Page 40 of Sunset Cove
Chapter Fifteen
To think that Marty had initially been afraid of Lucy. When she’d first knocked on the door, he’d panicked and tried to hide.
Lucy had spotted him and rapped on the window, yelling, “I see you in there!”
She’d looked vaguely familiar from the photo albums, but at the time, he couldn’t be certain she wasn’t working with the FBI.
At least not until Claire returned after her night out with Chip. Then it became clear that Lucy was who she said she was, and that she was incapable of hiding anything.
Lucy returned to the couch with a bowl of popcorn and began a rapid-fire interrogation. He told her all about his unceremonious exit from working on SureFired, as well as his evasion of the FBI.
He felt awkward talking so much – he normally wasn’t much of a talker – and decided to change the subject by asking her to tell him about her life.
“Okay,” she said, smiling broadly. “It all started when I was born.” She paused, then burst out laughing. “I’m just kidding. I won’t go back that far. I mean, you already know about the plane crash. That’s actually the first thing I remember.”
“Really? You remember the crash?”
Lucy shook her head. “Not the crash itself. But I remember being afraid of planes, even when they flew overhead. It used to freak me out. Claire had to take me to a kid therapist.”
“Oh yeah?” Maybe if Marty’s parents had taken him to a therapist, they could’ve found a way to tell him he was adopted.
“I still can’t get on a plane.” Lucy let out a sigh. “Claire took all of us to therapy, but I was the oldest and actually, you know, knew that my parents were gone.”
“How old were your sisters? When the accident happened.”
“They weren’t even one yet,” Lucy said. “To them, Claire’s always been Mom. But to me, I had a mom, and Aunt Claire was always Aunt Claire.”
He frowned. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. She’s great. And I should be over it by now.” Lucy stared into space for a moment before snapping her attention back to him. “What about you? You said you’d just found out you were adopted?”
He nodded. “Yeah, a few weeks ago. For those few weeks, I thought my biological mom was alive. Now I find out she’s gone so…yeah.”
Lucy covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry. You lost your mom in the plane crash too.”
“What did people say about her? What was she like?” asked Marty.
Lucy sat back, squinting her eyes, deep in thought. “I don’t know. When I was younger, no one really talked about her – except for Claire. She’d talk about everyone who’d died in the crash, tell us their favorite movies and foods. She tried to keep us connected, you know?”
Marty nodded. “That’s nice.”
“Then when I got older, things started slipping out,” Lucy said. “From other people, I mean. They’d say that your mom was fun, and wild, and that she had an addiction problem.”
“Ah.” Marty nodded. “When she was living with my parents – my adoptive parents – I think she was healthy. They said she just seemed sad.”
“Really?” Lucy pondered this for a moment. “Maybe she should’ve stayed with them and not gone to that rehab. Things might’ve all turned out differently.”
Marty hadn’t thought of that. “Maybe.”
“When were you born?”
He cleared his throat. “November 7th, 1992.”
“Right, so just a few months before the crash.” Lucy waved a hand. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to say stuff like that. It just pops in my head – other possible lives. You know?”
He smiled. “Yeah.”
“That was dumb, I’m sorry,” Lucy said. “I’m pretty sure Aunt Becca called Grandma and asked for help, actually. Becca said she’d been doing great, but it all fell apart and she didn’t know where to go.”
