Chapter 56
Nellie is alone in her room. The look of relief on Nolan’s face makes me smile.
“Are you announcing your engagement?” she asks, setting her book on the bedside table then swinging her legs off the side of the bed.
“We’re not dating, Mother.”
Nellie frowns. I don’t buy it.
“Can you give us a few minutes, Nolan?” I ask.
“Sure. I’ll be downstairs.” He shuts the door behind him.
“Scarlet, how have you been, dear?”
“Did you shoot Nolan at home or somewhere else?” There it is. I pulled the pin on the grenade. I’m that sure she’s not going to have an epiphany—a sudden remembrance of her past.
Zero. There is absolutely no shock in her expression. Nellie didn’t forget. She’s not crazy—at least not in the way everyone thinks she is.
“My journal.” She nods. “You read my journal. I wrap the leather tie left to right, but the last time I opened it, the tie was wrapped right to left.”
Not Oscar’s mistake. Mine. He wound it back the same way it was when he found it, after I wound it the wrong way. That’s why I do best behind a computer. I don’t see the physical details that he does or that my grandfather did.
There’s nothing in her journal that would lead me to think that she shot her son. We both know the journal only proves she’s been acting for years.
“I had a hunch that Harold was cheating on me. Intuition, I suppose. Harold said he was going on a business trip. He had this brown leather briefcase that I bought him after he graduated college. It traveled everywhere with him, especially on business trips. I found it in his office a few hours after he left. Of course, I knew I’d be getting a phone call with him all in a panic over leaving it. ”
Nellie shakes her head. “The call never came. My mind wandered places a proper southern lady’s mind should never have to go.
I made fools out of my parents when I married him.
I wasn’t going to let him make a fool out of me.
He had a handgun in a wooden box in our closet.
I shoved it in my purse and headed to the car.
I knew where he was. A day earlier, I wouldn’t have known. ”
She laughs. “It’s funny how we already know certain things but our mind won’t let the images into the light until something else triggers it.
I saw them—the subtle looks, the accidental brush of their hands in passing that was anything but accidental.
I saw it. I should have known before then. I just didn’t want to see it.”
“And Nolan?”
She focuses on me for the first time, every word until this point had been spoken with her eyes glazed over into the past. “He pulled up as I was getting ready to leave. It was his birthday. I’d forgotten my only child’s birthday.
He offered to take me to dinner. I couldn’t say no, so I told him we needed to make a quick stop before going to the restaurant.
He asked why we were going there? He knew them.
We all knew them. I said I had a luncheon invitation to drop off and it would only take a few minutes, so he stayed in the car like I asked him to do. ”
With one blink, Nellie’s tears fall. “I didn’t knock.
The door was unlocked, so I opened it. I knew.
It’s so hard to explain that slow ascent up the stairs knowing that everything in life is about to change forever.
When I eased open the door, Bell shot up out of bed, holding a sheet over her naked body.
No one was in bed with her. For a full three seconds I doubted myself.
I heard the bathroom door open, and I prepared to explain to her husband why I had let myself uninvited into their house.
But it wasn’t her husband … it was mine. ”
I haven’t blinked. I’m not sure I’ve taken a breath the whole time.
“I pulled the gun from my purse and aimed it at him.” Nellie pinches her eyes shut for few silent seconds, releasing more tears. “My hands were shaking so much I could barely keep my finger on the trigger.”
Even now, her hands shake folded in her lap.
“I was crying because my world seemed to be ending before my eyes. He was my husband. She was my friend. With each blink, I became more and more blinded by my emotions. Bell’s pleading voice was a mere echo. He … said nothing. I closed my eyes, and pulled the trigger.”
Biting her lips together, her body trembles in silent sobs. “Sh-sh-she jumped in front of him.”
I draw in a shaky breath, blinking back my own emotions.
“Harry yelled my name as he caught her limp body collapsing to the ground. When he looked up at me, all I could see was murder in his eyes. The gun fell from my numb hands. I didn’t move when he dove for it.
Then I realized what he was doing, and I took a step backwards and then another.
When he lifted the gun like an extension of his arm, I turned and dove toward the door.
The pop of the gun sent a chill up my spine at the same time my shoulder connected with something—someone—as I tried to escape. ”
“Nolan,” I whisper.
Nellie nods.
“I-I t-told him to w-wait in the c-car.” She sobs.
The two people who were meant to die that day, lived. I grab a tissue from her bedside table and hand it to her.
“And Bell?”
She shakes her head.
Nellie is responsible for someone dying. I hate that I know how that feels, but I do.
My name is Scarlet Stone, and I can’t remember ever feeling a connection to normal, well-adjusted people. My reflection has always been in the many faces of dysfunctional souls.
“Why does Nolan think you shot him?”
“Because that’s what Harry told him. Since Nolan didn’t remember much at all, it was easy to tell him what Harry told the police.”
“But you told Nolan it was a burglary at home. This didn’t happen at home.”
Nellie blots her eyes. “Money can buy just about anything. It bought …” She sniffles.
“The police.”
She nods.
“Clean up.”
She nods.
I feel nauseous.
“Whatever story you want?”
“Yes,” she whispers. “I killed the woman he loved, so he made me take the blame for Nolan, justice in a twisted tale.
“But you were declared insane.”
She shrugs, taking in a shaky breath. “I’ve seen a psychiatrist for years.
Truthfully, I did feel like I was having a mental breakdown after they told us Nolan’s heart stopped beating on the operating table.
That Nellie … her heart stopped too. They brought Nolan back.
I didn’t want to come back. I was on suicide watch for weeks.
Harry wanted me to be evaluated to determine if I was of sound mind.
” Her eyes hold firm to mine, silently pleading for me to understand.
“It was an out. A way to live without accountability.”
“How did you get your psychiatrist to declare you—” I know the answer before I ever finish the question. “Money,” I whisper. “All these years …”
“Crazy was just easier. And I had the lead in all the school plays. I can play any part.”
I shake my head. “The secondhand shopping … the coupons …”
“Harry didn’t grow up with money. Everything he owned was secondhand. Nothing was purchased without a coupon. He swore he’d never go back to that life. I wanted to prove him wrong.”
“It was an illusion.”
She laughs. “I know. I know about the women. I know he’s one man with me and another man the second he walks out of here.
I know no one else sees the clothes I buy for him.
I know he’s only here because of the money—my money.
I also know that Nolan’s fear of me remembering something that he himself can’t remember is what has kept him from kicking his father’s philandering arse to the curb. ”
I’m speechless.
“I’m observant. People talk over crazy people. They think I can’t hear them one room away.”
“Oscar …” Eventually, I’ll talk in full sentences again. My mind is spinning way too fast, throwing out a word here and there.
Nellie smiles like a giddy school girl. “He’s the first breath I’ve taken in years.
Do you have any idea what it’s like to physically feel your breath?
It’s like your heartbeat. It’s there doing its job, but we take it for granted until we almost lose it or until something or someone unexpectedly crashes into your life, making you feel absolutely everything.
” She rolls her red eyes. “You must think I’m a stupid woman saying such nonsense. ”
One.
Two.
Three.
I count them all the time. With Theo each breath felt like life. Without him, each breath is nothing more than a chemical exchange necessary to keep my heart beating. Without him, I can imagine I might eventually take them for granted and stop counting.
“Oscar has a past that’s—”
“He’s told me about his past, Ruby. Prison. His ‘profession,’ your mom, and … your cancer.” Nellie grabs my hand and squeezes it.
I blink away my own tears. Oscar is in love. He’s never told another soul about my mum.