The Truth We Bury: A Novel

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

  “Is this about canceling the wedding?”

  She shrugged. “They’ve criticized me behind my back for years. I shouldn’t care at all what they’re thinking of me—saying about me and AJ now.”

  “He’s Paul’s son, too.”

  “Yes, but if he’s turned out badly, it must be my influence. He couldn’t get into Rice University or SMU or Yale, or wherever it is those people sent their kids.”

  “He didn’t have the grades, but he could have gone somewhere else—a community college—”

  “He got arrested, Dad, the same way I did, but that’s never been discussed—the fact that we have this terrible thing in common.”

  Her dad looked perplexed.

  “AJ doesn’t know about Jesse, or that I was jailed once, too, as an accessory to murder the same way he was when he was nineteen. Paul didn’t want him to know; he’s never wanted anyone to know that about me, and yet I’m never allowed to forget it.” Making a fist, Lily pressed it to her mouth.

  Her dad came to her, wrapping her into his embrace. The gust of his sigh stirred her hair.

  “Maybe it would have helped him if I’d been honest.” She spoke in a hot whisper against his chest. “He would have known when he was arrested that first time that he could talk to me, that I would understand. Maybe, together, we could have kept Paul from forcing him to enlist, and the PTSD—it wouldn’t have happened.”

  “Oh, Sissy, don’t go blaming yourself.” Her dad’s voice slipped and broke. She wondered if he was crying again.

  Taking a breath, she pushed away from his embrace, wiped her face, and composed herself, for his sake. “We should eat,” she said. She got out the cast-iron frying pan, wiped it with olive oil, and set it over a burner to heat.

  Lily takes his small hand, and they wade into the warm water of Monarch Lake far enough that it laps their ankles. On the opposite shore, the sun is cresting a distant ridge of hills, a golden ball rolling along a ragged tree line. AJ dances his small, chubby feet, and when she smiles, he laughs, stomping harder, showering them in a sparkling rain. Laughing, too, she scoops him up, settling him on her hip. “You ready to learn how to swim like a fish?”

  He nods, but his expression is grave. His eyes look into hers, and although he is barely two, his glance seems wise. She thinks he can see into her soul. She loves him profoundly, more than she thought was possible.

  “I swim?” he says.

  “Yes, but I’ll be with you the whole time. Okay?”

  He nods again.

  Paul doesn’t like it, that she brings AJ to the lake, but she does it anyway, every time they visit the ranch. Before he could walk, she cradled him in her lap at the shoreline, letting the water flow around them; she had let it fall from her fingertips, anointing him. It’s the way her mother introduced her to the water. Here at this very spot is where she taught Lily to swim.

  She carries AJ back to the quilt she spread beneath a live oak and sets him down, and he waits while she slathers him with sunblock. Butternut has strayed a few yards to the water’s edge. Lily can hear her drinking. They had ridden over here just after daybreak, AJ’s warm weight tucked in front of her. He is learning to ride and sits on a horse as naturally as she did at his age, spine ramrod straight, easy in the saddle.

  Fearless.

  She caps the sunscreen and stows it in her tote.

  “Let’s go,” he says, eyes alight.

  Hand in hand, they head back to the water, and even as she is washed through with her joy in him, she is half-frightened by his utter trust and the knowledge that his safety and well-being are her responsibility. Paul has pointed out her tendency to be dreamy, forgetful. “Pay attention.” His voice barks in her head, feeding her anxiety. He treats her like a child, everywhere except in the bedroom. What he does to her there, the way he talks to her, thick voiced and panting in his frenzy to have her, to have his mouth everywhere on her—she is no child to him then. It is distressing; she is uncertain of her role as his wife. Standing at the water’s edge, she thinks of the day she will bring Paul here and show him how she has taught their son to swim. She imagines his look of amazement, perhaps even of respect.

  It is a weekday; the lake is deserted, the surface a dimpled reflection of a flawless sky. She has chosen the time for AJ’s first swimming lesson deliberately. Contrary to what Paul thinks, she isn’t so young that she has no sense, nor is she into taking stupid risks.

