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what I wanted. That I wanted that little boy who looked like him.
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And he smiled and he turned toward me and he said that he wanted
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that, too.
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I think that Marnie would have loved that little boy. I think that she 05
would have bought him gifts and planned adventures and taught him
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how to cook. I think she’d have been better for him than I am for you.
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No.
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I know that she’d have been better for him than I am for you.
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I can’t help but admit that I feel a little excited.
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Because, after this, without either of you, we will be inseparable.
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Chapter Forty- Four
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You are lying in your crib. You are distracted by the mobile hang-
ing from the ceiling, the gray and white felt stars dancing on
twine. She made it beautiful, this room, and perfect for you. The cream
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roller blind with dainty birds etched in white. The shelves piled with
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books and toys and pictures of brightly colored animals in glossy white
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frames. You are very loved.
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I see your mother in you, in everything about you. In the little pink
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lips that sit pouting on your face, matching your pink speckled onesie.
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In the bright blue of your eyes. In the impatient clasping and unclasping 21
of your fists as you wait to be fed one final time before you go to sleep.
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I see your father only in your long legs, your strong thighs. I remem-
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ber watching as his propelled him forward through his life and into every 24
avenue of success. He was a lucky man, you know. He had all the privi-
25
lege and such great fortune, and a charm that seemed to inspire confi-
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dence. Everyone wanted to make him laugh, to smile, to be the one to
27
provoke something good. It is an incredible advantage to be someone by
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whom others want to be liked. I suppose I’d have liked to have a little
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charm myself.
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It is hard to believe that our time together is almost over.
31S
I want you to know that I loved you first, before anyone else had
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seen you or even begun to know you. I saw you first. I loved you in that
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space between life and not life, when you crossed the boundary be-
01
tween something that was not quite and something that would always
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be. But I never really knew you after that, never really had a chance to
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turn that initial love into something more substantial. I wanted to,
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truly. I had a life planned for us.
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You are falling asleep. I’m sorry; I know that it’s late.
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I’ll be quick.
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I’m not afraid of what might happen. If everything goes wrong— and
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I know that it might— then I will be in the same position that I am now.
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I will still be alone.
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But will anyone even think to question it? Another tragedy on the
11
periphery of my life? I don’t think so.
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As I’ve said, I’m one of those people. I suppose Marnie is one of us
13
now, too.
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This cushion was a gift. It once belonged to my sister. I gave it to her
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when she went into the hospital, age thirteen. I made it. Ridiculous,
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now, I know. Can you imagine me at a sewing machine? The embroi-
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dered cake on the front was a joke. She was amused, but our parents
18
were livid. They couldn’t believe that I would be so insensitive when
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she was so ill and it made us happy to see them so angry. She gave it to
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you when you were born. Your mother had this rocking chair already,
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shiny white wood, and she said that it needed something more, some-
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thing human, something loved.
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Right.
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Stop fidgeting. Enough of that now.
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It’s time.
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Chapter Forty- Five
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k
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T
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he pillow is in my hand— its scratchy fabric, its cushioned
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core— and I’m lowering it slowly, entirely in control, when the
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front door opens so frantically that it flies all the way back on its hinges.
14
<
br /> It crashes against the wall, the chain jingling as it swings, the clunk as 15
it slams itself shut again. There is this moment then when the room is
16
in freefall. And then it’s her footsteps on the stairs and it’s clear imme-17
diately that something is wrong because they are fast, pounding, and
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she isn’t even careful to avoid the creaks, the ones with the weak wood,
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the ones that might wake the baby.
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When she appears in the doorway, she is chaotic and her hair has
21
fallen loose at the front, stuck against her skin. Her face is flushed and 22
her eyes are wet, wild, bloodshot, blinking like a butterfly in flight, her 23
lashes set by tears. She is trying to breathe, to steady herself, but she is 24
failing and the sound she is making is weak, just a whimper.
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She darts toward the crib and droplets of moisture from the surface
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of her coat seep into my sweater, bleeding through to my skin. “Jane!”
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She is shrieking. “What did you— Audrey?” She leans over the crib.
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“Sweetheart?” The belt of her raincoat is undone; it hangs around her
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calves, dripping water onto the carpet. Her hands curl around her
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daughter and, as they do, something falls from her pocket, tumbling
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onto the mattress. I step closer, to see more clearly, and there is this
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burst of surprise, a surge in my chest.
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It is a phone.
04
And it is this room.
05
And it is me, in miniature, reflected on that screen. I move toward
06
the crib, to balance myself on its frame, and the mirrored version of me
07
goes, too, matching my movement.
