Puppet Read online

  “So you decided to kill him instead?”

  “I don’t remember deciding anything. I don’t remember finding the gun or holding it in my hand. His gun, incidentally. One he’d bought for his protection when we were married. Ironic, isn’t it? Anyway, all I remember is sitting in that hotel lobby the next day, waiting. And then seeing him push through those revolving doors, and me getting up and walking over to him. And the look of casual dismissal on his face when he saw me. Just some old lady getting in his way, he was thinking. And then that click of recognition in his eyes when it suddenly dawned on him who I was. As clear as the cocking of a trigger.” She takes a deep breath before continuing in one long rush. “And then several loud bangs and he was on the floor, and people were screaming, and he was bleeding all over that beautiful carpet, and, well, you know the rest.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the police the truth?”

  “How could I do that?” Gwen Price asks her daughter. “How could I do that to Lucy? It was my fault he took her. Everything that happened to her—my fault. Can’t you see I had to protect her, that at the very least, I owed her my silence?”

  “And you just assumed if you confessed, nobody would bother investigating further?”

  “Nobody did,” her mother states. “The police had all they needed. Nobody really cared why I did it. Except you.” She smiles. “I’d forgotten how stubborn you can be.”

  “How would you know anything about me?” Amanda asks, her anger returning to resonate through her voice. “All this time I’ve been away, you never once tried to contact me. You never once tried to see me.”

  “It took me years to get my act together,” her mother says. “When I finally got clean and sober, I hired a private detective. He found you in Florida. I bought a ticket, and then another, and another. But I could never bring myself to get on that plane. I told myself it was because you were doing so well without me, and what was the point in reopening old wounds? And I consoled myself with the knowledge that, unlike your sister, at least I knew where you were. I could watch you from a distance. But the truth was I was scared. I knew what a horrible mess I’d made of everything. I knew how awful I’d been to you, especially after your father died. I knew no amount of apologizing could make that right.”

  Her mother’s harsh judgment, never far from her ear, comes hurtling toward Amanda, like a lance aimed directly at her soul. Well, with a daughter like you, no wonder your father had a heart attack.

  “You told me I was responsible for Daddy’s death.”

  “Oh, God. That was so unfair. And so untrue. Sweetheart, if anyone was responsible for your father’s heart attack, it was me, not you.”

  Amanda shakes her head. “I was a nightmare.”

  “You were a teenager. I was the nightmare.”

  Tears fill Amanda’s eyes. “I let him down. Every day, one way or another, I let him down.”

  “No, darling,” her mother says adamantly. “He let you down.”

  “What?”

  “He was so busy taking care of me that he forgot his most important job was to take care of you. No matter how independent you were, no matter how strong you seemed, no matter what attitude you projected. No matter what. You were his little girl and his first duty was to protect you. Even if the person he had to protect you from was me.” She reaches out her hand, returns it to her side when Amanda refuses to acknowledge it. “It wasn’t your fault, Mandy. It was never your fault.”

  The words spin gently around Amanda, wrapping her in a warm cocoon. Like a prisoner wrongly convicted and pardoned after a lifetime in jail, she’s been completely and unexpectedly exonerated of all wrongdoing. She’s free.

  It wasn’t your fault, Mandy. It was never your fault.

  Amanda collapses back onto the bench. She is not guilty.

  “I’m so sorry, darling,” her mother continues. “Sorry for everything I put you through, sorry for all the terrible things I said. If there is anything I can say or do to make up for all the pain I’ve caused you …”

  Amanda stares into her mother’s bruise-covered face. How beautiful she looks, she is thinking. “There is something,” she hears herself say.

  “What?”

  “You can plead not guilty.”

  “What?” her mother says again.

  “You were in an obvious state of disassociation. No jury in the world is going to convict you once they hear your story.”

  Her mother shakes her head vehemently from side to side. “No jury is ever going to hear that story. No one else is ever going to hear that story.”

  “It’s too late,” Amanda tells her.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “The police have already heard it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Her mother suddenly becomes agitated, her fingers pulling at the folds of her sweatpants. “You had no right. You had no right to tell them anything.”

  “She didn’t,” Ben says.

  “What? Then how …?”

  “Lucy went to the police last night.”

  “Lucy went to the police?”

  “She told them the truth.”

  “No. You’re lying. You’re trying to trick me.”

  “No, Mother,” Amanda says. “No more lies.”

  “Oh, God. My poor sweet girl. Is she all right?”

  “Why don’t you ask her yourself?” Amanda says, as Ben stands up and walks toward the doors to the adjoining corridor.

  And suddenly there she is, standing in the doorway, framed by the sunlight that pours in from tall, nearby windows. Hayley Mallins, a grown woman who was once a young girl named Lucy Tureck.

  Her mother’s daughter.

  And my sister, Amanda thinks as the woman cautiously approaches. She is wearing a pale pink sweater over a pair of charcoal gray pants, and her dark hair is pushed neatly behind her ears. Although her eyes are slightly puffy from crying and her lips are noticeably trembling, there is an aura of calm about her, Amanda realizes. Serenity surrounds her. Like the girl in Renoir’s painting, the one standing on a swing.

