Everything I Never Told You: A Novel

by Celeste Ng

  At the bus stop, later that morning, she knelt on the sidewalk and kissed Nath and Lydia each on the cheek, not daring to look into their eyes. “Be good,” she told them. “Behave. I love you.”

  After the bus had disappeared around the curve of the lake, she visited her daughter’s room, then her son’s. From Lydia’s dresser she took a single barrette, cherry-colored Bakelite with a white flower, one of a pair she seldom wore. From the cigar box beneath Nath’s bed she took a marble, not his favorite—the cobalt with white specks like stars—but one of the little dark ones, the ones he called oilies. From the inside of James’s overcoat, the old one he’d worn in her college days, she snipped the spare button from the underside of the lapel. A tiny token from each, tucked into the pocket of her dress—a gesture that would resurface in her youngest child years later, though Marilyn would never mention this small theft to Hannah, or to anyone. Not something treasured and loved; something they might miss but would not grieve. No need to tear another hole, even a pinprick, in their lives. Then Marilyn took her boxes from their hiding place in the attic and sat down to write James a note. But how did you write something like this? It seemed wrong to write to him on her stationery, as if he were a stranger; more wrong still to write it on the scratch pad in the kitchen, as if it were no more important than a grocery list. At last she pulled a blank sheet from the typewriter and sat down at her vanity with a pen.

  I realize that I am not happy with the life I lead. I always had one kind of life in mind and things have turned out very differently. Marilyn took a deep, ragged breath. I have kept all these feelings inside me for a long time, but now, after being in my mother’s house again, I think of her and realize I cannot put them aside any longer. I know you’ll be fine without me. She paused, trying to convince herself this was true.

  I hope you can understand why I have to leave. I hope you can forgive me.

  For a long time Marilyn sat, ballpoint in hand, unsure how to finish. In the end she tore up the note and tossed the shreds into the wastepaper basket. Better, she decided, just to go. To disappear from their lives as if she had never been there.

  To Nath and Lydia, who that afternoon found themselves unmet at the bus stop, who let themselves into an unlocked and empty house, that was exactly how it seemed. Their father, when he came home two hours later to find his children huddled on the front steps, as if they were afraid to be in the house alone, kept asking questions. “What do you mean, gone?” he asked Nath, who could only repeat: gone, the only word he could find.

  Lydia, meanwhile, said nothing at all during the confused rest of the evening, in which their father called the police and then all the neighbors but forgot about dinner, and bedtime, as the policemen took note after note until she and Nath fell asleep on the living room floor. She awoke in the middle of the night in her own bed—where her father had deposited her, shoes still on—and felt for the diary her mother had given her at Christmas. At last something important had occurred, something that she ought to write down. But she did not know how to explain what had happened, how everything had changed in just one day, how someone she loved so dearly could be there one minute, and the next minute: gone.

  five

  Hannah knows nothing about that summer, of her mother’s long-ago disappearance. For as long as she’s been alive, the family has never spoken of it, and even if they had, it would have changed nothing. She is furious with her sister for vanishing, bewildered that Lydia would leave them all behind; knowing would only have made her more furious, more bewildered. How could you, she would have thought, when you knew what it was like? As it is, imagining her sister sinking into the lake, all she can think now is: How? And: What was it like?

  Tonight she will find out. Again it is two A.M. by her glow-in-the-dark clock; all night she has lain patiently, watching the numbers tick by. Today, June 1, should have been her last day of school; tomorrow Nath was supposed to walk across the stage in his blue robe and mortarboard and collect his diploma. But they’re not going to Nath’s commencement; neither of them has gone back to school since— Her mind silences the thought.

  She takes the squeaky sixth stair on her toes; she skips the middle rosette in the front-hall carpet and the creaky floorboard beneath, landing cat-soft just at the door. Although upstairs Marilyn and James and Nath all lie awake, searching for sleep, no one hears: Hannah’s body knows all the secrets of silence. In the dark, her fingers slide back the bolt, then grasp the safety chain and unfasten it without rattling. This last is a new trick. Before the funeral, there was no chain.

