I like Jen. I recounted my entire story to her in the ambulance, starting with how strict my mother has always been and how I waited until what I thought was my eighteenth birthday to make my escape. And how Preston was there to help me—I really emphasized that part, because they need to know he didn’t take me against my will. I left out the fact that he was hired by my father. Painting him as a good Samaritan just sounds better.
Speaking of Jen.
A knock comes at the door and she pokes her head in. “Oh, good. You’re not asleep.” She’s got a thick beige folder in her hands as she pulls the visitor chair over to the bed and takes a seat. “There are some things you need to know.”
She’s so solemn, it makes my concern spike. “Preston’s okay, right?”
“This isn’t about Preston. It’s about you.”
I calm a little and link my hands over my stomach. “Okay.”
“What’s your earliest memory?”
What a random question. “Um…” I shake my head. “I guess a petting zoo at my house?” I tell her about the time my mom hired the traveling zoo for my birthday. “Or what I thought was my birthday,” I add. “She lied about that.”
“Loralee Pearson lied about a lot of things,” Jen says wryly. “Before I start telling you everything, I want you to know there’s a counselor here at the hospital for you to talk to until we can set you up with a permanent therapist.”
There goes the therapy talk again. “Listen, I’ll talk to someone if it’ll make everyone feel better, but I’m not crazy. My mom lied about that, too. You know she’s dishonest, so why would you believe her?”
Instead of reassuring me of my sanity, Jen goes on, “I’ve dedicated my life to finding missing children. More often than not, I fail. Those failures keep me up at night.”
She looks exhausted as she runs a hand through her shoulder-length hair. It’s feathered and frizzy, like she tried to tame it with hairspray, but she couldn’t stop touching it. An anxious habit. Her job really gets to her. Maybe she cares too much.
“I know a thing or two about trouble sleeping,” I tell her, so she knows I can relate.
We share a small smile, then she opens her folder and places a picture on the bed next to me.
It’s me.
I know it as soon as I see the blond hair, the two-toned eyes, and the cleft in my chin. But I’m young here. Just a baby. My wispy curls aren’t even down to my shoulders yet, and I’m a little pudgy.
“Eleven months old,” Jen clarifies, tapping the photo. “Have you ever seen a picture of yourself at this age?”
Now that I think about it, no. I haven’t. All the pictures around our house were of me as a toddler or older.
I flip the picture over.
Jen points at the name scrawled on the back. “Melody.”
“What’s this Melody stuff?” I glance at her. “Did my mom have my name changed?”
Taking out her phone, Jen hits a couple buttons and sets it on the table next to the bed. There’s a business-like air about her as she says, “I’m going to record our conversation if that’s okay. We might need it later for legal purposes.”
“Legal purposes? Do I need a lawyer? People are supposed to request a lawyer during an interrogation, right?”
Jen gives me a reassuring smile. “You’re not being charged with anything, Melody. You’re the victim here.”
I rub my temples because the name is starting to stir up strange feelings. “Can you stop calling me that? It sounds weird.”
“All right. All right, Rosalie. What I’m about to tell you is going to be upsetting. If you need me to stop, say so.”
My palms are sweating. My heart is racing. I feel like life as I know it is a ticking time bomb, but I nod anyway.
Apparently Jen knows my history well enough to recite it by memory, because she doesn’t look down at her papers when she starts to tell me my beginning. “You were born on September 25th nineteen years ago to a woman named Mara Wick. She was an exotic dancer. She had some issues with substance abuse, but it would seem she stayed sober during the pregnancy.”
“Wait,” I interrupt her. “Are you telling me my mother used to be a stripper with a different identity?”
“No, I’m saying Loralee Pearson is not your biological mother.”
“She—” I blink. “She never told me I’m adopted.”
My mother and I look enough alike that I never questioned our relation. There were even times when I felt like I saw parts of myself in her. We have similar noses. We’re both blondes with fair skin. She’s short like me.
Plus, the mental illness issue… Oh, fuck me. Even that’s a big pile of bullshit.
It can’t be hereditary because we’re not related.
Jen pushes on with the story. “After you were born, Mara started using again. Heroin, mostly. She died of an overdose when you were four months old. The authorities were called to her apartment because the neighbors heard a baby crying for the entire day. Since the father was unlisted on the birth certificate and Mara had no immediate family who would take you in, you went into foster care.”
She pauses, giving me a moment to process everything she said. Once she stares at me for several seconds and realizes I’m not freaking out, she continues, “You suffered from an abusive situation in one of the foster homes when you were two years old. You were caught stealing cookies from the pantry, and when the parents questioned you about it, you denied it. They knew you were lying, so they held you over the sink, put a cloth on your face, and poured water on it. It seems this was their go-to method of punishment.”
My nose starts to burn, and I rub it. “Waterboarding?”
Jen looks surprised with her raised eyebrows. “You remember it?”
“Not really.” My damn nose does, though. I rub at it some more. “Did they do that to me a lot?”
“Yes, for a few months, until one of the older kids in the home reported it.”
The mystery of my inability to lie and the sneezing suddenly becomes clear. Because every time I try to picture myself as a little kid in the situation Jen described, my body responds. It’s weird how some part of my brain has been conditioned, but I have no memory of the events.
I sneeze but wave at Jen to keep going.
“After that, you were adopted,” she confirms.
“By my mother.”
“No, not by Loralee Pearson. When you were three, you became part of the Parks family. They had been fostering you for several months, and they said they knew from the first day that you were meant to be their daughter.”
“I don’t know anyone by the name of Parks.” I laugh nervously. “Are you sure my adoption file didn’t get switched? You must be mistaken.”
I feel like Jen’s telling me a story about someone else. Not me.
But she’s not done yet, and it keeps getting worse.
“You disappeared the following fall when you went camping.” She heaves out a sigh. “The thing is, the campsite is twelve miles from Loralee Pearson’s residence. We actually interviewed her, and she gave us permission to search the woods on her property. You were so close the whole time. Search parties combed the area for a week, and you were right there, in that house.”