Yesterday's Gone (Two Daughters Book 1) (8 page)

Mom had clearly been pleased with herself when she insisted she didn’t need any help with dinner. “No, no,” she’d said, beaming. “My two girls need time to get to know each other.”

Apparently she didn’t have a clue.

Eve could tell Hope wasn’t any more enthusiastic; she’d looked as if she wanted to grab Mom to keep her from heading for the kitchen. And Dad—well, who knew where he was? Mom had probably given him his orders.

Hope sat gingerly on Mom’s favorite chair, a glider, and gave a tentative push to start it moving. She studied Eve. “So.”

“So.”

“Karen says you’re a social worker. That you deal with foster kids.”

“I do. Go with what you know, I always say.”

Hope’s blue eyes, so like Dad’s, narrowed. “How long did you live in foster care?”

“Four years.”

“What happened to you? Um, if you don’t mind telling me.”

Eve shrugged. “My mother was into crack. She died. Or that’s what they tell me, anyway.”

“You don’t remember her?”

“Not very well.” And what memories she had, she wasn’t sharing with Hope.

Who nodded meaninglessly and looked away. Silence stretched to the snapping point, although it might feel that way only to Eve, who had hostility all but choking her.

“Why won’t you stay here at the house?” she asked.

Hope looked at her again. “It’s too soon. It would feel like staying with strangers.”

“You don’t believe they’re your parents?”

Her forehead crinkled. “No, I do. I mean, it’s sort of hard to deny, isn’t it?” She waved a hand at herself.

Eve didn’t understand herself why the fact that the sainted daughter looked
exactly
like Mom enraged her so. No, that was a lie; of course she knew. It was because she’d longed so desperately to belong. And she would, she’d convinced herself, if only
she
was pretty and blonde instead of so dark and exotic enough people always looked surprised when she checked “Caucasian” on a survey. Of course, eventually she’d figured out the Lawsons never would have wanted her if she’d looked too much like their lost daughter.

The real daughter.

“It is,” she agreed, simmering. “So why do you act like you don’t really want them to be your parents?”

Her sort-of sister—now,
there
was a joke—went absolutely still. “It all seems unreal to me.”

“You’re hurting their feelings, you know.”

She almost hid her flinch. “I know.”

“Do you know how hard it is to watch this? Them so hopeful—” her laugh grated “—you shutting them down.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“You’re jealous,” Hope said after a minute, as if she’d had a sudden revelation. “You wish I’d never been found. You must have hated it when Seth decided to launch a new search for me.”

Seth. Not Detective Chandler. Of course.

“I did.” She leaned forward, her body wound tight. “And do you know why? Because I thought all he was doing was getting their hopes up. Especially Mom’s. She went to see him at least once a week. Did you know that? She took him pictures.” She spat that out. “I’d find her going through albums, looking for the one that would captivate him. She’d make
me
look at them all again to help her. She baked him cookies. She cried. How could he quit, then? It was such a stupid thing for him to do. What did he think—it was going to make them
happy
to move your dead body from one grave to another and put your name on a headstone?” Oh, God, she was dripping vitriol and couldn’t seem to help herself. “Or to have it go on and on and on, endlessly, painfully, like it did after you disappeared?”

“Knowing what happened would have given them resolution.” Her eyebrows arched. “But that isn’t what happened, is it? Instead, I walked in the door. And guess what?
You
were here.”

Eve wouldn’t have thought it was possible to stiffen further, but she did. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You kind of stepped into my shoes and stole the life that was supposed to be mine, didn’t you?”

Eve’s laugh corroded her lungs and throat. “Oh, like that was possible. You’re right—I tried desperately to fill this giant hole in their lives and their hearts, but I always knew I was failing. Hard to miss, when practically every room in this house has a shrine to
you
.”

Too late, she heard a gasp. A few feet into the living room, Mom stood staring at her in shock and desolation. She’d pressed her fingers to her mouth after the one sound.

“Mom.” Eve started to rise. Anguish replaced the anger.

“You thought we didn’t love you?” her mother whispered.

“I didn’t say that!” She wasn’t sure her legs would hold her if she did try to stand.

