“You always say that.”
“I know.” She puts her arms around him carefully. “I know.”
The first Christmas that they were a whole and complete family, Melissa got a toy kitchen with knobs that turned and cabinet doors that opened. Four-month-old Tyler lay beneath the Christmas tree, his little fist in his mouth, watching the lights blink above him. He’d reach up to bat at an ornament and Melissa would softly say, No, Ty. No touch. She would take his little hand in her little hand and he would coo at her. All those ornaments, the glass Santas and colored balls and tinsel-tailed birds, all of them, are wrapped in bubble wrap and tucked into sturdy boxes. They are protected, as much as they can be.
She stands in the doorway and watches Tyler sleep. All that sadness locked up inside him. She’d never guessed how deep it ran. He’s growing up. His cheeks are hollowing out, his shoulders broadening. Her son’s becoming a man. Isn’t that what she’s always wanted? Not just to be a man, but to be a good person. How will he get there if she doesn’t show him how?
David’s asleep in the bedroom down the hall. She won’t wake him. Melissa lies tangled in her sheets, so many clothes discarded about her that she’s lost among them. Eve leans close and puts her cheek alongside her daughter’s, inhales deep, searching for the scent that is purely Melissa and not the shampoo or the body wash or the perfume. She closes her eyes. Yes, there it is. There’s Melissa, warm and sweet and singular.
The moon hangs high above, sharp against the sky, a fingernail pressed against the black. All the houses are dark. Does Charlotte sleep? Amy’s funeral’s in a few hours. Almost everyone will be there.
She looks down at the vegetable patch, what remains of it, the exhausted tomato vines and oregano gone to seed. They’ve learned a lot from these few yards of earth. That asparagus needs three years to produce. That a single pumpkin seed can send out monstrous vines that overtake everything in its path. That Tyler hates beets, and that they can’t produce enough strawberries to satisfy Melissa. The zucchini didn’t take this year; she doesn’t know why. David says it’s because the soil is overworked, and so next year they had agreed to move it to the other side of the yard.
The darkness is lifting. It’s getting lighter. The sun is coming. Everything will be revealed in the light of day.
DAVID
The moment he’d walked into Tyler’s hospital room and seen Eve standing by their son’s bed, her gaze focused on his sleeping face and her hand resting on his shoulder, all the ugly suspicion had evaporated. Eve, who had been so selfless, who never once asked why, who instead simply accepted and moved on. She’d been so true. How could he have doubted her? She had looked at him and the gladness on her face filled him with emotion. They had come so close. He had pulled her into his arms and, despite everything, felt peace.
He finds her in the garden. She rises as he comes out the door, brushing her hands together. Her hair is loose, the way he’s always liked it. She’s wearing the same T-shirt and jeans she’d been wearing the day before. “I thought you were going to wake me. How’s Tyler?”
“Still asleep. I gave him some more ibuprofen around three.”
He pulls out her chair. “Come sit with me. I made you tea.” There are purple circles beneath her eyes. He’ll have to encourage her to nap later. “Did you know Neil Cipriano was keeping a snake? Some sort of python, by the look of it. I saw Animal Control take it out of his house just now while I was getting the newspaper. Unreal. Can you imagine if that thing had gotten loose?”
She shakes her head and lifts her cup to her lips. She’s clearly exhausted. Normally, this sort of news would have provoked some response from her.
“Mark Ryland came over last night,” he continues, “while you were upstairs with Tyler. He wanted to thank him. He said his mother’s coming to live with them while Holly’s getting help. Our son’s a hero.”
“I don’t want a hero. I just want my little boy.”
“He’s not your little boy anymore.”
“He’ll always be my little boy.”
“Maybe so.” Back when the children were little, Eve was always coming up with different activities—swimming by flashlight in the YMCA pool just after it closed for the night, visiting a neighboring farm at midnight to pet the small animals, hitting tennis balls by lantern on the clay court of a mansion undergoing renovation. The moonlight traipses through the park, daubing incandescent paint on rocks and trees, and making their own private art show. All those picnics under the stars.
