Losing Francesca (21 page)

I stop spraying the half-asleep horse to think about this for a moment. Fiona turns and goes back washing, probably to take her mind off the reality that has surely just struck her hard. She has no identity.

And really, if you think about it, that's what a name gives you. That's what a family gives you. These things ground you in reality. I am Brody Mason. I live in Woods on the Lake, Ohio. I'm a mechanic, I ride dirt bikes, and I love to go trolling for walleye in our family boat at night. I have three brothers, my parents are dead, and I love Fiona Sullivan.

This is me. In a few sentences I can tell you pretty much everything there is to know.

But Fiona can't even tell me her real name. And that name she thought was grounding her for all these years might turn out to be another lie.

She's adrift. She's a feather in the wind. Floating here and there on the currents her father creates.

How could someone live like that? Having a name but not being able to use it? Having a life but not being able to talk about it?

And then one day you think you're going away to college and end up in the custody of the FBI being told you're not the person you weren't pretending to be. That one identity she's probably held onto for dear life, through all the lies and secrets, has been wiped away.

She has to know, she
has
to know, that she is not the girl her father told her she was.

What does that do to a person?

"OK." Frank comes bounding over to the bathing station and interrupts my thoughts. "Let's get some pictures real fast." He fusses with his camera and then starts clicking away. He takes pictures of all the white spots on the horse, two little circular spots on the inside of her front legs, and then disappears back inside to finish up whatever he's doing in there.

"Oh! Let's take a foot picture! That reminds me. Your phone is dead, Brody. Do you have a charger I can borrow?"

"Yeah, sure. We'll get it tonight after dinner and you can use the internet if you want."

"Yeah, I do. Do you have a phone on you? Can you take a foot picture with the horse?"

I huff out a laugh at that. "You're adorable. Yeah, let's take a foot picture with the stinking horse."

"We have to leave our shoes on though, barn rules." She comes around to my side of the horse and sticks her foot up next to the one white hoof in front. "Put your boot in, Brody."

I slip my boot in next to hers and fish out my phone and snap the picture.

"What will you do with it, Fee?"

She grins. "Well, I've never told anyone this before, but I have a blog that I usually update every time I go somewhere new. So I'll put it up there. People follow me and leave comments and stuff. It's kinda fun. It's my secret life in defiance of my secret life."

I picture a whole website devoted to her feet and just about moan with the cuteness of it. "What's it called?"

"I'll show you tonight," she says with a wink.

I throw down the hose and take her hand so I can pull her towards me.

"What're you doing?" she asks.

"I think I'd like to kiss you," I whisper into her neck as her hands slip inside my t-shirt and drift around my waist to my back. I growl a little at that. "I'd like to do a lot more than kiss you actually."

"Me too." She stares up at me with a serious expression. "I really would."

I lean down and nibble on her lip. "Yeah, but the day required for that first will have to be all sorts of special. Not any ordinary perfect day, you know."

"How can you deny me?" she pouts. "Sean says you're some kind of man-whore—"

I bust out a laugh.

"—and yet, you have no desire to strip me of my virtue right here and now?"

"Well first of all,
Sean
is the man-whore. He's dated more girls than me, easy. And second, what I want and what I do are two very different things. I used to be very impulsive, but I have no desire to be that way with you, Fiona. I want to make it all last. I want to drag it out for as long as possible. I want to savor every moment, every first, and then when that first time is over, I want to wallow in the after-effects and enjoy the second time around just as much."

"I think I could love you."

"I think you already do."

Chapter Thirty-One - Francesca

Aimee and Lindsey come home from the equine store with all sorts of stuff, and to my surprise, they have a ton of things for me too. They knew the horse was my gift and they bought me a pair of white breeches, a show helmet, and some chaps to wear for training. Lindsey wanted to get me tall boots, but they have to be custom-ordered, so I'll have to go in to get measured for those.

Angela walks over to me and hands me a small jewelry-sized box. "For the new baby in the barn," she says with a smile.

I open the box and lift up some fluffy stuff to reveal a set of custom nameplates.

"I'll have Frank fasten them to her tack tomorrow. One for the bridle and one for the saddle."

In all the excitement I forgot to ask Frank what the horse's name was. The shiny brass plates say,
Sweetness
.

"That's her name? Sweetness?" God, that's perfect, she is all sorts of sweet.

"No, her registered name is Home Sweet Home, but Dave's daughter, Michelle, made Sweetness her barn name."

I lose all the breath in my body. Angela picks up on my shock and hugs me. "It's just a name, Fiona, but it is pretty cool that it turned out that way, don't you think?"

"Yeah," I breathe. "Home Sweet Home is a pretty cool name." I swallow and look up at her. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Now, you might want to get changed for dinner since Brody's coming over and you stink. There are lots of pretty things in your closet. The girls and I picked them all out, so they might be too frilly for your taste, but I bet Brody won't mind." She winks at me and I sink into my own happiness as I practically hop up the stairs, still staring at the gift in my hand.

My closet
is
filled with pretty things. But mostly they are pretty things I would not ever wear. There are a few summer dresses that look cute, but I don't want to wear a dress. I don't know what we're doing tonight, but I wouldn't want to limit the possibilities by wearing a dress. So I slip on a pair of denim shorts and a tank top and leave it at that. Besides, none of the dresses have pockets and I can't seem to let go of the Sweetness nameplates. I hold them in my hands and rub them together so they make this little clinking sound. I'm probably scratching the heck out of them, but I just can't seem to stop. The shorts have pockets, so I slip them inside and shove Brody's phone in the other one so I can charge it over at his house.

