Chương 4
I did not move.
"I knew when the mortgage was late because you got quiet whenever the mail came."
"Chloe—"
"I knew which bills mattered because you put them in different piles."
Her breathing became uneven.
"I knew we couldn't go on field trips unless I gave you the form two weeks early."
I remembered all of it.
I had believed I had hidden all of it.
"I knew you cried in the laundry room after Dad died because you didn't want me to see."
Her voice softened.
"I heard you anyway."
The cathedral seemed to shrink around us.
I sat down.
Chloe's anger vanished as quickly as it had arrived.
"Mom."
"No, keep going."
"I shouldn't have said it like that."
"But you meant it."
She looked toward the altar.
"I loved you."
The past tense pricked.
Then she corrected herself.
"I love you."
I waited.
"But I hated how afraid our life made me."
I nodded slowly.
"That's different."
"From what?"
"From hating me."
She stared at the floor.
"I think I mixed them together for a long time."
Eleanor sat two pews ahead of us, leaving space between herself and the conversation.
For once, she seemed to understand that money did not give her jurisdiction.
Chloe lowered herself onto the pew beside me.
The skirt of her gown spilled between us.
"I met Julian at that architecture fundraiser."
"I know."
"No, you know what I told you."
I looked at her.
She rubbed her thumb against a bead sewn into the dress.
"I was catering it."
That surprised me.
"You told me you were there with someone from work."
"I was working for the catering company on weekends."
"Why?"
"Student loans."
"You told me those were under control."
"They weren't."
There it was.
Not a dramatic revelation.
Something worse.
Another ordinary lie.
"How much?"
"About seventy-eight thousand when I met him."
My mouth went dry.
"You borrowed that much?"
"Graduate school wasn't cheap."
"You said you had scholarships."
"I had some."
I stared toward the abandoned altar.
Every answer seemed to uncover another room in a house I had believed I knew.
"What happened to the loans?"
"I still have them."
"Does Julian know?"
Chloe said nothing.
Eleanor turned around.
"Does Julian know?"
"No."
I closed my eyes.
Chloe hurried on.
"I never asked him to pay them."
"That isn't the point," Eleanor said.
"I know."
"Does he know you were catering the event?"
"No."
"What did you tell him?"
"That I was invited through the planning firm."
Eleanor exhaled slowly through her nose.
I recognized the gesture because I used to do the same thing when customers lied to me while their account statements sat between us.
"Why didn't he figure it out?" I asked.
"He asked me for coffee while I was taking a break outside."
She looked miserable.
"He never saw me carrying trays."
"So the first lie was small."
Chloe nodded.
"It felt small."
"And then?"
"He asked where I grew up."
I knew the answer she had given before she said it.
"Westfield."
Eleanor's neighborhood.
Not ours.
"I said near Westfield."
"You grew up forty minutes south of there."
"I know."
"Then your parents?"
Chloe wiped beneath one eye.
"My father died when I was little."
"That part was true."
"Yes."
"And me?"
"I said you weren't in my life."
The sentence sat between us.
I looked at her hands.
Her wedding manicure was perfect except for one thumbnail where she had picked away the pale polish.
"Was that the first version?"
She nodded.
"Then Julian told his mother."
Eleanor leaned forward, elbows on her knees.
"I remember."
Chloe looked at her.
"You said it explained why I seemed guarded."
Eleanor frowned.
"I might have."
"You did."
"And that made you feel accepted?"
"Yes."
No one spoke for several seconds.
Outside, somewhere beyond the cathedral doors, a car horn sounded twice.
The ordinariness of it felt offensive.
Chloe continued.
"Every time I told the story worse, people got kinder."
That sentence frightened me more than anything else she had said.
She looked at me quickly.
"I know how horrible that sounds."
"It sounds honest."
"At first, I thought I'd correct it later."
"Later is where lies go to get comfortable."
She gave me a tired, almost resentful look.
"Did you practice that one?"
"No."
"Figures."
A tiny piece of my daughter came back in that answer.
It nearly undid me.
Eleanor's phone rang again.
She glanced at the screen.
"It's Julian."
Chloe stood.
"Let me talk to him."
Eleanor answered but did not put it on speaker.
"Yes."
She listened.
"No, she's here."
Chloe took a step toward her.
Eleanor raised one finger.
"No, I haven't."
Her expression shifted.
"What?"
She looked directly at Chloe.
"Are you certain?"
Chloe stopped moving.
Eleanor listened for another moment.
Then she said, "Send it to me."
She ended the call.
"What?" Chloe asked.
Eleanor said nothing.
Her phone chimed.
She opened a message.
I watched her read it once, then again.
"What is it?"
She handed the phone to me instead of Chloe.
The screen showed a photograph of a printed form.
At first I did not understand what I was looking at.
Then I saw my name.
Clara Mercer.
Below it was a signature that looked enough like mine to fool someone who had never seen me sign a mortgage, birthday card, tax return, or school permission slip.
The document was labeled as a sworn statement.
It described years of alcohol abuse, gambling debts, and abandonment.
At the bottom, beside the false signature, was a notary seal.
I looked at Chloe.
Her face told me she already knew what the document was.
"Tell me you didn't make this."
She opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Eleanor stood very slowly.
"Chloe."
"I can explain."
"Did you forge your mother's signature?"
Chloe began crying again.
This time there was no anger in it.
Only fear.
May you like
"I needed Julian to believe me."
I stared at the image of my name.
