Deborah, sitting on her bed, saw it in my face. She sat in a dim circle of light tossed by her bedside lamp, perusing a photo album. “You look happy. What's up?”
It seemed wrong to share my good news before telling Candace, so I simply smiled and said, “I let my head soften a tad.”
She glanced at me in puzzlement. “What?”
“Stubbornness. I shed myself of some of it tonight.” I sat on the edge of the bed.
“That's not always a smart move.” She closed the album and tossed it away from her, as if it reeked.
“Deborah. What's going on here?”
“What do you mean?” She evaded my stare, watching the lightning-now nearly continuous-as it illuminated the sky.
“With you and this family.”
She didn't respond for so long I thought she had not heard my softly uttered question. She slicked her lips with her tongue, still not looking at me. Finally she spoke. “I'm just a bad reminder, Jordan.”
“Of what?”
“An unfortunate time for this family.”
“I'm sorry.”
She laughed, a short, brittle, horrible sound. “You're a stranger, and you care more than they do. Think any of these people gave a shit about my mother? Oh, sure, they were sorry as hell she died. Terribly sad, terribly unfortunate, and wasn't she so pretty? They spoke all the right lines in the play of mourning. But I never felt they cared about my mom.” She paused. “Your mom's sick, right? Alzheimer's?”
“Yes.”
“Is it bad?”
“Very.”
“But she still draws breath,” Deborah murmured. “My mother's face was blown off. I shouldn't dwell on it, but I do. You can at least hold your mother, tell her you love her, touch her hair. I can only drop flowers on a cold grave.”
My heart ached for her. I didn't know sorrow like Deborah's.
“So the Goertzes were more worried about your dad?”
“Worried? Embarrassed is more like it. Horrified at what was being written in the papers: Paul Goertz wanted for murder.” She licked her lips again and I saw the worn exhaustion in her face. “Ever have a murderer in your family?”
“No. Well, not that I know of.” The lie came easily.
She laughed again, jagged and full of weary sadness. “It's kind of like playing a board game. Rule one: Don't ever pass Go without being reminded your father's a killer. Rule two: Never speak of it to outsiders. You get really good at manufacturing colossal lies. Where's my dad? He travels a lot. Hong Kong, Paris, Berlin. Or he died of cancer, always an easy out.” She closed her eyes. “Rule three: Anyone who breaks the first two rules gets the whole wrath of the family down on them.”
“And wrath is what? Bitchy comments from Lolly? A whack from Jake's cane? A lecture on loyalty from Mutt?”
“You don't understand.” Deborah's voice was a tight wire of anger. “I'm afraid of them.”
“Your own family? For God's sake, why?”
“They-they-”she stumbled. To my shock, I saw fear in her face as dark and deep as a well. “Because-”
A terrible realization nudged against my consciousness. And Deborah's words on the porch what seemed like an eternity ago: Brian used to be sure our father was alive somewhere…
“What happened to your brother, Deborah?”
Her lips tightened into a grieving line. “I told you. He died.”
“When he was about twelve or so?”
“Yes. We also don't talk about it much.” Her voice lowered to the barest of whispers.
“He died in this house, though, didn't he?” I tried not to picture the shade I'd imagined in the attic.
“Not… not in the house. He died down off the beach.”
“Tell me.”
“He… he went swimming. By himself, late at night, when we were all here for a family reunion. He got a cramp, or something. He got caught out in the surf. He drowned.” Deborah didn't look at me.
I blinked, trying to blur away the image of the boy I'd seen in the attic.
“How did you know? Who told you? Bob Don?” she asked.
“No. Gretchen,” I answered automatically. Actually, I saw your dead brother. Wild, ain't it? I can't say he sends his best; he glared at me with bitter hatred. I took a long, shuddering breath. “I'm so sorry, Deborah.”
Her hand clasped mine. “Why do you want to know about Brian?”
The answer, lurking in my heart, was in my mouth before I could even give it form. “My family is a great one for reminiscing. For keeping the dead alive in our hearts, by sharing stories about them, talking about them, letting those who came after they were gone know about them. Ever read Katherine Anne Porter's story 'Old Mortality'? Talks about how dead relatives get built into these amazing legends. I loved that story, because it rang so true to my own family.” I shook my head. “But the Goertzes are strange. They're not like any other family I've ever seen. They don't talk about their dead. I've yet to hear one memory, one anecdote, about anyone in this family who's passed on. Did you all take a vow of silence?”
“No. It's not entirely true. Tom and I care about my brother, still.”
“Tom?”
“I know you think he's a hair-trigger temper, but he's a good man at heart. He was always so good to Brian. Tom's sure-” And her voice broke, as though recognizing the betraying tone of confiding in me.
I changed tactics. “There wasn't anything suspicious about Brian's death, was there?”
Her eyes widened in shock. “Of course not. Of course not! There couldn't be, it was only the family that was here-”
“Just like last night? When Lolly dropped dead?” I grabbed Deborah's arms and pulled her close to me. “You don't believe your aunt committed suicide, do you? Or had a simple heart attack?”
She averted her face from mine. “I don't know what to believe. She was a sick woman, you know that.”
“Tell me about your brother. What was he like?”
She broke away from me and fled to the window, leaning her head against the rattling pane. More thunder sounded, counterpoint to the building wind. “Please don't make me talk about Brian. Please.”
I surrendered, realizing I'd rudely overstepped the bounds of decency in pressing her for information. “Deborah, I'm sorry. I don't mean to upset you.”
“Well, you do.” She pivoted and glared at me. “Meaning well, though, I'm sure. You're awfully busy prying into your new family's past. Ever think you might be ignoring Candace?”
I didn't answer her immediately. “Did Candace complain to you?”
“Jordan. She's a wonderful girl and she loves you so. And I know you love her. Why don't you just take her and leave? The police can't possibly suspect you in Lolly's death-”
“They might.”
“Now you're manufacturing excuses. Are you staying for Bob Don's sake?”
“In a matter of speaking,” I answered carefully. I turned to leave. “And if I stay, Deb, it's because, as strange as it seems to me, y'all are family now. And I've never abandoned family in crisis. Never.”
She didn't say anything as I left.
Candace wasn't in her room, and she wasn't waiting in mine either. Damn. I glanced at my closet and, against my will, a prickle of goose bumps raised themselves along my flesh.
Something's up there.
I took a steadying breath. Don't be ridiculous.
“Counting clouds?” a voice boomed behind me, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I turned to find Philip glaring at me, lounging against my doorway, his arms crossed casually across his chest.
“No, just thinking.”
“Thinking, Jordan? Like about how you can screw me over next?” His face darkened and he spoke so softly I could barely hear him over the gusts hammering against the house.
“I'm not trying to screw you, Philip,” I retorted.
“Oh, really? So you just manufacture these lies about me for idle amusement?”
“I didn't lie about what I saw. Or what I heard.”
His tone harshened, the old cadence of the schoolyard bully. “You don't want to fuck with me.”