Everybody Lies

by Emily Cavanagh

  “Why do I always have to be the bad guy?” he exploded. “Why is it always my job to come in and be the asshole making him do stuff he doesn’t want to do, and then you swoop in and try to protect him?”

  I digested the truth in his words, but my instinct was to retaliate. “That’s not fair. His whole life you’ve been trying to make him into something he’s not. You want him to be hard and tough, and he’s not. He’s sensitive and thoughtful, and you want him to be like you, but he isn’t. He should have gone to college.”

  “College isn’t the only way to have a good life. There are other ways to be happy.” He went to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of beer. “Besides, you don’t think there are drugs in other parts of the country? They don’t have drugs on college campuses?” He cracked the bottle open. “Give me a break, Caroline.”

  I shook my head in anger. “We wouldn’t even be having this conversation if he were away from this place.”

  “This place?” Jack shot back. “This place that’s been your home for the last twenty-something years?” He shook his head at me. “You hate it that much, do you? Or is it just me?”

  “I hate the idea that this will be all Connor does with his life. It’s a trap for kids, you know that as well as I do.” I felt my breath catch in my throat. This wasn’t the way Jack and I fought. We rarely spoke so honestly or tried to hurt each other so directly. I ran my fingers through my hair and took a deep breath. “Connor should have had more choices.”

  “Are we talking about Connor or you?” Jack held my gaze before picking up his beer from the counter. “I’m done with this,” he said and left the room. I stood for a stunned moment in the kitchen before following him into the living room. Jack was sitting on the couch watching TV.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Trying to watch the game.” Jack kept his eyes on the screen.

  “You can’t just say something like that and then leave. We need to talk about this.”

  “About what?” Jack never yelled at me, only at Connor, and despite the many years I had known my husband, his voice made me feel like a frightened child. “That Connor is doing drugs or that you have no respect for this island or me? That you always think there’s something better right around the corner and I’m keeping you from it?”

  “That’s not true. None of that’s true,” I protested.

  “Why don’t you just say it?” When he looked at me, I didn’t recognize the bitter expression in his eyes.

  “Say what?”

  “That you wish you’d never come here. You wish you didn’t stay, that we didn’t get married. That you were free.”

  “That’s not true. None of that’s true.” It wasn’t true, but it wasn’t untrue either. It was more complex than that.

  He finally looked at me. His face was flat and empty. “Caroline, go to bed. I don’t want to fight with you.”

  “Jack, we’re talking.”

  “Caroline!” His voice was so loud that I flinched. The anger pulsed through his body, and I wanted to reach for him, to press a hand to his chest to still the pounding of his heart, but I thought he might push me away. “Just go to bed!”

  I stared at him for another moment, my own heart fluttering in my chest. I couldn’t remember Jack ever yelling at me like that before, and I wasn’t sure what exactly it was that had gotten us here so quickly. Without another word, I climbed the stairs to our bedroom. Jack slept on the couch for the first time that night.

  I’m thinking about this now, as I stand in Connor’s doorway, thinking about going through his things, about the last time Jack did this and what it unleashed. I linger for another moment before stepping back onto the landing and retreating downstairs.

  8

  Evvy

  Ian and I are getting ready to go for breakfast when Jack calls. His voice is businesslike when I answer.

  “Evvy, it’s Jack. Is Ian there?”

  “He is. Why?” I look to Ian who’s searching for his keys. I point to where they lie on the kitchen counter.

  “I need to speak with him.” Jack’s voice is polite and formal. He doesn’t ask how I am, and I don’t ask what the hell he’s doing sleeping at the Feldmans’.

  “We were just going out,” I say instead.

  “I need to speak to him. Why don’t you just put him on the phone.” His voice is firm. I want to hang up the phone, but though I’ve known him my whole life, he’s still the chief of police. I hand the phone to Ian. He’s only on for a minute, just a series of okays, yeahs, and all rights.

  “What now?” I ask when he hangs up.

