Forty-Six Grace
One year later
I think about that night all the time. I dream about it.
How I could have missed so many things and how I ran when my sister told me to go.
I still haven’t forgiven her for all she did.
She took the lives of two beautiful young women, women who deserve to be here, because she was jealous.
I try to remind myself that she wasn’t mentally stable, but it only takes the sharpest edges off my anger.
It’s colder this October than it was last year.
I’m glad I brought my thicker coat. I tighten my arms around my torso and stare out at the white-capped waves.
Just a few more minutes and I’ll go home.
This beach holds so many memories, both wonderful and horrible.
It was the place my two friends lost their lives.
It was the place I got a second chance. All at the hands of my sister.
She was arrested that night after confessing to shooting Frank and killing both Morgan and Brooke O’Neil.
She pleaded guilty and will not have a trial.
Her history of mental instability was taken into consideration.
Wyatt fought to have her put into a psychiatric hospital instead of a prison and, eventually, the state agreed with him.
She’ll be there, getting help and being medicated, for the foreseeable future.
Maybe one day they’ll even let her come home.
I asked Wyatt what he’ll do if that happens, if he’ll let her come home.
“Of course,” he said. “For better and for worse. In sickness and in health.”
His answer made me proud to know someone like him. And guilty that I don’t think Geny deserves it. Guilty about my own avoidance of my sister.
I’ll talk to her again one day. She’s my other half, no matter what she’s done.
But I’ll do it in my own time. After the dust settles from all the pain she’s caused.
When the wounds scab over and I don’t get visits from the O’Neil girls in my dreams anymore.
Maybe once that night stops replaying in my head every time I have a quiet moment.
But a lot more came from that night. More than I expected or dared to hope for.
Wyatt gave my flash drive of evidence to the FBI.
Later, I told him everything I learned from Frank that night and he relayed it to them too.
He also put the pictures I found back beneath Frank’s bed for the investigators to find.
My dad’s name was cleared after that. Don Jennings was prosecuted for knowing what Frank was doing and not reporting it.
He got off without jail time but was forced out of the church.
The FBI also agreed to investigate my father’s death. The coroner stepped down voluntarily, but the FBI used their own coroner anyway. They found signs of a struggle. Defensive wounds on his body and fibers from the rope under his nails, indicating he’d tried to free himself.
Frank can’t be tried or questioned about it, but my dad’s death has officially been ruled a homicide. Tina swears Frank’s innocence on his behalf, but turns out Tina can’t be trusted either.
Another bit of interesting information came from the investigation. Just when I’d given up learning anything about my mysterious and threatening texter, the police informed me that they found the person sending them.
The phone I’d found under the sink was where the texts were coming from. There were multiple texting apps downloaded on the phone. But the biggest surprise was only Tina’s fingerprints were found on the phone. She denies having anything to do with it, but there’s no way around the truth.
She knew about all of it the whole time. She knew about Frank and all his sins, and she not only looked the other way, she tried to silence me.
Tina tried to tell the police that it was me who broke into their house that night.
But having an identical twin who was openly taking the blame outweighed her claims. It was easy to argue she had just thought it was me.
She woke up suddenly in the dark and didn’t get a good look.
And even if she did, it could easily have been Geny she saw.
I stand up from the log I’d been leaning against and walk closer to the shore.
I take the dried flowers I picked back in the spring and sprinkle the yellow petals onto the sand.
The water rushes forward and sweeps them away.
I pray they make it to wherever Morgan came to rest. She loved the pretty yellow flowers we found on our runs through the woods. Adder’s-tongue.
Lake Superior never gives up her dead. That’s the legend.
I look out onto the water and imagine all the souls somewhere at the bottom of the vast lake.
All the bodies perfectly preserved. The boats that went down and stay, never decaying or breaking down.
It’s more than a graveyard, because things decompose in a graveyard.
I can’t decide if I like the idea of being preserved forever or returning to the earth better.
In the end, I just thank God I’m here and not in the water or in the ground. Not yet.
I head back to the house. My parents’ house is now my house. My home. I thought about leaving, but in the end I couldn’t do it. Raven isn’t perfect. Far from it. But it’s home. And with Frank gone and the police under tight observation by the FBI, it feels safer.
I take my time getting back to the house.
I’ve learned to slow down, or at least I’m learning.
I use the time to prepare myself for the rest of the day.
Greer is coming down from school for fall break.
She’ll meet everyone here for the first time.
I’ve been going to visit her until now. Everything just felt too unsteady here for a while.
Murphy is waiting out front in his truck when I get back. He gets out and kisses me, and we walk inside together.
“Your lips are frozen. Do you want me to put on a pot of coffee?” he asks. He takes his shoes and coat off in the entryway.
“Yes, please. I’m going to get cleaned up upstairs.”
I trot up the stairs and begin stripping off layers as I make my way to the master bathroom.
I slide Murphy’s deodorant and aftershave to the side of the sink and pull my face wash from the cabinet.
He stays here a lot. More lately. We decided to take things slow, and he’s been great about boundaries.
Like how he waited in his truck for me to get back before going inside even though he slept here last night.
I want to wait until after Greer meets him to make any decisions about steps forward, and he never pushes the issue.
When I finish washing my face and applying my makeup I go back downstairs to a giant cup of coffee waiting for me on the side table in the living room.
“Thank you.” I take a long sip before setting the cup back down.
“Sit down.” Murphy laughs. “You’re stressing me out.”
“I’m stressing myself out.”
“I know you are. Sit down.”
I look over and he’s smiling at me with that familiar look. Like I’m so amusing to him. I thought that look would go away after a while. That he’d find me less amusing and more annoying after some time. But that hasn’t happened yet.
“It looks like Wyatt just got here. Is Jack driving with him or separate, do you know?”
“I think he’s with them,” I say. I walk to the door to let them in.
Jack is indeed in the passenger seat. He took the year off after high school, deciding to start school this coming spring.
Wyatt tried his best to get him to go last spring, but he wasn’t ready.
Not after everything that happened. He wanted to be home for his family.
In the end, how do you argue against that?
“Is she here yet?” Wyatt calls from the curb. He looks around for a car he doesn’t recognize.
“Not yet. She was about thirty minutes out last time I talked to her. Which was . . .” I look at the time on my phone. “About thirty minutes ago.”
His eyes widen, and I laugh at his nervous grin. Jack and Carter both give me hugs before rushing inside and out of the bitter cold. Wyatt brings up the tail of them and pauses before stepping into the house.
“This is going to be great. Don’t worry,” he says.
I laugh. “Are you telling me or yourself?”
“Both.”
He comes inside and greets Murphy. That was only weird the first time we were all together after Murphy and I officially became a couple.
I think the weirdness was mostly, if not all, on my end.
I’d be lying if I said the thought of Wyatt and I being together didn’t cross my mind at all after that night.
In a way, it made sense. We loved each other, that was clear.
Geny had done her best to take us away from each other.
Wouldn’t it be some kind of poetic justice to end up together?
But there was too much baggage between us.
Our love had morphed into something not at all romantic, but familial. He’s my family. His boys too.
He cried when I told him about Greer. It was about a month after that night.
It was the last secret hanging over my head.
We decided not to tell Geny about her yet.
I want to be the one to tell her, and I’m just not ready yet.
But Wyatt was finally able to understand why I didn’t come back when we’d planned.
And I finally had someone to spill all my fears and worries to. How I was afraid for her to learn who her father was. How I wanted to lie to her and to everyone. That night, we decided on one more secret we’d keep together.
“She’s here!” Carter shouts from the front window.
Jack smiles at his brother. “Ready to meet our big sister, buddy?”
THE END