A shake of the head. But Liz thought that in fact she did remember but was reluctant to acknowledge the memory. She looked her daughter over carefully.
Beth Anne glanced around the small living room. Her eye settled on a picture of herself and her father together — they were on the boat dock near the family home in Michigan.
Liz asked, “When you called you said somebody told you I was here. Who?”
“It doesn’t matter. Just somebody. You’ve been living here since…” Her voice faded.
“A couple of years. Do you want a drink?”
“No.”
Liz remembered that she’d found the girl sneaking some beer when she was sixteen and wondered if she’d continued to drink and now had a problem with alcohol.
“Tea, then? Coffee?”
“No.”
“You knew I moved to the Northwest?” Beth Anne asked.
“You always talked about the area, getting away from… well, getting out of Michigan and coming here. Then after you moved out you got some mail at the house. From somebody in Seattle.”
Beth Anne nodded. Was there a slight grimace too? As if she was angry with herself for carelessly leaving a clue to her whereabouts. “And you moved to Portland to be near me?”
Liz smiled. “I guess I did. I started to look you up but I lost the nerve.” Liz felt tears welling in her eyes as her daughter continued her examination of the room. The house was small, yes, but the furniture, electronics and appointments were the best — the rewards of Liz’s hard work in recent years. Two feelings vied within the woman: She half-hoped the girl would be tempted to reconnect with her mother when she saw how much money Liz had but, simultaneously, she was ashamed of the opulence; her daughter’s clothes and cheap costume jewelry suggested she was struggling.
The silence was like fire. It burned Liz’s skin and heart.
Beth Anne unclenched her left hand and her mother noticed a minuscule engagement ring and a simple gold band. The tears now rolled from her eyes. “You—?”
The young woman followed her mother’s gaze to the ring. She nodded.
Liz wondered what sort of man her son-in-law was. Would he be someone soft like Jim, someone who could temper the girl’s wayward personality? Or would he be hard? Like Beth Anne herself?
“You have children?” Liz asked.
“That’s not for you to know.”
“Are you working?”
“Are you asking if I’ve changed, Mother?”
Liz didn’t want to hear the answer to this question and continued quickly, pitching her case. “I was thinking,” she said, desperation creeping into her voice, “that maybe I could go up to Seattle. We could see each other… we could even work together. We could be partners. Fifty-fifty. We’d have so much fun. I always thought we’d be great together. I always dreamed—”
“You and me working together, Mother?” She glanced into the sewing room, nodded toward the machine, the racks of dresses. “That’s not my life. It never was. It never could be. After all these years, you really don’t understand that, do you?” The words and their cold tone answered Liz’s question firmly: No, the girl hadn’t changed one bit.
Her voice went harsh. “Then why’re you here? What’s your point in coming?”
“I think you know, don’t you?”
“No, Beth Anne, I
“You could say that, I guess.” She looked around the room again. “Let’s go.”
Liz’s breath was coming fast. “Why? Everything we ever did was for you.”
“I’d say you did it
“My God! No!” She inhaled a gasp as the memory of the shooting in the jewelry store came back to her hard. Her arm tingled and tears streaked down her cheeks.
She pictured the gun on the dresser.
“I’m not going anywhere!” Liz said, wiping her eyes.
“Yes, you are. Outside.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked desperately.
“What I should’ve done a long time ago.”
Liz leaned against a chair for support. Her daughter noticed the woman’s left hand, which had eased to within inches of the telephone.
“No!” the girl barked. “Get away from it.”
Liz gave a hopeless glance at the receiver and then did as she was told.
“Come with me.”
“Now? In the rain.”
The girl nodded.
“Let me get a coat.”
“There’s one by the door.”
“It’s not warm enough.”
The girl hesitated, as if she was going to say that the warmth of her mother’s coat was irrelevant, considering what was about to happen. But then she nodded. “But don’t try to use the phone. I’ll be watching.”
Stepping into the doorway of the sewing room, Liz picked up the blue jacket she’d just been working on. She slowly put it on, her eyes riveted to the doily and the hump of the pistol beneath it. She glanced back into the living room. Her daughter was staring at a framed snapshot of herself at eleven or twelve standing next to her father and mother.
Quickly she reached down and picked up the gun. She could turn fast, point it at her daughter. Scream to her to throw away her own gun.
But what if Beth Anne
What if she raised it, intending to shoot?
What would Liz do then?
To save her own life could she kill her daughter?
Beth Anne was still turned away, examining the picture. Liz would be able to do it — turn, one fast shot. She felt the pistol, its weight tugging at her throbbing arm.
But then she sighed.
The answer was no. A deafening no. She’d never hurt her daughter. Whatever was going to happen next, outside in the rain, she could never hurt the girl.
Replacing the gun, Liz joined Beth Anne.
“Let’s go,” her daughter said and, shoving her own pistol into the waistband of her jeans, she led the woman outside, gripped her mother roughly by the arm. This was, Liz realized, the first physical contact in at least four years.
They stopped on the porch and Liz spun around to face her daughter. “If you do this, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
“No,” the girl said. “I’d regret
Liz felt a spatter of rain join the tears on her cheeks. She glanced at her daughter. The young woman’s face
