Chapter 2 - The Tree With My Name Beneath It
I didn't move.
My mother's voice came again.
"Anastasia?"
She knew.
I stood inside Dad's office with one hand gripping the folder bearing my name.
Footsteps entered the foyer.
For eight years, my parents had ordered me to disappear.
Now, suddenly, my mother wanted me found.
I slid the folder beneath my jacket.
The stairs creaked.
I looked toward the hallway.
There was another way downstairs through the old laundry staircase, but reaching it meant crossing directly past my bedroom.
Mom's footsteps climbed slowly.
"Sweetheart?"
Sweetheart.
I almost laughed.
She hadn't called me that in years.
I slipped into the hallway.
My bedroom door stood open.
The lamp glowed.
That was what had brought her back.
She'd realized the door she'd spent years keeping locked was open.
I reached the laundry stairs just as Mom appeared at the opposite end of the hallway.
She saw me.
Her face went white.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then her gaze shifted to my open bedroom.
"No."
One word.
Not Anastasia.
Not thank God you're here.
No.
As though the disaster wasn't what she'd done.
The disaster was that I'd discovered it.
"What is that stone?" I asked.
Mom's lips trembled.
"Please."
"What is that stone?"
"We can explain."
"We?"
Her eyes dropped toward my jacket.
She saw the folder.
Panic replaced grief.
"Where did you get that?"
"Dad's office."
"You had no right."
That sentence was so absurd I stared at her.
"No right?"
She stepped forward.
"Give me the folder."
I backed toward the stairs.
"Tell me why my name is on a gravestone."
"It's a memorial marker."
"That's not an answer."
"Anastasia, please lower your voice."
"Why? Are you afraid the dead girl might wake somebody?"
She flinched.
Good.
I hated that it felt good.
Mom reached toward me.
I moved away.
"Don't touch me."
Her hand stopped.
For the first time, I saw something beneath her polished expression.
Fear.
Not fear of me.
Fear of consequences.
"Claire's family believed something that became increasingly difficult to correct," she said.
I stared at her.
"Believed?"
"It wasn't planned."
"How do you accidentally tell someone your daughter is dead?"
"It started with a misunderstanding."
"Then explain it."
Mom looked toward the staircase.
Dad was coming.
His steps were heavier.
He appeared below us and stopped.
His eyes went from me to Mom.
Then to my open bedroom.
His jaw tightened.
"You went in there."
I almost couldn't believe it.
"That's your concern?"
Dad climbed the remaining stairs.
"Give me the folder."
"No."
"Anastasia."
"No."
His expression changed.
The old authority entered his voice.
"You are living under our roof."
"Only when you allow me to."
"We've supported you."
"You made me leave my own home whenever Nathan's girlfriend visited."
"Because you were unstable."
The word struck exactly where he'd intended.
For years, that word could silence me.
Tonight it couldn't.
"I was eighteen."
"You had problems."
"I got treatment."
"We protected this family."
"By killing me?"
Mom gasped.
"Don't say that."
"Why? You did."
Dad lowered his voice.
"We didn't kill anyone."
"Then why does Claire think I'm dead?"
Silence.
That silence told me more than any explanation could.
I opened the folder.
Dad lunged forward.
I stepped back.
"Don't."
He stopped.
Inside were documents.
My original birth certificate.
My Social Security card.
School records.
Medical paperwork.
And several newspaper clippings.
I pulled out the first one.
A small community obituary.
My photograph stared back at me.
My high school graduation picture.
ANASTASIA ROSE DUNAWAY.
Beloved daughter.
Cherished sister.
Gone too soon.
I couldn't breathe.
"You published an obituary."
Mom began crying.
"It wasn't supposed to go that far."
I looked at her.
"How far was it supposed to go?"
She covered her mouth.
Dad said, "Nathan had just started dating Claire."
"So?"
"Her family was important to him."
"And?"
"They asked about the family."
I waited.
Dad wouldn't meet my eyes.
Mom finally whispered, "Nathan said he had a sister."
My stomach tightened.
"And then?"
"They asked where you were."
"So you told them I was dead?"
"No."
Mom shook her head rapidly.
"Not at first."
She looked ashamed.
For once, genuinely ashamed.
"I said we'd lost you."
The cruelty of that sentence landed slowly.
Lost you.
A phrase vague enough to become anything.
Mrs. Holloway had interpreted it as death.
And my mother had let her.
"She hugged me," Mom whispered. "She said she was sorry. There were people around. I didn't know how to correct her without making everything awkward."
"Awkward."
I repeated the word.
Mom's face crumpled.
"I thought we'd fix it later."
"But you didn't."
"No."
"You built a memorial."
"That happened much later."
I held up the obituary.
"You published this."
"People started asking questions."
Dad's voice became defensive.
"We were trapped."
"No. I was trapped."
He frowned.
"We gave you everything."
"You gave me weekends in cheap motels while you held memorial dinners for me."
Mom stared at the floor.
That told me I'd guessed correctly.
I laughed once.
It sounded broken.
"Did Nathan know?"
Neither answered.
That hurt more than I expected.
"Did Nathan know?"
Dad said, "Your brother was trying to build his future."
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
Nathan knew.
My brother had spent eight years allowing his fiancée to mourn a sister she'd never met while the real sister worked fifteen minutes away.
Claire had bought my memorial tree from me.
And Nathan had said nothing.
I put the documents back into the folder.
"I'm leaving."
Mom looked up sharply.
"You're upset."
"I'm done."
"Where will you go?"
"I don't know."
Dad folded his arms.
"Don't be dramatic."
Something inside me became perfectly still.
"I've been dead for eight years. I think I've earned a little drama."
I walked past them.
Neither stopped me.
Inside my room, I pulled an old suitcase from the closet.
Clothes.
Medication.
Documents.
Laptop.
Photographs that still included me.
I packed only what mattered.
Mom stood in the doorway crying.
"Please don't do this tonight."
I zipped the suitcase.
"You already did it eight years ago."
"Anastasia—"
"I want you to answer one question."
She nodded desperately.
"When Claire came into my nursery and bought that tree, did you know?"
Mom's silence answered.
"You knew I sold her my own memorial tree."
"We found out afterward."
"And you still planted it."
"It had already been arranged."
I stared at her.
"You could have stopped it."
"I know."
That was the first honest thing she'd said.
I pulled up the suitcase handle.
Mom stepped aside.
Downstairs, Dad waited beside the front door.
"You'll come back when you've calmed down."
"No."
"You don't have enough money to survive alone."
"Then I'll earn it."
"You have nowhere to go."
"Then nowhere is better than here."
I opened the front door.
Cold night air touched my face.
For eight years, I'd always left through the side entrance.
Tonight I used the front.
I walked down the driveway with my suitcase rolling behind me.
Nobody followed.
At the curb, I looked back once.
My bedroom window glowed upstairs.
The door remained open.
Let them see it.
Let them explain it.
I walked away.
Three blocks later, my phone vibrated.
Nathan.
I almost ignored it.
Then a message appeared.
DON'T GO ANYWHERE. CLAIRE FOUND SOMETHING.
Another message arrived immediately.
A photograph.
Claire was standing beside the dogwood tree.
And in her hand was the original nursery tag.
May you like
My handwriting was still visible beneath one sentence I had never written.
SHE'S ALIVE.
