Deer Run would be their home.
Except Grace had ruined everything.
He loved her. Penelope could see it in his eyes, the way his face brightened when Grace walked into the room, casually unaware of her effect on him. But because Penelope had a gift for seeing people, as Flynn had told her, she saw it as clearly as if it was written in her own hand.
Bree saw it too. “Will you keep it?” She’d asked one day, her voice low in the kitchen when they were alone, and Penelope realized for the first time that she had a choice. She could just end everything. All the turmoil, the heartache, the vomiting. It would be so easy to just pretend it all never happened. She hadn’t decided yet, but when she thought of severing that last tangible link to Jack, she felt a bit sick and not just a little relieved. “I’d go with you,” Bree said, her voice a little whisper; then she was gone.
“Pip? Wanna have a party?” Now, Jack was standing behind Grace, his hand rubbing her neck, always, always touching her, kissing, whispering. His voice was jovial, oblivious.
“Sure! A birthday party! Fun!” Penelope got up, put her mug in the dishwasher, rinsed and dried her hands at the sink. She kept babbling, “I have to run out, I can grab anything from the store, just let me know!”
She was full of exclamation points. The rest of them looked at her strangely, which she ignored and headed down to her bedroom, where she leaned against the door, gulping big breaths.
She’d never been the kind of person to come unglued, but somehow since Grace had come—less than two months ago!—she was this awful, needy, clingy barnacle of a person.
No. She could be the kind of person who could throw a birthday party. Balloons, streamers, cake. She used to be. She remembered that day at the park, where Jack proposed the church house, Deer Run, his hand clasped around her forearm, thumb softly rubbing the inside of her wrist. You’re just saying that because I won’t sleep with you. And then, Won’t you, now?
She remembered the lighthearted swoon at him, the way everything he said and did seemed charming and sweet, the future ripe as a summer peach.
Penelope left the house through the back door, the cross talk and laughter practically following her outside, then crossed the patio and over Bree’s garden to the driveway. Her little beat-up Datsun. She puttered into town, collected all the party necessities.
She could be a different Penelope. She could be Pip, their quiet, introspective, but not uptight housemate. The one who thoughtfully threw parties for their loved ones. Who radiated love and acceptance and never petty jealousy or irrational, childish anger. She could be a completely different person.
She stepped out of the grocery store, into the midday sun, her hands filled with plastic shopping bags containing balloons, streamers, cake, matching paper plates, napkins, a fruit bowl, seltzer for mixers, of course. She stood still, swaying a little on her feet, before leaning over behind a line of planted arborvitaes and neatly vomiting up her breakfast.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
February 27, 2020
With a shaking hand, she pushed through the front door. The first thing she smelled was the fire. Still. Twenty years later, and the wood still smelled like char. The second was the house—that combination of dust and linseed oil, wood and Willa’s perfume, elaborate dinners and marijuana. Somewhere underneath all the rubble, pieces of them remained. All their blackened belongings—abandoned. They’d left town so quickly, scattered like ashes in the wind.
The smell alone brought the sick to the back of her throat, her stomach turning with such ferocity she thought she might vomit.
Penelope picked through the rubble to the back of the house, the place where the kitchen used to be. All that remained was the stainless steel stove, discolored. The refrigerator had been removed some time ago, judging by the ferns growing through the cracked floorboards.
Small saplings jutted up from the burned-out floor, ivy climbed the remaining walls. The loft upstairs looked unsteady at best, and the staircase to the bell tower appeared ready to collapse in on itself.
The roof remained largely intact, a hole open to the brisk morning air in the front of the house, above the fireplace where the fire had started.
She didn’t think the fire had affected the basement much, but at the time Penelope hadn’t cared. She drove home that night, blinded by guilt and grief and half in shock. She drove to her aunt’s old house—a year after her aunt passed away—and slept in her childhood bed alone. She waited for the fire investigator, the police, and when they came, she told the truth. Or maybe what could have been the truth. When they closed the file—accidental fire, accidental death—she left that house, too, sold to the first bidder.
