Chapter 43
It’s a peculiar sight, seeing Constance in her vintage dress, massive baby bump, trembling hands clenched around the gun. Who is she even pointing it at? I’m not sure. Ava? Me? All of us?
“Constance, what are you doing?” Ava says, chest heaving from the shock of the gunshot.
“I heard arguing. I thought Damien found a way inside the house,” Constance says, swaying from side to side. “What are the three of you doing?”
“Where did you get that gun?” Preston asks.
“I gave it to her when I went upstairs.” Ava swallows hard. “In case Damien returned.”
I’d told Ava about the location of the second gun to protect her. She doesn’t know what Constance is capable of, that’s she’s already killed one friend tonight.
“You almost shot me!” Ava shouts.
“Tell me what’s going on,” Constance says. It’s an order.
Preston, Ava, and I trade glances. None of us knows where to start.
“Preston is stealing from Tippi,” Ava says, at last. “When I went upstairs, he had her at gunpoint, forcing her to empty Evelyn’s safe.”
Constance’s expression screws up with confusion. She looks at Preston. “What?”
“There’s a reason—” Preston starts, but Ava won’t let him finish.
“Please.” She cuts her eyes at him. “I’d love to hear it all again.”
Constance stares at Preston, waiting. He’s confronted with three women, each of whom he tried to sell a different story. Now that we’re all in front of him together, I can see that he doesn’t know which narrative to spin.
“I haven’t been happy for a long time. You know that,” Preston says to Constance, lowering the gun to his side. “I finally found what I need to make me happy. I just need a little help getting started.”
“Why don’t you get a job, Preston? Get a divorce. Take some kind of action,” Ava spits. “Instead of having an affair and stealing from your friends.”
“You don’t understand what it’s like—”
“What’s so hard to understand?” Ava asks. “Life didn’t work out the way you planned? People would kill for the life you have, and all you do is go around taking from others. It’s never enough.”
“Shut up!” Constance shouts at Ava. The angst in her voice, the way she rattles the gun, reignites my alarm.
When Ava said people would kill for the life Preston has, she didn’t realize how right she was.
She doesn’t know Constance has already killed in an attempt to protect her fantasy.
Neither of us are safe if she deems us a threat to her plan.
Constance steps closer and says, “Preston, let’s go.”
“Go where?” Preston says. “The police—”
“I don’t care about the police!” Constance shouts. “You’re doing this for us. We have to get out of here.”
She’s hoping to take off with him, embark on their new life before the police learn about what she did to Marlowe.
Ava lets out a pitying, cruel laugh. “You’re not understanding. He doesn’t want a fresh start with you.”
“Of course he does.”
I step toward her, hands in front of me. “Preston didn’t do this for you.”
“He’s starting over on his own,” Ava says.
Constance begins blinking rapidly. She looks at Preston. “What are they talking about?”
“Yes, Preston,” Ava says. “Tell her everything you were saying upstairs.”
Preston is agitated, tonight’s bloodshed and emotional outbursts impeding his own self-serving plans. “I need a fresh start from everyone. It’s time for me to put myself first.”
“What about me?” Constance looks surprised. She genuinely bought into his lies, and I feel a pang of sympathy for her. She lowers the weapon to her side. “What about the baby?”
“Neither of us planned for this to happen—”
“But it happened!” Her voice softens. “It’s meant to be. You said you wanted to be together.”
“I said what I thought would make you happy in the moment,” he says. “That’s all I was trying to do.”
Constance’s chest rises and falls, her hopes and dreams ruined.
“I betrayed my friend for you,” she says. “I killed my friend for you!”
“Marlowe?” Ava says, raising her hand to her mouth.
Ava and Preston continued to think Damien was responsible for Marlowe’s death, and I never corrected their assumptions because I wanted to confront him.
Now the truth is barreling into us all, the brutality of it impossible to accept.
Marlowe didn’t die at the hands of a jealous boyfriend, someone she barely knew; she was murdered by one of her closest friends.
Constance begins to cry.
“Marlowe threatened to tell you about the affair,” she says to Ava, “and I wasn’t ready to face it yet. We started fighting.” She pauses. “And I pushed her.”
“I never asked you to do those things,” Preston says, his voice labored, as though he’s not sure how much more he can take.
“Didn’t you?” Constance says, a painful laugh escaping from her lips. “When you talked about leaving Ava, raising the baby together—those were promises you made. I’m tired of making you a priority when you only see me as optional.”
“I’ve had enough,” he says, puffing his chest. “I’m sure you’ll be in touch after the baby is born. Until then, I have places to go.” He yanks my arm. “Come on, Tippi!”
A shot cracks.
I brace for impact, clenching my eyes shut.
I wait for the piercing pain of a bullet cutting through flesh, but nothing happens.
When I dare to open my eyes again, my head spins, trying to account for everyone in the room.
Ava is crouched in front of me, hands over her ears.
Constance stands in the same position by the front door, arms extended.
Preston is on the floor.
My eyes bulge at the sight of him. Blood spurts from a wound in his neck. He thrashes in pain, mouth open, gasping for air.
“Preston!” Ava rushes over to him, crouching beside him.
“You shot him.” My words spill out.
Constance stares at the gun as if it isn’t real. Shakily, she places it on the sideboard, beside the flower arrangement where Oliver’s first card appeared earlier in the night, and hobbles out of the house.
I stare at Ava. She’s taken the shawl from around her shoulders and pressed it to the gaping wound in Preston’s neck. Tears trail down her cheeks as she raises her head. “How long until the police arrive?”
“It can’t be much longer,” I say, heart thudding in my chest.
I rush outside in search of Constance. She stands in front of the fountain, as though in a trance, watching as water ripples out of the crows’ mouths into the pool below.
“Constance?”
“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.” She sounds weak, on the verge of losing consciousness. I step toward her, helping her sit on the cement ledge before she falls.
“I know you didn’t.”
“I mean before tonight. The affair. The baby. I kept hoping for a different outcome. I thought I could make things right.”
It strikes me how much this response sounds like the one Ava gave Preston when we were inside Marmee’s closet. Both women saw the harsh reality of their situations, but they tried to blink it away. When life is falling apart, it’s natural to cling to what’s left, hold on for dear life.
“I really thought Preston was my way out. My happy ending,” she says, caressing her stomach.
“I didn’t even care about what I was doing to Ava.
He talked about how girls like her always land on their feet.
And I believed him. I couldn’t stand the way Marlowe treated me after she found out.
She was so ashamed of me, and that shame mirrored what I was feeling inside. ”
I try to empathize with everything Constance is saying, understand why she fell in love with a man like Preston, convinced herself that Ava losing him wouldn’t be as monumental as herself gaining him.
But I’ll never condone what she did to Marlowe. I can’t forgive that.
In the distance, I hear sirens. Finally, the police have arrived.
Constance drifts her hand through the water, soothing herself. “It really is a beautiful night. Let me enjoy it a little bit longer.”
The sirens whine louder, the alternating noise echoing through the trees. When I reenter the house, Ava remains in the foyer, crouched beside Preston.
I gasp when I see them, and she springs to her feet.
Before she can speak, another voice interrupts.
“Tippi?” It’s Marmee, standing at the top of the staircase. “What’s happened now?”