The Night Olivia Fell. Christina McDonald

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      I snapped on the light. It was still messy, like an explosion in a clothes factory. It smelled of lemony shampoo and dirty socks. Her blankets trailed off the bed.

      I set the glass of vodka on Olivia’s dresser and draped the blankets neatly over the bed, then sat on the edge. Something on her bedside table caught the afternoon light. Olivia’s cell phone. It was attached to a charging cord, but when I picked it up, the plug dropped out. The battery was dead.

      The sound of a knock at the front door startled me. I slipped Olivia’s phone into my hoodie pocket as I went downstairs. I looked through the peephole, expecting it to be a reporter, but instead it was a tall, broad-shouldered teenager wearing a wrinkled blue shirt halfway untucked from his jeans. His fair hair was disheveled, his hazel eyes so raw and swollen I almost didn’t recognize him.

      The football build of Olivia’s boyfriend looked like it had been put through the washing machine and shrunk. I took in his red eyes – the dark circles, the tear tracks trailing his putty-colored cheeks – and felt a swell of compassion. This inexorable tide of grief was his as well. It was something we shared.

      I opened the door and flashbulbs instantly started popping, reporters shouting questions. I ignored them, pulling Tyler inside. Word traveled fast in a town as small as Portage Point, and it looked like every major Seattle media outlet was on this story.

      ‘Is it true what they’re saying about Olivia?’ he asked.

      ‘Yes.’ I pressed my fists into my eyes. ‘There was an accident.’

      Tyler swayed on his feet. I grabbed his elbow and directed him to a chair at the kitchen table, pressed a glass of water into his hands. He gulped it down.

      ‘An accident?’ he echoed.

      ‘I don’t know. The police . . . I have to report it . . .’

      ‘What happened?’ he asked thickly.

      ‘Nobody knows. She might’ve fallen off the bridge. But . . .’ I hesitated, unsure if I should share my suspicions. ‘Did she leave the barbecue with anyone?’

      ‘No. She was by herself.’

      ‘Madison didn’t drive her?’

      ‘I’m pretty sure she walked.’

      Olivia knew she wasn’t allowed to walk home alone in the dark. It was a firm rule of mine – one she’d never broken before.

      ‘What time was that?’

      ‘Like, ten thirty? Maybe more like ten forty-five?’

      ‘Tyler, there’s something I need to tell you.’

      He stared at me. Waited.

      ‘Olivia’s pregnant.’

      His arms dropped to the sides of the chair, heavy and limp. He looked like I’d punched him in the stomach.

      ‘Did you know?’ I needed information. Anything he could tell me mattered intensely.

      He swallowed, then balled his hands into fists and stood. He turned away from me and hunched his shoulders.

      ‘Tyler?’ I walked to him, touched his back with my fingertips. ‘I promise I won’t be mad. Did you know she was pregnant?’

      The muscles under his shirt jumped, and he pulled away from my touch. When he finally looked at me, his eyes were wide, the whites dominating his face.

      ‘I’m sorry, Miss Knight. There’s no way that baby’s mine.’

6

       ABI

      october

      ‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

      Fear crept over me, sliding along every muscle and bone as a new realization settled over me: maybe I didn’t know my daughter at all.

      ‘How?’ I asked Tyler. ‘How could – how do you – ?’

      ‘I know it’s not mine,’ he cut me off, his voice rough. ‘Because Olivia and I never . . .’ He looked away.

      I pressed my fingers hard into my eyeballs, stars exploding on the undersides of my lids. The vodka I’d gulped earlier burned bitterly in my empty stomach. ‘You never had sex.’

      ‘Right.’

      Olivia was cheating on her boyfriend. It explained so much. She’d been so different lately. Distant. I had a sudden memory of her at the Stokeses’ annual neighborhood barbecue. I’d arrived late, work a handy excuse.

      It wasn’t that I didn’t like people, just that I didn’t really have anything interesting to talk about. Once I’d ticked off Olivia’s achievements, the conversation went stale. Besides, I was really more of an observer than a participator. I was better at standing on the sidelines.

      Jen Stokes had opened the door, a glass of champagne in each hand and a wide smile on her lips. Her dark corkscrew curls bounced around a heart-shaped face.

      ‘Hi, Jen.’ I smiled hard, the muscles in my jaw twinging painfully.

      Jen and I had known each other since the girls were five. Even after all this time, we were friendly but not friends. Truth be told, Jen intimidated the hell out of me. Standing next to her made any bravado I had disappear, as if it had been sucked into the black hole of her self-confidence. She reminded me of what it was like being in junior high and high school.

      Back then I was an outcast. The Girl Whose Mom Committed Suicide. Nobody knew what to say to me, nor I to them. I never wore the right clothes or had the right hair or makeup. I spent lunch alone in a corner of the cafeteria, was never picked for teams in PE, was the last to get a partner for school projects. My teenage years were even worse, lonely until I developed breasts and learned to use my looks to get guys to like me.

      As I got older, I learned I was perfectly fine on my own. In fact, I preferred it that way. I didn’t need any better friend than my daughter.

      ‘Abi, so glad you could make it!’ Jen leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, then handed me a glass of champagne.

      I took a tiny sip. It was sweet and crisp, obviously expensive.

      ‘How are you?’ I asked. My voice was too quiet, lost in the chatter of people inside, so I said it again. ‘How’ve you been?’

      ‘Oh, you know, kids, work, life.’ She rolled her eyes and laughed drily, but I knew she loved it. Jen was an ER doctor; she thrived under pressure.

      I followed Jen through her tastefully decorated living room, my feet sinking into thick, oatmeal-colored carpet. We exited the back door to a sprawling deck that overlooked a shade-dappled yard. A shimmering rectangular swimming pool glinted in the waning light. The rich scent of barbecued ribs and burgers wafted up toward me.

      ‘Have you seen Olivia?’ Jen asked. Something СКАЧАТЬ