“He wouldn’t let her.”
“That’s right. She said as much in the letters she sent. She said he kept her on a very short leash.”
I think back to all the ways that Susannah’s told me he controlled her. “That’s what she’s told me, too.” I put my head in my hands for a moment, letting all this settle over me. “What’s most disturbing out of all this, Diane, is that it doesn’t surprise me, now that I’m hearing it.”
“She’s out of her mind, Elizabeth. And I’m telling you, when she came back here last year, it got worse. When he wasn’t responsive to her, she said she was going to reveal that he had actually killed Henrietta. She said she’d been working on her plan for years.”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this?” I say. “Before I started the story?”
“I couldn’t,” she says. “Honestly, Elizabeth, I didn’t think you’d believe me.”
I probably wouldn’t have, I think. “Then why didn’t Bradley?”
“You know him,” she says. “I think he thought that it might pacify her in some way for you to do it. He kept telling me that we needed to learn how to live with Susannah, whether we liked it or not, now that she is back in Greyhill.” She puts her face in her hands for a minute and then drops them to her sides. “I just couldn’t.” Tears start to well up in her eyes.
I freeze. I have never seen Diane cry before. To be honest, I don’t think I believed she was capable. “Diane?” I say, leaning into the table. “Are you okay?”
She winces like my question physically hurts.
“Bess,” she says, her eyes still closed, “I . . .”
“What is it?” I say. “You can tell me.”
“Last summer . . .” She smudges a tear from her face. “Oh my . . .” Her hands are shaking. Her voice trembles. “I only meant to scare her,” she says.
It takes me a minute to understand what she’s saying. My ears start to ring. “Wait . . . Diane . . . You mean—?”
She nods at me, her face crumpling. “I’d just had it!” she says in an angry rasp. “She had pushed us and pushed us and pushed us! But I didn’t intend to hurt her, Bess! And I hadn’t planned it! I just happened to be on Whippoorwill that day, and when I saw that ridiculous truck . . . I just wanted to scare her,” she says, shaking her head quickly from side to side. “That’s all I wanted to do.”
“Does Bradley know?” I say.
“Of course.” She grasps the cup of tea in front of her, as if she needs something to hold on to. “Thank God nothing happened to her, because otherwise . . .” She puts her hand over her mouth like she’s about to be sick. “I never would have forgiven myself.” Her eyes dart to mine for a split second before she looks away. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“It’s okay,” I say, reaching out my hand to hers. She wraps hers around mine and holds it, tight.
“So you understand now?” she says. “Why all this nonsense with the inn is so upsetting. Why everything she does . . .” Her voice trails off. I can feel her hand shaking in mine.
I stand, the chair scraping the floor as I do, and go around the table to embrace her.
And she lets me.
Thirty
Susannah smiles when she sees me. She is so good at it, the sunny morning-talk-show-host grin, so easy with it. It’s frightening, actually, to realize how simple it was for her to manipulate me.
She is wearing black silk pajamas, sitting on the couch in the office with her legs stretched out on the cushions, an old paperback copy of The Great Gatsby splayed open on her lap, a needlepoint pillow under her feet.
“We need to talk,” I say, my heart racing.
Her face falls as she comprehends my mood, the smile disappearing from her face like a flower wilting in the heat. “Cindy, you can leave us,” she says.
The door closes with a thunk.
Susannah looks at me, her chin jutting forward. “This is about yesterday, I assume? At the festival?”
“No,” I say, as calmly as I can. “It’s not about yesterday.”
“Then what?” she says, her brow knitted, as if she couldn’t possibly fathom why I might be angry.
“This is about everything, Susannah,” I say.
“Everything?” She laughs like the word amuses her.
“Everything you’ve told me over the past several weeks. All the lies.”
“Oh, this again?” she says. “You’re still mad I didn’t tell you about the resort?”
“This is insulting,” I say, dropping my bag. I pull the chair away from the desk, turn it to face her, and sit down. “But sure, why don’t we start with that? This whole story you’ve told me, about Teddy leaving you with nothing. I don’t believe it anymore. It isn’t true, is it?”
She gasps like she’s choking on something, her spindly hand gripping the front of her shirt. “Of course it’s true!”
“But I’ve been thinking about it, Susannah, and it doesn’t make any sense. There are so many other routes you could’ve taken. What about all your wealthy friends in New York? The people you socialized with? Couldn’t they help you out?”
She starts to laugh. “The people I socialized with were only my friends because I had money, Bess. Because I was Teddy Lane’s wife. Once he died, they were done with me. I may as well have died, too. Trust me, this is a world you know nothing about.”
“I find that hard to believe, but okay,” I say, nodding efficiently. “Then let’s talk about some of the other things you told me. Teddy, for instance.”
“What about him?” she says, picking the paperback up off her lap and knocking it absentmindedly against one of her legs, like all this bores her.
“I believe what you told me about how he controlled you, but you also had him believe that you and Bradley were somehow involved,” I say, repeating what Diane told me this morning. “And you didn’t come back here all those years because Teddy wouldn’t let you. Is that right?”