  She’s been practicing this for three weeks now, toying with the lock whenever her mother wasn’t looking. Now Hannah oozes her body around the door and steps barefoot onto the lawn, where Lydia must have been on her last night alive. Overhead, the moon hovers behind tree branches, and the yard and the walkway and the other houses slowly appear out of the grainy dark. This is what her sister would have seen that night: glints of moonlight reflected in Mrs. Allen’s windowpanes, the mailboxes all leaning slightly away. The faint glimmer of the streetlamp on the corner, where the main road loops around the lake.

  At the edge of the lawn Hannah stops, toes on the sidewalk, heels still on the grass, and pictures that thin figure marching into the shadows. She had not looked afraid. So Hannah heads straight down the middle of the road too, where the yellow line would be if their street were busy enough to need one. Through the darkened windows, the pale linings of curtains glow. There are no lights anywhere on their street, except for Mrs. Allen’s front-door light, which she leaves on all the time, even during the day. When Hannah was younger, she had thought adults stayed up late every night, until two or three perhaps. She adds this to the list of things she’s learned are untrue.

  At the corner she stops, but sees only darkness both ways, no cars. Her eyes are used to the dark now, and she darts across the main road and onto the grassy bank of the lake, but she still can’t see it. Only the slope of the ground tells her that she’s getting close. She passes a clump of birches, all holding their stiff arms above their heads as if in surrender. Then, suddenly, her toes find the water. Below the low thrum of a high-up airplane she hears it: a faint lapping against her ankles, soft as the sound of her own tongue in her mouth. If she looks very hard, she can see a faint shimmer, like silver tulle. Except for that, she would not have known that this was water.

  “A beautiful location,” the realtor had told James and Marilyn when they had first moved to Middlewood. Hannah has heard this story many times. “Five minutes to the grocery store and the bank. And think of it, the lake practically at your doorstep.” He had glanced at Marilyn’s rounded belly. “You and the kiddos can swim all summer. Like having your own private beach.” James, charmed, had agreed. All her life, Hannah has loved this lake. Now it is a new place.

  The dock, smoothed by years of use, is the same silvery-gray by moonlight that it is in the day. At the end one small lamp, set on a post, stretches its light over a thin circle of the water. She will set out in the boat, as Lydia must have. She will row to the middle of the lake, where her sister somehow ended up, and peer down into the water. Maybe then she’ll understand.

  But the boat is gone. The city, belatedly cautious, has taken it away.

  Hannah sinks back onto her heels and imagines her sister kneeling to unknot the rope, then pushing the boat away from the shore, so far out you couldn’t tell the water from the darkness around it. At last she lies down on the dock, rocking herself gently, looking up into the night sky. It is as close to her sister’s last night as she can get.

  If this were another summer, the lake would still be a lovely place. Nath and Lydia would don swimsuits and spread towels across the grass. Lydia, gleaming with baby oil, would stretch out in the sun. If Hannah were very lucky, she would be allowed to rub a squirt of oil on her own arms, to retie the strings of Lydia’s bikini after she had tanned her back. Nath would cannonball off the dock, spraying a fine mist that would bead up o
n their skin like pearls. On the very best days—though those were very, very rare—their parents would come, too. Their father would practice his breaststroke and his Australian crawl, and if he was in a good mood, he’d take Hannah out over her head, steadying her as she kicked. Their mother, shaded by a huge sun hat, would look up from her New Yorker when Hannah returned to the towel and let her curl quietly against her shoulder to peep at the cartoons. These things happened only at the lake.

  They won’t go to the lake this summer at all; they will never go again. She knows without having to ask. Her father has spent the past three weeks in his office, although the university had offered to have someone else finish out the term. Her mother has spent hours and hours in Lydia’s room, looking and looking at everything but touching nothing. Nath roams the house like a caged beast, opening cupboards and shutting them, picking up one book after another, then tossing them down again. Hannah doesn’t say a word. These are the new rules, which no one has outlined but which she already knows: Don’t talk about Lydia. Don’t talk about the lake. Don’t ask questions.

