“But it isn’t for you?”
“It’s rare,” Joy admitted. “The family kind of stopped meeting here after they both died. Today’s the first time this house feels like it isn’t echoing with emptiness. I guess everyone misses them too much. We just started meeting down at the cafe instead.”
Aurora nodded. “You should tell them all how you feel,” she said. “Invite them home again.”
“Well, I’d have to ask you for permission, wouldn’t I?” Joy grinned. “What with you being half-owner and all. You looked like you’d had enough of the chaos five minutes into it.”
“I wouldn’t mind. I’d love it, in fact,” Aurora said. “Growing up, I used to pretend that I had a secret family in another country. I would pretend that there was a village somewhere that was full of my relatives. A whole village of Sparks, ready to invite me in for a cup of tea and a chat. It was my go-to fantasy. I’d pretend I was in the village every night before I slept.”
“You invented an entire village?” Joy stared at her.
Aurora laughed. “Sure. I called it Sparkland. I used to imagine having all kinds of adventures there, too. One time I sailed over it in a hot air balloon. One time I discovered buried treasure. Another time a fairy befriended me. Silly stuff. But, mostly, I liked to imagine the people - aunts and uncles and cousins who would all love me.” She was leaning against the sink, a glass of water in her hand and, for the first time since she’d arrived in Bent River, Aurora’s eyes were sparkling and alive. So far, Joy had thought of her as a stuffed shirt who was too meek to say “boo” to an ostrich. Now she saw a hint of something more complex and real underneath.
“So you didn’t have much of a family at all growing up?” Joy asked.
“Nope, just Mom and me. But Mom was wonderful. She worked really hard, so she didn’t always have time to chat, but she still made sure I knew I was loved.” Aurora smiled. “We had a ritual every Sunday where we would spend the day doing chores and then get pizza and ice cream at night. It was so much fun. She taught me to appreciate the smallest things in life.” Aurora smiled. “I don’t mean to sound like I didn’t have a happy home life. My Mom and I had the world’s tiniest family, but it was full of love.”
“Still, young girls normally fantasize about their future husbands and ponies. Not villages full of an imaginary family,” Joy said.
Aurora shrugged. “Well, I was always a weirdo. What can I say? When all the kids around me were playing in the mud or mixing clay, I was arranging things so that they were color coded. My idea of a fun weekend was to spend it cleaning the house.”
“Oh, man, you’re making me sad for you,” Joy said.
“Don’t be. I genuinely love it.”
“Well, at any rate, hearing your story makes me appreciate my family a lot more.” Joy cocked her head. “I guess I always just took mine for granted. They’re like the pillars of my existence. I can’t really imagine life without them, though sometimes I can really get fed up with all the social obligations.”
“I’m sure, but it’s apparent you really care and are really cared for,” Aurora said. “I envy that.”
Joy shifted uncomfortably. “I guess.”
There was an awkward pause. Somehow, the ease and potential friendship between them seemed to have leaked out again. Straightening up, Aurora looked out the window, then pulled her brows together and frowned. “Hey, Joy, does anyone in town own a red pick up truck?”
“Does it have a ‘It’s Beer O’Clock’ bumper sticker? That’d be Cole Murphy. His dad used to own the bar down by the station and, now that he’s passed, Cole runs it.” Joy explained. “Why?”
“He’s outside.”
“Sure, nothing unusual there. He lives up the street.” Joy nodded.
“Well, I think someone must have parked in his driveway then, because he looks annoyed.”
Joy groaned. “This family get-together is becoming a frat party. It’s nearly midnight, too. I better go shut it down before the cops get called on us.”
*****
Chapter 13
Ablaze
Joy went to sleep that night with a thick blanket on her and woke up in the same position the next day, covered in a layer of sweat. She threw off the blanket and stretched - it was going to be a scorcher of a day. Outside, she could hear birds calling out to each other. Inside, from somewhere downstairs, she heard the roar of a vacuum.
Joy shook her head. Aurora and her compulsive need to clean. She’d have to get her to loosen up. She felt a smile form on her face and, for a minute, she wondered why it was there. Then she remembered - because her parents were in the clear.
Despite her attempts to break it up at midnight, last night’s party had continued till about 2am. And almost everybody was a little tipsy by the end of it. Joy had spied her father singing and fumbling to the steps of the Macarena with two of her cousins. In the kitchen, Aunt Giulia and Aunt Sophia spent hours boiling pot after pot of water in an attempt to teach Aurora to cook pasta just right. They gave up after countless failed attempts and about a bottle and a half of wine. Joy’s mom had fallen asleep on the sofa, while Brady had slid down the banister with Matt and Tilly till his parents told him off. All in all, it had been a successful night.
