Chapter Twenty-Five
That Sunday morning, Whit was doing a rare thing: he was still in bed, with a book. He had spent the day before with his sister,
brother-in-law, and daughter, visiting a pumpkin patch before it closed for the season and then watching both of the good
Home Alones. He and Merritt had texted intermittently, but she was busy most of the day helping her mom do yard and housework. In the
evening, he and Evie had planned the following day—it would be her last morning with them, and so she would wake up early
and make Annie breakfast. Now Annie and édouard were playing one last round of his card game while Evie finished packing her
things. Meaning Whit could have a slow morning for once, in his pajamas with coffee and a book.
Evie came in and leaned against his dresser.
“I need something to read for my flight.”
Whit told her to check his study, and she was back in a few minutes with a stack. She set them on the dresser and gestured
to them like a Price Is Right model.
“Which one will I like?”
Evie did this often, deferring to Whit’s judgment on books just as he often deferred to her judgment on clothes and TV shows
and, back when he and Helen traveled, places worth visiting. He always loved being asked about books. He could almost physically
feel something click into life in his brain as he leaned forward to examine the stack more closely—until he saw the one at
the bottom.
Serious Games. He’d totally forgotten buying it. The moment they had returned from picking up Annie at school on the day of Evie’s arrival, he’d quickly stowed these books on the large shelf in his study.
“Um,” he said through the sudden throbbing in his neck.
Evie seemed to clock his gaze and turned back to the books, misreading his apprehensions.
“Some of these were still in a shopping bag—do you want to hold on to them? I can just get one at the airport—”
“Don’t,” Whit said, shaking himself into normalcy. “They’re always so picked over. Sorry, I just forgot I had those. Take
whatever you want.”
“Okay,” she said, clearly choosing not to press Whit on his strange reaction. Then he watched in mild horror as she drew her
finger down the stack of spines to land on the one with a royal blue cover.
He thought about stopping her. But then he’d have to explain. And anyway, it’d be good to be rid of it.
“Is this one okay?” Evie asked, understandably hesitant.
“That’s great, yeah,” he said, too eagerly. “I hope you like it.”
There were many tears at lunchtime as Annie said goodbye to Evie and édouard, hugging them both and crying into their shirts.
Evie was never the type to get emotional, but her husband certainly was, and she and Whit exchanged several pained, slightly
impatient glances as a kneeling édouard held both of Annie’s hands and cried through utterances of “ma puce” and “mon petit chou.” Finally, they were out the door, dropping off Annie at her friend Liza’s on their way to the airport.
Once they were parked in the departures lane, édouard went in first to begin checking their bags, while Evie lingered with
Whit on the sidewalk.
Whit took a deep breath, leaning on the still-open passenger door.
“Well. Thank you.”
Evie shrugged. “Anytime.”
“No, seriously. Sincerely. Thank you. You helped get me out of my rut, and Annie loved having you here. And you cleaned the
house and hosted Thanksgiving and picked Annie up from school, and a million other things I can’t ever repay you for.”
Evie paused from pretending to wave to an applauding crowd in order to offer him a judgmental glare.
“Siblings don’t repay each other.”
“Some do. Probably.”
“Well, not us. And anyway, I’m not so sure I’m the one who got you out of that rut.”
Whit looked at the oncoming cars and remained silent.
“No, seriously,” she said. “Don’t mess it up, okay?”
He shrugged dramatically.
“I make no promises. I am, as you know, an idiot.”
She nodded with mock solemnity.
“I do know that.”
She paused for a moment before speaking again. This time she was the one watching the traffic. Finally, she said:
“I’m very proud of you, Whit.”
Whit didn’t know what to say. She was his younger sister, and they didn’t often talk like this, but she kept going, her face
all affection.
“A really horrible thing happened to you, and you had a hard time with it, because of course you did, but you’re doing okay.
You’re a good dad, and you’ve figured out a way to do the really difficult thing Helen wanted you to do, and you seem like
you’re actually happy again. Maybe not all the time, but enough of the time. I’m proud of you.”
He gave her a humble, frowny smile.
“Thanks.” He nodded. “Really.”
She shrugged.
Whit closed the passenger door.
“All right. Safe flight. Love you.”
Evie moved to him in a quick burst, giving him a brief hug before pulling away.
