I'll Never Tell

by Catherine McKenzie

“Liddie, babe,” Owen said. “Maybe this isn’t—”

  “Stay out of this, Owen,” Ryan said. “What are you even doing here?”

  “I’m here for Liddie.”

  “Well, you can be here for Liddie by shutting it, okay? This is a family matter.”

  “Owen is my family,” Liddie said.

  “It was your idea to vote.”

  “Fine. Forget the vote.” She stood and walked toward the phone. “I’ll call the police myself.”

  “Hey!” Ryan said. “Come back here.”

  Sean was moving, running, on his way out of the house before anyone could react.

  “Goddamn it,” Ryan said. “Why didn’t you stop him?” he asked Mary, who Sean had bolted past.

  “How do you expect me to do that?”

  “I’ll get him,” Margaux said. “Just hold off calling the police, okay, Liddie?”

  “How do you know where he’ll be?”

  She looked resigned. “He’s going to the Island.”

  CHAPTER 45

  THE ISLAND—PART TWO

  Sean

  Sean rowed like a starter had gone off in his head. When he’d gotten to Boat Beach, he’d grabbed the first boat he came to, the old leaky rowboat that they should’ve thrown away years ago. He didn’t bother with a life jacket, and he was grateful that everyone was still at lunch so he didn’t have to try to explain where he was going. He kicked off his shoes, rolled up his pants, and pushed the boat into the cold water. He climbed in, positioned the oars, then counted off the strokes as the wind whipped around him and the waves crashed into the prow.

  A hundred feet from shore, it was taking on water. But Sean knew if he rowed fast enough, hard enough, he could make it to the Island before it sank.

  His muscles warmed as words and images banged around in his head. Mr. MacAllister, calling him “son.” He never called Ryan that. Mrs. MacAllister warning him away from Margaux—did she know? She must’ve guessed something, even if she never asked outright. The way she’d notice when his pants weren’t fitting right. Or how she’d recommend a book to him. “A good sailing adventure,” she’d say, and then give him a wink. The way he felt as if he’d been at camp already when they took him there that first night. How he knew where the light switch was in the bathroom, though it wasn’t obvious. How the living room had smelled familiar.

  Had he been there before? Had his mother brought him to visit when Mrs. MacAllister was away? What had happened between Mr. MacAllister and his mother? Was it a onetime thing? Or was he a regular, one of those men whose car was parked outside the Twilight night after night after night?

  Mr. MacAllister must’ve sent his mother away when she’d told him she was pregnant. But the seed had been planted, oh, the seed had been planted, and when they found him on the side of the road that morning, cold and frightened and wailing for his mother, maybe Mr. MacAllister didn’t want to take a chance. He wanted to keep him close, just in case he was his son.

  Sean’s muscles burned as Macaw receded. What was the use in thinking about any of this? He was never going to get an answer to his questions. Even if he did, would they make him feel any better? Was the truth a more acceptable explanation? This was his family, and they hated him. This was his family, and they were going to turn him in. This was his family, and it included Margaux.

  Margaux, Margaux, Margaux.

  He rowed on, his boat beating against the current until, suddenly, it stopped.

  • • •

  Margaux found him not much later. He was sitting on Back Beach, staring at the low gray sky over the uneven lake, a rock in his hand. Next to him was the cairn he’d started twenty years ago, the memorial to Amanda. The girl he didn’t want but could never forget. The girl he’d let down, though she hadn’t been counting on him.

  “Sean.”

  “Go away, Margaux.”

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  She was still in the black dress she’d worn to the memorial. Her hair was tumbling around her shoulders. Even on this dark day, it was a bright light, golden, unmistakable.

  He couldn’t help loving her, even now.

  “Do you think she knew?” Sean asked.

  “Who? Amanda?”

  “No, your mother. Did she know who I was?”

  Margaux sat next to him. He could smell the lake on her skin. He didn’t know how to adjust his thoughts about her. “That might explain a few things.”

  “Like?”

  “She asked me once if I liked you. Liked you, liked you. She never did that usually, ask me about personal things.”

  “Was it a warning?”

  “I’m not sure. I told her I didn’t, and she said something about looking outside camp for my happiness. I didn’t think it meant anything at the time.”

  Margaux didn’t like him. Not like him, like him. He knew that, but it wasn’t fun hearing it just the same. Why hadn’t he been good enough for her? Why hadn’t he been good enough for any of them?

  “She warned me away from you,” Sean said. “I thought then that it was because she thought I wasn’t good enough for you, but now . . .”

  Margaux picked up a rock and threw it at the waves. “I’m so mad at him.”

  “Who?”

  “My dad. All of us, actually, but him most of all. It was so dangerous, what he did. Keeping all this to himself. And this business with the will, with Ryan. All of us torturing him this weekend. He nearly died.”

  “It feels like it’s my fault.”

  “Is it, Sean?”

  “Everyone thinks I did it.”

  “You need to tell me everything.”

  “I did.”

  She looked down at her feet, her impractical sandals. She’d broken a toenail on the paddle over, and blood was seeping out.

  “No, you didn’t. What about the boat? Kate and Liddie saw you. It was you, wasn’t it?”

