Page 85 of Silent Watch
"Do you?Because I spent fourteen months thinking you were dead.Not missing.Not off the grid.Dead.I planned your memorial in my head, Harper.I picked the readings.I chose the flowers.I had conversations with your father's headstone about how I was going to survive losing both of you."
Harper's throat tightened.She pressed her back against the kitchen counter and gripped the edge with her free hand.Caleb was on the deck, giving her privacy, though she suspected he could hear every word through the screen door.
"A friend of mine died for this story, Mom.I couldn't let it die with him."
"I know.I read about that too.The journalist in Bradenton."Her mother's voice cracked for the first time."My daughter almost died, and I found out from a byline."
"I couldn't call.I couldn't risk it.The people I was investigating had the resources to monitor communications and trace phone records.If they'd found you through me, I never would have forgiven myself."
"So you let me think you were dead instead."
"Yes."
The silence that followed was the heaviest thing Harper had carried since the night she'd left Bradenton.Heavier than running.Heavier than the aliases.Heavier than the morning she'd woken up in a motel room in Apalachicola and realized she couldn't remember the last time anyone had called her by her real name.
"Are you safe now?"her mother asked.
"I'm safe.I'm with someone.Someone who's helping me."
"The man in the story?The analyst?"
"His name is Caleb."
"Is he good to you?"
"He makes me breakfast every morning.Even when I tell him I'm not hungry."
Her mother let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob."Your father used to do that.Leave a plate on the counter every morning before he went to work.Said a woman who skipped breakfast was a woman looking for trouble."
"Mom."
"I need to see you, Harper.I need to see your face and know you're real and not just a name on a screen."
"Soon.I promise.There's more work to do here, but when it's finished, I'll come.Or you can come to me.There's a town called Blossom Springs.You'd like it."
"You're not coming home, are you."It wasn't a question.
"I think I might be home already.I'm still figuring it out."
"Promise me you'll be careful."
"I promise."
"Promise me for real, Harper.Not the way you promised when you were sixteen and took my car to Daytona."
"That was one time."
"It was three times.I counted."
Harper laughed.It came out thin and wet, and she pressed her hand over her eyes and stood in the kitchen and let the tears come.They were quiet tears, the kind that didn't announce themselves, and they ran down her face while her mother breathed on the other end of the line.
"I love you, Mom.I'm sorry I couldn't tell you."
"I love you too.And I'm still angry.Those two things are going to coexist for a while."
"I can live with that."
After she hung up, Harper stood at the counter and pressed both palms flat against the cool surface and let the weight of all those months of lies settle over her.Her mother had believed every one.Had planned a memorial.Had talked to a headstone.