“Love you, too, Bubba. Drive safe.”
He watched until she was inside, and then he drove home buoyed by an unfamiliar lightness.
Darkness had descended on Merritt, and not just metaphorically: on the same evening that Serious Games had finally caught up with her, a wide, long rainstorm had engulfed much of the Northeast. Merritt moved groggily through
her shift at Goodenough Books the following morning, a change noticed by Huong as well as Moishe, who were both now working
double shifts in order to accommodate the holiday rush.
Merritt felt a little guilty, as she herself was working at the rate of half a person, despite the fact that the store was
indeed more bustling than usual.
“Are you all right, dear?” Moishe had asked when he found her kneeling in the biography section long after the go-backs had been returned to their shelves. She had lied, saying something about being tired with
a headache.
“Hello, are you alive, there’s basically a line out the door,” Huong had said, less generously, when she found Merritt sitting
in the break room with her hands on her knees and a blank look on her face. She hadn’t even bothered lying then. “Sorry,”
she’d said, and then returned to the floor, which in reality featured a line of only three people.
The end of her shift could not have come soon enough, and then she didn’t even bother to say goodbye, simply slipping out the door and into the pouring rain.
A deceitful break in the storm earlier that morning had led her to leave her anorak and umbrella at home.
After driving to Whit’s on autopilot, she ran from the car through the mud and now stood on the porch, pinching her cheeks and willing herself to feel peppy or focused or at the very least awake.
Whit opened the door before she accomplished any of the above.
“Hi,” he said warmly, bouncily, until he noticed her face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said, walking past him. “Sorry about the mud.”
She tried wiping her glasses with her jacket, but the wet fabric merely moved the rainwater around. She groaned, shaking her
glasses slightly, before replacing them on her nose.
Whit watched her, and she tried to seem calm, unshaken. But his eyes found hers, and she broke then, folding her arms across
her chest and looking away.
“Oh,” she moaned in a voice that immediately drew Whit toward her.
He placed his hands gently on her elbows, correctly sensing she did not want a hug, and waited until she finally spoke.
“Ian Hoult figured it out,” she said at last, once she knew she wouldn’t cry. “He figured me out. He emailed me Friday night.”
“Oh God, Merritt, I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you say sooner?”
She shrugged. “It was your last weekend with Evie. And I didn’t really want to talk about it anyway.”
He nodded. “What did he say? Did you respond?”
Merritt let out a full-body sigh and began to pull out her phone.
“No,” Whit said. “Don’t do that yet. Here.”
He took off her sodden coat and demanded that she wait for him in the living room while he made a cup of tea.
She obeyed, and minutes later he met her at her chair by the fire with a mug of steaming, cinnamony tea and a hand towel.
She placed the former on the small side table and used the latter to dab at her hair and glasses.
They did not speak until she had pulled her favorite blanket over her knees and drunk half of the tea.
“Now,” Whit said, ever so gently from the couch, “what did he say?”
She pulled out her phone slowly, its weight like an antique iron in her hand, and she began to read.
Dear Ms. Pryor,
I hope this email finds you well.
She stopped immediately. “It does not.”
She took a breath and read further.
You’ll remember me, I think, from our brief interaction at Willa Barrett-Lind’s charming Halloween party. And, if I recall
correctly, you have also been of service at our local bookshop.
Merritt pursed her lips in the slightest of smiles. “He totally remembers me helping him, I was deliberately rude.” She continued
to read.
I’m currently writing a story for The Atlantic about Graydon Lyons’s SERIOUS GAMES. After months of reporting, I have confirmed my suspicions that this work is a roman à clef. Furthermore, it has been insinuated to me that, of the many graduate students with whom Mr. Lyons has liaised, the most
likely source for the novel’s main character is—and I’m sorry there isn’t a more polite way of putting this—well, you.
“Jackass,” Whit hissed.
Would you be willing to discuss this discovery with me? I understand, of course, the sensitive nature of this request, and
I do apologize. But such is the world of journalism, which in this case, intersects with the world of literary fiction. I
can assure you that, had I known that this Venn diagram would encompass our own little town, I never would have accepted the
call of what was once an enticing literary mystery, and which has necessarily transfigured itself into something local, personal,
and just a bit icky.
Now we come to the most delicate point, which is that, to our mutual chagrin, I’m sure, the publication of this article is