My fingers fiddle with the brass plates all the way down the stairs.

Brody is already here, he's been here for like half an hour already, but he and Sean are over in the carriage house doing boy stuff, so I go in the kitchen to find Angela.

"Need any help?" She's got pots filled with pasta and she's sautéing shrimp on the giant gas stove. The kitchen looks like it was built for a professional chef, and I guess if you're the mom of six kids, you practically are a professional chef.

"Yes, go tell Brody and Sean to wash up. We're just about ready."

Just hearing her say Brody and Sean in the same sentence makes me feel warm. I nod at her and go slip on my sandals over by the back door, then skip down the porch stairs and jog down the path that leads to Sean's house. I've never been in there before so I walk around it cautiously until I find the door.

I knock softly and they both stop playing their video game and stare at me.

"We ready?" Sean asks.

"Yup, Angela says to tell you guys to wash up." I watch them get up and start for the door where I'm standing. "I thought you guys hated each other?"

They do a boy shrug at the same time and that's about all I get out of them about that topic. Sean leads the way back across the path and Brody takes my hand and even though I've only been here for a very short period of time, this feels so natural. Like this is how life is supposed to be. Brody and Sean are the same age, they went to school together their whole lives, they live next door to each other, and yet they were never friends until this week.

That's not how it should've turned out. It should never have been that way.

And all of a sudden it hits me.

This new friendship they're forming is because of me. And the fact that I went missing all those years ago stole all the time they should've spent together being friends. It robbed Frank of seeing me show ponies like Aimee or making secret plans to send me to California to train for the Olympics like Lindsey.

I can't even think of what it stole from my mother. Not Angela or Sophia, but my
mother
.

That thought makes me physically ill and I feel all the blood drain from my face.

"You OK, Fiona?" I look up at Brody and Sean. We've stopped walking and are only halfway to the house. "Is something wrong?"

I start to shake my head and then it starts nodding out a yes instead, but my voice settles on, "No. I'm fine." I draw my shoulders up and smile at them. It's a real smile. "I'm hungry," I say as I pull on Brody's hand. "Come on!"

Dinner tonight with Brody is no different than dinner last night without him. That's how easy it is to insert him into this family. And I'm not sure how dinner was before I came, but other than that one night where things got tense, I'm pretty sure I slipped into a chair at the family dinner table with ease as well.

Frank and I sit directly across from each other because Brody's chair has moved my place down a little, so we talk about the new horse non-stop the entire time. I don't even have a clue what everyone else is talking about, all I know is that we never run out of things to say. There is not one moment during dinner where there is silence. Brody and Sean joke with the twins, Brody even teases Lindsey about Case, and Angela and Aimee chat about the show tomorrow.

Brody brings up the Fourth of July trip and gets a maybe out of Frank and Angela, but only if Sean agrees. Sean is noncommittal, since he has a boss at his job.

After dinner is over Brody and I slip out the door and walk back to his house. He swings my hand and I watch the fireflies.

"I hope he never comes," I say suddenly. I'm not even sure why the words came out, because I really wasn't thinking about him, I was thinking about everything
but
him.

"Yeah, me too. But he's coming, so we should make a plan, don't you think?"

"What plan?"

"Well, will you leave with him?"

"Yes." I don't even hesitate.

"Shit, Fee, that didn't take you long to decide."

He's right, it's disturbing how easily that answer came out of my mouth. "Do I have a choice?"

"Of
course
you have a choice. Just tell him no."

I try real hard to picture myself telling my father no, but that's not a word I've ever said to him. I laugh a little. "That's not even within the realm of possibilities, Brody. No." I huff out a laugh. "It's absurd."

"Why? Would he hurt you?"

I stop walking and look up at him. "Of course not!"

"Then why can't you say no?" He tugs on my hand and we continue walking.

"I—" I'm not sure. "He—" He what? Can I say no?

"You're almost eighteen, right?"

"Well, according to my real birth certificate, I turned eighteen on May first."

"So you're eighteen according to the identity he gave you, so that means you can just tell him you'd like to stay a while. Not forever, but just a while. Hang out with us, how could he object? He was gonna let you go to college anyway. Why not let you stay in Ohio for a semester instead? He could get all your paperwork in order again, get you into another school. It doesn't have to be difficult."

It sounds so reasonable when Brody says it. But not only has my mind never, like
ever
, considered objecting to my dad's plans, but the thought of actually telling him these things to his face makes me feel sick. "I can't do that. I just can't. I'd like to, but my dad is… just my dad, that's all. He's in charge."

Brody stops again. "In charge of what? You?"

I let go of his hand and spread my arms out. "Everything. He's in charge of everything. I mean, I will talk to him and I'll tell him how I feel, but I'm not sure he'll care if I like you and want to stay for a few months. I'm not sure that has any influence in his decision-making process. He makes decisions based on what's safe."

"Safe? Safe from
what
, Fiona? If he's not a fucking drug dealer than what's so unsafe about your life?"

"It's—"

"Yeah, it's a fucking secret, I get it. I have to be honest with you, Fee, I'm sick of your fucking secrets. And when you first got here you had no problem telling Frank and the FBI and anyone who'd listen what you wanted. So, if you can tell us no, you can tell him no, too."

He's getting angry with me and I don't want him to be angry with me. "You're right. I mean, I'll tell him how I feel, OK?"