Page 27 of The Golden Hour

“And don’t forget about the garden party on Saturday.”

“How could I,” she mutters, then swipes her cell phone and purse from the counter, leaving her half-eaten breakfast on the table. With the barest glance in my direction and a tight smile, she rushes from the room.

As I watch her go, Lizzie slips her arm around my waist.

“She hates surprises, same as always,” she murmurs.

I nod, smiling for her benefit even though there’s an ache in my chest.

“Eat something, Callisto,” Vivian tells me, “then come to my office, please.”

I nod, and she leaves.

Lizzie giggles, her hazel eyes sparkling. “At least she said ‘please,’ right? She says it more nowadays. I think the whole I want to be governor thing has been good for her. There’s this lady who comes once a week. Super posh but so nice. She’s giving Mom lessons on how to be more appealing to voters.”

Lizzie chatters on as she finishes her breakfast and I eat mine, filling me in on a host of mundane facts about her life, Ellie’s life, and Vivian’s new venture. She lets me finish my oatmeal before asking about the elephant in the room.

“So, what happened?”

I set down my spoon, acknowledging that it was only a matter of time. Lizzie has never been one to beat around the bush.

“I don’t know who took me,” I start, careful to keep my face neutral and my eyes guileless. “One minute I was asleep in my dorm, and the next thing I knew, I was blindfolded in the trunk of a car. After that, it’s kind of a blur. They must have sedated me, because I don’t remember much of the next few weeks other than being in an empty basement that was locked from the outside.”

“They?” She swallows. “Was it two men?”

At the horror on her face, I say quickly, “Nothing bad happened to me—not like that, anyway. And I think it was two. Honestly, it’s such a mess in my head. I heard different voices, but sometimes I thought it was one person trying to trick me.”

“You must have been terrified.”

Thinking of nights I spent on the street when I ran out of money the first year, and the shock of suddenly being no one with nothing, I nod.

“Then you escaped.” Lizzie says it proudly, with a gleam that tells me she expected nothing less. I quell a surge of guilt.

“Not exactly. I don’t know what changed, but one night they blindfolded me again and drove me somewhere. They dragged me out of the car and made me kneel, then there was nothing. Just blackness. I woke up the next day in a field with blood on the back of my head and no memory.”

“Oh my God! What did you do?”

“I walked until I found a house. A shack, really. The woman who lived there didn’t speak English, but she was kind to me. She patched me up and fed me, then gave me money for a bus ticket to Sacramento. That was over five years ago.”

Lizzie blinks huge eyes. “That’s insane.”

You have no idea.

“I know. I’m still a bit in shock, honestly. The last six years seem surreal, like they happened to someone else. I can’t believe I’m back.”

Her mouth hangs open. “You didn’t remember anything at all? Why didn’t you go to the hospital? The police? Did you ever think someone might be looking for you or want you to come home?”

The rapid-fire questions are underlaid with hurt. But she wants an answer I can’t give—one that could make her hate me. That I chose to stay away. That I abandoned her willingly.

Shifting in my seat, I look out the nearby window at the groomed backyard. “I don’t really know, Lizzie,” I say at length. “All I remembered was that I had to hide because people were after me.”

“But… but what did you do? How did you live?”

I’m struck suddenly by how young she is. How young I was when I left. Raised in the lap of luxury, the notion of being homeless and penniless is as foreign to Lizzie as flying to Bora Bora in a private jet is to the general population. Echoes of my old self, the limitations of my pampered mindset, hit me anew.

“I scraped by,” I tell her honestly. “Worked odd jobs for people who didn’t care about taxes or valid ID. And I kept moving, every few months. Eventually I had enough saved to rent a room from a coworker near Seattle. I saved more, and a few years ago, bought a car.” My lips tilt sardonically. “You’d be surprised by how much you can do as a young white woman, past or no past.”

She shakes her head. “I can’t imagine.”

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