“Oh, dear God. I’m the one who failed.” She turned a tearful gaze from Eve to Hope and back again. “Both of you,” she cried, and fled the room.

Eve sat frozen. When she looked, she saw that Hope wasn’t so much as breathing, either. “Why didn’t I keep my big mouth shut?”

“I think... I goaded you.”

Surprised, Eve focused on Hope, who had a hand pressed to her stomach as if she was about to be sick.

“You’re right,” she said. “I shouldn’t have come, should I? They want me to be Hope, and I can’t be. All I’m doing is making us all miserable.” She scrambled to her feet. “Tell them—”

“You can’t just
leave
,” Eve cried. “How do you think that would make them feel?”

They stared at each other. After a moment, Hope sank back onto the chair, which seemed to startle her by rocking. She grabbed for the padded arms.

“Maybe I should go talk to her,” Eve said after a minute.

“I don’t know. I don’t know her.”

Eve absorbed what Hope had said a minute ago. About
not
being Hope.

“Would you rather I call you Bailey?” she asked tentatively.

“Please.” Hope—Bailey—swallowed. “Kirk does, but Karen won’t.”

Words pushed themselves out. “I shouldn’t have said all that.”

“I shouldn’t have said what I did, either. I think—” Bailey’s gaze shied from Eve’s.

“You think?”

“That it’s natural for us to both be jealous. Even though...” She stopped again, made a face. “Nobody has ever been jealous of my life before.”

“A lot of kids who were never adopted would be jealous of mine.” Knowing that was true made Eve feel even smaller than she already had. “I was the lucky one.”

Bailey looked right into her eyes and said the unexpected. “Except there was that other bedroom.”

Eve grimaced. “I wanted that bedroom so bad. Except I didn’t, too.”

“But it was always there, no matter what.”

She shrugged.

Hope looked down at her hands. “You want to know something? I can’t make myself so much as take a step into that bedroom, and I don’t even know why.”

Eve gaped at her. “You don’t think something bad happened to you there?”

Bailey shook her head. “It’s like they expect me to
be
that little girl. I guess it’s symbolic.” Then she said something else, in a voice so low Eve barely heard it. “I’m afraid I’ll remember.”

“I used to sneak in there sometimes,” Eve heard herself confessing. “They never said I couldn’t, but somehow I knew it was...sacred. You know.”

Bailey nodded.

“I’d open drawers and look at your clothes and touch your dolls, and I imagined I was you. How thrilled they’d be. How happy.”

Bailey’s eyes closed again. “And here I am, not making them happy at all.”

Thinking of her as Bailey instead of Hope was easier than Eve would have thought. She found herself seeing her through different eyes, too.

Managing a sort of smile, she said, “Yeah, you are. Why else am I being such a bitch?”

This new sister answered with a smile as wry. “Because it comes naturally?”

Eve laughed. “Maybe.” Now she was able to stand up. “So, what do you say we go find out what the damage was?”

“Only if I can bring up the rear.”

“Coward.”

The truce was probably temporary, Eve thought as they both stood. Maybe they’d cleared the air a little, but the mutual resentment was still there. And then there was the fact that Seth quit seeing her once he got Bailey on his mind. And, no, that wasn’t exactly Bailey’s fault, but...
Who says I have to be fair?
Eve asked herself, and answered,
Don’t have to be
.

But hurting Mom the way she just had—that was totally on her. Deep inside burrowed a painful knowledge: words once said couldn’t be unsaid, and forgiven wasn’t the same as forgotten.

* * *

B
AILEY
DROVE
HOME
in a daze. She didn’t know how it was possible, but each meeting with the Lawsons felt more stressful than the last.

When she and Eve had tracked Karen down to her bedroom, she insisted she understood they’d said things they didn’t mean and told them not to worry about it. “Of course emotions are high,” she said softly.

She even let them help her finish getting dinner on the table, but was subdued enough during the meal that Kirk noticed, his worried gaze resting on her often.

Bailey’s only consolation was that she could tell Eve felt as guilty as she did.

At this point, her feelings for Eve were more than a little mixed. The hostility, she got. It probably wasn’t anybody’s fault, but they’d been set up from the beginning to resent each other.

