“They still won’t know about Charlie,” Tate says. “Or Andy. And we don’t have to tell them. We can play dumb, pretend we had no idea about Dad. We can let them assume it was always him, alone out there, and that he murdered Andy, too.”
No. No way. Charlie took my brother from me, he killed him, instead of getting him help. He never spoke up, for all the years it happened to him, and that was the problem, that’s what made Andy the person he became: someone without hope. And now they want me to keep quiet, too?
I’m already shaking my head as I look at Charlie, but his expression stops me. He still isn’t crying, but there’s anguish on his face so jagged it seems like it would cut me if I touched him. Gone is his confident swagger, his condescending smirk. All that’s left is pain. And I know—despite my fury, I do understand—that it’s pain that’s always been there, that the swagger and smirk have been masks to protect the tortured boy beneath. I know, now, that it was like that for Andy, too, that even when he screwed up his face to hack at trees, his hardened features were just a cover for his raw and chronic suffering.
And if Andy really wanted to be gone…
No. I clench my jaw, rejecting the thought, pressing my teeth together as it tries to creep back.
If Andy was truly begging Charlie to end his suffering…
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” I sob at Charlie. “You’ve lied for years, and even when you confessed last night, you still held something back.”
Charlie nods, glaring at the coffee table. Then he looks at me. “You’re going to have to take my word for it,” he says. “Is that going to be enough?”
For me, it never has been—not even with Andy, the one person in this world I told myself I trusted. I never took him at his word when he said there was something wrong in our house. And look how that turned out. I made him my entire world, and I still didn’t know enough about him to save him; I still didn’t trust it was true when he told me we needed to leave.
And now here’s Charlie, asking me to believe him, to trust that the gaping hurt in his eyes is a symptom of truth-telling.
But it could all be an act. Another role he’s learned to play.
“Please, Dahlia?” Tate says again—only this time, it’s a question instead of a statement, a desperate plea. When I look at her, I see it all over her face: the fierce and painful love she has for Charlie, a love that’s us-against-the-world even though he’s made this world so hard.
My sobs slow as I consider her. How much did Tate have to bleed for her dioramas, knowing that her brother had been a part of their gruesome story, knowing that she could make the story smaller, make it bite-size, but she could not make it gone? How much bitterness has Tate swallowed down over the years, just to keep the sweetness of her relationship with Charlie?
I think of my own coping mechanisms—my incessant searching, my conviction that my twin and I knew each other’s minds—and now, taking in my sister’s tear-streaked face, it’s like I’m seeing her for the first time. We’re so similar, it turns out: loving someone who’s shattered, holding them so tightly, as if our arms could keep them whole. And I know, I know, that if the roles were reversed, if Andy had been the one to kill Charlie, if it had been his hands on the ax, his swings that ended my other brother’s life, I wouldn’t have told a soul. It wouldn’t have been right, maybe—but it would have been love.
Everyone’s waiting for me to answer. Mom’s fingers push against her lips, eyes set on mine. Tate leans forward, begging me without any words. And Charlie—I try to read his face: how his cheeks seem hollowed out; how his jaw juts back and forth. I could choose to see it as something he’s rehearsed, an expression he’s crafted to appear vulnerable, ashamed, tortured by years of trauma. Or I could choose to see it as truth. I could choose to believe my brother—the only one I have left.
“I’m sorry, Dahlia,” he says, and his voice is so small, cowering at the back of his throat. “I’m sorry to all of you. Mom, Tate. And fuck, Andy, I—” The sentence cuts off, snipped like a string, and he shakes his head, leaving it dangling.
“But Dahlia,” he continues, “I know what I took from you. I know your loss is different. And I’m always sorry. I’m always so fucking disgusted.”
I picture what could happen next: Elijah coming back, hauling Charlie off to a sealed-up room, just like the one beneath the shed. Could I really do that, send him back there, even if the punishment would fit the crime? Is that what I want for my brother—to relive the worst of his life, to be stuck in a cell with the ghost of our father, to grip the bars and forever feel the handle of the ax?
