The Things We Wish Were True

by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

  I shrugged. “Sure,” I said. I motioned for her to follow me and headed back to Zell’s, thinking as we walked how in the world I was going to explain this one to her.

  ZELL

  It didn’t surprise Zell all that much, knowing the truth about Ty. She supposed in hindsight, she’d known there was something . . . off about him, especially in high school. He’d grown quieter and quieter, retreated more to his room. Zell worried about the usual things you saw on TV—drugs, drinking, depression. She’d wondered aloud to John about whether their middle child was having suicidal thoughts, or dealing with secret homosexuality, or involved with the wrong crowd. John told her to stop worrying so much, to leave the boy alone, that it would work out, and to quit inventing trouble where there wasn’t any. But deep in her mother’s heart she knew something was wrong. And now, all these years later as Jencey Cabot sat at her kitchen table and pored over the disturbing contents of a long-hidden shoe box, she knew she should’ve listened to that nagging internal voice a little closer.

  Now she knew: it was her own son who’d driven Jencey away all those years ago. Ty had been a threat, scaring that poor girl to death with his paper hearts left in the most disturbing places. Once, she’d heard through the neighborhood grapevine, a heart had been left on the bathroom counter when Jencey emerged from the shower, the word love scrawled in the steam on the mirror. Zell had known all about it, listening to Lois Cabot lament at the pool that last summer before they finally took Jencey up north to an undisclosed college in an attempt to get her away from whoever it was. Lois wouldn’t even tell the other mothers what school, saying it was just too dangerous.

  And it had gotten dangerous. One night when Jencey had been meeting Everett, someone (her son, Zell knew now) had jumped poor Everett and beaten him up, leaving a heart on his unconscious body. Now Zell tried to think about that time in her mind, wondering if she’d seen marks on her son after the fight, if there’d been signs she’d ignored because—much as she would’ve said differently—she didn’t really want to see. She thought of what had happened next door before Debra left. She thought of her son. And it all made a sickening sort of sense. She had given birth to this child, she had raised him, and he had done something terrible. She saw with horrifying clarity her own influence in who he had become.

  “I’m sorry,” Zell said over and over to Jencey. “What can I do?” She wrung her hands and paced the kitchen. John and Lance talked in the den, their voices low and serious, like thunder rumbling. Cailey made herself scarce, which was probably a good idea. She hadn’t intentionally done anything wrong, but her snooping had opened a can of worms, and Zell didn’t really know how to talk to her about it yet.

  Lance and Jencey took the shoe box and left. Zell went into the den and sat down. Feeling chilled, she wrapped her arms around herself. She wondered idly where Cailey was, reasoning that the girl was probably fine. Her own child was her concern now. John came into the room after seeing Jencey and Lance out. He had his keys in his hand. “I’m going over to Ty’s now,” he said. “Gonna have a talk with him, let him know how this is going to play out.”

  She nodded miserably. “Want me to come with you?”

  “No,” John said, jingling the keys in his hand. “I think we need to talk, man-to-man.” He looked down at the floor, and she refrained from mentioning that she’d once begged him to do exactly that. “I’m gonna stay with him until the police get there,” he added, his gaze still on the floor. They’d picked out the wood together years ago when they’d replaced the carpet with hardwoods—visiting showrooms, browsing the samples, debating the different choices, colors, prices. It had seemed so important then. Now they hardly noticed the floor; they just walked across it.

  “So they’re going to report him to the police?”

  John nodded. “Lance is concerned that he might’ve seen Jencey at his house tonight and . . . might resume his old behaviors. He feels it’s best to get the authorities involved just to ward off any possible issues. He’s much less likely to try something if he knows people are watching out for him to do just that.”

  Zell nodded. “I can see that. I just . . .” She found John’s eyes with her own. “I just hate it.”

  He walked toward her, crossing the room with his wide stride in mere steps. He took her hand, pulling her up to him. She buried her face in his neck and let his arms make her feel safe. John would take care of her; he would take care of them all. She’d known that when she’d married him, and she knew it now.

