I agreed that it was a good idea, and I wrote down funeral words to say: Perhaps there is a predetermined time for each person’s life, and we should be grateful for the time we had.
“I brought pictures,” Susannah told Ed Seeley. “Brian went through the house the other day and found a few. I thought we could display them.”
Brian’s backpack was on the floor by his feet, and he leaned over to unzip it. I glanced around the room, at the Pepto-Bismol-colored carpeting and the matching floral couches. It was hard to believe this all was real; I felt distanced from myself, as if I was a girl in a movie. My gaze fell back on Brian, fumbling with his backpack, and I saw something red.
“What the hell?” I said. I stood up to peer closer. Without asking, I reached in for the journal.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he said.
“This is my mother’s diary.”
“Mom’s diary?” Susannah asked. “It didn’t burn in the fire?”
“I never went back to check,” I told her.
Now I was angry at myself—how could I have been so careless? How could I have not checked to make sure that thing was burned to a crisp?
But that paled in comparison to the rage I felt for Brian. I glared at him. “What are you doing with this?”
“I’m not doing anything with it. I found it when I was looking for pictures. I thought you might want to read from it when you give your speech or something.”
“Bullshit,” I said.
“It’s all right, Lorrie,” Meeghan said. She’d been sitting on a side chair, pink to match the carpet, but now she stood and gripped my shoulder.
“You’re the one who told the press about Susannah. Aren’t you, Brian? You’re the source. No one else knew.”
“You knew about this before?” Susannah asked me. “You knew all along we were just half sisters?”
“I only found out the day of the fire,” I told her. “And I didn’t tell you because it didn’t matter. Nothing Mom did or wrote a dozen years ago does anything to change the fact that you’re my sister—my whole sister.” I turned to Brian, shaking my head. “God, I knew you were awful. I just didn’t know you were this awful.”
Susannah took a deep, shaky breath, and then another. We were all looking at her, even Ed Seeley. “I’m sure there’s another explanation,” she said finally, quietly. “Brian would never do that.”
“He has the diary, Susannah.”
“Did you ever think that maybe it was your father?” Brian said. “He knew. Maybe it was his final revenge.”
I startled as if I’d been stung. I knew where my dad was now, because the press had tracked him down. But in the articles I’d read, he’d refused to give them a comment. Not that he was the model of a parental figure; still, I knew instinctively that he wasn’t the source. “I could call the Times myself and ask for the name of their source in exchange for a quote,” I told Brian.
“He didn’t do it,” Susannah said stubbornly.
“Is she right, Brian?” I asked.
“It bugs you so much that Susannah dares to disagree with you,” Brian said. “You think you’re right about everything.”
“All right, Brian,” Meeghan said. “That’s enough.”
But he went on. “I saw you at the Copeland house. I saw your face when you walked into the room and saw we were there. You were mortified. Of your own family.”
“You’re not my family,” I said.
“This is not the place,” Meeghan said.
“It’s all right,” Mr. Seeley said. “I’ve seen it all. People have this romantic notion that loss brings you together. But the truth is, we all grieve in different ways. I’ve done this a thousand times, and I can tell you that every single experience is its own. And none of them is wrong.”
“Tell her,” I said sternly to Brian, at the same time that Susannah said, her voice meek, “Tell her.”
“You were at the Copelands’ that day,” Brian said to Susannah. “It was like being in a different universe. To think people live like—” He broke off.
Brian had lived around the wealthy Idlewilders his whole life. He’d probably logged hours, days, maybe weeks imagining what it would be like to live like them, and then, when he finally saw firsthand, it must have exceeded his wildest dreams. I felt the slightest twinge of empathy for him. But that feeling only lasted a millisecond.
Brian began again. “They think they’re better than everyone else, but they’re not. They don’t deserve what they have. You deserve it, Susannah.”
“No,” Susannah said.
“That’s why I did it—for you, babe. Even if the senator is dead, you can get tested and prove you have a right to his money. It should be yours.”
