Of course she did. But what was she supposed to do, make herself forget everything she had found out?
They walked together in silence for a couple of minutes as the sky grew darker.
Her mom’s phone buzzed. Her mom picked it up and frowned at the display. “It’s work.”
“Do they want you to go in?” If her mom had to rush off to work, they could put this off until another time. Becca could arrange to be busy whenever that was.
“They can live without me for one night.” She reattached the phone to her belt.
Becca couldn’t remember ever seeing her mom ignore a call from work before.
“Things used to be a lot simpler, didn’t they?” her mom mused. “Before work got so busy. Before this thing with Heather and Jake.”
In school earlier, Becca had greeted Jake like she always did, and they had kept their conversation to safe topics like always. She hadn’t mentioned what her mom had said about him and his family. She had told herself it was because they were in school, where anyone could overhear, but she knew better.
If he found out her mom had been the one to kill his mother, he wouldn’t want anything to do with her. The memory of Heather’s reaction was still fresh in her mind. But it wasn’t just that. She didn’t want to ask him if her mom’s story was true because she didn’t want to try to decipher his answers to figure out whether he was lying. She’d done enough of that lately. More than enough.
For one irrational second, she thought about asking her mom for advice.
Then she remembered again.
“It’s not just you,” her mom continued, as though Becca had answered her. “I miss the way things were before work got so crazy. Back when I could actually spend time with you.”
“I miss it too,” Becca admitted, even though she wasn’t sure she wanted to respond. “It was nice when the most important thing in the world was feeding the ducks.” But she didn’t have go to back that far to find a time when things had been easier. She only had to go back a month, to before Heather’s phone call.
In front of her, Becca saw the bench where they had sat and watched the sunset. The path had taken them in almost a complete circle.
“Things are harder for both of us now. Especially for you.” Her mom slowed down. “But I want you to know I’m still here if you need me. If there’s anything you want to talk about, anything you want to ask me, you can. About Jake’s family, or what happened with Heather, or anything else.”
Becca wished she could. But it wasn’t as simple as her mom made it sound. Asking about what she had found on her mom’s computer didn’t just mean admitting she had gone snooping through her files. It meant admitting she knew something she wasn’t supposed to know. Something Internal had kept secret for… how long? How long had they been doing this?
She was about to answer with some kind of noncommittal refusal when she stopped. Something was bothering her about what her mom had said, something besides how she wished she could take her mom up on her offer.
No, it wasn’t about what her mom had said. It was about the way she had said it.
It reminded her of something. It reminded her of…
That conversation with Jake. The one where he’d asked her about Heather just a little too intently.
She had been wrong about Jake.
This time, she didn’t think she was wrong.
“You’re trying to find out if I’m a dissident.”
Her mom said nothing.
Becca faced her. “That’s why you brought me here. It had nothing to do with fixing things between us. You just wanted to get me to… what, ask you if the dissidents have been right all along?”
“I do want to fix things between us. And I want to make sure you’re all right. I can see you changing, and it worries me.” Her mom didn’t change her tone, didn’t break her calm. Of course she didn’t. She did this with dissidents all the time.
Becca broke away from the path and took off running toward home.
Her mom caught up with her before she even made it out of the park.
She couldn’t outrun her mom. There was no point in trying. She slowed down to let her mom walk beside her.
“I’m not a dissident.”
Her mom could tell when she was lying. Did she see it now?
“I’m sorry I brought it up the way I did,” said her mom. “I should have just asked. But considering the way things have been between us, I didn’t know if you’d talk to me at all, let alone tell me the truth.”
They left the park. As they moved onto the road, they started walking single-file: Becca in front, her mom behind.
“So this was all an act. Just a way to get me to let my guard down.” With her mom behind her, out of sight, Becca almost felt like she was talking to herself.
“Not at all. Everything I said was true. I miss you, Becca.”
And Becca missed her. Even knowing why her mom had really come out to the park with her didn’t change that.
But the person she missed had never existed.
A car passed them, temporarily blinding Becca with its headlights. “I know something is going on,” her mom said over the noise. “I know Heather and Jake have been telling you things.” She lowered her voice as the car disappeared into the distance. “You’re starting to wonder if they’re right. It’s understandable.”
Heather and Jake. Her mom was going to try to blame this on them. Becca remembered what had happened the last time her mom had thought one of her friends was a dissident. She still had nightmares sometimes where Anna accused her of turning her over to Internal.
“They haven’t—” Becca started.
Her mom spoke over her. “But some part of you knows that what they’ve been telling you is wrong. That’s why it all seems so confusing. Whatever they’ve told you, I can explain it all for you if you just ask. If you don’t talk to me, I can’t help.” Her voice, floating up from someplace behind Becca, was tight with restrained fear.
“Heather joined the Monitors. She wouldn’t have done that if she was a dissident.” But Becca had no way to defend Jake. Nothing to say that would save him if her mom decided the only way to keep him from passing dissident ideas to Becca was to have Internal arrest him again.
“I don’t know who let that girl into the Monitors, but whoever did it is either an idiot or needs to be investigated. Not only were both her parents dissidents, now she’s started spreading dissident ideology herself.”
“All she’s told me is that Internal was right to execute her parents!” She knew it was hopeless even as she said the words. Her mom wasn’t going to drop this. She could see what was happening to Becca, and in her mind, the only reasonable explanation was that Heather and Jake were responsible. Nothing Becca said would change that.
Nothing she said about Heather and Jake, at least.
But if she admitted to finding the evidence…
Her mom would know she had been snooping. She would know that Becca had information she wasn’t supposed to have.
But she would also know that Becca had gotten the information from her computer. Not from Heather or Jake.
“After what Anna told me…” Saying Anna’s name felt like betraying her all over again. “I went on your computer one night when you were at work. I looked through your files. And… I found something.”
They were almost home. The glow of the parking lot illuminated the road ahead of them.
“One of the dissidents’ files had information about what he was supposed to confess to. What you were supposed to make him say.” Becca didn’t know if her mom could hear her. She was speaking so softly she could barely hear herself.
Her mom’s answer, when it came, was just as quiet. “We need to have a talk.”