Everybody Lies

by Emily Cavanagh

  I’m saved from answering by Marina who sticks her head out the door. “Sorry to interrupt, but you have a phone call, Caroline. It’s about the order you placed last week. There’s a backlog on some of the titles.” She turns to Jack and smiles. “Hi, Jack. Haven’t seen you in a while. How are you?”

  Always the gentleman, Jack smiles. “Fine, thanks, Marina, and you?”

  “Good. Do you want to take it?” she asks me.

  “I’ll be right there,” I say. I think about the question Jack asked me, the one I don’t have an answer for.

  She nods and then ducks back into the warm solace of the library. Jack and I rise from the chairs; my legs are stiff from the cold.

  “Tell Connor to call me if you see him,” Jack says. He stoops to kiss my cheek and his familiar scent catches me off guard.

  I miss you, I want to say, but I don’t.

  “I will,” I say instead. “Goodnight.”

  I leave him standing in the cold darkness.

  24

  Evvy

  Despite Cyrus’s long career in the police department, I’ve only been in Great Rock’s district court for jury duty a handful of times. The wives of cops don’t usually make it on a jury, which means that the majority of my time in the courthouse has been spent in the overheated basement, waiting to be dismissed.

  Not today. Today is Ian’s arraignment, and I’m sitting in the third row, waiting for them to call his case. I’m tired after last night’s catering job, having gotten up earlier than usual to give myself time to get ready. I’ve dressed up for the occasion, as I figure I’m supposed to, and my black heels pinch my toes. Daisy sits beside me, in sneakers and jeans, and though I know I should be thankful she’s here to support me, I can’t help but be annoyed by her casual outfit. She still dresses like a teenager, so I suppose I should be glad she’s not wearing pajama bottoms and flip-flops.

  There are other cases before Ian’s, though I don’t know anyone who’s being arraigned today. Ian is scheduled for nine-thirty, but at only nine-ten his case is called, and I’m glad we arrived early. He enters with two court officers holding him firmly by the elbow. His hands are cuffed in front of him and he hasn’t shaved. He’s wearing the khakis and button-down I gave to his lawyer last night. Mark Keene is at the table beside him, a broad man with thinning hair in an expensive gray suit and turquoise tie. Before Ian sits down, he glances over his shoulder at Daisy and me. His face relaxes in relief, as if he’d thought maybe I wouldn’t come. I wish I could hold his hand or touch his cheek, offer him some small comfort. I can’t help but feel this whole thing is my fault, me and my big mouth, blabbing to Caroline about our stupid fight years earlier. I know the evidence against him is bigger than that, but I regret my own part in it.

  The judge is an older man I don’t recognize, with silver hair and glasses, and he asks Ian how he pleads. Ian’s voice is hoarse and he has to clear his throat for the words to come out.

  “Not guilty.”

  I wonder if he slept last night. I imagine him twisting and turning on a hard cot with a scratchy wool blanket, Ian, who needs two pillows to sleep, not too hard and not too soft. Goodnight, Goldilocks, I sometimes mumble at him as he tosses and turns and tries to get comfortable, and I can always count on a playful poke in the back that sometimes leads to something more.

  Though he could easily turn to catch my eye, Ian keeps his gaze on the judge. I need him to look at me, to assure me that this will all be okay, that it will end well and we can go on as we were before that girl got herself killed. Look at me, I think, trying to telepathically relate the words to Ian, please look at me. I’m so focused on getting his attention that I nearly miss when the judge denies bail.

  “What? They can’t do that. He didn’t do anything,” I say to Daisy who looks at me soberly, but she doesn’t say anything. “He didn’t do anything,” I say again, louder, and now Ian does look at me, his head snapping in my direction. His eyes hold so much—fear and sadness, but I also see his gratitude, the small solace of realizing I believe in his innocence. Mark holds up a hand in my direction but doesn’t even make eye contact. He looks at the judge instead.

  “Your Honor, my client has strong ties to the community. He lives with his longtime partner. He has a respectable job. He poses no flight risk.” I curl my toes together in the tight shoes, focusing all of my tension on this insignificant pain.

  The judge peers over the rims of his glasses. “Given the seriousness of the crime, his ties to the victim, and the allegations of domestic abuse that came up during questioning, I’m denying bail.”

  My face burns with shame and my heart thuds in my ears, all the blood swirling through my head. I avoid Daisy’s eyes, afraid to see her turning the judge’s phrase over in her mind: the allegations of domestic abuse.

  It’s not true, I want to yell. You don’t understand. I’m squeezing Daisy’s hand so tightly that she gasps beside me, pulling her slender fingers from my grip. Ian is escorted out of the courtroom, and he looks over his shoulder on his way past. He pulls in his lips, not a smile, but an acknowledgment. He looks worn down and defeated, not angry with me, but I wonder how much rage will build in the next few days and weeks, when it will finally be released, and upon whom.

  Daisy pushes me toward the door.

