Part of her regretted how she’d parted with Bethany, too. That couldn’t have been an easy conversation to have. Bethany had admitted she wanted to make things right, but Goldie couldn’t focus on anything else. Not until she made it home and spoke with her mother.
The screen lit up on her dashboard, and this one she did answer.
“Hey, Sadie.”
“Girl, I haven’t heard from you in days. I just wanted to see how you’re holding up with Ted Bundy. He’s hot, isn’t he?”
Goldie laughed, grateful for her friend’s lighthearted take. She needed lighthearted right about now.
“I’m headed back as we speak. And boy, do I have a story for you.”
“Please tell me it has something to do with Mr. Hottie.”
Sadie listened, responding with just the right amount of ohs and whats and oh my goodnesses.
“Your aunt is really—?”
“My birth mom. Yeah.”
“What are you going to do?”
Goldie exhaled, gripped the steering wheel, and stared at the road. “I’m going to talk to my parents, first of all. I want to know why, you know?”
“I totally know,” Sadie said. “Good luck, and drive safely.”
“Thanks, Sadie.”
After driving for six hours, stopping for the night in South Dakota, and then driving another handful of hours, the Baldwin exit was a welcome sign. Goldie trekked her way toward the town’s opposite end and pulled into her childhood home’s driveway. Nostalgia hit harder than the time she’d been struck in the side of the jaw by a softball while dashing for home base. It was jarring, harsh, and sudden, and it stole her breath.
This might never have been her house at all if things had gone differently. What kind of life would she have had being raised by Bethany in Montana instead? Her name would have been Gabrielle Harold. She might have known Adrian Bear longer then, seeing as how they would have lived in the same town. She might have attended school with him. Have seen him dating Danica or been one of the other girls he’d avoided. She might have had a mother she could get along with, instead of one who was constantly disappointed in her.
“There you are,” her mom said when she entered. Jacey was at the sink washing jars. Being a gardening nut, she was preparing for canning season to come later that summer. Goldie knew the ritual by heart. Hands dipped in the sink water, her arms were spattered with soap. “I’ve been worried sick about you.”
Goldie set down her keys. “Since when are you ever sick? Or worried?”
“Since you took off without a word. I considered flying out there after you, you know.”
Goldie’s fists clenched. “Why, so you could keep Bethany from telling me the truth? Why would you shut her out? Keep her away from her own daughter?”
Jacey’s jaw dropped. She lifted her hands from the soapy water, shook off the suds, and dried them on a nearby towel. “You are my daughter. I never wanted any confusion on the subject, and knowing Bethany, I knew she’d try to take you back if I took you to visit her.”
“So you decided to pretend she didn’t exist.”
Her mom stood soldier-stiff. “I thought a clean break would be best, yes.”
All the emotion from the past week and a half crushed her, weighing more than if she were loaded down with a mountain of sand. “You should have told me.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Startled, Goldie’s head recoiled back. “Sorry?”
Her mom closed her eyes and inhaled. An exercise in patience and self-control Goldie had witnessed many times—especially in her honor.
“Goldie,” she said in her too-calm tone.
“Is that why you never call me by my name? I thought it was because of my hair. My golden hair. Now I’m starting to think you didn’t want to call me by the name she gave me.”
Another exhale. Her mother still hadn’t looked at her.
“Did you name me Gabrielle, or did she?”
“She did.”
Goldie felt like screaming. She knew it was childish, but she couldn’t help the sensation. She worked to keep her voice level. “Do you have any idea what it’s like finding out your mom isn’t really your mom?”
Jacey’s lids lifted. “You were never supposed to find out.”
Her mom didn’t care that she’d lied to her! She still would have been living the lie if it hadn’t been for Bethany’s interference. The realization blind-sided her.
“I did find out, Mom. You lied, even if it was a lie of omission. And it hurts me. Our whole family dynamic hurts me.”
Goldie snatched her keys from the counter and stormed out. Now she understood what made Adrian despise his beautiful home, what made him want something else, be somewhere else. She wanted to hurl Baldwin and its little house and the lies which created her memories there right off the map. She had the school year to finish, but after that, she was done. Gone.
For some reason, she thought of the sign she’d won from the Bear family’s fundraiser, and the single word it boasted. Home. She’d planned on hanging it in her apartment, but it no longer fit there. She wasn’t sure where she could hang it now, where it would actually feel like it applied.
Getting lost had always been a joke, something she did by accident. It had also happened far too frequently for her liking.
Even though she was home, this was the most lost she’d ever felt in her life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“THANKS FOR A GREAT YEAR, Miss Bybanks,” Caleb said. He was a tall, gangly young man and wore a shirt with a man holding a fish and the words, This is what I look like when I call in sick, written below. “You know I hate writing, but you really helped make it more fun.”
Gabby smiled at him from behind her
