The Silent Sister (40 page)

“I'm not leaving you here,” Celia said.

Travis looked from Riley to Jade and back again. He and Shane had to feel the tension in the air of the room. “What's going on?” he asked.

“Who are you?” Shane asked Riley.

“She's a friend.” Jade stood up, her hands trembling as she picked up Celia's mandolin case and backpack and pressed them into her arms. “You all go eat. I'll get a cab to the hotel later.”

“No.” Celia shook her head. “I'm staying.”

Jade gave her a pleading look. She knew Celia was as terrified as she was. She wanted to tell her she understood, but there was no time. She needed to talk to her daughter. Now. Alone.

“Please, Celia,” she said.

Celia took a step toward the door, but stopped to look back at Riley. “I don't know what you've heard,” she said, “but Jade's a good, good person.” Jade saw those rare tears in Celia's eyes again as she left the dressing room. She probably felt as Jade did, that their whole life together had been heading toward this moment. Heading for an inevitable catastrophe.

She closed the door behind Celia and the men, then turned to face Riley. “Should we go someplace?” she asked. “I don't know how long we'll be allowed to stay here.”

Riley shook her head. “I don't want to talk in public,” she said. “Let's stay here until they throw us out.”

 

53.

Riley

“You're so beautiful,” Lisa said.

Seeing her in front of me, seeing her humanness and feeling the love in her touch, made me feel incredibly guilty. “I'm afraid I'm ruining everything for you,” I said.

“Let's not talk about that right now,” she said firmly. “Right now, right this minute, I'm not in prison. I'm here with you, and I want to know everything there is to know about you.” She sat forward in the chair. “I search for you on the Internet constantly, but it's like you don't exist,” she said. “I check Facebook at least once a month. There are a bunch of Riley MacPhersons, but I can tell none of them are you. One of them has a nature picture as her profile instead of a picture of herself, though, and I always wonder, ‘Is that her?'”

For the first time all day, I smiled. I felt a thrill, knowing that she'd searched for me. She'd guessed right: I was the Riley MacPherson with the photograph of a field of poppies as my cover picture and a spectacular rainbow as my profile shot. “That's me,” I said. “I have to keep a low profile on social media. I'm a school counselor and the less the students I work with know about my personal life, the better.”

“A counselor!” she said. “Oh, Riley, that's wonderful.”

I thought of telling her that she became the inspiration for my career choice the day she took her own life, but I didn't want to talk about her deceit. I didn't want to talk about the choice she made to leave me.

“I love it,” I said instead.

“That tells me so much about you,” she said. “It tells me who you are, deep down inside. Daddy told me a little about Danny and how rough it's been for him, but he wouldn't ever tell me anything about you. I
do
know where you live, though,” she said. “I found your address about a year ago. You're in Durham, right?” She rattled off my street address with startling ease.

I nodded. Some students had found my address, too. It wasn't hard to do. But I doubted that my students had it memorized and I felt both touched and unnerved that she did.

“I thought of writing to you a million times,” she said. “I wanted to see you so badly, but there was no way to do that without risking everything. I would have sent myself—and Daddy—to prison.” She swallowed hard, and I saw the effort it took for her to hold herself together at the thought of prison. “Now I guess it's going to happen anyway.” She suddenly wore a faraway look. “At least they can't get to Daddy,” she added. “Thank God for that.”

“I'm so sorry I've stirred the pot,” I said.

She shook her head as if clearing prison out of her mind. “Are you married?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “I know you are, though. Jeannie and I saw the photographs from your wedding. We saw Daddy there.” I felt foolish saying the word
Daddy
in front of her when she knew better than anyone he was not my daddy at all.

“How could you possibly have seen the pictures?” Her eyes, the same clear blue as Danny's, were wide.

“They came up when I searched for Jasha Trace.”

