Читать книгу The Lies We Told - Diane Chamberlain - Страница 7

Maya

I KNEW THE EXACT MOMENT DADDY TURNED FROM THE street into the driveway of our house in Annandale, Virginia, even though I was curled up on the backseat of the car with my eyes closed. I was very nearly asleep, a half-fugue state that I wanted to stay in forever to help me forget what I’d done. The rain spiking against the roof of the car was loud, but I still heard the crunch of gravel and felt the familiar rise and fall as the car traveled over the portion of the driveway that covered the drainpipe. We were home. I would have to open my eyes, unfurl my aching fourteen-year-old body and go into the house, pretending nothing was wrong while the truth was, my world had caved in on me. Or so I thought. I had no idea that I was mere seconds away from the true collapse of my world. The moment that would change everything.

Daddy suddenly slammed on the brakes. “What the …”

I sat up, wincing from a sudden bolt of pain in my gut. In the glow of the headlights, I saw my mother running toward the car, her arms flailing in the air. I couldn’t remember ever seeing my mother run before. I’d never seen her look wild like this, her wet, dark hair flattened to her head, her dress clinging to her thighs.

My breath caught in my throat and I let out a soft moan. She knows, I thought. She knows where we’ve been.

My mother yanked the passenger door open and I braced myself for what she would say. She jumped into the car. “Drive!” she screamed, pulling the door shut. “In reverse! Hurry!” I could smell the rain on her. I could smell fear.

“Why?” Daddy stared at her, his profile a perfect silhouette—the wire-rimmed glasses, the slightly Romanesque nose—that would remain in my memory forever.

“Hurry!” my mother said.

“Why are you—”

“Just go! Oh my God! There he is!” My mother pointed ahead of us, and the headlights picked up the figure of a man walking toward our car.

“Who’s that?” Daddy leaned forward to peer into the half-light. “Does he have on a … is that a ski mask?”

“Dan!” My mother reached for the gearshift. “Go!”

I was wide awake now, fear flooding my body even before the headlights illuminated the man’s ice-blue eyes. Even before I saw him raise his arm. Even before I saw the gun. Instinctively, I ducked behind the driver’s seat, arms wrapped over my head, but no matter how loudly I screamed, I couldn’t block out the crack of gunfire. Over and over it came. Later, they said he only had five bullets in the gun, but I could have sworn he had five hundred.

My sharpest memories of that day will always be the blast of that gun, the ice-blue eyes, the silhouette of my father’s face, the skirt of my mother’s dress sticking to her thighs.

And my sister.

Above all, my sister.