Page 153 of The Otherworld

Jack was right; I should have left it alone. I should have had the sense to stay out of Orca’s past. But I loved how her face lit up at the thought of meeting her lost relatives and learning about her mother. I wanted to give her something to take home with her—even just a secondhand memory.

I never predicted the nightmare this would turn into.

Miriam wasn’t cruel—but she was cold, and in a way that was almost worse. She said she never wanted a child, and that it would’ve been a waste of her life to stay at the lighthouse with her daughter. I watched those words sting Orca, and I could do nothing to shield her from the pain.

I’d had half a mind to rip that drink out of Miriam’s hand and smash it on her expensive floor, to unleash my anger and tell her to take her high-society city life and stick it—

“Adam?”

I snap out of my thoughts, turning to glance at Orca. “Yes?”

“You’re driving kind of fast.”

“Oh. Sorry.” I ease off the gas, watching my speedometer go from eighty to sixty-five. I flex my fingers around the steering wheel, trying to relax. “You okay, Orca?”

She gives the slightest nod.

“I’m so sorry about all of this.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Adam.”

“Yes, it was. If I hadn’t dug up the past—”

“You were only trying to help me,” Orca interrupts, her voice quavering and thick with tears. “It was infinitely kind of you. And I’m grateful for it.”

But she’s wrong. I wasn’t only trying to help her. I had other motives for inciting this search for her family—I wanted a good excuse to be with her. An excuse so virtuous and benign, it would be impossible to misinterpret as selfish.

I’ve stirred up secrets that should have stayed buried and forgotten. I’ve put Orca through an agonizing confrontation with her mother, which only caused her more pain.

I’ve released a butterfly and set off a hurricane.

If only I could turn back time and do it all differently.

* * *

When we arrive home, Orca heads straight to the guest room and shuts herself in, saying she wants to rest for a while. Everyone else is out, and I don’t want to leave Orca home alone, so I go outside to chop up an old dead pine that fell behind the barn during the last storm.

I take off my shirt and grab an ax from the chopping block, grateful to have something I can take my anger out on. For the next half hour, I hack branches off the tree, chopping them into pieces and then hauling everything over to the woodpile to be split and seasoned later.

Eventually, Jack pulls into the driveway. I glimpse the flash of his red Mustang through the trees, but I’m too far away for him to see me. His footsteps echo on the porch steps, and the screen door claps shut.

I keep working, mentally preparing myself for what’s coming next: Jack will talk to Orca. She’ll tell him about the meeting with her mother. He’ll be mad as hell and come find me just to say “I told you so.”

Sure enough, that’s exactly what happens.

Slam, the screen door.

“Adam?”

I release a heavy sigh, swinging the ax down. “Behind the barn!”

Moments later, Jack storms over, whacking tree branches out of his way. “I need to talk to you—”

“I know. I know exactly what you’re going to say, and you’re right—okay? But it was Orca’s decision, and I couldn’t stop her once she’d made up her mind.”

“She’s in there crying,” Jack snarls, his eyes ablaze. “I told you yesterday, don’t take her to see her mom. I told you it wasn’t a good idea—”

“She called me and asked me to take her. What was I supposed to say? No? I won’t?”

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