The Almost Truth (17 page)

“Seattle, I think.” I glanced down at the screen, and the oxygen in my lungs froze solid. The picture was of a giant Christmas tree decorated with white fairy lights and Tiffany blue and silver glass balls. Ava was sitting cross-legged, nearly buried under a pile of professionally wrapped presents. She was holding her stuffed bunny tight under one arm, with one of his ears draped across her mouth like a blue mustache.

It was exactly the same as my stuffed bunny. The same color. The same style. The same worn ear. I could even see a hint of the small green label sticking out from a seam.

The stuffed bunny I had was Ava McKenna’s bunny.

My knees went out from under me.

C
hase’s arm caught me around the waist as I started to sink toward the floor, pulling me up. He’d assumed my stumble was some sort of girlish swoon. He pressed his mouth down on me, and I felt myself respond, but when I closed my eyes, all I could see was the photo burned into my retinas. Chase took a step back and pressed me down on the bed.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered in my ear.

I could hardly hear him. The blood was rushing around in my head and it sounded like a roar. Bun Bun belonged to Ava. I was Ava. It didn’t make sense, but there was no other explanation. I was Ava. I didn’t know how my parents had done it, how they had explained my sudden appearance, or why they had done it, but there wasn’t another option. Everything in my life had been a lie.

I felt Chase’s hand slip under my T-shirt and slide along my ribs. His hand cupped my breast and his thumb ran across the fabric of my bra.

Whoa.

“Mmmm, Chase?” I said in between kisses. I started to sit up but slid down on the slick bedspread. His knee was between my knees, his weight pressing me down into the mattress.

“You smell like the ocean,” he said, his mouth moving down my neck. His breath was coming quickly.

“Wait a minute,” I said, but Chase showed no signs of hearing me. One hand was on my breast and his other started to fumble with the top button of my shorts. I put my palms against his chest and pushed. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him, but I couldn’t think straight.

Chase pulled back and looked at me. His hair was sticking up. “Is everything okay?”

It’s hard to have a conversation when someone has you by the nipple. I pushed myself up onto my elbows. “Um. I think we should stop,” I said. “I mean, you have to be downstairs, and I’ve got stuff I’m supposed to be doing.” It was a lame excuse, but there was no way I could explain that I couldn’t make out at the moment because I’d just discovered my real identity. Something about knowing the people I’d always thought of as my parents had abducted me was taking my libido down a notch.

Chase rolled over so that he was sitting next to me on the bed. “Are you sure?”

I shoved my T-shirt back down. “It’s just not the right time.”

Chase sighed. “No problem,” he said. “I just thought since you wanted to come up to my room . . .” His voice trailed off.

“I wanted to see the picture,” I reminded him, but I felt bad. I had wanted to come to his room for more than that.

“Right. You’re in the market for a stuffed bunny.”

I had the sense that Chase didn’t get turned down very often. I could understand his frustration. I was sending all sorts of mixed signals, but it would make sense when I could finally explain everything. I imagined his face when I told him the truth. He’d be shocked, but maybe excited, too. It was going to be a big deal, and it was clear he was close to the McKennas. Maybe our families would vacation together someplace like the South of France. Or he could be the one to teach me to ski. Chase and I could take long walks on the beach in Italy, or he probably knew how to sail, so we could go out on a boat. He’d always lived in that world. He’d be able to show me around, introduce me to people, and make sure I used the right fork. We would have plenty of time for kissing, and much more, once everything was out in the open.

“So, dinner day after tomorrow?” Chase asked.

“I’m not sure I can go out. There’s some stuff I have to do.” I needed some time to figure out what to do next. Should I confront my parents? Go to the police? Send a message to the McKennas?

“You know, playing hard to get sort of relies on the other person chasing you.” Chase pulled himself up so that his back
was against the plush headboard. “But if the other person gets tired of running, the game is over.”

“I’m not playing hard to get or asking you to chase me.” I felt the bite in my words. I could understand Chase being annoyed, but he was acting like I owed him something. Like he couldn’t even imagine me not being crazy for him.

