Mr. Mercer gave her an understanding look and squeezed her hand. “You don’t have to decide right now.” He undid his seat belt. “We’d better go in. Mom’s probably worried.”
Emma squinted in the harsh bright light in the foyer. Down the hall, she saw Laurel perched on a stool at the kitchen island, wearing her favorite terrycloth robe. Mrs. Mercer was standing behind her, pouring tea into two pineapple-shaped mugs. She almost dropped the kettle when she saw them.
“Where have you been?” she demanded. “It’s after midnight. Why didn’t you call? I tried you a thousand times.”
Looking abashed, Mr. Mercer pulled his phone from his pocket, scrolling through the missed calls. Emma didn’t have to look at hers to know that there were probably a dozen calls from her mother on the screen. “I’m so sorry, honey,” he mumbled.
Laurel narrowed her eyes at Emma, giving her a long, scrutinizing look. She pointed to something on Emma’s jacket. “What’s that?”
Emma looked down. The hospital visitor badge was pinned to her lapel. She caught her breath. She’d been so tired on the way home that she hadn’t remembered to take it off. She tried to slide it into her pocket, but it was too late.
“You were at the hospital?” Mrs. Mercer demanded.
Mr. Mercer and Emma exchanged glances. He waited a beat too long before speaking. “Look, I didn’t want to bother you, but I was feeling a lot of pain in my knee. I went in to have it checked out and see if I could get some meds from the pharmacy. I’m so sorry we didn’t call, honey. The signal in the hospital is awful, and we lost track of time.”
The clock over the kitchen table ticked noisily. Drake, the family’s Great Dane, rose from his dog bed, shook out his coat, and then lay down again. Mrs. Mercer stood with her arms crossed over her chest. Emma wondered if this was how Mrs. Mercer had spent her evenings when she was raising Becky—up late, making tea she was too nervous to drink, waiting for bad news to come in the door. She felt a flare of guilt for making her grandmother worry.
Finally Mrs. Mercer sighed and turned to Emma. “Well, it was your night to walk Drake, Sutton. It’s too late for that, but the least you can do is to take him out to the yard.”
Emma nodded. “Come on, boy.”
The Great Dane lazily stood once more. Emma slid open the door to the backyard and followed him out into the night.
While he sniffed along the fence, Emma flopped into a wrought-iron chair and stared at the stars. As a little girl, she’d had a habit of naming the stars after things in her own life. There were the Teacher Star, a pretty twinkling one she’d named after Ms. Rodehaver, her beloved third-grade teacher. There were the Bully Star and the Brat Star, which she’d named for particularly awful classmates, stars consigned to the edges of the sky and washed out by light pollution. And then there was the Emma Star, and the Mom Star, and the Dad Star, three stars twinkling close to one another but not quite together. She had made up stories about why they had to exist apart from one another—one in Orion’s Belt, another just a little left of what Ethan had told her was Venus. In her stories, they were apart because they had to break a curse or solve a riddle or go on a pilgrimage in order to reunite. They always ended up together in the end.
After seeing her mother tonight, Emma was no longer so sure her story would have a happy ending.
“So what were you really doing tonight?”
Emma jumped and turned, catching a whiff of tuberose lotion. Laurel stood behind her, the porch light making a halo around her honey-blond head.
“Was Dad’s knee actually acting up?” Laurel asked. “Or was he covering for you, just like old times?”
Emma squinted, trying to read Laurel in the darkness. “There was nothing to cover up,” she said in a clear, firm voice. “Dad’s knee hurt, we went to the hospital. Why would I lie about something like that?”
Laurel shifted her weight. “Gee, I don’t know, Sutton. I don’t know why you lie about half the things you lie about. You only invented a whole, you know, game about it.”
“A game you begged to be in, if I remember correctly.”
“All right, all right, touché.” Laurel pulled her robe more tightly around her shoulders, then sat down in a chair next to Emma’s. A light breeze riffled through the wind chimes hanging over the patio. “You know you can trust me. What are these secrets about?”
In the porch light Emma could see Laurel’s face, earnest and hopeful, and for a minute Emma considered telling Laurel about Becky. Maybe not the whole truth—not about Becky calling her by her real name—but what would it hurt to tell Laurel that she’d met her birth mother? Sutton might have told her adopted sister, too, once she got over the initial shock.
But if Becky really was responsible for Sutton’s death, the less Laurel knew, the safer she’d be. Emma gazed out over the yard, where Drake was circling the birdbath.
“Okay. You’ve found me out,” she said. “We were rehearsing for the Father-Daughter Roller Derby. His derby name is Doctor Feelbad, but I’m torn between Paris Hellton and Nicole Bitchy. What do you think?”
“Liar!” Laurel punched her in the arm, but she was laughing. The tension dissipated.
“I’m not sure we have a shot with Dad’s leg in a brace, but we’re going to go for it. Reach for the stars, that’s what I always say,” Emma went on with a smile.
Laurel grabbed a cushion from the porch swing and hit at Emma with it. Emma ducked and squealed, grabbing a pillow of her own in retaliation. By the time Drake trotted up to the patio to investigate, they were both giggling and throwing cushions at each other from opposite sides of the deck chair.