  Sean thought back to that horrible night. He’d tried to bury the memories, which was easier than it should’ve been. Amanda deserved to have all of her remembered, even the bad parts.

  “It was me.”

  “Tell me?”

  He squeezed the rock in his hands; it wouldn’t give.

  “It won’t change anything.”

  “Maybe it will.”

  He hated her right then. For pushing him. For putting him in this position in the first place. He wasn’t blind to her faults. Margaux had always been self-involved. He might as well give her what she wanted. Why stop now?

  “After we . . . you know, after it was over, Amanda wanted me to leave. I couldn’t blame her. We both knew it was a mistake. I was . . . angry.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “With yourself?”

  No. He’d been angry with Margaux. As if his bad choices were her fault, but there was no use in telling her that.

  “Yeah. We said some things that were not so nice, maybe. Eventually, I got in my canoe and I started to paddle away. The moon was gone by then, so it was dark, but I could see the lights in the lodge and the beacon on Boat Beach. I got maybe a hundred, a hundred and fifty yards from shore and I just stopped paddling. I felt frozen. I didn’t know what to do—go back to Amanda and try to make things right or go back to camp and try to forget. I don’t know how long I sat there, but it must’ve been a while because when I checked my watch it was already four a.m. I was about to start paddling again when I heard something, voices, then a scream. I turned around and saw Amanda fall to the ground. I paddled as hard as I could, but when I got back to the beach, Amanda was unconscious. She had this awful gash in her head. I couldn’t find a pulse.”

  Sean pushed the scent memory away. That awful metallic smell of blood. It had felt like it was everywhere as he checked her frantically, cursing himself that he’d nev
er done more than the basic lifeguard training. He was scared of breaking her ribs if he tried a chest compression. He’d put his head to her torso and heard nothing. He’d held his hand above her nose and mouth and felt nothing.

  “Was she breathing?”

  “I didn’t think so. I tried CPR. I tried and tried, but then . . .” Sean’s throat started to close. He wasn’t sure he could go on, but after a moment, somehow, he did. “I was wrong, obviously, so wrong. But I thought she was dead, and I wasn’t thinking straight. I felt like if I got her off the Island, then everything would be okay. I put her in my canoe, and I paddled it out into the lake. When I got close enough to Secret Beach, I jumped out and pushed it so it would get there with the tide. So she’d be found. Then I swam back to camp and snuck into the lodge. I got changed, then took all the clothes I was wearing and hid them in the lost-and-found barrel. An hour later, Kate and Liddie came running from Secret Beach, saying we had to call an ambulance. You know the rest.”

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone what had happened?”

  “How could I?”

  Margaux leaped to her feet. “You might’ve saved her. If you’d brought her back to camp and called 9-1-1, she might be okay today. Living a life. Married, kids. Not hooked up to some machine that breathes for her.”

  “Don’t you think I know that? I’ve tortured myself with this for twenty years. Could I have saved her? But I tried to save her and I thought she was dead, and . . .”

  “And what? You knew you’d get blamed for what happened to her if you told the truth, and so you did everything you could to save yourself. You might as well have hit her.”

  Sean rose. The rock dropped to the ground, cracking against the shore. Yes, he’d made terrible mistakes that night. They all had. But this, this was too much.

  “I did it for you.”

  “What does that mean?” She twisted away from him and winced as her toe scraped against the sand. “You said that before at the house. How could this possibly have been for me?”

  Sean felt incredulous. He was trying to protect her, still, even as she was rejecting him, even as she was blaming him for everything that happened. He couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “Because you hit her, Margaux. I saw you.”

  CHAPTER 46

  PAPER HOUSES

  Margaux

  Margaux felt like someone had taken a paddle to her own head. How else to explain the dull thud in her mind, the addled thoughts? All that was missing was the wound. The blood.

  This could not be happening. She wouldn’t let it.

  “What?”

  “I saw you, Margaux. You were the one who hit Amanda.”

  “That’s ridiculous! I’d never do that. You said it was dark. You couldn’t see who it was.”

  “I could see enough. I could see this.” He reached out and touched her hair. She recoiled. He looked like she’d slapped him. “And later, at camp, when you came back, and the ambulance was there—you had blood on your hands. On your hands and on your shirt.”

  Margaux thought of how she’d washed off the paddle when she’d found it in the water. She’d cleaned her hands so carefully, she believed. The next thing she knew, she was falling into Sean’s arms when she saw the ambulance. Then later, her mother had taken her into the house, had forced her into the shower, and had taken her clothes away.

  “I wouldn’t do that! Ever.”

  “You can stop pretending with me.”

  “You really think I could do that to her?”

  “I didn’t want to, but . . . Don’t worry, okay? You should know by now I won’t tell.”

  Margaux stared at Sean. He was so convinced; it made her feel as if she were going crazy. Like talking to someone who calmly explains how aliens have been visiting earth for thousands of years.

  “You won’t tell,” Margaux found herself repeating, like a mantra, like a wish.

  “I won’t. But what I’ve never understood was why. You didn’t care if I slept with her.”

