Take Another Look (18 page)

“Editor-in-chief. And she's a good student, too,” Chrissy added. “A 4.0 for the past two years.”

Jane's heart sank at the realization that Isabel was settling in at the high school, establishing roots. Of course, that was exactly what Isabel needed—just not here in Mirror Lake.

“I'd better get back to my homework.” Isabel untied the apron and folded it into a neat square. “But I'm glad that you came by, Ms. Ryan. This has been a very special night for me. I'll never forget it.”

Jane could only nod. It had been an emotional crossroads for her, too, albeit an unwanted one. As Isabel turned to leave, Jane thought of the need to protect Harper.

“Just one more thing, Isabel,” Jane said. “Please don't talk about this at school. The adoption was private, and I'd like to keep it that way.”
For Harper's sake,
she thought. Poor Harper. So much drama swirling around her, threatening her secure world.

“Of course, Ms. Ryan. I'll do whatever you think is right.”

“I told you, she's a good girl,” Chrissy said proudly.

Isabel's eyes glimmered as she touched her mother's shoulder tenderly. The bond between these two was obviously strong and affectionate. What the hell was Chrissy thinking, wanting to ensnare Jane in their lives?

The older women waited to continue their discussion until Isabel disappeared down the hall with her backpack.

“You can't stay here,” Jane said. “If you return to Seattle, Isabel can pick up with old friends at a familiar high school. Seattle's medical facilities are among the best in the country. Portland's are always seen as a second cousin to them. Seattle is the answer for you. I'm sure things will work out for you there.”

Chrissy shook her head. “That is not going to happen.” She seemed stronger now, suddenly focused. “There is no going back to the life we used to have. Nick is gone forever, and every corner of Seattle reminds me of him. This is our new home.” She closed her eyes as she sipped the tea, then sighed. “I understand your reluctance to be involved with Isabel, and I respect that. I cannot force you to be kind to her.”

“I would never be unkind to any kid her age,” Jane said, “but you're asking too much of me.”

“I am fending for my daughter's emotional happiness, as I know you would do for your daughter if the circumstances were reversed.”

It was a study in semantics. Jane cocked her head to one side, struggling to tamp down her annoyance. Why did Chrissy refuse to acknowledge that Jane had her own daughter to protect ?

“I need to get going.” Harper needed help with her homework, and Jane had promised to help her get started on an awesome Halloween costume. Jane put her mug down and thanked Chrissy for the tea. “You know I wish you the best, but this plan that you and Isabel have for a family reunion is only going to hurt people.”

“On that you're wrong, my dear.” Chrissy seemed deflated against the cushions, fading into gray once again. “Family is everything.”

“But we are not family,” Jane said bluntly. “You can't have a family reunion when there was no union to begin with.”

Her own words resounded in her mind as she let herself out and drove home to the other daughter, the chosen one.

Chapter 19

T
hat night Jane tried to escape the sickening shadow looming over her as she threw herself into the activity of making a Halloween costume with Harper.

“I was thinking of being a giant Oreo cookie,” Harper said.

“Great idea! That's so cute.”

“I didn't make it up. I saw it in a flyer for Costume Country. But you can't enter the contest with a store-bought costume, and since this is my last year, I want to score big.”

By tradition, sophomore year was the last time students attended the Halloween party at school. Jane didn't know what upperclassmen did on Halloween—she doubted that they sat home handing out candy to trick-or-treaters—but that would be a challenge for next year.

In the mood to splurge, Jane grabbed the stash of cash from the cookie jar and drove Harper to the craft store. An hour later, armed with brown and white felt and pieces of cardboard, they started the project, but lost steam quickly. Jane burned her hand on the hot glue gun, and Harper declared that the big brown circle looked like a “pile of poop.” Phoenix's soft woof of agreement made them laugh, but the costume seemed doomed.

“That's it for tonight,” Jane said, looking at the clock, though Harper did not need convincing. She was already stretched out on the couch. “We'll work on it some more tomorrow.”

“It's awful,” Harper moaned as her fingers tapped out a message on her phone.

“Who are you texting this late?” Jane asked.

“Jesse. He wanted to come over to help, but we got started too late. He says he's got letters for me. I don't know what he means.”

“Well, it's about time to turn off electronics and head off to bed.”

“Can we throw the costume out and start over on something else?” Harper put her cell on the counter and dug into the cookie jar, where Jane kept emergency funds. “Please, Mom? We've got more than twenty bucks left for something new.”

“We already spent money on supplies, and it's an ambitious idea.”

“But a flat felt circle is never going to look like an Oreo. It sucks.”

“Try to think positive. How can we fix it?”

“It needs texture.”

“Let me think about that,” Jane said, stifling a yawn. “Hey, maybe we can mold the cookie part from salt dough.”

“That will weigh a ton, and I'm not going to wear salt sculptures around my neck.”