I can see her jaw shift behind her closed lips, the subtle way that it clenches.
“I told you,” she says, her voice a coarse hum. “He was terrible to me.”
“You didn’t help the situation, though, did you, Susannah?”
“You don’t know what it’s been like for me,” she says in a broken whisper, her eyes wide as saucers. “You would understand if you knew.”
“Okay, then.” I cross my arms over my chest. “Explain it to me, Susannah. That’s why I’m here. I want to know why you’ve wasted all this time lying to me, just to screw my family over in the end.”
She scrunches her face up. “I haven’t lied to you, Bess!”
“Oh, give me a fucking break,” I say, starting to stand. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”
“No, no!” she wails. “You have to understand, Bess. I’ve told you the truth. I just left out the . . .” She shakes her head like she’s trying to will it all away. “It was devastating, what they did to me!”
“Who? What who did to you?” I say, exasperated.
“Bradley and Henrietta!”
I roll my eyes. “My God!” I rub my hands down my face. “You are seventy years old and still pining over a teenage romance. Why, Susannah? Why?”
She looks down at her lap, her cheeks hollowing out like she’s sucking on a mint. “Have you read this?” she says, lifting the book.
“Years ago, in high school,” I say, frustrated by her crazy whims. I’m going to be here all day trying to get to the bottom of this.
She runs her hand over the cover. “This is Henrietta’s copy.”
“Henrietta’s?” I say. “Okay, what does it have to do with—”
“I stole it from her. Well, I stole it from her house. On the day after she died, when I went to see her father. I went into her room and I took it, along with the ribbon I showed you.”
“Why?” I say.
“She and Bradley used to read this to each other, passing it back and forth. We would sit out on the green in front of Draper while we ate our
lunch, on a blanket that Henrietta would bring from home. We had all read it, of course, for school, but the two of them were enthralled by it. I would lie between them, my head on Bradley’s lap, listening to them read to me. It felt almost . . . parental, in a way. Comforting. But you know what?”
“What?” I say sharply, wanting her to wrap this up.
“When I stole the book, I was taking it for a memento. That’s it. But after I got it home, I discovered that there was a note tucked in the book, from Bradley to Henrietta, where he professed his feelings to her. It was proof! They were making a fool out of me!” She lifts up the book, stabbing it into the air. “I swear, it was almost like she left it there for me to find!”
I take a deep breath. “Susannah,” I start. “Listen . . . listen closely. I’m done with all your bullshit about the past. I want to know why you’ve been harassing my in-laws all these years. I want to know why you’ve been lying to me, luring me in with your stories only to hurt us with this resort. That’s why I’m here. I have no interest in your teenage heartbreak, do you understand?”
“But it’s all related, Bess,” she scolds, her eyes piercing mine. “Be patient! I’m getting there!”
I raise my eyebrows. “Go ahead. But I’m not going to sit here all—”
She flips through the paperback, fanning the pages. The book falls open so easily in the spot where she’s stopped that I can tell she must have looked at it dozens of times. She holds it up next to her face and begins reading.
“‘I hope she’ll be a fool,’” she recites, her voice loud and round like a teacher standing in front of a classroom. “‘That’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.’”
“And?” I say.
“That’s what everybody thinks I am! That’s what they thought I was!”
I start to laugh. I can’t help it. I want to hurt her.
Her eyes fly toward me, and what I see when I look at her watching me laughing at her is the hopeless, lonely girl she says she’s always been. She is so sad, a stunted woman, really, who’s let herself live her entire life according to her relationship to these people who maybe didn’t care that much for her, her fixation leading her astray like a mouse trapped in a maze, every path leading nowhere. As much as I could hate her right now, after everything I’ve learned, the truth is that I do feel sorry for her. At least, for the teenage girl she was, alone and duped by the only people she says accepted her.
She reaches across the coffee table, pushing the book at me.
“What?” I say, taking it.
“Flip to the back,” she says, pointing to the book. “The last line is the one I always loved most.”
I turn to the back. The cover is tattered, so fragile it is barely holding on to the pages. I read the last line: “‘So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.’” I drop the book and look at her, waiting for an explanation.
“Let me tell you something, Bess,” she says, and I notice she is flushed to her collarbone. “Share a bit of wisdom, now that I’ve lived my life. Fitzgerald was spot-on when he wrote that. No matter what you try to do in your life, no matter where you go, your past never leaves you.”
“You really believe that?” I ask.
“I do,” she says, her mouth a thin pink line. “For better or for worse, I do. That’s why I’m back here, Bess. It’s exactly what I told you the other day. I am here to redeem myself, and to absolve myself of what happened here.”
“Absolve yourself—” I start. “Susannah, I’m not understanding. I thought you just said that Henrietta and Bradley did horrible things to you . . .”
“Oh, they did,” she says, nodding. “I meant every word of that. But I know why she did it—I know why she tried to take him from me.”
“Why?”
