by Alexis Bass
But Sepp didn’t drink the way he wanted to, the way that would get him lost in his own head, until after Kath was gone. Has she seen him like this, peeled back and reckless and sloppy, and overly impressed with himself? Is she lucky that he hides this lesser part of himself from her? Or does it leave her in the dark, and it’s a type of dishonesty that deceives her?
I always thought you let the people you care about see your rough underbelly, that they are the ones you are supposed to be able to trust with the things you are ashamed of. Maybe he lures her in with his charm and class, and once he feels like she’s chosen him, he slowly lets his demeanor show?
I can’t help it—I wonder if this is how it happened with Trisha, when she met George, when she decided she loved him. If she fell for him before she knew about us, if that’s why it was easier to look past it. If that’s how it worked with Chelsea, too, welcoming a new father figure into her life. Look how well it worked out for them.
“Let’s play a game,” I say, motioning for Edison and Chelsea to come over. They hesitate, not hiding that they are unsure of me. I don’t mind being unpredictable to them. I don’t mind that they are guarded around me.
Sepp sighs, like this idea exhausts him.
The Duval garden is a maze. Tall round shrubs sectioning off the different varieties of flowers and trees and helping to secure the tea lights strung above, illuminating the allotment. This garden is for hiding, for getting lost.
“What’s this game?” Sepp says.
“Hide-and-seek, except different.”
“Riveting.” Sepp rolls his eyes, and I elbow him.
“One person hides and the rest of us try to find them. If we see them, we join them in their hiding spot; the last one to find the hiding place loses.”
“A nursery game,” Sepp says, laughing to himself.
“I think it sounds fun,” Chelsea says.
“What does the loser have to do?” Edison says.
Sepp and I are both quick with the suggestions. He says, “Take a shot of that god-awful moonshine that the governor gave Oswald.” I say, “Jump into the cove naked.”
“Like some sort of punishment?” Chelsea sounds concerned.
“No one has to drink moonshine.” Edison laughs.
“All right, all right.” Sepp nudges me. “Since you thought of it, you’d better be the one to hide first.”
I enter the garden alone. I move past the blue flowers bundled the size of baseballs and past tall trees with white flowers hanging, leaving the ground a snowy mess of petals. I go all the way to the end, until I’m near the edge. By the hedging of lilacs at the end of a row of tall and perfect-pink flowers. I scoot under it and lie flat on my back and stare through the branches up at the night sky. There aren’t many lilac blooms on the bush, but I can still smell the sweet scent stronger than the thick smell of soil.
I lie there looking at the stars, waiting for him to find me, like I know he will.
Chapter 24
Edison wanders over slowly. He stops for a moment before he squats to get a look at me.
“Do I really have to crawl in there?” he says, but he keeps his voice quiet, and when I scoot up to make room for him, he’s on his hands and knees sliding through the branches.
We’re closer than we were in the closet. We’re enveloped in a shadow, out of range from the light of the moon and twinkling tea lights lining the garden.
“How did you find me so fast?” It took him less time that I imagined it would. “Did you cheat?”
“This is one of the few hiding spots with somewhat of a view.”
“What do you mean?”
He motions to the other side of the brush, through the tangle of branches, where on the opposite side of the cliff, the ocean and sky stretch on for miles.
“It’s better in the daylight. Or during sunset.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Not my first time hiding in the garden,” he says with a smile.
I imagine a younger version of Edison, running around here. That night at the half-built house, he’d told me his first time here was when he was thirteen. “What were you hiding from?”
He smiles, keeps his gaze looking forward. He doesn’t say anything.
We hear Sepp before we see him as he takes heavy steps over to us. He peers through the bush.
“Oh god, how are we all supposed to fit?” He breaks branches as he climbs in with us. “That was a major oversight in this game of yours, Maris.”
He situates himself between Edison and me. He pulls his knees to his chest and holds his drink close.
