“Don’t hang up.”
I hear deep breathing and then a succession of small gasps.
“I knew . . .” she whispers.
“What?”
“I always knew you were still out there. A mother always knows.”
A mother . . . a mother always knows.
Her voice is muffled and I realize she is crying.
“I can’t talk long,” I finally say.
She sniffs a few times. They sound wet through the phone. “Where are you?”
“I’m . . . away,” I answer, looking around the apartment. “I’ll be okay.”
“But why—”
“I have to ask you something.”
“Ask me? I don’t understand.” She grows frantic. “We need to get you help. We need to get you—”
“Please. Just let me ask you this,” I cut back.
I can hear her trying to calm herself. “Okay. I’m listening.”
I close my eyes. I can’t ask with my eyes open. If I do, somehow, I will see her reaction even though we are nowhere near each other.
“Have you always known?”
I force the question out like it’s hot, as if it burns my lips.
“What? I don’t quite—”
“Listen to me, Mom. Have you always known?”
She goes silent again.
“Mom?”
“Known what?” She sounds fearful. She sounds resigned.
“About Marlow’s mother?”
“Dear God,” she says.
“About my—”
I stop there. I can’t say it. I expect her to go quiet as well. I expect her to never be able to answer and, somehow, I wish for that.
“I knew,” she answers.
I sit down at the table. My legs can no longer support me, each of her words a new weight clipped to my belly.
She heaves a huge sigh and sob all at once.
“I was the one who told him to take care of it. But I never in a million years thought—”
“Mom . . .”
“She wouldn’t leave us alone, Isla. She was determined to hurt our family.”
I shiver. I shake my head.
“She must have followed us. I don’t know. But when I saw her . . .”
“Please. Mom . . .”
She can’t end it there. She rattles on and the more she speaks, the words sliding out all too easily, the more I feel like I’m going to vomit.
“He was so angry. Furious. He went out to talk to her and then he came back. And he told me she wouldn’t be coming back anymore. I didn’t know what he meant by that. But then—”
“Stop. Please stop,” I whisper.
She is crying again now. “We had to. We had to do it.”
