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Back The Mother Next Door Save as PDF
Chapters (84)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. Dedication
  4. About the Author
  5. HALLOWEEN
  6. Seven Weeks Before Halloween
  7. ONE
  8. TWO
  9. THREE
  10. HALLOWEEN
  11. Six Weeks Before Halloween
  12. FOUR
  13. FIVE
  14. SIX
  15. HALLOWEEN
  16. Five Weeks Before Halloween
  17. SEVEN
  18. EIGHT
  19. HALLOWEEN
  20. NINE
  21. TEN
  22. HALLOWEEN
  23. ELEVEN
  24. TWELVE
  25. Twenty-Five Days Until Halloween
  26. THIRTEEN
  27. FOURTEEN
  28. HALLOWEEN
  29. FIFTEEN
  30. SIXTEEN
  31. SEVENTEEN
  32. EIGHTEEN
  33. NINETEEN
  34. TWENTY
  35. HALLOWEEN
  36. Eighteen Days Until Halloween
  37. TWENTY-ONE
  38. TWENTY-TWO
  39. HALLOWEEN
  40. TWENTY-THREE
  41. TWENTY-FOUR
  42. Eleven Days Until Halloween
  43. TWENTY-FIVE
  44. TWENTY-SIX
  45. Eight Days Until Halloween
  46. TWENTY-SEVEN
  47. TWENTY-EIGHT
  48. TWENTY-NINE
  49. HALLOWEEN
  50. THIRTY
  51. Four Days Until Halloween
  52. THIRTY-ONE
  53. HALLOWEEN
  54. THIRTY-TWO
  55. Two Days Until Halloween
  56. THIRTY-THREE
  57. The Night Before Halloween
  58. THIRTY-FOUR
  59. HALLOWEEN
  60. THIRTY-FIVE
  61. Halloween, Present Day
  62. THIRTY-SIX
  63. THIRTY-SEVEN
  64. HALLOWEEN
  65. THIRTY-EIGHT
  66. HALLOWEEN
  67. THIRTY-NINE
  68. HALLOWEEN
  69. FORTY
  70. HALLOWEEN
  71. FORTY-ONE
  72. FORTY-TWO
  73. FORTY-THREE
  74. FORTY-FOUR
  75. HALLOWEEN... NOW
  76. FORTY-FIVE
  77. Seven Months Later
  78. FORTY-SIX
  79. FORTY-SEVEN
  80. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  81. ALICE SWANSON’S
  82. Reader's Guide
  83. Questions for Discussion
  84. Booklist

Do you pity them for what they’ve lived with all these years? Weep not, for their guilt has been padded by 401(k) savings, faux leather car seats, Easter egg hunts, porch mimosa parties.

They know what they did, and they live with it. They bury it in their fancy purses, tuck it way down deep at the bottom with the lint and the flecks of chocolate, but it’s there, and it gets under their fingernails. They can smell it and taste it and they dream about it.

Oh do they dream.

Do you hate me for what I’ve done? For my part in this game? I dangled the felt mouse above the cats, hoping for them to swipe, hoping their claws might cut skin. Hoping for some sort of redemption or vengeance. I sent the messages. I made the Daphne doll. I took the photo—it is so easy to slip into shadow, to go unnoticed in a place where everyone is only concerned about themselves. I messed with Theresa Pressley, too, my father’s lover, the real slut. I read her emails to my father and I put it all together, her little secrets, all that she’d gotten away with. I locked her in the shed, hoping the bees might find her before Alice’s children did. And when she was too weak to tell her daughter the truth, I did it for her. As Lily and I were slipping through the shadows, destroying the bad mothers’ jack-o-lanterns, smashing them to bits, I told her all about her mother’s secrets.

So yes, I confess. I did it all. And I’d do it again, and more. For nothing I did was worse than what they did. Nothing can bring back Daphne Brown. Nothing can give me back my childhood, my mother.

They’ll all always have to live with that.

FORTY-FIVE

Kendra

Later, much later that night, I couldn’t sleep. I went downstairs into the kitchen and poured myself a Bailey’s.

I wasn’t surprised when I heard the knock on the back door. It was almost as if I’d been expecting it.

I walked out onto the screened-in porch, tying my robe tighter to keep out the cold air. Ellen had changed, too, thank god. I wasn’t sure I could handle the sight of her in that wedding gown.

She was in all black now, her eyes shrewd and darting around. Like a cat burglar.

A formidable opponent.

“I can’t stay long,” she said. “And I’m not here to say I’m sorry.”

I nodded. Ellen was, if anything, blunt. I had to appreciate that. Here we were, not a parent and a neighborhood child, but two equals. In the end, I’d been half-right after all. It had been a teenage prank. All the “Ivy Woods” messages. The photo of us at the bonfire. It had been Ellen.