Robbie. He still can’t believe it. No doubt Eve’s been beating herself up, trying to see what clue she’d missed. But it’s not her fault. She’ll realize it, with time. “They opened a new coffee shop in my apartment building. Remember me telling you the old one had been closed by the health department? I was reluctant to try the new place, but I finally did.” He doesn’t tell her it had been at Renée’s prompting. “It reminded me of that place we used to hang out at in college.”
“Gibson’s.”
“Gibson’s. Maker of the best whole-wheat doughnut in the world.”
They’d eaten a million of them over four years. “There was a girl working behind the counter. She had to be about sixteen or so. I asked if she had coffee, and she told me she’d start a fresh pot. So I wandered around while I waited. Do you know they make pickle-flavored potato chips?”
“Melissa loves them.”
“No kidding.” He shakes his head. “So, anyway, this old guy comes in. He reeked. He was bumping into things. I moved toward the counter, to let the girl know that I was there. He asks her for a sandwich and she goes to the display case and pulls one out. She gets a bottle of juice, too, and hands them both to him. He doesn’t pay. He just turns and walks away.”
She’s put her cup down, watching him, absorbing the details he doesn’t know to express. They used to sit like this and describe their days to each other.
“So I ask her if he’s one of her regulars, but she says no. I told her it was nice what she did, and you know what she said? She said, What goes around comes around. And that’s when I remembered.” He pauses for dramatic effect, and she obliges by asking, “Remembered what?”
“The first time I met you.”
“It was in my dorm,” she says. “The girls across the hall were having a party—”
He shakes his head. “No, that wasn’t it. The first time I saw you was that first week of freshman year. You said the same thing. Or close to it.”
“I did? Are you sure?”
“You were in front of me in line, and there was this kid looking at the doughnuts in the case. He didn’t have the money to pay for one, so you did. The clerk said something and you told him, What goes around, comes around.”
“You never said anything.”
“It never clicked in my mind. At least not consciously. Remember how I felt like I’d seen you before?”
“You said, Do I know you? I thought it was some cheesy pick-up line.”
“It worked.”
“It did.”
“Things haven’t been right between us for a while.”
“No.” Her voice is low. “I pushed you away.”
“It wasn’t just you. It was me, too. I let you push me away.”
“David …”
“It’s not too late.” He moves his chair closer. Their knees touch. “The firm’s about to offer me a partnership. It’s what we’ve been waiting for. I know you’re worried about moving Tyler, but I think we can do it. We’ll find a place somewhere in Virginia, or maybe Maryland, off the beaten track. I’ll have to commute, but at least we’ll be together. We can start over.”
“David, I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry, but it is too late.”
“No, it’s not. We’ll work it through.” Nothing had happened with Renée, but it could have. He had been on the verge. Maybe Eve had been lonely, too. “What’s important is we love each other.”
Her eyes shine with tears. “I do. I do love you.”
&n
bsp; “Then we can figure this out. I know you’re tired. I know I should have waited to say anything, but—”
“Stop, David. Please.” The finality in her voice reaches him and he sits back.
“Are we talking about another man?”
She laughs, a short, brittle sound. “My God, I wish …” She scrapes her hands through her hair, shakes her head. “I’ve done something terrible, something unforgivable. I should have told you right away, but I didn’t.”
He can’t imagine what she’s talking about, and fear begins to make a place inside him. “What? Did you steal from the foundation?” He tries for the ridiculous, to lessen the panic in her voice. “Did you rob a bank?”
“I killed Amy.”
He hears her say this. He sees her mouth form the words, but the sense of it slips right past him and into the air. It’s Robbie. He’s in jail right now.
“I was texting and I looked down. When I looked up, there she was. I tried to stop.”
This is impossible. Why is she saying this? But then he remembers: The fender.
“I didn’t realize it was her. At first I thought it was a deer. You know how they run across the ravine road all the time. That’s all I thought. I went looking and that’s when I found her, lying there by the river. She was just lying there. I tried to save her. I tried.”
