Legacy of Lies

  six

  As soon as I emerged from bed Sunday morning, I felt the draft, a river of icy air flowing between the fireplace and entrance to my room. I hurried across the chilly floorboards to close the door. Memories of last night washed over me.

  It was just a dream, I told myself-the whisper, the ghost in the mirror-they were nothing more than a nightmare seeded by what a customer had said. As for the door being open, old houses weren’t airtight; it wasn’t surprising after a windy night.

  I dressed quickly, glad my mother had made me pack a long-sleeved turtleneck and sweater. When I arrived in the kitchen, neither Grandmother nor Matt was around. I made a steaming cup of tea and took it out to the kitchen garden.

  The river mist was suffused with early-moming sun light. In the garden every dew-drenched leaf, from the flat needles of rosemary to the smallest teardrops of thyme, shimmered. I walked to the picket fence that edged the garden, stopping at the gate, gazing toward the family cemetery. From a distance the roses looked like soft pink and white smudges against the brick wall. I thought of the voice from last night. Was it possible-had the girl buried there come up to the house? I shivered.

  “Need another sweater?”

  I hadn’t heard Matt approach. “No, thanks.”

  “You look cold.”

  He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt with his jeans. I’d turn into an iceberg before admitting to him I had goose bumps beneath my sweater. “I’m not.”

  “How did you sleep last night?” he asked.

  “Fine. Great.”

  I could see it in his eyes, he didn’t believe me. “Why wouldn’t I?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “If you’re not used to an old house, it can be a spooky kind of place when the wind kicks up.”

  He studied my face, and I, in turn, studied his.

  “Guess I’m a solid sleeper,” I said. “How about you?”

  “I’m a light sleeper. I hear just about everything.”

  Like a girl’s muffled scream? I wondered. I took a sip of tea.

  “So, did you have a good time last night?” I asked. “1 mean at the dance, not afterward.” I watched him over the rim of my cup. But if he had been up to something afterward, like whispering in a ghostly voice, he didn’t show it.

  “No. I’ve always hated school dances.”

  “Then why did you go?”

  “Everyone expects you to,” he replied matter-of-factly.

  “Do you always do what others expect?”

  One side of his mouth pulled up in that smirky smile of his. “Not always.”

  “You’re right about that. Most people would expect you to be friendly to a cousin you’d just met, or at least polite to a house guest.”

  He glanced away.

  “Listen, Matt, I didn’t want to come here.”

  “Then why did you?”

  “Grandmother asked me to,” I replied.

  “Do you always do what others ask?”

  “Not always,” I said, giving him the same smirk he had given me a moment ago. “My father talked me into it. And I’m not brownnosing Grandmother-l’m not here for her money, if that’s what you’re worried about. Dad’s hoping I can heal things between Grandmother and Mom. I think he’s wrong, but, as it turns out, I’m glad I’m here.”

  Matt remained silent.

  “I believe in making the best of a situation,” I added. “Why do you keep trying to make the worst of it?”

  He didn’t reply, just stared down at my face as if he were searching for something.

  “Too bad you have such beautiful eyes.”

  Seeing him blink, I realized I had said that aloud.

  “You have no problem speaking your mind,” he replied, those eyes now bright with amusement.

  I turned away from him. “Grandmother’s standing in the window, waiting for us to come in, and looking annoyed.”

  I headed toward the porch and Matt followed.

  “Good morning, Grandmother,” I greeted her as we entered the kitchen.

  “Good morning, Megan. Matt, you’re up early for Sunday. I heard you come in before midnight last night. Were you ill?”

  “No.”

  “Well, for once, you can get a good start on your studying,” she remarked.

  He nodded, strode over to the kitchen cupboard, and got out a glass.

  She turned to me. “Megan, your mother has written that you’re an honor student. Perhaps you can help Matt.”

  I saw Matt’s hand tighten around the glass and I shook my head. “No, he’s a year ahead of me.”

  “But you’re taking Advanced Placement courses and getting straight A’s,” Grandmother insisted.

  I looked at her, surprised. Apparently she had more contact with my mother than I’d realized.

  “Matt, most definitely, is not getting A’s or even B’s,” she went on.

  Why was she comparing us? I doubted it was grandmotherly pride in my achievements.

  “He’s never been a good student,” she continued.

  Matt poured juice in his glass, his face expressionless.

  “Perhaps you can motivate him,” Grandmother added.

  This wasn’t about motivation, it was a comparison aimed at making him dislike me even more than he already did.

  “Thanks for letting me have dinner with Ginny,” I said, deliberately changing the subject.

  Grandmother nodded and began eating her banana. “She was impressed with the way you handled customers. Matt, did you hear that Megan was offered a job?”

  He kept his back to us as he returned the carton of juice to the refrigerator. “I saw her working yesterday.”

  “Did you know she was asked to continue?”

  “That’s nice,” he replied.

  “I have wanted Matt to get a job since last spring.”

  “Well,” I said lightly, “I can’t really see him selling purses and lace handkerchiefs.”

  She didn’t smile and wasn’t diverted from her goal. “He claims he has enough to handle with athletics and school, and of course his social life. I suppose it’s my fault for continuing to give him money.”

