Page 81 of Mirror Image
“Well, yes,” she replies, tightening. “She’s been vegan since she was a toddler.”
Mary meets her mother’s gaze and deliberately takes a long, slow sip.
“I haven’t been for a while,” she says. “Not that it’s your business.”
Rivera rises. “I’ll leave you folks to talk. We’ll release a statement in a few hours. And Mary—the Me needs your decision regarding Samantha’s remains.”
“Cremate her,” Doug blurts, a little too loudly.
Rivera’s eyebrow lifts. “It’s Mary’s call.”
Mary’s face reddens beneath the bruising.
“Jesus fucking Christ! You can’t even give her a funeral?” she spits. “What happened to those Christian values you’re always preaching?”
The room goes very still.
If Mary’s reaction is a furious outburst, her mother’s is a silent, quaking rage.
Terry Langston’s eyes narrow, her lips draw thin and tight, and her brows pitch downward sharply. “What did you just say?” she asks in what has to be the most menacing whisper I’ve ever heard.
I sense rather than see Mary still.
“Terry?” Doug murmurs from next to his wife, clearly thinking he’s missed something.
“What did you just say to us?” she demands again, louder.
Paul Crane leans over to whisper something to Terry, but she doesn’t seem to notice.
She’s begun to tremble—but not in a way I’ve ever seen before. Even Terry’s teeth seem to be chattering as she stares Mary down, unblinking, her chest starting to rise and fall more quickly.
“I didn’t . . .” Mary starts quietly, then stops, shaking her head. “I mean, I don’t know . . .”
Something’s happening that I don’t understand.
“Terry? You need to calm down, sweetheart—”
His wife spins on him so quickly that he actually rolls back a few feet in his chair to put some distance between them.
“Don’t you see it?”
“See what, honey?”
When Terry speaks again, her voice pierces the entire room.
“That is not our daughter. That’s. Not. Mary!”
Chapter Thirty
Mary
Three years ago
My mother had been right. The epic fall she predicted came about seven months after their unannounced visit—and it arrived in a very biblical sense.
Walter McFurrypants needed a walk. Over the months that Brad and I had been seeing each other, I’d often step in as the de facto human in his schnauzer’s life, wearing the hats of dog walker, feeder, cuddler. That night I was already in the lobby, just getting home from yoga, when I heard the ping of a text. Brad was stuck in a late meeting; would I please stop by his place to tend to the pup? Easy enough. I just hopped off the elevator two floors earlier than usual and let myself into his apartment with the key I had for exactly this reason.
My four-legged bestie was all over me the second I walked through the door with tail wags and kisses.