  25

  Daisy

  A few hours after Ian’s arraignment, I’m lying in bed beside Todd. It’s strange to me that out of all the people I could have turned to at this time, it’s Todd I picked. Obviously not my mother, who’s barely keeping her head above water, but not Connor or Caroline either, not my father or any of my other friends. It was Todd I wanted to see.

  I haven’t told him about Ian. We haven’t talked about the murder, and I don’t want to bring it into whatever this is that’s starting between us, to introduce something so ugly and cold in a place that feels so warm and gentle. Part of me wonders if he’ll judge me for it, if he’ll see something dirty in me simply through my connection to Ian. I know I will have to tell Todd, soon, if things continue between us. But not today.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  “Mmhmm,” I murmur, shifting in the bed. The soft flannel sheets are a safe cocoon I never want to leave.

  “Rough day?”

  I nod, my mind flashing back to the morning in court. My mother’s ashen face when the judge denied Ian bail. The way she looked when the judge mentioned domestic abuse. Ian and I have always gotten along well, but I feel sick at the thought that something could have been going on in our house that I was so oblivious to. Six years they’ve been together. What kind of damage can a person do in six years?

  After the arraignment, she handed me the keys to her car without speaking and I drove us home. She sat down at the counter and laid her head in her arms. I made her toast and tea without speaking, our roles reversing as I watched her begin to unravel. When Serena died, it was a swift and sudden decline, her legs knocked out from under her as she landed swiftly on the hard ground. This is slower, less dramatic, but I wonder if the end result will be the same.

  She picked at the toast and took a few sips of the tea, then mumbled that she was going to lie down. When Serena died, my mother had no business to take care of, and she pawned me off on Caroline and Jack. How long until Petunia’s buckles under the weight of her despair?

  I checked on her a half-hour later, and she was fast asleep thanks to the open bottle of Ambien on the nightstand. I drove straight to Todd’s house, not even calling first to see if he was home. When I arrived, I was relieved his car was in the driveway of the guesthouse. He pulled me into the warm house, and suddenly it felt like everything might be okay after all. I’ve known him a few days, but he’s the only one whose presence I knew would bring comfort.

  He pulls me in closer and the stubble on his chin brushes my cheek. I don’t want to stick around and see what destruction will come next. I want to fly away from this island, rise up on golden wings and into the sky, not looking back until G
reat Rock is just a spit of land in the middle of the ocean.

  “I need to head home tomorrow.” Todd interrupts my daydream, and I tumble into reality. “I took a few extra days off, but I need to get back to work.” I nod and swallow hard. I can’t believe how close I am to crying. I roll over so he can’t see my face. “I was thinking, though. Maybe you could come with me. Hang out for a few days.”

  I sigh. “I wish I could.”

  “So come.” He squeezes my hip lightly.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve got work and classes. And my mother’s going to need me.”

  “Didn’t you say it’s your birthday this weekend?”

  Just a few weeks ago I was excited about turning twenty-one, but now it’s just another day, one that will be overshadowed by everyone else’s unhappiness.

  Todd rolls over so he can see my face. I love the way he looks, his sandy hair and blue eyes, his square jaw that makes him look so certain. “Come up on Friday. You don’t want to spend your twenty-first birthday on Great Rock. We’ll do the city for the weekend. You can take the bus, and I’ll pick you up at South Station.” He leans in to kiss me and I feel myself falling, falling, into something that feels so nice. “Come on. You know you want to,” he sing-songs.

  And I do want to. More than anything. Forget everyone else’s problems and all of the obligations that grind away at me. For once, I just want to be free.

  “I’ll try.”

  “Try hard,” he says.

  26

  Caroline

  When I pull into Evvy’s driveway the lights are all off, though her car is there. The front door is unlocked and I let myself in, wondering why Evvy still isn’t locking her front door when someone was just murdered. Then I remember that Ian is the murderer, and he’s still in jail, and he has a key to the front door anyway. The storm door slams behind me in the wind.

  “Evvy?” I call, walking through the empty downstairs. I texted her before I left work, but she didn’t respond. “Evvy, it’s me.” From where I stand at the bottom of the stairs, I see the closed door of her bedroom. I head upstairs.

  Climbing the stairs, I’m reminded of the dark and desperate months after Serena died. Though it was obviously the worst time in Evvy’s life, I realize it was also the worst of mine. I came to see Evvy every day after work. I stayed for an hour or two, long enough to get her fed or bathed, a spoonful of soup here, a cup of tea there, and while I did it without question or complaint, I dreaded every minute before my arrival and hated every moment I was there. Seeing the agony on Evvy’s face, the boundless anguish that had ravaged her, rendering her unrecognizable, was like entering hell every day. It was seeing my deepest fears realized, and then being able to walk away and return to my own life, unscathed.

  Connor and Daisy were old enough to stay home alone after school, and I know that those long afternoons together are what forged the twisted strands of their relationship, creating a bond so deeply rooted in who each of them is that they’re unsure how to function separately. Those months are also what connect Evvy and me when we might otherwise have drifted apart. There are events that are written upon the body, moments that alter and define us, even if they’re not visible to the naked eye.