  AJ tugs her hand, saying, “Let’s go, Mommy,” impatient and imperious in his rush to get on with the adventure. He leads the way, marching strongly through the lucent green water until it passes his knees, then he stops, tilting his gaze questioningly to hers. They have never gone farther out, because of Paul, his oft-repeated warning that she isn’t qualified as a swim instructor. While his lack of trust feeds her doubt, she knows she is a good swimmer, that she wouldn’t attempt to teach AJ if she weren’t.

  Swinging him onto her hip, she carries him some twenty-five yards farther from the shore until the water laps at her waist. “Okay?” she asks him, holding his gaze.

  AJ nods, and his eyes on hers are intent, as if to register every tiny detail, every sensation.

  “I’m bending my knees.” She sinks slowly, watching his face for signs of alarm as the water rises, covering his torso. His eyes widen now, and there it is, that glimmer of dawning delight. It comes every time he experiences something new, and it thrills her. She finds herself waiting for it. Her grin mirrors his. She carries him out another ten feet, stopping when the water is at his waist level. “Can you blow bubbles? Like this?” Bending her head, she demonstrates.

  He follows her example, comes up, laughing, and does it again. And again. She loses count of the repetitions. He is a natural, taking to the water with the same ease as when she and her dad first sat him on Butternut. “Want to float on your back?”

  He nods vigorously, and bracing him, she lays him on the water, letting it hold him, weightless. His feet dangle. He fans his arms, spreading his fingers, making plump starfish. She swishes him gently, to and fro, humming some nameless tune. Sunlight sequins the water. She feels its warmth on her shoulders. Happiness swells from inside her, seeming to expand around her. Sleek as an otter, AJ bumps against the raft of her arms. She feels the knobs of his shoulder blades, the swell of his small calves. The fine strands of his hair float around his head, a halo of the palest seaweed. She looks into his eyes wide with wonder and thinks of the blessing he has brought to her life.

  The sound of the boat is there in the background. It registers, but at a level too deep in her brain to command her attention. Her focus, her whole heart and mind, are lost in the sensation of AJ’s small body floating in her loose embrace, so that when the boat’s engine noise explodes around them, she flinches. It is a moment before it hurtles into view. And then she is horrified to see that it is coming straight at her and AJ, bearing down on them from the right, boat bottom cracking hard against the water’s surface. It’s close enough that she recognizes it as a cigarette boat; she sees the name, Slap Shot, on its side. Adrenaline-fueled panic ices her veins. Tightening her grasp on AJ, she wheels and runs for the shore. The water is like sludge, hampering her movement. But she has AJ. He is a snug, warm, wet bundle against her—and then he is gone.

  Gone!

  Lily stops, looking around wildly.

  “AJ!” she shouts, and then she dives. The water is only four or four and a half feet deep. The boat has turned sharply away, but its wake and her frantic movement have churned up a sand of debris. She can’t see her hand in front of her face. Her lungs are bursting when she breaks the water’s surface. Dragging in air, she shouts his name again, “AJ!” But it is futile. Does she suppose he can hear her?

  She dives over and over, choking on water, her own breath, her sobs of terror. It is on the sixth dive that her hand encounters his forearm, and pulling him up, she stumbles with him to the shore, where she lays him down, dropping to her knees beside him. He is cold to her
touch, inert and deathly white except for his eyes, which are sunken and blue, like ghost eyes. His lips are blue, too, and his belly is distended. Gorge rises in her throat. It isn’t conscious on her part when she turns him on his side and thumps his back, hard, between his shoulder blades. The spasm is immediate, a full-body shudder, and the gout of water that spurts from his nose and mouth is shocking. She waits, terrified, and she prays, Give him back, please, God, and I will never ask another thing. Please, please just give him back . . .

  It is a matter of seconds only, but in her mind what passes is a hellish eternity before AJ coughs. He lets out a wail. Color, miraculous color, suffuses his cheeks. She lifts him into her embrace, rocking him, humming. She tastes the salt of their mingled tears.

  “Oh God,” she whispers. “Oh, thankyouthankyouthankyou . . . never ask another thing . . .”