Chase raised both eyebrows in disbelief.

“I’m not. There’s a lot going on in my life at the moment. Everything I’m doing doesn’t revolve around you, or an attempt to play you in some way.” I noticed that he still had his shoes on and they’d left a muddy smear on the duvet cover. “You should take your shoes off.” I gestured to his feet so he could see what he was doing.

“Why?” Chase looked down at the duvet. “The maid will take care of it.”

I felt my lip twitch. “Did it ever occur to you that the maid has plenty to do without you smearing mud all over everything?”

“No, it did not occur to me. The maid should thank me. If I wasn’t a slob, then she wouldn’t have a job.”

I wanted to rip the laptop off the desk and hurl it at his head. I grabbed my bag off the floor. “I need to go.”

“Come on, don’t be pissed.” Chase patted the mattress next to him. “We can rent a movie or something. Order room service.”

“I told you, I have stuff I need to do.” I stood next to the door.

Chase kicked off his shoes. “Look, does that make it better?
Or are you ticked because I implied you were being a tease? I didn’t mean anything by it. I was joking.” He noticed my expression. “I’m not saying it was a good joke; it was lame. Worse than that, it was rude. Give me another chance. I’ll make it up to you.”

“This may shock you, but this actually has nothing to do with you. I really do have to go.”

Chase picked up the remote off the nightstand and clicked on the TV. “All right. See you around.” He didn’t look at me.

“I’ll call you,” I said, my hand on the doorknob.

“Sure.”

I waited to see if he would look at me, but he stared straight ahead as if he were fascinated by the episode of
People’s Court
. I stepped out into the hallway and leaned against the wall, hearing the door click softly shut behind me. I’d figured out who I was but still couldn’t figure out other people. Some things never change.

I
spent the night sitting on the rocks at Keeper’s Cove. I’d hoped the rhythm of the waves would be a Zen-like meditation that would help me sort out what to do. I said the name Ava McKenna out loud dozens of times, waiting to see if it would feel natural at any point, if it would eventually feel like it was my name, versus the name of a stranger. Would I be expected to go by Ava, or would I still call myself Sadie?

Growing up, I’d hated my name. I’d wished my parents had named me something more normal, like Jessica, Amanda, or Emily. I was the only Sadie in our entire school. Apparently my dad’s favorite band of all time was the Beatles, so he’d wanted to name me after one of their songs, and my mom thought it was a neat name. I supposed I was lucky he didn’t want to call me Eleanor Rigby.

My dad. My mom. I kept thinking of them as my parents,
but they weren’t. It explained a lot of things. There had been plenty of times when I was certain I didn’t fit into our family. But while it explained some things, others made no sense at all. I could almost understand the kidnapping if they had done it for the money, but according to everything I’d read, there’d never been a ransom demand. I didn’t always get along with them, but I had never really doubted that they loved me.

I tried to picture my parents standing over a three-year-old version of myself, deciding what to do. Maybe the plan had been to ask for money, but the pressure from the police and media had been too great. They might have been afraid they would get caught. Or maybe they’d become attached to me once they took me and decided they might as well keep me. I’d never talked about that kind of stuff with my mom, but there was a chance that she couldn’t have kids. You see daytime talk shows all the time with women driven mad by infertility. Weeping. Saying how they would do anything for a child. I vaguely remembered a few years ago a woman had taken a baby out of a grocery cart. The mom had turned her back for a minute to grab some cereal, or to fondle some melons, and when she’d turned around, her baby was gone. The woman had taken the kid, walked right out of the store, and driven home with the baby rolling around in the passenger seat. She might have even gotten away with it, except for the fact that someone in her family had turned her in. Apparently, she was so desperate for a kid, and when she saw that baby, she couldn’t help herself.

I’d always assumed my parents hadn’t had more kids because of my dad being in and out of jail. It was hard enough to afford even one kid, never mind a giant family, but maybe they couldn’t have more. You would think, though, that if my parents were baby crazy, then I would have noticed by now. Neither of them ever seemed to coo and get all funny around small kids.

