Never Knowing by Chevy Stevens

Author:Chevy Stevens [Stevens, Chevy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Thrillers
ISBN: 9781429925129
Google: VBCQxOebMo4C
Amazon: B004SHFF10
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2011-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

SESSION THIRTEEN

I’d like to say I’m doing better. Mostly because I love the way you smile when I tell you things worked out or that something you said helped. A lot of what you and I talk about does help. But lately stuff is coming at me so fast and furious I don’t have time to get over one thing before I’m thrown headfirst into the next.

Every day I Google Danielle’s name to see if there’s another article. Her family started a memorial Web site and I can’t stop looking at her photos and reading the little facts that made up her life. She was supposed to be a bridesmaid in her friend’s wedding this summer and they’d just had their dresses fitted. I cried, thinking of her dress hanging in a closet somewhere. You asked if I might be obsessing about the victims because I’m trying to come to terms with my own worst fears of losing my daughter, but I don’t think that’s it. I don’t know why I put myself into Danielle’s pain, why I conjure poignant images, each more painful than the last. Why I can’t stop wanting to know everything about her life.

You taught me years ago that we can’t choose how we feel about something; we can just choose how we deal with those feelings. But sometimes even when you have a choice, the things you’re choosing between are so horrible it doesn’t feel like much of a choice at all.

* * *

Saturday morning I was at the grocery store with Ally when my cell finally rang. I didn’t recognize the number, but the area code was BC. I answered with a cautious, “Hello?”

“You didn’t tell me you had a daughter.”

I stopped in the middle of the aisle as fear gripped tight around my chest. A few paces in front of me, Ally was pushing a small buggy, with her red purse slung over her shoulder. She stopped and examined a bag of pasta, her lips pursed.

I said, “No, I didn’t.”

“Why?”

I thought about Danielle. If I didn’t say the right thing I might be next. My face felt hot and my vision blurred. I forced myself to take a breath. I had to sound calm—had to keep him calm.

“I was being cautious. You hurt people, and—”

“She’s my granddaughter!”

Ally wheeled her cart back toward me. I pressed the phone against my chest.

“Sweetie, why don’t you go to the end and pick out some cereal?” She loves examining all the boxes for their various prizes. Picks one, puts it back, picks another. Normally I hated it.

John said, “Is she with you right now?”

Crap. He heard me. “We’re grocery shopping.”

“What’s her name?”

Every fiber of my body wanted to lie, but he might already know.

“Ally.” She glanced up. I smiled and she went back to debating cereal options.

“How old is she?”

“Six.”

“You should have told me about her.”

I wanted to tell him he had no right to know anything about my life, but this was not the time to piss him off.

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