Girls of Brackenhill

by Moretti, Kate

  Which was why when Wyatt kissed Hannah against the back of the concession stand in her new pink bikini, the lifted wood of the weathered boards digging into her bare back, the straps of her bathing suit snagging on the splinters, and he pulled her against him until their midsections met and she felt his skin against hers, a feeling wholly new and terrifying and exhilarating, and it took her breath away to feel the dampness of his sweat mixing with hers in the hot August sun, she vowed to never, ever live without this. Without the dizzying breathlessness of world-rocking lust. That if she was going to clean up blood from the bathroom floor, it was going to be for someone who made her vision swim, who made her feel like the earth was tilted, ever so slightly, off its axis and only they could feel it, wrong footed and off balance with love. She’d never do that for Wes, whom she’d never seen her mother look at with anything other than disgust.

  Years later, when she met Huck, when she called the number on the business card, he made her laugh. They went to a chain restaurant for their first date (practical, quick, and no, not PJ Whelihan’s). He made her feel like an adult. She’d been looking for a job in marketing, a real job, not a bartending or waitressing job, and striking out. She had felt despair at falling behind, at having no real income, no career, while all her friends pursued advanced degrees, coveted externships. Huck offered a glimpse of adulthood—with a side of kindness, laughter. Later, after they moved in together (practical, like a trial marriage!), they talked about money, shared goals, starting a family. They talked about whether the carpeting in the living room needed to be replaced and whether the water heater had another year. He never made her dizzy with lust. He was a proper grown-up in the way men almost never were. After all, Hannah and Julia had a biological father they’d never met, a stepfather who was nothing but a drain. Huck felt like a relief. She’d never have to clean the mess from a gushing forehead off the bathroom floor. He looked out for her, a comfort she’d never known. Or hadn’t known in seventeen years.

  Wyatt had the power to upend everything. If the remains in the woods were Julia, what did that mean? If Aunt Fae’s accident hadn’t been an accident at all but a deliberate act, what would that do to her life, her future? And who would do such a thing?

  And now her worlds were colliding: her safety, her desires, her buried secrets threatening to spill over into her real life, threatening to topple her carefully constructed facade of a young woman who had her shit together. She had a career she liked, a fiancé she loved, a house they were renting to own, aligned visions for the future that included joint vacation accounts and 401Ks.

  Hannah didn’t trust her own feelings around Wyatt. The way, even now, when she’d opened the door and he’d stood there, unexpected, looking the same as he did at eighteen, her heart had hammered in a startlingly different way. She couldn’t help but remember the summers, the rush of freedom, a free-flying happiness she hadn’t known before or since and had spent the last seventeen years pretending she never wanted back.

  Hannah now stood rooted to her bedroom floor, watching from the turret window as the two men retreated, figures growing distant down the forest path, Huck’s hands in his pockets, Wyatt’s gesturing, Huck nodding, and all she could do was squeeze her eyes tight and think fervently, like a wish, Please, please leave us alone.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Now

  Aunt Fae’s memorial service was tomorrow. She’d been cremated, and Hannah was going to spread half her ashes in the courtyard garden; the other half she’d bury in a plot that Fae would share with Uncle Stuart when the time came. Hannah had never heard of burying ashes before. The lawyer was specific: they were to be together. Hannah thought it was rather nice to want to be tied in death that way.

  The business of death was dry, almost callous. Meetings with lawyers, phone calls where Hannah sat on hold for an hour waiting to talk to Uncle Stuart’s insurance company, discussion with funeral homes that centered around whether the urn would be moisture tolerant or moisture proof and what the difference was. The payment for grave opening and closing. It was all so clinical, which was jarring but also felt like a relief.

