Auntie Lorelei used to tell me that I was the carbon copy of my mom.
I barely knew her. Okay, that’s not true. I didn’t know her at all. She skipped town when I was four and died not much later just outside a nightclub in Detroit. Why Detroit, I’ll never know, but I can tell you with certainty that she had not overdosed or been hit by a car or anything equally exciting or dramatic. It was an undiagnosed heart condition, according to the autopsy report. One second she was blowing her boyfriend of the week a feathery kiss, and the next she was dead on the pavement. Simple as that.
Not so simple for Lorelei, who had just inherited her parents’ poorly managed farm (they were aging fast and barely able to care for themselves, never mind a hundred acres of soybeans and corn) and was now the legal guardian of one Tiffany Marie Barnes, illegitimate child of her baby sister and four-year-old orphan. I was a gift by circumstance and luck (good or bad, I never puzzled that one out), for there was no will that declared me her charge. I had no father to speak of—my birth certificate remains firmly blank on that matter—and nowhere else to go.
Poor Lorelei.
And poor Mary Ellen. Mother. Mom. Mama. I wonder sometimes what I would have called her had she lived long enough for me to know her as something other than Mommy. Kids grow out of the sweet mommy stage so quickly, morphing overnight into titles that sound more adult. Don’t be fooled—it’s a sort of letting go, that moment when the near-perfect queen of the universe becomes a little more human, a little less divine. I know this from experience, too. When my baby made the switch, it was instant. One moment I was Mommy and she had cheeks like round, ripe peaches and a lisp that made me swoon. The next I was “Hey, Mom” and she was all skinny little girl with sharp elbows and corners to match. Don’t get me wrong, I like straight-up, no frills Mom, but knowing myself the way I do, I’m sure I would have called Mary Ellen all sorts of terrible names along the way. Like I did with Lorelei. Like Everlee would have eventually done with me.
Lord knows there are a lot of things I have to ask forgiveness for. But I think the sin that might trump them all is making sure my girl will never have the chance to cuss me out like a sailor.
That’s not true. Leaving her is my redemption.
I can’t even think of it or I’ll fall all to pieces, lose my resolve. Maybe drive the ten or so miles to Mrs. Sanford’s house and beg her to let me in. Or to the A-frame at the north end of the lake—if Nora followed our plan, then my girl is there with Quinn. I never paid much attention to Nora’s little sister, but in my memory she is a smudge of light and laughter. Always happy, ever sweet. Nora assures me that she’ll hold Everlee close and read her stories. I was never very good at that—the reading stories bit. I guess there are a lot of things I’m not very good at.
Like loving the people I’ve been given. My auntie died alone. Alone and hurting and scared, though the nurse who I called at Pine Hills every Saturday night told me that she passed peacefully.
I know enough to call bullshit when I hear it.
Maybe that’s why I came here one last time. To make amends? To say goodbye? But I’m not nearly as dense as all that. I wanted to be close to my girl for just one more day. I wanted to be home.
I can’t say that I loved Key Lake, but for a couple of years when Nora and I were teenagers I thought that my life could be something good. We were bold and beautiful, wild and free. Nora didn’t know how lucky she was to have a family intact, even if it wasn’t exactly what she wanted. She had big dreams and the means to make them come true. All those things Nora told me? I believed them.
The farmhouse is being rented by a couple with four kids. I know this because their little bikes are lined up in front of the attached garage. Two sparkly pink and purple ones with banana seats, and two in a bigger, more masculine design. Two girls, two boys. One dog who didn’t even bother to stand up and bark when I drove past. I wish I could see the house, wander through the rooms like a ghost, but I know that’s not an option. So I settle for the cabin, the four-room bungalow where my grandma and grandpa spent their final years.
Hair dye and scissors, I’m doing it again. But this time the face in the mirror is mine and even I don’t recognize who I’ve become. Blond, wispy fringes. A messy Meg Ryan do circa You’ve Got Mail. It matches the wig I wore for the photos, more or less. A passing glance at my new driver’s license will cement the truth: I’m not Tiffany Barnes anymore.
It’s dramatic, all of it. Like something out of a movie or one of those fat paperback novels my auntie used to love. Real life doesn’t turn out like this—with families scattered, loved ones abandoned at funeral parlors, kids scared and alone. No, not scared and alone. Everlee is far from alone.
I will be alone. But I don’t have a choice in this, and before you think I’m making much ado about nothing, let me tell you what I know.
I know that he’s a predator.
Of course, I didn’t know this in the beginning or I never would have stayed. In fact, we had a happy season together—or as happy as you can be when you’re juggling dead-end jobs and fighting the easy pull of bad habits. Not that we fought very hard. Life was good enough that when he suggested we make it official I actually felt like a blushing bride-to-be. No ring to speak of, but he was working on it. And even more than that? He wanted to adopt my girl. Make her his own.
We started the paperwork right away because I have a hole in my heart that’s exactly the size of the blank line on my birth certificate where my daddy’s name is supposed to be. And Everlee? She has the same gaping hole. Not because I don’t know who her father is, but because I won’t tell. I can’t decide which is worse.
But Donovan? He loved her. He loved her so much that one day when I was working at the window factory he took her on his lap and put his hand under her My Little Pony T-shirt. And up her flouncy little jean skirt with the three tiers of ruffles.
When I walked into the living room he moved quick. Nothing going on here, nothing at all . . . And because I was reeling and didn’t know if I could fully trust what I had witnessed, I pretended that I hadn’t seen a thing. But the next day I burned that T-shirt and the skirt in the barrel behind the farmhouse. And then I called the cops from the pay phone in the parking lot of the Hy-Vee grocery store and gave them an anonymous tip about the meth they would find in his trunk.