Shaking off the memories, Joy slid into the shower and hummed the Macarena to herself as she scrubbed herself clean. After five minutes of rummaging through an overflowing drawer for one of the three pairs of shorts she normally wore, a dissatisfied Joy gave up and grabbed a pair she didn’t particularly like. Heading downstairs, she found Aurora sitting at the dining table with Joy’s mother, sipping coffee and biting into toast covered with chestnut marmalade.
“Hey, that’s the last of Aunt Sophia’s batch! I was saving that!” Joy protested.
“It’s amazing. It is literally the most delicious thing I have ever had in my entire life. I could die right now and I’d be happy because I had a chance to meet this marmalade. I could marry this jar,” Aurora gushed.
“Oh come now, it isn’t that bad.” Joy grinned.
“If Aunt Sophia made this herself, she should bottle and sell it. It’s amazing.”
“It was my mother’s recipe.” Joy’s mother smiled at Aurora. “I wish you could have met her. She would have liked you, I think.”
“To be fair, Nonna liked anyone and everyone,” Joy said. “She was a tiny woman who thought life had to be divided fifty-fifty. She said she aimed to spend half of her life being responsible and half playing pranks.”
“It’s come through in all of us, I think.” Joy’s mother smiled. “But especially in you, Joy. You’re a carbon copy of her.”
The phone in Joy’s pocket began buzzing urgently. Swallowing a quick bite of her toast, Joy picked it up. “Yes?” Her toast dropped back onto the plate and she stood up in a rush. “Are you serious? No! It can’t be. Where are you now? Ok, we’ll get there as quickly as possible.”
“What is it?” Joy’s mother looked scared.
“It’s Uncle Pietro.” Joy’s lower lip trembled. “There’s…there’s been an accident at the café, Mom.”
“Oh no!” Aurora covered her mouth with a hand. “Is everyone alright?”
“It happened early this morning. Aunt Giulia and Uncle Pietro were setting up the café when an oven exploded.”
“Exploded? How can an oven explode?” Aurora stared.
“A malfunction of some sort,” Joy said. “That was Dad on the phone. He said the café’s kitchen is almost entirely burnt down.”
“What’s happening?!” Joy’s mother put a hand to her head. “I don’t understand.”
“We have to go to the hospital, Mom. Everyone’s heading there.” Joy stood up. “Aurora, we’ll see you later.”
“Call me if you need anything at all,” Aurora said.
*****
At the hospital, Joy found the corridor packed with her family. Joy’s father was talking to a nurse, his face grim. He gave his Joy and her mother big hugs.
“How could this happen?” Joy asked. “They’ve run the café for years. Nothing like this has ever happened before.”
“We suspect foul play, if that’s what you’re asking.” Joy’s father nodded. “The police are investigating it already.”
“Oh, that’s horrible. Who would do such a thing?” Joy’s mother shook her head in disbelief. Then she paused and answered her own question. “The same person who shot Chip Goggins. That’s who.”
Joy’s father nodded. “We have to be careful. The whole town’s on edge now. Chip’s death was bold enough but…this!”
Joy hesitated for only a second before catching his attention and speaking in a low whisper. “Dad, the other day I went to the café and overheard Uncle Pietro and Aunt Giulia talking,” Joy said. “It was about a secret. You were mentioned, too.”
Joy’s father paled. He looked around, then took her by the arm. “Come with me,” he said. “We can’t talk here.”
“Dad, you’re scaring me,” Joy said.
Joy’s father only nodded, taking her along with him to a service corridor. When he was sure they were alone, he paused and took a breath.
“What is it?” Joy asked, searching his face. There was a combination of dread and anger on it. Her calm, composed father looked actually afraid. With a slight gulp, he said, “I had a theory in my head. A really silly theory. A theory I completely dismissed. But I’ve had it a while now. With this happening to Pietro and Giulia, I think my theory’s just been confirmed.”
“Tell me already,” Joy said.
“Chip Goggins lived across the road from us, correct?” Joy’s father searched her face.
“Yep.” Joy nodded. “Everyone knows that.”
“Yes. Everyone does. But our houses are identical from the outside,” Joy’s father said. “In the dark, a person’s liable to get confused.”
“Wha—”
“All this time, everyone was so sure that the killer wanted Chip Goggins dead.” Joy’s father said. “What if he didn’t? What if it was me the killer was after?”
