As expected, there were tears in my eyes by the time I finished.
“That’s sad.”
“Yes. I still miss her, too. Especially today. But I was glad you were there.”
“I remember the night my mother died, too.”
My heart sped up. Max had only ever painted broad strokes about that night. I’d been reluctant to prod him for details, afraid I’d renew his grief.
“All I told the police I remembered was that it was super hot that day and Mum and I went swimming and then my father came home from a fund-raiser in New York. We had pizza, then I went to bed and I was asleep when she took off in her car.” Dani looked around the restaurant. “But I remember a lot more.”
She pressed her fingertips into the tines of her fork, taking note of my interest before continuing.
“If I tell you what I remember, do you promise not to tell anyone ever, not even my father?”
I knew that keeping a secret from Max would allow Dani to wedge something noxious into our relationship, which she could drive deeper at any time, but the need to know her story was stronger than this fear.
Without waiting for my reply, she began. “It happened during that really hot week in July, remember?”
I shook my head.
“Right. Well, anyway, it was super hot all summer, but that week broke records and our air-conditioning went out. First time ever. Some guys came to look at it, but they said they needed a part, so it would take a few days. There were phone calls, one in particular with my dad that seemed to really piss Mum off, and another one she took in the greenhouse. I heard her yelling. When she came out, she seemed strange. Nervous. She kept biting her nails. Pacing. She told Katya, Go home early, it’s too hot to work. And she gave Gus the day off, too. Then she said, Dani, get in the car. I thought we were going to meet Dad in the city, check into a hotel, see a show, until the heat broke. Or maybe go to Auntie Louisa’s. She said no. She wanted to stay home that night. She drove fast into East Hampton. She always did. We went to the hardware store. Her phone rang while she was parking. Dad again. She told him she was buying fans because the air-conditioning broke. I could hear his voice get louder. She whispered something like, I’m telling you this ends tonight, and hung up. The guy at the store said they were sold out of fans and suggested we check Bridgehampton or Montauk, but it was getting late. We’d never make it, even with the way my mom drove. She said, We’re going to have to tough it out, kiddo. It’ll be like camping.”
Dani took a sip of water. So did I, surprised to find wine in my mouth. I was so transfixed, my focus on Dani had sharpened to such a keen point, that the room and everyone in it had disappeared.
“Anyway. Mum drove fast back to Asherley. It was so dry out. The water in the bay was as low as I’ve ever seen it. She said, Let’s put on our bathing suits. She made a big thing of lemonade and we went down to our beach. She didn’t want to swim. She sat on the chair and kept looking at her phone while I splashed around. I said, Come in the water with me, and she said. That’s okay, Dani, I like watching you. Do a somersault or something, do some tricks, so I did. And then I noticed the curtain move in the turret. I was a little scared and I said, Mum, someone’s in your room. She turned around. It was Dad. He waved from the window and Mum went, Shit. He wasn’t supposed to be home, I guess. She wasn’t happy to see him. At all.” Dani leaned in and whispered, “I think maybe my dad was cheating on her.”
The word left me momentarily stunned. She could have slapped me across the face and I wouldn’t have felt a thing. How is that possible? He adored Rebekah.
“That’s what I think, anyway,” Dani said, and sneaked a sip of my wine. “I mean, he’s never home. You know that now more than anyone.”
“Yes, but I always thought they were happy. I always thought they had a perfect marriage.”
She shrugged. “Mum said people know five percent of what goes on in anyone else’s marriage. I mean, he might have loved her before I came along. He even said to her once, You love Dani more than me, and she goes, Maybe I do? What’s wrong with that?”
Her eyes lingered on me, as if she was testing the effects of her words. Max painted a different picture, of a mother who was hard on Dani, and a father making up for that with leniency and love.
“Married people say things they don’t mean all the time, Dani.”
“Maybe. But when I said Mum took that call in the greenhouse? I was listening. I heard her say, Max, you promised me that this wouldn’t keep happening, that this would stop, so why is this still going on? Something like that. I mean, what was that about except cheating?”
Our meals arrived. Dani dug right into her chicken as though she hadn’t just detonated a bomb on top of my life. I was dizzy with hunger, but when I picked up my utensils they felt heavy, the meat looked too tough, the brussels sprouts too much like fists to cut into. The idea of putting food into my mouth revolted me.
Dani noticed my distress.
“Do you want me to stop talking about it?”
“No. Keep going,” I replied too quickly. “If you want.”
“Okay,” she said, chewing. “So yeah, my dad, he came down to the beach acting all happy. But Mum wasn’t happy to see him. She was super tense and was all, What are you doing home? You were supposed to stay in the city. And he said, I missed my beautiful girls, barely even looking at me. When he went to kiss her she squirmed. He said, It’s getting dark, Dani. Get out of the water. Let’s all go back up to the house. We can order in so we don’t have to cook in this heat. Are you going to eat that?”
It took me a second to realize she was talking to me.
“Oh. No, I’m—”
She stabbed a brussels sprout with her fork and transferred it to her plate. “So. I get out of the water, shower really fast because I knew they were gonna try to squeeze in a fight while I was upstairs. When I came back to the kitchen, they stopped talking. Mum had tears in her eyes. The pizza guy came. We barely touched our food. Between the heat and the tension, you could cut the air with a knife.” She slashed her knife in front of me.
