55.
Riley
After three weeks away from home, I felt like a stranger in my own apartment. When I got in, I lowered the air-conditioning and made my bed, moving on autopilot, trying not to think about the conversation with Lisa. I needed comfort food but my pantry was nearly empty and whatever I’d left in the refrigerator gave off a rank odor when I opened the door, so I made a cup of chamomile tea in the microwave, then forgot to take it out. Instead, I lay down on the couch and stared at the dark ceiling.
I kept picturing her face. The pale blue eyes. The sharp features. The lines across her forehead, especially when I’d gotten angry with her. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected to happen during our meeting, but feeling anger toward her had been unexpected. Seeing her full life made the current emptiness of my own life stand out. That was hardly her fault, and I wished now that I hadn’t acted like an obstinate adolescent, pushing her away before she could push me.
My phone rang and I pulled it from the pocket of my capris. Jean Lyons, the caller ID read. I’d wanted to talk to her but thought it was too late to call. I should have known she wouldn’t be able to sleep, either. I was about to answer the call when a knock on my apartment door made me jump, and I sat up quickly. No one knew I was in town. No one except Lisa. And she knew where I lived.
The knock came again, much harder and more insistent this time.
I slipped my ringing phone back into my pocket and walked over to the door, leaning close to it.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“It’s Celia, Riley. Please let me in.”
I rested my hand on the dead bolt for a moment before turning the lock. Opening the door a few inches, I saw Celia alone in the hall light, looking pale and tired. I was sure I looked equally as bad.
“Why are you here?” I asked through the opening in the doorway.
“I need to talk to you,” she said. “It’s so important, Riley. Please let me in.”
I hesitated. “Did Lisa send you?” I asked.
“No. I found your address in her contacts on her phone. I came on my own.”
I knew she didn’t like me and I was afraid of her reason for showing up at my door, but we both loved Lisa. We had that in common. I stepped back, opening the door.
“Come in,” I said.
She walked into my small living room. She still wore her clothes from the concert, the T-shirt and jeans, but her hair jutted up as if she’d been running a hand roughly through it, and her face had lost every trace of the joy she’d exuded while she was onstage. I would hardly recognize her as the same woman.
“Can we sit?” she asked.
I nodded, lowering myself to the couch. Celia perched on the edge of one of the two Ikea chairs in the room, elbows on her knees as she leaned toward me.
“I’m sorry for how I treated you at the club,” she said. “It’s just that … I know you didn’t mean to, but you’ve really messed up our lives.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that. It was the truth, but their lives had been dangling by a thread for years before I came along.
“I wanted to talk to you about your brother and his cop friend. Does he—Danny—care about you?”
“Of course he does,” I said, “but it doesn’t matter. Believe me, I can’t fix this. If there was some way to do it, I would, but there isn’t.”
“Can you at least talk to him about it?”
“I have talked to him. It doesn’t do any good.”
“Maybe if Jade talked to him?”
I shook my head. That was a really bad idea.
Celia looked down at her hands. She twirled her wedding band around on her finger—a nervous-looking gesture—then raised her eyes to mine again. “I care about you, Riley, because you’re Jade’s daughter,” she said. “I care about Jade more, though. I love her so much that I can’t let you go on thinking she acted out of selfishness. No matter what happens to her or to Jasha Trace or to our family … no matter what happens, I can’t let you feel that way about her. She was young. She thought she was doing the best thing for you by leaving you.”
“I don’t know how to get past that,” I said honestly. “I don’t know how to get past her walking away from me and then starting a whole new family for herself.”
“Well…” She looked unsure of herself. “Maybe I can help you get past it,” she said.
“How?”
She twirled her ring again, her gaze on the floor instead of me. Finally, she raised her eyes to mine.
“She was afraid of the trial,” she said. “Afraid of what might come out.”
My skin prickled and I said nothing, not sure I wanted to hear what she was going to say.
“Jade didn’t ever want you to know any of this,” Celia said. “She doesn’t know I’m here and she’d be furious with me if she knew. But—”
“What are you talking about? She doesn’t want me to know what?”
“Do you have a scar on your forehead?” she asked suddenly.
I nodded slowly. I lifted my bangs and leaned into the light from the table lamp.
Celia walked over to the couch and bent close to me, squinting. “It’s barely visible, isn’t it. That little scar.”
I dropped my bangs over my forehead again, and she sat down on the other end of the couch. “What does my scar have to do with anything?” I asked.
“A lot, actually.” She bit her lower lip, hesitating. Even when she opened her mouth, it was a moment before she spoke. “Steven Davis was your father,” she said finally, the words coming out in a rush.
It took a few seconds for what she’d said to sink in. “Oh, no.” I felt sick. “They were lovers?”
