An idea formed in her head. Wild, desperate, but possible.
She could run away.
No one could stare at her if she wasn’t there, could they? She didn’t have to go to school ever again. She had some savings and if she wore a push-up bra and a ton of makeup she could pass for eighteen. She’d get a job. Would she need her passport for that? Her birth certificate?
With a groan, she rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. It was still covered in those tiny fluorescent stars her mother had put there when Mack was six. Bookshelves lined the wall above her bed so she could reach out her hand and grab one whenever she couldn’t sleep, which was depressingly often. Closest to her was her tattered copy of Moby-Dick and next to that The Old Man and the Sea. Her mother wanted to box them up and put them in the attic but Mack couldn’t bear to be parted from them.
She didn’t much like English or writing essays, but she did love reading and those books connected her to her past. They made her feel as if she belonged somewhere. Not London, where the traffic and the people crammed together so tightly that there were days when it felt as if there was no oxygen left, but somewhere by the sea where there was air and room to breathe. Her favorite place in the world was The Captain’s House on Martha’s Vineyard, where her other grandmother lived. The house had a room on the top floor where Mack always slept. If you half closed your eyes you could imagine you were on a ship.
Maybe she could get a job on a boat and spend months away at sea like her ancestors.
Not whaling like the old days, she’d never do anything that cruel, but anything that meant not being back on land for at least a year.
If she got really lucky she’d be shipwrecked like Robinson Crusoe.
Anything was more appealing than going back to school on Monday.
She wished she’d never done that stupid ancestry project; then she never would have dug out her birth certificate and found out the truth.
Instead of a name where her father’s name should have been, there was a line. A line. Like she’d appeared from nowhere or something.
She’d stared at it for at least an hour, sure there was some mistake.
Her parents must have filled it out wrong. Some stupid admin person must have had a hearing problem. Hello? Why has someone drawn a line? The father’s name is Edward Hudson. Hudson, like the river.
She’d bombarded a search engine with questions.
What does it mean when it’s not your dad’s name on your birth certificate?
Can your birth certificate be wrong?
She’d wanted there to be an alternative explanation, something simple, but the simple truth was she had no idea who her father was and her birth certificate was no help at all.
Every time she’d looked at it she’d felt a hot flush of embarrassment.
And almost as bad as not knowing the identity of her father was the thought of her mother having sex with someone. If there was one thing no teenager ever wanted to think about it was parents having sex.
She shook her head, trying to get rid of the vision.
She’d always been close to her mother, but now she couldn’t even be in a room with her without imagining her with a man. It was hideous.
She’d worried that her dad might find out and leave. Then she’d be shuttled back and forth between warring parents like a couple of the kids in her class.
But now Ed was never going to find out.
He was never coming back.
It felt as if someone had thrown her emotions into a blender. One portion of misery, two of fear, one of anger and a handful of freshly picked resentment. Pulse on full power until the whole thing is so mixed up you can’t identify any of it and there you have it—one head case smoothie. Drink in one gulp and wonder if you’ll ever feel normal again.
Her phone lit up and she saw Phoebe’s name pop up.
Phoebe the dreamer. Phoebe who, if she knew what Mack was going through, would probably say, Are you sure you’re not a secret princess?
Did her real dad even know she existed? Was he suddenly going to turn up and try to yank her into a whole new life? She wanted to know who he was and what happened next, but it was obvious her mother was freaking so there was no chance of a proper conversation and honestly Mack wasn’t sure she wanted to talk about it. What if the truth was even worse? Maybe her dad was an ax murderer or something. Maybe he’d chopped up old ladies or messed with little kids.
Maybe she’d rather have a line on her birth certificate.
She heard a soft tap on the door and quickly stuffed her phone under the pillow and rolled onto her side, keeping her back to the room.