by E. Lockhart
Variations.
I wonder, for example, if there’s a variation of today where I die going off that cliff. I have a funeral where my ashes are scattered at the tiny beach. A million flowering peonies surround my drowned body as people sob in penance and misery. I am a beautiful corpse.
I wonder if there’s another variation in which Johnny is hurt, his legs and back crushed against the rocks. We can’t call emergency services and we have to paddle back in the kayak with his nerves severed. By the time we helicopter him to the hospital on the mainland, he’s never going to walk again.
Or another variation, in which I don’t go with the Liars in the kayak at all. I let them push me away. They keep going places without me and telling me small lies. We grow apart, bit by bit, and eventually our summer idyll is ruined forever.
It seems to me more than likely that these variations exist.
55
That night I wake, cold. I’ve kicked my blankets off and the window is open. I sit up too fast and my head spins.
A memory.
Aunt Carrie, crying. Bent over with snot running down her face, not even bothering to wipe it off. She’s doubled over, she’s shaking, she might throw up. It’s dark out, and she’s wearing a white cotton blouse with a wind jacket over it—Johnny’s blue-checked one.
Why is she wearing Johnny’s wind jacket?
Why is she so sad?
I get up and find a sweatshirt and shoes. I grab a flashlight and head to Cuddledown. The great room is empty and lit by moonlight. Bottles litter the kitchen counter. Someone left a sliced apple out and it’s browning. I can smell it.
Mirren is here. I didn’t see her before. She’s tucked beneath a striped afghan, leaning against the couch.
“You’re up,” she whispers.
“I came looking for you.”
“How come?”
“I had this memory. Aunt Carrie was crying. She was wearing Johnny’s coat. Do you remember Carrie crying?”
“Sometimes.”
“But summer fifteen, when she had that short haircut?”
“No,” says Mirren.
“How come you’re not asleep?” I ask.
Mirren shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
I sit down. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“I need you to tell me what happened before my accident. And after. You always say nothing important—but something must have happened to me besides hitting my head during a nighttime swim.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you know what it was?”
“Penny said the doctors want it left alone. You’ll remember in your own time and no one should push it on you.”
“But I am asking, Mirren. I need to know.”
She puts her head down on her knees. Thinking. “What is your best guess?” she finally says.
“I—I suppose I was the victim of something.” It is hard to say these words. “I suppose that I was raped or attacked or some godforsaken something. That’s the kind of thing that makes people have amnesia, isn’t it?”
Mirren rubs her lips. “I don’t know what to tell you,” she says.
“Tell me what happened,” I say.
“It was a messed-up summer.”
“How so?”
“That’s all I can say, my darling Cady.”
“Why won’t you ever leave Cuddledown?” I ask suddenly. “You hardly ever leave except to go to the tiny beach.”
“I went kayaking today,” she says.
“But you got sick. Do you have that fear?” I ask. “That fear of going out? Agoraphobia?”
“I don’t feel well, Cady,” says Mirren, defensive. “I am cold all the time, I can’t stop shivering. My throat is raw. If you felt this way, you wouldn’t go out, either.”
I feel worse than that all the time, but for once I don’t mention my headaches. “We should tell Bess, then. Take you to the doctor.”
Mirren shakes her head. “It’s just a stupid cold I can’t shake. I’m being a baby about it. Will you get me a ginger ale?”
I cannot argue anymore. I get her a ginger ale and we turn on the television.
56
In the morning, there is a tire swing hanging from the tree on the lawn of Windemere. The same way one used to hang from the huge old magnolia in front of Clairmont.
It is perfect.
Just like one Granny Tipper spun me on.
Dad.
Granddad.
Mummy.
Like the one Gat and I kissed on in the middle of the night.
I remember now, summer fifteen, Johnny, Mirren, Gat, and I squashed into that Clairmont swing together. We were much too big to fit.. We elbowed each other and rearranged ourselves. We giggled and complained. Accused each other of having big asses. Accused each other of being smelly and rearranged again.
Finally we got settled. Then we couldn’t spin. We were jammed so hard into the swing, there was no way to get moving. We yelled and yelled for a push. The twins walked by and refused to help. Finally, Taft and Will came out of Clairmont and did our bidding. Grunting, they pushed us in a wide circle. Our weight was such that after they let us go, we spun faster and faster, laughing so hard we felt dizzy and sick.
All four of us Liars. I remember that now.
This new swing looks strong. The knots are tied carefully.
Inside the tire is an envelope.
Gat’s handwriting: For Cady.
I open the envelope.
More than a dozen dried beach roses spill out.