  She planned the service for a nondenominational church down in Rockwell. The Websters weren’t religious and apparently had never attended church, but Hannah finally found a pastor in town willing to give Aunt Fae a memorial that didn’t focus on Bible verses. She’d sat with him the previous day and talked to him about Aunt Fae, the way Hannah remembered her: kind, giving, reserved and perhaps a bit nervous, but warmhearted. The man—Pastor Jim, he’d said to call him—had listened and asked questions, taken notes, and promised to deliver a eulogy befitting Hannah’s aunt. She wondered, briefly, who in town would come. Whether Aunt Fae had died with friends or not. Conspicuously, no one had come to Brackenhill, and there had been no flower deliveries.

  Alice would come. And then a name floated into her consciousness: Jinny Fekete. Oh my God, Jinny. Hannah closed her eyes and remembered the wild black hair, the purple glasses hanging off a chain around her neck. The arms stacked with Bakelite: tones of red, amber, and gold. The hats! Pillboxes and wool shell caps with bowknots, Juliet caps and berets, and sometimes one oversize white straw hat. Jinny Fekete was Aunt Fae’s best friend, her only friend as far as Hannah knew. She’d only met her a handful of times; she rarely came to Brackenhill. She smelled like sage and something smoky, like she’d just come from a bonfire. Sometimes she smoked from a cigarette holder. Hannah had forgotten all about Jinny and had no idea if she was even alive.

  She was puttering around the kitchen, putting away breakfast dishes, killing time until she had to go to the funeral home for one last meeting. Waiting to find out the outcome of the excavation that was still going on outside. Huck had taken Rink out for a walk, this time toward the greenhouse, down the path that eventually led to town.

  “Hey.” Wyatt’s entrance had been soundless, and Hannah startled, let out a small yelp. He laughed. “Sorry about that.” She was relieved to see he came alone this time. Reggie made her uneasy, more on edge than she already was.

  “You scared me half to death.”

  “I’m sorry.” Wyatt’s voice was low, bemused. But his eyebrows creased in concern. “I just wanted to let you know we found the rest of the remains. It’s a fairly complete skeleton, buried about ten feet from the embankment.”

  Hannah’s hand went to her throat, and she found she couldn’t speak, couldn’t react. “Is it . . . ?” She couldn’t finish the thought, the sentence. She felt the tears welling, her throat closing up, and held a fist to her mouth to physically stop herself from crying out. It all felt too raw, on top of last night’s dream and probable bout of sleepwalking (Huck said it was normal under stress), but the whole day had felt surreal.

  “We don’t know, Han.” Wyatt’s voice cracked. All the emotion she’d been holding at bay came rushing up. The night of the fight, the night Julia had run away. Hannah’s anger at Julia, her fury at Wyatt, her hurt—she’d felt like a caged animal, lashing out. Wyatt misjudged the look on her face and said, “I never got to apologize, Han. For the way everything ended. I never thought I’d see you again.”

  “Did you ever look? The internet exists now.” Hannah felt rage like a spark off a flint: capable of growing to a full-blown inferno. She didn’t want to talk about this now but couldn’t let it just drop, not if Wyatt was going to press his thumb right to the burn—and it felt like a burn: open and exposed, raw.

  “I did, yeah. But it affected me too. You know? Julia running out and just disappearing? And then when they found her purse. Everyone just said she died.” He looked around the room, at a loss for words, and finally settled his gaze back on her. When their eyes met, she felt the pain right under her sternum. He continued, his voice a whisper, “I was only eighteen. I was a kid too.”

  Hannah closed her eyes, shook her head, held up her hand. She didn’t want to do this now, with the remains looming over them. With the possibility that her sister would finally be found, pu
t to rest. Finally, she said, “How will we know. If it’s Julia?” Her mouth stuck over Julia’s name, and she was embarrassed by how close she felt to crying.

  He cleared his throat. “Well, if you knew the name of your dentist in Plymouth, that would help a lot. In 2002, we would have taken her DNA off a toothbrush or hairbrush, I think. At least I’d hope. But dental identification is still the fastest. DNA might take a week; dental records could take a day or two. Even with teeth missing—”

  “Okay, enough, please.” Hannah, eyes still closed, held up a hand.