Who would that benefit? Who would that save?
“He wanted to die?” I ask Charlie. “You swear to me—no more lies, no more confessions after this: Andy begged you to kill him?”
It won’t be enough to make it okay. But I need to be sure.
Charlie’s head sinks toward his chest. Moments pass, the room strangled of its air. Then, blinking out a tear that races down his face, he nods.
“And you didn’t intend to do it?” I press. “You didn’t kill him because… because he wanted to tell someone about Dad, and you wanted to keep your involvement a secret?”
He snaps his head up. “I wouldn’t have done that. I didn’t even see Andy anymore. I only saw myself. And I wanted to… I wanted to kill that part of myself. The crying, begging, hopeless part. But not Andy. I never wanted to hurt him.”
“But you did,” I say. “You hurt him instead of helping him.”
He looks like I’ve hit him, eyes round and sad like a little boy’s. Still, he nods again. “I know,” he says.
I nod, too.
I couldn’t save Andy. I didn’t see his whacks against trees the way I should have: as a cry for help, as proof that he needed more than I alone could give him. But as I stare at Charlie, at all the pain kept caged inside him, I see that I have the chance to save someone else.
Finally, belief sinks into me, spreading across my bones. I marvel at the weight of it: heavier and lighter than I thought it would be.
And though it hurts like hell to say it, the words like barbed wire on my tongue, I force them out: “I won’t tell.”
Tate and Mom exhale in relief, but I thrust a hand into the air. “On one condition.”
Tate narrows her eyes. “What condition?”
“Charlie needs help,” I say. “Look at him.”
His expression hasn’t softened—no sagging of his features that would mean he’s letting go. It’s all inside him still: shame, self-loathing, immeasurable misery. He’s taut with it right now, limbs tense, face almost gnarled.
“It isn’t over for him,” I say, “just because he told us what happened. He’ll still be performing, out in the world, with everyone else, and it will continue to devour him. And then who knows what he’ll do—kill someone else, maybe?”
“I’d never,” Charlie insists. “I never wanted to hurt Andy, I swear. I don’t want to hurt anyone, not ever again.”
“Not on purpose,” I say. “But you kept everything inside you, all bottled up, for so long. It’s no wonder it exploded out of you like that. And now who knows what could happen the next time someone triggers you, like Andy did that night.”
“So…” Tate draws out the syllable. “What are you suggesting?”
I wipe a hand across my cheek, feel the tears that spill, even as I speak. “Actually, you suggested it. Therapy.”
“You told her I should go to therapy?” Charlie asks Tate.
“No! I told her”—she glares at me—“it’s not an option.”
“It’s going to have to be. He needs to see a therapist. And not just him! We all do! We—”
I stop, squeezing my eyes shut, trying to dam up my tears. I wait until I’m no longer crying, and then I open my eyes to begin again.
“We’ve been so isolated, all our lives. Everyone thinks they know us, but nobody does. Tate, you said yourself, it’s hard for you to make friends. A
nd it is for me, too! But even worse than that”—I think of Greta, the hurt warping her face as I told her to go—“I’ve pushed away the only one I have. And I don’t think that’s normal. We’re not normal.”
“I’m sorry,” Mom murmurs. “I did that to you all, I’m so sorry.”
“See?” I say. “This is what I mean. Yeah, Mom, you fucked up. Actually, ‘fucked up’ doesn’t begin to cover it. But what is your plan to move on from that? Are you going to apologize the rest of your life? I don’t want that for you. And Tate, I want you to have friends, not just followers. We need people in our lives. Not just gossipers. Not just ghosts.”
I look out toward the foyer, at the shrine of Mom’s parents hanging above the stairs. It strikes me now: How different, really, are those picture frames from my laptop screen? For years, she and I have kept them pinned in place, the people we’ve lost, but we’ve really only pinned ourselves.