  Lily woke choking, heart hammering. Images from the dream reeled through her mind, a disjointed film played in double time. The lake, the sun on her shoulders, AJ in her arms . . . the horrifying absence of weight when he’d slipped from her grasp. The strain she’d felt, diving for him, the promise she’d made God, her first useless bargain . . .

  Swinging her feet over the side of the bed, she almost expected to lower them into water. She could smell it, smell the odors of water, damp earth, and fish. She saw it, the small, protected cove where she had first gone to swim with her mother, where she had taken AJ and almost let him drown.

  She stood up. She hadn’t bothered taking off anything other than her jeans and boots when she’d come up to her bedroom after dinner last night, and she pulled the jeans back on now, shoved her feet into her boots. She wasn’t that girl, and AJ wasn’t a baby, either. But she knew where he was. After the dream . . . so vivid . . . she knew where to find him.

  Downstairs, she took the keys to the Jeep from the hook by the back door. She and AJ had ridden Butternut over to Monarch Lake on that long-ago morning, but she couldn’t spare the time to saddle Butternut now. Nor did she leave a note for her dad.

  12

  Fixed you . . .

  I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m in trouble, and I don’t think I can stop . . .

  The contents of the notes, their implicit threat, haunted Dru. She’d been restless all of Thursday night, finally falling asleep near dawn, only to waken with a jolt a bare half hour later when light from the rising sun cracked the window blinds. She checked Shea’s bedroom and, finding it empty, went through the house on bare feet, quickly and silently.

  The smell of fresh-brewed coffee permeated the air, but the kitchen was empty. She turned in an anxious circle, then heard Shea’s voice coming from outside. Walking to the back door, Dru felt on the offense; she had one thought in mind: wherever AJ was running to, he was not taking Shea. Dru would get the .38 if she had to; she would make him understand.

  Fully expecting to see him, she was perplexed for a moment after she edged aside the mini blind and didn’t find him there. She darted her glance over the wedge of lawn she could see, the side of the garage, part of the concrete apron. It looked as if it had rained during the short time she’d slept, but there was no sign of AJ. Shea was alone, in one of the chaise longues, her cell phone to her ear, and as Dru watched, she lowered it to her upraised knees. Whomever she’d been talking to, the conversation was over now.

  Dru opened the door, making a show of it, calling out, “Good morning, honey,” as if it were any one of the hundreds of ordinary mornings they’d shared.

  “Bring a towel,” Shea said, “if you’re going to sit. It rained earlier.”

  Dru retraced her steps into the kitchen and grabbed the dish towel from the oven-door handle. Outside, she mopped the chair. “I never heard it,” she said.

  “It came down hard, but it didn’t last very long,” Shea said.

  Dru hung the towel over the deck railing and settled into the chaise, stretching her legs, crossing her ankles.

  “Uncle Kevin called,” Shea said. “He got your message about the wedding.”

  “Is that who you were talking to?” Dru was only a tiny bit ashamed of her prior suspicion.

  “Kara’s in the hospital in Topeka. She’s the youngest daughter, isn’t she?”

  “Yes,” Dru said. “But Topeka? What happened? Is she all right?”

  “She’s fine. She had to have an emergency appendectomy. Uncle Kevin said he was glad they weren’t in the middle of nowhere when she got sick.”

  “Still, what an awful thing to have happen so far from home. Did Kev want me to call him back?”

  “No. Not unless he could help some way with our issues.” Shea’s voice took on a note of irony.

  “They wouldn’t have made it to the wedding after all,” Dru said.

  “No,” Shea answered.

  They shared a silence.

  “I tried calling AJ’s mom earlier.”

  “Why?” Dru was annoyed.

  “I wanted to ask about the break-in, what was taken. I wanted to know if she’s like the cops, if she thinks it was AJ.”

  “Did she tell you?”

  “She didn’t answer, and she hasn’t called back. It seems weird. Where could she be?”

  “I have no idea,” Dru said. Out hiring a dream team to defend her son. That was the thought that seared a path through her brain. They’d get AJ off, the Axels, with all their money. He’d be like OJ, declared innocent in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. If that trial had proved anything, it was that justice in the United States could be bought and sold like any other marketable commodity. It flat-out pissed Dru off. She stood up. “I’m going to get some coffee. Do you want a refill?” Dru nodded at the mug sitting empty on the table at Shea’s elbow.

