Her voice is raspy as she whispers, “After all this time, I’m really just like her, aren’t I?”
Chapter 37
REESE
Ben’s Jetta pulls up to the ostentatious white house straight out of Greek mythology, its row of columns and the enormous three-tier water fountain in the center of the circular driveway plain ridiculous. Husband Number Four comes from money and loads of it.
“Well, this looks cozy,” Ben observes with a smirk.
“Wait until you see the inside,” I mutter. “It looks like a morgue.” Thanks to the sprawling layout and lack of furniture, it’s also the ideal house for a lavish charity ball.
The car door opens and the valet offers me a hand that I accept only after scooping up the layers of my satin dress. Lina and Mason drove up to the grove this morning with it, so I’d have time to get ready before heading to Jacksonville. Thankfully, it fits as well as if it were custom-designed to my body. Based on the price tag I found in the box, it may as well have been.
Ben comes around the car—looking every bit like a Ken doll in a sharp black pearl tux that he rented last minute—and offers me an arm. If we were here under different circumstances, I’d probably already be scouting out locations to drag him off to by his tie, he looks so appealing. “When did you see your mother last?” he asks, taking the steps in unison with me, slowly. Warily.
“Right after I married Jared. Number Four wanted a big mending-fences family brunch.”
“So, what, like . . .”
“A year and a half ago.”
He shakes his head in disbelief. “And how’d that go?”
“Terrific. Annabelle told me I didn’t have what it took to keep Jared interested and he’d leave me.”
And now I think I know why.
Ben speaks to the man with the guest list while my eyes roam over the crowd of finely dressed people of all ages. He’s been doting on me since yesterday afternoon, while keeping my mind occupied and cracking stupid jokes to try and make me laugh. Odd, given we just put his dad in the ground. It should be the other way around.
We step into a buzz of music and conversation and laughter—both fake and genuine. The beautiful O’Hara staircase reaching the second floor is closed to guests and lined with a small orchestra of violinists, playing soft classical music while a photographer captures them. Servers in tuxes float through the crowd, balancing silver platters of appetizers and champagne with ease.
I can’t help but think that all the money that went into this party could have been better served going straight to the charity. This is Annabelle at her finest.
I never enjoyed these pretentious parties, preferring one of Jack’s summer backyard barbeques where I could show up in jeans and a T-shirt. Then again, the look on Ben’s face when I descended Wilma’s stairs in a dress that cost half the price of my Harley makes it worth it.
Ben stops a server with a hand on her elbow and his winning smile. “Excuse me, can you please tell us where Mrs. Donnelly is?” That’s Annabelle’s latest last name. It’s getting hard to keep track of them.
The young woman blushes as she looks up at him. “Entertaining in the conservatoire.”
Ben shoots a questioning look my way.
I respond with an eye roll and a quiet hiss of, “It’s a greenhouse with a piano in it.” I think I catch a smirk from the server as she continues on, but I can’t be quite sure.
We find our way to the “conservatoire”—an enormous glass room in the back of the house, overlooking an Olympic-sized pool. Though it’s minimally furnished on normal occasions, tonight it has been cleared of everything except a black grand piano and the stench of old money. That’s where I find Annabelle, amidst a small circle of supremely polished people. She looks as poised and radiant as always in a long, fitted royal-blue dress that pools around her ankles, her pale skin appearing all the more milky-white next to the vibrant color.
Ben offers my waist a little squeeze and prods me forward. I fight the urge to touch my hair—an understated but elegant side bun that Elsie did for me, showing off the black-cherry layer as I make my way forward.
Ian sees me first. He offers a smile, but it’s wary. I’m not stupid. To him, I’m the estranged daughter of his trophy wife who, if anyone bothered to do a bit of research, could probably cause some political embarrassment for him, especially around election time. God knows what she’s told him about me. At least my record is sealed.