“No,” Susannah said again.
“But, babe . . .”
“What part of no don’t you understand?” I asked.
“Of course you don’t want her to get tested.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You think you’re the special one. But your mother—”
“Don’t you dare bring my mother into this.”
“She’d want this for Susannah,” he said.
“I’m sick to death of people saying what my mother would’ve liked, what she would’ve wanted. You did this for yourself, Brian. Not for Susannah. Certainly not for my mom.” I pressed a hand to my eyes.
“It’s okay,” Lennox said, standing up from the couch to be beside me. “Lorrie, it’s okay.”
“Did you know people who drown don’t actually die from drowning?” I said.
Lennox shook her head. “I didn’t.”
“I read it online. They have heart attacks first, and that’s what kills them. Chances are, that’s what happened to my mom, but we’ll never know, because it’s been too long. There’s no body for an autopsy.”
“It doesn’t matter exactly how your mom died,” Lennox said quietly.
“It matters to me,” I said. “It’s one more thing I don’t know about her. I should’ve made myself remember her more, so the memories didn’t drift away.” Unconsciously, one of my hands waved in the air, like a seagull flying and fading out of sight. “I should’ve practiced her voice in my head, because I can’t even remember how she sounded. And I should’ve told Susannah stories about her. Good stories. I don’t think I’ve said a single nice thing about her in over a decade. I’ve been remembering her all wrong, this whole time.”
For the first time ever, I started to cry for her—for the loss of my mom. Lennox wrapped herself around me, and then each of the moms came to hold me, too. Susannah was sitting on the couch, crying. “Oh, Susie, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry.” Through the thicket of Sackler-Kandell arms, I reached a hand out toward her. She rose and clutched me, and the group pulled her in. We stayed that way for a little while, until sobs turned to sniffles and Mr. Seeley passed around a box of tissues. We untangled ourselves and blew our noses. Everyone may experience grief in different ways, but no one looks or sounds glamorous while doing it.
Brian had been watching us from his spot next to Susannah on the couch. He reached a hand out, but she was still holding me with one hand, and she had a tissue in the other. There wasn’t a hand for him to take. “You should go,” she told him.
“Aw, come on,” he said. “I’m sorry if I screwed up. But don’t let Lorrie—”
She swiped at a corner of her eye with a knuckle. “This has nothing to do with her. You don’t belong here.”
Brian gave a hard nod. “All right, if that’s how you feel. I’ll see you at home later.”
“It’s not your home,” I said.
“Lorrie, stop,” Susannah said. I swear, a flicker of triumph crossed Brian’s face; he actually thought he’d won this one. “I’ve got this.” She turned to him. “It’s not your home,” she repeated. “You can’t stay there anymore.”
“Oh, come on, babe,” he said. “I love you.”
“I don’t know if you do,” S
usannah told him. “And what’s more, I don’t know if I love you back. Not anymore. Please leave.”
Brian picked up his backpack. I wanted to grab it from him and shake the contents out onto the floor, pick through them and make sure nothing else had been taken from Edgewater. But this was Susannah’s battle, not mine.
Tim Blum had been standing in the corridor to give us some privacy, and Susannah went to him to tell him in no uncertain terms that Brian was not to be given admittance to Edgewater. “I’m on it,” I heard him say from the hall.
Everything that had happened had served to delay the inevitable, but now we couldn’t avoid it any longer: We had to bury Mom. Whatever was left of her. We walked out the back door of the funeral home. Susannah and I were holding hands, which we hadn’t done since we were kids. She’d never felt so completely like my sister. In the distance, the cameras were click, clicking away, the sound as faint as the memory of a dream.
“I lied when I said I didn’t love Brian anymore,” she said. “I know I’m not supposed to after what he did. But I do.”
“I know you do,” I said.
“Are you going to give me a list of reasons why that’s wrong?”
I shook my head. “You know what I love most about you?” I asked.
“What?”
“You always think the best of people. You’re always ready to love them. I honestly don’t want you to ever change.”