  Shea said no, and she turned down Dru’s offer of toast, too. She wasn’t hungry.

  You should eat anyway . . . You’re going to make yourself ill . . . The guy isn’t worth it . . . You’ll find someone else . . . The plethora of useless and unwanted advice trailed through Dru’s mind. She stood, looking down at Shea. “If AJ came here and asked, would you go with him?”

  “Are you kidding me? You’re really worried about that?”

  “Is it so far-fetched? You love him, right?”

  “My God, Mom! How many times do I have to say it?” Shea got out of the chaise, grabbing her mug. “Something has happened to him, something terrible, or he’d have been here, or called, long before now.” She paused in front of Dru, fear mingling with disgust in her expression.

  Dru raised her hand, intending to tuck fallen strands of Shea’s hair behind her ear, intending to say she hadn’t meant to start anything, but Shea evaded her touch, brushing by her. She turned at the back door. “You made up your mind not to like AJ in the first five minutes after you met him. Who knows why? Because he’s related to Jeb Axel? Because his family has money? Because as soon as you found out he’d fought in Afghanistan, you decided he had mental issues—that he was Dad?”

  “Wait, no—” Dru tried to interrupt.

  Shea wasn’t having it. “You’re so judgmental.”

  “No,” Dru said. Was she?

  “All my life you’ve told me how I should feel about stuff—people, situations—Dad, Kate, even poor Becca. It’s just how you are. I should be used to it by now.”

  “What is so wrong with me wanting you to be safe?” Dru shouted it toward the back door, flinching when it slammed. Her knees weakened, suddenly, inexplicably. She felt light-headed, and bending over, she braced her hands on her thighs.

  An hour later she was sitting at the table, trying to merge the address list for the wedding guests into a label document when Shea appeared in the doorway. Dru kept her eyes on the computer screen. It was safer.

  “Erik just called,” Shea said.

  Dru glanced at her.

  “He wanted to know if we’d heard from Kate.”

  “I thought they were going hiking this morning.”

  “Yeah, he was out at Bella Vista at the trail
head at six thirty, where they were supposed to meet, but she never showed.”

  “Maybe she decided to sleep in. Did you call her?”

  “No answer. I left a message.” Shea came and sat down. “Are you working on the notes?”

  Dru nodded. “I can’t get the docs to merge. The addresses aren’t showing up on the label template.”

  “Let me see,” Shea said, and Dru turned the laptop so it faced her.

  She studied the screen, tapping a few keys. “There.” Shea scooted Dru’s laptop over to her.

  “How did you do it? I worked for an hour.”

  “I’m brilliant.” Shea smiled.

  Dru smiled, too. Reaching out, she patted Shea’s arm. They weren’t finished with the hurt feelings or the hard words, but for the moment, they’d declared a truce.

  “Maybe I’ll try some toast.” Shea stood up. “Do you want a slice?”

  “Are you making it?”

  “Yep.” Shea pulled the toaster out of its cabinet cubby and plugged it in. “After I eat, I’m going to get dressed and go out to the ranch.” She got the butter out of the refrigerator.

  “I don’t think you should go on your own. It’s not safe.”

  Shea started to argue, but when her cell phone chimed, she handed the butter knife to Dru. “Can you finish?”

  She was setting their plates on the table when Shea came back, clutching her phone, white-faced.

  “What’s the matter?” Dru asked.

  As if Shea hadn’t heard, she went to the small television Dru kept in the breakfast nook and flipped it on. Alarm shot up Dru’s spine. “Who called? What’s wrong?” she demanded.

  “It was Vanessa.” Shea got the remote, raised the volume. “Someone found a body—”

  “Recapping,” the commentator was saying, “the body of a young woman hiker was found by two other hikers early this morning at Cedar Ridge Canyon Park, a half mile from Monarch Lake. Police so far haven’t officially declared the death suspicious, but an officer at the scene, Patrol Sergeant Ken Carter, indicated there would be a thorough investigation. The young woman is described as being in her mid- to late twenties, petite build, with blonde hair. Her identity is being withheld until her family can be notified.”