“I can’t.”
“I need you, Anya. I need to make it all up to you. I should never have let your hand go. I hate myself for it.”
If I went to the cemetery and saw all of this through a different lens—saw that Cassius had a hand in harming children—I’d never recover.
And anyway, I didn’t believe it. Because love had a way of shining the truth where lies liked to hide.
Shaking my head, I told her I didn’t want to go.
“I’ll tell Archie to meet us there,” she whispered.
Anya
All I could think about as I walked arm in arm with Mom through the Lafayette Cemetery, was if Cassius saw me he would be heartbroken.
Because this looked like I’d gone back to them. Yet there was still hope for us and maybe, just maybe, he’d know it was all part of the plan to get back to him.
The insanity continued. Mom acted like the perfect parent, going on a late afternoon stroll with me, her well-behaved daughter.
The graveyard was a short walk from home. It took mere minutes for us to get here. I was grateful there were no tourists to shuffle by. No one to pretend to smile at.
Maybe when we got there, I’d be brave enough to ask her about why she’d given us the same names as her other children. That conversation loomed closer, and though uncomfortable, it couldn’t go unsaid. I wondered if she knew I’d managed to get inside the mausoleum.
We were closer to it now, and that same old trepidation picked up its pace, causing my heart to race. Seeing a coffin with your name on it does something to you. It makes you question life. Makes you nervous to take a wrong step.
It makes you question everything.
Marveling at my ability to keep up the pretense, I squeezed Mom’s arm to comfort her. I acted like all those years of neglect meant nothing. That I had shed all that loneliness and forgave her absence.
She seemed to fall for it, too.
As though my love for Cassius could fade that easily. I had come back for him, hadn’t I? Surely, he would still have some love left for me. I missed him badly, my feelings not fading but growing more intense.
When I saw others walking around the graves, I looked to see if they were Archie. Mom knew that saying he’d meet us here would be all she’d have to say.
She swapped a comforting smile with me when we turned the corner. Her eyes left mine to fix on the entrance, turning panic-stricken.
Blinking against the sunset that glared its rays over the Glassman name.
She hurried ahead through the door of the mausoleum, frantic. I followed her, my hands trembling at the mess. The door was off its hinges. The worst kind of vandalism.
Inside was that familiar stuffiness of dust and dimness, the air heavy with a musty scent.
My hand cupped my mouth when I saw it—
The cover to the tomb was shoved away from its seal. The one with my name carved into its marble base.
A deathly scream tore from Victoria as she peered inside. Joining her, I braved to see what she was looking at. Within the stone base was nothing. No evidence of disruption. Just a cavern where a coffin should be.
Victoria fished inside her coat pocket for her phone.
“Where’s her coffin?” I cringed, even as it made no sense.
With shaking fingers, Victoria traced the number on her phone. “Stephen, pick up. Stephen!”
“What’s going on?”
“He knows!” she yelled. “He knows they’re alive.” Her eyes were wide with dread.
Alive?
She glared at the screen. “What do you mean you already know?” she screamed into it. “When did he come to the house?”
“Cassius came to the house?” My heart set off at a rapid beat.
“He couldn’t have found them!” She let out a primal scream.
Throat tight and chest constricting, I drew in a breath but was unable to fill my lungs. I didn’t understand what was going on. Mom had weaved so many lies I struggled to unravel them.
Just twenty minutes ago, she’d tried to make me believe Cassius had harmed them. Yet, all this time, their children were alive, living somewhere else. All the pieces swarmed together in a hornet’s nest of lies.
The last piece of her scheming was too grueling to comprehend. Or endure. It cut into me. That primal shriek of panic of a mother’s love.
Staggering back, I was blinded by the horror of having lived with these people all my life. Crouching against another tomb, I tried to breathe.
“I went to see Stephen and threatened his children.” Cassius had told me what he’d done all those years ago.
They had hidden them. Hidden their firstborn children from him.
“You told him about this place?” She threw her phone down.
The screen smashed.
“What’s going on, Mom?”
“What have you done?” She towered over me. “You told Cassius about the tomb. You led him here.”