But you didn’t call the police.
Until she replies, he doesn’t even realize he’s said this out loud. “I wanted to. I was about to, and then I realized … I couldn’t.” She’s pleading, trying to meet his eyes, but he can’t look at her. He’s looking all around at everything else—the flowers beginning to wake up at the fence, the worn gray planks of the fence. If they stay here, he’ll need to paint. “I couldn’t. Don’t you see? The minute they found out I’d been texting, they’d take me away. They’d lock me up and then where would Tyler be? Who would keep him safe?”
He looks at her, her bright blue eyes so startling against the paleness of her skin and the glossiness of her black hair. She’s a stranger to him. Ice runs through him, a cold fury. “You’re not the only one …”
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
The whole weight of what has happened, of what is about to happen, lands beside him, shaking the earth. “Are you blaming me?”
She doesn’t look away. “I blame myself.”
“All this time. Charlotte. Your best friend. You put her through hell.”
“I did.”
“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?”
“What do you want me to say? I’m done crying and feeling sorry for myself. I can’t fix this. Nothing I can do or say will make any of this whole again. Who knows if I’ll ever see Tyler again? Who knows if Melissa will ever get over this? Amy’s dead.”
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“It’s Tyler. He framed Robbie. He put the photograph in his truck, called the police to say he’d seen Robbie creeping around Charlotte’s house and taking pictures. None of it’s true. Tyler made it all up. He was terrified they were going to arrest Melissa.”
David looks at his wife, the woman he’s loved. He thinks of their son. All the ways in which they’ve worked to protect this house from the sun had only allowed the darkness to creep inside.
The tow truck’s long gone, and all the police cruisers that had lined the curb. Still, he stands in the empty place in the garage, staring up the dark street. It had taken all day, but felt so quick.
“Dad,” Melissa says fiercely. “Come inside.”
He presses the garage button and the door slowly lowers, sealing them off from the rest of the world.
The house looks like a great and terrible wind has swept through it, drawers opened, books pulled from shelves, clothes heaped on the bed. Eve’s laptop is gone, her cell phone, her shoes. What had she been wearing that night? the detective had demanded, and David had looked at him blankly.
Melissa’s crying. She can’t stop. Sodden tissues lie in heaps beside her on the couch. Her face is blotchy and swollen. She looks so young. Tyler hasn’t said a word. He pulled his hands from Eve’s and pushed her away, locked himself in his bathroom until she was gone. This is what he was like after Rosemary died. He went silent for weeks. Eve had despaired, then wept with relief when he began speaking again. This is the same thing, isn’t it, just a different form of death?
“My God, David,” his sister says when she answers the phone.
“I don’t know what to do with the children. I have to work.”
He’s overwhelmed by all the things he has to do.
“I’ll fly in. I can take them with me.”
“To Arizona?”
“We’ll figure it out. I’ll let you know when my flight arrives.”
“What are we going to do?” Melissa wants to know. “Are you going to make us move to DC?”
He thinks of his apartment. It would never work to move Tyler there, but what are his choices? “I want to.”
“But Mom will be here, won’t she?”
He doesn’t know. All he knows is that his wife’s been arrested and might never return.
That first night home from the specialist’s office, having settled Tyler to sleep in a makeshift bed in the windowless basement, they sat at the kitchen table. Eve had a pad of paper before her, and she was already making plans to convert their house into a fortress. We’ll give him the second floor and move down into his room. I’m worried about the windows, though. Her cup of tea had steamed gently before her. What if we start a foundation to raise money to find a cure? Her words had skipped around the room. They couldn’t settle in his heart. Her hope, so pure.
“Are you hungry?” he asks his daughter now. Had they eaten at all that day? “Do you want me to make some dinner?”
She looks at him strangely. She walks down the dark hallway and goes into her room.
