Page 23

Natalie

With her back to the door, and the thrum of the bassline thumping in her chest like a second heartbeat, Natalie watches her father play the hell out of an old song. He makes it look effortless. As if his hands just know what to do.

Live music on a weeknight and the breeze off the water. For once, she’s living her real life and not just prepping for it, the way high school always feels.

Tessa sits opposite her, finishing off the last of their French fries, humming along with the band and slurping on a Coke that the waitress keeps refilling.

Until her friend’s eyes suddenly widen. “Omigod, don’t panic,” Tessa says. “But you are in so much trouble right now.”

Oh shit.

Natalie swivels in her chair, but it really isn’t necessary. There’s only one person in the world who’d give a damn that Natalie’s sitting in a perfectly respectable tourist trap splitting fries and Cokes with a friend.

Her mother stands at the edge of the seating area. She’s in running gear, her hand clenched around the dog’s leash, her eyes full of rage.

Natalie’s heart collapses inside her chest.

With Lickie in tow, her mother threads between the tables like an angry hornet on a mission. Natalie is already pushing back her chair. Maybe it’s not too late to avoid a scene.

But her mom is already at the table, leaning over and hissing into Natalie’s ear. “You’re out of here. I’m paying your tab at the bar. Then you’re going home, young lady.”

Young lady. Ugh.

Natalie drops her gaze. But she can feel Tessa’s worry. And people are staring. Shame heats her face as she weaves between the tables, her chin practically tucked against her chest.

So humiliating.

Her mother stops to make fake-friendly chitchat with a gray-haired man behind the bar as she pays the tab with her smartwatch. But her shoulders are up around her ears, and Natalie knows the yelling is going to begin the second they’re out of here.

The song ends, and Natalie looks over her shoulder to see her father hastily shed his instrument and hop off the stage, gaze fixed on Natalie and her mom.

“We’ll take a short break,” the lead singer says. “Back in ten!”

Her mother glances at the stage, and her jaw hardens. “Time to go.” She grabs Natalie by the elbow and turns for the door.

“Wait!” her father says. “Rowan. Now hold on.”

“I will not hold on ,” her mother snarls. “We’re leaving.”

“ Hey! I thought this was okay with you,” he says.

“Nothing about this is okay,” her mother snaps.

Natalie wants to die. “Mom. I told him you said it was okay.”

“Really? Because you want to spend the entire summer grounded? Go outside. I will deal with you in a minute.”

Having no other choice, Natalie goes.

“God, I’m sorry,” Tessa says out on the sidewalk. “She is super pissed.”

Natalie says nothing. She’s never seen her mother so angry.

“You could say you didn’t know he was here,” her friend whispers.

“It wouldn’t work,” she mumbles. Her parents met here. This place is part of their origin story.

Natalie didn’t want to lie. Her mother forced her hand by ignoring him.

This seriously isn’t her fault.

“Rowan, wait!” comes her father’s angry voice from inside. “If you’d only answer my messages...”

“It was two emails!” her mother shouts back. “I don’t owe you a damn thing. Stay away from us.”

Natalie’s heart is in free fall as her mother appears on the sidewalk. “Where’s the car?” she asks tightly.

Natalie points toward the lot across the street. With Lickie’s leash in her hand, her mother hurries in that direction.

Natalie lingers on the sidewalk, just in case her father follows her outside to say goodbye.

He doesn’t.

Shaking with anger, she finally follows her mother to the car. “You could have just answered his emails.”

Her mother halts midstep and turns. “That’s rich coming from a liar,” she growls. “Give me the keys.”

Her mother has never called her a liar before. It stings. And in front of a friend? Close to tears, she opens her bag and fumbles for the keys. “We have to take Tessa home.”

“Just get in the damn car. Both of you.”

“Um, I could just Uber,” Tessa says.

“Both of you, in the car.”

Natalie walks around to the passenger side. “Do you even have your license on you?”

Her mother just glares.

“You can have the front seat,” Natalie tells her friend, “otherwise Lickie is going to be all over you.”

“The back is fine,” Tessa mumbles, opening the door.

Natalie dies a little more inside. She gets into the passenger seat and pointedly looks out the window as her mother pilots the car—illegally, without her license—out of the parking lot.

The drive to Tessa’s is mercifully short, and her friend is able to escape the car a few minutes later.

Natalie opens her own door, too, which makes her mother snap: “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I just have to get something out of the mailbox,” Natalie says in a small voice before she quickly leaves the car.

“Omigod’ I’m so sorry,” Tessa whispers as Natalie pulls her phone out of her friend’s mailbox. “Call me later.”