Susannah gave my hand a squeeze. “Thank you.”
“I love you,” I told her. “And I understand not being able to shut feelings off. I keep thinking about Charlie. Even though I shouldn’t. I mean, I’ve only known him for such a short time, and after what his dad did . . . I’m sorry. I just can’t shut it off. And now we’re at Mom’s funeral, and I shouldn’t even be talking about him.”
“Please don’t stop,” Susannah said. “I like when you talk to me about your life. You never do.” We made a left on the footpath. I saw a hill of dirt on the ground, beside the open mouth of a grave, and a snow-white casket suspended above it.
“Oh, Susannah, I love you so much,” I said. “I’m so proud you’re my sister.”
“Lor, Lor, I love you more,” my sister said. “I’m trying to figure out what all of this means, and I think I might have to go away for a bit—leave Idlewild for the first time. But I don’t want to leave you.”
“I left you,” I reminded her. “I was so mad at Mom for leaving us, and then I did the exact same thing.”
“You always came back,” she said, and I nodded. “I really thought Mom would, too.”
“So did I. It’s so much harder, isn’t it? Knowing she never will?”
“Yeah, it is.”
THE SKY WAS A PERFECT BLUE, AND THE GRASS WAS a perfect green, as if they’d been colored in that way. On a little table set up by the graveside, we placed the photos of Mom; moments in time, once captured, now gone: Mom and Gigi as young girls in matching dresses. Mom standing in between her parents, in a cap and gown, at high school graduation. Mom blowing a kiss to the camera. Mom holding me. Holding Susannah. And there were all three of us, the Three Musketeers, on the steps of Edgewater.
Mr. Seeley began: “Today we are gathered because, exactly twelve years ago, Danielle Rae Hollander left this earthly world. But she lives on—in her beloved daughters, Lorrie and Susannah, who are here today, and in her sister, Gabriella, who took over raising them.”
The casket had beveled edges, just like the one in Charlie’s drawing, and there was a spray of flowers on top of it. White and yellow roses, whose petals were already browning in the heat of the sun.
“Now, Lorrie, would you like to say a few words?”
I scrunched up the piece of paper that I’d brought to read from. “My mom played James Taylor on long car rides, and she called the three of us ‘the Three Musketeers,’ and she kept a packet of crayons in her purse so that when we were at a restaurant waiting for our food to come, she could keep Susannah and me entertained.” I looked at Susannah. “You always wanted her to draw you a full zoo—lions and flamingos and giraffes and a dozen other animals.”
“I don’t remember that,” Susannah said.
“She drew great giraffes,” I said. “But I wanted her to draw horses. They weren’t exactly her specialty. Once, I caught her practicing them, when we weren’t even out to dinner. She was sitting at the counter in the kitchen of our apartment in the city. She had one of my horse picture books propped up, and she was working out the proportions so she’d be able to draw them better the next time I asked. I think that’s why I started drawing them myself. To be like her. To be a little closer to having her back.”
Ed Seeley gave us cards with the Hebrew words of the Kaddish written out phonetically, the Jewish prayer for the dead, and we recited it as best we could. A lever was pressed, and the casket was lowered into the ground. Susannah and I each shoveled eight times over Mom’s casket. One time for every letter in I love you.
SUSANNAH AND I WALKED ARM IN ARM BACK TO THE parking lot. The photographers had been waiting for us, and I could hear the camera shutters start up again.
Across the parking lot, a car door opened, and someone stepped out. A silhouette of a square jaw and shaggy hair. Lennox raised her hand in a wave, but then she lowered it quickly. The Copeland birds were chirping, as loud as ever.
Charlie flipped his bangs out of his eyes, and then they settled back down again. I’d stopped in my tracks, and so had the rest of my group. We waited for him to reach us. The cameras were going crazy. Here was the money shot.
“Hi, Lorrie,” he said.
