Chapter Eighty-Seven. Ingrid
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN
INGRID
Ben is in the hall, his back to the wall, head between his knees, breathing deeply. Someone took Mabel from him, but I had to go back in. I had to see.
SHERIFF,
I WAS THE ONE WHO KILLED ISABELLE WHITMORE. I’VE CARRIED THAT FOR A LONG TIME, AND I CAN’T CARRY IT ANYMORE. WHAT HAPPENED TO CAT DENNIS, WELL, THAT WAS ME TOO.
I’VE HURT PEOPLE I NEVER MEANT TO HURT. YOUR DAUGHTER CAN TELL YOU ABOUT THE KIND OF MAN I WAS.
I’M SORRY. FOR ALL OF IT.
ABEL SHERMAN
The note lies unfolded in Abel’s lap, scrawled haphazardly on ruled yellow legal paper, the words written bold, large, and erratic with no mind for the margins.
It doesn’t make any sense. Abel? It couldn’t have been Abel that killed Izzy. Time telescopes in on itself, and I am that girl again, her whole world unraveling, rearranging. Because I had known Abel. Or thought I’d known him. Once upon a time, he had been like family.
His shoulders droop, arms hanging at either side, the double-barrel shotgun lying still at his feet.
I look to his calloused hands. They are hard, heavy things weighing down his arms. Even in death, after a lifetime of work and overuse, his fingers curl as if still ready to grip.
People warn that a decapitated snake can still bite you, and I take a step back instinctively.
Those were the hands around Izzy’s neck. The hands I’ve dreamt so many times.
Sheriff Ryan barrels his way past us and does his best to get the crowd out of the dressing room, herding us like escaped cattle back behind a barbed wire fence. When we turn, Melanie shrinks in the doorway, twisting her fingers anxiously, eyes flicking to Abel’s body.
Out in the hall, voices climb over one another.
And after a minute in the dressing room alone, the sheriff enters the hall, closing the door behind him.
He makes his way over to Melanie, asking her about the note before any of the town gets the chance to hush and whisper and poke and prod.
“What’s he talking about, Mel?” He’s not a sheriff in this moment. He’s a father.
“Oh, Daddy,” she says, chewing her bottom lip.
“I was so ashamed.” Her eyes go to the ceiling, so her tears won’t spill down her cheeks.
I can see the girl she was back then, always trying to be brave, trying not to let anyone see how much we hurt her, as if, even then, it was her responsibility to put everyone else at ease.
She looks to me, eyes watery. “It was a prank. I know that,” she says.
“When you took my clothes that day, Iggy, when we skinny-dipped in The Hollow…” She pauses to breathe, like she’s steeling herself to let something out she’s held in far too long.
“I know you didn’t mean anything by it, not really.
But you left me there, and…” She trails off again, the center of our collective concern and attention. “Abel found me.”
Cold dread trickles down my limbs. I don’t want her to keep talking. I don’t want to know any more.
“The cold in that cave was miserable, but in the end, it was a blessing. My skin was numb enough to where I could hardly feel his touch. I didn’t fight back,” she says. “I just—I let him do what he was gonna do.”
My insides tilt and lurch—like the floor is sliding out from beneath me. I think again of when I saw her the next day by the lockers at school, how she acted like nothing had happened, nothing but that blush of humiliation creeping up her neck.
She looks to Sheriff Ryan, whose face looks hard as stone.
“I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone knowing what Abel had done to me.
What you or Mom, or, later…” She pauses.
“What Waylon would think. I just … I guess I just wanted to forget. To pretend it never happened. The only person I ever told was Cat. She begged me to tell you, but I couldn’t.
Cat stayed quiet for me, and she always felt guilty.
Because maybe if we had told”—she turns her gaze back to me, pleading for me to understand, words quickening—“Izzy was such a spark plug. She must have fought back. I’d always had that thought.
I did.” She pauses and looks to her hands, which are folded and holding her belly.
“I just wasn’t brave enough to say what he’d done. ”
I hold on to the wall for balance.
Everything I thought I knew reshapes itself.
Izzy over at the Sherman house, lying around in her pajamas, teasing Abel all the time, snatching the hat off his head. How she loved to get a smile out of grumpy old Abel Sherman.
How he liked to watch the teenagers floating the river and hanging out down at The Hollow.
How he brought us warm towels and cold Dr Peppers, kept that Polaroid of us in our swimsuits taped to his fridge, let us ride up in the seat beside him in his pickup.
How he closed up his property after Izzy disappeared and watched the search party with a shotgun on his lap.
It was never Ben he was protecting. He was protecting himself.
And, oh God, I think I might be sick.
Because I had told Izzy to rip off the Band-Aid, to go straight to the Sherman house that day. And she must have. But she hadn’t found Ben.
She had found Abel.
“I’m sorry,” Melanie says, pleading to everyone now.
“I’m so sorry, everyone.” She starts to cry.
Sheriff Ryan embraces his daughter so gently, it feels wrong to witness.
This isn’t a moment meant for spectators.
He squeezes her shoulders, which are shaking with silent sobs, and shushes her so softly that I know it’s the same way he must have soothed her when she was a little girl.