Chapter 15
I’m done.
I’m done.
I can’t do this anymore.
I can’t argue with Lily. I can’t look at the fear in her eyes. I can’t keep trying—fuck, trying, failing—to make anything right for anybody. I can’t keep getting to the brink of changing everything and then backing off because I’m scared of?—
What? I’m scared of nightmares? I’m scared of my siblings being dead? I’m scared of Lily being dead? And somehow that means I can’t take out somebody who almost made that happen? Who almost fucked us over forever?
Who did fuck us over forever? Mason and Gabriel made it out, but I’m never going to?—
I’m never?—
Other people can be killers. Walsh killed our parents. He tried to kill Lily. Other people can commit to being crime scenes. Other people can do things they’ll never be able to take back.
Why am I the only one who’s a fucking coward about it? My dad pushed Mason out of a window to save him. My mom keeps showing up in my head. Why can’t I love Lily like my dad loved my mom? Why wasn’t I willing to kill for her?
Why am I so fucking worried about what it means to kill people? Why am I worried at all about the worth of a criminal asshole’s life?
Maybe because I am a criminal asshole. Maybe because everything I’ve ever done hasn’t tipped the scales.
No. Fuck it. I would kill for her. I would. I would have killed all those cops if they tried to touch her. I would have killed Malcolm Walsh, if I’d found him trying to kidnap Lily.
You don’t have to do that, Jamie, my mom says. Is it me, or does she sound tired? Is she at her limit for having such a disappointing waste of a son? I didn’t raise you to be violent. You’re a gentle man. It’s okay to be gentle.
“I don’t want to be gentle.”
Yes, you do.
The kitchen shudders and warps. I don’t know that I’m at a cabinet until it’s inches from my face. It doesn’t look like any cabinet I’ve seen before. Then it looks like the cabinets at our old house, before we got kicked out so that a corrupt, evil consortium could put more money in its members’ pockets. Then it’s Mason’s cabinet again.
Why couldn’t I be better?
Mason taught himself to walk again for us. Gabriel—Gabriel did unspeakable things for us. And what did I do? I sat there smiling at Remy, pretending I wasn’t a wreck.
And it didn’t change anything.
All the crime I’ve done, including tonight, won’t change anything. One house will be burned to the ground, and that wasn’t even because of me. My brothers did that. For me. Because they thought it was what I wanted.
It was what I wanted. But it didn’t change anything.
I am such a fucking coward.
You’re not, Jamie, my mother says. She sounds like she used to when I was sick, and she’d sit on the edge of my bed and run her fingers through my hair.
I open the cupboard.
There’s a stack of plates inside.
“You should go.” I look over my shoulder, and there’s Lily, standing in the doorway with Gabriel, Mason edging past them to come into the kitchen, as calm as I’ve ever seen him. “You really should, Lily. Leave, and don’t bring the baby back when it’s born. I’m a coward and I’m a criminal and I couldn’t kill anyone for you. The farther you are away from me, the better. Don’t give me your address. Just give me a bank account, and I’ll pay for everything you need. You’ll have all the money you need, even when I go to prison. I probably will. Anyone in their right mind would send me to prison.”
“Jameson,” she says.
Charlotte’s there with her. They’re all there. Charlotte takes Robin from Lily, and then she’s doing something—saying something?—to Elise and Nate and Lydia.
I go back to the cupboard.
“You should go to law school,” I add. “That’s an excellent plan. I mean that.”
“If I go to law school, that’s something we can decide together.” Lily’s voice is calm, too, but it shouldn’t be. She should be scared. I’m a nightmare. “It wouldn’t be something I did to escape you. We’d decide that as a team. And we would talk about it later, when we’ve all had some sleep.”
“It should be because of me.” I pick up one of the plates and whip it at the opposite wall. It hits with a thunk, cracks, shatters. That’s a good sound. I like that. Why do I fucking like that? “This is what I do. I destroy things.”