“We’ve all done things we can’t take back,” I say. “And I don’t know how to keep those things from eating us alive. We need help. Outside help. Andy never had that, and then he—” I fight back a sob. “Charlie needs help, Tate. More than any of us can give him.”
“But he can’t tell the therapist what happened to him,” Tate argues. “He’ll go to prison if he does.”
“I’m not saying he has to tell them. But he needs to learn how to deal with his emotions. All the performing, the pretending—that’s what Dad conditioned him to do. And look what it’s done to him. He still keeps everything inside, and it’s nearly killing him. Even today—you saw what he was like during the museum. He seemed like he was in physical pain.”
Tate squints, still skeptical. Mom opens her mouth, closes it again, while Charlie stares at me.
“Either you get help,” I say, speaking only to him, “or I go to the police and tell them everything. That’s my condition. That’s the only way I can live with this. The only way I will live with this. You need to get yourself the help you didn’t get for Andy.”
For a while, he only looks at me, eyes tracing patterns across my face. I expect him to break our gaze, to turn toward Tate, see what she thinks he should do. But his focus remains on me. I watch his stare darken, his brows draw together. And now I see the Charlie I’ve always known: the guarded one, the one with all the masks.
Before I know what I’m doing, I stand up, lean across the table between us, and place my palm against the side of his face. At first, it feels hard beneath my fingers, as if I’m touching only bone—but then his breath hitches and he lifts his hand, cradling mine as I cup his cheek. For a few moments, we hold each other like that, his skin foreign to me, but familiar, too.
“Dolls,” he whispers, so tenderly it makes my throat swell.
“Will you do it?” I ask him. “Will you let someone help you?”
He sighs deeply and it somehow changes his eyes. They brighten a little—just a little—like a night sky inching toward dawn. Then, still pressing my hand to his face, my brother sighs again and nods against my palm.
twenty-three
The doorbell rings early the next morning, when we’re all still bleary, eating cookies in the kitchen. Charlie startles at the sound, jumpier than the rest of us, but Tate strokes his back as Mom leaves to answer the door.
When she returns, she’s trailed by Elijah.
“I have an update,” he says, “regarding the investigation.”
I force myself not to look at Charlie.
“But first,” Elijah adds, “I understand you found the runaway note.”
My heart gives a panicked kick. “Who told you that?” I manage.
His gaze, falling on me, feels like a spotlight. “A reporter from the Blackburn Gazette saw you grab something in the foyer, right before you started yelling. I asked around, and more than one person claims to have seen the note.” He waits a beat. “Anyone care to explain?”
“I found it,” Charlie says, shrugging as he stands from his stool. It only takes him a second to transform for this performance, stretching from slumped to straight. But I recognize the effort it’s taking. His lines are clunky on his tongue. “Yesterday morning. I was doing one last sweep for artifacts. And I came across it, in my parents’ closet. Mixed up with a bunch of my dad’s things.”
Elijah’s eyes spark at that.
“We searched this house,” he says. “Why didn’t we find it in your dad’s things?”
When Charlie hesitates, I’m surprised to find myself answering for him, my voice sounding steadier than I feel. “You told me the other day that the note wasn’t part of your search. You said it would be like finding a needle in a haystack.”
Elijah watches me so intensely I wonder if he can see my pulse, throbbing in my neck. “I did say that, didn’t I?”
“And Dahlia freaked out,” Charlie says, relaxing into his role, “when she saw I’d decided to display it.” He affects a derisive chuckle, one that scuffs a bit too hard. “She’s like that. So dramatic. Telling me what a spectacle I was making it.”
Elijah’s focus remains on me. “Is that right?” he asks. My blood pumps faster, and when I only nod, he continues. “And where is the note now?”
I run a hand over my back pocket. I’m still in yesterday’s jeans, the ones I shoved the note into, needing it gone, out of sight, away.
“Right here,” I say. I pull it out and extend it toward Elijah, along with Charlie’s label. “I wasn’t trying to hide it from you. It was just—an emotional night for us, and I forgot about it.”