“The point is that with more people hiding in one spot, the easier they will be to find.”
“Oh, is that the point?” Sepp says. “I’m sure this is exactly what you had in mind.”
“Leave her alone, Sepp.”
“Maris can take it, can’t you, Maris?” He moves to look at me, and his drink spills down the front of his shirt. He curses. “So what are we going to make Chelsea do for being so terrible at this game?”
Chelsea finally walks over to this part of the garden. We watch her white sandals move slowly our way. We stay still, ready for her to see us. She is about to turn around, when Sepp reaches out and grabs her ankle. She screams, but her surprise turns into relief when we all come out of the bush, and she joins us in laughing.
“Does this mean I lost?” she asks as our laughter dies down. Her eyes are wide, scared for what we will make her do.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “It means you get to hide first next time.”
But there isn’t a next time because Sepp refills his drink and is too sloppy to play, and George and Trisha are worried about wearing out our welcome, even though the Duvals promise that’s not the case and will never be the case. The dinner table is gone from the grotto, only there for us when we needed it, and now replaced with patio furniture. We walk down to the boat, and the beach is empty, nothing but sand and ocean, like we hallucinated the whole day. All traces of the afternoon, here and gone, so fast. We are quiet as we return to our reality, our home without a garden, with rough sand and tall grass. Thin walls and dishes that wait for us to clean them and put them away. I close my eyes, and I can’t wait until tomorrow.
Chapter 25
The next morning, Edison comes across the cove to see us. He is the bearer of chocolate croissants and bad news. Today, he has errands to take care of in the town. Today will not be a day at the beach like yesterday.
Chelsea beams. She does not hear the bad news that we aren’t getting another afternoon of Duval-style luxury. She only hears opportunity to learn more about Edison, same as I do.
“What errands? You’re going into town? Can we stop by the Duval offices? I’ve never seen them. I would love to see them.” It doesn’t take long for her to convince him that we should go, too. His insistence that it’s boring does nothing to hinder her; for once, we are on the same page, where the thought of not spending the day on their luxurious beach makes me want to do something new instead.
Edison paces himself on the boat ride back, never turning up the speed. It’s obvious from the rigid way he’s standing and in the way he forces a smile whenever Chelsea looks at him that he does not want us with him.
He leaves us in the foyer for a good forty minutes while he changes, and he comes back in a casual suit, navy and brown.
The second we exit the Duvals’ mahogany front door, he has his jacket off, balling it up before he tosses it in the back seat, like he doesn’t intend to put it back on.
Cross Cove isn’t as far from civilization as it seems—the very definition of close but removed. As we exit the freeway, the trimmed and tidy city presents itself. Just the way I remember from the other two times I visited George, once for his wedding, a second time to meet Phoebe when she was four months old. It was around Christmas; the town was snow-covered and dreary. The cold made everything quiet and still, and I remember thinking how I would have liked it if I’d been there under an
y other circumstances. Phoebe scared me to death, so small, so fragile, so innocent, but responsible for all the combustion in my life. I remember looking at her, thinking about how Phoebe had her whole life ahead of her. She is just beginning. She doesn’t know. She can’t suspect what will come, what joys, what horrors. She is lucky and she is tragic all at once.
I watch Edison’s eye in the rearview mirror as he stares hard at the road as though it is going to disappear from under us any second.
We turn off a busy street and move farther and farther away from the buildings and parking structures, and soon we are taking turns onto narrower roads with stop signs instead of stoplights, and sidewalks cracked from the roots of the giant trees that stand in front of the small homes, complete with shutters, symmetrical windows, and pitched rooftops. As we continue on, the houses grow older, less cosmetic, and more overrun with ivy, and weeds and tall grass growing out of control. These houses have character, my mother would say. They have chipped paint, siding patched unevenly with mismatched material, crooked drain pipes, clutter on their porches, old easy chairs and discarded satellite dishes. These houses are boxed in by short, rusty metal fences. We pull into the driveway of a shabby light green duplex with a little steeple roof over the shared porch that’s got one railing made of metal and another made of wood. Weeds have chaotically found their way down the cracks in the driveway, making it bumpy, like riding over grass.
