
“Please.”
“Fine, fine.” Liz threw up her hands and turned her attention to the bottles of fingernail polish that still littered the counter. She began to gather them up one by one, checking and double-checking the lids to make sure they were on securely and then depositing them back in the Rubbermaid. In order by color and shade because it was the only thing she could do in the moment to put things right in her world.
Liz was in a private place, a locked room in her mind, where everything was dark and hushed and smooth—no edges, no worries, nothing to make her frustrated or angry or sad—when the sound of Quinn calling fractured her fragile peace.
“Mom? I need you to come here.”
Of course. Liz smoothed the front of her shirt and gave her hair a fluff. It had been a while since she had seen Nora and she was walking a fine line between wanting to touch her baby girl and wishing she could smack her around a little. Not that she had ever given in to corporal punishment. That was Jack Sr.’s job, and he had carried it out with a cool, detached efficiency. And a ruler. Liz had once seen the red marks on the backs of Nora’s legs and it filled her with an indescribable fury. How dare he? But then, she had given him permission to do so. It was a decision they’d made together.
Nora. Liz practiced her name, the way she would hold out her arms and hope that Nora fell into them. But that wasn’t like her eldest daughter at all, and by the time Liz rounded the corner she was confused and hopeful, scared and upset. How did her children always manage to make things so difficult?
But Nora wasn’t standing in the doorway.
Tiffany was.
She looked different than the last time Liz had seen her only days ago. No, not different, necessarily; her distinctive hair was just swept up in a colorful scarf, bohemian-style. It wrapped completely around her head like a turban and hid her lovely dark waves. But somehow it worked for her. It was her cheekbones, her eyes that slanted up just a bit at the corners. She looked exotic and lovely, as if she hailed from somewhere far more extraordinary than Key Lake, Minnesota.
“Tiffany,” Liz exclaimed, fumbling for purchase. What was she doing here? What now? And though it was insane for the thought to pop into her head at such a heavy moment, Liz remembered the urn. The ashes of Lorelei Barnes. “I have something for you.”
“I believe that you do,” Tiffany said quietly. “I’m actually here because—”
There was a quick patter of light footsteps. A little gasp. “Mom?”
Tiffany’s face crumpled and she fell to her knees, arms out for Lucy as her child raced across the space between them. When the girl threw herself against Tiffany, all doubt about her lineage was erased.
“Oh, baby.” Tiffany buried her face in Lucy’s hair and pressed her close, hands tugging at her arms, her dress, the blunt ends of her hair. It was as if she was drinking her in, memorizing each line and curve with the urgent stroke of her fingers—a blind woman fumbling for sight. “Oh, honey,” she cried. “I’ve missed you so much.”
Lucy pushed back from her mother, small hands squeezing her shoulders in reproach. She was sobbing, the tears sliding down her cheeks and off her chin in quick succession. “Why did you do that to me? Why did you leave me? Why—”
Tiffany put her fingers to Lucy’s mouth, stopping the flow of words but not the accusation, the hurt that still poured from the child’s wide eyes. “Shhhh,” she said, her own lips trembling. “That’s enough now.”
“But—”
“Enough.” Tiffany stood up abruptly and brushed her own tears away with a determined swipe. She took Lucy firmly by the hand. “We’re leaving.”
Liz reached out to stop her and realized at the last second that there was nothing she could do. “Wait,” she said, but Tiffany was unswerving in her confidence, in the set of her jaw and the hard look in her dark, flinty eyes.
“Thank you for watching Everlee these past few days,” Tiffany said, keeping her eyes trained on the ground.
Everlee?
But before Liz could even formulate a question, Tiffany and Lucy (Everlee? Her granddaughter?) were gone, running across the browning August grass. Lucy tried to look over her shoulder once, to catch a parting glimpse of Quinn and the house where she had been fed and cared for, where her toenails had been painted the color of spring and moss. Of hope. But Tiffany held on tight and Lucy’s head snapped back around before she could make eye contact with either of the women who stood framed in the doorway.
Liz wanted to do something, but she was frozen, her feet cemented to the ground and her throat strangled by a nameless, faceless panic that she couldn’t quite identify. This was wrong. Everything about it was horribly, terribly wrong, but she didn’t know why.
There was nothing she could do. It was too late. There was a car at the end of the driveway and Tiffany yanked open the back door. She pushed her daughter inside and climbed in behind her.
In the driver’s seat, the man with the square jaw and black hair gave Liz and Quinn a little two-fingered salute. And then he put the car in reverse and squealed out in a cloud of dust and exhaust that filtered slowly through the air to where Liz stood, choking.