“Because I had made her miserable, Bess. I was so jealous. Of everything she had. You know, some of the kids made fun of her because she was poor. Everyone said her mother was crazy because she hanged herself. But you should have seen the way her father doted on her. Do you know what that was like for me to watch?” Her eyes start to well up and she squeezes them tightly, willing away the tears. “To see how, despite the fact that she was poor and motherless, she had everything I never could? Her father adored her. We used to go to her little house and sit in her backyard, and I would watch the two of them. He taught her how to plant tomatoes, how to fix the sink, change a tire. She could do anything. He’d pinch her arm gently when he teased her about some comment she made. He talked to her. He so clearly loved her.”
“Okay, so you were jealous of her. But what does that have to do with what I’m asking you now? What does that have to do with the way you’ve treated Bradley all these years? If you came back here to redeem yourself, like you say, then why are you so hell-bent on doing things that are only making you more enemies?”
She sniffs. “On the day that Henrietta died, she and I had an argument, like I told you. She asked if she could catch a ride with me and Bradley up to the Cliffs. We always rode together, the three of us, but in my state of mind, I lost it. I knew that once we got to graduation, the two sure things I had in my life—Henrietta and Bradley—were going to leave me.”
“You told me the other day that Bradley took off after her that night, which I know is a lie. You insinuated that he had some role in her death.”
“No,” she says, the corners of her lips pulling down as if on strings. “He had nothing to do with it. I was angry the other day. I felt like you had me pinned in a corner, Bess. I shouldn’t have said it.”
“Then tell me the truth. This is your last chance, Susannah. This is it.”
“Bradley picked me up to go to the party. We went on to Henrietta’s house, even though I’d told her we wouldn’t, and I dragged her out of there, even though she didn’t want to go anymore. It wasn’t even seven o’clock and I had already drunk at least a third of the bottle of brandy that I had hidden under my bed. The plan had been to sneak it to the Cliffs that night for everyone to enjoy, but after my fight with Henrietta, I started early and didn’t stop. And then my best friend wandered off. When I told you the other day that Bradley ran after Henrietta, I was lying. Henrietta wandered off on her own. It’s just like everyone says.”
“You think it was just an accident?”
Her lip trembles. “I don’t know . . . I was so drunk. But like her father said, she could have walked these mountains blindfolded. And she hardly touched alcohol. She hadn’t had a drop that night.” She shrugs. “I’ve never been able to forgive myself for the way I treated her that day. All these years, yes, I wanted Bradley back in my life. Being with Teddy . . . it made me see what kind of man your father-in-law is. But I think I also felt like if Bradley accepted me, if I could just have his stamp of approval, then the weight of my guilt would be lifted. But then, when I got back here, I realized that Bradley was never going to help me fix what people here thought of me. I’d dug my own grave with the way I’d behaved toward him all those years, and I was just going to have to live with the consequences. I just wanted . . .”
“What?”
She shakes her head.
“You just wanted his attention?” I say. “You were like a child, not getting what you wanted, so you kept acting out until you did?”
She nods. “I guess so . . .” She presses her fingertips to the corners of her eyes. “Bess, I know you won’t believe me, and I don’t blame you, but I really do care about you. I value how you’ve listened to me. You’ve let me tell all my old stories, remember the few good memories I have.”
“Well . . . ,” I say, taking a deep breath.
“I don’t blame you for hating me.”
I nod.
“Tell me what I can do to make it better. I promise, I’ll do anything.”
I look to the far wall, to the Magritte painting, the lovers and their shrouded faces. She always said it reminded her of someone. Now it makes my stomach turn, realiz
ing that she’d likely meant Bradley.
“I have an idea, Bess,” she says. She scooches herself to the edge of the couch and leans to face me, with her elbows on her knees. “I know you hardly owe me any favors, but . . . now that I’m really thinking about it . . .”
“What?”
“I’ll drop this whole resort idea.”
“Oh, really?” I say. “As easy as that? Susannah, you told me the other day that if you didn’t follow through with it, you wouldn’t have anything.”
She raises a palm to me, as if taking an oath. “I can find another way,” she says. “I promise, Bess. And I’ll leave your family alone, once and for all.”
“I don’t know if I can believe you.”
“There is a catch . . . ,” she starts.
I stand up to go. “Of course,” I say. “Of course there’s a catch.”
“This is the only way I can think of to finally free myself,” she says. “I want you to write your story. But I want to tell you something first, and I want you to include it.”
I walk across the room for my bag. “You’ve got to be kidding me. After everything, you want to bribe me into writing something flattering about you in a major newspaper?”
She stands, walking across the room to meet me. “Please, Bess!” she pleads. “Please! Just sit down. Let me explain. Let me tell you one last story.”
“Susannah, I—” I start for the door.
“Bess, just hear me out.”
“I can’t believe you—”
“I’ll drop this thing with the house, I really will.”
“Susannah . . .” I take a deep breath, weighing whether I even want to know whatever it is she wants to tell me. “I’m not making any promises. . . .”
“Okay!” she says, clapping her hands together. “Now, please, sit. This might take a minute.”
* * *
Later that afternoon, when I get home, I dial Noelle’s cell.
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