  I wasn’t getting into that. And I wasn’t going to allow her to play me against him.

  “Anyone want a muffin?” I asked, retrieving the bag from the counter where I had left it last night. “They’re from Tea Leaves.”

  Matt didn’t reply. Grandmother glanced at the bag, then lapsed into silence, sipping her coffee. Had she said her piece, or was she resting before unloading another round of antagonizing comments?

  She washed her dishes, then walked over to the shelf where I had seen her put the Bible the day before. “Where is it?” she asked, turning quickly to us.

  “Where’s what?” Matt asked casually and dropped a slice of bread in the toaster.

  “My Bible.”

  “It’s not on the shelf?” He craned his neck to look around her.

  Her eyes bore down on me. “Which of you has taken it?”

  “I haven’t touched it, Grandmother,” I said, surprised by her accusatory tone.

  “And you know I never do,” Matt added.

  “Someone moved it. I put it here last night. It is always here,” she insisted.

  “Maybe you carried it into another room,” I suggested.

  “I did not. I know what I’ve done and what I haven’t.

  “But everybody misplaces things,” I reasoned with her. “I’ll look in the library.” It was an excuse to get away as much as a desire to help. She seemed bent on raising a fuss this morning, and I didn’t want any part of it.

  I checked her desk first, then the tabletops and mantel. Matt came in and began searching even more thoroughly, beneath tables and chairs, under a pile of magazines. I returned to the desk and tried to open the drawers, the ones he’d been looking through Friday night.

  “They’re locked,” he said.

  “Where’s the key?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “Some thing
s Grandmother tells no one.” Except you, I thought.

  “The Bible wouldn’t be in there anyway,” he added.

  “How would you know, if the desk is locked?”

  His eyes met mine steadily. “I’ve seen the drawers open when she’s working. They’re full of junk. There’s no room for anything else.” He turned to survey the shelves of books. “Are you sure you didn’t borrow it or put it away for her?”

  “I’m sure.”

  His eyes continued to travel over the volumes of books. “If she put it on one of these shelves, we’ll be lucky to find it.”

  He was acting as if we had a major problem on our hands. “It’ll show up sooner or later,” I said. “And it it doesn’t, she can buy a new one-it’s still in print.”

  He didn’t smile. “You look in the music room, I’ll search the parlor.”

  I checked the room thoroughly; nothing but dust had settled there for a long time. I returned to the kitchen, figuring that Grandmother had found the book or decided it was not important.

  She spun around when she heard me enter. “It is a sin to steal.”

  “I know, Grandmother. The Ten Commandments are posted in my bedroom.”

  She glared at me, then started pacing back and forth.

  “We’ll find it,” I assured her. “Meanwhile, it’s Sunday. Is there a church service you like in town? I’d be glad to go with-”

  “I don’t go to church,” she replied shortly. “I refuse to sit among the town hypocrites. As for the ministers these days, they can’t tell right from wrong.”

  Matt returned. “Should I check your bedroom, Grandmother?”

  “You should check Megan’s room,” she replied.

  I opened my mouth to protest. Her suspicion was insulting. But if a search put me in the clear-“Oh, what the heck, check it,” I said.

  All three of us climbed the stairs. Matt searched my room, taking too long I thought. Grandmother checked his room. I offered to search hers but was met with a look that could shear steel. I sat on the top step stewing, then got up and walked in circles. When I passed in front of the hall’s antique mirror, I saw myself looking angry and on edge.

  The two of them returned empty-handed.

  “Someone will be punished for this,” Grandmother declared.

  She sounded absurdly serious.

  “Maybe the ghost took it,” I suggested.

  “We don’t have a ghost, Megan. I don’t want to hear that kind of nonsense from you.”

  I was feeling defiant. “Someone named Alice, who used to work here, told me she saw it.”

  “Alice Scanlon is a liar.”

  “She said the ghost’s name is Avril.”

  The pupils of Grandmother’s eyes were jet black inside their pale blue rims. Matt shook his head, signaling me to keep quiet.

  “On my walk Friday I visited the family cemetery and saw Avril’s stone. She died young.”

  “She was the same age as you,” Grandmother replied. “And just as sassy.”

  “How did she die?”

  Grandmother looked at me for a long moment, the pupils of her eyes unsteady. “You heartless, rude girl, asking me something like that. You’re not part of the family. Why would I tell you?”

  “So when people say things, like she was murdered, I know how to correct them.”

  She turned abruptly, strode into her bedroom, and slammed the door behind her. There was a moment of quiet, then I heard her lock the door.

  I looked at my cousin, hoping he could give me a reasonable explanation for her extreme behavior.

  “Good job,” he said. “Next time you set her off, do it on a day I’m out of the house.”

  “She’s already off,” I replied in a hushed voice.

  “Yeah, well, if you don’t want her over the edge, you’ll drop the ghost stuff.”

  “She overreacts to things,” I argued.

  “And you won’t mention Avril again.”

  “Why?” I asked, following him downstairs. I caught his arm at the landing. “Tell me why.”