Joy gasped. “Impossible.”
“Is it?” Joy’s father looked grim. “Joy, he may have seen your mother through a window and gotten confused about which house was ours. It’s not like either of us had a big visible nameplate or something. Only our house numbers are visible.”
“But… but...” Even as she said it, Joy could picture it. The houses did look very similar. They even had the same layout. It would be very easy to get confused, especially in the middle of the night. And especially when all your brainpower was being used to plan the murder you were about to commit.
“What if all of this is just a series of good luck for me…and bad luck for others?” Joy’s father asked.
“You think someone wanted you dead?” Joy spoke carefully, laying out each word as though it were a brick in a building she was constructing.
“Yes,” her father said. “I think I know why, too.”
“This secret,” Joy said quietly. “This secret that Uncle Pietro and Aunt Giulia were fighting about the other day.”
“It’s my fault they got hurt.” A tear rolled down her father’s cheek and he absently thumbed it away. “I feel horrible about that. Pietro doesn’t deserve this. He’s a decent man.”
“So are you!” Joy exclaimed. “Why would anyone want to hurt you? Dad, everyone in town loves you…you’ve saved lives!”
“I have.” Her father took a deep breath and then exhaled loudly. “This is hard to talk about with anyone…but especially you. You’re my little girl. You know I used to hold you in one arm like this?” He mimed holding a baby. “Your head would fit right here in my palm, and your little toes would be dangling at my elbows.”
“Dad...”
“Sometimes I feel like that happened to another man, in another world.” Her father smiled. “We had a good life, your mom and I. We made mistakes, we saw some hard times…but we always loved each other through it all.”
“Dad…you’re kind of freaking me out,” Joy said. “I need you to tone down all the sentiment and be my normal, no-nonsense dad again please. If it helps, you can act like I’m not your daughter, just an interested and sympathetic reporter.”
“That does help.” Her father smiled. “I’m proud of you, you know. I’m proud of everything you do.”
This, somehow, was what brought tears to Joy’s eyes. “Could we not?” She sniffed.
“Ok. Ok.” Her father took another breath. “I’ll tell you everything.”
*****
Chapter 14
A Family Secret
Joy’s father had worked in Olympus General Hospital for about 30 years. Nobody raised an eyebrow as he led Joy through a maze of corridors and finally out a service door. Joy smiled. It was a small, walled off garden, open to the air. An unexpected prize in a place such as this. Ivy clung to the walls, wooden benches faced each other in a square and, in the center, was a flowering tree that bent at odd angles.
“We call it The Shrine.” Her father smiled, sitting down on a bench and stretching out his legs. “A lot of the doctors come here if a day has been particularly rough.”
“Imagine that - a place so dear to you, and I never knew.” Joy smiled. “I guess there’s a lot I don’t know, isn’t there?”
“Sure, there is.” Her father nodded. “Starting with this. I’ve covered up a crime.”
“You…what?” Joy was speechless. She stared at her father to see if he was joking, but he was looking away from her, up at the sky.
“This was years ago,” her father said. “You know your Uncle Beppe was once in love, right?”
“Lauren.” Joy nodded. “I’ve heard the name here and there over the years.”
“Right. Lauren Sullivan.” Joy’s father tapped the toe of his leather shoe against a pebble, moving it in tiny circles. “She was a lovely young woman. Kind, generous, beautiful. But her father never approved of the match. So she broke up with Beppe and got engaged to Chip.”
“But Chip never married…did he?” Joy was confused.
“No. He didn’t. Lauren died soon after she and Beppe broke up.” Her father paused and began moving the pebble around faster and faster. “You know Lake Chalmers? It’s about twenty miles away? Lauren’s car was found at the bottom of the lake.”
“No. Oh, no.” Joy covered her mouth with both hands. “Dad…tell me Uncle Beppe didn’t do it. He didn’t kill her. Tell me!”
Her father shifted. “I don’t know. Maybe,” he said.
“And you covered up for him?! How could you!”
“Listen…” Her father held her hand, preventing her from leaving. “Please…listen to the whole thing. This is so hard for me to tell you.” He took a breath. “Lauren didn’t show up to church one Sunday. There was some talk because she always came for service, but we didn’t think too much of it. But Beppe was missing, too, and your Uncle Pietro, well, he suspected that the two of them were meeting. I didn’t think so, but I didn’t care much. I was too focused on my own life to care. Then, on Monday, your grandfather came to me. He asked me to do him a favor. He gave me a set of car keys and asked me to keep them somewhere safe.”
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