  She lies still for a long time, picturing her sister on the lake bed. Her face would point straight up, like this, studying the underside of the water. Her arms would stretch out, like this, as if she were embracing the whole world. She would listen and listen, waiting for them to come and find her. We didn’t know, Hannah thinks. We would have come.

  It doesn’t help. She still doesn’t understand.

  Back home, Hannah tiptoes into Lydia’s room and shuts the door. Then she lifts the dust ruffle and pulls out the slim velvet box hidden beneath the bed. Under the tent of Lydia’s blanket, she opens the box and pulls out a silver locket. Their father had given it to Lydia for her birthday, but she had tucked it under her bed, letting the velvet grow shaggy with dust.

  The necklace is broken now but, anyway, Hannah has promised Lydia that she will never put it on, and she does not break promises to people she loves. Even if they aren’t alive anymore. Instead she rubs the fine chain between her fingers like a rosary. The bed smells like her sister sleeping: a warm and musky and sharp smell—like a wild animal—that emerged only when she was deep in slumber. She can almost feel the imprint of her sister’s body in the mattress, wrapping her like a hug. In the morning, when the sunlight comes through the window, she remakes the bed and replaces the locket and returns to her room. Without thinking, she knows she will do this again the next night, and the next, and the next, smoothing the blanket when she wakes, stepping carefully over the scattered shoes and clothes as she makes her way to the door.

  • • •

  At breakfast time, Nath comes downstairs to find his parents arguing, and he stops in the hallway just outside the kitchen. “Unlocked all night,” his mother is saying, “and you don’t even care.”

  “It wasn’t unlocked. The bolt was on.” By the sharp little edges in his father’s voice, he can tell this conversation has been going on for some time.

  “Someone could have gotten in. I put that chain on for a reason.” Nath tiptoes into the doorway, but his parents—Marilyn bent over the sink, James hunched in his chair—don’t look up. On the far side of the table, Hannah squirms over her toast and milk. I’m sorry, she thinks, as hard as she can. I forgot the chain. I’m sorry I’m sorry. Her parents don’t notice. In fact, they act as if she isn’t even there.

  Silence for a long moment. Then James says, “You really think a chain on the door would have changed anything?”

  Marilyn clunks her teacup hard against the counter. “She would never have gone out on her own. I know she wouldn’t. Sneaking out in the middle of the night? My Lydia? Never.” She wrings the china with both hands. “Someone took her out there. Some nutcase.”

  James sighs, a deep trembling sigh, as if he’s struggling to lift a very heavy weight. For the past three weeks Marilyn has been saying things like this. The morning after the funeral he woke up just after sunrise and everything came rushing back to him—the glossy casket, Louisa’s skin slick against his, the soft little moan she had made as he climbed atop her—and he suddenly felt grimy, as if he were caked with mud. He turned the shower on hot, so hot he couldn’t stand still beneath it and had to keep turning, like something on a spit, offering the steaming spray a new patch of flesh again and again. It hadn’t helped. And when he came out of the bathroom, a faint scratching noise led him to the bottom of the stairs, where Marilyn was installing the chain on the front door.

  He had wanted to say what had been growing in his mind for days: what had happened to Lydia was nothing they could lock out or scare away. Then the look on Marilyn’s face stopped him: sad, and frightened, but angry too, as if he were to blame for something. For a moment she seemed like a different woman, a stranger. He had swallowed hard and touched his collar, buttoning it over his throat. “Well,” he said, “I’m going in to school. My summer class.” When he leaned in to kiss her, she flinched away as if his touch burned. On the front porch, the paperboy had deposited a newspaper. Local Family Lays Daughter to Rest.

  He still has it locked in the bottom drawer of his desk. As one of only two Orientals at Middlewood High—the other being her brother, Nathan—Lee stood out in the halls. However, few seemed to have known her well. Every day since then, there have been more articles: any death is a sensation in a small town, but the death of a young girl is a journalistic gold mine. Police Still Searching for Clues in Girl’s Death. Suicide Likely Possibility, Investigators Say. Each time he sees one, he folds the newsprint over itself, as if wrapping up something rotten, before Marilyn or the children spot it. Only in the safety of his office does he unroll the paper to read it carefully. Then he adds it to the growing stack in the locked drawer.

