by BETH KERY
“As a hatter,” Wes said, no hesitation in his voice now. “Does Evan know? About your idea to tell Noah that Elizabeth spoke to you?”
“No. But I plan to tell him,” I said, not lying this time. “Wes?”
“Yeah?”
“Would you mind calling Evan?” I was the one who sounded shaky now. My need for Evan was a weakness that was difficult to put on display. “Would you… would you ask him to come here, to the hospital?”
Wes nodded, already digging for his cell phone in his pocket as he stood.
Two Weeks Later
I asked to have the genetic testing redone, so that I could be completely confident of the results. I now knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was not Evan Halifax’s child. I was indeed the product of Elizabeth and Noah Madaster’s incestuous relationship.
It was cold comfort, but a profound relief, nonetheless.
Evan and I were the last two people to remain graveside after the small service. I’d asked Evan two days ago what Elizabeth’s favorite flowers were, and he’d told me white ranunculus. I’d clutched them for the entire ceremony, even after Lorraine, guided by her new caregiver, and Evan had paid their individual tributes.
“Goodbye, Elizabeth,” I said before I unclenched my fist and finally released the flowers. Several white petals sprayed across the polished mahogany of the coffin. That coffin held her body… the proof she’d so wanted found. It was the tangible proof of her hard life, and cruel death.
“She liked them because they seemed pure. Innocent,” I murmured, staring at the flowers.
I felt Evan’s hand at the small of my back.
“She would have loved you.”
“I believe she would have,” I replied, wiping away a tear. “And I also think I would have struggled, at times, to love her back. She was beyond complicated, wasn’t she? Sometimes, I’m glad I never knew her. I’m sure I would have altered my whole world to give her what she needed. Just like you tried to do. Problem is, Elizabeth never knew what she needed.”
“It’s a basic human right that Noah had stolen from her,” Evan said quietly.
“She believed she was tainted. Cancerous. I was the light from her darkness. I think she thought of me that way, a light somehow safely distant from her. Something to wish on, like that game you and she used to play when you were kids, when you used to wish on the stars. I was that part of her that she sent away, clean and innocent. I was able to see the world the way it was meant to be seen.”
His hand moved on my back, soothing me in that way I’d always loved. Ever since Noah Madaster had died thirteen days ago, and Wes Ryder had confessed to the police about assisting Noah on the night of Elizabeth’s murder, I’d occasionally let Evan comfort me in small ways like that. He was my weakness. I suspected he always would be.
We’d returned to Les Jumeaux for some uncertain period of time. I’d told the police about the location of Elizabeth’s body and Noah’s confession of killing her. Wes had held firm in his promise to me, and corroborated my story about Noah’s confession of murder before he’d died. He’d been charged with being an accessory to the crime, but Evan was fairly confident that his lawyer could get him a minimal sentence.
Evan and I had been operating on automatic pilot since then, ticking off some imaginary checklist: the recovery of Elizabeth’s body, caring for Lorraine Madaster, waiting for the results from the forensic coroner following his examination of Elizabeth’s remains.
Ima, Madaster’s nurse, had fled Les Jumeaux some time after Noah had been declared dead. The police had so far been unsuccessful in locating her for questioning.
Evan and I had moved Lorraine into the North Twin with us. Much to my relief, she came willingly, allowing me to help her pack up the sadly meager belongings she had squirreled away in a small, first floor bedroom at the South Twin.
I’d insisted that Lorraine get a full checkup at the doctor, as I was no longer convinced that Wes Ryder had been giving her quality care. I was certain Madaster and Ima had been neglecting her. I was relieved to hear from the physician that aside from some dehydration, and the fact that she was very thin and malnourished, Lorraine was surprisingly healthy. She did receive a diagnosis of dementia. But the specialists had hesitated in specifying Alzheimer’s type dementia. I began to suspect that Evan had been right in saying that Lorraine’s madness had been more a result of living with Noah Madaster, her guilt over her inability to care for her daughter, and her grief over losing Elizabeth. It had led her down a spiraling, inward path of fantasy and delusion. With Noah gone, some of that external pressure for escape seemed to dissipate a little. I increasingly witnessed periods of lucidity and recognition on her part.
