But Luna shakes her head. “Give your mother a second! Can’t you see how hard this is for her?”
“For her? For her? She lied to me—”
“I had to!”
“Why did you have to?”
“Because I did!” Carmen moans.
Sofia and I exchange a look as Celia grits her teeth in pain. “Mom!”
“I was a girl when they came for me,” Carmen whispers, stricken. “My parents were poor. They sold me to the men who would take me to America. They did it for money. I was driven to a house in California where it was so pretty on the outside. I got so excited, until I realized one day that I would never see the outside again.” She presses her fingers into her eyelids and shudders at having to say this aloud. “It was a baby-making factory. We were made to live in a room with rows of beds and one bathroom. They brought us food. Only took us out to have sex with us. Impregnate us so they could sell the babies to couples who applied for adoption.”
Celia gasps, hand going clammy. I put my arm around her and hold her up as she leans into me, staring at her mother.
“Then one day Tonk burst into the room, with Jett, Honey Badger, and Scratch. I clung to Tonk, trusted him immediately. He held me as I cried and begged for what they promised to be true. For us to be saved. For it to be over.”
“Mom,” Celia breathes, breaking free to go kneel before her mother. “Oh my God, Mom!”
Reaching for her hand, tears slide down Carmen’s face. “Tonk took me in, and even though I was covered in shame and fear, he loved me. He vowed to be your dad, Celia. His name is on your birth certificate! He’s raised you as his own, and he didn’t have to. He loves you! He loves me! That means something!”
Celia wilts, “It means everything,” reaching for Tonk to come to them.
He takes her hand and kneels down, too. “Can’t you let me be your dad, still?” he croaks. She launches herself into his arms and sobs. His big arms wrap around her, rocking them both as he repeats over and over, “I love you so much! I love you! I love you so much!”
With emotion stopping him up, Jett clears his throat, “Luna and I were there when you were born.”
Honey Badger adds, “I’d driven back to the plantation by then, but I was right here when you showed up. Been here ever since.”
“I wasn’t born here?”
Jett quietly explains, “You were born in a hospital on the way home. Your mom was six months pregnant when we found her. Eighteen and terrified. We stayed in California for a little while my wife was…sick. Tonk and Carmen took that time to get to know each other, to ease Carmen into a life out of that room—the only place she’d known after coming to America. But he patiently earned her trust. When my wife got well enough to travel, we did.” Luna is watching Jett with a sharp eye like he’s leaving out a lot, and I have a feeling it’s their story he’s omitting.
Tonk takes over, pulling my focus. “We wanted you born here at our home, Celia. But you decided to be born on the road.”
Carmen whispers, “Like a prophecy.”
He pauses, “Yeah, I guess so.”
Everyone’s quiet until Sofia Sol inhales sharply, “Wow.”
CHAPTER 31
C ELIA
L una tells everyone, “Why don’t we step out and give them some time alone together.”
As my brother starts to leave I call over, “Junior, stay.”
He reacts with surprise, and joins us as everyone else leaves. Sean holds my look a second, tips his head and vanishes with the others.
I take the chair next to Junior, all the implications of what they’ve told me swirling in my gut like a sickness I can’t escape. My mom is wiping her eyes as her body shakes. Dad is steady as usual, a tall block of certainty even in the face of all this.
“You were one of the missions,” I whisper. “We were.”
She sniffs, “Yes.”
Picking at my nails I think about it. “After all the horrible stuff I’ve seen, all I have to do is pick any of those women up and put her in this house, pregnant from a rapist with no one to turn to. When I do that, I can put myself in your shoes.”
Hurriedly, Mom reaches across the faded armrest for Dad’s hand. “It wasn’t that. I fell in love with Tonk!”
“I didn’t mean it that way, Mom. I just meant…I can understand.” My eyes are on my lap. “I’m the child of a rapist.”
“You’re my child!” Dad shouts, so defensive of my wounded heart. “You’re a gift, that’s what you are! You’re my daughter!”
My brother reassures me, “You’re more their child than I am!”
Carmen murmurs, “Honey don’t say that!”
Ignoring them, in my own world I figure it out, “That’s why you were so scared when I killed that guy. You’re worried I’ll become evil.”
“Nooooo.”
Meeting her worried eyes I see the lie in them and say, simply, “Yes, you are.” Dad objects but I cut him off. “I know I’m not, Mom. I’m not evil.”
Fearful tears slide down her face, and she can hardly meet my eyes. Dad is cooing to her, trying to get her to let that thought go, and I can tell it’s not the first time he’s told her these things.
“It’s called transference,” my brother begins, his voice cool and detached as it always is when he levels a room with book-learned wisdom. “I’m assuming that if you came straight to this house, Mom, that you never got psychiatric help?”
Dad bristles, “Your mother isn’t crazy!”
With a tone both steady and firm Tonk Jr. says, “She isn’t healed either. The trauma she experienced in that prison still lives in her cells. The distraction of a new life could only last so long. When we don’t heal our past it haunts us. When we don’t listen,