“No! God, no!” She looked horrified. “She had you when she was fifteen, Riley. He was forty. You could hardly call them lovers.” Celia’s cheeks were scarlet. “He raped her. She didn’t think of it as rape back then. It took her years to realize that’s what it was. Back then, she thought it was her fault. But he had total power over her. It happened when they were at a music festival in Italy.”
She said something else, but her words were lost on me. I felt nauseous. All I’d eaten since breakfast were those nacho chips and a beer, and now the room began a slow dizzying spin around my head. I remembered the tape of the Italy trip. I remembered Steven Davis pointing his baton in Lisa’s direction. How, at that small gesture, she stepped away from the group of students and performed for him.
“He asked her to come to his room to talk about a piece of music,” Celia said. “Jade didn’t want to go to his room alone and she got her friend Matty to go with her. But after they were in his room, Steven sent Matty on some errand and Jade was stuck alone with him.”
The room spun wildly and I wasn’t sure I could make it to the bathroom in time. “I feel sick,” I said, getting to my feet, nearly stumbling as I crossed the living room. I shut myself inside the small hall bathroom, where I sat down on the closed toilet seat, my head lowered to my knees, hoping the nausea would pass.
I barely knew where I was. Durham? New Bern? My whole body felt strange, as though it no longer belonged to me. I was conceived during the rape of a barely fifteen-year-old girl by a man she’d trusted—a sick and repulsive man who was my father. How had Lisa felt every time she looked at me? Jeannie had said she’d cuddled me. She didn’t want to part with me. Yet how could she not feel revulsion and anger each time her eyes rested on her “little sister”? I had to be a reminder of the worst time of her life.
“Are you okay?” Celia’s voice came through the bathroom door.
“Yes.” I sounded as weak as I felt. I stood up slowly. Splashing my face with cool water, I caught the briefest glimpse of my pale reflection in the mirror and looked away. I knew now where my dark hair and eyes came from and I didn’t want to see them.
I opened the bathroom door. Celia touched my arm, tentatively, as if afraid I’d bat her hand away. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
I wasn’t sure I could walk all the way to the couch. Instead, I sat down on the carpeted hallway floor, my back against the wall. My phone cut into my hip bone and I pulled it out of my pocket and set it on the floor next to me. “Is that why she killed him?” I looked up at her. “Out of anger? It wasn’t an accident?”
She sat down across from me. “What do you remember about that day?” she asked.
I shook my head slowly, afraid the dizziness would return. “Nothing,” I said. “I was not even two, and I don’t remember anything about it. Danny said I got the scar on my forehead that day, but I don’t remember.”
“I think it’s good you don’t,” Celia wrapped her hands around her knees. “Jade said she was home alone with you, and Steven called to say he was coming over,” she said. “He was the last person she wanted to see, of course. She hadn’t been alone with him since … the day you were conceived.”
I winced.
“She was terrified. She knew where your father kept the key to his gun case, so she got the gun, though she really had no plan to use it. It wasn’t even loaded. She just wanted it close by in case he tried anything. Just to scare him. She left it in the den where she could get to it easily. Then she called Matty and asked him to come over, but Steven beat him there.” She ran her fingertips over the short pile of my hallway carpet. “And do you know what Steven wanted?” she asked.
“Sex?” I asked weakly.
“No,” she said. “He wanted his daughter. You. Somehow he figured out you were his child. His wife couldn’t have kids, and he told Jade he planned to hire some high-powered attorney to get custody of you. He talked about how well he could provide for you and how he’d turn you into this great musician and on and on. She was so afraid, because whatever Steven wanted, he always got.”
“So she killed him to stop him from trying to get custody of me?”
She shook her head. “No, Riley.” She leaned forward, her hands flat on the carpet, her gaze on my face. “Ever since she was little,” she said, “he’d abused her. Touched her. Fondled her. Whatever you want to call it.” The angry scarlet color had returned to Celia’s cheeks.
“Oh, no.” I pressed my hand to my mouth as the dizziness returned. “Oh, how sick.” I thought of the little girl with her tiny violin on the VHS tape. What price had she paid for her fame? That age-old question popped into my mind, Why didn’t she tell someone? But I was a counselor, I knew the answer. He had complete power over her, like Celia had said. She’d been dependent on him for her lessons. For her future. He could ruin her with one phone call, which was exactly what he’d tried to do by keeping her out of Juilliard. My heart broke for the frightened and confused girl she must have been. I hated Steven Davis. I would never claim him as my father.
“So, they were in the living room and he was telling her how he was going to get custody of you,” Celia said. “He convinced her he could do it, and she was so afraid she was going to lose you. I don’t think she was rational at that point, Riley. She went into the den and got the gun, and then she decided to load it. She says she just wanted to scare him. Shoot out a window or something to let him know she was serious, but I think the point is, she was out of her mind right then with the fear of losing you. And when she went back into the living room, he was holding you on his lap.”