Given her relative good health, Evan suggested that it might help Lorraine if we hired a non-traditional health care provider for her, someone with a mental health background versus a strictly medical one. I agreed. But until someone qualified could be found, I said I would see to her, try to assess her strengths and vulnerabilities, get a better idea of how to care for her… of how to make her happy. Of course at the heart of things, I simply wanted to spend time with Lorraine. She was my grandmother, after all.
I suppose there was another reason I found it comforting to spend those difficult days with Lorraine after Noah died. She was a quiet, undemanding companion. And although Evan and I spoke and planned together regularly, I struggled at being with him in any intimate sense… with relating to him like a wife would a husband.
Evan had been a rock since he’d been informed of Noah’s heart attack. He’d arrived in record time at the hospital. I’d told him everything on the drive back to the North Twin. I was honest with him about the voices, about believing I’d seen Elizabeth on more than one occasion. He never judged me, although I sensed he didn’t entirely believe me, either. I knew he wanted to be whatever I needed of him.
But I didn’t know what I needed. Everything had become scrambled up inside me. I functioned on a day by day, hour by hour basis. In trying to regain my bearings, Lorraine had been my unlikely strength. Maybe I understood on some level that we were co-conspirators, after all. Lorraine and I shared the same mission: to destroy Noah Madaster. And the two of us together had succeeded.
I was to learn that Lorraine was a creature of nature, rising with the first glint of sunlight behind the mountains and burrowing under her bedclothes after her evening meal. In following her cycles, I somehow seemed to find my own rhythm again. I had no appetite during that time, but I was forced to partake in meals regularly. Given Lorraine’s malnourishment, I had to set a healthy example and share three square meals a day with her.
Lorraine barely tolerated the breakfasts that I pushed on her, anxious as she was to be outside on the beach and in the forest. I followed her on her rambling walks, usually panting behind her, freshly amazed by her stamina. We ate the lunches I stored in my backpack while perched on the high rocks overlooking the lake. These meals she ate like a ravenous wolf, so I learned to pack double the amount. I found myself getting hungry for those lunches, too, if not with as much single-minded greed as Lorraine, at least with a healthy appetite.
She went with me to the overlook several times while I painted. Or while I attempted to paint, I should add. Although she never showed any particular interest in my painting, she seemed content enough during our excursions, foraging for the leaves that were falling from the aspens and maples, her manner endearingly somber and deliberate. She’d acquired quite a collection.
Eventually, I put away my paints and tried to help her. But when I tried to add my leaves to her pile, she frowned fiercely and pushed my hands away.
“What’s wrong?” I wondered.
She merely pointed at her leaves. I dropped the ones I’d collected, and knelt on the ground. For the first time, I carefully collected her pile. I picked up a golden, still soft aspen leaf. It was perfectly shaped, with no mottl
ing. All the others were just as lovely. I understood. She hadn’t wanted me to contaminate her carefully chosen leaves with my random ones. So I joined her on a more meticulous search.
If anyone had seen us, they would have thought we were both mad. Lorraine and I knew differently. I found a strange measure of peace in our mutual, silent search up there on the overlook.
There was no one else to arrange funeral services for Noah Madaster, so the task had fallen to Evan and me. Lorraine had refused to attend her husband’s memorial service at a local church. Evan had wondered out loud if Lorraine had really understood that Noah was dead, let alone the details of his burial. But I had disagreed with him. I was beginning to recognize the stubborn tilt of Lorraine’s chin, even when her gaze appeared vacant and unfocused. I remembered the moment when I’d known for a fact that she’d pushed Noah Madaster down the stairs.
