“She seems nice.”
Don’t be fooled, Caroline thought, but she refrained from saying it out loud. “She has her moments.” She opened another box of ornaments, this one filled with red-and-white-striped balls.
“She and your brother look pretty tight.”
“I guess some women make better mothers of sons than they do daughters.”
“My mother always says that boys are much easier than girls,” Lili said.
Caroline blanched at Lili’s use of the word “mother.”
“Sorry,” Lili apologized immediately. “I mean Beth.”
“No need to apologize.” Caroline swallowed once, and then again. “She’s been a good mother to you, hasn’t she?”
“Oh, yeah,” Lili said easily. “A little strict, maybe, definitely old-fashioned, but I always felt loved. That’s something I’ve never questioned. It’s what makes what I’m doing now so hard.”
“If it helps, I think you’re being very brave,” Caroline told her honestly. “And I want you to know that no matter how the test turns out, whether you’re my daughter or not, I believe you acted honorably. I don’t think you’re a con artist. I don’t think this is some sort of scam. I think you’re a sweet and lovely young girl that any mother would be proud to call her own.”
Tears filled Lili’s eyes. “Thank you. That means a lot.”
They spent the next several minutes decorating the tree in silence. “I called her again,” Lili said, opening a bag containing half a dozen plastic Santas with flowing cotton beards.
“You called Beth? When?”
“After we got back from the clinic. I should have told you.”
“How is she?”
“She’s kind of freaking out about everything. Especially after I told her we’d taken the test.”
“What did she say?”
“She insisted I come home immediately.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That we should have the results back in a few days, that you have a friend who’s trying to expedite things. That’s the right word, isn’t it? Expedite?”
“It’s the right word.”
“I left out the part where she threatened to kill me.” Lili smiled to indicate she didn’t take Peggy’s threat too seriously.
“Sorry about that.”
“It’s all right. She’s just being protective. Like Michelle. I understand.”
“Did Beth say anything else?”
It was Lili’s turn to take a deep breath. “She said that if I don’t come home, she’s coming to get me.”
“What?”
“She said that if I’m not on a plane to Calgary first thing in the morning,” Lili elaborated, “she’ll be on the first one to San Diego in the afternoon.”
“I don’t understand. She doesn’t even know where you are.”
“She knows.”
“How?”
“I told her.”
“You told her?”
“I had to. She was threatening to contact the FBI and the Mounties and the local police, and whoever else she could think of, and if she does that, then for sure the papers will get wind of it and all hell will break loose.”
“Do you think she’d do that? Come here, I mean?” Would Beth really take that chance? Caroline wondered. And if Beth was willing to come to San Diego, what did it mean? That she was confident the test results would prove that Lili was exactly who her passport said she was: Lili Hollister, born August 12, 1998, and not Samantha Shipley, born in mid-October of that same year? Surely Beth Hollister wouldn’t risk crossing the border and exposing herself to criminal charges if there was any chance that Lili was not her child.
Unless she was no longer thinking rationally. Unless the fear of being exposed, of losing the child she’d raised as her own, had literally driven her out of her mind.
I’ve been her, Caroline thought. I did lose my mind.
Was Beth just as desperate?
“I don’t know,” Lili was saying. “I’m causing so much trouble. Maybe it would be better if I went home. We’ve taken the test. It’s been witnessed. You could just call me with the results.”
“No, you can’t leave. Please. Please, you can’t go until we know for sure.” She couldn’t allow Lili to return to Calgary before she knew the truth. If Lili was Samantha, she couldn’t risk losing her again. If Beth was truly that desperate, who knew what she was capable of?
“So what do we do?”
“Maybe I could call her,” Caroline offered, “try to make her understand…”
“I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“No, you’re probably right.”
“Are you angry with me?”
“Why would I be angry?”
“What if I’ve put both of you through all this for nothing?”
They sat on the floor in silence for several seconds, the question flickering between them like a faulty lightbulb. “Are you hungry?” Caroline asked, hearing faint rumblings from her stomach.
“Starving.”
“Feel like a pizza?”