She moved to New Jersey, right outside the city. Got a job. Paid rent. Met a man. Married. Had a child. Climbed the corporate ladder. Had another child. Checked off some mental to-do list and called it a life. The whole time going through the motions, only to end up back here.
What did Jack know about the night of the fire? Sometimes she wondered if they’d all kept in touch, talked about her. Did they say it out loud? Do you know what Penelope did? Who knew what she had done? What they had done? Maybe they had all been blinded by their own culpabilities.
“Penelope,” he said. He stood in the basement doorway—he must have been downstairs in their old rooms.
Jack looked the same. His voice, light and sweet. His beard, now gray. His eyes, still shockingly blue. His hair jet black and combed back away from his face in the way he’d worn it back then.
“I honestly didn’t think you’d come,” he said when she said nothing.
“Why are you here?” Her voice was low, sounding nothing like her own. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and sob, I’m sorry. She wanted to run out of the house and never come back. She wanted to slap him, rake her fingernails across his cheek for never coming back for her.
“Because you asked to meet,” he said.
“No, why are you in Deer Run? I thought you were in the Peace Corps. I looked you up, tried to find you. It wasn’t that easy.” Penelope took a deep lungful of air, trying to control her emotions. She was getting ahead of herself. “Listen, have you talked to Willa? Has she been in touch with you?”
“No,” Jack said slowly, stepping around a pile of timber. Stepping closer to her. “Have you?”
Penelope nodded. “She showed up at my doorstep one day. Said she needed help. Asked if she could stay with me. She’s completely taken over my life. And do you know Bree is dead?”
“I know about Bree,” Jack said. “I kept track of all of you. I don’t know why. I lived all over the world—for the past three years in Botswana—but I still looked all of you up. Not all the time, but when I had reliable internet, I would google you.”
“How did you end up back in Deer Run?” Penelope asked, confused.
“I came home about a year ago. I got an apartment in the city—just a one bedroom. My brother is married, with two kids I barely know. It was time to come home, grow up. Like Peter Pan, remember?”
She did remember. She didn’t want to, but she remembered everything. All of it.
“But why are you in Deer Run?” Penelope asked again, her mind whirling.
“What do you mean? You sent me a letter.” He reached into his back pocket and retrieved a handwritten letter on lined loose-leaf paper. Penelope felt her insides knot, recognizing the paper immediately. She saw the straight cursive, a swooping s and loopy l, all hallmarks of her penmanship.
“I never wrote this letter.”
“Of course you did. It’s your handwriting, I’d know it anywhere. You always wrote the grocery lists. B-a-n-a-n-a all one height—it would make me crazy sometimes, just looked like a bunch of circles.” He smiled then and stepped toward her, tenderly, his hand out.
Penelope stepped back. “I did not write this letter. I wrote an email. Asked if we could meet.” She turned the letter over and read the contents. It was short. And familiar in its cadence.
Dear Jack, It’s been twenty years, this year. A kind of macabre anniversary. I would love it if we could all get together—a reunion of sorts. I feel as though the time has come for us to talk. There are truths to reveal and bygones to bygone. It will be healthy for all of us. I’ll be in touch soon. Love you and miss you, Pip.
“I would not have called myself Pip. I never have.”
“That letter is one hundred percent you. I knew it was you. Bygones to bygone? That’s how you talk—academic, dry. You love to be clever.” Jack eyed her skeptically. “Healthy for all of us? You said that. That was your thing—always talking about healthy friendships, like a budding therapist. Then I got your email and text about meeting here.”
Penelope reached into her back pocket and pulled out her own letter: white loose-leaf paper, black ballpoint pen. Written in Jack’s maniacal scrawl.
Darling Pip, Coming up on twenty years, dear girl. I miss you like crazy. I miss all of you. I hear they’re finally tearing the old place down. What would you say to a Spires reunion? Get the band back together? Clear the air, bury all the hatchets. Could give us all some closure (you were always big on that). I’ll be in touch soon, think about it. Think about me. Ha, I knew you’d like that. Love you madly, Jack.
