Chapter 31 #2
I think about Alex and his lies. The disturbed dirt behind the Thompson shed.
The scarf in Noah’s drawer. There’s too much here.
Too much in this one little spot on the map for me to digest. I’d come here looking for a refuge.
For peace and solitude and instead have found a cauldron of sinister mysteries.
Noah places his hand gently on my arm. “Are we okay now?”
I draw a deep breath, let it out slowly. “I guess. I need to go, though. See you later.” I stride quickly for the house.
Alex spends the day mostly in his office, working, he says, on his latest novel. I hear him on the phone from time to time. And we make innocuous conversation when we pass in the hall or kitchen.
By evening, I settle in my room, Mary’s room, working at her little desk, nearing the end of my novel, trying to shove all of my tangled thoughts away in a compartment in the back of my mind.
I’ve been working up my courage all day to talk to Alex, but now, as dark has fallen outside my window, I’m not sure I can do it.
But my hand is forced when I glance up and see him standing in the open doorway. My tall, strong father, looking like a hero in a gothic novel, a troubled expression on his face.
“Feel like some dinner, Emma?” he asks. His tone is his usual upbeat tenor, but there’s something in his eyes that is different, worried. And I wonder what’s on his mind.
“Maybe,” I say.
“Something wrong?” he asks under heavy eyebrows.
I feel a choking sensation in my throat. “Yes,” I manage.
Alex walks into the room, tentatively, like he’s not been in Mary’s room in years and really doesn’t want to be here now. But he perches on the side of her bed. “Tell me.”
“You lied to me.” It comes out teary and more angry than I’d hoped.
He blinks. His lips thin. “Go on.”
I stand up from the desk chair. Inch my way toward the door as if I might need an easy exit. “I found something. A picture.” Words catch in my throat.
“A picture?”
“My mother.” My eyes find his. “She was here. At Spencer House.”
He nods, but his expression—one of concern and caring—doesn’t change.
“You didn’t tell me that she was here,” I continue.
Alex sighs. “I’m sorry, Emma. She was here for a really short time, a few hours, a very long time ago. You found a picture?”
“Yes. There was a picture of her in Mary’s things.” I don’t want to admit that I had to develop the film to find it.
His face creases in confusion. “Really?”
I pull the photo from my purse and hand it to him. He bows his head over it, studying it, his thumbnail in his mouth like a teenager. As if the photo has sent him back in time to his youth where biting your fingernails was a juvenile habit that he has just rediscovered.
“What happened?” I ask, my voice cutting in and out with my trembling breath.
Alex tips his head, waves the picture nervously. “She came looking for me after she discovered she was pregnant. I told you that I didn’t know at the time when we were together in California.”
“And you sent her away?”
“I didn’t believe her, Emma. I know now that I was wrong. I was young and overwhelmed, and yes, careless. I deeply regret it.” His gaze finds mine and I cringe. He’s still lying to me.
I take a step toward him, clear my throat. “But the funny thing is, I was here too, with her, living proof.”
His jaw drops. “Do you remember?” he stammers, and jumps to his feet. “Do you remember being here?” He grabs my arm and squeezes.
I shake myself from his grasp and stagger back a step. Tears gather in my eyes. I hastily blink them away. “Just recently. I didn’t know before. The picture seems to have jogged my memory.”
“Oh, Emma. I’m so sorry. You were so little. Only about three years old. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t think that you’d remember it. I … I didn’t want to cause you any more pain.”
I lean back against the door casing, my arms crossed over my stomach, holding on tight.
“I was an idiot,” he says. “I should’ve told you from the start.”
“Honesty would’ve been nice.”
“I didn’t believe Lana at the time. It had been so long since I’d seen her. I didn’t think you were mine, and back then there was no way to prove it. DNA testing wasn’t something you could just do like today. I’m so sorry.”
I take a deep breath. I think about the screaming I’d heard then and have heard for years in my dreams. Was it my mother screaming at him?