I would never underestimate Lorraine again.
The only reason I would have gone to Noah’s service was to take Lorraine, if she’d desired it. Since she refused, he had no mourners. For all the power and control Noah had claimed during his lifetime, he’d been buried without a soul in attendance.
Evan and I slept separately. A gulf had opened between us. I sensed he knew that, as we stared down together at Elizabeth’s casket that day. He worried he had no way of crossing that chasm. And I certainly didn’t know how.
“Anna,” Evan said presently as we stood side by side at Elizabeth’s grave. “Do you still… does Elizabeth still… ”
“Does she still speak to me?” I asked him bluntly.
He nodded.
“No,” I said, looking at the submerged coffin. “I don’t think she ever will again. Not in that way. She’s where she wanted to be. She’s resting, now. It’s all right, that she’ll never speak to me again. I think she’ll always be with me.”
I studied his somber profile through the dark sunglasses I wore.
“It’s all right, Evan. I know you don’t believe me about it all… about hearing her voice. Seeing her, even. You think it was all part of some nervous breakdown, an overload of stress, with everything that happened. Part of me doesn’t want to believe it, either. One, because I know how crazy it sounds, and two, because it seems to validate all of Madaster’s sick claims about communication with the ancestors.”
“I never said I didn’t believe you.”
I smiled. “You didn’t have to. You were very patient and kind about listening to my stories. But I saw the look in your eyes.”
“You’re wrong.”
I glanced up at him in surprise, and read the earnestness on his face. “I am?”
“I’m not at all confident in saying that it’s impossible, to get messages from… What? I don’t know, the other side? On the day that you saw Elizabeth’s photo at the library… Afterwards, when you left during the storm… ”
“Yes?” I asked when he faded off.
“I thought… no, I know that something told me to follow you. Something told me that you were in danger,” he said, his gaze fixed on Elizabeth’s coffin.
“What told you?” I asked, watching him like a hawk. “Who? Evan? Was it Elizabeth?”
“I’m not sure. It was a voice in my head, but not like you said it was for you, when Elizabeth actually spoke. It was more of a feeling. I don’t know. All I knew that it was like my body and my brain got charged. I just knew you needed help.”
“It was probably her. You and Elizabeth were always close. She told me once that you were a good man.”
His head came around.
“She did?”
I smiled in the face of his strained surprise, but tears welled up in my eyes. “She said that she never deserved you. But that I did.”
I sensed his stare boring into me from behind the sunglasses he wore. Strands of his dark hair flickered in the autumn breeze. His hand opened at my back, his fingers digging gently into my flesh. I felt that familiar ache at my core, and the inevitable rising panic that always accompanied that feeling these days.
“I feel like the last man on earth who deserves you. Anna—”
“I think that backhoe is meant for here. We should go,” I said thickly, interrupting him. I nodded at the yellow backhoe that had paused in the distance, probably upon the driver noticing family still stood at the grave.
I wasn’t ready to talk about us. About our future.
I wasn’t prepared yet to look into his eyes, and say goodbye.
Chapter Thirty-Three
When Evan and I returned to Les Jumeaux after Elizabeth’s funeral, the house was empty. I knew that Lorraine was likely leading her new caregiver, Sasha, on a wild, steep gallop up the mountainside. I gave a quick thanks to God that Sasha was young and in shape.
Evan and I walked up the grand staircase together, both of us preoccupied. Maybe I understood why we were so grave, aside from the obvious. Elizabeth’s funeral had been the final step in this tragedy. The years of planning for revenge on Evan’s part, the impetus that had brought Evan and me together, Noah Madaster’s reign of sadistic power: All of it was over now.
Now I was left with nothing to do but stare the glaring question. What next?
Evan paused when we reached the door of the bedroom I’d been using. Our stares met, and held. For a second, my heart jumped.