Natalie gives her a faint nod and braces for a fight as she gets back into the car.

“You left your phone in her mailbox,” her mother says slowly. “Do you do that a lot?”

She looks out the window. “Sometimes,” she mumbles.

Her mother actually puts her head on the steering wheel and lets out a shaky breath. “Of all the stupid things.”

“Hey! I wouldn’t bother if you weren’t stalking me!” It feels good to clap back. For a second, anyway. Because there are prisoners on parole who have more freedom than she does.

“I don’t even know what to say to you right now. Your father is not a stable person! And you knew I would never give you my permission to see him. How long has this gone on? When did he come back to Portland?”

“You don’t even know him anymore!” Natalie shrieks. “If you just answer his messages, I wouldn’t have to sneak around!”

They’re still parked in Tessa’s driveway, but her mother makes no move to leave. “I asked you a question. How long has he been in the area?”

She turns to stare out at Tessa’s suburban street. It’s a nicer neighborhood than theirs. Less interesting, but nice. Tessa has a big TV room in the basement with its own little bar area stocked with sodas. And Tessa’s mother doesn’t hover .

“I don’t know when he came back, exactly,” she says dully. “I’ve only met him once before this. We talk on Instagram, though.”

“Instagram,” her mother says, as if the word tastes bad. “Did he approach you?”

“No,” she says quickly. “It was me. I searched his name. I found his new band. I left a comment. And then he messaged me.”

Her mother is silent for a long moment. Finally, she takes a shaky breath and puts the car in reverse.

They roll down Tessa’s quiet street, and Natalie is hollow inside. Like every happy thought has been drained from her soul. She’d been waiting for Harrison to show up for her entire life. Then he finally did.

And now her mother is furious.

“What else have you lied about?” she asks as they approach the peninsula again.

“Nothing.”

“I’m so disappointed in you, Natalie. You want to be a grown-up and borrow the car. But then you go and pull this.”

Anger rises inside her like a fire. “I didn’t pull anything. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to see my father! I’m the only one at Chatham who doesn’t have one.”

This is, of course, an exaggeration. But not by much.

Her mother brakes at a stop sign and gives her the side-eye. “Look, I’m sorry you don’t have the right kind of father. But you have to be rational about this. He went to prison for beating a man almost to death. He might even be mentally ill, like his mother.”

“So you’re saying it’s genetic?” Natalie demands. “Do you hear yourself right now? I have half his genes.”

Her mother puts the car in park and leans back against the headrest. “God, Natalie. No. I don’t mean that at all. There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s just that Harrison had a really rough childhood, and it affected his ability to cope. Some of the things that went wrong in his life probably aren’t all his fault, but that doesn’t mean he’s a good influence.”

“He’s still family,” she points out. “You don’t write family off unless you have to.”

“I did have to.”

“Just keep telling yourself that. You just want to make him go away. Never mind that he asked me to tell you he has something we need to know. Something about his medical history.”

Her mother seems to sag against the seat. “ Oh .”

“Yeah. Oh . But if you’re too afraid to even call or email him, I guess we don’t need to know what it is, yeah? We’ll just wing it.”

“That’s low,” her mother says quietly. “My most important job as your only parent is to keep you out of harm’s way. And that’s what I’ve been trying to do for fifteen years.”

Anguished, Natalie asks a question that’s been weighing on her mind. “Tell me this—did he ever hurt us? Like, physically? Were you afraid of him, you know, before ? ”

Her mother sighs. “No, he was never physically threatening until the night he tried to kill a man with a metal bar stool.”

Natalie can’t stop herself from flinching.

“There’s a reason I don’t want you anywhere near him.”

Natalie turns to stare out the car window and says nothing.

Eventually, her mother puts the car in gear and drives home. After they pull into the garage, her mother says, “Now hand me your phone.”

“Why?”

“You’re not getting it back for a week.”

“A week ? That’s outrageous.”

“Child abuse, for sure. You’ll think twice next time you break a promise to me. We had a deal—you’d keep your phone on until the killer was caught.”

It was on. Natalie knows better than to make this argument. Instead, she closes her eyes and wishes she were anywhere else. An hour ago she’d been eating fries and watching her friend sway to the music. An hour ago she’d had a secret, and she’d also had a cool dad.

Now she’s facing a week without her phone and an exam she hasn’t studied for. Everything is bleak.

“I’m still waiting for that phone,” her mother says as she cuts the engine.

Natalie almost throws it out the window. Her finger is literally on the window’s button.

She puts the phone in the cupholder instead. Then she marches into the house, races upstairs to her bedroom, and slams the door.