  “He’s going to be OK. We all are.”

  She nodded, knowing he could feel the movement of her head against his neck. “You take care of Cailey,” he said. “I bet she’s feeling kind of bad about what happened. She probably thinks it’s her fault. For finding the box.”

  Zell pulled back and looked at him. “Well, it kind of is,” she replied, hearing her own cruel words as she said them. She couldn’t blame Cailey for being a normal kid. Normal kids snooped around when they were bored. Even some adults snooped around when they didn’t have anything better to do.

  He put his finger against her lips. “She doesn’t need to hear that. She needs to hear she saved the day. That she found something very important that we all needed to see.” He gave her a look. “Because we did. Need to see.”

  She thought of all the things they’d been avoiding seeing, and for so long. He was right. There was much they needed to see.

  LANCE

  Lance held her until she fell asleep, this time not bothering to hide that they were in his bed together. They weren’t fooling anyone anyway.

  The children were playing somewhere in the house. He ignored their loudness, their hunger, their bedtimes. He let them feed themselves, fall asleep where they may. They would not die if they were unattended for one evening. They had food, shelter, TV, one another. Tonight his loyalty, his concern, his heart, was for Jencey.

  “You’re safe here,” he assured her as she lay in bed and shivered, the shoe box sitting ominously on his dresser. He got up and threw a towel over it.

  “But what if he saw me? I was right outside, right there in full view. And you know how Zell runs her mouth. I bet you money she told him I was back, just making small talk. I can hear her now, ‘Oh, Ty, didn’t you know Jencey Cabot? Well, she’s in town for the summer with her two little girls.’” Jencey pulled him back into bed, her hands fisting his T-shirt as she looked at him with wide, terrified eyes. “My girls could be in danger!”

  He shushed her and pulled her closer, burying her head in his neck as hot, wet tears caught in the folds of his skin. “I’m going to take care of you,” he promised. He said it so naturally, as if it were nothing, but he heard the catch in her breathing as she reacted to his words. She was silent for a few minutes, and he feared he’d made a dreadful mistake.

  “I’m glad you’re here. With me,” she said.

  He kissed her. “Me, too,” he said. “Me, too.”

  CAILEY

  I was sitting in the front yard when I heard Zell come up behind me. I’d just seen Mr. John get in his car and drive away. I knew he was going to see Ty. I knew Lance and Jencey were calling the police about that shoe box. And I knew she was coming outside to tell me she wasn’t mad at me, that I’d done nothing wrong. I knew Zell would be concerned about my feelings and come try to make me feel better because that was who she was. She was the kind of person who would take in a total stranger and make her feel like part of the family. She would love me because she was a loving person. And what her son did didn’t change that.

  But she wasn’t going to get a chance to say anything to me. Not this night.

  Zell started to speak, but I held up my finger, silencing her. I patted the ground where I was sitting, right by the pond in the front yard that she and I had made together. She tried to talk again, but I shook my head hard and pointed in the direction of Mr. Doyle’s house. I put a finger up to my lips, as she finally noticed what I’d been sitting there watching. I felt it
was right to be silent as the funeral men in their black suits loaded Mrs. Doyle in the back of the hearse. Neither of us said a word as we watched Mr. Doyle wrestle Jesse back into the house after the hearse drove away. We didn’t say anything long after the neighborhood quieted down and the light faded. We just watched the night take over.

  AUGUST 2014

  BRYTE

  Bryte let Christopher go with the girls into the pool, then took her spot with the rest of the group, clustered in their usual area—a hodgepodge of lounge chairs, coolers, towels, and bags forming a base camp. Food and drinks covered the available surfaces, all in various stages of being consumed. Bryte loved being part of the jumble of voices and activity.

  But today Zell’s chair remained empty. Cailey had come with Jencey and Lance for the last several days. Bryte missed the older woman, always doling out advice and saying funny things, but she sensed something was going on and hoped that, whatever it was, it would blow over and Zell would return. Jencey and Lance had been mute about it. But as of today it was August, and time was running out; their summer was dwindling. She remembered the early June afternoons, how summer had unspooled before them, a bright ribbon of days to come. They’d run out of days far too quickly.