Annabelle turns. With her tall frame, hourglass figure, and perfect features, she has always been a stunning woman. I can’t deny that she still is, though getting a better look at her—at the shape of her eyes, the lack of a single wrinkle or flaw, the very full br**sts—I’m betting she’s had plastic surgery since I saw her last.
Those cold azure eyes float over the length of me, of my gown, of my hair, of Ben next to me, and I see a flash of something—surprise? Triumph? Suspicion? “I didn’t think you were going to make it, Reese,” she says in a breathy voice, leaning forward to peck my cheek, much like I’d imagine a chicken pecks at a piece of corn. I mentally compare that to the kiss Wilma planted on me—warm and loving and so . . . motherly.
“I didn’t think I was going to either,” I admit. Up until yesterday, I had my mind made up.
And then I learned the whole story.
Coming here tonight to confront her may be considered poor timing by some. But I think it’s the perfect moment. She’ll be sober, for one thing. I can guarantee that her glass is straight Perrier. She won’t risk getting drunk with all these people here.
But mainly, she’ll be so concerned about how I’m going to react—in front of all these spectators—that she won’t have a chance to throw a fit.
Turning to Ben, Annabelle purrs, “Hello, I’m Annabelle Donnelly,” and holds her hand out limply as if she’s expecting him to kiss it.
“Ben Morris. It’s a pleasure,” he answers with a high-voltage dimpled smile as he smoothly accepts her hand. As much of a foot-in-mouth jackass as Ben can be, he seems to have a way of making a woman react. Even now, Annabelle’s eyes scan his body quickly before letting go, a demure smile on her extra-pouty lips. Plumper than I last remember.
“I need to talk to you,” I blurt out.
“Sure. Perhaps after the ball?”
“We’re not staying long.”
“Oh. Well, I hope you’ll at least stay for some family pictures. Ian’s children flew in to be here. The photographer is setting up in the library.” To those who don’t know her, Annabelle looks unperturbed. That vein in the side of her neck is pulsing, though. She’s on edge.
Her delicate shoulder begins to curl back toward the circle, already dismissing my presence, until I say, “I found Hank.”
Every part of her freezes. Her fake smile, her enhanced body, her breath. For one very long moment, Annabelle looks like a statue.
“Excuse me, everyone,” she announces, setting her flute onto a passing server’s tray, before she begins her slow, feline stalk past me, her four-inch heels clicking against the marble floor.
“Do you want me to come with you?” Ben whispers into my ear.
“No. I’m good.”
“Okay. I’ll be here if you need me,” he whispers, laying a kiss on my temple before he reminds me, “You’re just here to talk.”
“Yup,” I answer with a tight smile, hoping I can keep my promise. We exit the room and head to the left, down a quiet hall that has been roped off to guests. To anyone witnessing this, we probably look like a strange processional of Holiday Barbie dolls. Certainly not like mother and daughter.
Annabelle pushes through a set of solid double doors, leading me into what appears to be Ian’s office, a masculine-looking room of floor-to-ceiling drapery, dark cherry wood, and black leather. When those heavy doors close behind me, the lively sounds of music and laughter vanish completely.
And now it’s just Annabelle and me.
She clears her throat. “What is it you’d like to talk about, exactly?”
There’s no point dancing around this. “Did you know that my father was trying to find me?”
She clears her throat again. “I assumed that he would have, eventually. Not that I’ve spoken to him again after he left us.”
“No, Annabelle. Not us. You! He wanted to take me with him to his new life, with MaryAnn. That’s where we were the day you reported me kidnapped. You knew exactly where we were. You knew I wasn’t in any danger.” I see the flash of pain in her eyes and I smile, though there’s no pleasure in it. “Didn’t think I’d ever find out, did you? Lucky for me you went on to marry a guy like Jack, who cares enough about me to start asking questions, even sixteen years later.”
Bowing her head, she seems to take a moment to breathe, her chest rising and falling heavily several times. “How is he?” she finally asks in a hoarse whisper. “Hank.”
