The Cousins

by Karen M. McManus

  “I don’t know,” Archer says, wincing as he awkwardly chops avocados one-handed. His shoulder bothers him a lot, but he refuses to take pain medication. “Your father still has to live with himself. I have a feeling that’s been his problem all along.”

  It looks like that’s the only punishment for Matt Ryan’s death that Uncle Adam and Uncle Anders will ever get. Because Uncle Anders is right; the words of a girl who’s been dead for twenty-four years, spoken to a woman who committed massive fraud before dying in a fire she told someone to start, isn’t enough to convict anyone.

  The court of public opinion has been harsh, though. The New York Post splashed the question IS IT MURDER? across the front page a couple of days ago, and social media has answered with a resounding hell yeah. Uncle Adam might be getting a temporary boost in book sales, but for most people, it’s a hate read.

  Aubrey still looks glum, so Uncle Archer changes the subject. “Tell us about your new place,” he says, scooping uneven avocado chunks into the food processor.

  She brightens. Her mother flew in for a day and then had to leave, to finish making arrangements for the apartment she and Aubrey will move into when Aubrey returns to Oregon. “It’s a really cute three-bedroom condo. About halfway between school and the hospital where Mom works,” she says.

  “Sounds perfect,” Uncle Archer says.

  Aubrey gives him a shy smile. “Maybe you can visit. If you want.”

  She and Uncle Archer have been spending a lot of time together since they rescued one another from Catmint House. I know part of Aubrey is always going to wish for the kind of father-daughter relationship that Uncle Adam isn’t capable of having, but there’s something to be said for the uncle-niece bond, too.

  “I absolutely will,” Uncle Archer says. “But not for a while.” Aubrey’s face falls, and he quickly adds, “I’m going to be checking into a rehab center on Cape Cod next week. Not sure how long I’ll be there, but at least a couple of months.”

  “That’s great,” Aubrey and I say in near unison.

  “It’s overdue,” Uncle Archer says. His red Solo cup is on the kitchen island, like always, but he hasn’t touched it since we sat down. “After that—I’m not sure. One day at a time.” He looks exhausted suddenly, and heaves himself off the stool. “You mind finishing up? I’m gonna try to take a nap.”

  We murmur our assent, and he leaves. Silence falls for a few minutes until Jonah asks, “So. What are you guys doing when you get home?”

  “Physical therapy,” Aubrey says promptly. “Turns out swimming is good for a sprained ankle. And I want to keep at it.” She reaches for a clove of garlic and starts to peel it. “Maybe even get back on the team.”

  That startles me enough that I pour too much olive oil into the food processor, and have to scoop some out with a spoon. “Really?”

  “They’re getting a new coach,” Aubrey says. “Since the old one is going on maternity leave.” Her expression darkens momentarily, but then her good cheer returns. “It’s a woman who ran a summer program I did once. She reached out to say hi and that she hopes I’m coming back. I really like her.” She nudges me with one shoulder. “What about you? What are you doing at Casa Dad? He’s in New York too, right?”

  “Yeah,” I say, recapping the olive oil. “My instructions are to lie low.”

  “What does that mean?” Her eyes widen in fake innocence. “No more paparazzi shots of you making out on the beach?”

  “One time,” I say, cheeks burning. The beach here is private, but helicopters keep hovering above us, angling for a shot. One of them caught a surprisingly clear close-up of me and Jonah kissing in the ocean. “That happened once.”

  Jonah clears his throat. “Probably wouldn’t even be an issue if we were someplace more crowded where we could blend in.” I raise my eyebrows at him, and he adds, “Like a city. Providence and New York aren’t that far from one another. There’s a bus that only costs thirteen dollars. So I’ve heard.”

  “By obsessively checking the Greyhound site?” Aubrey asks brightly.

  He shrugs. “Possibly.”

  I fight off a smile. “I thought you had to work all summer.”

  “Not all summer,” Jonah says. His expression turns pensive. “Although, you guys are practically heiresses now, so…I don’t know. Maybe it’d be too weird.”