I throw another plate. Thud. Crack. Shatter.
“This,” I continue, “is my one skill. I don’t have any others. The stuff at Phoenix is all bullshit. It’s just numbers. Anyone could do it. I’m not special.”
Another plate.
Another one.
“Jameson?” Remy’s at the doorway now, too. Gabriel’s with her. Lily has come into the kitchen. She stands to Mason’s left, behind him. He has his hand out like he’s reminding my siblings not to get too close. Good for him. That’s the right thing to do. “Are you okay?”
“Where were you, baby sis? You shouldn’t be out so late at night. There might not be a Good Samaritan. Walsh might come after you.”
“Walsh is gone,” Mason says, his face placid. “I heard from Zeus a while ago. He and his son left the country. Their flight won’t touch down for a few hours.”
“His son?” Remy asks, eyes wide.
“His son! The Good Samaritan. That’s Walsh’s son. So fucking bizarre.”
All the blood drains from Remy’s face. “But…”
Gabriel says something to her, and she leans into him. He’ll know what to say to make her feel safe again. He always does.
I throw a few more plates, and then there aren’t any more of the big ones.
I move on to the dessert plates.
The only thing that feels good is having the plate leave my hands and thunk against the wall, then slide down to the growing pile of shattered china.
The kitchen turns into our old kitchen. I’m fourteen again, destroying my mother’s plates and sick to my stomach over it. No one, I think, and throw another piece. No one will use this. We’re the last ones. They can’t have it. They can’t have it. They can’t have it.
The next plate I pick up is plain. One of Mason’s.
It turns back into my mother’s.
Jamie, she says. Jamie, listen to me.
“That’s good.” I throw two more dessert plates. “It’s good that he’s gone. And your grandfather will go to jail unless he can buy his way out, Lily. Maybe I can get a cell next to him when I go.”
“Jameson, I?—”
“The thing is…” I’m in that first shitty apartment with a bargain pack of paper plates, Remy standing in front of me at the counter, stirring cake batter. My throat tears. It’s only after a delay that I hear the sound I’m making. I could never let her hear it when she was little. It would have scared her too much. I can’t stop it now. “You kept asking me what Mom and Dad looked like when they were dead, Rem. Do you remember? I hope you don’t. She would ask me.” I sound awful, addressing the room. “And I couldn’t lie to her about it. I thought it would be ashes. Fire is supposed to be cleansing, right?”
I don’t know what I’m smashing now. Something glass. It shatters on a different frequency than the plates.
“Right,” Gabriel says.
“Right,” I answer. “So I went and I looked at the photos. I wasn’t supposed to be in the detective’s office, but I found a way, because I wanted to be honest about it. And I looked.”
There are tears running out of my eyes. They feel like salt in an open wound, cutting into my face.
“It was the worst thing you can imagine.” I think I’ve moved on to a separate cabinet. Yep. I have. “Dad’s ring was in the ashes, but the rest was unrecognizable. That’s why they didn’t have open caskets. They didn’t even need caskets. There wasn’t that much to bury. That was—that was a show. The caskets were fake.”
I laugh out a stab wound in my throat.
“It was all fake. Except the photos. Those were real. And I didn’t tell any of you. I think I knew that. The last day in the house, I knew—I knew it was all fake. Maybe that’s why I wrecked it all. Mom’s china. It was all a lie. All that goodness. I’ve seen what happens when people get married and have kids and think they’re going to have a life together. Some asshole comes along and destroys it. The only smart thing to do is fuck it up before someone else can. At least when it’s fucked up, it’s honest.”
Glasses, now. All kinds of glass. The different shapes
“This is a lie, too. This nice little life. I’m a fucking lie. It feels good when you believe it, but it’s just like Mom and Dad. It’s waiting to go up in flames. It’s waiting for me to go off like a bomb and destroy it. So let me put you out of your misery. You won’t have to wait anymore. This is it. It’s so fucked up, but it feels good, doing this.” A sob catches me off-guard. “Because it hurts so fucking bad, you know? It hurts like a motherfucker. And you don’t need that. Robin doesn’t need that. My kid doesn’t need that. All of you should be far away from me. Out of range.”