08
“What is this?”
09
But I needn’t have asked, because I am already scanning the room
10
for the camera, the counterpart, and there it is: another phone perched
11
on a shelf beside stuffed animals and books stacked in piles.
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The shock is its own inimitable thing, like a virus stirring inside me,
13
crawling up from my stomach like acid.
14
“I heard you, Jane,” she says. “I heard what you said. I checked in at
15
the pharmacy. I wanted to see that she was okay. I listened the whole
16
way home. And if I’d not been going so fast . . .” She closes her eyes,
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squeezes them shut, and bites her lips together. “You were talking about
18
Charles, and about the night he died, and then . . .” A tremor falls
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through her body and, in response, Audrey gurgles, kicking her legs,
20
the flesh of her thighs jiggling, dimpling.
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“It isn’t what you think— ” But there are no words with which to
22
finish the sentence, no way to undo what had already been done.
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“Don’t,” she hisses. “Another lie? Is that what you’re looking for? I’ve
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been such a— ”
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“Marnie, I— ”
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“I heard everything, Jane. That you finished work early the day he
27
died. I was so relieved that you were here, to hear your voice in this
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room. And then— what was it?— that you had a key. And I didn’t think
29
to question it at first; I have always assumed the best of you, never
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doubted you, not once in— what, twenty years?”
31S
“I can explain— I— ”
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“Jane,” she says.
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I shudder at the sound that my own name makes, like the bark of a
01
dog, the way it comes from the back of her throat. I see then that there
02
is no way to disguise the truth: there are no more lies.
03
“I’d like you to put down the cushion,” she says.
04
It is still hanging from my hand, soft against my thigh, and I let it fall 05
to the floor.
06
She walks out of the nursery. It is so dark outside, just the streetlamps 07
casting patterns against the sidewalk, and this room is so eerie without
08
them in it. I feel the beginning of an almighty grief swelling within me
09
and yet it is too soon to see it fully. I follow her.
10
She is at the top step, gazing down the stairs, and her coat sleeve is
11
trembling, just slightly, almost imperceptibly, and I know that she feels 12
it, too: this inexplicable fear.
13
We have held the strings and dictated the shape of each other’s lives.
14
It is a frightening thing to live with, and even more unnerving to lose.
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There is hope in me, then, in that moment.
16
Audrey gurgles— almost a giggle— and her little fist furls in an au-
17
burn curl. She tugs and Marnie turns back toward me. Her cheeks are
18
rosy, lined by streaks of mascara. Her eyes are swollen, and the edges of 19
her lips have blurred into the surrounding skin.
20
I know those features in perfect detail. And yet, somehow, she
21
seems startlingly unfamiliar. There is something new here now, some-
22
thing more.
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“Leave,” she says, eventually. “Get out.”
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A fter ward
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Four Years Later
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Chapter Forty- Six
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k
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J
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ane is sitting in her car— she has learned to drive in the interven-
12
ing years— and she has stopped between the school playground
13
and the train tracks. She has been awake for hours— since three, almost
14
four— and it is still early now. The sun is there in her windshield, rising 15
slowly between the office blocks at the end of the road. She reclines her 16
seat and pulls the blanket from the backseat over her legs. A train thun-
17
ders past, rattling on its tracks: one of the very first of the day. The
18
empty windows blur together.
19
Jane remembers traveling by train— she used to do it all the time—
20
and she is relieved to live in the suburbs now, in a town three stops
21
from the end of the tracks, with little need to visit the city itself. She 22
owns a flat— her sister would have approved— in a redeveloped man-
23
sion house, carved into seven apartments, decorated in muted grays and
24
whites. She likes the sinister intermingling of old and new: the fireplace 25
with its perfect symmetry, the sleek white kitchen appliances, the in-
26
terlocking plastic floorboards. She hopes that there are stories hidden
27
in the walls, secrets silenced by a layer of plaster and a coat of fresh
28
paint.
29
Her own secrets are very quiet now. There was a moment that felt
30
daunting, just after things fell apart, but she’d held her nerve. She’d
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told the police that she hadn’t said anything of the sort— “A confession?
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Certainly not!”— and that it was a shame that the baby monitoring app
02
was nothing more than a live feed, that it hadn’t recorded her words,
03
because, if it had, it would have proved her right.
04
She had always been an excellent liar.
05
Marnie had been insistent for several months, pleading with the po-
06
lice to do more, to persevere, to officially investigate, but there was no 07
evidence, they’d said, and it was the word of one woman against the
08
word of another. But they had called Jane in a second time— probably
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Seven Lies (ARC) Page 45