I almost laughed. Somehow I didn’t see Lenora Lange pulling up one of our rickety extra chairs and tucking in for some Aunt Jemima and Log Cabin.
“No, no. We won’t be staying long,” Mrs. Lange said.
She paused at the threshold to the kitchen, probably realizing that she and her expensive fur wouldn’t quite fit inside the small space along with the rest of us. As soon as my dad saw the woman’s face, he paled and looked up at my mom warily. But it was as if my mother couldn’t meet his eye.
“Hello,” he said to Mrs. Lange.
“Mr. Brennan,” she replied with a sniff.
Noelle and Scott looked each other up and down.
“’Sup, Noelle?” he asked, slurping some OJ.
“Scott,” she replied.
They had met only once before, on our brief stopover in New York after Christmas, and each had kept a respectful distance. It looked like they’d made some kind of silent agreement to keep it that way.
“Mr. and Mrs. Brennan … would you mind if Noelle and I had a private chat with your daughter?” Mrs. Lange asked. Her nose wrinkled a bit on the word “daughter.” As if it felt funny to say.
“Uh, sure,” my father said, looking over at my mom.
“Actually, I think I’d like to be in that conversation,” my mother said shakily.
“Suit yourself,” Mrs. Lange said.
“I believe I will.” My mom stood up straight and set her jaw. “This is, after all, my house.” She stepped past Mrs. Lange and her huge fur, leading us all into the living room. “Shall we?”
As soon as we were all inside, my mom yanked the accordion door between the kitchen and the living room closed. Then she stood in front of it with her arms crossed over her chest, like a sentry. Like she was going to keep us all from bolting. Or keep my dad and Scott from getting in.
“Okay, what is going on?” I asked, walking to the far side of the coffee table. “You guys are freaking me out.”
My mom looked at Mrs. Lange and said, “If we’re going to do this, let’s just do it.”
I felt like she was speaking in tongues. Why was she talking to Mrs. Lange like that? Like she knew her? Like
she was mad at her?
Mrs. Lange looked at Noelle. Noelle cleared her throat. She unbuttoned her black wool coat, took it off, and slowly folded it over the back of my dad’s lounge chair. Then she leaned her hands into it, and looked me in the eye.
“Reed, back at the observatory, when I said we were sisters, I meant it,” she said.
I rolled my eyes. “Not this again.”
“No, I mean … I didn’t mean Billings sisterhood, blah, blah, blah,” she said, shaking her head. “I meant, we’re sisters. Like, real sisters.”
“Blood relations,” Mrs. Lange supplied. “The two of you … share the same father. My son.”
I couldn’t have been more stunned if she’d reached out and picked my nose.
“What?” I blurted. “No. No. I know who my father is. You people are cracked. I can’t—”
“Reed,” my mother said quietly. “It’s true.”
“What?” I practically screamed, backing away from her. Backing away from all of them. “How is that even possible? You don’t even know Noelle’s dad. He lives in Manhattan! He’s, like, a gazillionaire! Where the hell could you two have possibly met and—” My throat closed over, choking me before I could complete the thought. “You were married to Dad. You were …”
I sat down on the couch and bent in half, my arms around my waist, my head between my knees. Dad. Dad was not my dad. My mother was married to my dad who was not my dad when she’d been with Noelle’s dad somehow and made me. This was too surreal. Too much for me to process. Way too much for me to believe.
But then, in the whirl of screaming protestations, a few bits of fact came screeching through. Like the fact that I looked nothing like my father. The fact that I looked a lot like Noelle. The fact that Upton said Lenora Lange reminded him of me. The fact that, in St. Barths, Mr. Lange had been insanely protective of me, had given me the same gift he’d given Noelle on Christmas morning. The fact that her mother had avoided me like the plague.