Reaching into his own pocket, Elijah removes a plastic bag. He holds it open so I can drop the paper into it. I hesitate when I see the mark that revealed it all, Charlie’s “trademark flair,” but I bank on it meaning nothing to Elijah, who never saw Charlie’s first draft of artifact cards. I let go of the note, and he tucks the bag inside his coat.
“Will you be able to tell who wrote it?” Tate asks. “And know who killed our brother?”
Her voice is shaky with unease, but from the way Elijah responds, it seems he interprets it as a timid sort of hope.
“To be honest, that’s doubtful,” he says, “considering the fact that we’re talking about a possible forgery. But we should be able to determine, at least, whether or not Andy wrote it.”
“What was your update?” Mom asks. She folds her arms across her sweatshirt, trying to reposition her anxiety as impatience.
Elijah clears his throat, shifts his feet—preparing for something. “We recovered a partial fingerprint from one of the photographs beneath the shed. It appears whoever originally handled them was very careful.” His eyes sweep across us all. “But not careful enough. The print is a match for Daniel.”
My stunned silence is genuine. Even now, I haven’t gotten used to it, the fact that Dad was a killer. I’m shocked to hear Elijah say it, shocked that he figured it out so fast when I’ve lived for twenty-six years, never seeing the truth.
“What does that— What does that mean?” Mom asks.
“It means,” Elijah says, “that later today, we’re going to announce to the press that Daniel Lighthouse was the Blackburn Killer.”
Mom’s moans come quickly, the same horrified sounds she’s been making for days.
Unlike Charlie, who gives a scoff of anger, and Tate, who gasps like she’s gulping for breath, I don’t think Mom is acting. Tears wet her cheeks, her hand trembles against her mouth, and I see her still trying to process it all, still trying to detach her love from a man who never deserved it.
“Are… are you sure?” Tate asks. “How can you even tell with a print so old?”
“Actually, it’s fairly new. Our best guess is that it’s only a couple weeks old.”
“A couple weeks!” Mom cries. “But the murders stopped years ago!”
“Be that as it may,” Elijah replies, “it seems that Daniel still visited that room.” He hesitates, as if reluctant to continue. “Likely as a way to relive his kills.”
My body floods with
cold. Mom yelps out another cry.
Squinting at Elijah, Charlie takes a step toward him. “How do we know you didn’t plant that print on the photo? For days now, our father’s been a sitting duck in the morgue.”
I stare at my brother. His bravado no longer sounds forced; his performance of outrage, disbelief, is wholly convincing. It frightens me a little, how well he’s committing to the fiction.
Ignoring the accusation, Elijah slides his attention onto me. “I understand this is devastating news,” he says, and I’m not sure what he sees on my face, but as he takes me in, concern softens his expression. His eyes become gentle with empathy, something his father never offered.
“I have some more questions for all of you,” he continues. “But first, I want to give you the opportunity to tell me… whatever you might want to tell me.”
“Like what?” Tate asks, her face pale.
“Anything you might have seen. Anything you might know. Information that could add to the evidence we have against your father. If you do know something, it would be in your best interest to tell me now.”
Again, his gaze touches mine.
Do I want to tell him? There’s still time. I could go back on my word.
Charlie’s confession clicks on in my mind, a filmstrip stuttering into motion, and I watch it play out in the shadowy colors of Andy’s final night: my brothers face each other, breathing hard, hurting from the same wounds, but only one of them survives. And is it fair that it’s Charlie, when he had longer to process what Dad did, and to try to make it right?
No. Of course it isn’t fair. Andy’s bones in the ground will never be fair.
But we made plans last night, the four of us. At the dining room table, over plates of pasta that Mom had undercooked, we decided we’re going to get off this island, spend some time together away from the house. It was Mom’s idea. “No Honorings,” she promised. “No murder stories. Just us.”
At first, it made me feel prickly, thinking of us trying to pretend we were a family like that: one who vacations together, staying up late with wine and games, laughing until we ache.
The Family Plot Page 26