The Torturer's Daughter by Zoe Cannon

Author:Zoe Cannon
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: manuscript - bn format
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Becca sat on the park bench with her mom, watching the sun go down. This park was nothing like her playground. The trees were spaced at precise intervals, the grass got mowed every Saturday, and the playground equipment in the distance gleamed as the last rays of the sun glittered off the rust-free metal. Becca hadn’t been here in years, not since the old brown grass had been replanted and the new swings and jungle gym had replaced a couple of splintery picnic tables.

The quiet beauty should have relaxed her. But she couldn’t relax, not with her mom sitting next to her, deliberately looking away as she waited for Becca to make the first move.

Becca stared up at the red-tinged clouds, hardly seeing them. “Just say whatever you brought me here to say.”

“I didn’t bring you here to have the same old arguments again,” her mom replied, still looking at the sky. “I miss you. I don’t like what’s happening to us. I brought you here because if we don’t work to get things back to the way they used to be, we’ll never get there.”

Becca brought her gaze back to earth, to her mom’s earnest face. “You want me to just ignore all of it? The things you did, the things—” The things I’ve learned?

“I executed a couple of dissidents, Becca. That’s all.” Her soft tone took the hostility out of her words. She stood up. “But we didn’t come here to argue about that again.” She held out a hand to Becca. “Let’s walk together.”

Becca stood up to join her mom, but didn’t take the hand she offered.

Her mom started walking down the path. “Do you remember when we used to come here and feed the ducks?”

Her mom’s words immediately called the memory to mind. Becca cringed at the thought of that younger Becca with her hand clasped in her mom’s much larger one, giggling as she threw bread to the ducks. She hadn’t known then what her mom was capable of.

Now every time Becca looked at her mom she thought of Jake’s mother. Of all the false confessions. Of Heather’s parents, who had been dissidents but might also have been right.

If they had been dissidents, and Becca thought they had been right, what did that make Becca?

“What’s the point of remembering that? They filled in the duck pond two years ago.” She didn’t want to think about the times she had been happy with her mom. She didn’t want to remember how close they used to be. It would only remind her of what was missing. Heather, her mom… she was losing everyone.

Before all this, she would have gone to her mom for advice about Heather. Her mom would have known what to do.

Her mom sighed. “Are you going to keep pushing me away like this?”

As if what had happened were Becca’s fault. As if Becca were the one who had killed people’s parents, who had abandoned the truth in favor of whatever lies her bosses told her to feed to the dissidents.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.