  “They want me to come back down to the station.” He squeezes the keys in his fist. His face has gone pale, and I realize he’s nervous.

  “Why? You had nothing to do with this.”

  “Relax, Ev, it’s okay.” He pulls on his coat, the heavy brown barn jacket I bought him for Christmas last year. “I’ll be back soon. I’ll pick up some croissants on the way home.” He kisses my cheek. “Put on another pot of coffee. I’m sure it won’t be long.”

  He’s gone for two hours, and when he returns, there are no croissants. He’s empty-handed, his face dark.

  “What did you tell them?” he asks, before he’s even closed the front door.

  “What? What do you mean?” Cold air pours in from outside. It’s supposed to snow later today.

  “They knew.” He looks at me meaningfully. Even before he says it, I already know. My whole body goes cold.

  “About what?” I ask anyway.

  “About the night we went to Joe and Christine’s. You told Caroline, didn’t you? You promised you wouldn’t.” He’s staring at me with an expression of profound hurt, and I feel terrible, though I also know I’m not the one who should be feeling guilty.

  “Ian, she dragged it out of me. It was a long time ago. I’m so sorry.” I go to him and reach for his hands. He pulls them away, slamming the front door shut.

  “They think I had something to do with it, Evvy. They’re trying to make me out to be violent. Some witness saw me leave at the same time as that girl.” His eyes are wild and I can see he’s worried.

  “Did you?” I ask.

  “I might have left around the same time, but I didn’t leave with her. I told you. I talked with her for a few minutes at the bar. That’s all.”

  “What were you talking about?” I ask.

  “Nothing!” he explodes. He pushes past me and into the kitchen. “She was a pretty girl, she ordered a drink at the same time as I did, I made small talk with her for a minute at the bar. We talked about the weather.” Ian’s face is red, his whole body tense. If I were to reach for him, he’d be rigid as a statue. “Come on, Evvy, what is this? Are you questioning me now too?” He throws his coat over a chair and opens a bottle of beer, even though it’s not yet noon.

  “No, of course not. I’m sorry. You have nothing to worry about.” I go to him then, stand right in front of him where he has to look at me. “You didn’t do anything wrong. They’ll find out who did it. No one really thinks you could have done this.” These are the words he needs to hear, even if they’re not all true. I wait for him to open his arms and let me fall inside.

  “Why did you tell Caroline?” he asks, and he looks wounded, not angry.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” I say, and it’s true.

  “I need to get out of here for a little while,” Ian says, turning from me. He drains the last of his beer and picks up his coat and keys. “I’ll be back later.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Just out, Evvy, okay? I need some time to think.” He stops to grab me around the waist and gives me a quick kiss on the mouth, a reassurance, a half-forgiveness. “Don’t worry,” he says, and then he’s gone. The wind slams the door shut behind him, and I stand in the empty kitchen, thinking about that night at Joe and Christine’s almost five years ago.

  There were a lot of people there, some I knew well but hadn’t seen mu
ch of lately. Before Cyrus and I divorced, we saw this group a lot, at dinner parties with Caroline and Jack and a few other couples. Ian and I had been together for a year, and I still imagined that maybe he’d be able to slide into some of my old friendships as easily as Cyrus had. When I’d asked Ian if he wanted to go to dinner there that night, I hadn’t thought too much about whether Cyrus would be there. I’d long since learned I couldn’t spend my whole life trying to avoid him. We lived on an island; our lives were bound to intersect.

  Cyrus was there, without Gina, and somehow we ended up in the living room sitting on opposite couches. We talked. About Daisy and work, the business I had only just begun to consider. We weren’t flirting, though there was an easiness between us. I’d known Cyrus my whole life. Nearly half of it had been spent in a relationship with him.

  Ian had never been married, and he had no children of his own. He couldn’t understand the intimacy and history Cyrus and I shared, even now. I saw Ian in the kitchen, watching me with a scowl on his face. I should have gone to him then, should have left Cyrus and gotten myself another plate of food or a drink. But I didn’t. I stayed on the couch and kept talking to Cyrus.

