Page 93 of Dark Roads
“Sorry.” Beth grabbed at her thoughts, sandwiched them together. “I didn’t want to scare you. I wanted to tell you myself.”
“Constable Thompson called.” Her mother stared at Beth’s IV as though she were worried eye contact might set her off. Or maybe it was just painful to look at her face. Beth hadn’t seen the bruises yet, but her eyes and lips felt puffy, her cheekbones ached, and it hurt to speak. Even her teeth throbbed. Beth eased up on the pillow so she could sit straight.
Her mom lifted her gaze. “We don’t understand why you were here. The internship…”
“I lied, Mom. I dropped out of school. I was failing all my classes.”
Her mom’s mouth parted. Her dad blinked, then blinked again.
“You lied?” Her voice was hushed. The first stabs of guilt were stirring in Beth’s stomach, but she had pharmaceutical courage running through her veins.
“We don’t talk. We never talk about anything important.”
“You don’ttellus anything.” Her dad still looked stunned. One hand over his heart.
“You don’task.”
“We were giving you space.”
“Space? For what? I couldn’t go to class. I couldn’t do anything. I thought I was going to lose my mind.”
“My God.” Tears poured down her mother’s face in long rivulets, the mascara now inky streaks that bowed around her mouth. Beth watched, startled.
“God has nothing to do with it. I don’t understand how you can go to church after what happened to Amber. Why didn’t God protect her, Mom? That’s the real lie. There’s no heaven. No mercy or angels. She’s just a bunch of bones. She’sgone.”
Her mom’s chest was rising and falling in quick gasps, but she was still holding her emotions in tight, her arms wrapped around her body. Beth wanted to shake her loose.
Her dad moved closer. “Beth, you’ve always been so independent, pushing us away, wanting to do things on your own. We love you, honey. We’ve always loved you. If you don’t want to go to university anymore, we will deal with it. You can move back home.”
“You’re not angry?”
Her mom pulled tissues out of her pocket and blew her nose. “I amfurious with you for coming to this awful town. I hate that you lied to us. I hate that you have been living at a campsite. You risked your life, and for what? Were you trying to punish us? You don’t think we suffered enough?” Beth had never heard her mother speak with so much force. Her teeth were gritted, and her neck muscles corded. Mad Madeline was leaking through her mother’s carefully constructed facade.
“I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t pretend.”
“Pretendwhat?”
“That I was perfect. You always wanted everything to look so good. Our house had to be tidy. We had to wear those little dresses to church. We had to volunteer, and handwrite thank-you notes, and sing in the choir. You took our report cards to church and showed everyone.”
“I was proud of you!”
“Stop it, Beth. Stop all of this.” Her dad let out a big sigh, ran his hand through his thick hair, almost fully gray now. “Maybe we should have been open about a few more things, but we go to church because it helps. Believing is a choice, Beth. You fault us for trying to find peace?”
“I just don’t understand how youcan.”
“We wake up each day missing her. We go over everything we could have done differently. We count the years until our own deaths when we will see her again. We go through photo albums, and we sit in her room. We cry at night. Is that what you need to hear?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I need to hear all of that.”
“We can only step through a door if you open it.” Memories tangled with feelings and Beth didn’t know what was true anymore. Had she shut them out? Was she the one who closed people off?
“I should’ve tried harder with Amber,” her mom said. “But she was always skipping school and running off with her friends. I was tired of fighting.”
“You should have brought her home.”
“She never returned our messages. We thought that she needed a couple of months to get it out of her system and then she’d see how hard it was on her own.” Her mom’s voice cracked.
Amber could have missed that party. She could have left with someone else at the lake. How many moments could her death have been avoided? There were a thousand scenarios.