“Let's sleep on it,” Jane said, though she doubted that sleep would come to her now that the past was breathing down her neck.

After Harper went to bed, Jane soaked in the tub. She held her breath and slid down under the surface to escape the world. It didn't work; when she came up for air, her thorny problems were still poking her in the chest. Dressed in her soft flannel pajamas, she burrowed under the comforter on her bed and called Luke. This was a conversation that could not wait until they could be alone together.

“Hey, how's it going?” His voice was bright and cheerful as ever.

“Not so good.” Unsure where to begin, she started in the middle of the story. “You know that new girl at school—the one who looks like Harper? Well, the resemblance is there because they are twins. They're sisters, Luke. Isabel was my baby, too. I gave her up for adoption a few days after she was born.”

Luke was silent as she told the story, but she didn't feel the sting of criticism or judgment. In the end, he had just one bit of advice: Tell Harper.

“Right now there's another kid walking around the school with some crucial information about Harper's origins and family,” he said. “That has the potential to hurt Harper if it gets out and she has no clue. She needs to be armed with the information. Knowledge is power.”

“I can't tell her.” Jane pulled the comforter over her head and soaked up the soft darkness with the phone pressed to her ear. “I don't know how to tell her. I don't want to tell her.”

“You have to. And you figured out a way to tell me. Give her a similar version, minus the part about Frank's chasing you. No kid should have to hear that her father is a psychopath.”

“That's for sure. But I don't know about telling her. This is so far out of my comfort zone. Even after all these years, I have feelings of guilt and embarrassment. And inadequacy.”

“That's understandable. But trust me on this. You'll feel better once the truth is out. Tell her that she has a sister. She may not choose to act on it, or maybe she will. Put the choice in her hands.”

Jane inhaled deeply, grateful that she could breathe again. This was not the end of the world. If she told Harper the truth, she would be giving her daughter a sibling, a sister. Although Jane had not been close to her sister, there had been a time when she and Shelly were a team, a cozy subset in the family, sitting together and sharing a bed when the family went on vacations. She wanted that for Harper.

Decision made, she found sleep.

 

The next day, Jane reconsidered the situation as she helped her students devise thesis statements for their essays on
To Kill a Mockingbird
. Recalling the way Scout and Jem had maintained lives that were a world apart from their father's social dealings, she wondered if it would be so wrong to keep this secret from Harper. After all, Hoppy and Isabel might not strike up a long-term friendship in the next two or three years. For all Jane knew, their relationship might already be winding down. Maybe it was best to wait.

After school, when Harper came to Jane's classroom to pick up the pieces of her costume, Jesse was with her.

“See what Jesse made for me?”

One by one, Jesse removed four brown ceramic letters from his backpack, spelling
OREO
on Jane's desk.

“He did them in ceramics class last week,” Harper explained. “Aren't they the coolest?”

“These are awesome. Good enough to eat.” Jane lifted the
R
and found it to be surprisingly light. “You hollowed them out?”

“You sort of have to because big blocks of solid clay explode in the kiln.” Jesse dug his hands into his pockets. “Yeah, I modeled it after the cookie, but that was hard because everyone wanted to eat it. The cookie, I mean.”

“Isn't it great? It's going to give the cookie texture,” Harper said.

“Sure is. How are you going to attach the letters to the felt?” Jane asked.

“Still not sure,” Harper answered. “We're going to see if we can get some help in the design studio. They've got all kinds of tools and machines.”

“Good idea.” As Jane watched her daughter saunter down the corridor with Jesse Shapiro, she realized that she really liked the kid. She also realized that her craft skills, appropriate for assisting her daughter on grade school activities, were now obsolete. How quickly things had changed.

Two hours later, as Jane packed up her laptop, she wondered why Harper had not texted an update. She hoped that Harper and Jesse hadn't wandered off school property without telling her. From the corridor of the art wing, she heard their voices: upbeat and cheerful girls' voices punctuated by Jesse's droll, low comments. From the doorway of the design studio she saw Emma and Sydney leaning intently over a display of papier-mâché fruit that they seemed to be gluing in place.

Harper and Jesse sat together at a high counter, gluing something down to the big circle of felt. Beside them, Isabel worked a sewing machine, feeding white fabric through in a steady stream.

A mixed bag, this crew. Jane was torn, giddy over their goodness and weak-kneed at the horrible potential. The bohemian boyfriend, the secret sister. Was life always a flight from danger, a torrent pushing you to the next precipice?

“Mom! You'll never believe how talented Isabel is. Look at this.” While Isabel continued sewing, Harper showed off the brown braiding and felt tiles piled high to make the diamonds, squares, and circles on the face of the Oreo.

The rapid-fire patter of the sewing machine stopped as Isabel smiled up at them.

“And she knows how to sew. She's already fitted the white fabric for me. Pretty amazing, huh?”