“Wow.” She leaned back in her chair. “I never thought they'd be public like that. We weren't careful enough.” She gave me a weak smile. “Having Daddy at the wedding was the most wonderful gift I could imagine, though, Riley,” she said. “I hadn't seen him in so many years, and I could hardly believe he was there. We told everyone he was my uncle and he played along with it perfectly. He met our kids and they loved him.” She looked at me quizzically. “Do you know I have children?”

I nodded, ignoring how much the question hurt.

“Alex and Zoe,” she said. “I wish you could meet them. Daddy was so good with them at the wedding. I think he had a great time. He even jammed with the band. I hadn't seen that lighthearted side to him since I was a kid.”

“I never got to see it.” My voice trembled. My father's heart was already heavy by the time I was old enough to truly know him. Danny was right: Lisa and her fake suicide
had
destroyed our family.

Lisa bit her lip. “Oh,” she said softly. “I'm sorry, Riley.”

I drew in a breath, knowing I was about to make myself totally vulnerable. “When I saw those wedding pictures,” I said, “I felt so left out.”

She looked stunned. “Oh,
baby.
” Her chair was close enough that she could lean over and touch my hand. “Of course you did!” she said. “I'm so sorry.”

I didn't want to cry. My mind scrambled to find a safer subject, but there were precious few. I thought of Matty. “After Jeannie told me you were my mother,” I said, “I tried to call Matthew Harrison, but he's in Japan with a group of kids. Are you in touch with him at all?”

She looked puzzled. “Why would you call Matty?”

“He's my father, isn't he?”

She shook her head slowly. “Oh, no, honey,” she said. “That was a boy I met in Italy. I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't even know his name.”

“Oh.” I felt so disappointed. I'd wanted it to be Matthew. Someone I might have been able to meet. To know and to like. I sank lower into the chair, my hands still wrapped around Violet's case. Lisa didn't seem to know what to say any more than I did, and the silence filling the room was suffocating.

“Danny…” I said. “I never would have told him anything if I'd known he'd start digging for more information on you. I didn't realize there was so much to hide, and by the time I did, it was too late. He wants to see you pay. You have no idea how much he … hates you.”

She tightened her lips when I said the word
hate.
“Please don't blame yourself,” she said, but the look in her eyes was distant, and I knew she wasn't thinking about me at that moment. She let out a sigh. “I'll be back to looking over my shoulder every second, I guess,” she said. “It's been a long time since I've had to do that.” She shut her eyes as if collecting her emotions, and when she opened them again, her face was pained. “This is so frustrating, Riley!” she said. “I want
time
with you and I don't know how to get it.”

Her words lit a spark of anger in me—anger I hadn't even known was there.

“You could have had all the time in the world with me if you hadn't left.” I tried to speak softly to take the sting out of my words, but she still looked hurt.

“I didn't want to be your mother from behind bars,” she said.

“Maybe you wouldn't have had to serve that much time if you'd stayed for the trial,” I said. “I know what happened was an accident.”

“Please, Riley.” She slowly shook her head. “Let's not waste our time together talking about this,” she said. “Let's not talk about things that can't be changed.”

“But if you'd had a good attorney, he—or she—could have defended you. They could have made the case it was an accident.” I couldn't seem to let this go. I was suddenly so frustrated! I set Violet on the floor and stood up, pacing across the room. “Why didn't you stay?” My voice cracked. “Everything would have been so much better! You might have had to do some time, but I could have visited you. I could have
known
you. Danny would never have gone off the rails the way he did when he was a teenager. Maybe he never even would have gone to Iraq.”

“Oh, Riley.” She bit her lip again. “Maybe that's true,” she said, “but I was too scared to take the risk. Daddy saw a way out for me. I trusted him to know what was best. And it ultimately turned out well for me. Until now.”

“You mean until your daughter shows up and ruins everything.” I sounded young and stubborn, like one of the adolescent kids I worked with, but I couldn't help myself.

“That's not what I—”

“Do you regret it?” I stood in front of her. “Running away?”

