at Stonehaven, right? When he caught me and Benny in the cottage together. You were there.”
She blinks. Her eyes are filling with tears.
“Oh God, Mom.” I feel ill. I imagine my mother cowering in the bushes outside the caretaker’s cottage, listening to William Liebling berate me. I remember how it felt to be naked and vulnerable in front of a strange, powerful man—You are nothing, spat into my face—and I’m suddenly furious that she didn’t come into the cottage to defend me. I stand up from the couch and pace back and forth in front of the coffee table. “Why didn’t you stop him?”
Her voice is so small I can barely hear her. “I was ashamed. I didn’t want you to know that I was with him.”
This stops me for a minute. “Why were you even there?”
She goes quiet again.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Mom. Enough with the twenty questions. Just tell me.”
She stares at the cord wrapped painfully tight around her hand. She winches it even tighter, then releases it. When she speaks again, her voice is slow and deliberate, as if she’s measuring out each word with a teaspoon.
“His wife was out of town,” she begins. I nod, remembering. “He brought me there, to the cottage. It was the first time I had been to Stonehaven, but he wouldn’t take me into the main house. I was going to tell him that day. That I was pregnant. I had a test with me and my friend’s pee in a cup, in case he didn’t believe me. But he opened the door to the cottage…and right away we could hear you.” Her voice cracks a little. “I ran back outside and I thought he would follow, but he didn’t. So I hid, and waited. But, darling—I swear. I didn’t know it was you in there.” Her imploring eyes seek out mine. “Until he came back out and was so mad.”
“At me?”
Her throat works up and down. “At us. He thought…you and Benny…that you and I were in it together. A team. Targeting his family. He was paranoid. And there was no way I could pretend to be pregnant after that.” There’s something flat and accusatory in her voice, and I realize with a start that she might actually blame me for stepping in the way of her con. “Anyway, that was it. It was over. He dumped me.”
“And made us leave town.” There’s a long silence. “Right? Mom? That’s why we moved so suddenly? He forced us out of Tahoe because he wanted to break me and Benny up.” But even as I’m asking, I know that this isn’t true; this was never true. I remember my mother’s caginess the day that we left, the way she was so reluctant to elaborate about what the Lieblings had done to drive us from town. Not to protect me, but to protect herself.
Her head tilts up to look at me. Her eyes are blurred with tears. “We needed money. Nina…the bills. Without him—I couldn’t….It was too hard.”
I sit heavily on the sofa, which groans beneath me and releases a faint puff of dusty air. Of course. The letter: My silence came too cheap. I’m worth more than what you gave me last June. “We left town because you blackmailed him? God, no wonder Benny wouldn’t speak to me after that!!”
“Nina.” She huddles in the corner of the couch, shrinking into herself. “I’m sorry about Benny. But your thing with Benny—it wouldn’t have lasted.”
“What was the trade, Mom?” I’m yelling at her, and I’m sure Lisa can probably hear me all the way in her house next door, but I can’t stop the anger that is pouring out. “What did you demand from him?”
A tear spills from her eye and worms through the soft crevices of her hollow cheek. “I said…I’d tell his wife about our affair. I had photos, compromising ones I’d taken just in case, when we…” She trails off. “Anyway, I said I’d leave town, if he paid me off. That you’d leave his son alone.”
I think back to the day that I came home to the packed car, and my