  By the end of the evening, Ian was staggering drunk, not in any shape to drive home, and I’d already had too many glasses myself. I asked Cyrus if he could give us a lift. I should have known better.

  Ian didn’t talk the whole way home, seething in the front seat of the car beside Cyrus. I kept up a steady prattle in an attempt to avoid the awkwardness of the moment. Cyrus dropped us back at our house; his old house, the one we’d lived in together and raised our family.

  I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when Ian threw open the door.

  “What was that, Evvy?” His face was pinched tight. “You ask him to drive us home?”

  I spat the toothpaste into the basin, too stunned to be frightened. “It’s fine. You couldn’t drive home. There were at least four cops at that party. Did you want to pay for a cab?”

  “You’re supposed to be with me now. Not him.” His words were slurred.

  “You’re drunk,” I said, turning away.

  I wasn’t prepared for his hand. It leapt out of nowhere, the strength of it foreign and surprising us both. I stumbled backward and fell into the shower, crashing through the curtain, my legs buckling under the side of the tub. My head slammed against the blue tile that Cyrus and I picked out years earlier when we redid the bathroom. I lay with my body in the tub, my legs still hanging over the side. My head throbbed and my cheek was on fire. The water left over from the last shower soaked through the seat of my pants.

  “Oh God,” Ian said. Suddenly he was on the floor beside me, pulling me up, carrying me out of the tub and propping me up on the bath rug. “I’m so sorry, love. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t… I didn’t realize. I’m sorry, I’m drunk. I’m so sorry. Oh God, you’re bleeding. Are you okay? Does it hurt? I didn’t mean to do that. It just happened. Please. I’m sorry. Do you need some ice? Let’s get you some ice. Your head. Oh, there’s blood. Just stay there. Stay there and I’ll get some ice.” His words poured forth, an endless string of shock and apologies.

  I lay on the nubby bathroom mat, too stunned to do anything other than wait for him. He came back with an ice pack wrapped in a dishtowel and then helped me to the couch. I rested my head in his lap while he held the ice to my cheek.

  I told Daisy and anyone else who asked that I’d fallen on a patch of ice in the driveway. Caroline was the only one who openly doubted the story. So desperate was I to hide it, but I needed to tell someone too. I downplayed it as much as possible and made her promise not to tell Jack. In the weeks after it happened, she tried to get me to talk, but I shut her down every time. He was drunk. It was an accident. It would never happen again.

  9

  Daisy

  No one ever actually says heroin.

  It isn’t a word that Connor would use in a conversation with me. It would be like yelling fire in the middle of a crowded auditorium. Or staring directly at the sun. If you say it aloud, it suddenly becomes real. Look away and you can pretend you don’t know.

  But that doesn’t mean I don’t know.

  It’s nearly eleven and I’m just getting ready for bed when he sends me a text.

  Quick drink?

  Okay, I write back. Where?

  A bar’s not an option, not for me at least. Connor turned twenty-one last summer, but my birthday’s not till the end of next week. A fake ID might work for the summer kids but not for us locals. And no one wants to get busted for serving a cop’s kid.

  My place, he replies. Pick me up at work in ten.

  We haven’t hung out in a while, just the two of us. He saves the nights for his friends, tucking me into the clean hours of daylight—a cup of coffee here, a ride there. My mother and Ian are already in bed, so I’m quiet when I leave the house, backing my car up slowly to avoid the dirty banks of snow that line the driveway.

  Connor is already waiting outside of Moby Dick’s, holding a bottle of something in a brown paper bag.

  “Hey,” he says after he’s jumped in the car. He blows on his hands to warm them.

  “Busy night?”

  “Nah, slow as hell. February, man,” he says, shaking his head.

  I drive the few minutes to his apartment, hoping Keith won’t be there. When I park on Main Street, I’m relieved to see that the lights are all off. Keith is either out or asleep. We walk single-file up the narrow steps of the building and Connor unlocks the door. The place is a mess, dirty glasses and dishes littering every surface of the living room. He grabs two cups from the kitchen, and I follow him into his bedroom.