Jack took the sheet of paper from her. “It does look a lot like my handwriting.” He studied it, his brow furrowed. “God, did I really talk like this? What a pretentious asshole.”
“This isn’t from you?” Penelope felt her head spin, her vision blur. “Of course it is. Darling, dear girl, love you madly, think about me? This is all you. Plus, your handwriting was atrocious.”
“Pip. Penelope.” Jack corrected himself and took another step toward her. “I did not write this.” He shook the paper in front of her, his voice reedy and a little shaky.
“Well, if I didn’t write yours, and you didn’t write mine, then who did?” Penelope asked, slowly. Her legs felt like water, and she was starting to feel faint. The sun had risen, and the heat of it beating on her head was making her sweat. She could feel the rivulets traveling down her rib cage under her downy winter coat. She knew—of course she knew who. She didn’t entirely understand why.
“Hello, old friends. Welcome to the reunion.”
Penelope recognized the voice at once and turned toward the loft. Willa was descending the spiral staircase, giving them both a white gleaming smile. Her lips red, a white angora sweater hugged her frame, her hair done in billowing curls around her face. The first thing Penelope noticed was that she looked beautiful.
The second thing she saw was the gun, in Willa’s outstretched hands, aimed right at the two of them.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
February 27, 2020
“Willa,” Jack said, and then a wordless sound as he saw the gun.
“What are you doing?” Penelope asked, felt the sweat pop on her upper lip, her limbs go cold with shock. Can your body be shocked while your mind is unsurprised? Willa holding them at gunpoint did not feel wildly out of place. Why? Her mind raced, trying to put all the pieces together, missing something.
“I’m on what you’d call a fact-finding mission.” Willa smiled, and her face seemed to light up from the inside. She looked luminous. “See. Twenty years ago, a tragedy occurred in this house, right here. And no one has ever been told the truth about that night. I want the truth. That’s all I want.”
Penelope closed her eyes, shook her head, dizzy with fear. “You’ve been told the truth, Willa. You were there. There was a fire. Grace died.” That was the truth as she’d told it. If you say something enough times, does that make it true?
“We’ll get to that. In the meantime, here’s how this works. If one of you tries to get the gun, run away, fight back, I shoot the other one. How much do you trust each other?”
Penelope stole a glance at Jack, whose face beneath his gray beard had gone pale. Did Penelope trust Jack? After twenty years? She didn’t know. She saw his eyes flick to her. Saw him wonder the same thing.
“Willa, this is out of control. Look, there was a fire. Grace got caught in it, and she died. We all felt responsible and heartsick over it. We all left town, went our separate ways. Including you.” Jack kept his voice low, calm. The way Willa and Brett had talked to Penelope the night of the dinner party with Genevieve.
Willa closed her eyes, briefly, and shook her head, like clearing her mind. “I’m not included in any of this. We’ll get to that. Who locked Grace in the stairwell?”
Penelope froze; her face felt numb with shock. Everything she hadn’t thought about—deliberately avoided thinking about—for the last twenty years. Here it was being thrown out, spoken out loud. Just so casual. She felt sick with panic. What would happen to her if everyone knew the truth? What would happen to Tara and Linc? No. NO.
“It just happened. Maybe the door stuck. Maybe Grace got confused. It happens,” Jack said. “I loved her. I would have saved her if . . . I’d known.”
“Why didn’t you know?” Willa asked, eyes down to slits.
“It was chaotic. It was an accident. It was no one’s fault.” Jack’s voice took on a monotonous tone, repeating it all like a mantra. Was he going into shock?
“Unless it was yours,” Penelope said softly, to Willa. They both swiveled to stare at Penelope. “You were high that night. You were drunk every night. I know you did some drugs too. What did you do, Willa? Percs? Oxy? We all know what you were doing. You spiked our drinks with Molly, for fuck’s sake. It could have been you.”