“So dinner was done. I knew Daddy was gonna bark at me to go to bed. I said it was too hot in my room, I want a fan, I won’t be able to sleep. But then I thought, wait a minute, I’d know more about what’s going on if I ‘went to bed.’” She mimed air quotes. “So I go, Okay, fine, Daddy. I thought I was being a genius, but then they went into the greenhouse again. And that’s when the fighting really took off. I couldn’t hear much, just, like, muffled yelling and stuff. But while I was crouched at the top of the stairs to try to hear more, the doorbell rang. I jumped. It was past eleven, late for visitors. I got scared. I heard his steps across the foyer. He answered the door. I couldn’t see who was there, but it was a woman. They spoke all hissy and low, like they were trying to keep it down because I was ‘sleeping.’ I heard him say, Let’s go somewhere else to talk.
“Now they were all in the greenhouse and things got really quiet. The silence was worse than the yelling. It felt like they were in there forever. I leaned over the banister to see if I could hear anything at all. I couldn’t. So I tiptoed down the stairs. I got as far as the door to the greenhouse. The glass was dirty, but I could see him, my dad, and there was my mother . . .”
Dani went quiet for a moment, her forehead wrinkling, as though these events were happening in real time in front of her.
“It was the last time I saw my mother. Before I could get a look at the other woman, she yelled something. My mother’s name, I think. I ran back up the stairs. Behind me I heard my dad yell, Rebekah, Rebekah! Then he said, Wait, you can’t leave. Don’t leave. I kept running, all the way up to their room in the turret, just in time to see my mom’s car take off down the drive. I figured she was mad. That she just wanted to go for a drive. She did that sometimes.”
Her shoulders dropped, and she looked at her hands in her lap. “D
addy was still in the house with that woman, so I raced down to my own room and closed the door because I knew he’d check on me. I slipped under the sheets and lay very still with my eyes shut. Not tight. That would look fake. I read you have to keep your eyebrows relaxed and your mouth slightly open, so that’s what I did. And I waited. And waited. And oh my God, my heart was beating so, so fast and finally I heard him come upstairs. He stopped outside my room. My heart was going boom, boom, boom. He slowly opened my door, crept to the side of my bed, so I fake woke up. I sorta stretched and I go—sounding all groggy—Hey, what’s wrong? He said, Nothing, honey. I brought you a glass of cold water. Here, he said, sit up and drink. It’ll help you cool down. He told me Mum went into town for a sec. I got worried. I said, Why? He said, She remembered we had a fan at campaign headquarters and she went into town to get it for you, sweetheart, because it’s so hot in here. I said, Why didn’t you go? And he said, Mum needed some air. She’ll be back soon. And that’s the last thing I remember.
“I woke up the next morning like a pile of bricks were on my chest. I could smell burning through my window, though I didn’t connect it to Mum. Daddy was already sitting next to me, sitting in the same spot, like he never left. He looked terrible. He said, Hi, honey, voice all raggedy. I have to tell you something really sad about Mum, he said. And I knew. I knew he was going to tell me she was dead. I knew it. He said, Mum had a car accident out by the causeway. There was a big fire. She died in it. There are police downstairs. They might want to talk to you about what you remember about last night, he said. But the most important thing is I loved your mother very, very much. You know that, right? I said, Yes, Dad, I know that. And you know how much she loved you. Never forget that, he said. I won’t, Dad, I said. Because if the police don’t know how much we all love each other, he said, they might take me away from Asherley, and from you, and you’ll be all alone. We don’t want that, do we? Do you understand? And I said, Yes, I understand.”
This was the first time since I’d met Dani that she had showed any vulnerability; she was on the brink of real tears.
“But here’s the thing. The police didn’t ask me anything except for when did we eat dinner, what time I went to bed, that sort of thing. Nothing important. So I said nothing about that woman. They seemed more interested in talking to my father. Daddy whispered to one of the police, She’s only thirteen. I wasn’t a little girl and they were treating me like one.” She shook her head. “Anyway, I’m telling you all this because that’s why my dad won’t let anyone in the greenhouse. He feels guilty about what happened that night. With Mum. With that woman. I caught him a few times standing in the dark, inhaling the air. You can smell her in there.”
She was quiet for a moment. Then she shrugged, her demeanor shifting.
“Oh. I almost forgot. You texted me this morning, said you wanted to talk to me about something?”
I had completely forgotten about this morning’s events, now buried under the night Dani just recounted. “Oh, uh, yes. It was about . . . the picture you took of me last night, when I was . . . Could you please erase it from your phone? I don’t want your father to ever see it.” I thought I was being clever, focusing only on the photo she took, leaving out the part about her posting it, but she called my bluff.
She slapped her hand on the table. “I knew it! I bet Claire a hundred dollars that you lurk my Instagram. You’re a fucking lurker! Ha! That’s so creepy, I love it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“All right, Stepmommy, if you say so.”
The waiter suddenly appeared at our table. But when I looked up to ask for the bill, I was shocked to see Gus hovering over us.