“No, Jameson,” says Lily.
I can’t stop talking to listen to her.
“I’m a crime scene, angel. I’ve been a crime scene since the day our parents died. I think about those photos every single day. Every time I sleep, it’s a bloodbath. Those photos, in every dream. And I can’t take it anymore. I just can’t.”
“Tell us about them,” Mason says.
“Of course I’ll tell you.” My throat is on fire. Lungs, too. Is that what it was like in the building while it burned? Is that what it would have been like in Beaufort fucking Hayes’s house? He’ll never know. He wasn’t there. He got driven away in a cop car, safe and sound. I smash three bowls, and I tell them. I tell them about the ashes and Dad’s ring and the blackened bones that were left behind. I tell them about the steel beam through the remains of our mother. I tell them everything. I don’t leave a single thing out.
The next time I turn around to get more dishes, Mason’s there.
To stop me, I think.
But he doesn’t stop me.
He holds out something else to throw, and he never leaves. He just hands me dish after bowl after serving platter, putting them directly into my hands. I don’t have to search for something else to destroy. I don’t have to think. It’s just there, ready to be sacrificed.
The pile builds up on the opposite wall. The sound I’m making is horrible. I wish I could stop making it, but I can’t. It’s not a scream—that would make Robin—but it’s inhuman. Is that really sobbing? Is it begging? I don’t know.
And then there’s a Phoenix Enterprises mug in my hand.
A Hot Wheels mug.
Two art museum souvenir mugs.
A Take the Cake croissant mug.
A My life is in ruins! mug.
A wedding-themed mug with Mickey and Minnie on it.
All of them go on the pile.
And then I turn around, a weird rushing sound in my ears and my eyes burning like they’re on fire, and Mason’s standing there with my big, red Mickey Mouse mug in his hands.
He holds it out to me.
I can’t move.
“This is it,” Mason says. “There’s nothing left.”
“That one’s mine,” I manage.
“Yeah,” he says.
“Do you like it?”
He looks down at the mug in his hand. Considers it. “I’ve always thought it belonged in my cupboard.”
“Would it be better if it was gone?”
Mason looks me directly in the eyes. “No. I like this mug. It’s one of my favorites. But if you want to smash it, if that would feel better to you, then smash it, and I’ll get you another one. I can get a million of these, Jameson. I can buy a factory and have them make you a new Mickey Mouse mug just like this one every day until we’re all dead. I can get infinite mugs. But I can’t get another you.”
A horrible, horrible sound comes out of my mouth.
“Do whatever you need to do.” Mason holds out the mug a little farther. “I’ll be here when you’re done.”
“So will I,” Lily says. She’s standing next to him now. “I’m not leaving. I love you.”
I try to say I love you too, but nothing comes out except another sob.
“I don’t want to.” Even if I did want to, I don’t think I could lift my arms up to take the mug. “I don’t want to. Keep it.”
I’m so tired that I have to sit down.
But if I sit down, I won’t get up again, and I can’t stay in here. For the next few minutes I can. For however long it takes to get a modicum of control over myself, I can.
And then I need to find somewhere I can breathe. Somewhere outside. I can’t be in here anymore. All the years I’ve spent trying to stand it in here, trying to be good enough to take up space in here with my family, are going to crush me.
I’m not sure what happens. Either I lose my balance and tip into Mason, or he steps forward and puts his arms around me. My head falls to his shoulder. And then Lily’s holding my hand, and Gabriel’s saying something close by, and Remy’s there, too.
I’d thought I was pretty much done crying, but I lose it.
Again.
And when I do, it’s with all of them holding on tight.