Chapter Twelve
It’s just past seven when I knock on August’s door the next morning.
I can hear him in there, the clatter of his keyboard, but it still takes a second knock and then a third before he comes to the door.
When he does, I see this week has done just as much of a number on him as it has on me.
Between Edie, the revelation about Landon being my father, and the storm slowly making its way up from the Caribbean, I feel beyond shattered, and I look it, too.
My skin is pale, my eyes red, the circles beneath them so dark they look bruised.
August is the same, his stubble thick and dark against his grayish skin, and as he frowns at me, deep parentheses appear on either side of his mouth.
“What’s up, Geneva?” he asks, standing in the doorway.
Over his shoulder, his laptop glows, and I see the still-unmade bed, smell the faint odor of burnt coffee and unwashed man.
Gone is the charming, smiling guy who first stepped into the Rosalie just a few weeks ago, and as he looks at me with barely suppressed irritation, I wonder if this is some kind of writer thing.
Like he’s “in the zone” now and can’t be bothered by my interruption.
In any case, he can get over it.
Pointing into his room, I say, “I wanted to get that box back from you.”
I don’t figure I need to specify which box, but his frown only deepens, and at first, I think it must be confusion.
“The … box? Of my mom’s? With the articles and stuff in it?”
Rubbing the back of his neck, August glances over his shoulder briefly before turning back to me and asking, “Why?”
I blink at that, unsure of how to reply. It didn’t occur to me he might not want to give the box back, and I suddenly feel awkward standing there, the memory of our kiss still lingering between us.
A few excuses flit through my brain—There’s something I need to double-check or I want to make sure it’s safe when the storm comes—but then I think, Fuck that, and go with the simple truth. “Because it’s mine?”
There’s no real argument to that, although I can see August looking for one before he finally sighs and heads into his room, pushing the door slightly closed as he does.
When he returns, he’s got the box in his arms, but I swear it doesn’t look as full as it did the last time I saw it.
But I let that go for now, giving him a terse “Thanks” before turning away.
I’m only a few steps from his door when I hear the keyboard clicking away again, and an uneasy, sour feeling settles in my stomach.
He’s writing so much because now his story has an actual angle, a real scoop.
Me.
I push that thought away and carry the box up to the second floor, shifting it onto my hip as I reach up to pull down the attic stairs.
As they thump onto the carpet hallway, heat rolls down from the attic, and I grimace but start climbing up anyway.
The heat and humidity are a physical thing, a crushing weight as I flail around for the light switch that turns on a bare bulb overhead.
I hardly ever come up here anymore. I look around, taking in the broken deck chairs, the covered pieces of Grammy’s old furniture from the ’70s, a giant console stereo with a turntable, extra sandbags, all the flotsam and jetsam of a building that’s both a business and a family home.
I let the box thump to my feet, sending up a cloud of dust, and even though it’s hot as hell and I’m sweating everywhere a person can sweat, I sit down and start digging through the box yet again.
This time, though, I’m not looking for anything about Lo.
I’m looking for Landon.
And holy shit, do I find him.
Looking at this collection now, knowing what I know, I understand why there’s nothing really about the trial, or even the investigation.
This was never meant to be a record of Gloria Bailey—Mom’s old friend who became infamous overnight and who, possibly, committed murder.
No. Instead, it’s a memorial to a man she loved—and lost.
I see it now, in the creases of every glossy magazine page that has Landon’s face on it. I see it in the way the articles aren’t just about him, but about his family. His wife, his father.
And yes, his sister, Camile. Her engagement announcement is buried toward the bottom of the box, something I’d overlooked the first time I’d gone through it because a small column of newsprint with no pictures didn’t warrant a second glance.
I now see what August, with his keen and skeptical journalist’s eye, must have seen when he reviewed everything my mother had saved, and it breaks my fucking heart.
Somehow, even with the picture of Camile, even with the “L” bracelet on Mom’s wrist, I still wanted to believe it couldn’t be possible.
Yet it is, the truth so undeniable that it’s now slapping me in the face. Landon and my mother slept together. And Landon is my father.
But why did she hold on to all of this, for her entire life? Given the pains she went to in getting her affairs in order after she received her diagnosis, why didn’t she destroy the box and its damning contents? Was she saving it for me to discover one day?
Was that what this was all about?
I wipe sweat from my forehead with the hem of my T-shirt, then paw through the box all over again, like I’m missing something, like there will be some hidden message from Mom explaining everything, or a hidden diary that I somehow missed but was tucked inside a glossy magazine all along.
Of course there isn’t. Of course it’s just the same magazine pages as always, but then something catches my eye.
It’s a black-and-white shot of Landon standing by a lake, majestic mountains rising in the distance. He’s wearing a short-sleeved button-down and aviator sunglasses, his grin wide as he poses with his hands in his back pockets, one foot resting on a rock in front of him.
I get it, looking at that picture, why my mom and Lo both would’ve gone so crazy for this guy. He’s good-looking, sure, but it’s more than that. He radiates a kind of confidence and ease that would draw anyone in, and his smile looks so … kind. It’s a good smile.
It’s my smile.
And then I see the caption beneath the photo.
Fitzroy in 1976, while studying in Geneva, Switzerland.
My name has always been a bit of a weird one, even in the South, where people are routinely named things like Hilliard or Sterling.
I asked Dad where they got it from once, and he said he thought Mom had read it in a book.
But when I asked her, she said, A friend of mine said Lake Geneva was the prettiest place he’d ever seen, and I thought it was the prettiest name I’d ever heard.
I think back on that moment now, trying to remember it clearly, trying to visualize Mom’s face as she uttered those words. I know that whatever my brain is conjuring—a wistfulness in her tone, a dreamy look into the middle distance—is just my imagination, not an actual memory.
But if I needed any more proof, this does it for me.
By the time I come down from the attic, I’m sweaty and red, my eyes stinging from the crying jag I had as I slid the box on top of an old chifforobe up there, the highest place I could find, just in case.
The lobby is empty, the Rosalie feeling eerily quiet, and I jump when my phone abruptly trills from my back pocket.
When I see the caller is the hospital, my stomach fills with ice.
I answer only to learn that nothing has changed, that Edie is still in her coma but “doing as well as can be expected,” and that they’ll be in touch soon should anything new develop.
I’ve just ended the call when I hear August ask, “Any news?”
Startled, I turn to see him standing in the hallway just behind me, his shoulder against the doorjamb, his arms folded over his chest.
I shake my head, shoving my sweaty hair back from my face. “Not really. Edie is still with us at least, but no telling when she’ll wake up.”
“And no telling what she’ll say when she does,” he replies. “I wonder if she’ll even remember Lo attacking her.”
“We don’t know that’s what happened,” I say, my voice nearly a whisper, but August only looks at me, his expression unreadable.
“If it wasn’t her, Geneva, then who was it?” he asks, and I suddenly realize why I’ve been trying so hard to focus only on Edie’s recovery, not on what happened to her.
Because August is right. If it wasn’t an accident—which, based on the severity of Edie’s injuries, seems increasingly likely—it had to be Lo.
But if it wasn’t Lo …
I watch as August retreats back down the hall to his book, and for the first time, I wonder if I’ve put my trust in the wrong person.