“Or never,” I said.
“Indeed,” Post said.
“Maybe thirty-seven years of anger, thirty-seven years of living the wrong kind of life brought that lamp down on his head tonight.”
The car started to feel too warm. I still had the blanket wrapped around my body, so I reached up and loosened it from where it rubbed against my neck.
“Are you going to stay here tonight?” Post asked.
“It doesn’t sound that appealing. I need to call my uncle and tell him what happened. Maybe Ronnie and I can stay over there until… the house is cleaned up.”
“Would you like a ride there?” Post asked.
“Is Beth… is she finished?”
“Soon. Do you want to talk to her?”
“Yes, I do. I should wait and see where she’s going to stay tonight.”
Post patted me on the leg. “Sit tight. I’ll tell her you’re still out here.”
She climbed out of the car, leaving me alone with my thoughts in the dark.
Chapter Sixty-one
Uniformed police officers and paramedics remained at the house, milling around and discussing town and work gossip. They took turns showing Ronnie their cruisers and wagons, listening patiently as he asked questions about the most common reasons people dialed 911.
I used the phone while we waited. I called Paul and told him about the events of the night. He offered help immediately, insisting on coming over to the house to make sure we were all okay.
“No, it’s all right,” I said. “We’re almost finished here. In fact, we’re going to need a place to stay tonight. I don’t think I want to stay in the house after… you know, another dead body and everything.”
“Of course,” he said. “You can stay here.”
“We might have to sell this house,” I said. “It keeps accumulating bad memories.”
“Absolutely. Your mom was never attached to those kinds of things very much. Get a new house.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll worry about that tomorrow.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come over there and pick you and Ronnie up?” he asked. “I can.”
“I don’t think so. I’m going to wait for Beth. She might come along with us. I don’t know if she’ll be up for driving back to Reston Point.”
Paul fell silent for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “I just… Is she doing okay? Overall. You know?”
“I don’t know the answer to that either,” I said. “But I guess I have to find out now. She’s my sister.”
It took another half hour for Detective Post to come back out of the house. Beth walked beside her, wearing a Dover Police Department sweatshirt against the cool night air. I walked up the sidewalk toward them, and the three of us met halfway. Post didn’t stay long. She excused herself, saying she needed to consult with someone from the medical examiner’s office out in the street.
I immediately wished she would have stayed.
Beth and I faced each other on the narrow sidewalk. It took a moment, but I reached out to her, opening my arms. “I hope you’re okay,” I said.
We hugged. She felt thin and insubstantial, almost as if she might slip away at any moment. She held to me longer than I held to her. When we let each other go, Beth said, “I think they’re going to bring the body out soon. I could tell they were getting ready to move him.”
“Would you like to leave?” I asked.
“I guess I should,” she said. “There isn’t much else to do here. And it’s a long drive in the dark.”
“I don’t mean go home,” I said. “I don’t think you should go back there alone.”
She looked at me, waiting.
“I talked to Paul,” I said. “We can go to his house and stay there. He has room, and it looks like it will all be safe now.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t—” She looked around at the night. She looked at the yard and at the sky. Then she turned back to me. “I can’t be here with you if there’s any chance you believe those things that Gordon said. Either about me or about Mom. I’m a mess—I admit that. But I’m not like him. I’m his daughter, but I’m not him. All I ever wanted was to see Mom again. If you can’t understand that or accept it, that’s fine. But it’s not true. None of those things he said were true.”
I looked back at the house. It was still full of light, but it felt farther away than ever. Mom was gone. Dad was gone. At some point, a page had been turned. It was time to move forward, and I could do it alone or with the help of others.
“I know,” I said. “Why don’t we all go to Paul’s house?”
Chapter Sixty-two
Paul opened the door to our ragtag group. A long, awkward moment stretched out as he and Beth stood face-to-face on his front porch. They seemed to be taking each other in, examining and measuring. Ronnie and I stood to the side, watching. My body ached. I was sure Ronnie’s did too. But I didn’t move. On TV these reunions were always tearful and full of hugs. Seeing all this up close—living it—I could attest there was more awkwardness and uncertainty than anything else.
Paul blinked his eyes a few times and finally said, “Well, I can’t really believe what I’m seeing after all this time.”
“It’s me,” Beth said. “It’s really me.”
Paul finally got ahold of himself and stepped back. He motioned us inside.
“Please come in,” he said, his voice turning more somber. “I know you’ve all had a hell of a night.”
We all went in, then settled into Paul’s neatly kept living room. Beth sat closest to Paul on the couch, while Ronnie and I were across the room in chairs. I watched Paul watch Beth. His eyes were misted with emotion. His cheeks were flushed. He sat with his hands on his knees, his posture stiff and uncomfortable.
“I just can’t get over the way you look,” he said. “Just like Leslie. Just like her.”
“I know,” Beth said. She swallowed and raised her hand to her eye, brushing at it.
I felt it too. The whole thing. I didn’t know what happened to us when we were gone, if some part of us was still able to look back on this world and watch over our loved ones. But I wanted to think Mom was somewhere where she knew we were all together. The four of us at long last.
And I couldn’t help but think of her absence. She should have been there alongside of us. Her three children. Her only sibling.
Her family.
I couldn’t help it. I felt the emotion coming over me as well. I took a deep breath and held it in. But I couldn’t hide it all.
Ronnie reached over and rubbed his hand on my back. “You okay, sis?”
“I am,” I said. “I’m just thinking about Mom.”
“Me too,” Ronnie said.
We were all nodding. We were all thinking of her.
“She’s here,” Beth said. “I can feel her.”
“Indeed,” Paul said. He seemed to have loosened up just a little. Relaxed. He didn’t look at Beth, but he said, “I’m just so sorry for all the time you lost.”
Everyone was silent. His words hung in the room like an invisible weight. We all felt the same way. None of us could change it. That was the price Beth had paid for the events of her past: time. She’d lost years of precious time.