  “It upsets Grandmother. Avril was her sister and they were very close.”

  “Sixty years ago. She can’t still be mourning her. Matt, is Grandmother losing it? Mentally, I mean.”

  He started down the steps again, ignoring the question.

  I caught up with him a second time. “Why do you protect her? When she goes after you, why don’t you fight back?”

  “There are a lot of things you don’t understand.”

  “No kidding. How about explaining them to me?” He was silent.

  “Couldn’t you see what she was doing with that stuff about grades and jobs? She’s trying to turn you against me. I don’t know why, since you already don’t like me. But she’s making sure of it. What’s eating her?”

  For a moment the mask slipped from his face. I could see the uncertainty in him.

  “Matt,” I said, taking a step toward him.

  He jerked away from me, picked up his Jeep keys from the hall table, and strolled toward the door.

  “What are you thinking?” I called after him. “What?”

  He didn’t glance back, didn’t break stride. “You should never have come,” he said, and left.

  seven

  Grandmother emerged from her room at ten o’clock that morning, no longer obsessed with finding the Bible. She was unhappy because Matt had left the house on his study day, but he knew how to get back on her good side, returning with the Baltimore paper, as well as the Sunday New York Times and Washington Post Her fingers smoothed the newspaper with the same pleasure that some women show when touching silk. Anyone peeking in the library door right then would have thought she was a perfectly normal grandmother.

  “Are you calling your mother today?” she asked me.

  “I was thinking about e-mailing my parents. Do you have a computer?”

  “Matt has one in his room. You may use that.”

  “Is that all right with you, Matt?”

  Grandmother replied before he did. “I gave him the computer. It is all right with me.”

  Still, I waited for my cousin’s response.

  “It’s on,” he said, which I took as permission and headed upstairs.

  Matt’s room was neater than I thought it would be, with just a few pretzels crunched into the rug and a small pile of clothes thrown onto a chair. Two pictures sat on a shelf above his desk. In one several lacrosse players wearing helmets and holding sticks grinned back at the camera. I thought Matt was the player on the end. The second photo was of a little boy and a big dog. I knew by the eyes that the child was Matt, but the sweetness of his expression surprised me. His arms were wrapped so lovingly around the dog, a golden retriever that looked old and patient, I got a lump in my throat.

  I finally sat down, called up my e-mail account, and began to type. I had decided writing would be better than calling because I could choose what to say and what to leave out. There was no point in upsetting my mother by telling her about Grandmother’s eccentric behavior. And I didn’t want to be overheard when I asked about Aunt Avril and the dollhouse.

  I was finishing the letter when I heard voices in the hall. Matt entered the room with his friend, Alex.

  “Almost done?” he asked.

  “Just signing off,” I told him.

  Alex dropped down in the chair next to the desk. “Hi, Megan. I was hoping you’d be here.”

  I smiled. “Hi! Matt didn’t tell me you were coming over.”

  Alex stretched his long legs out in front of him. “You must have figured out by now that if you want to know anything, you have to pry it out of Matt.”

  My cousin, standing behind Alex’s chair, grimaced slightly.

  “We study together every Sunday,” Alex added. “Want to hang out with us?”

  “No,” Matt said.

  Alex glanced over his shoulder and laughed. “I wasn’t asking you.”

  “Even so-” Matt began.

  I interrupted:
“You must have figured out by now, I’m not one of Matt’s favorite people.”

  “Yeah?” Alex replied, his dark blue eyes sparkling. “Why?”

  I shrugged. “Let me know if he tells you first.”

  Matt stood silently with his hands on his hips.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Alex said. “Sometimes he’s just strange.”

  I laughed. Matt shifted his weight from foot to foot.

  “Are you a lacrosse player, too?” I asked Alex, pointing to the photograph. “Are you one of those guys in a helmet?”

  “I play lacrosse, but that’s not our team.” Alex turned to look at my cousin, waiting for him to explain the photo. “Did you forget how to talk, Matt?”

  “That’s my team at Gilman,” Matt said, “the school I went to in Baltimore.”

  When he fell silent, Alex continued, “Matt and I got to be friends at lacrosse camp, the one Chase College runs every summer. A bunch of guys on our team go to it, so when Matt finally moved here last year, he fit right in. He’s the strongest guy on our team and plays awesome defense. He set a school record for assists last season.”

  “Wow,” I said, impressed.

  One side of Matt’s mouth drew up.

  There was no use arguing my sincerity. “Was that your dog, Matt?” I asked, pointing to the other photo.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Homer.”

  “Homer?” I repeated. “You named him after the Greek writer? The guy who wrote the Iliad?”

  Alex threw back his head and laughed. “Yeah, and he had a cat named Shakespeare.”

  I saw the pink creeping up Matt’s neck.

  “Not exactly,” he said. “When I found him, he was hungry and hurt and looked like he needed a home. So I called him Homer.”

  I felt that strange little lump in my throat again. I carefully took the photo from the shelf and studied it. In grade school I had one special cat who heard all of my secrets and sorrows. This dog had probably listened to a few as well, especially since Matt was the only child of parents who were always fighting.