“We were only here a few hours, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“And you sent her away? Sent us away?” Tears tumble down my cheeks.
“I’m so sorry, Emma. I deeply regret it.”
“You never saw her, us, again? You never wondered or tried to contact her after that?”
He shakes his head, goes to the window, and gazes out into the dark. “No,” he says quietly.
“And Mary was here? I met her?”
“I think I remember she interacted with you and Lana some.”
“What happened to Mary?” My voice is barely a whisper.
Alex turns toward me. “She died, Emma. You know that.”
“When?”
His mouth droops, his eyes blink. “Not long after.”
“Right after we were here?”
“Yes. Actually just a few days later. It’s hard for me to talk about. We were close. She was my little sister, and we’d just lost our parents the year before.”
“She died in this room?”
There’s surprise in his eyes. “What?”
“Sunny told me Mary died in this room.”
“No.” His shoulders fall, and I almost think he’s going to laugh. “Sunny told you that? Well, it’s not true.”
“Why did she say it then?” I guess lying runs in the family.
He walks toward me, places a hand gently on my arm.
I wince and he drops it. “I’m sorry about Sunny.
She sometimes says things just to get a rise out of people.
I’m afraid your being here has her in a bit of a tizzy.
She was really hurt when her mom and I divorced.
She was at that difficult age, on the verge of teenage-hood.
Anyway, her mom and her younger brother left for California.
I told you that, but she decided to stay with me.
She’s always been a daddy’s girl. She feels threatened by you.
But I’m sure, in time, she’ll get over it.
I’ll talk to her. Can’t we start over, Emma?
I’d really like for us to be a family. I’d like to make up for what I did when I was young and thoughtless. Give me another chance?”
“I have an interview in Portland,” I blurt out.
“What? When?”
“In a few days. At a library there. Maybe I should just be on my way now. I can find a hotel room until … I get settled.”
“No. Please stay, Emma. I can get you a job. Anything you like in Boston.”
My gaze falls to the floor, and I wipe tears from my cheeks. I had so wanted to find a family here, my family. A place where I belonged. But the lies. Sunny’s treachery. My father’s self-centeredness. And all that’s happened here at Cheshire Lake. “Maybe it’s better for me to go.”
Alex grasps my arms. “I know things have been crazy, but you’re safe here, Emma. I paid off your ex’s debt. No one will bother you again.”
“Really? What if they come back for more?”
Alex releases my arms and walks back toward the window. “They won’t. My lawyers have made sure of that.”
“How do you know?”
He turns to face me. “Trust me.” I almost laugh at his choice of words.
The look on my face must have registered.
“Okay. You have no reason to trust me at the moment. But I do care about you and want to make up for all I’ve done.
Stay.” He runs his hand through his hair.
“I sent Barry the first fifty pages of your novel. I hope you don’t mind. ”
“What?”
“He thinks the book is terrific—so far. He’s eager to represent you, Emma. Just get it finished and send him the rest.”
My heart is beating in erratic thumps. I feel torn in two.
I want to slam the door on this new family, walk away with my head held high.
But then, that old longing surfaces, so strong.
Could this all work out? Can I forgive my father for the lies?
I glance around the room. Mary’s room. Something about her pulls at me.
And I want to know her story, what really happened to her.
“Okay,” I say, lifting my chin. “I’ll stay for now. But no more lies. No more secrets.”
Alex smiles. “Scout’s honor.” He glances out the window again, where the cemetery sits in the dark woods. Then he turns toward me, his eyes searching my face. “So, what do you remember, Emma? About being here.”
I pick up Mary’s doll from the nightstand. “This. Mary let me play with it. I can’t quite get a picture of her or hear her voice, though.”
Alex stands in front of me. “That all? You don’t remember anything else?”
I don’t want to bring up the screaming woman, or the vague, shadowy memories of the house, things that are still coming back to me in dribs and drabs. I want to keep some things to myself as I figure it all out. And I’m not sure that Alex isn’t doing the same.
“Yes, that’s all.”