The less he looked at her mom, the more closely her mom watched him. “But you used to live around here? Did you two know each other back then?”
Becca dropped her fork onto her plate. “Mom, why are you asking this stuff? I told you, we just met a couple of weeks ago. Why does it matter, anyway?” As if Jake weren’t having a hard enough time acting normal.
Her mom didn’t even acknowledge her. Her frown deepened. “Do I know your parents, then?”
Jake stabbed at his lasagna. “I don’t think so. Neither of them ever worked for Internal.”
Becca searched for something she could say to turn the conversation in a better direction—the last thing Jake needed was a reminder of his parents. She came up blank.
“Are you sure?” her mom pressed.
“I’m sure.” Jake was methodically dismantling his lasagna now. He spread it layer by layer across his plate.
Above the stove, the clock ticked away the seconds. How many more before this meal was over?
Her mom leaned a little closer to Jake, studying his face. “I could have sworn I—” She drew back. Her chair clattered to the floor behind her as she jerked up out of her seat.
She grabbed Jake’s arm and yanked him out of his chair. “Get out.” Her words sliced through the air. “Get out of my kitchen. Get out of my apartment. And don’t you ever come near my daughter again.”
Becca stood up, knowing she had to intervene but not sure how. What was her mom doing? What had she seen in Jake to cause this kind of reaction? First the weird questions, and now—
She went cold as the truth hit her.
Jake swayed on his feet, looking from Becca’s mom to the doorway and back again. “I—”
“Get out,” her mom repeated, in a whisper more dangerous than a roar. “Don’t say another word. Just leave this apartment right now.”
Becca had to do something. Say something to Jake, or to her mom, or…
She stayed where she was, still and silent, as Jake backed out of the kitchen.
As soon as the apartment door closed, Becca’s mom sagged against the counter. “Please tell me you didn’t know.”
Becca stayed where she was. She couldn’t move. “You killed her, didn’t you? You killed Jake’s mother.”
Her mom let out a long, ragged breath. “You knew. You knew about him and his family, and you still…” She clutched the counter like she was afraid she might fall. “I don’t know you anymore.”
I don’t know you anymore. Heather had said the same thing.
“She wasn’t a dissident. She was innocent. They all were.” Becca stumbled back and dropped, half-falling, into her chair. “Did you know? Did you even care?”
“That’s what he told you? And you believed him?” Her mom laughed without humor. “You should have known better than to expect the truth from a dissident.”
“He told me about his dad’s friend.” Becca traced the fake wood grains on the plastic-topped table, in the space beside her mostly-full plate of lasagna. She couldn’t look at her mom. If she did, she would have to try to figure out whether she was looking at the woman who had raised her or the stranger who had killed Jake’s mother.
“What friend?” Her mom sounded like she really didn’t know what Becca was talking about. Becca knew better. She knew how well her mom could lie.
“The dissident. The reason Jake and his family were arrested.” Becca scraped her fingernail along the pattern she was tracing, trying to scratch a line. “Don’t pretend you don’t know.”
Her mom sat down in Jake’s chair. She scraped the lasagna off her own plate and stacked Jake’s on top of it. “Becca… I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t know what kind of lies he told you, but that’s all they were. Lies.”
Becca turned her face away, toward the wall. “How do I know you’re not the one lying?” She didn’t realize how close she was to tears until she heard her voice waver.
She felt her mom pull back. “You’d trust a dissident’s word over mine?”
“It’s not like you haven’t lied to me before.” If she focused hard enough on the wall, maybe her mom’s voice would disappear. Maybe it would all disappear.
“When?” her mom demanded. “When have I lied to you?”
Why didn’t she just tell her mom what she had found in those files? Why had she avoided the subject for so long? Did she really think her own mother would report her?
Tell her. Nothing will happen. Just say it.
She didn’t say it.
“If Jake and his family were dissidents, why did you let him and his dad go?” she asked instead.
Her mom sighed. “Turn around and look at me. This is ridiculous.”
Reluctantly, Becca turned away from the wall and met her mom’s eyes. She had expected to see anger there. Instead, her mom looked… scared. No. Terrified.
“Letting them go wasn’t my choice,” her mom said. “The people who make these decisions always have complex reasons, usually involving the benefits of strengthening Internal’s presence in society by releasing the occasional prisoner who has reason to fear us. If it were up to me, it would never happen.” She sighed again. “They said, the way they always do in these situations, that Jake and his father posed no further threat to society. They don’t understand that no dissident is harmless.” She paused. “But even assuming they were right, harmless and innocent are not the same thing. There was never any question that Jake and his family were dissidents.”
What if her mom was telling the truth? What if Jake really was a dissident?
But why should Becca believe a word her mom said?
“Do you want me to tell you the truth about why he was arrested?” her mom asked.
Becca didn’t answer.
Her mom started talking anyway. “His family was publishing a dissident newspaper from their house. He and his parents were only peripherally involved; his older sister was the main problem.”
“He told me about the newspaper,” Becca interrupted. “None of them had anything to do with it. It was their dad’s friend.” But her mom’s words had sparked a flicker of doubt in her mind. Jake had never mentioned a sister. She thought back to how Jake’s dad had reacted to her. When he had looked at her, had he seen a lost daughter?
If Jake’s sister was real… what had happened to her?
“His sister was connected with a minor dissident group. Public Relations appropriated her for televised execution before we could get any names from her, but she herself admitted the connection.” Her mom took hold of Becca’s chin and made Becca look her in the eye. “They were not innocent.”
If this was true, why would Jake have told her about the arrest in the first place? Why wouldn’t he have avoided the subject entirely, instead of telling her a half-truth that might drive her away?
Her mom let go. “His sister was executed,” she finished. “His mother died under interrogation. He and his father were released, against my wishes.”
“What did you want to do with them?” Becca snapped. “Did you want to kill them too?”
She imagined Jake as he must have been after his release. Sent back into the world as if nothing had happened, as if nothing were different. His mother dead, and, if her mom was telling the truth, his older sister too. His father… changed. Day after day of getting beaten up at school, then going home to a half-empty house and trying to take care of his dad. How had he survived?
Her mom pushed the plates aside, stopping just short of sending them crashing to the floor. “I don’t know what’s happening to you, Becca, but it’s scaring me. I could understand your loyalty to Heather; you’ve been friends with her for years. But then you defended that other dissident—Anna—after that rumor she passed on to you. And now…” She studied Becca’s face as carefully as she had Jake’s a few minutes ago. Whatever answers she found there didn’t diminish the fear in her eyes. “Now you’re defending a dissident. Do you understand what you’re saying when you tell me you believe his story over mine? Do you understand what it means for you to imply that it would have been wrong to kill them? Do you?”