Rachel Goddard 01 - The Heat of the Moon

making me release the sheets. They fluttered to the carpet. I bent to retrieve them. When I straightened her face was contorted with fury.
    “We’ve had enough of this from you,” she said. “You’re making Mother ill, she’s worried half to death about you. You need help, Rachel. If you refuse to get it, we—”
    I grabbed her arm and shoved the story in her face, an inch from her eyes. “Read this, for God’s sake, read it! They had a daughter named Michelle and she died in that accident, and the story says she was their only child. And I’m not in those pictures, all those pictures Mother’s got hidden away, you’re in them—that girl is in them—but I’m not—”
    With a jerk she freed her arm, then she backed away. “It always comes down to this. You’ve always been jealous of me. You’ve never been close to Mother like I am, and you’ve always resented it.”
    I groaned. “No. This has nothing to do with—”
    “What are you saying? That I’m not even alive, I died in an accident?” Her sudden laughter rose to a shrill note. “That makes a lot of sense, Rachel.”
    “I don’t know what it means,” I said. “We have to find out. You have to read this, and we have to find out what it means.”
    She’d closed herself off from me, put up a wall I couldn’t penetrate. Her voice cold and even, she said, “Don’t you dare bother Mother with any more of your weird ideas. This obsession is your problem, and you have to stop imposing it on other people. You need help, Rachel. You need to see a psychiatrist.”
    I didn’t believe this. The story was here in my hand, in front of her, and I couldn’t make her read it. Even if she did, would she accept it as real, or would she think I’d gone to great lengths to fake it? Yes, that was exactly what she’d think. She’d rather believe I was losing my mind than face the secrets I’d uncovered.
    Stepping back, I folded the sheets of paper. I would do this alone. I’d been alone from the beginning. Without speaking again, I turned and walked out of her room.
    Sitting on my bed, holding the story, I listened to the small sounds of Mother’s arrival, the muffled slam of the car door on the driveway, her voice calling a greeting as she came up the stairs. She exchanged a few words with Michelle, but I couldn’t make out what they said.
    After a moment she tapped on my door. “Rachel? Come help me get dinner on the table. I picked up something at Sutton Place so we don’t have to cook.”
    “I’ll be down in a minute.” My voice lifted and carried and sounded perfectly normal.
    When she’d had time to change her clothes, I heard her speak to Michelle again before she went back downstairs.
    I was not losing my mind. The story in my hands was real, even though I didn’t know what it meant.
    I rose and stuffed the folded sheets into the right pocket of my slacks. Then, feeling as if I were two separate beings, one sickened with dread and the other strong and sure and moving toward a goal, I went downstairs to Mother.

Chapter Twenty-one
    Mother stood at the island counter in the kitchen, lifting cardboard and Styrofoam containers from a large white paper bag. On Rosario’s day off, we had to provide our own dinner one way or another.
    From the doorway I watched her long slender hands dip into the bag, line up cartons on the counter. She’d loosened her hair and it moved along her shoulders, a gleaming fall of rich dark red.
    I didn’t know this woman. I couldn’t begin to know what she had done and might yet do.
    With a glance my way she said, “Would you wash the salad? Just to be on the safe side. You never know about salad bars.”
    My mind ran in furious circles, trying to find a stopping point, but my hands popped off the lid of the salad container and emptied the lettuce, green pepper slices and cherry tomatoes into a colander. While I washed the salad, Mother lifted a knife from a drawer and began carving the chicken.
    “I’ve decided to start a new fear-of-flying group,” she said, “so I’ll be tied up with that one night a week, probably starting next week.”
    I tore a handful of paper towels from the roll above the sink and carried the dripping colander to the island. Standing across from Mother, I watched the long thin knife slice through the chicken breast.
    “I can easily fill another group with people on my waiting list, if they’re willing,” she went on. “They always resist group therapy at first, but I