Then he gave me a small, sad smile. He leaned down and kissed me on the temple. He turned to continue down the hallway. Sharp pain pinched at my lungs and heart. I opened my mouth to say something—but what? No matter his deep regret. No matter my desire for him. He’d still dragged me into this ugly scenario for his own selfish reasons.
He was still one of the people responsible for shoving me into that dark, bottomless hole where I’d panicked for days… hours. What did it matter how long it had been? That memory of terror would stay with me for a lifetime.
Noah Madaster had been right. Even minutes, believing that I’d slept with my biological father, that I’d fallen in love with him more passionately than I could put into words, would have been enough hell for several lifetimes.
I walked into my bedroom, feeling hollow and bereft. Hopeless.
I shouted in surprise.
“What is it?” I heard Evan ask from behind me a second later, sounding alarmed.
I pointed wordlessly at my bed. A three-by-three-foot mélange of red maple and golden alder and aspen leaves had been placed on the mattress into a tall heap. On one pillow sat a large, perfectly formed pinecone.
“Oh my God. Lorraine?” Evan asked after a moment, clearly bewildered.
I burst into laughter.
“She meant it as a gift,” I said.
“How do you know?” Evan asked, turning toward me. He still looked amazed, but humor had started to tilt his mouth.
“I just know. She’s been collecting them ever since Noah died. I’d started to help her,” I said, reaching down into the pile and rustling the dry leaves. Each one was, of course, perfectly formed. Even though there was no logic to Lorraine’s gift, it made perfect sense to me.
I glanced over at Evan, who still looked bemused. I grabbed a handful of dry leaves and threw them at him.
“It doesn’t have to make sense, Evan,” I said, my laughter fading.
He just stood there for a few seconds, a crimson maple leaf clinging on the lapel of his funereal black suit jacket. His gaze narrowed on me. I felt a rush of heat through my body.
Then it was happening. I stepped into his arms, and his mouth was on mine, his kiss as possessive and wild as it had ever been. More so. And my response was even more passionate. I gave myself up to it, knowing only the full blast of my need for him could evaporate my doubts.
We fell onto the bed of leaves, all the guilt, anger, and uncertainty incinerated to dust. Evan gruffly declared his love for me between kisses and hungry bites on my neck. I declared
my love in return, my tone as desperate as my clawing hands. He slid my dress to my waist. I groaned, ecstasy and agony combined.
Our situation was impossibly complex and fraught with emotional entanglement. No one would believe our story, if I tried to explain.
But this?
This was simple.
It was then that I realized, in a sex-hazed sense, that Lorraine had fashioned a kind of primitive altar on that bed, a bower of honesty. She really had given us a gift.
But even as I submitted to the power of the moment, something whispered inside of me that it wouldn’t be enough.
Later, we showered together in the suite Evan had been using, and lay down on the soft, cool bed. I couldn’t stop touching him, my anxious fingertips scouting the planes and hollows of his body, as if I believed I could store up enough memories to last a lifetime. He, on the other hand, held me steady and fast against him, his strength the hallmark of his embrace.
“Evan?” I asked, my cheek against his solid chest.
“Hmmm?”
“Let’s say it was true, that Elizabeth came to me from… wherever she was,” I said, hesitating at voicing the clichés: the other side, heaven, purgatory, hell. “Do you think she could have been controlling me into doing what I did with Noah?”
“What do you think?”
I lifted my head to peer at his face. He watched me with solemn gravity.
“I think she influenced me, because she knew she could form a connection with me. I’m her daughter. Her sister,” I said the last experimentally, seeing how it felt on my tongue. It wasn’t as horrible as I’d imagined it would be. “She reached out to me because she could. Maybe it was the similarity of our genes, like Noah believed. Maybe it was karma. I don’t know for sure. I do know this. I did what I did because I chose to. I wanted to make Noah pay for what he’d done to her. To Lorraine. To you. Us.”
He merely nodded once in the pregnant pause that followed.