She hesitated long enough to tell me she didn't. “My life is far better than I deserve,” she said, “but there's always been a huge hole in it. For you. For my family. I'm not just saying this because you're here. I thought I was doing the best thing for you. Giving you two loving parents. I didn't know Mom would die so young. I didn't know Danny would enlist and get hurt and suffer so much. I thought leaving was the best thing for you. The publicity … all the talk … it was already taking a toll on Danny. I didn't want it to take a toll on you, too.”

“And you wanted to be free.”

“Of course I wanted to be free!” she said, red splotches high on her cheekbones. “But not of you. Never of you. I love you.”

I shook my head. “You got your freedom, Lisa, but Danny and I got a life sentence, living in a house full of lies.”

She looked alarmed. “Call me
Jade,
Riley,” she said as though she hadn't heard a word I'd said other than her name. “Please. You have to call me Jade.”

I felt scolded. She could tell me she loved me all she wanted, but her actions said otherwise. They always had. Suddenly, I knew I had to escape that tight little dressing room. It hurt too much to be there with her.

I pulled the door open and charged out of the room before she could say anything else. I ran across the dark, deserted club floor and pushed through the double doors onto the sidewalk, gulping in the thick summer air. I started running toward my car as if I were afraid she might come after me, my feet pounding the sidewalk.

I was breathless by the time I reached my car, and I leaned against the warm metal door for a moment, my gaze riveted on the dark sidewalk as I watched for her to follow me, but she didn't.

Only then did I realize how much I wanted her to.

 

54.

Jade

She curled up in the chair in the corner of their hotel room while Celia paced the floor. Celia had held her when she got back to the hotel, letting her talk. Letting her cry. But now Celia was anxious to move on. She wanted to figure out their next step, while Jade's mind was still in that dressing room with Riley. She'd fantasized that one day, far in the future, she'd be able to talk to her daughter. In her fantasy, there was tenderness. Forgiveness and understanding. That had been unrealistic of her. She'd hurt Riley, and Riley was the last person in the world she'd ever wanted to hurt.

“Well, the first thing we have to do,” Celia said, “is cancel that New Bern gig. We'll get a lot of flak for it, but we can't possibly—”

“No,” Jade said.

Celia stopped pacing, looking at her like she'd lost her mind. “What do you mean, no?”

“What's the point, Celia? Danny hates me and he's friends with the police. He knows our schedule. He knows where we'll be. Even if we cancel the rest of the tour altogether, he knows how to find me now.” She scratched at a little stain on the arm of the chair. “It's over for me.”

Celia sat down on the corner of the bed. “It's not just you this is affecting,” she said. “It's me, too. Shane and Travis. Not to mention our kids.”

She was right. Many years ago, Jade had spared herself and her family from a long-drawn-out trial and months—or years—of hurtful publicity, only to threaten her new family with something worse now. But you could only run so far from your mistakes.

“I know.” Her voice came out as a whisper. “I'm so sorry. I know this messes things up for Jasha Trace.”

“It
kills
Jasha Trace.”

She cringed. Celia had been full of sympathy and comfort for the last hour. Now she was angry and Jade didn't blame her.

“I know it's going to be terrible for Alex and Zoe.” Her voice broke on Zoe's name, but she kept talking. “There's just no way out.” How would she ever explain it to their children? Would she be imprisoned in Virginia, thousands of miles from them? Her hand shook as she wiped tears from her eyes, and although she kept her own gaze on the arm of the chair, she felt Celia staring at her.

“There's got to be a way around this,” Celia said.

“She's so hurt that I left her,” Jade said. Those final moments with Riley were still on her mind.
I felt so left out,
Riley had said. She'd broken Jade's heart with those words. “She doesn't understand why I didn't stay so I could be involved in her life.”

“Did you tell her the truth?”

Jade shook her head.
“Never,”
she said. She wondered how Celia could even ask.

“Maybe it would make a difference,” Celia said. “Maybe she'd understand then. Right now, she's upset with you, and that's only going to make things worse for us.”