  Her mother rises slowly to her feet. She teeters there unsteadily, as if held upright by delicate strings, as the stranger who is her daughter draws closer. Invisible wires pull her lips open and apart. “Lucy,” she mouths, no sound emerging.

  “Mother,” comes the silent response.

  The two women fall into each other’s arms, her mother’s hands digging into the soft wool of Lucy’s sweater, Lucy’s fists clutching at the harsh cotton of her mother’s sweatshirt. After several minutes, they pull apart, slowly, reluctantly, their eyes searching each other’s face for vestiges of the past, their fingers tracing each new, unfamiliar line. Amanda absorbs the scene from a distance, watching her mother plant at least a dozen kisses along her sister’s cheeks, and trying not to imagine the feel of those lips against her own skin.

  “I love you,” she hears.

  “I love you,” someone whispers in return.

  Amanda swats away an unwanted tear as the women fold effortlessly back into each other’s arms, swaying together rhythmically on their invisible swing. She shakes her head impatiently. What the hell is happening? Surely she isn’t jealous or upset. God knows she wants no part of such a maudlin display. So what’s the matter with her? Why is she feeling so left out? Why is she tearing up over two women she barely knows, and doesn’t want to know? Everything has worked out perfectly. Her mother and sister have been reunited. No doubt the crown attorney will be amenable to a deal. She can finally get the hell out of this miserable city once and for all. There you go. Everybody wins. Everything’s fine.

  Everything’s fucking fine.

  “Puppet?”

  The word floats through the air toward her, beckoning her like a crooked finger. Amanda watches in wonder as the closed circle that is her mother and sister opens like a flower, their arms extending longingly toward her. No, she thinks. I don’t want to go. There isn’t enough room up there for me. I’ll fall off.
It’s too scary. It’s too dangerous.

  Except that even as Amanda is shaking her head no, her body is propelling her forward. She feels her sister’s arm reach out to grab her elbow. She feels her mother’s hand encircling her back. The two women lift her up. Amanda steps onto the swing.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THEY drive in silence to the airport. It is a beautiful, cloudless day, the sun a bold yellow ball in the middle of a dense blue sky. The kind of day that fools you into assuming it’s warmer than it actually is, Amanda thinks, wrapping her arms around her new parka, wondering when she’ll ever get to wear it in Florida. She was foolish to have spent so much money for something she has so little use for, she is thinking. And red, of all colors. What on earth possessed her?

  Obviously, she wasn’t herself. Her evil twin, she decides, with a silent chuckle. Or maybe her good one. It was surely this other self who’d agreed to let Ben drive her to the airport when he showed up at her mother’s house at six thirty this morning, despite their already having said their good-byes the previous day. Hadn’t they both agreed it would be easier that way for both of them, less gut-wrenching and certainly more adult, a fitting and calm conclusion to a surprising and tumultuous week? Hadn’t they hugged chastely and wished each other well? Hadn’t he promised to keep her apprised of her mother’s progress? Hadn’t she promised to stay in touch? Hadn’t they congratulated one another on a job well done?

  The crown attorney had postured stubbornly for several hours, but by yesterday’s end, common sense had prevailed, and he and Ben had hammered out a deal, the end result of which would see her mother plead to temporary insanity and spend a minimum amount of time in a mental health facility. By the time she was released, likely in six months, Lucy would have settled up her affairs back in England and returned with her children to Toronto. Thanks to Rodney Tureck’s recently deceased mother, she’d even have a bit of money in the bank. Not to mention the $100,000 still sitting in a safety-deposit box in North York.

  So that was it. Case closed. Mission accomplished. Her work here was done.

  “Are you okay?” Ben asks, breaking the prolonged silence, his voice steady and in control, as if he is comfortable with her decision to return to Florida, as if he has indeed gotten her out of his system once and for all.

  Amanda nods, almost afraid to say anything out loud. The truth is she barely recognizes her own voice these days, and after the events of the last week, who knows what’s liable to come popping out of her mouth? She arrived in this city a virtual orphan. She is leaving, somebody’s daughter, somebody’s sister, somebody’s aunt. A former husband has become her closest friend. Is it any wonder she barely knows who she is anymore?

  She needs time to digest everything that’s happened. She needs distance. She needs to discover who Amanda Price Myers Travis really is.

  Bullshit! she thinks impatiently, looking toward Ben. She knows exactly who she is. She doesn’t need time. She doesn’t need space. What she needs is sitting right beside her. What she needs is to bury her pride and tell Ben she’s changed her mind, tell him that while Jennifer may be a perfectly competent crown attorney and a nice woman, she’s definitely not the woman for him, that there’s only one woman for him, and that woman wants another chance.

  “So when are you taking the car in to be fixed?” she says instead.

  “I thought I’d call the dealership on Monday,” Ben answers, eyes on the road ahead. “Hopefully, the repairs won’t cost too much.”

  Again Amanda nods. She thinks she should probably reiterate her apology, at least offer to pay for the damages—the accident was her fault after all. But her apology has already been accepted and her offer would only be rejected, so what’s the point? Ben is as proud as he is stubborn.

