Page 116 of After Anna

“Why would she lie?” Maggie threw her hands up in the air. She felt tears come to her eyes, but she held them off. “Why would she, Noah? She just moved in here. She wants a family!”

“I don’t know.”

“We just had a big party. Everything was nice. The only weird part of the party was you. You didn’t talk to her.”

“She didn’t come up to me, either. She avoids me. I think she wants me out of here, out of my own home.”

“No, I think it’s the other way around. I think you wantherout ofhere. And it’s my home too. And nowthis?” Maggie felt herself fighting to understand what was happening. She could hear Anna crying upstairs, and Noah was still shaking his head, his lips parted.

“Maggie, I wouldnever.”

“I don’t know if I believe you!” Maggie blurted out, her heart speaking out of turn, and for the first time, she heard truth.

“How can you say that?”

“How could I not?” Maggie reached for the banister. “I’m going to ask her what happened.”

“Go ahead, she’ll just lie to you.”

“What if you’re the liar, Noah?” Maggie shot back, hurrying up the stairs.

“I’m not!” Noah called back. “She is!”

***

The bedroom was dark, and Maggie leaned against the headboard, holding Anna close as her sniffling subsided, just like she had held Anna when she was a baby, crying from colic, fatigue, or the myriad mysteries that made babies unhappy. Maggie had loved the sensation of cuddling her baby girl, a warm bundle in a flannel onesie, and when Anna would finally stop crying, Maggie would feel rewarded, affirmed that she had done something right. Mothers had a sacred duty to love, protect, and comfort their children, but after Maggie’s postpartum psychosis had crept over her, darkening those peaceful, happy moments, she felt stricken that she had failed Anna. And if Anna was telling her the truth, Maggie was failing her all over again.

Maggie closed her eyes, anguished. Anna had said, between sobs, that Noah had tried to molest her on the driving lesson and in the powder room downstairs. The very notion turned Maggie’s stomach and shook her to her very foundations. She tried to collect her thoughts but her mind reeled. She didn’t know who to believe. She couldn’t conceive that this was happening under her own roof. She’d read the news about young women being preyed on by their stepfathers. She knew it happened everywhere, even in the nicest homes,like her own. She closed her eyes, tried to slow her heartbeat, and prayed that she could sort out what was true from what was false.

Maggie heard Anna’s breathing settle into a soft rhythm and realized her daughter had fallen asleep in her arms, just as she had back in Congreve. Maggie thought back to that night, remembering her silent vow to never let Anna down again. A wave of guilt washed over her, and a sadness so deep she felt it to her very marrow. Tears came to her eyes, and she bit her lip not to cry. She couldn’t understand any reason Anna would lie. Even Noah had no answer for why Anna would lie. People didn’t lie without reason, did they?

Maggie’s gaze fell on her phone when it lit up with a notification for an incoming text. She didn’t recognize the number, and the notification showed a tiny photo with writing too small to read. She picked up the phone and opened the text. The photo was of Noah, caught in motion, leaving what looked like a hotel room. A banner across the photo read:

Enjoy your party, Maggie? Hope he wasn’t too tired.

Maggie stared at the phone, stunned. Who was this from? What was Noah doing in the picture? In a hotel room?

Maggie read the text again, her eyes still wet. She enlarged the photo. It was definitely Noah.

Maggie eased Anna off her chest, shifting her onto the bed.

Anna half-woke, murmuring, “Love you.”

“Love you, too,” Maggie whispered, then headed for the door.

Chapter Fifty-five

Noah, After

TRIAL, DAY 3

Noah straightened as Linda called her next witness to the stand, an attractive African-American woman in her mid-thirties dressed in a loose-fitting black pantsuit. She had a pretty face dominated by oversized wire-rimmed glasses, and she wore her hair short, with little gold hoop earrings. She smiled for the courtroom clerk, who swore her in.

Linda stood in front of the witness stand. “Please state your name for the record, if you would.”

“Patricia Evans.”

“Thank you, and what is your occupation?”