Lovely Wild Read online

Finally, two years later, Ellie became pregnant a third time, again hiding the pregnancy. But this time, she had the baby in the bathroom of the fast-food restaurant where she worked. Unable to hide this child, Ellie gave the baby up for adoption at the hospital where they’d taken her. While there, she behaved so erratically, she was admitted to the psych ward at Philhaven for evaluation, where a diagnosis of schizophrenia was made.

  Mari’s mother was institutionalized and never returned home. She died from a drug overdose shortly after being released a year later. The death was ruled accidental. Eleanor continued living in the house, allegedly alone and cared for by her son until his death three years later.

  In monthly and then weekly home visits to care for the elderly and eventually senile but still mobile woman, not one person had ever noticed there was someone else living in the house. There were reports about the woman’s medical condition, her mental health and the fact she often chased off the home health nurses before they could even get in the front door by brandishing a cleaver. But not a word about a child.

  Only after Eleanor’s death, some five years after her daughter’s, did authorities arrive to find a terrified, speechless child huddled among the dogs under a kitchen table. She’d been living with what turned out to be eleven dogs and an uncountable number of cats, a couple dozen chickens and a pair of goats. And the peacocks.

  They’d taken her away.

  They’d fixed her.

  And she’d become Kendra’s mother.

  Kendra closed the file carefully and thought about burning it. But no, it contained the answers to a lot of unasked questions. Made a lot of sense.

  But mostly, it just made her love her mom all that much more.

  With the folder in her hand, she knocked on her dad’s door. When he turned to her, she held out the file to him. “Take this,” she said. “I think you should read it.”

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  RYAN DROVE.

  He’d been angry with his mother in the past—she’d done her share of shit-talking about his dad and her daughter-in-law, but she’d always been good to his children. That she’d used them in such a way was inexcusable.

  The file sat beside him on the front seat. Kendra had chosen to sit in the back with Ethan, a distinct snub toward Ryan that he couldn’t find it within himself to blame her for. Ethan was quiet, a quick glance in the rearview mirror showing him to be asleep while Kendra tapped away on her phone. The bluish light highlighted her stony face. She looked up once, her eyes meeting Ryan’s in the rearview. He’d been the one to look away.

  “Take this,” she’d said when she handed him the file. “But if I find you put this fucked-up Flowers in the Attic stuff into any book about our mother, I will never speak to you again for the rest of our lives. I will hate you forever, Dad. And I’ll make sure Ethan hates you, too.”

  He’d known she meant it. Hadn’t even been able to scold her for swearing at him. Ryan had seen the end of his relationship with his daughter in her eyes and had thought only of doing whatever it took to salvage it.

  So, now he drove. His mother had begged him to stay at least until the morning. She’d shown remorse, at least, he’d give her that. She’d been acting out of love, she said, but Ryan was done with that sort of love.

  “You think that just because of this—” he’d held out the file “—I could ever stop loving my wife? You think this changes anything?”

  “You deserve to know. Your father did. He should’ve told you long ago. Hell—” his mother had sniffed “—he should’ve told her.”

  Maybe she was right, Ryan thought, hands gripped so tight on the wheel his fingers had begun to ache. It might’ve changed everything and nothing, had they both known the truth about Mari’s history. But he didn’t want that.

  “All of this, everything that’s happened to her or was done to her, and yet all you can do is blame her for it. Or see the bad. You know what, Mom? Mari is a wonderful wife. And she’s a good mother. She’s an excellent mother. She’s a better mother than you ever were or could be, and that’s what really bugs you the most, isn’t it? That’s what really sets your hair on fire. That she came from all ‘that’ and yet still managed to become a better person than you.” He’d said all this to her under his breath so he wouldn’t scream. The kids had already gone out to the car, their bags half-packed. On the run like refugees. Yet Ryan had kept his voice down because he was afraid if he shouted at his mother the way he wanted to, he might never stop. He might scream on and on, and there’d be no going back from that.

  Shit, there was no going back, anyway.

  “You’ll be sorry you said those things to me, Ryan. Maybe not tonight or tomorrow or next week. But someday, you’ll be sorry you talked to me this way. And when you are,” his mother had said with wounded dignity, that familiar martyrdom he’d always looked past because it was part of her, “I will be here, ready to forgive you.”

  “Plan on waiting a long, long time,” Ryan had said and left her.

  He’d felt there was something missing from his father’s research, some piece to the story left untold. It turned out it was all in the file his mother had somehow absconded with—either because his dad had left it behind when he’d moved out, or because she’d stolen it for some sick reason of her own. She hadn’t admitted to that, but she hadn’t said anything else, either, which led Ryan to believe she’d kept it on purpose. It would’ve been like her, to take the thing that would have the worst effect and hold on to it until she thought giving it up would get her something she wanted.

  When had she first read the file? When Mari was a child, long before Ryan’s dad had even considered bringing home the wild child to live as his daughter? Or had his mother only discovered it when her husband decided to go ahead and foster Mari without his wife’s consent or participation? Or was it even later, after Ryan’s dad had moved out, taking most everything with him but that one file. It didn’t matter. Ryan’s mother had known for a long time about Mari’s parentage, and that was enough.

  Now Ryan knew, too, and so did Kendra. And Ethan because, though he was too young to grasp all of it, Kendra had insisted he not be kept in the dark. The time for secrets was finished, Kendra had said.

  “I just wanted to protect you,” Ryan had told her.

  Kendra had given him a solid, unyielding stare. “I know. Ethan should know, too. We love our mom, it doesn’t matter about any of that, but if he grows up someday and finds out by accident, it’ll be much worse than if you just let him know.”

  So Ryan had given his son a condensed but not sanitized version of the story he’d only known pieces of before. Now Ryan navigated the increasingly rural roads, away from West Chester and heading toward Pine Grove. It had been a mistake to take them there, but he could fix it. He’d get Mari, take her and the kids back to Philly. Sell that piece-of-shit house that should’ve been sold years ago. He’d get a new job.

  Ryan would make all of this right, no matter what it took. It was his job, to love and protect his wife and family. He’d messed it up, but he could fix it.

  He’d have to.

  FIFTY-NINE

  MARI WANTS TO run and run and run, into darkness and the shelter of trees. She wants to give up and be wild again, streaking along the paths of pine needles and seeking solace in the splash of the cold springwater creek. She wants to unknow all of this, forget what has happened, erase the memories of Andrew. All of them.

  Instead, she runs to the house. Throws open the back door onto the screen porch. Boxes and folders and videocassettes and notebooks stare at her. She hisses, the sound too loud, and claps a hand over her mouth.

  Mari shudders.

  Chompsky whines from his place in the doorway. The small sound catches her attention, and Mari gets to her knees to reach for him. He comes reluctantly, shaking until she smoothes his fur over and over again in the soft spots over his eyes. She can’t say she ever wanted this mutt, but he’s hers now.

  She straightens her shoulders. Sh