Chapter 1 - The Question
The first thing my mother asked when I came home after five years was not whether I was alive.
It wasn't whether I was in pain.
It wasn't even whether the doctors had saved my life.
She looked down at my prosthetic leg, then up at my face, and asked the one question that finally made me understand why I had stayed away so long.
"Can you still play piano?"
I stood in the marble foyer of the house where I had grown up.
Behind me sat two suitcases.
Beside me stood my wheelchair.
And beneath my jeans, hidden beneath layers of fabric, was the mechanical leg that had replaced the one I lost at twenty-two.
My mother stared at it as though it were an inconvenience.
Not a miracle.
Not a reminder that I had survived.
An inconvenience.
"Hello to you too, Mother."
Her lips tightened.
"You didn't answer."
I looked past her.
The house was exactly as I remembered it.
The crystal chandelier.
The enormous staircase.
The portraits.
The black grand piano in the music room.
Even the vase on the console table was still sitting at precisely the same angle.
Five years had passed.
Nothing had changed.
Except me.
"I don't know," I said.
My mother frowned.
"You don't know?"
"I haven't played since the accident."
She sighed.
Not sadly.
Impatiently.
"You should have practiced."
I almost laughed.
Five years ago, I had been trapped inside a burning car.
I had lost my left leg.
I had spent months learning how to stand.
Then months learning how to walk.
Then years learning how to live with people staring at me.
And my mother was disappointed because I hadn't practiced piano.
I looked at her carefully.
She was wearing black.
Perfectly tailored.
Pearls around her neck.
Her blond hair pinned neatly behind her head.
She looked exactly as she had at my father's funeral.
Except my father had not been dead when I left.
He had been sitting in a hospital bed.
Alive.
Conscious.
And screaming my name.
I was the one everyone had told him was dead.
"Where's Dad?" I asked.
My mother's face changed.
Only slightly.
"He's resting."
"Resting?"
"He hasn't been well."
I stared at her.
"Why didn't anyone tell me?"
"You didn't want contact."
"That isn't true."
"You left."
"You told me not to come back."
Her jaw tightened.
"You needed time."
"No."
I looked toward the music room.
"You needed me gone."
Silence.
My mother stepped closer.
"You have always been dramatic."
I felt something inside me go cold.
"Is that why you called me home?"
"I called you home because your father wants to see you."
I swallowed.
"Then take me to him."
She hesitated.
"Not tonight."
"Why?"
"He's sleeping."
"I'll wait."
She sighed.
Then the sound of a piano drifted from the music room.
I froze.
Someone was playing.
A familiar piece.
The same piece my father had taught me when I was seven.
I walked toward the sound.
My mother grabbed my arm.
"Don't."
I looked at her hand.
"Why?"
"Because someone is using the piano."
"Who?"
She didn't answer.
I pushed open the music-room door.
A young woman sat at the piano.
She was perhaps twenty.
Dark hair.
Pale skin.
A black dress.
She stopped playing when she saw me.
For several seconds, we stared at each other.
Then she stood.
My heart began pounding.
Because I knew that face.
Not personally.
But from photographs.
From newspapers.
From the nightmare that had followed me for five years.
She was my father's favorite student.
And she had been the last person seen with him before my accident.
"Who is she?" I asked.
My mother stepped into the room.
"This is Emma."
Emma looked frightened.
I stared at her.
"Emma what?"
She didn't answer.
My mother did.
"Emma Bennett."
My stomach dropped.
Bennett.
The name belonged to the man who had been driving the second car that night.
The man police had said was never found.
I looked at my mother.
"You told me he died."
"He did."
"Then why is his daughter here?"
My mother's expression hardened.
"You've been away too long."
Emma lowered her eyes.
I moved toward the piano.
On top of it sat a framed photograph.
My father.
Emma.
And my mother.
Taken two months after my accident.
I picked it up.
My hands shook.
"What is this?"
My mother reached for it.
"Put it down."
I turned the photograph over.
There was handwriting on the back.
My father's handwriting.
Four words.
She knows what happened.
I looked at Emma.
She was crying.
My mother suddenly stepped between us.
"Go upstairs."
"No."
"Your father needs rest."
"I think he needs to talk."
My mother grabbed the photograph.
"Not tonight."
I stared at her.
For five years, I had believed my family had abandoned me because I was broken.
Now I wondered if they had sent me away because I was dangerous.
Because I knew something.
Something I didn't remember.
Something someone had spent five years trying to hide.
And as I turned toward the staircase, Emma whispered behind me.
"Your father didn't cause the accident."
I stopped.
May you like
She looked directly at me.
"He was trying to save you."
