Where the Truth Lies (27 page)

Write soon. Much love.

R .G.

I smile as I fold the letter and put it back into the envelope. Renee and I have a lot of catching up to do.

But there’s one thing I can’t wait to tell her: I can’t be sure yet, but I think the nightmares will be gone for good now. What is there left to be afraid of? Nothing. There are no more secrets, no more lies, no mysteries left to figure out.

Once I’m dressed and Steph and I have gathered our book bags, we head up to school. Steph doesn’t ask about the letter, but I know I’ll fill her in on the details eventually. After all, she’s my friend. For now.

On the way to school, Ethan joins us as we pass Winchester. He puts his arm around me, and the three of us are quiet for the rest of the walk.

chapter twenty-seven

People know I’ve been missing for two days, and pretty much everyone figures that I’ve been with Del. But they don’t know anything beyond that—not where we went, or why we ran away together. More than anything, they seem surprised that I’m still with Ethan.

Ethan and I haven’t talked much all day. After school, he walks me back to my dorm and we sit outside in the cold air, in the same place where I once sang a nursery rhyme to Del. Looking back, it’s amazing how I never could have dreamed what significance that evening would come to have someday.

“So,” he finally says, “this was some day, wasn’t it?”

“It sure was.” And without thinking about what I’m doing, I rest my head on his shoulder. I feel him flinch, just a little, but it’s enough.

“Ethan,” I ask, “is this okay?”

He doesn’t say anything.

“I’ll understand,” I tell him. I don’t have to explain beyond that.

But instead of pulling farther away, he reaches out to hold my hand. He takes his thumb and rubs it over mine. I get chills.

“We’ve reassembled the band,” he tells me, changing the subject. “We’re going to start practicing again tomorrow after school.”

“That’s great,” I tell him. “Do you …”

“Do we still want you to sing?” He nods. “Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.” And he squeezes my hand. “It won’t work without you, Emily.”

I feel like I’m going to cry. I blink, trying to force back tears. “Is there anything else I missed while I was gone?”

“Actually,” he says, “yes. I got into Stanford.”

“Oh yeah?” I swallow, doing my best to be enthusiastic. “That’s great.”

He nods. “I know. But Steph got rejected.”

It’s no big surprise; she’s practically as bad a student as I am. I don’t suppose the Stanford admissions board gives a free pass to anyone just because they’re someone like Ethan’s twin.

“Is she upset?” I ask.

“What do you think?”

There’s a long pause.

“It’s better this way,” he says. “She needs to learn to be more independent.”

“Uh-huh.” I can’t help but glance down at his watch.

“We’ve all been through so much this year … and last year. College will be a fresh start for everyone.”

Is this what’s happening? Is he trying to break up with me? In spite of everything that’s happened in the past few days—all the fighting, all the information that I couldn’t possibly have prepared myself for—I find myself focused on only one thing:
Don’t do it
.
It will make for some awfully awkward band practices.

“Please don’t,” I whisper.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t break up with me.”

“Is that what you think is happening?”

I nod, gripping his hand more tightly, not daring to let go, afraid it will be the last time I’m close to him.

“I don’t want to break up, Emily. At first I did. I was so angry with you. I couldn’t believe you would hide something so huge from everyone. I felt like I couldn’t possibly know the real you, not when you’d kept a secret like that.”

I start to open my mouth, to try and explain, but he interrupts me.

“But then I started thinking,” he says, “about what I would do if I were in the same position as you. Of course, it’s impossible—I mean, the whole pregnancy thing is impossible to even imagine—but once I tried to put myself in your shoes, I realized I couldn’t possibly understand how you felt. I realized how scared you must have been. And then when you went off with Del … I felt responsible, you know? I felt so guilty for rejecting you without even thinking about it. It was a knee-jerk reaction, and I’m sorry.”

I can’t believe he’s apologizing to
me
. But that’s Ethan.

“Ethan, I want you to know that nothing happened with Del. I had to go find my baby. There was so much that I needed to know. It wasn’t your fault. It had to happen this way.”