57
Once upon a time there was a king who had three beautiful daughters. He gave them whatever their hearts desired, and when they grew of age their marriages were celebrated with grand festivities. When the youngest daughter gave birth to a baby girl, the king and queen were overjoyed. Soon afterward, the middle daughter gave birth to a girl of her own, and the celebrations were repeated.
Last, the eldest daughter gave birth to twin boys—but alas, all was not as one might hope. One of the twins was human, a bouncing baby boy; the other was no more than a mouseling.
There was no celebration. No announcements were made.
The eldest daughter was consumed with shame. One of her children was nothing but an animal. He would never sparkle, sunburnt and blessed, the way members of the royal family were expected to do.
The children grew, and the mouseling as well. He was clever and always kept his whiskers clean. He was smarter and more curious than his brother or his cousins.
Still, he disgusted the king and he disgusted the queen. As soon as she was able, his mother set the mouseling on his feet, gave him a small satchel in which she had placed a blueberry and some nuts, and sent him off to see the world.
Set out he did, for the mouseling had seen enough of courtly life to know that should he stay home he would always be a dirty secret, a source of humiliation to his mother and anyone who knew of him.
He did not even look back at the castle that had been his home.
There, he would never even have a name. His existence had been a shameful secret.
Now, he was free to go forth and make a name for himself in the wide, wide world.
And maybe,
just maybe,
he’d come back one day,
and burn that
fucking
palace
to the ground.
Part Four
Look, a Fire
58
Look.
A fire.
There on the northern tip of Beechwood Island. Where the magnolia tree stands over the wide lawn.
The house is alight. The flames shoot high, brightening the sky.
There is no one here to help.
Far in the distance, I can see th
e Vineyard firefighters, making their way across the bay in a lighted boat.
Even farther away, the Woods Hole fire boat chugs toward the fire that we set.
Gat, Johnny, Mirren, and me.
We set this fire and it is burning down the house.
Burning down the palace, the palace of the king who had three beautiful daughters.
We set it.
Me, Johnny, Gat, and Mirren.
I remember this now,
in a rush that hits me so hard I fall,
and I plunge down,
down to rocky rocky bottom, and
I can see the base of Beechwood Island and
my arms and legs feel numb but my fingers are cold. Slices of seaweed go past as I fall.
And then I am up again, and breathing,
And Clairmont is burning.
I am in my bed in Windemere, in the early light of dawn.
It is the first day of my last week on the island. I stumble to the window, wrapped in my blanket.
There is New Clairmont. All hard modernity and Japanese garden.
I see it for what it is, now. It is a house built on ashes. Ashes of the life Granddad shared with Gran, ashes of the magnolia from which the tire swing flew, ashes of the old Victorian house with the porch and the hammock. The new house is built on the grave of all the trophies and symbols of the family: the New Yorker cartoons, the taxidermy, the embroidered pillows, the family portraits.
We burned them all.
On a night when Granddad and the rest had taken boats across the bay,
when the staff was off duty
and we Liars were alone on the island,
the four of us did what we were afraid to do.
We burned not a home, but a symbol.
We burned a symbol to the ground.
59
The Cuddledown door is locked. I bang until Johnny appears, wearing the clothes he had on last night. “I’m making pretentious tea,” he says.
“Did you sleep in your clothes?”
“Yes.”
“We set a fire,” I tell him, still standing in the doorway.
They will not lie to me anymore. Go places without me, make decisions without me.
I understand our story now. We are criminals. A band of four.
Johnny looks me in the eyes for a long time but doesn’t say a word. Eventually he turns and goes into the kitchen. I follow. Johnny pours hot water from the kettle into teacups.
“What else do you remember?” he asks.
I hesitate.
I can see the fire. The smoke. How huge Clairmont looked as it burned.
I know, irrevocably and certainly, that we set it.
I can see Mirren’s hand, her chipped gold nail polish, holding a jug of gas for the motorboats.
Johnny’s feet, running down the stairs from Clairmont to the boathouse.
Granddad, holding on to a tree, his face lit by the glow of a bonfire.
No. Correction.
The glow of his house, burning to the ground.
But these are memories I’ve had all along. I just know where to fit them now.
“Not everything,” I tell Johnny. “I just know we set the fire. I can see the flames.”
He lies down on the floor of the kitchen and stretches his arms over his head.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“I’m fucking tired. If you want to know.” Johnny rolls over on his face and pushes his nose against the tile. “They said they weren’t speaking anymore,” he mumbles into the floor. “They said it was over and they were cutting off from each other.”
“Who?”
“The aunties.”
I lie down on the floor next to him so I can hear what he’s saying.