“I would never kill Grace!” Willa’s voice was shrill, her head flicked to the side, like a nervous tic. Was she high now?
Penelope felt the panic rise, the frantic grasp at control. “We all had our roles in that night—just like our roles in the house. Distinct. Maybe not equally responsible but at least partially culpable. All of us.”
“Okay, look, if we confess that we did something here, what do you want with us? Do we just walk out of here and go on our merry way?” Jack held his hands up in a plea, his voice slow and measured. He was trying to charm her, talk her down, Penelope thought.
Willa laughed. “I mean, sure. Let’s go with that.”
“Okay. Flynn did it.”
“See, that is a LIE.” Willa stomped her foot. “I talked to Flynn. I know exactly what he did that night, and I know why. Do you know how much he loved you?” She stepped forward, her face a mask of fury, the gun pointed at Jack’s chest only a few feet away.
Jack physically recoiled. Swallowed thickly before saying, “Yeah, I do. I loved him too. I was confused for a long time. I . . . didn’t handle anything right. I hurt a lot of people. Probably all of you.”
“Willa, when did you talk to Flynn?” Penelope asked quietly.
“You shut up. You don’t ask questions, I do.” The gun swung to Penelope and away from Jack. He shot her a glance.
Penelope couldn’t slot it all together. They all told their versions of the truth that night, it was true. But why did Willa care? And why now, after twenty years? Willa never even liked Grace.
“Bree did it,” Penelope said, finally, her voice a croak, her lips like chalk. She licked them, tried to clear her throat. It was a version of the truth. Her version. Isn’t that all anyone has? Their own version of the truth? Isn’t the truth more elastic than everyone would like to believe anyway? Twenty years ago, in a small dank hallway, filled with smoke and ash, the feel of Bree’s breath hot in her ear. “Bree locked Grace in the secret hallway. Grace and I fought upstairs, she tried to . . . push me over the railing. Bree locked her in, to save me.”
Jack closed his eyes. His face blank, his hand cupped around the back of his neck. A pose he’d had even twenty years prior, when he was thinking.
“See? This isn’t so hard, is it? Now we’re getting somewhere.” Willa settled back into her stance, the gun still trained on Jack. “Except it’s not the whole truth. Because Bree didn’t actually lock her in, did she?”
Penelope pulled her coat
around her shoulders. The February air was cold, whipping through the cracks and gaps in the church. She was shivering, violently, and trying to organize her thoughts. What did Willa want from them? “Bree is dead too.”
“Yes, well, that one was no loss to the world. She existed in a solitary hell of her own making. Do you know what it must be like to go through life and never feel anything?” Willa laughed. “Because you know what? I do.”
“You killed Bree. And ruined Flynn?” Penelope asked thickly. Willa meant to kill her and Jack, regardless of what they told her. She felt her hands go numb, the fear skittering up her spine and short-circuiting down her arms. Nothing about it made sense. Why would Willa kill Bree? Ruin Flynn? For revenge? For what? She’d had her own role in the night of the fire—she was far from innocent.
“What happened to Flynn?” Jack asked quietly.
“He’s in prison,” Penelope said, watching Willa, whose head swung wildly from Jack to Penelope and back again.
“Willa, why? Nothing about any of this makes sense!” Jack shouted, finally angry, his face growing red. “We were brother and sister, you and I. Yeah, it was crazy times, we were dumb and immature and tragedy struck and everything was awful for a long time and we were all fucked up from it, some of us for life. But I don’t understand any of this. Why!”
The silver-pink scar down the side of her cheek. The forgotten Fourth of July party. Her singing voice, shot. The story about Trent. Grey, and Violet. Joni Mitchell, Willa singing I’ve looked at love this way in her kitchen in Wexford. It was the wrong song, always the wrong fucking song.
“Unless,” Penelope said, breaking the thick silence, her heart a steady cadence in her ears, even her fingertips pulsing. “You’re not actually Willa. Are you?”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
February 27, 2020
“See, you were always the smartest one.” Willa smiled then. “At least that’s what I heard.”
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