  The room still has the same stale smell as when I was here the other day, but somehow with Connor, it doesn’t seem as bad. We sit on the rumpled bed, our backs against the wall, and Connor withdraws a bottle from the bag.

  “Whiskey?” I ask, annoyed. “You couldn’t have bought me something else?”

  He laughs and pulls out two nips of Baileys. “For you. You big baby.”

  I elbow him and pour one of the bottles into my cup. Though I’m looking forward to turning twenty-one, I don’t drink that often. When I do, I like my drinks sweet and easy going down.

  We talk, about nothing in particular. Connor makes me laugh with tales from the kitchen at Moby Dick’s, and I complain about working for my mother. Nothing much, just ordinary conversation, but it’s nice. I’ve missed him.

  “Have you heard anything more about the girl they found on the beach?” I ask. It’s all anyone can talk about. Great Rock isn’t a place where people get murdered. It’s horrible, but somehow people want to talk about it too.

  Connor shifts on the bed and his face darkens. “No. It’s messed up, though.”

  “I know, she was over for the winter festival, but do you think someone from the island could have done it?” I ask. I realize I’ve been assuming all along that it was someone from off-island, and it only occurs to me now that I may be wrong.

  “I don’t know, I doubt it. It was probably some drunk tourist. That’s what people are saying online,” Connor says. I’ve heard this too, but I think it’s mostly what people want to believe rather than based on any actual information. Easier to think that a murderer came to the island for a night rather than that one was already living here.

  “Has your dad said anything?”

  Connor drains the last of his whiskey and then pours some more. “You know he doesn’t talk about stuff like that with me. I haven’t seen him in a while. He and my mother are both pretending they’re still living together.”

  “Wait, what?” I twist the top off the second bottle of Baileys and pour it in the glass, feeling the slow slipping effects of the alcohol. “Your parents aren’t living together? Since when?”

  “A month? Maybe more?” He lets out a brusque laugh. “Not that either of them have actually told me.”

  “God, I’m sorry, Con. I didn’t know.” I sip my sweet dri
nk and wait for him to say more. He just stares into the bottom of his glass.

  I lived with Caroline, Jack and Connor for several months when I was eleven, the year that my little sister Serena died in a car crash, the year my mother went crazy. For six months I slept in their spare bedroom, and though Connor and I had been close before having grown up together, our relationship changed during that time. All those nights I snuck into his bedroom and he held me while I cried, all those afternoons he listened to me rail against my mother for falling apart when I most needed her. It changed us. We grew up during those months, and by the time I returned home, our relationship would never be the same.

  “I never would have expected your parents to split up. Do you think they’ll get back together?”

  “How the hell should I know?” I flinch, stung by the harshness of his tone. “Sorry,” he says more softly. “It’s just messed up. The whole thing.” He reaches for my hand and runs his thumb slowly along the top of each finger, outlining my entire hand. Then he leans in and kisses me.

  Kissing Connor is like breathing. It’s somehow essential to my survival. I pull him closer and want to bury my body inside his, so relieved to finally have him here.

  It isn’t a good idea. We’ve known each other too long. Over the years we’ve tried it all—friendship, sex, the whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing. We can’t seem to get it right, but we can’t seem to stop either. I wish I had the willpower to end it, because I know how it will go—awkwardness, followed by me feeling hurt, a few days of not talking, and then back to friends. Until the cycle starts all over again.

  It doesn’t matter though. Between the alcohol and Connor’s mouth on my skin, I’m powerless, and there’s nothing to do but give in to him.

  Until he takes off his shirt, and I finally open my eyes.

  His arms are freckled with red-gray sores, a few healed, others fresh. There aren’t that many of them, probably three or four on each arm. But my body goes cold, and my stomach drops to the floor like a runaway elevator. Connor doesn’t notice, and he keeps kissing me as his hand works its way under my bra.