“I'm impressed,” Jane admitted. No use wishing that all this creative genius had come from Emma or Sydney—anyone other than Isabel. “It's bigger than life. More Oreo than the actual cookie.”

Isabel's eyes sparkled as she basked in the praise. “Harper had the vision. I just showed her how to make it happen.” She rose, shaking out the white fabric. “This should fit now. Want to try it on?”

While Harper slid on the white sheath of her costume, Jane asked Jesse what he was planning for the party.

“I don't usually do costumes, but Harper insisted.” He took a black cloth from his pocket and stretched it across his face so that the holes lined up with his eyes. “The Lone Ranger.”

“I like your minimalist approach,” Jane said, earning a sardonic grin.

She spoke with Emma and Sydney about their two-person costume, a clever, eerie dinner table with two holes cut through a plate on the top for the girls' heads to pop through the cardboard.

“It's our heads on a platter,” Emma said.

Jane laughed as the girls demonstrated. “Delightfully gruesome,” she declared.

Sydney put her hands on Emma's hips, and the two girls swayed together, reminding Jane of the vaudevillian horse-head and tail shtick she had seen in movies. The kids laughed, ribbing each other in a scene that was nothing less than jovial. What more could a mother ask for?

The conversation turned to talk of Isabel's costume, and she admitted that she was not planning to attend Friday's party.

“What? You have to go!” Harper insisted. “The Halloween party is the best one of the year.”

“Really,” Emma agreed. “I figured you were already done with your costume, Isabel.”

Isabel shook her head. “Never even started.”

“Well, start now.” Sydney straddled a chair next to Isabel. “What do you want to be?”

“I haven't even thought of it, and I have to get home soon. I've got chores to do.”

Cooking and caring for her mother. Jane tried to steel herself from emotional reflex, but even the most hardened heart would find some sympathy for Isabel Zaretsky.

“Wow. Your mom must be really strict,” Harper said.

“She's not so bad,” Isabel said quietly.

“But the party's not till Friday,” Emma pointed out. “We can all meet tomorrow to help Isabel with her costume. So what do you think? Maybe a good fairy? Or Dorothy from
The Wizard of Oz.
I've got some ruby slippers in my closet. What size do you wear?”

“I want to be an object, like you guys,” Isabel said. “Maybe . . . a glass of milk?”

“Yes!” Harper high-fived her. “And we could go around together, cookies and milk.”

Jane forced a smile, disturbed at how this was playing out. Had Isabel deliberately chosen a costume with a theme that would match her up with Harper? Of course. She must have. It was a calculated move, but then Isabel had manipulated her way here from Seattle to find family.

And can you fault her on that?
Jane asked herself. She turned away from the kids and paced to the studio windows to stare out at the gathering darkness. Luke had been right. This situation was not going to go away.

 

On Friday night when Jane arrived at school to pick her daughter up, she found Harper arm-in-arm with Isabel. The judges had found the “Oreo and milk” costume irresistible, awarding first prize to Harper and Isabel.

“We rocked that party, Mom,” Harper said. Cellophane from the “milk glass” of Isabel's costume crinkled as Harper tugged her over to Jane. “Can Isabel stay overnight? We want to celebrate.”

“Not tonight.”

“Aw. Well, we're giving her a ride home. Her mom can't pick her up.”

“That's fine.”

The girls shed the large shells of their outfits and stashed them gently in the trunk of Jane's car, joking about how they needed to be preserved in a hall of fame. As Jane drove, the two girls sat together in the back, talking about the party. Typical comments about obnoxious things some girl said, other unusual costumes, and a haunted house made spooky by the senior boys who popped out and grabbed the girls by the arms.

“They're not supposed to touch us,” Harper insisted. “I can't believe they did that.”

“But it wouldn't have been scary if they didn't,” Isabel pointed out.

“Oh, I know. A couple of hanging bats and fake gravestones? That part was lame.”

Jane rehearsed her speech as she drove. Each turn was a chance to divert the announcement, each stop sign a moment to pause and think. Oh, how she wanted to put it all off, but things were progressing quickly between the two girls, and Jane would not play her daughter for the fool. Harper needed to have this information, the sooner the better.

“Thanks for the ride, Ms. Ryan,” Isabel said.

Jane remained in the driver's seat while Harper helped the girl get her costume from the trunk. A hug was exchanged—a sight that made Jane's insides sizzle with anxiety. And then, Harper climbed into the passenger seat and they were rolling again.

“There's something I need to tell you.” Jane stared ahead, eyes on the road. She had planned to wait, talk over hot cocoa at home, but somehow this seemed easier to say when she could not look her daughter in the eye. “Honestly, this is embarrassing for me. It involves a part of my life that happened before you were born. Some tough decisions I had to make.”

“This sounds scary,” Harper said slowly.