Chelsea turns to Edison. “Where are we?” Her voice is somber, which sounds especially strange on her. “This is the errand you had to run?”
Edison nods. “Picking up a package.”
“A package? From who—”
He’s shaking his head, so she stops talking. He glances at her, and I can see from his profile he is giving her a smile. He taps his fingers to the beat of the music playing low in the car, but his eyes are like ice, stiff and vacant.
“Should I come with you—” Chelsea starts as Edison hastily gets out of the car.
The door slams shut when she’s mid-ask.
She turns in her seat to shrug and flash me the flattest smile I’ve ever seen, like reassuring me that it’s fine the way he stormed off is the same as reassuring herself.
Edison’s left the car on, so I roll down my window. There’s a solemn mood here, even though the sun is shining and the birds are chirping. I can hear the faint noise of children laughing in the distance, and the air smells like summer barbeque.
Chelsea and I watch as Edison walks up the porch steps. He goes to the front door on the right side and knocks gently. The woman who answers it has short gray hair and wears a long smock. She hugs Edison when she sees him and doesn’t let go for a long time.
She disappears inside for a moment and comes out with a large manila envelope. She’s shaking her head, like she’s apologizing, as she hands it to Edison. She takes out a handkerchief and pats her eyes. He is giving her the same forced, sad smile he gave Chelsea on our way over here.
I notice a mailbox settled next to the sidewalk. It’s a regular brown color, sitting on a brick perch. But there’s a label on the side in large metal letters, and even though some of them have turned orange with rust, I can still read them.
FINN.
“Where are we?” I say, even though Chelsea doesn’t know either—but now I’m starting to piece it together. The mother he lost. How he only started coming to Cross Cove when he was thirteen, when the Duvals have had a house here since before Sepp was born.
“What’s Edison’s name, Chelsea? Edison Duval?”
She shakes her head, her eyes finding the mailbox, too. “Edison Finn.”
“Is this his … this is where he grew up?”
“I don’t know,” Chelsea says. She seems scared to admit this to me, to herself, too, maybe. Edison isn’t a Duval, and he did not grow up like one. And she has no idea where he really spent his childhood. She’s face-to-face with all that he’s hidden from her. But he’s brought her here now to see; he’s brought us both.
I’d pictured Edison coming from pristine, sterile mansions, all with echoing foyers and grand staircases. All fully staffed. All large enough to get lost in. Chelsea must’ve, too.
Edison gives one last hug to the woman before he comes back and slides into the driver’s seat. We are quiet in the car. Sitting and not moving. Edison stares at the package in his lap.
“It’s from her?” Chelsea says, examining the package. “And it came this week?”
He nods. “It doesn’t make any sense.” He breathes out. “This is why they say the post office is the most inefficient branch of government.” A joke is what he’s after. A break in the raw tension cracking through the stale air of the car.
But Chelsea stares at him with big, careful eyes, like she is too afraid to respond.
“Maybe we should roll down the windows, get some air,” she finally says.
He needs to laugh, I think, remembering the way I set his laughter free on the island. He needs laughter, not air, not comfort—he needs a brief escape, to be pulled out of this moment and whatever is making him so subdued. And even as good a liar as he is, he cannot do it by himself.
“Are you going to open it?” Chelsea asks.
Edison stares at the package. He licks his lips, like maybe he’ll answer her any second.
“What do you think it could be?” Chelsea says.
He shakes his head. He puts his hands on the package, then puts them on the steering wheel, and then returns them to the package.
“Are you afraid it’s a bomb?” I say.