“The aunties got drunk, night after night,” Johnny mumbles, as if it’s hard to choke the words out. “And angrier, every time. Screaming at each other. Staggering around the lawn. Granddad did nothing but fuel them. We watched them quarrel over Gran’s things and the art that hung in Clairmont—but real estate and money most of all. Granddad was drunk on his own power and my mother wanted me to make a play for the money. Because I was the oldest boy. She pushed me and pushed me—I don’t know. To be the bright young heir. To talk badly of you as the eldest. To be the educated white hope of the future of democracy, some bullshit. She’d lost Granddad’s favor, and she wanted me to get it so she didn’t lose her inheritance.”
As he talks, memories flash across my skull, so hard and bright they hurt. I flinch and put my hands over my eyes.
“Do you remember any more about the fire?” he asks gently. “Is it coming back?”
I close my eyes for a moment and try. “No, not that. But other things.”
Johnny reaches out and takes my hand.
60
Spring before summer fifteen, Mummy made me write to Granddad. Nothing blatant. “Thinking of you and your loss today. Hoping you are well.”
I sent actual cards—heavy cream stock with Cadence Sinclair Eastman printed across the top. Dear Granddad, I just rode in a 5K bike ride for cancer research. Tennis team starts up next week. Our book club is reading Brideshead Revisited. Love you.
“Just remind him that you care,” said Mummy. “And that you’re a good person. Well-rounded and a credit to the family.”
I complained. Writing the letters seemed false. Of course I cared. I loved Granddad and I did think about him. But I didn’t want to write these reminders of my excellence every two weeks.
“He’s very impressionable right now,” said Mummy. “He’s suffering. Thinking about the future. You’re the first grandchild.”
“Johnny’s only three weeks younger.”
“That’s my point. Johnny’s a boy and he’s only three weeks younger. So write the letter.”
I did as she asked.
On Beechwood summer fifteen, the aunties filled in for Gran, making slumps and fussing around Granddad as if he hadn’t been living alone in Boston since Tipper died in October. But they were quarrelsome. They no longer had the glue of Gran keeping them together, and they fought over their memories, her jewelry, the clothes in her closet, her shoes, even. These affairs had not been settled in October. People’s feelings had been too delicate then. It had all been left for the summer. When we got to Beechwood in late June, Bess had already inventoried Gran’s Boston possessions and now began with those in Clairmont. The aunts had copies on their tablets and pulled them up regularly.
“I always loved that jade tree ornament.”
“I’m surprised you remember it. You never helped decorate.”
“Who do you think took the tree down? Every year I wrapped all the ornaments in tissue paper.”
“Martyr.”
“Here are the pearl earrings Mother promised me.”
“The black pearls? She said I could have them.”
The aunts began to blur into one another as the days of the summer ticked past. Argument after argument, old injuries were rehashed and threaded through new ones.
Variations.
“Tell Granddad how much you love the embroidered tablecloths,” Mummy told me.
“I don’t love them.”
“He won’t say no to you.” The two of us were alone in the Windemere kitchen. She was drunk. “You love me, don’t you, Cadence? You’re all I have now. You’re not like Dad.”
“I just don’t care about tablecloths.”
“So lie. Tell him the ones from the Boston house. The cream ones with the embroidery.”
It was easiest to tell her I would.
And later, I told her I had.
But Bess had asked Mirren to do the same thing,
and neither one of us
begged Granddad
for the fucking tablecloths.
61
Gat and I went night swimming. We lay on the wooden walkway and looked at the stars. We kissed in the attic.
We fell in love.
He gave me a book. With everything, everything.
We didn’t talk about Raquel. I couldn’t ask. He didn’t say.
The twins have their birthday July fourteenth, and there’s always a big meal. All thirteen of us were sitting at the long table on the lawn outside Clairmont. Lobsters and potatoes with caviar. Small pots of melted butter. Baby vegetables and basil. Two cakes, one vanilla and one chocolate, waited inside on the kitchen counter.
The littles were getting noisy with their lobsters, poking each other with claws and slurping meat out of the legs. Johnny told stories. Mirren and I laughed. We were surprised when Granddad walked over and wedged himself between Gat and me. “I want to ask your advice on something,” he said. “The advice of youth.”
“We are worldly and awesome youth,” said Johnny, “so you’ve come to the right end of the table.”
“You know,” said Granddad, “I’m not getting any younger, despite my good looks.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said.
“Thatcher and I are sorting through my affairs. I’m considering leaving a good portion of my estate to my alma mater.”
“To Harvard? For what, Dad?” asked Mummy, who had walked over to stand behind Mirren.
Granddad smiled. “Probably to fund a student center. They’d put my name on it, out front.” He nudged Gat. “What should they call it, young man, eh? What do you think?”
“Harris Sinclair Hall?” Gat ventured.
“Pah.” Granddad shook his head. “We can do better. Johnny?”
“The Sinclair Center for Socialization,” Johnny said, shoving zucchini into his mouth.