CHAPTER Seventeen
After dinner, I try to concentrate on my homework, but it’s no use. I put away my Introduction to Psychology textbook after reading the same page six times in a row and not comprehending any of the material.
I hear Lydia laughing downstairs.
What does she want from us? What was she doing with the picture of my mother?
My gaze falls on my laptop. Nothing came up when I searched for my aunt under her real name, but maybe that’s because she’s been using a pseudonym.
I get up and lock my door.
Sitting back on my bed, my computer on my lap, I pull up Google. In a moment of inspiration, I type in “Lila Harrington,” along with “San Francisco, California.”
A few dozen hits.
I click on the first one. It’s the faculty page for a high school in San Francisco. One of the teachers listed is Lila Harrington. I click on the link and see a picture of my aunt. She wears a pearl necklace and a half smile. According to the page, she has taught art at the school for the last five years. I wonder what the school is doing for a replacement in the middle of April. Did she tell the school she was taking a break, or did she just not show up one day?
Backtracking to my Google results page, I click on the next entry down. It’s an engagement announcement for Lila Harrington and James Sutton that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle in late October. I scroll down and scan the biographical details about the couple. The article says that Lila comes from Iowa and has lived in California for twenty years. She received her degree in education from UCLA thirteen years ago and spent three years teaching at a school in northern California before taking a position at her current school. She enjoys rock climbing and pottery.
Lila met James while camping last summer. She describes the experience as “love at first sight” and knew that she’d spend the rest of her life with him. I roll my eyes. Farther down the page, there is a picture of the two of them. James is incredibly good-looking and muscular. He kind of reminds me of Brad Pitt. I wonder if Lydia told him about her family, who she abandoned years ago. At Christmastime, did he wonder why she didn’t have anyone to spend the holidays with?
I stare at the picture of the two of them. If only I could speak with him, he’d be able to provide so many answers. Navigating to an online phone book, I wonder, Why not? If I can find his number, why shouldn’t I call him and ask him what he knows about my aunt?
I find three listings for J. Sutton. Only one is under age forty, though, and James definitely doesn’t look much older than Lydia. That has to be him, I think, digging my phone out of my pocket.
I punch his number into my phone and hit the Call button.
“Hello?”
“Uh, hi,” I say, breathing hard. I probably should have put some thought into what I was going to say before I actually made the call. The poor guy will think I’m some pervert mouth breather.
“Who is this?”
“Hi,” I say again, cringing. “Um, my name is Sylvia Bell. I’m looking for Lila Harrington . . .”
His voice turns sharp. “Who did you say this was?”
I cough. “My name is Sylvia Bell.”
“Is this another reporter? I’ve already said everything I know. We were supposed to be married last Saturday, and she disappeared. Look, I’m really getting sick of this Runaway Bride bullshit. Something bad must have happened to her. Don’t you people understand?”
I am quiet.
So Lydia ditched her wedding to come to Iowa. Why would she do that? What happened to make her leave her life in California? One thing is clear. This man doesn’t know anything about her real life. He sounds genuinely broken, like he believes his wife-to-be has been kidnapped or something.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Sutton. I’m sure Lila is fine, wherever she is.”
I hear him sob on the other end. “No, she’s not fine. If she were fine, she would be here. With me.”
I hit the End Call button and drop my head into my hands.
Who is this woman?
Mattie gets home around five. I sit on my bed, watching her unbraid her hair in front of my full-length mirror.
“Lydia said she had a little talk with you,” Mattie says, examining her face for blemishes.
I consider telling Mattie what I’ve learned about Lydia. But she doesn’t know about sliding, so it would be hard for me to explain why I felt the need to go through Lydia’s things. My theory that Lydia has been sliding into me sounds insane, even to me.
“Yeah,” I say, rolling my eyes. “She thinks I’m on the verge of getting pregnant or something. It was weird, considering I don’t even have a boyfriend.”
“She can tell something’s going on. She just doesn’t know what it is. She’s trying to help.”
I shake my head. “When did you get so buddy-buddy with her?”
Mattie turns toward me. “We did a lot of talking last night. She told me all she wants is a family. She was lonely in California.”
“She could have had a family if she didn’t run away. It’s not our fault she’s been off doing God knows what for the past twenty years,” I say, closing my hands into fists. “It’s like she’s just decided to leech on to our family instead of making her own.”
Mattie’s face turns hard. “I’m going to take a shower.”
She makes it halfway out the door before she turns back and says, “I can’t believe you could be so cruel to our own flesh and blood.”
After Mattie slams the door, I flop back onto my bed and glare at the ceiling. If only it were so simple, I think. I envy Mattie, being able to open her arms and accept someone new into her life without suspicion.
Once, in school, we had this discussion about whether ignorance really is bliss. Everyone kept saying they’d rather know the truth than go on living a lie. But me, I just kept arguing that the only way to truly be happy is to not know the truth.
Because the truth is too complicated.
And, most of the time, the truth is too ugly.