LITMIR.BIZ

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really, what is it with me? Bailey thought with incredulity. So, okay, she was majoring in psychology. That didn’t mean she usually bothered analyzing everyone else’s secret motives or wounds.

      The dining room was as perfect as the rest of the house. Old-fashioned, as if it hadn’t been updated in a while. Say, twenty-three years. But nice, with an antique china hutch, table and chairs, a big tatted doily in the center of the table with a vase of orange, daisylike flowers, and a Persian-looking rug on the hardwood floor.

      They sat down to a spread that widened Bailey’s eyes. Gorgeous crepes with perfect, red raspberries ready to spoon over them along with luscious Devonshire cream, crisp strips of bacon and a selection of other fruits, all beautifully presented. Karen must have worked for ages.

      “Oh, this looks lovely,” Bailey made herself say with a smile. The same one she gave diners at Canosa. “As nice as anything I’ve ever served.”

      Karen beamed and handed Bailey the crepes. “I remembered how much you loved raspberries.”

      Did I? Bailey couldn’t actually remember the last time she’d eaten one. They were awfully expensive at the grocery store. But she kept the smile pinned in place and said, “I still do.”

      And then came the questions. Did she remember how much fun they’d had picking raspberries? No. The county fair—she’d always looked forward to it so. She wasn’t the slightest bit afraid of heights! Did she remember...? No. She’d begged for horseback riding lessons, and they’d finally found a place to take her that summer. Did she remember...? No.

      Bailey’s throat grew tight. She smooshed a raspberry with her fork rather than take a bite she wasn’t sure she could swallow.

      Karen opened her mouth again, and Kirk laid a hand on her arm. Out of the corner of her eye, Bailey saw his slight shake of the head.

      “Detective Chandler says you machine-quilt,” she said brightly. “I’d love to see what you’re working on.”

      Karen forced a smile. “I’ll show you after breakfast. We were lucky to have four bedrooms. Neither of us had any use for a home office, like people all seem to have these days. This way I can close the door on all my mess.”

      “I don’t even have one bedroom,” Bailey heard herself saying. “Mine is a studio apartment. Rents are high in LA. I’ve been tempted to buy a Murphy bed, so I could put it up when I’m entertaining, except—” she was winding down “—well, I don’t entertain very often.”

      “You have a bedroom here.”

      Her stomach twisted. A bedroom that had been kept as a shrine for twenty-three years. The idea creeped her out.

      “Do you remember anything at all?” Karen begged.

      She set down her fork. “The bedroom. I know it’s weird, but I remember the bedroom.”

      The face of this stranger who was her mother lit with happiness. “I’m so glad we didn’t change it, then.”

      “I’m not six anymore,” she said, sharper than she’d meant.

      The happy expression froze, then slipped away. It was like watching death happen, and Bailey felt like a crummy human being. See? she wanted to say to Seth. I’m not kind.

      Smart she’d give him. She’d found her college classes easier than she’d expected. Poised...maybe.

      “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said that. This is...” She moved uncomfortably. “I guess it’s harder than I thought it would be.”

      “No,” Karen said with dignity that surprised Bailey for some reason. “I was pushing you. It’s difficult to accept that the daughter we missed every day of her life doesn’t remember us at all.”

      “I’m hoping it will come back.” Am I really? She honestly didn’t know. “He didn’t want me to remember. So I have this kind of mental block. But...maybe the memories are still there, on the other side of it?”

      Some of the happiness bloomed again on Karen’s face. The one that looked so much like Bailey’s, unsettling her. She’d never had what other people took for granted, the ability to think, It’s Mom’s fault I have skin so ridiculously white I burn whenever I step outside, or, It’s not my fault I can’t carry a tune in a bucket, it’s Dad’s. Other people could make a face and say, My family is cursed with freckled redheads, but her, not a clue who to credit or blame for the thousands of bits and pieces that made her up.

      Except for him. She’d spent a lot of time wondering about the nature versus nurture thing. How much was his fault? Maybe she’d been abused at home, too, which made her easily trained by him. At that point she always felt sick. Had she been dumb enough to let herself be lured by him, or had he taken her forcibly? Why hadn’t she run away from him? She still didn’t know.

      Now, at least she could say, I have my dad’s eyes and Mom’s cheekbones. And my mother’s smile. Seeing it made her skin burn and feel too tight.

      She could hardly wait to get out of here. But this was why she’d come. To meet these people, to get to know them, open the possibility of some kind of relationship, if they still wanted one when they found out how truly messed up she was. Mostly she didn’t mind being alone, but there were times, like the holidays, when she listened to other people complaining about family and buying gifts that probably got returned or tossed in a drawer, and she’d think, At least you have somewhere to go. The Neales invited her every year, but they’d had a lot of foster kids since her. Going to their house, she’d have felt like a ghost from Christmases past, chains rattling.

       Say something.

      “Was I horse crazy?” was what popped out.

      It was that easy. A question now and again, and she heard all about her childhood. Listening was surreal. Her life sounded like something out of a storybook, as if nothing had ever gone wrong, nobody had ever argued and Hope had mostly gotten her heart’s desires, including a “princess” bed.

      No wonder I was in shock, she thought. Maybe...maybe she had quit believing in that perfect childhood. It must have seemed as unreal as Disneyland. A phantasm. Maybe, to survive, she’d had to quit believing.

      She noticed that Kirk didn’t say much. About all he did was murmur agreement when his wife said, Do you remember when...? Those steady blue eyes stayed on Bailey. Seth had told her Kirk was quiet, but she began to suspect he was more sensitive to her mood and discomfort than Karen was.

      Finally, he laid his hand over Karen’s to prevent another spate of reminiscences. Although she looked startled, she also closed her mouth. He cleared his throat. “There’s so much we don’t know, Bailey. Can you tell us what happened?”

      As if the air had been sucked out of the room, she suddenly couldn’t breathe. It took everything she had not to leap up and say, “I’ve got to go.” But years of therapy paid for by the state of California had brought her to a point where she knew to breathe deeply and clear her mind before she did or said anything. Be calm. You don’t have to do this.

      She shook her head. “I don’t like to talk about it.”

      “Oh, but—”

      Once again, Kirk’s big hand gently stopped his wife’s outburst. Bailey found herself staring at that hand. It filled her vision to the point where she didn’t see their faces. Why a hand? That hand? Don’t know.

      “Detective Chandler said you spent years in foster care,” he said.

      Not the best part of her life, either, but this she could talk about. She wrenched her gaze from Kirk’s hand.

      “Six years. I didn’t know how old I was, so we guessed. I aged out of the foster care system when we thought I was eighteen. As it turns out, I’d have been only seventeen.”

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