  “I’m sorry.” Then, softer, “I am really sorry, Hannah.”

  “I can get you the name in a bit. I’d have to do a quick internet search—I haven’t been back to Plymouth in years. I know they were on Washburn Street.” Hannah straightened her back, squared her shoulders, and took a deep, shaky breath. She was going for businesslike when she said, “I hope that works for you.”

  He considered her. His mouth opened and closed before he finally said, “You look beautiful, Hannah.”

  Hannah felt her insides slide together, felt her body go boneless. Aunt Fae, Uncle Stuart, the dream, the bones, the excavation, Wyatt, Huck. It was all too much, and she didn’t know she’d broken down until Wyatt had his arms around her and she realized she was sobbing, and she covered her face with her hands and just let herself weep, in a way she hadn’t wept since she was a child. Wyatt smelled the same, and suddenly she was fourteen again, against the concession stand, the splinters in her back, the relentless pulse between her legs, and she stretched up on her bare toes and clung to him, her arms around his neck, his body foreign and familiar, and her vision blurred from the tears, and her body felt alive with sensation, all the synapses in her brain firing at once, her nerve endings on fire. She felt like she was falling apart and being put back together all at the same time. Wyatt’s hand stroked her back, and he pulled her tighter, and she wondered if she was having the same effect on him, if his body felt charged, like his skin alone was burning.

  She couldn’t stop crying.

  She broke out of Wyatt’s embrace, aware suddenly that the air between them had changed. She stepped back, pushed the heels of her hands into her eyes, trying to stem the flow, but tears kept leaking out anyway. It was frustrating to not have control of one’s own body.

  “God, I’m so sorry,” she blubbered, stepping back even farther, away from Wyatt, who looked shocked and pained and something undefinable.

  “Please don’t be sorry, Han. Please.” His voice was throaty, hoarse.

  Hannah leaned forward against the countertop, hands bracing her weight at the sink, her head down, breathing deep. She felt Wyatt’s eyes on her. He strode across the room, plucked the tissue box from the counter, and brought it to her. She wiped her face, her nose.

  “It just . . . hit me all at once,” she offered lamely, and Wyatt stopped her.

  “It’s understandable, honestly. I see people fall apart all the time for less, okay?”

  He stood patiently a safe three feet from her and waited for her to collect herself. The back door opened, and Huck appeared, took one look at Hannah’s face, and crossed the large room in four easy steps. He hugged her and asked, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. It was just the initial shock,” she explained and met Wyatt’s eyes over Huck’s shoulder. Wyatt looked away, out the window, to watch as his team carried equipment and evidence bags through the courtyard and the garden and past the kitchen window to the gravel driveway, where their dark-blue vans sat waiting, the state police logo embossed on each side.

  Huck let her go. “I know it’s been hard. What can I do?” He gazed at her, earnest and concerned, and Hannah felt her nerves bristle.

  She waved at both of them, impatient. “Nothing. Nothing! I just want to know how long until we know. If it’s really her.”

  “We don’t have a forensic unit in the county. Too small. Our oversight is the state police. So it might take a few days to a few weeks to get a positive ID.” Wyatt cleared his throat, spoke directly to Huck, avoiding eye contact with Hannah. “Unless of course you can get me that dentist. That’ll be faster. I’ll call either of you when I hear anything.”

  “What’s your cell phone number?” Hannah asked Wyatt, and he cocked his head, questioning. She explained, “I’ll text you when I have the dentist’s name. It might take some digging, and I’ll call them to see if they still have my records to make sure I’ve got the right one. It’s been over seventeen years.”

  “Right.” Wyatt rattled it off, and then, with a small wave and a thin smile, he left, followed his team to the vans.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Huck asked. “This must be impossible for you.”