  The Story estate isn’t something we’ve talked much about since Theresa and Donald were exposed, but it’s always in the background. When Mom came to the island, she brought that diamond teardrop necklace she had promised me, but I’ve only tried it on once. Somehow, it didn’t look as good on me as I’d thought it would. I put my grandfather’s watch away, too. It’s strange, but not in a bad way, how much lighter my arm feels without it.

  Nothing about the Story fortune seems real yet. But Jonah does, and I’m not ready to say a permanent good-bye any more than he is. “It wouldn’t be weird. At all,” I tell him.

  He grins, and I pick up a spoon and point it at him for emphasis. “I’m not taking a bus, though. Ever. That part is nonnegotiable.”

  * * *

  —

  Hours later, after Aubrey’s gone to bed and Jonah is locked into some multiplayer video game with friends from home, I wander outside and see my mother and Uncle Archer sitting on two Adirondack chairs arranged on a strip of beach near the house. I almost go back inside, not wanting to bother them, but my mother catches sight of me and waves me over.

  “Let me get you a chair.” Uncle Archer half rises before I motion for him to stop.

  “It’s okay. I don’t like those chairs anyway.” There’s a towel draped over the edge of my mother’s seat, and I spread it on the ground to sit at their feet.

  “I was just telling Archer how happy I am that you and Aubrey have gotten close,” Mom says. There’s a table between her and Uncle Archer, holding a single glass of wine. Mom lifts it and takes a sip before adding, “She’s a gem. It’s hard to believe now how little effort I expended over the years to help you know your cousins.”

  I put on a breezy tone, because I’m trying not to think about Aubrey flying across the country. Our long-distance chats are going to be nonstop. “Well, in JT’s case, that was a good call.”

  Uncle Archer shakes his head. “I’m still holding out hope for that kid. He was just trying to do his own thing this summer. I’ll bet part of him is sorry for what happened.”

  “A very small part,” I say. “An earlobe, maybe.”

  “You always did refuse to see the worst in people, Archer,” Mom says.

  It’s been strange watching her and Uncle Archer slip into old patterns this week—very old patterns, from their teenage years—as opposed to the strained politeness I remember from my childhood. I’d observed closeness between the two of them in old videos, but never in real life, and I almost believed it was a trick of the camera. But it’s not.

  “I guess we have that in common,” Archer says. He makes a fist with one hand and bops it gently against my mother’s arm. “Couldn’t even see it in our own brothers.”

  Mom stirs restlessly in her chair. “Have I used up all my let’s discuss that later chips?”

  “You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to,” Uncle Archer says. “But I do want to tell you that I’m sorry for what you went through that summer, with the pregnancy and all. I knew something was wrong, but I had no idea it was that.”

  “Well, how could you?” Mom asks. “I didn’t tell you. And it was over almost before it started.” She takes another sip of wine. “I was both sad and relieved. I felt for a while like I hated Matt, but I didn’t, really. I was just angry about how he acted. And then Anders told me what he’d done, and Matt died so horribly, and I just—I had no idea what to do.”

  Uncle Archer waits a beat, and when my mother doesn’t continue, he asks quietly, “Did you
ever think about telling anyone?”

  “Every day.” Mom grips the stem of her wineglass so hard that I’m afraid it might break. “I was so conflicted. I felt guilty, because I’d provoked Anders by telling him about Kayla and Matt. And because Anders almost made it sound as though he’d done it for me, and all I could think was—did I communicate, in some way, that I’d wanted this? Was it my fault? It took more than a year for me to understand that Anders was, as always, acting in his own self-interest. By that point I couldn’t think how to bring it up again, or what good it could possibly do. And then Donald Camden sent that letter.”

  Mom finishes her wine and sets the glass down with a trembling hand. “It felt like we deserved it. Well, all of us except you. Even though I thought Mother couldn’t possibly have known about Matt. And of course, she didn’t.” Mom huffs out the least mirthful laugh I’ve ever heard. “Now all I can think is—what if I had said something back then? Would everything be different now? Maybe Mother would still be with us and—”

  “Allison,” Uncle Archer interrupts. “She wouldn’t. She had a heart condition.”