He walks heavily up the stairs to Tyler’s room and stops in shock at the sight of the bare walls. Papers lie in shredded heaps all over the floor. Tyler himself sits on his bed, head buried in his folded arms. He doesn’t answer when David tells him he’ll be back in a few minutes.
He lets himself out of the house and into the cool night. The cul-de-sac is quiet, all the houses dark. Only Charlotte’s blazes with light, every window throbbing bright. He doesn’t know what to say, but he knows he has to say something. They’ve both lost loved ones, haven’t they? They can help each other. The two families, so closely entwined all these years.
He walks onto her porch and glimpses her through the living room window. She’s sitting there, holding a doll in her lap, her head bowed. She looks so forlorn. Where is everyone—her children, her mother?
He knocks softly.
A moment later, the door swings open and Charlotte stands there. He hasn’t seen her since the night Amy disappeared, and he’s horrified at how ugly she’s become. Her orange hair stands up around her white face; her lips are colorless. Her clothes hang from her shoulders. “Charlotte,” he begins. He’d thought she might be guilty. He’d warned Eve to stay away from her. “I wanted to see you. I wanted to say … I don’t know. I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t know what to say?” She frowns. “You think words can fix this? You asshole. There’s nothing you could say that could bring my little girl back.”
Her fury shocks him. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Shut up. I don’t want your apologies. You were never there.”
Maybe this had been a mistake, coming here. He’s only making things worse. “I should have been home more. This would never have happened—”
“Even when you were home, you weren’t there. My Amy died in an instant. I have to think that.” Red circles burn in her cheeks. Her eyes are feverishly bright. “But Tyler’s been dying for years. You wrote him off, you fucking coward. Eve never did.”
The truth of her words peels back his skin. How can she know this? Is this who he is? “I know you’re upset. I get it. I’m a parent, too. I un
derstand.”
She steps close. The air around her wavers. “You still don’t know, do you?” Her voice is quieter now, and it frightens him. “You don’t understand anything. If it were Tyler lying there and Amy who needed saving … If it were my Amy—I’d have done just what Eve did.”
She shuts the door behind her, and the porch light flares off, leaving him in a pool of darkness.
TYLER
The sky’s black and velvety, the full moon stamped bright, hovering behind the trees, the air cold and wet. Up and down the street, windows and porches glow pumpkin orange. A patch of dirty snow sits in the grass by the driveway. By tomorrow, it’ll be gone. Tyler huddles on the top porch step and wraps his arms around his bent knees. If anyone asks, he’ll say he’s waiting for his dad to come home from work. It’ll be late, buddy, his dad had warned him that morning. It’s Tax Day.
It’s also the day that Charlotte’s moving away.
The moving van has sat outside her house all day. Tyler had heard the loud rumble early that morning and gone to see. Melissa and his dad had stood beside him, silently looking out the window. Then his dad had patted his shoulder and told him, Time to go up. When Tyler came out of his room, he ran down the stairs and saw the truck was still there as evening shadows fell across the men carrying things out of Charlotte’s house and up a wooden ramp. But now they’re getting ready to leave. One man rolls down the big metal door with a rattle. Another stands with Charlotte on her driveway, holding a clipboard, talking. Then he climbs into the driver’s seat and the engine starts up with a noise like a belch that would have made him laugh any other day. The van pulls away from the curb and turns onto the ravine road, and a moment later is gone.
Charlotte stands looking after it. She’s wearing a long, droopy sweater and jeans. Then she looks around at all the houses—the Farnhams’ with its Easter Bunny flag hanging by a pole; Albert’s, dark while he’s in Florida visiting his son; Dr. Cipriano’s with the two cars parked in the driveway now that he and Bob are together again; Sophie’s with its bright lights gone, unhooked by her new boyfriend in one afternoon and taken down; and Tyler’s house, sitting in the dark and invisible. If she were to keep turning her head, she’d see Holly’s house with the hanging baskets of ivy her mom put there shortly after moving in, but she doesn’t. She stands there, looking directly at him. Then she steps onto the sidewalk and walks down the street toward him.