“I know,” he says. “It’s a little humiliating, though. People at school, they think you ran off with Del to have some kind of tryst or something, and they’ll never know the truth.”

“I’m sorry.”

He sighs. “It’s okay. I mean, it’s hard. I could feel everyone looking at me today, like they were feeling sorry for me, wondering what the hell I was still doing with you. But you know what? I don’t care.” He squeezes my hand more tightly. “I really do love you. I have for years. I meant it when I said it. And you don’t just turn your back on someone you love. It’s impossible.”

Don’t I know it
.

“So. I’m going to Stanford in the fall. And you’re going … where
are
you going?”

The idea of contemplating college seems insane after what I’ve been through. “Well, I got into a few state schools. And my dad pulled a few strings, which got me into Sarah Lawrence despite my grades, since I actually did pretty well on my SATs. So I’m thinking Sarah Lawrence. We’ll see.”

“So … East Coast,” he finishes.

“Yes.”

“Where’s Renee going?”

I smile. “She has one more year of high school, you know. But after that … she wants to go to Sarah Lawrence.”

He sighs again. “I guess I’m not really up for a cross-country relationship. Are you?”

This is it. Here we go.

“I guess not, no.”

“But we still have a few months of school left,” he says. “We’ll have the band. And then there’s the summer.”

I hesitate. Then I say, “Well, technically, I’m not allowed to have you for the summer. You know—it’s one of Stephanie’s rules …”

“She’ll make an exception,” he says. “Trust me.”

“You’re sure?” I giggle.

“I’m sure.”

“So, what are we doing, Ethan?”

He pulls me closer. He kisses me on the top of the head. I feel calm. I feel normal. Everything from my past has come to light; I’ve been through more than I could imagine, and I’ve made it to the other side. Now what?

He keeps his arms around me for a few minutes more, quietly, the two of us sitting together, just enjoying the moment of calm. Then, pulling away slightly, Ethan says, “I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I know I don’t want to let you go yet.”

I bite my lip. “Me, neither.”

“Okay, then.” He smiles. “What if we start with the prom?”

The prom
. It hadn’t even crossed my mind. But when he says it, it sounds wonderful—so ordinary and sweet and safe.

“I would love that,” I tell him.

“Really?”

“Yes.” I smile. “It sounds perfect.”

epilogue

My mother. My father. The words have whole different meanings now. I don’t remember my real father at all. Now that I know the truth, will the memories ever surface? Will I see him before the fire, when I was two, three years old? My mother told me she has pictures somewhere; will they trigger any recollection? And what about Sandy Gray? Will I want to go back someday and tell her who I am? In my heart, I know she’ll want to know that I’m healthy, happy, safe. Maybe she couldn’t be a mother when I was a baby, but she looked like a good one when I saw her. People change. They make mistakes. They have regrets that haunt them for their entire lives.

Even though it’s a school night, I sleep at home tonight instead of at my dorm. There is simply too much left to be said for me to walk away. After such a surreal day at school—chemistry, Ethan, his invitation to the prom—I want to be at home. Even though it’s not my home, not really. It’s funny; I’ve always considered myself somehow different from all of the boarding students here at Stonybrook, because my parents were so much more present. I was the headmaster’s daughter. I could go home whenever I wanted. But now, it seems that I’m more like them than I could ever have imagined. I can’t
really
go home—not ever. I don’t know where home is. It’s something that existed, for me, fifteen years ago for a brief period of time. Then it went up in flames.

I’m grateful that, for once, my parents haven’t recruited Dr. Miller to mediate our time together this evening. They have nearly finished a bottle of wine by the time I arrive. We order a pizza and sit around the kitchen table. There’s one thing I want them to understand; it’s the most important thing of all, really.

“I want you to know that I’m not angry anymore about what you did,” I tell them.

“I kidnapped you,” my mother says. She holds her wineglass by its stem, twisting it back and forth between her thumb and middle finger, staring at the reflective contents. “I had no right to do it, but I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t let you stay with that woman. It felt like feeding you to the wolves.”