“You’re here,” I said. My eyes filled, but then I fell into silence, not knowing what to say. What can you say to the first boy you ever loved, the only boy, whose father had been the reason you’d lost your mom, even if he’d loved her, too—too much but not enough, it turned out. It was like the plot of a movie, but in a movie, someone would’ve written the dialogue for us. In real life, there were really no words.
“You’re Susannah,” Charlie said.
“I am,” I heard Susannah say. “And you’re Charlie. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“I’m really sorry for your loss.”
“I’m sorry for yours, too.”
“Maybe one of these days, we could . . . I don’t know, get coffee or something. I feel like we should get to know each other.”
“I’d like that,” Susannah said.
Charlie turned back to me. “I knew today was the funeral, and I wanted to pay my respects. But it took me all morning to be brave enough to actually get here. I started and turned back and started out again, like, a hundred times. By the time I got here, the service had already started, and I didn’t want to interrupt. And then I thought you probably didn’t want me here anyway. I’d be, like, the last person you’d want at your mom’s grave. I am, aren’t I?”
I shook my head, too stunned to find the words.
“You’re not the last,” Susannah told him.
Charlie gave her a small smile. “I don’t want to make things harder by ambushing you. Today of all days. But I brought you something.”
“You brought me something?” I repeated.
“Uh-huh.” He pressed a small box into my hands. I started to lift the lid. “Can you do me a favor and wait to open it?”
“Okay,” I said. “Thank you.”
The paparazzi were shouting. “Charlie! Lorrie! Susannah! Over here!”
“They sound like they’re hungry for blood,” I said.
“I’ll get you out of here,” Tim Blum said. He was on his walkie-talkie, calling for backup. We were shuttled into our respective cars. I waited until Allyson had pulled through the gates before I opened the box. Lennox and Susannah were on either side of me.
“I don’t believe it,” I said.
25
EDGEWATER
WE PUT EDGEWATER ON THE MARKET A FEW DAYS after Mom’s funeral. Not even twenty-four hours later, it was sold—to Richard Deighto
n. Apparently Deighton wanted to expand his Break Run empire. At first I didn’t want to let him have our house. He’d spent so much time decrying the state of Edgewater, and now I felt protective of it. It seemed cheesy and clichéd to walk around thinking, If these walls could talk, but that’s what I did. My family had laughed and wept and been together in this house. It was wild—it was nearly unfathomable—that after three generations, and so much work, and so much pain, it was about to be over. Just like that. All that time, and suddenly there’d be no more.
Susannah was the one who convinced me that it didn’t matter who bought the house; the bottom line was, it wasn’t going to be our house anymore. And maybe there was even some kind of poetic justice to Richard Deighton and his family walking the same halls we’d walked.
“He’ll probably tear it down,” I told her.
“Even better,” Susannah said. “Richard Deighton doesn’t deserve to live in Edgewater.”
To sell it, we needed Gigi’s approval. Susannah and I brought the papers to the hospital for her to sign, then got on with packing up our lives. Out front in the driveway was a dumpster the size of a small planet. I’d spent weeks that summer trying to clean the house. Susannah, Lennox, and the moms had pitched in recently, too, but of course it was a bigger job than we could handle. Allyson did some online research and found a cleaning crew willing to finish it up. Not an ordinary cleaning crew; this one specialized in crime scenes. Island Crime Decontamination boasted that they’d seen it all—blood, guts, and gore. But I did find it strangely satisfying when Dave Cooley of Island Crime Decontamination walked into the house with his associates for their first day on the job and admitted he’d never seen anything quite like Edgewater.
The dumpster was filled until it nearly overflowed. The rest would be donated or put in storage until Gigi was released from the hospital. She wasn’t going to be prosecuted for anything connected to Mom’s death. Yes, a crime had been committed, but Gigi had been under no legal obligation to report it. The fact that Gigi knew about the accident and kept quiet may not have been laudable, but it wasn’t criminal. She herself didn’t do anything to cover it up, and she never lied to the authorities, so there was no obstruction-of-justice charge.
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