“Go to your wedding,” Caroline told her. “I’ll be fine.”
She ran to her car and backed out of the driveway, waiting until she was around the corner to pull over to the curb and burst into tears. She wasn’t sure why she was crying, whether the tears stemmed from learning about Hunter’s affair with Rain or the knowledge that this discovery had come too late to make a difference. Would knowing at the time that he and Rain were together when he was supposedly checking on the kids have changed anything? Would the Mexican police have been able to uncover the truth about Samantha’s disappearance if they had been aware of the possibility that she’d been taken from her crib a full half hour before the time they’d originally considered? Or would they have been just as clueless?
Her sobs increased in strength and volume until her entire body was shaking. And she realized she wasn’t crying because of Hunter’s betrayal or even because the truth had come along too late to make a difference.
Fifteen years after her daughter had been stolen from her crib, Caroline was crying because there was still only one truth that mattered: Samantha was gone.
—
“Where the hell have you been?” Michelle demanded as soon as Caroline stepped through her front door.
Caroline dropped her purse to the floor and walked into the living room, each step an ordeal, as if she were wading through quicksand. “Please, Michelle. We can’t keep doing this. I don’t have the strength.”
Her daughter was right behind her. “You disappear for hours…you don’t call…”
“How can I call? You took my fucking phone.”
“Nice one, Mother. Where have you been?”
Might as well get this over with, Caroline decided, understanding that her daughter wasn’t about to let it go. “I went to see your father.”
“That was hours ago.”
“What do you mean? How do you know that?”
“Dad phoned. He was concerned, said when you left you seemed very upset…”
“How insightful of him. Did he tell you why I went to see him?”
“He said he’d leave that up to you.”
“Insightful and thoughtful.”
“Can we skip the sarcasm? Are you going to tell me or not?”
“About why I went to see him? No. I think I’ll toss that ball back into his court.”
“About where you’ve been for the last three hours,” Michelle corrected.
“I went to see Peggy.”
“That was two hours ago. I called there,” Michelle explained before her mother could ask.
“You shouldn’t have done that. They had a wedding…”
“She said you’d already been there and were probably on your way home. But you weren’t, were you? So I’ll ask again, where have you been?”
“It’s no big mystery, Michelle.”
“Then why are you making it one?”
“I just drove around for a while. I ended up in Balboa Park.”
“Balboa Park? On a Sunday afternoon? With all the tourists?”
“Yes. I like it there. I used to go there a lot.”
“When?”
“Years ago. After…It doesn’t matter. I’m home now.”
“About time,” her mother said, entering the living room and brushing past Caroline, sitting down on the sofa, a cup of tea in her hand. “I made tea, if anybody wants some.”
“Mother!” Caroline exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
“I called her,” Michelle said.
“Why?”
“Because I was worried about you.”
“You were worried about me, so you called my mother?”
“She tells me you’ve been acting quite irrationally lately,” Mary said.
“I haven’t been acting irrationally…”
“You’ve been conversing with some crackpot who claims to be Samantha, you’ve flown off to Calgary…”
Caroline spun angrily toward Michelle.
“Don’t you dare be angry with Micki,” her mother said. “She confided in me because she’s concerned about you, the way most daughters are concerned about their mothers.”
Caroline shook off her mother’s barb with a shake of her head.
“And now you disappear for half the day without telling anyone where you are. After what happened the last time you vanished like that, I don’t think you can blame any of us for being worried,” Mary said. “I certainly hope we won’t be reading about today’s exploits in tomorrow’s papers.”
Caroline pictured herself flying across the room and knocking her mother to the ground with one well-aimed punch to the jaw. “Low blow, Mother. Even for you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I will have some of that tea.” She walked out of the room and into the hall, head high, shoulders back, praying she wouldn’t give Mary the satisfaction of tripping over her own feet.
“You shouldn’t have said that,” she heard Michelle tell her grandmother.
“She needs to be reminded. You did the right thing, calling me,” Mary said in return. “You’re a good girl, darling. Don’t let anyone try to tell you otherwise.”