“Mom—Mommy—it’s okay,” I tell her. “I’ve been thinking about her all day. After I saw my baby”—my mom flinches at the mention of
my baby
—“I understood why you did what you did.”

“It was illegal,” she says.

“Not really,” my dad interrupts. “It’s a gray area. Sandy relinquished her parental rights to Emily. Legally, she wasn’t her guardian anymore. And we have the adoption papers to
prove
that she’s ours—”

“The adoption papers we had forged for us! The birth certificate we had
altered
when she was four years old. What if she applies for a passport, and they notice something’s wrong? What then?” My mom shudders. “I had no choice but to do the wrong thing. I don’t know how to explain it beyond that.” She looks at me. “You wanted me, Emily. You only knew me as your mother. You’d just lost your father. You have to understand.”

“I do understand,” I tell her. “I just want to know … I guess I just want to know why my real mother didn’t want me in the first place.”

“She was very young,” my mom says. “After you were born, she developed a drug problem, like I told you. Amphetamines. When she and your father split up, she knew there was no chance that she’d get custody of you, and to tell the truth, I think she was probably so overwhelmed by the idea of what a mess her life had become that she was grateful to run away from everything.”

My father has opened another bottle of wine. He refills my mother’s glass.

“I can tell you something, though, Emily. I never met your mother. I never saw her, aside from that one time outside her trailer. But I know this much.” My mom takes a big swallow of wine. “I know that she loves you. I know that she did what she thought was best. And I guarantee, there’s not a day that goes by that she doesn’t think of you. I’m just as sure of that as I am of my own love for you.”

I know she’s right. I look at my father. Here is the man who raised me, who put his own neck on the line to make me legally
his
, who treated me like his own child for almost my entire life. I’ve never felt, not for a second, that I don’t belong to him.

“Well,” he says, looking at me, “you’re eighteen now. If you wanted to, you could go back to your mother and tell her what happened.”

“No,” I say, “I won’t do that.” I pause. “But I was thinking of writing her a letter. Maybe someday. Not to reach out and get to know her—just to tell her that I’m safe, and I understand, and I want the best for her.”

They both stare at me. “Emily,” my father says, “you’ve really grown into quite a young woman.”

“Yeah, well, it’s been a broadening couple of years.”

And then my father does what I least expect him to do. He stares at me for a few seconds. Then he laughs. My mother follows. All I can do is sit there, half-smiling, relieved to have even the slightest release in tension.

“Broadening,” he says, wiping his eyes. “That’s rich.” He takes another sip of wine. It’s dark outside; there are no lights on in the kitchen except for a lone track light above the sink. We are all shadows and breath and the light stink of booze. Things become silent.

“Well,” my father finally says, “what now?”

My mother studies her glass. “Maybe it’s time we finally redecorated your room, Emily.” She looks at me. “You’re not a little girl anymore.”

“No. I guess I’m not.”

“ …”

“ …”

“I’ve decided to go to Sarah Lawrence,” I tell them. “And I’m going to the prom with Ethan.”

My father looks at me. “Sarah Lawrence? You’re staying on the East Coast?”

I nod.

“You’re sure you don’t want to go to UConn? Maybe something a little less …”

“Challenging? No.” I shake my head. “I’ll work hard. It will be okay.”

My mother closes her eyes for a moment. I can tell she’s trying not to cry. I can’t imagine she has any tears left inside her; I know I don’t.

“Mom?” I ask. “Are you okay?”

She nods, her eyes still closed. “It’s just that, I remember when you were small, I used to dread the idea of your going to the prom someday.”

“Really? Why?”

“Oh … I was afraid you’d end up with the wrong boy. I was afraid you’d get into some kind of trouble. You know—just the usual mother’s worries.”

“But not now,” I say. My voice is almost a whisper.

“No,” she says. “Not now. Not anymore.”

My father puts down his wineglass. He reaches out, takes my hand, takes my mother’s hand, and then I reach for my mother, and the three of us sit around the table together, the light slipping away into darkness, a silent family holding itself tightly together, with nothing left to say for the night.