  “I’m fine. It’s fine.” Hannah thought of her cascade of tears and how all Huck said he wanted from her was her whole self, vulnerable and honest, and she couldn’t help but think of how he would have felt if he had been the one to receive her emotional meltdown. As long as it was temporary, one time, he’d be delighted, she cuttingly thought. What would he do if she suddenly needed him, not just once? Swooping in to save someone once makes you a hero. Saving someone repeatedly is work.

  It was a lightning-quick thought: Wyatt was the keeper of her feelings. It was a pathetic realization. She’d been fifteen; had she really not matured? Weren’t emotional intelligence and development supposed to come with age?

  She repeated it again, set to convince them both. “I’m fine.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Then

  Fall 2001

  That initial summer of Wyatt passed in a blur of flirting, kissing, talking. Of feeling like Hannah was taking a first step toward something grown up. Did she have a boyfriend? She longed to ask him. But it felt like pressing a fingertip to an old bruise: it hurt all over again and accomplished nothing. She was fourteen, a number that weirded Wyatt out, even as he kissed her, played with her hair, gently bit her earlobe, a move that made her gasp. She hadn’t known anyone could feel this way about a boy. The boys at home were sweaty and pawing and copped a feel in the movie theater and had no desire to make her gasp. Or at least if they had the desire, they didn’t have the knowledge.

  The day Trina came back to get them, that fourth summer, rattling up the driveway in the old Buick, Hannah didn’t think she’d ever eat again. Her stomach felt perpetually twisted, filled up with longing for a boy she wouldn’t see for over nine months—nine months—and in the car when Julia said, “What’s your problem?” Hannah could only wave her away. She’d kept Wyatt a secret all summer, even when she was bursting to talk. Julia and Hannah had both made friends, spent their summer half-apart, half-together. It was amazing how little Julia asked her. If Hannah hadn’t known better, she’d have thought her sister didn’t care. What did she think she’d done all summer?

  Hannah wondered if she’d ever feel that kind of love again. She missed Wyatt with every last cell in her body, sometimes felt like she was going to shrivel up, become a husk of herself.

  They exchanged emails. Long newsy letters and sometimes just I miss you. It had been on the tip of her tongue to tell Julia, but she didn’t want to let Wyatt down. Couldn’t let him down.

  She didn’t tell Tracy and Beth either. Just kept him to herself like her own delicious secret.

  She turned fifteen on June 1, and she was counting down the months. Fifteen sounded so much better than fourteen. Surely they’d go public then?

  She had a cell phone, a cheap flip phone, and he’d call her late at night.

  “I got my license,” he whispered. She’d closed her bedroom door and was curled under the blankets in her bed, listening to his voice. Her mother was working, Wes was passed out on the sofa, and Julia was watching television in her room, the volume turned up loud. Hannah was blessedly alone. She remembered this exact scenario in the spring, before she’d met Wyatt. Everyone had scattered like dandelion seeds, and she’d felt hopelessly lonely. Then, “Let me come see you.” His voice wa
s hoarse.

  “Really? Why?”

  “I just want to kiss you again. I can’t wait nine months. Just one time, sneak me in.”

  “It’s a three-hour drive,” Hannah protested, the danger pulsing under her breastbone. What if Wes let himself into her room and found Wyatt? He’d only done that once all winter and spring. Then Wyatt would know about what he had done. What would he possibly think of her?

  “So what? I’ll bring my dad’s car. The off-season is hard on him. He sleeps a lot.”

  They planned it, talking every night until the day of. She bought a hook-and-eye lock for her door at the hardware store and installed it herself. She’d always been afraid to install a lock. That her mother would question her or, the biggest fear, that Wes would punish her mother for it. But for one night, she could risk it to keep Wyatt safe.

  Hannah could hardly concentrate in school, could hardly pay attention to Beth and Tracy until they waved a hand in front of her face: “Yoo-hoo, is anyone home?” She raced home, changed her clothes, bra, and underwear no less than three times, and sat on her bed and just waited.