  I’d forgotten how stubborn you can be, she hears her mother say.

  She and Ben are indeed very much alike.

  Isn’t that why you left? she hears him ask.

  It was the right decision then, and it’s the right decision now, she decides. You have to move forward, move on. You can’t turn back time. It’s a huge mistake to try.

  The highway is less crowded than on previous trips, although there are still plenty of cars on the road. Amanda wonders where they’re all going at barely seven o’clock in the morning. The old Corvette bounces over a large pothole. That’s the problem with a car whose chassis is built so low to the ground, she thinks. You feel every bump in the road.

  “Hungry?” Ben asks as they pass the Airport Hilton.

  Amanda shakes her head, recalling the young couple kissing in front of the Hilton’s elevators. She hopes they’re enjoying their honeymoon in the Bahamas. She hopes they have a long and happy life together.

  “We can grab something at the airport, if you’d like.”

  “No,” she says, louder than she’d intended. “Sorry,” she apologizes in the next breath.

  “What for?”

  “Can we make it one size fits all?”

  Ben smiles. “You don’t owe me any apologies, Amanda.”

  “I think I do.”

  “I’m a big boy. I knew what I was getting into.”

  Glad one of us did, she thinks, looking out the side window as Ben turns into the lane leading to Terminal 2. “You can just drop me off in front,” she tells him. “There’s no need for you to come inside.”

  “Yeah, right,” he says, entering the parking lot. The car twists up a series of ramps and eventually finds a spot on the fifth floor near the skywalk to the departure level. Ben turns off the engine, removes the keys from the ignition, and turns toward her, a warm smile on his face. “Here we are.”

  “Here we are,” she mimics.

  He vaults out of the car, grabbing her overnight bag from the tiny backseat, and opening her door before she has a chance to unbuckle her seat belt.

  “You’re awfully chipper,” she tells him, pushing herself to her feet, bidding a silent farewell to the old car as she follows after him. “Glad to be getting rid of me?”

  He smiles. “All good things must come to an end.”

  Amanda fights the urge to push him down the nearest escalator. She follows him into the already crowded terminal. “God, where is everybody going?”

  “Florida,” Ben answers. He leads her toward the rows of automatic check-in machines. “You have a credit card?”

  “I can do it.” Amanda inserts her credit card into the designated slot, then types in the necessary information. They wait in silence for her boarding pass to be spit out. “So, I guess this is it,” she says, forcing a smile onto her face.

  “We have time,” he tells her. “We could grab some coffee.”

  “No, I think I’d rather get settled. I still have to preclear U.S. customs and go through security. Who knows how long that’ll take.”

  He glances down at the floor, then up again. “So, I guess this is it,” he says, repeating her words.

  “This is it,” she agrees.

  He leans in, his lips grazing the side of her cheek. “Take care of yourself, Amanda.”

  She resists the impulse to touch the spot he kissed, seal the kiss in. “You too.”

  “You’ll call me if you need anything?”

  “Absolutely. And you’ll call me if there’s any news about my mother?”

  “You can visit her anytime, you know,” he reminds her.

  She nods. They’ve already been over all this. “I’ll have to see when I can get some time off. It might not be for a while.”

  “Whenever,” he says. They walk toward the entrance for U.S. customs. Already a lot of people are standing in line. “I think there are some forms you have to fill out.” He points to a table of such forms just inside the doors.

  “Oh, right. I better do that.”

  “Boarding pass, please,” the uniformed guard says, holding out her hand.

  “So, I guess this is really it,” Amanda says with a laugh.

  “This is really it.”

  “Good
-bye, Ben.”

  “Good-bye, Puppet.”

  And then suddenly they are in each other’s arms, and he is kissing her hair, her cheeks, her eyes, her lips. And she is kissing him back, and crying, and holding on to him for dear life. Don’t let me leave, she is thinking. Please. Don’t let me leave.

  “You’re blocking the way,” the guard informs them curtly. “I’m afraid you’ll have to step aside.”

  Amanda reluctantly pulls out of Ben’s arms. She takes a long, deep breath, tries to regroup. It’s time to move forward, she reminds herself. Time to move on. “That’s all right. I’m ready.” She offers the woman her boarding pass. The woman looks it over, then nods her inside. Amanda walks through the doors, then turns back to Ben. Tell me to stay, she appeals to him silently. “Call me sometime,” she says out loud, watching him disappear into the crowd. So this is it, she is thinking. This is really it.

  She fills out the necessary forms and takes her place in line. Kir-rell, she recites silently as a merciful numbness spreads from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. Kir-rell. Kir-rell. And then somebody’s cell phone cuts into the hypnotic rhythm of her borrowed mantra. Her cell phone, she realizes, snatching it from her purse.

  “Too soon to call?” Ben’s voice asks in her ear.

  “Where are you?”

  “In my car. And believe it or not, it’s starting to snow again.”

  Amanda glances toward the long window at the front of the large room. It is indeed starting to snow.

  “And I was thinking,” he continues, “that I haven’t had a vacation in some time, and I’d really like to get away somewhere warm for a few weeks.”