  “Is Zell OK?” She broached the subject with Lance when Jencey took the girls to get soda from the machine.

  He blanched, nodded curtly, and looked away, pretending to be interested in the children going off the diving board.

  “Lance,” she said. “What?” Zell was, after all, his next-door neighbor. He was most likely to know if there was a reason she wasn’t there.

  He glanced over at the clubhouse Jencey had disappeared into with a panicked look. “I’m not sure she wants me talking about it,” he said. “She’s still pretty upset.”

  Bryte wrinkled her brow. “Jencey is upset? With Zell?”

  He shook his head. “No, not with Zell. But with her son. So it’s . . . complicated.”

  Bryte was thoroughly confused. Jencey’d had very little—if anything—to do with Zell’s sons, either of them, then or now. What could she possibly be upset at one of them about? She pressed Lance for more information. “What happened? You have to tell me.”

  She had a déjà vu feeling, hearkening back to the many afternoons with Everett and Jencey spent at this same pool. Jencey and Everett were the couple then, but she’d talked to Everett every chance she got. She could only dream back then that she’d be the one married to Everett. She thought of her looming meeting with Trent, of risking the very thing she treasured most, if Everett ever found out.

  Jencey, done buying the sodas, got stopped by a neighbor, buying them time because the woman was notoriously long-winded. Lance looked over and saw her stop as well. He took a deep breath. “I should let her tell you.”

  Bryte shook her head, dislodging thoughts of Everett. “She won’t tell me. She’s pretty . . . guarded. With me.” Jencey kept their conversations at surface level—kids, weather, the latest headlines, and celebrity gossip. Bryte liked to believe they would move past it someday.

  “She’s guarded with everyone,” Lance agreed.

  Bryte kept her mouth shut, waiting for Lance to go on.

  “I’m sure you knew the circumstances that surrounded her leaving here back when you guys were kids?”

  Bryte nodded, thinking of going to visit Everett as he recuperated. He had a broken rib, a black eye, stitches in his lip. And Jencey had left him like that. Bryte had sat with him instead, slipped her hand into his as he slept, trying to make sense of her best friend’s departure. He and Bryte had grown closer as he recovered; she’d felt those first glimmers of hope that something might happen between them, eventually. She just had to be patient, give him time to forget Jencey. The ugly truth was, despite her fondness for her friend, Bryte was glad to have Jencey out of the way.

  “The stalker,” she said now, to Lance, who she could see clearly loved Jencey. Bryte recognized the look he wore, the way he watched after her. She looked down at his hand and noticed he was still wearing his wedding ring, too. She’d talked with his wife some in the past, made idle conversation when monitoring children in the pool or passing each other on the street while walking. His wife had gotten into running, lost a lot of weight, and looked terrific when she’d left him.

  “Yes, well. We found out a few days ago that the stalker was actually Zell’s son.”

  “John Junior?” she asked, thinking of how large Zell’s oldest son had been, how menacing. He used to tell them that there was someone in the woods, chase them around and scare them when they were little.

  “No, the other one. Ty.” Bryte flashed back to one of the last times Jencey and Everett went to the hideaway. Jencey had been so spooked by then, scared of her own shadow and jumpy all the time. It was Everett who’d asked Bryte to come with them, to stand guard outside and keep an eye out so they could have some alone time. Jencey and Everett were going away to college together; at least that had been the plan. Bryte felt they’d have plenty of alone time then. But Everett had asked, so she’d said yes. She’d sat outside the hideaway with a flashlight, feeling like an idiot. She and Everett had never discussed that night, how ridiculous she’d felt, how jealous she’d been that Jencey was the one inside with Everett and not her.