I’d thought of a few ways they could have explained my arrival. Maybe they kept me hidden at first so people didn’t know right away. My mom’s parents were still alive back then. Maybe they’d told my grandparents they’d adopted and kept me there for a while, waiting a few months for the fuss to die down before bringing me back to the island. I’ll admit it was hard to believe, but stranger things have happened. People get away with stuff all the time.

I remembered one year when I was around six or seven, I’d started to doubt the reality of Santa. My mom woke me up late on Christmas Eve so I could hear the sound of Santa walking around on the roof of our trailer. I always got new pajamas on Christmas Eve. That year they were pale blue with penguins wearing brightly colored hats all over them. My mom smelled a bit like cloves and nutmeg from all the baking she’d done that day. She’d curled around me in the bed, tucking her feet under the blankets to keep them warm. The trailer shook with the heavy steps of the reindeer and Santa.

“And you weren’t sure he was real,” she’d said softly in my ear, her breath tickling me.

“HO! HO! HO!” Santa bellowed. I covered my mouth to keep from giggling too loudly and letting Santa know I was on to his location. I’d squeezed Mom’s hand, nearly levitating out of bed with excitement. He was here! Santa!

Suddenly there’d been a loud BAM and the trailer had shuddered. Then came a scraping sound followed by a huge crash outside my window.

“Shit!”

“Santa just swore,” I’d whispered to my mom.

Mom had leaped out of bed and rushed out of the room. I trailed after her. She flung open the door, and my dad was staggering around the corner, his arm hanging at a funny angle. There was a branch sticking out of his hair.

“Jesus, I nearly impaled myself on that damn bush. There’s a bunch of ice up on the roof, and with this freezing rain it’s as slick as snot up there. I took one step and my feet flew right out from under me.”

“Dad, why were you on the roof with Santa?” I’d asked, appalled at the situation. I hoped if this was officially classified as naughty behavior, it wouldn’t count against me.

“Uh, I was helping Santa unload his sleigh.”

“Did you break anything?” Mom had asked.

“No, I don’t think so. Just wrenched it good.”

She’d looked over at me. “I think that’s enough Santa excitement for tonight. Back to bed.”

I’d turned to leave but paused at my bedroom doorway.
“Dad? Maybe you should leave that stuff to Santa. He’s sort of a professional.”

I didn’t know why at the time, but my parents had cracked up. My dad must have been crazy to climb up on the roof in the middle of the winter. He’d done it so I would believe in Santa one more year. They did it because they loved me. No matter why they took me, what their plans might have been, they did love me. They both drove me nuts, and I never felt close to my dad, and while there were times when I was pretty sure they didn’t like me very much, I never doubted they loved me.

They would go to prison for this. This wasn’t the kind of thing that the legal system was likely to go light on. With my dad’s record, he’d probably never get out; they would lock him up for good. The prosecutor might work some sort of deal for my mom, especially if she had been crazed with the need for a child. However, in terms of sympathy, the McKennas were going to play better on TV. They would stand in front of their house, Mr. McKenna’s arm around his wife. She would cry, but not messy tears with red eyes. Instead they would be tasteful tears, slowly tracking down her face as they talked about how hard it had been not knowing what had happened to me for all those years. They would make sure the best lawyers in Washington were on the case. My mom had already used my college money to pay for a lawyer who was the cheapest guy in the yellow pages. They would have to rely on legal aid this time around.

The sun was coming up. I rubbed my temples. I had a massive
headache. I had only a few weeks before the money for school was due. I was so used to worrying about money, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like if I never had to think about it again. With everything that was about to happen, I didn’t know if I would even go to school in the fall. I couldn’t imagine sitting in Psych 101 taking notes and staying up late nights with my roommate talking about who had a crush on who. I didn’t need to make over my life anymore. It was already upside down. I had no idea what my life would look like. The future was a complete blank.

As impossible as it was to imagine what would happen if I went public, it was equally impossible to imagine not doing anything. I couldn’t fathom not saying anything to the McKennas. Now that I knew I was Ava, I couldn’t pretend that I didn’t know. I wouldn’t be able to look at my parents and have this huge lie between us.