It was almost funny, when she thought about it. Sibling rivalry, to the nth degree. And between two women who had never even met a week ago. In fact, Bailey hadn’t so much as suspected Eve’s existence.

Of course, she hadn’t believed in her parents’ existence, either.

Brooding as she drove, Bailey decided maybe she and Eve had cleared the air a little. The sting she felt because Eve had taken her place was so recent, getting past it wasn’t a big deal for her, but Eve had had twenty years to learn to hate Bailey. No, Hope. The real daughter.

Could they be friends? Her mind boggled. Polite? Probably. They’d done pretty well at dinner and after. Bailey thought she might have liked Eve, if they’d met under other circumstances. Even aside from Kirk and Karen, they had something in common: painful childhoods and years in foster care.

Dusk had arrived without her noticing. She had to watch carefully for the driveway, not that different from a dozen others along this narrow country road. With the thick undergrowth pressing close and dark evergreen trees rearing above, it felt like full night. She was relieved to emerge into the clearing around the cabin. Home, sweet home, of sorts.

She’d stayed later at the Lawsons’ than she’d meant. It was sort of hard, she’d found, to make excuses for a getaway when the people you were making them to knew perfectly well you had nowhere else to be. As a result, she’d felt compelled to agree that she’d love to look at photo albums.
Love
did not accurately describe her confusion of emotions that swung between deep reluctance and shy curiosity. While Eve and Bailey cleared the table, Karen bustled off to get the albums, after which they all resumed their seats, Karen having moved her chair to sit right next to Bailey.

Naturally, she’d already seen her kindergarten school picture, but this— There was a much younger Karen, who looked frighteningly like Bailey did now, in the hospital holding a newborn. Bailey’s gaze switched to the next photo and the next as her mind grappled with the idea that this was
her
. The vague gaze of that baby, who was almost bald with only a little colorless fuzz. That baby grinning toothlessly, a pink bow somehow stuck to her head. Crawling. Pulling herself up to stand. Walking. Running. Laughing.
Me.

There were two fat photo albums, only a couple of pages left empty at the end of the second one. When Karen turned the last page, where one of Hope in her swimsuit grinning was the last, and they all saw the blank, facing page, there’d been a long silence. Even Eve, who’d endured the reminiscences, had looked pained.

Bailey asked to see pictures of Eve growing up. Eve had shot her a quick, unreadable look but said nothing. Delighted, Karen went off to fetch a heaping pile that almost made Bailey groan. Thank God they hadn’t had Eve from the time she was a baby. That would have taken until midnight.

She’d found herself unwillingly interested, however, once she saw the first photo taken when a social worker brought Eve with her single suitcase to stay.

“She was eight, then,” Karen murmured. “Nine when we adopted her.”

At eight, Eve had been scrawny, all eyes and dark, tangled hair. Still petite now, then she’d looked like a wild child, raised in the woods by wolves. Bailey had no trouble at all interpreting the wary stare or the body language, her arms pressed tight to her sides.
That’s probably what I looked like, too
, she thought with an uncomfortable cramp beneath her breastbone.

Seeing the change from that suspicious, neglected-looking child to a pretty preteen, who became beautiful by her prom picture, was illuminating.
It wouldn’t have happened if the Lawsons
hadn’t
loved that child
, Bailey thought, and hoped Eve saw the same thing she did.

Bailey shook off the thoughts of the evening as she pulled to a stop in what had become her spot in front of the cabin. Locking from habit, she hurried up the steps to let herself in. She wished she’d thought to leave on a light. Not that it was completely dark, but still.

She had the door open when she was surprised to hear a car engine that sounded like it was coming down the driveway. Turning, she saw headlights spear the night and glint off her car. Could it be Seth? But he’d have called, not arrived unexpectedly this late, wouldn’t he?

And then she realized a second vehicle was behind the first.

Understanding came in time for her to leap inside, slam the door and lock it. She’d been stupid, so wrapped up in everything she’d learned tonight, she hadn’t paid attention to whether she was being followed.

She pressed her back against the door and stayed completely still, a small creature desperate to avoid a predator’s notice. A moment later, someone hammered on the door.