  Now he bows his head. “I don’t think that’s what happened.”

  Marilyn bristles. “What are you suggesting?”

  Before James can answer, the doorbell rings. It is the police, and as the two officers step into the kitchen, Nath and Hannah simultaneously let out their breaths. At last their parents will stop arguing.

  “We just wanted to give you folks an update,” says the older one—Officer Fiske, Nath remembers. He pulls a notebook from his pocket and nudges his glasses up with a stubby finger. “Everyone at the station is truly sorry for your loss. We just want to find out what happened.”

  “Of course, officer,” James murmurs.

  “We’ve spoken to the people you listed.” Officer Fiske consults his notebook. “Karen Adler, Pam Saunders, Shelley Brierley—they all said they barely knew her.”

  Hannah watches redness spread across her father’s face, like a rash.

  “We’ve talked to a number of Lydia’s classmates and teachers as well. From what we can tell, she didn’t have many friends.” Officer Fiske looks up. “Would you say Lydia was a lonely girl?”

  “Lonely?” James glances at his wife, then—for the first time that morning—at his son. As one of only two Orientals at Middlewood High—the other being her brother, Nathan—Lee stood out in the halls. He knows that feeling: all those faces, fish-pale and silent and staring. He had tried to tell himself that Lydia was different, that all those friends made her just one of the crowd. “Lonely,” he says again, slowly. “She did spend a lot of time alone.”

  “She was so busy,” Marilyn interrupts. “She worked very hard in her classes. A lot of homework to do. A lot of studying.” She looks earnestly from one policeman to the other, as if afraid they won’t believe her. “She was very smart.”

  “Did she seem sad at all, these past few weeks?” the younger officer asks. “Did she ever give any sign she might want to hurt herself? Or—”

  Marilyn doesn’t even wait for him to finish. “Lydia was very happy. She loved school. She could have done anything. She’d never go out in that boat by herself.” Her hands start to shake, and she clutches the teacup again, trying to keep them steady—so tightly Hannah thinks she might squeeze it to pieces. “Why aren’t you looking for whoever took he
r out there?”

  “There’s no evidence of anyone else in the boat with her,” says Officer Fiske. “Or on the dock.”

  “How can you tell?” Marilyn insists. “My Lydia would never have gone out in a boat alone.” Tea sloshes onto the counter. “You just never know, these days, who’s waiting around the corner for you.”

  “Marilyn,” James says.

  “Read the paper. There are psychos everywhere these days, kidnapping people, shooting them. Raping them. What does it take for the police to start tracking them down?”

  “Marilyn,” James says again, louder this time.

  “We’re looking into all possibilities,” Officer Fiske says gently.

  “We know you are,” says James. “You’re doing all you can. Thank you.” He glances at Marilyn. “We can’t ask for more than that.” Marilyn opens her mouth again, then closes it without a word.

  The policemen glance at each other. Then the younger one says, “We’d like to ask Nathan a few more questions, if that’s okay. Alone.”

  Five faces swivel toward Nath, and his cheeks go hot. “Me?”

  “Just a couple of follow-ups,” says Officer Fiske. He puts his hand on Nath’s shoulder. “Maybe we can just step out onto the front porch.”

  When Officer Fiske has shut the front door behind them, Nath props himself against the railing. Under his palms, a few shreds of paint work loose and flutter to the porch floor. He has been wrestling with the idea of calling the police himself, of telling them about Jack and how he must be responsible. In another town, or another time, they might have shared Nath’s suspicions already. Or if Lydia herself had been different: a Shelley Brierley, a Pam Saunders, a Karen Adler, a normal teenage girl, a girl they understood. The police might have looked at Jack more closely, pieced together a history of small complaints: teachers protesting graffitied desks and insolent remarks, other brothers taking umbrage at his liberties with their sisters. They might have listened to Nath’s complaints—after school all spring every day—and come to similar conclusions. A girl and a boy, so much time together, alone—it would not be so hard to understand, after all, why Nath eyed Jack so closely and bitterly. They, like Nath, might have found suspicious signs in everything Jack has ever said or done.