“What did you say?” I ask.
Ella shakes her head. “I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what had happened at the office, and if we had what we needed to confront her. So I just said that you went off with Sean.” She looks sorry, like she’s worried she got me in trouble.
“El, don’t worry about it,” I say. “We’re way beyond me stressing about being grounded. And besides, Mom knows about Sean.”
“What?” Betsey gasps.
“Totally,” I say. “I’ll tell you about it in a sec. But first, what else did Mom say to you before she left the dorm?”
Ella shifts. “She said she was going to leave you a message at home so you’d know we were okay. And then she said, ‘Stay here—don’t go out. I’ll be back in the morning. You have to trust me that this will all be over soon. We’ll go home and it’ll be like this whole thing never happened.’ ”
“What did she mean by that?” I ask.
“Well, since she had no idea you were digging through her stuff, about to expose her,” Ella says, “I think it meant that she thought we could just brush the whole hostage thing under the rug and go back to living as one person.”
“Ugh!” I shout, blowing out my breath. “Why is she so… ugh!”
“I don’t know,” Ella says. “But that’s when we decided that we most definitely weren’t going to stay. The room didn’t have a phone, so we couldn’t call you, and we didn’t want to leave at night—we had nowhere to go. The plan was to leave in the morning before Mom came back. But then you showed up.”
We all look at one another with a lot of emotion behind our eyes, but no one says anything for a few moments. Then, finally, Bet says, “Now you tell us about the office.”
Nodding, I begin the story of what happened after I left the house yesterday morning. I am all the way to the part about how Sean’s call nearly scared me out of my skin when I realize that Sean’s been gone for an awfully long time. I pause the conversation to text him.
WHERE ARE YOU?
PIZZA PLACE. OKAY TO COME BACK?
YES, AND BRING PEPPERONI!!!
I launch back into the story, and I’m too caught up in it to realize a few minutes later that it’s only been a few minutes. There’s a knock at the door, and I run over and fling it open. “Did you bring drinks or do we have to—”
“Hi, Lizzie,” Mom says, frowning at me from the doorway. It hits me like a ton of bricks: the necklace. Of course Mom could find us as easily as I found Ella and Betsey. I want to smack myself on the forehead.
“May I come in?” she asks. She looks cold: Her nose is red and I can see her breath. I hate that I feel a twinge of sympathy; I hate that I step aside.
“I asked you to stay put,” Mom says to Ella and Betsey. “You scared me.”
“Where’s the woman?” Betsey asks. “Maggie Kendall?”
“Out of our lives,” Mom says flatly. “Don’t worry about her again.” She pauses. “Why didn’t you stay in the dorms? Or leave a note?”
“Why did you want us to stay there, Mom?” Ella asks. “So we can go back to life as one person?”
Mom looks quizzically at her, probably sensing the mutiny in the room.
“I was just telling Ella and Bet what I found in your office, Mom,” I say from behind her. “You know, the one with the stalker walls… one for each of us?”
As I walk by to join the others on the bed, I see Mom’s mouth open a bit; she closes it quickly.
“We know you’re not a doctor,” Betsey says quietly.
“But that you still get money—and a lot of it—from somewhere,” Ella says. “It’s time to come clean. Tell us what’s going on.”
“So that’s where you were?” she asks me. “Not with Sean?”
“That’s where I was,” I say, my eyes never leaving hers. “Looking at photos and weird notes about all three of us,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest.
“It’s how I keep track of my findings,” Mom says quietly.
When she sees my horrified expression, she clarifies. “You three are my children, but you’re also my job. When I took you from the clients all those years ago, it was maternal, yes—I wanted to protect you—but it was also a professional decision. The money you mentioned comes from a trust Dr. Jovovich set up to fund a lifetime of research. I am still and will probably forever be a geneticist.”
“Were you ever a doctor?” Ella asks, letting the lies soak in. Mom shakes her head no, then pulls a chair from the table to the middle of the floor and sits down awkwardly.
“I want you to know that I care deeply for the three of you—I love you all,” Mom says. “But I am also being paid to document your lives.”
“Still?” I ask, focusing on facts instead of the fissure in my heart. “Dr. Jovovich is in jail.”
“He is,” Mom says, “but he set up the trust long before all that. I used to send him monthly reports on the three of you. The fact that he’s in jail now makes this research even more important. Our agreement was to publish our manuscript when you turned eighteen—when you were through adolescence.” She looks at me hard. “When you were adults.”
“You’re writing a paper on us?” I ask in disbelief.
“I’m writing the paper that will revolutionize science, Lizzie,” Mom says, raising her chin a bit. “Everyone else is still cloning animals, too paralyzed by fear of the government to pursue human cloning. But we’ve succeeded. You’re a success.”
“Funny, I don’t feel like much of one,” I snap.
Just then Sean walks through the door carrying pizza. He stops, clearly shocked to see Mom. “Is everything okay?” he asks, looking at me and fishing for his cell phone. His distrust of her is obvious.
“It’s fine,” I say. “Come in. I’m starving.” Then I look at my mother. “Besides, she was just leaving.”
“Lizzie, let me explain. We need to talk about this, as a family.” She glances at Sean.
I stand from the bed, then step closer to my mother and look her right in the eyes. In a measured tone, I say what needs saying: “We’re not your family. That’s the point. Please just leave us alone.”
“Lizzie, I think you’re being unreasonable,” Mom says. “If you’d just—”
“I’m being unreasonable?” I shout, then compose myself before going on. “Mom, you forced us to live like one person for years, when, as far as I can tell, we didn’t need to. You used us as guinea pigs in your little science project, lying to us the whole time. And god knows what you’re going to say about two of us being abducted!”
“Lizzie, you’re being dramatic,” Mom says, holding up her hands. “Take a breath. What Maggie did was wrong, but she didn’t exactly take them at gunpoint. And that’s all over now; I solved the problem.”
“I’m not dramatic!” I shout at her, disgusted that she’d help someone who kidnapped two of her children. “I’m awake! My eyes are finally open to this sham of a life you’ve created for us. I finally see how completely messed up it is… how messed up you are. You’re positively delusional if you think I’m going to let you dictate one more minute of my life, do you understand?”