much about nothing. They were at loggerheads from age thirteen until she left for college. On the other hand, Selena had worshipped her father; his fall from grace was brutal for Selena. Marisol was always a momma’s girl, tender and attached. Even now, they were closer than Cora was with Selena. Not that she loved her younger any less. It was just a chemistry thing.
“No,” said Cora, sharper than she intended. “I didn’t think you had a right to know. It was your father’s responsibility to tell you what he’d done. If you’re going to recriminate anyone, let it be him.”
Selena drew in and released a rush of breath. The look on her face—bewilderment, disappointment—put a squeeze on Cora’s heart.
“Mom,” she said. Selena put a hand to her forehead. “This woman—Pearl. She approached me on the train. I don’t know why, but I told her—things about my life.”
“What things?”
“About Graham. And since then—she’s been texting me. Now Geneva is missing.”
“Oh,” said Cora, feeling the weight of it. What was the girl capable of? She’d done so much damage already.
A few weeks after she saw the girl, Cora noticed a large sum of money disappear from one of the accounts Doug thought he had hidden from her. But Cora, for all her many failings, wasn’t one of those women who didn’t pay attention to money. Doug wanted to control everything, but she always had access to accounts. She made sure of it, snooping if she had to for account numbers and passwords. She kept records; she was biding her time, hoping to launch the girls, at least to college, before she left.
On a night when Selena was off sleeping over at a girlfriend’s house, Cora confronted Doug—about the money, about the strange, hovering girl. Cora had expected the usual denials, accusations of instability, a furious exit—that was the usual way of things. This time, though, she’d already called a lawyer. She was done.
But he didn’t deny. Instead he started weeping. All his little secrets and lies, they all came out. Pearl. Another family, a woman and two children in Atlanta. A third girlfriend. It was a sickness, he said. He was seeking help.
Could she forgive him?
No. She could not. Not again. Not anymore.
Dominoes. Tip one and they all fall down. That was what happened to their life when Pearl entered. Doug’s daughter from one of his many affairs. Selena and Marisol’s half sister. She didn’t just want money. She wanted revenge. She ruined Doug—it all came out.
Now, Cora told Selena everything that she had tried to hide. All of it.
And when she was done, they sat in silence. There was only the ticking of the grandfather clock in the foyer, Selena’s breath.
“I’m sorry,” Cora said when Selena said nothing, her eyes glassy, foot bouncing. “I’m sorry I kept so many secrets from you. I thought it was for the best.”
Her words sounded weak, watery on the air.
“So,” said Selena. “Has she been watching us—watching me—all these years?”
The thought made Cora go cold. Had she?
Cora had let that part of her life fall away. In her new world, the one she built with Paulo, she’d let the past retreat into memory. Doug—his affairs, his nasty controlling ways—they faded into the distance. She rarely thought about him—or about Pearl, the lost girl who wanted to hurt her father and did.
“What does she want?” asked Selena.
“More money maybe,” said Cora. “Your father; I’m not sure he’s managed his assets well. I don’t know what he has left. If he’s been giving her money. I just don’t know.”
But even as she said it, she knew that money wasn’t what Pearl wanted. It was never what she wanted. She was a pain giver. She wanted to hurt people, acting from whatever psychic wound she carried inside. Cora saw that in the girl in the grocery store, the one hovering by the yard. And now, years later, the one on the street in front of Selena’s house. An injured animal, desperate, in pain, dangerous.
Was she stalking Selena? Had she orchestrated the encounter on the train? What did she want from Selena now?
Selena was staring at the picture on Oliver’s iPad.
“She looks like him,” Selena said. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it. Or I guess on some level, I did. Maybe that’s why I subconsciously hooked in to her. There’s a connection.”
A connection. Yes, Cora had felt it. A pull to that lost girl. Maybe she wanted money. Maybe she wanted to cause harm. But beneath