Page 143 of The Otherworld

Aunt Sara shakes her head. “I haven’t seen your papa since you were a baby.”

“Yes, I know… That’s when Mama died. When I was two years old.”

My aunt stares at me for a long, breathless moment—astonishment written all over her face. “Is that what your father told you?”

My heart gives a heavy, anxious thud. “What do you mean?”

Aunt Sara takes a measured breath as if bracing herself for what she is about to say. “Your mother isn’t dead, Orca.”

The world falls out from underneath me.

“What?” I rasp, my pulse racing as the room tips on its axis. “But… you just said you last saw her at the funeral—”

“Our dad’s funeral,” Aunt Sara explains. “He passed away two years ago. Miriam was there. We read the will together. He left me this cottage, and he left her the penthouse in Seattle. She’s living there now with her husband.”

Her husband.

Penthouse in Seattle.

She’s living there now.

My hands tremble, threatening to spill my tea all over Aunt Sara’s couch. Adam gently takes my cup and sets it on the coffee table, then circles his arm around my back.

“She can’t be,” I whisper, shaking my head numbly. “She’s dead. Papa always told me she was dead.”

Aunt Sara opens her mouth to speak, but I can tell she doesn’t know what to say. At last, the truth finds its way out.

“Orca… I don’t know how to tell you this. Miriam left your father when you were two years old. She divorced him. She said she couldn’t stand living like that, isolated from the rest of the world. She was only twenty when she married your father. I think she loved him at the time, but she always had a rebellious streak. She loved the idea of breaking off from the family. Doing something wild and adventurous—marrying a man much older than her and running off to live in a lighthouse on a secluded island. She enjoyed it for a while, but… the fascination soon faded.”

This is all too much. I can’t believe Papa lied to me all these years. Now I know why he never told me how Mama died.

Because she didn’t.

I feel Adam’s strong arm around me, the warmth of his finger gently moving over the backs of my knuckles.

“Did Miriam ever attempt to contact Orca?” Adam asks.

Aunt Sara shrugs and shakes her head. “I wouldn’t know. We haven’t been very close since she divorced Orca’s father. She moved to the city and dove headfirst into the rat race. She works at a magazine now, on the board of directors.”

My mind is reeling, trying to keep up. When I finally manage to speak, my voice is thick with tears. “Did she… want me? To live with her, I mean?”

Aunt Sara presses her lips into a thin line, looking down at the old photographs scattered across the coffee table. “The divorce was handled quietly. Miriam didn’t want to disrupt your life.”

“In other words, she didn’t want me.”

Aunt Sara leans forward to look me straight in the eyes. “Your mother loved you. It was never a question of whether or not she wanted you. She just didn’t want that kind of life. I didn’t support her decision, Orca. I thought she was making a huge mistake, giving up on Lawrence and the life they could have had together. I tried to talk her into giving it another chance, but that’s the thing about Miriam. Once she’s made up her mind, she has made it. And there’s no convincing her otherwise.”

I swallow hard, a pang of hurt lancing through my heart. “I understand.”

But I don’t.

I never will.

* * *

24 Washington Blvd., Suite 103, Seattle, WA.

I watch the address flutter in the wind, caught between my fingers. Aunt Sara wrote it on a scrap of paper before we left. In case you want to look her up. She also wrote Mama’s phone number beneath the word “Seattle.” Now I stand at the ferry railing, wondering if I should let the paper slip from my fingers and fall into the sea.

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