Chapter 4

The tassel on Wren's cap had twisted into her hair.

I reached toward it without thinking.

My hand stopped halfway between us.

Wren watched me lower it.

"You knew your father was having an affair," I said. "How am I not the victim?"

"You always do this."

"Do what?"

"Make everything about how much you've done for me."

The music from the party spilled through the open windows. Guests moved around the cake table inside. Several faces turned toward the driveway, then quickly looked away.

"I didn't create the affair," I said. "Your father did."

"You humiliated him."

"He kissed another woman at your graduation."

"Because you forced everything into the open."

I stared at her.

She believed that.

I opened the rear door of my car and took out two packages.

The first was a leather portfolio embossed with her initials. Inside it was the graduation card I had written the night before.

The second was the blue folder containing her college housing confirmation, vaccination record, scholarship letters, and the receipt for her first tuition payment.

I held them out.

"I came back to make sure you had these."

Wren looked at the folder but did not take it.

"Why?"

"Because they belong to you."

"You want me to feel guilty."

"I want you to understand that leaving that party is not the same as leaving you."

For a second, the anger loosened in her face.

She took the portfolio and ran her thumb across her initials.

Then her mouth tightened again.

"You don't get points for giving me my own things."

"I wasn't asking for points."

"That's what you want everyone to believe. That you're the perfect mother and Mom is the selfish woman who abandoned me."

"I have never said that to you."

"You didn't have to."

Wren shoved the blue folder beneath her arm and pulled out her phone.

"She tried to come back."

"What?"

"When I was twelve. She emailed you because she wanted to talk to me."

The phone shook slightly as she searched for something.

"You told her to stay away."

She held the screen in front of me.

The email address at the top was mine.

The message had been sent six years earlier.

Elise,

Wren has stability now. She has a mother who shows up, and she does not need you arriving whenever your life falls apart. She needs roots, not revolving doors. Do not contact her again.

Camille

I read it twice.

"I didn't write this."

Wren gave a short laugh. "It came from your account."

"I have never seen that email."

"It has your name on it."

The message mentioned details about Wren's life that a stranger could not have known.

But the words were not mine.

I enlarged the screenshot.

October 14.

I stared at the date.

That night, I had not been home.

I had been in a hotel room in Denver for the state school counseling conference. I remembered sitting on the floor beside the only working outlet while Wren complained to me over the phone about an algebra test.

I looked at the email again.

It had been sent from my account while I was hundreds of miles away.

The party music stopped.

Behind Wren, the front door opened.

Grant stood beneath the porch light.

His eyes dropped to the phone in my hand.

His hand tightened around the doorframe, and the color left his face.