The lump that’s been sitting at the base of my throat since yesterday flares, knowing that I’ll never get to see him again. “He’s in a Tallahassee cemetery. He was run off the road on his Harley by a truck driver who hadn’t checked his blind spot before changing lanes, about eight years ago.”
My words slap her across the face as forcefully as if I had hit her with my palm. Whatever color was left in her cheeks vanishes, leaving her gray-skinned, her mouth hanging open.
When Jack called the firm’s P.I. about Hank MacKay, the investigator started out with the routine checks—police reports and obituaries. That quickly led him to the death report and to the next-of-kin, his common-law spouse, MaryAnn Seltzer.
It all sounds so easy.
Hank had written several letters to me, hoping he’d one day have a place to send them. After his death, MaryAnn gave the letters to Bethany MacKay, my father’s sister. An aunt who I didn’t even know existed. Who lives twenty minutes away from me. MaryAnn had a hunch that one day Hank’s long-lost daughter would track the MacKay family down.
“You met my dad one night at a Miami bar where his band was playing. He had just broken up with his girlfriend. You were watching him play the guitar. And then, when some girl tried to cut in front of you, you dumped a beer down the back of her shirt. You pretended it was an accident but my dad saw you intentionally pour it.” I smile at that. It’s something I would do, except I wouldn’t hide it. I’d own up to it with pleasure. “He said you were the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. You started dating right away. He’d drive an hour into the city every chance he got. Then, six months later, when you found out that you were pregnant with me, you got married. Neither of you thought twice about it.”
I begin retelling all that that first letter explained in great detail, stories that I’d never heard from Annabelle. As I do, I see the emotions threatening to break through her mask. “You moved into a two-bedroom apartment in his hometown, where he worked as a mechanic in his father’s garage. You stayed home with me.” I step farther into the room, my eyes taking in the painted portrait of Annabelle that sits over the fireplace on the wall, in a sexy slip dress and a fur stole. “You hated it. You hated being stuck with a baby at home. You were bored with small-town life. You wanted to move to Miami but Hank wasn’t willing; he was the only one bringing in a paycheck. Plus, he was going to take over the business from his dad.
“You two fought a lot because of it. You fought a lot in general. You had a huge argument one Friday night when I was about three and the neighbors called the cops. Hank was so mad, he took off for a few hours. When he came home, he found you passed out on the couch. I was sitting in a pool of spilled vodka, crying. That’s when you claimed you were suffering from postpartum depression, and that you were going to get help. After that, he started taking me everywhere with him, until you got better.”
From what Hank learned of her parents—who I apparently met, though I don’t remember—Annabelle was raised in a middle-income household where hugs were meaningless and image was everything. That she fell in love with my dad—a blue-collar, guitar-playing, Harley-riding, tattooed guy—was against everything she’d learned growing up. But it also proves that Annabelle once knew how to love. How to let her heart win.
My dad began bringing me to the garage. He knew it wasn’t an ideal place for a little girl but he could see a change in me right away: how much more I laughed and smiled and talked around him.
“Things didn’t get better. You were still so miserable, stuck in that small town with a little kid in your early twenties. You started resenting him for all of it. He figured he was going to come home one day and find you gone.” And he started wishing for it, he had admitted in his letter.
“You two drifted apart. And then my dad ran into MaryAnn—his ex-girlfriend before you, who had broken up with him when she went away to college. Things just kind of picked up where they left off.” I turn to take in Annabelle’s face. “He cheated on you.” I’m surprised she never told me. I would have thought that being able to blame Hank MacKay would have given her satisfaction. I also would have thought that she might reveal the truth, knowing how much pain I felt in a very similar situation with Jared. An eerily similar situation. Sure, it was a much shorter relationship and we hadn’t created another human, but still, that kind of heartache could have found us some common ground, something we finally shared.