Page 114 of Take This Heart
“Goldie!” I move toward her, but she takes off running.
I want to follow her, but the sheriff moves next to me, his thumbs in his pockets.
“I’d like to bring you each in for questioning, starting with Ms. Piper and Mr. Lombardi here.”
“We’ll be happy to cooperate, Sheriff Daniels,” Everett says. “We won’t be pressing any charges. This is just a big family misunderstanding and a mistake.”
Ava looks at him in surprise and then she bursts into tears. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I was just so angry. I’m still so angry. And I don’t know what the truth is anymore.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED
GOLDIE
I feel like my life just got tossed into the air like confetti, and now I’m trying to find each small piece, hoping that somehow, it will make sense.
It doesn’t.
I don’t think it ever will again.
I know we can’t possibly know everything there is to know about our parents, but this isbig.
My mom was everything to me. My anchor, my solace, the one who gave me the freedom to be who I am, the person I thought was the most honest in the whole wide world…and yet, there was this secret she carried our whole lives.Our whole lives.
And my dad carried it with her.
My stomach roils. I’m dizzy with how fast my life just changed.
The fire.
Ava.
I have a sister.
And then the second hit nearly takes me out.
Milo knew.
I go to my room and collapse on the bed, numb. My grandmas putter around the house, oblivious about this upheaval. Did Grandma Donna know all along? Did she encourage Mom to have an adoption? Did Mom feel like she had to do it?
My heart breaks for my mom and the pain she must have endured to go through that alone.
It’s a while before Tully knocks on my door and then sticks his head in.
“You okay?” he asks.
“I don’t know. No.”
The second he crosses the room and sits next to me on the bed, I start sobbing. He wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me to him. I bury my face in his chest like we’re five again and we’re hiding in a scary basement during a thunderstorm.
“Yeah. It’s hard to believe,” he says. “How was she able to keep that secret for so long?”
“And Dad too!”
“I know. I think I’m in shock.”
“And it’s Ava freaking Piper,” I groan.
