Rachel Goddard 01 - The Heat of the Moon

and tried with her soothing quiet voice to coax out a clue to my emotional state.
    She talked and I studied her face for similarities to mine.
    You’re so lucky you got Mother’s coloring, Michelle had said many times over the years, as if unaware of her own delicate, fair beauty. I’d always taken it as a given that I looked like Mother. But did I? We both had auburn hair, and dark eyes with thick lashes. Both tall, slender. The curve of my jaw was similar to hers, and my full lower lip. Yes, in some ways I looked like her. It was my father I didn’t recognize in myself. I looked like Mother, Michelle looked like our father. That wasn’t unusual. Not at all.
    “Rachel?” Mother gave my arm a little shake to bring me out of my reverie.
    Her eyes were wide, soft with concern. She watched me pull up my knees, smooth down my robe. The novel I’d been trying to read before she came in had fallen from my lap and lay open on the bed beside me.
    “I asked if you’re still seeing Dr. Campbell,” she said.
    This was the first time she’d mentioned Luke since the dinner.
    “I see him at work every day,” I said, avoiding her eyes. 
    Silence hung between us. She pushed the thin gold band of her watch forward, then back, on her wrist. She still had on the green silk blouse she’d worn to work, and I could see the outlines of her slender arms inside the sleeves. She always wore long sleeves to work, even in hot weather. I wondered if she was reluctant to expose too much of herself to patients.
    Finally she said, “That’s not what I meant. I can’t stop thinking about that night he was here—”
    “It doesn’t matter to me, Mother,” I said quickly.
    She looked straight into my eyes, holding me fast, not about to let me off the hook. “It matters to me, because you’re my daughter and I care what happens to you. I’m not blind, Rachel. I know you were hurt when you found out he’d been hiding something important from you. I can’t forgive him for it.”
    I almost laughed. This, from the queen of secrets! Feeling shaky and daring, as I always did when I challenged her, I said, “We all have things we don’t want to talk about, don’t we?”
    Only a student of her moods would have seen the slight narrowing of her eyes, the brief dimming of their light.
    Ask her, I urged myself. Ask her if you’re adopted. Ask her what the pictures mean.
    The very idea made me shrink back. Tell her I’d hired a locksmith to open the box I’d found inside a closet in her off-limits room? Tell her I thought she was a liar? She would fix me with a sad but forgiving look, and I’d be lost. She’d make me doubt myself, I’d end up convinced I was wrong, crazy, a bad daughter. And my questions would put her on guard; I’d never find out what I wanted to know.
    She sighed and let her shoulders slump a bit. “I’m interfering, I know. But I can’t help worrying about you. I don’t want you to get hurt.” She touched my knee, her hand light, the weight heavy. Smiling suddenly, she said, “When children reach adulthood, they have to learn to be patient with their parents, instead of the other way around.”
    She leaned to brush my cheek with a kiss. I was ashamed that I’d listened for lies beneath her loving words. But when she was gone, and the door shut after her, all the doubts and questions clamored in my mind again.
    That night I dreamed of the three of them, a happy little family with only one daughter.
    ***
    I talked to myself incessantly, the dialogue always going on at some level, whether I was driving down the street or examining an animal or sitting speechless at the dining table with my mother and sister. How much did I want to find out, what kind of answers could I handle?
    Everybody claimed to welcome the truth, they demanded it—honesty is the best policy, I want your honest opinion, tell me the truth!—but the way people behaved showed that even this desire for the truth was a lie. People lied to each other all the time, about small things and great. There was so much in life we couldn’t bear to look at straight-on, or simply preferred to leave unacknowledged. Surely a lot of families had secrets that no one wanted to uncover and bring into the light, for fear of hurting and being hurt.
    I should leave well enough alone. I should get on with my life. The present, the future. I should.
    I couldn’t.
    I had to know.
    ***
    I made the call from my bedroom after work, before Mother and Michelle