  “I don’t know. It feels like the butterfly effect.” Mom’s voice gets thick. “Especially now, knowing that Kayla’s gone because of what I did—”

  “Kayla’s gone because Donald Camden is a greedy, soulless bastard,” Uncle Archer corrects. For the first time all night, he sounds angry. “And if anyone set that particular butterfly effect in motion, it was Anders. Which is horribly ironic. I think he really did love Kayla, as much as Anders is capable of loving anyone. It has to hurt, knowing that what he did to Matt ultimately caused her death.” Uncle Archer taps his fingers rhythmically against the wooden arm of his chair, one after the other. From his index finger to his pinkie, then in reverse. One, two, three, four. Four, three, two, one. “I don’t judge you, Allison. I’m angry at Adam for not saying something when it would have made a difference, but not at you for keeping quiet after it wouldn’t. I’m not sure what I would have done in that situation. You know what Father used to say. Family first, always.”

  Mom still sounds on the verge of tears. “Father would have been horrified.”

  “At them.” Uncle Archer’s voice softens. “You didn’t set out to deliberately hurt anyone. Forgive yourself, Allison. Twenty-five years is a long time to hang on to guilt.”

  “I’m trying,” Mom says.

  A cellphone on the table between her and Uncle Archer rings. “Who’s Charlotte?” Mom asks, looking down.

  “An associate in Donald Camden’s office,” Uncle Archer says. “I asked her to get in touch if she heard about any interesting developments. On the down low, of course. So don’t tell.” He puts a finger to his lips as he picks up his phone.

  “How do you know everyone?” Mom asks wonderingly.

  “I talk to people. You should try it. Hey, Charlotte,” Uncle Archer says, getting up and walking toward the beach. “What’s up?”

  Silence falls between me and my mother. Then, to my surprise, she reaches down and strokes my hair. I can’t remember the last time she did that, but I definitely wasn’t more than six years old. “Being pregnant that summer was so lonely,” she says reflectively. “I couldn’t bring myself to tell my mother, but I kept wishing that she’d guess, somehow. Milly, if you are ever in a situation like that, I hope you know that you have my full support.”

  I push aside my natural inclination to say, God, Mom, please don’t talk about that, because I want her to talk about it. Just not in relation to me. But I’ll take what I can get at the moment. “I know.”

  “Do you?” Her laugh is brittle. “I’m not sure I’ve done a very good job of showing you my support over the years.”

  “Well, you’ve had a lot going on,” I hedge.

  “I’ll take that as affirmation that I could improve my parenting,” she says dryly.

  “Mom, did you…” I hesitate, then decide to plunge right in. “Did you ever tell Dad what happened?”

  “Not all of it.” Mom tucks a strand of hair behind my ear before withdrawing her hand. “Your father is the kindest man I’ve ever known. He did so much over the years to help me come to terms with what happened to Matt, and with the pregnancy. But I couldn’t finish the story. I never could tell him what Anders had done, or that I’d protected him.” Her voice dips low. I twist my neck to get a look at her face, but the moonlight is too dim. “The truth was like a cancer inside me by that point, and I’d shoved it down so far that it wouldn’t come out. It just…festered, and made me angry. Your father took the brunt of that without ever knowing why.”

  Sadness settles over my chest, at the thought of what life could have been like if my mother had ever unburdened herself. “I think he would have understood.”

  “I think you’re right,” she says quietly.

  We’re silent for a minute, listening to the waves lapping against the shore and the indistinct murmur of Uncle Archer’s voice. Then Mom clears her throat and says, “I’ve been meaning to tell you, Milly, how impressed I am with the way you pieced the truth together. You have a sharp mind.” I wait for the inevitable follow-up—if you applied yourself that way at school you’d have an A average in no time—but it doesn’t come. “And a good heart” is all she says, and I feel the soft sting of tears behind my eyes.

  Uncle Archer comes back then, holding his phone and breathing hard. Mom gets to her feet and hurries toward him. “Are you okay?” she asks. “Does your shoulder hurt? You keep overextending yourself.”

  “I—no.” Uncle Archer’s voice is strained. “That was Charlotte.”

  “I know,” Mom says. “You told us.”

