‘Is it true what they’re saying about Olivia?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’ I pressed my fists into my eyes. ‘There was an accident.’
Tyler swayed on his feet. I grabbed his elbow and directed him to a chair at the kitchen table, pressed a glass of water into his hands. He gulped it down.
‘An accident?’ he echoed.
‘I don’t know. The police . . . I have to report it . . .’
‘What happened?’ he asked thickly.
‘Nobody knows. She might’ve fallen off the bridge. But . . .’ I hesitated, unsure if I should share my suspicions. ‘Did she leave the barbecue with anyone?’
‘No. She was by herself.’
‘Madison didn’t drive her?’
‘I’m pretty sure she walked.’
Olivia knew she wasn’t allowed to walk home alone in the dark. It was a firm rule of mine – one she’d never broken before.
‘What time was that?’
‘Like, ten thirty? Maybe more like ten forty-five?’
‘Tyler, there’s something I need to tell you.’
He stared at me. Waited.
‘Olivia’s pregnant.’
His arms dropped to the sides of the chair, heavy and limp. He looked like I’d punched him in the stomach.
‘Did you know?’ I needed information. Anything he could tell me mattered intensely.
He swallowed, then balled his hands into fists and stood. He turned away from me and hunched his shoulders.
‘Tyler?’ I walked to him, touched his back with my fingertips. ‘I promise I won’t be mad. Did you know she was pregnant?’
The muscles under his shirt jumped, and he pulled away from my touch. When he finally looked at me, his eyes were wide, the whites dominating his face.
‘I’m sorry, Miss Knight. There’s no way that baby’s mine.’
ABI
october
‘I don’t understand,’ I said.
Fear crept over me, sliding along every muscle and bone as a new realization settled over me: maybe I didn’t know my daughter at all.
‘How?’ I asked Tyler. ‘How could – how do you – ?’
‘I know it’s not mine,’ he cut me off, his voice rough. ‘Because Olivia and I never . . .’ He looked away.
I pressed my fingers hard into my eyeballs, stars exploding on the undersides of my lids. The vodka I’d gulped earlier burned bitterly in my empty stomach. ‘You never had sex.’
‘Right.’
Olivia was cheating on her boyfriend. It explained so much. She’d been so different lately. Distant. I had a sudden memory of her at the Stokeses’ annual neighborhood barbecue. I’d arrived late, work a handy excuse.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like people, just that I didn’t really have anything interesting to talk about. Once I’d ticked off Olivia’s achievements, the conversation went stale. Besides, I was really more of an observer than a participator. I was better at standing on the sidelines.
Jen Stokes had opened the door, a glass of champagne in each hand and a wide smile on her lips. Her dark corkscrew curls bounced around a heart-shaped face.
‘Hi, Jen.’ I smiled hard, the muscles in my jaw twinging painfully.
Jen and I had known each other since the girls were five. Even after all this time, we were friendly but not friends. Truth be told, Jen intimidated the hell out of me. Standing next to her made any bravado I had disappear, as if it had been sucked into the black hole of her self-confidence. She reminded me of what it was like being in junior high and high school.
Back then I was an outcast. The Girl Whose Mom Committed Suicide. Nobody knew what to say to me, nor I to them. I never wore the right clothes or had the right hair or makeup. I spent lunch alone in a corner of the cafeteria, was never picked for teams in PE, was the last to get a partner for school projects. My teenage years were even worse, lonely until I developed breasts and learned to use my looks to get guys to like me.
As I got older, I learned I was perfectly fine on my own. In fact, I preferred it that way. I didn’t need any better friend than my daughter.
‘Abi, so glad you could make it!’ Jen leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, then handed me a glass of champagne.
I took a tiny sip. It was sweet and crisp, obviously expensive.
‘How are you?’ I asked. My voice was too quiet, lost in the chatter of people inside, so I said it again. ‘How’ve you been?’
‘Oh, you know, kids, work, life.’ She rolled her eyes and laughed drily, but I knew she loved it. Jen was an ER doctor; she thrived under pressure.
I followed Jen through her tastefully decorated living room, my feet sinking into thick, oatmeal-colored carpet. We exited the back door to a sprawling deck that overlooked a shade-dappled yard. A shimmering rectangular swimming pool glinted in the waning light. The rich scent of barbecued ribs and burgers wafted up toward me.
‘Have you seen Olivia?’ Jen asked. Something in her voice made me look up sharply. I felt my face freeze, determined not to show that her words sent a gush of worry flooding through my veins.
‘No,’ I said slowly. ‘Why?’
‘Oh, no reason.’ Her eyes skated sideways, and she set her glass on a table. ‘I’m gonna grab you a plate of food. Then we can catch up. Here –’ She turned to a leggy blonde woman wearing a short sunset-colored caftan and high canvas wedges and pulled her over to me.
‘Marie, this is Abi. Abi, Marie Corbin.’
Before I had a chance to reply, Jen had headed down the stairs and disappeared into the crowd. I frowned, feeling inexplicably abandoned. I tidied a few loose strands of hair behind my ears.
Marie was gorgeous, and I felt my shoulders round as nerves pinched my stomach. She smiled at me, her sapphire eyes crinkling, her blonde hair a sleek mane perfectly framing an angular face. ‘Oh, Abi, yes. I remember you. You’re –’
‘Olivia’s mom.’ I forced a smile.
‘I was going to say an accountant at Brown Thomas and Associates. You did the books for my new interior design company, and I was so pleased at how quickly you got them done.’
‘Oh,’ I said, startled. Usually people only knew me as Olivia’s mom, the mother of the rising star of the swim team. I tried to think of the last time I was anything else, and couldn’t. ‘I’m glad to hear it.’
Across the yard, Jen’s husband, Mark, raised a hand in greeting. Mark was a square-jawed business type, handsome in an aging frat-boy sort of way. I waved back.
‘I’ll just go say hi.’ I pointed at Mark, glad for an excuse to leave. ‘Nice to meet you.’
I went downstairs, grabbed a Coke from an ice bucket, and huddled next to a tall shrub in the corner of the backyard. If Sarah were here, she’d push me to go talk to people. She said I used work and Olivia as bricks in a wall I’d built around myself.
Sarah was always right and she did everything in the proper order. She’d finished college with a degree in psychology, then got a job, then a husband, a kid, and so on. Now she was a counselor for victims of traumatic cases.