Patricia flinched. “You’re hurting me.”
“Sorry,” she said, and patted Patricia’s arms where her hands had been. More gently, she asked, “Was anyone else on the pier with him?”
“Jo.”
“I knew it,” she said. “I knew she was lying.” She stood, knocking the chair over. “That bitch.” She turned toward the counter, not sure what to do with the new information. Jo wasn’t on the beach after all. She was on the pier with Billy, right where his body had been found. “And you’re certain it was Jo?” She had to ask one more time. It’s not like Patricia was of sound state of mind, going through her own personal hell.
“Yes, I’m sure. I was by the lake catching lightning bugs. You remember. You gave me a jar and punched holes in the lid.”
“Yes.” Dee Dee nodded. She remembered. Patricia should’ve been asleep, but it was such a clear beautiful night, she had let her stay up way past her bedtime playing outside, catching bugs. And it was almost dawn by the time Patricia’s parents had burst into the cabin to collect her.
“Kevin was there too,” Patricia said.
Dee Dee whipped around. “What did you say?”
“Kevin. He was there too.”
“That can’t be. He said he was on the beach.”
“No, he was on the pier with them.”
She bent close to Patricia’s face, searching her eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Oh yes, I’m positive.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Caroline ran from the kitchen and into her room. She slammed her door and threw herself onto the bed. She pulled the quilt Gram had made over her head. She hadn’t meant what she said to Johnny. She didn’t hate him. It was just the opposite. She loved him and wanted him to continue being her brother. She wanted to take back her words. He was as much a victim of their mother’s lies as Caroline was.
Johnny’s voice bellowed from the kitchen. Caroline threw the covers off to listen. “Is it true?” he asked.
Her mother must’ve nodded because the next thing he said was, “Jesus Christ. And you didn’t think to tell me until now?”
She pulled the quilt over her head again. So it was true. She hadn’t realized a small part of her was still hoping she was wrong. Knowing the truth didn’t make her feel any better. It made her feel worse.
Her bedroom door creaked open.
“Go away,” she said, not even knowing who it was. She didn’t care. She didn’t want to talk to anyone.
The door closed and someone sat on the edge of her bed. She smelled coffee and talcum powder, the two smells she identified with Gram.
“Caroline,” Gram said. “I know you’re hurting. It’s a lot to take in.”
“You think?” she shot back.
“Your mother should’ve told both you and Johnny a long time ago.”
“Yes, she should have.” She pulled the quilt down, uncovering her head, but she couldn’t look at Gram. Instead she looked over Gram’s shoulder at a spot on the wall. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”
“It wasn’t my place.”
“But I thought you didn’t like Mom. How could you let her lie to me?”
“You think I don’t like your mother?”
“Well, yeah. You two are always fighting. You’re never nice to each other.”
“Oh, Caroline. I love your mother. I may not like the choices she’s made, but I love her.”
“You could’ve fooled me.”
Gram sighed. “A mother-daughter relationship is a complicated thing. We each have our own way of doing things, our own ideas of how things should be, and sometimes we don’t agree on what that thing is. We clash. We may fight. But we love each other anyway. It’s just how it is between your mother and me.” She touched Caroline’s cheek. “It doesn’t mean it has to be that way with you and your mom. You can make it be the way you want.”
“Tell that to her.” She wiped her eyes, refusing to let the tears fall.
“I think you should tell her. Talk to her.”
Caroline picked at a thread that had started to come loose from one of the stitches on the quilt. She was too angry to talk to her mother. She didn’t even want to look at her.
“I don’t hate Johnny,” she said instead. “I didn’t mean what I said.”
“I know you don’t. I’m sure he knows it, too.” Gram paused as though she was considering whether to say anything more. Then she asked, “How did you find out?”
“It’s not rocket science. I did the math.” She stared at the ceiling. “Plus, I found out Billy’s full name. William J. And then I saw a couple pictures of Billy. And then there’s Chris. In ways, Johnny looks like them, their family. I didn’t know for sure. I was only guessing, but it seems I guessed right.”
Gram pressed her lips together and nodded.
“Does Dad know?” she asked, already knowing the answer, but finding she needed confirmation so she wouldn’t question herself later about who knew what and who had lied.
“Yes,” Gram said. “He knows.”
Caroline rolled over and put her back to Gram. She wished she could start over and return to the first day of summer, when her family had made sense in their screwed-up way. She wanted to go back to that day on the beach when Sara had drowned so that she could pull her off the pier rather than what she did, which was to leave her alone. Sara’s death was the catalyst that pushed her into asking questions about drownings, about Billy and her mother. Now that she knew the truth, she didn’t know what to do with it, with all the anger she felt inside.
Gram put her hand on Caroline’s hip. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Sure, I’ll be okay,” she said, but she didn’t sound convincing even to her own ears.
* * *
After Gram left her room, Caroline sneaked into the bathroom. Her mother and Johnny were arguing in the kitchen. They started shouting. Caroline didn’t think she had ever heard her mother raise her voice at Johnny. A rush of adrenalin shot through her as the screen door banged shut. She saw Johnny storm past the window. She ran out to catch him.
“Johnny, wait,” she said, hustling down the steps and onto the dirt road. He kept walking, turning down the hill toward the lake. “I don’t hate you,” she called after him. “I’m sorry.”
“Fuck off, Caroline,” he yelled, and disappeared around the corner.
Caroline turned and saw her mother standing at the edge of the yard. Their eyes locked for a brief moment before her mother turned her back and walked away.
Caroline glanced at Willow and scurried underneath the swooping limbs. She climbed into the crook of the thick branches, pulled her knees to her chest, balancing her chin on top. The cut on her palm throbbed.
She had really screwed things up. She hadn’t meant to hurt Johnny. She wasn’t sure what her intentions were anymore. She was only certain of one thing. She wasn’t going to win her mother’s love, not after what she had done.
Maybe Gram was right, and it was up to Caroline to determine what her relationship with her mother would be. She admitted, beneath the pain and anger, she felt a kind of power, believing it was her choice to make.
The only problem was she no longer knew what she wanted from her.
CHAPTER FORTY
Jo kept walking. She hadn’t meant to turn away from Caroline, but she didn’t know what to say to her. She made a promise to herself to find her daughter later and talk with her once she’d had a chance to figure out how to explain to her the decisions she had made so long ago. But right now the only thing she could think to do was to keep moving.
The more distance she put between herself and the cabin, where she had left Gram wringing her hands in the kitchen and after Johnny had stormed out on her, the more relief she felt. There was freedom in having the burden of a secret lifted. Johnny finally knew the truth about Billy being his father. He was angry, but he’d get over it. He’d finally understand who he was, why so many of his interests and mannerisms were the opposite of Kevin’s. And maybe he’d finally understand why Kevin wasn’t as accessible as a father should be to his son, especially in his younger years when he had needed Kevin most. There had always been an invisible divide between them that neither knew how to cross. The secret had become bigger than both of them, expanding into every aspect of their relationship until one day the distance was too large to bridge. It was what happened to lies over time.