  Sean waited for her to reply. She could hear the words he was saying but only as a bass note to her heartbeat.

  “I would’ve cared, if I knew.”

  “Don’t lie to me. I deserve better than that.” He was pacing on the beach now. She felt like running, but where did she have to go? “I told myself and told myself that it was okay that you didn’t say anything when it looked like Ryan was on the hook for it, because if they were going to charge him, it would’ve happened, and if they did, you’d come forward, and then they didn’t, and . . .”

  “You don’t care about Ryan.”

  “Okay, okay, you’re right. I don’t. But this weekend, when you voted, and there was one vote for Ryan, that was you, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought it was your way of apologizing for the fact that you let him twist in the wind like that.”

  “I voted for Ryan because he didn’t do it.”

  Sean stopped pacing. “What’s going to happen now?”

  “I think you should go.”

  “Go? Go where?”

  “Somewhere not here. I need to think.”

  “You need to plan.”

  She looked at him. What was there to say? Sean thought he was going to be a part of all this. But he wasn’t. He couldn’t.

  “I need to plan,” she agreed.

  “Where should we meet?”

  “Meet?”

  “When you figure out what to do. I can’t go to jail, Margaux. I can’t.”

  “You won’t.”

  “Do you promise?”

  “I promise.”

  She forced herself to meet his eyes. Was he going to believe her? He had to believe her, because she needed to be alone. She needed to think.

  She needed to remember.

  • • •

  Sean rowed away a few minutes later. She’d told him to go to the other side of the lake, and she’d meet him in Magog later that night. She didn’t know what she was saying; she needed him to leave.

  When he was around the Island and out of sight, she sat down on the ground, her legs giving out from under her. She still had that muddled feeling, like she’d received a blow to the head. No, a paddle, a paddle, that was right. But it wasn’t right, was it? Something was wrong with her. She couldn’t get her brain to work properly anymore. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t remember.

  Sean had seen her, he said. Had seen her hit Amanda, then walk away, leaving her for dead. She didn’t remember doing this. Was it possible she’d blocked it out? That happened in movies, but did it happen in real life? Was that why she’d avoided seeing Amanda all these years, had stayed away from camp, hadn’t put down roots or had a family? Because she knew, deep down, that she was dangerous?

  Was her whole life a lie, even to herself?

  She stood on wobbly legs, trying to remember. Why had she washed off the paddle? Why hadn’t she told anyone about it? She knew now, with the benefit of hindsight and the information that had been kept from all of them, that her questioning from the police had been perfunctory. It made sense, when all the facts were assembled. She’d been with twenty girls and Mary all night. Amanda was her best friend, and they weren’t fighting. She’d been found in a canoe that had been at camp earlier. She’d had semen in her. They knew who did it, even if they couldn’t prove it in court. They’d had no reason to look at her closely—no one had.

  Even her mother hadn’t asked too many questions. Margaux had mumbled something about blood being on the rocks to explain the blood on her, the reason she’d panicked and paddled back without the kids. Her mother had nodded and told her not to think about it. To take a shower and forget. And she had.

  But the act itself. The blow. The anger that must’ve preceded it. That wasn’t her. She loved Amanda. If she’d walked in on Amanda and Sean, would
she have cared? Would she have been angry? Would she have wanted to punish Amanda? Or maybe they had fought. Maybe she’d called Amanda out for what she was doing, trying to get back at Margaux because Ryan had rejected her. That’s what Sean thought. And Ryan. Even Sean thought she’d done it.

  Even Sean.

  Was he right?

  She had to make herself remember. Either that, or forget.

  • • •

  Time passed without any answers. When she finally climbed back into the canoe she’d paddled over in, the sun was starting to set. It was hard to tell beneath the cloud cover, but Margaux could feel it in her bones.

  She was exhausted when she got close enough to camp to focus on the beach. It was full of people, probably a hundred. Of course. The memorial. The lantern ceremony.

  Mary was standing on the dock, waving at her.

  “Margaux! Paddle over here.”

  She obeyed. Mary bent down and caught the prow, holding it steady while Margaux climbed out. She attached the bowline to the dock with neat efficiency.

  “I was about to come over and get you. We’ve been waiting on the photo.”

  “The photo?”

  “The camp photo,” Mary said. “All of us with the lifers. You know, like we used to do every summer?”

  This was what they had instead of family photos. Her mother would climb onto a ladder and use a special camera before everyone’s iPhone had a panoramic setting. All of them would be in it, even her, because she’d put it on a timer and rush in.

  Mary had her mother’s camera slung around her neck. No iPhones for her.

  “Are you okay?” Mary asked.

  “What? Yes. I guess.”

  “Where’s Sean?”

  “He left.”

  “You let him leave?”

  “What was I supposed to do?”

  Their eyes locked. Mary looked as tired as she felt. This weekend had worn all of them down.

  “Did Liddie call the police?”

  “No, they decided to wait for you.”

  “Do you think we should?”

  “Mary! Margaux! Everyone’s waiting! Allons-y.”

  She looked over Mary’s shoulder. Simon Vauclair of all people was standing with Mark, calling to them to get the picture done.