Dani leapt up. “Oh shit!”
He nodded at me, looking embarrassed.
“Hello, Gus,” I said. “Actually, Dani, I thought I would drive you home. I’d prefer to, in fact. I feel like we have a lot more to talk about.”
She ignored me. “You were going to text me when you were circling the block,” she said to Gus. “Did you have to park?”
“I did text you,” he hissed back, and pointed to the dark sedan at the curb out the window. “Meet me out there. I don’t want to get towed.”
Max was right. Something was off about their relationship, and familiar. Too familiar. They were bickering like a tense couple.
“Sorry, I gotta run,” she said to me. “Can you put this on Daddy’s card without him knowing I ate with you? Oh, and he can’t know about Gus, or what I told you.” She slung her purse across her shoulder. “Okay?”
She spun around.
“Wait. Dani.”
“What?”
“Tell me what . . . what happened to that woman.”
She crinkled her nose. “What woman?”
“The one who came to the house that night?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I never saw her again.” Then she cocked her head at me thoughtfully. “Know what? I think you’re going to make a beautiful bride.”
Then she left. I watched her hop into the front seat with Gus. While I waited for the check, I looked at her Instagram feed. The photo was gone.
“Oh thank God,” I whispered, closing my eyes and placing my phone over my heart, grateful that she decided to just be mean to me, and not cruel.
TWENTY-ONE
Dani’s story played over and over in my mind during the ten-block walk back to the parking garage. All the way out of the city, through the suburbs, down the middle of Long Island, over the causeway, and into the forest, I went over the scenes she’d described, how Rebekah talked on the phone, paced and bit her nails, how she drove into town like a madwoman, how she fought with Max and got angry at a woman who came to Asherley, so angry she fled in a car and died.
Of course Max would feel guilty, if indeed that woman had been his lover. But she couldn’t have been. Max cheating on Rebekah was impossible to imagine. Maybe she was a lost stranger looking for directions. But I’d have to believe she got lost crossing the causeway, heading to a gated island. I thought then of the way Dani had relished my astonishment, leaned deeper into the story the more it distressed me, and a darker thought crossed my mind. Dani had made her up, had executed a deliberate misinformation campaign to mess with my affections before I married her father. To what end? Well, for starters, if I believed him capable of being unfaithful to Rebekah, what hope for fidelity did I have? He was away a lot, and he had plenty of opportunity. But then why would he want to marry? Why not just go on being a swinging bachelor? Max loved me, of this I was sure. One conversation with him would expose her game and dispel these doubts, even if it meant breaking my promise not to tell him Dani had ignored her curfew. I could leave out the Gus part, tell him she’d driven with me.
Passing through the iron gates and then the last stand of oaks before Asherley, I tried to remember where Rebekah’s car had crashed. She must have been going fast. I couldn’t find the stump, but I could make out parts of the burnt forest that had begun to blend into the old growth. Soon it would be as though the accident had never happened. The forest would forget, and maybe so would the island’s inhabitants.
At the end of the long drive, a bright moon accentuated Asherley’s spires and cast a pall over that incongruous greenhouse. I imagined driving through the glass at high speed, sending shards flying in a million directions, releasing all the bad memories. There was no light coming from the turret and yet, even dark, it maintained its sentinel quality.
I drove into the maw of the garage and sat for a while, weighing the cost of betraying Dani at the most fragile intersection in our relationship. We were just beginning to form some semblance of a bond, however tenuous. It was a month before the wedding. The damage would be irreparable, the repercussions, knowing Dani, arriving in unpredictable ways. Yet to not tell was to stew over the plausibility of Dani’s claims.
I checked my phone. No new texts f
rom Max since the one at dinner. No Drive safe, no I’m thinking about you, no Text me when you get home. A new feeling welled up inside of me, niggling and dark. There it was, the doubt Dani had hoped to plant in me with that story. Then and there, I vowed to rip it up by its roots before it grew into a malevolent weed.
As I reached for the door handle, I heard a small thump and saw a shadow pass across the rearview mirror. I froze, only my eyes moving. There it was again. I pivoted around in time to catch the barn cat, Maggie’s mother, padding across the back of the car. I was about to exhale when I caught a glimpse of something, no, someone, standing alone in the dark of the garage. Adrenaline flooded my limbs. The shape moved towards my window. Someone was in the garage with me. I slapped at the lock, a scream escaping my throat.
“Ma’am! Ma’am, it’s okay! It’s only me!”
Gus crouched down at my window.
I shoved open the door. “Jesus Christ, Gus, you scared me half to death!”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“Don’t sneak around like that!”
“I wasn’t. I—I came out to see if you needed any help with bags or anything. I was going to leave, but you stayed in the car a long time. I worried maybe you were sick or something.”
I sat for a moment, a hand on my sternum. It hurt to pull oxygen back into my lungs, they’d emptied so suddenly. I stepped out of the car, my legs wobbly. “I was just gathering my thoughts.”
Here I was alone again with Gus. What if Max were to pull up right now and see us leaving the garage at night? Would he laugh off Dani’s inference a second time?
The Winters Page 17