I wait. A half second of Chelsea’s mouth falling open in mortification. A half second of Edison’s eyes in the rearview mirror, stunned and striking all at once. And then I hear it. His rich laughter haloed in relief. Chelsea finally joins him, giggling politely, though the concern never leaves her eyes.
Without another word, he tears open the top of the envelope. He peers inside, and I hold my breath. I see Chelsea is holding hers, too. There is no flinch in his expression. No sign of a smile, or a scowl; no glimmer of emotion whatsoever.
He sticks the envelope on the floor in the back seat behind Chelsea and starts the engine. Chelsea asks him something as he’s backing out of the driveway—something small, something about the weather. I glance down at the floor where the envelope is resting. It is addressed to Edison Finn. The return address: from Francesca Finn at Sacred Hearts Hospital.
My eyes find his again in the rearview mirror. Goose bumps form on my arms; I look at him and I can feel myself dissolving.
Chapter 26
The Duval office is in a regular brick building with glass doors. As it’s been explained to me, they have an office at their quarry, where the cement is made, and an office downtown for doing business. We glide up eleven stories in the elevator before we reach the top floor and are greeted by pretty marble floors and gray chairs, a glass desk with a white computer and a red vase holding aqua-blue stones. The woman sitting behind that front desk sits up straighter as we approach. Tall windows line the wall behind her, showing off the city and casting the glow of sunshine over the office. No one else is here, and it’s a smaller office than I was expecting, seemingly with enough desks sectioned off behind the reception area for about fifteen people or so. There are two hallways right off the entry, each leading in different directions, where I imagine the more private offices are.
“You’re late,” the woman behind the desk says to Edison. She takes off her headphones and picks up her phone, saying, “He just got here,” into the receiver. Now that we’re at her desk, I see that she is munching on cheese balls and her computer screen displays a paused episode of The Bachelor.
“Late?” Edison says.
Sepp comes bursting in from the hallway on our right.
“Where the fuck were you? Didn’t you get my messages?”
He flashes Chelsea and me a quick smile in place of a greeting.
Edison shakes his head, takes out his phone. “I don’t have any messages
from you.”
“Not on that phone,” Sepp says, then, with a quick glance toward Chelsea and me, adds, “Your work phone.”
“They’re here?” Edison says, a hint of panic in his voice.
“They fucking blindsided me, and I’ve been stalling them for over thirty minutes,” Sepp says, talking low. Edison sighs.
Chelsea has turned to the wall, studying a painting of a landscape, like she’s trying to give them privacy since it’s obvious we’re the intrusion here. I try to do the same, taking out my phone and pretending to check my own messages. I hear familiar voices coming from down the hall.
“Hey, can we get this over with or what?”
“We’ve waited long enough.”
I look over my shoulder and see them lingering in the hallway, half hanging out an open glass door. They are exactly as I remembered them. Mid-twenties, with faces that are clean and shiny, but still with a cut here and a bruise there, if you know to look—and I do. The one who on the island was wearing the red hat now stands there in a brown suit, his chestnut hair slicked back, his green eyes scanning the lobby and stopping on me. He elbows the shorter guy, also from the island, also in a suit, the bruises on his knuckles more pronounced than the bruises on his face.
“We’re coming, we’re coming,” Sepp says, walking back toward them.
Edison notices the direction of my gaze. “This way.” Edison stands directly in front of me, a hand on my shoulder, encouraging me to turn, his eyes pleading.
Once I’ve turned, he puts a hand on my back, the other on Chelsea’s, as he leads us down the opposite hallway, telling us, “This shouldn’t take too long,” and, “The break room is on the right. I’ll come get you when our meeting is over. Help yourself to whatever you want.”
I have a million questions on the tip of my tongue as he shuts the door and secures us in the break room. At least Sepp is with him. At least he’s not alone with those two and Archaletta, if Archaletta is there with them and I just couldn’t see him. My stomach is in knots wondering what’s happening down the hall, but Chelsea smiles as though hers is full of butterflies.