  “Right. The thing is…” He stuffs his phone into his pocket and runs a hand through his hair. “I asked her to let me know if anything important came up. It has. The bigwigs aren’t telling us yet because there’s still a lot of paperwork to go through, but—Allison, Catmint House wasn’t insured. Neither was any of the art or jewelry or furniture.”

  I turn toward my mother, who’s blinking in confusion. “What? Why?” she asks. “How on earth is a house like that not insured?”

  “Nothing is,” Uncle Archer says. “All the policies have lapsed. No bills have been paid on anything for more than a year. The other houses our family owns—including this house—are in foreclosure. The investment accounts are empty. Donald and Theresa have been selling art to live on. Anything they hadn’t sold yet went up in literal flames last week.”

  My mother doesn’t say a word. Uncle Archer puts his hand on her shoulder and speaks slowly and patiently, his voice full of kindness and concern, like a doctor delivering a diagnosis that’s going to hurt like hell, but not actually kill you.

  “They spent it all. Every last penny. The Story estate is gone.”

  Milly breaks, and balls go flying across crisp green felt. She just keeps getting better and better at pool. The last time I visited her in New York—when she took me to some swanky “entertainment complex” where all the tables were rimmed with fluorescent lights—she came uncomfortably close to beating me.

  “Somebody’s about to give you a run for your money, Jonah,” Enzo calls from behind the bar. He returned to work at Empire Billiards right after Thanksgiving, although he still does a couple of shifts at Home Depot every week. Just in case.

  “You’ve been practicing without me, haven’t you?” I ask as Milly watches the last of the balls drop into a corner pocket.

  “I’m stripes,” she announces, giving me a coy glance from beneath her lashes.

  There it is. That’s the look that gets me every time. I forget where we are and reach for her, plucking the pool cue out of her hand so I can pull her close. Her silky hair is long and loose, and I brush it from her face before I kiss her. She lets out a soft sigh and melts into me, and I forget all about the endless three weeks since I saw her last.

 
I also forget about Enzo, until he coughs. “Parent. Parking lot,” he says, and I release Milly a few seconds before my mother walks through the door.

  Not that she’d mind. She loves Milly, and she’s the one who invited her to stay with us after Christmas. But I’m trying to keep the awkward factor low so that Milly won’t ever hesitate to come back.

  By train, of course. She wasn’t kidding about the bus.

  “Mail came,” Mom says to Enzo, dropping a thick pile of paper on the bar. “There’s a new catalog from ServMor Bar Supply, if you’re interested.”

  “I am,” he says, plucking it from the stack with reverence. Ever since his stint at Home Depot, you can’t keep Enzo away from DIY projects to improve Empire Billiards. We don’t open for another hour, but he got here early to install what he claims is a more durable bar rail.

  Mom turns to Milly and me. “I’m going to make myself a burger and some fries before we open. You two want anything?”

  “Same,” I say, with a questioning look toward Milly.

  “Me too,” she says. “Thanks, Mrs. North.”

  “Of course! Anything for you, Enzo?”

  “Nah, I’m good.”

  “Okay. Just give me ten or fifteen minutes, kids.” Mom disappears into the kitchen. Enzo tucks the catalog and the rest of the mail under his arm.

  “I’ll be reading this in the office for the next ten minutes,” he announces, ducking out from behind the bar. “Do with this empty room what you will.”

  I moved a respectable distance from Milly when Mom came in, but close the gap now with a grin. “Where were we?” I ask, circling her waist with my hands.

  She stretches on her toes to peck me on the lips, then pulls away. “We were about to call Aubrey, remember? I promised I’d FaceTime her at four.”

  “Goddamn it,” I say, but I don’t mean it. I’m looking forward to catching up with Aubrey, too.

  I wasn’t sure what would happen when the three of us left Gull Cove Island at the end of July. We’d just lived through the wildest, weirdest month imaginable, and it was hard to tell whether the intense relationships we’d formed with one another would last in regular life. Especially with all the estate stuff in such a colossal mess. It turned into a Story sibling showdown: Allison and Archer on one side, trying to untangle what was left and settle it fairly; and Adam and Anders on the other, dodging creditors and accountability while slapping nuisance lawsuits on anyone who’d ever worked with Donald Camden.