  She remembered, with the shock of realization, the pieces falling into place after all these years. Ty, quiet and unassuming, had happened by as she kept watch. She’d suspected nothing and, desperate for attention from a male, had been receptive to his attempt to strike up a conversation. Jencey had heard the two voices and sent Everett outside to see what was going on. Seeing Ty there, he’d smiled at them and left them to talk, disappearing back inside the copse of trees, but not before giving them a thumbs-up. Ty had kissed her that night, his hands groping and grabbing, growing more urgent. She’d pulled back, shocked at what was happening and how fast. She’d said his name, her voice seeming to break him out of some sort of trance. He’d stood up quickly, stepped away from her, apologizing as he backed farther and farther away, then turned and ran.

  Now she tried to remember, had he seemed angry when he’d seen Everett, given any indication of what was to come? Days later, Everett was blitz attacked by someone in a ski mask as he ventured into the woods to meet Jencey. Jencey returned home only to hear what had happened hours later when Everett’s mom called her from the hospital. A few days later, Jencey was gone. Leaving, she’d said, was the best thing for all of them.

  She’d made out with Jencey’s stalker. Had she told Jencey what had happened with Ty? Had they giggled about it afterward, mused over whether something would develop between them? She couldn’t remember. Did Jencey remember that? She wanted to excuse herself and go throw up in the pool bathroom. Lance was staring at her.

  “I’m just remembering . . . that time,” she said.

  “I think Zell just feels weird, you know, coming around since what happened.”

  “She didn’t do anything wrong.” Bryte felt defensive of Zell, of herself, of everyone who’d been inadvertently involved with the situation.

  “Oh, we know that, and there are no hard feelings. It’s just . . . awkward. The police are involved, and I just think until it gets resolved, she’s keeping her distance.”

  Bryte nodded. “I can understand that. But it sucks.”

  He laughed, more out of relief than humor. “That sums it up quite nicely,” he said. He looked over at Jencey, who was, it was obvious, trying to get away from the neighbor. “Just don’t let on that I told you, OK?”

  She made the little sign she and Jencey used to use, swearing their silence to each other. They used to keep each other’s secrets. Now they kept secrets from each other. Jencey hadn’t told her about this. Jencey had told Everett and not her why she was even back. She drew two fingers across her lips, zipping them shut. “Mum’s the word,” she said.

  JENCEY

  Jencey had finally managed to escape the long-winded neighbor, walking quickly
away as if the woman might whip out a lasso and yank her back like a cartoon character. She caught Lance’s eye, pretended to wrap her hands around her own neck and choke herself. He laughed. As she made her way back over to him, she scanned the pool deck like she always did, accounting for four children instead of two.

  She spotted a woman hugging Alec on the other side of the pool, saw the familiar way her whole body inclined toward his, the possessiveness that hung in the air between them. This one’s mine, the woman’s body said. When the woman looked up and Jencey saw her profile, she recognized the face from the photos in Lance’s house. Debra. The name bloomed inside her like a poisonous plant, a Venus flytrap opening its leaves, inviting the unsuspecting to fall inside and be consumed.

  She’d known this was coming, yet she’d hoped it wouldn’t happen, that she and Lance and the rest of them could somehow stay cocooned inside this summer forever. But what had they talked about just today? Summer was ending. The back-to-school commercials were coming on, the spiral notebooks and packages of paper crowding the endcaps in every store. She felt the mounting pressure to make a decision—stay or go, enroll the girls in the local school or find somewhere else to land. With each day that ebbed away, she was that much closer to having to pull the trigger. Watching Debra hug her son, she felt the gun go off inside her, the ricochet resounding in her heart as the trigger got pulled for her.

  Lance’s eyebrows knitted together as she detoured away from him, her eyes seeking out Bryte instead, who was helping Christopher into the pool. She didn’t look back at Lance, didn’t want to see him see his wife for the first time in months. She beelined over to Bryte, feeling like the schoolgirl she once was, wanting to talk to her best friend about a crisis. She and Bryte had struggled to connect this summer. It was as if each wanted to say more than they could to the other. As if, once they started talking, they would say too much. So they said very little. Jencey felt regret for not opening up to her friend, for withholding herself. And yet she sensed Bryte had done the same.