  Sometimes I wonder why we’re friends. Evvy and I are different in so many ways, and at times it seems like our friendship continues out of shared history more than anything else. When I first moved to Great Rock, she took me under her wing. I didn’t know anyone other than Jack, but Evvy brought me into the fold of her friends. Back then, Evvy was the life of the party, always ready for a good time. A cluster of pretty young women followed her wherever she went, but for some reason, she always wanted me at the center of that group. Then we both had children, Daisy and Connor around the same age, and things just grew from there.

  These days it’s habit and history that binds us more than anything. She is my family now, like it or not. Beneath the brash selfishness and tendency toward self-destruction, I know at the center of Evvy is a fragile and grieving child. She lashes out at those around her when she’s upset.

  Standing outside the door, I knock tentatively. When there’s no answer, I knock again, a little harder this time, before pushing open the door. Evvy is still, the heavy pink duvet pulled over her body. Her blond hair sticks out from the covers, and she stirs beneath the blankets, rolling over to face me.

  “Hey. What are you doing here?” Her voice is blurry with sleep.

  “I wanted to check on you. I texted to say I was coming over.”

  “My phone’s downstairs.” Evvy pushes herself up in the bed. She runs a hand over her face. “I took a sleeping pill. I forgot how much those things knock me out.”

  I sit on the edge of the bed, uncomfortably aware that this is where Ian sleeps. “How did things go this morning?”

  Her face clouds. “He didn’t make bail. Given the ‘heinous nature of the crime’, bail was denied.”

  “Well, it was a heinous crime.” I don’t know why I’m agreeing, but I don’t like the way she’s so quick to dismiss this girl’s murder. Like all she cares about is how it affects her.

  “Of course it is, but Ian didn’t do it. Just because he talked to her that night doesn’t mean he killed her.”

  I’m not sure if I’m surprised by her belief that Ian’s innocent. Evvy, more than anyone, knows what Ian’s temper is like, but maybe it’s too difficult to face the fact that he’s actually a murderer too. To admit to this would be to look too closely at all the ways things with Ian could have gone so much worse.

  Evvy keeps talking. “The only reason they even arrested him in the first place is because of his ‘history of domestic abuse’.” I cringe, but she keeps going. “Yeah, they said that in court. Right in front of Daisy.” She reaches for a glass of water from the nightstand and then presses on. “I hear Connor talked to her as well, but he’s not on trial.” I open my mouth to speak, but no words come out. “Don’t worry, we’re all going to keep our mouths shut so nothing happens to your precious baby.” The bitterness in her words cuts me and the hurt must be evident on my face. “Sorry,” she mumbles, taking another swallow of water.

  “Connor didn’t do anything,” I say to her now. “Who told you he was there?”

  Evvy pushes herself up in bed. She removes an elastic from her wrist and fixes her hair into a messy ponytail. “Who do you think? Cyrus.”

  I thought Cyrus knew better than to go blabbing to Evvy, but even now he’s blind when it comes to her. “Are you going to say anything?”

  “Who would I tell?” she asks.

  “I don’t know. The police?”

  “I don’t see how that would help Ian.” She doesn’t sound convincing, but I let it drop. Jack used to say I was a better friend to Evvy than she was to me, but I wonder if she’d actually betray me on purpose.

  “Have you talked to his lawyer?” I ask.

  “He says the trial won’t be for at least a few weeks. Possibly months.” She pulls her knees into her chest and rests her head against her legs. “Did Jack tell you about the phone calls?” Evvy’s voice is small, the fight drained from it.

  “Jack hasn’t told me anything.”

  “There were records of phone calls between them. I think he was sleeping with her.” When she meets my eyes, she looks so fragile.

  “Oh, Evvy,” I say softly.

  “She’s practically Daisy’s age. I just can’t believe it.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I say, because there’s nothing else to say. Neither of us has any answers or any cures. She pinches her lips into a semblance of a smile.

  “I’m sorry I was such a bitch. I’m just upset about Ian.”

  “I know.”

  She sits up and leans in closer. Her pale blue eyes are fixated on me, smudged with leftover mascara. “Before I fell asleep, I was thinking about Serena. Or I was thinking about me and Cyrus before. Do you think we would have divorced if Serena hadn’t die
d?”

  I blink silently, unsure what to say. Evvy never talks about Serena’s death. It is an unspoken devastation that colors every moment of her life, but one she rarely acknowledges. “I don’t know. Probably not. The kids were little and that was hard. You fought a lot, but you loved each other. Anyone could see that.”

  She nods, as if I’ve confirmed something she already knew, then lies back down in bed.

  “Do you want to get out of here?” I ask. Evvy groans, wrapping the blankets around her more tightly. “Come on. You can’t stay in bed all night. Let’s go grab some dinner.”

  “I can’t. I don’t want to see anyone. I just want to sleep.”

  “Ev, you can’t stay in bed forever. You can’t.” When she looks at me, I know we’re both thinking of the last time Evvy got into bed and didn’t come out.

  “Fine. I guess. I need to take a shower first. Where do you want to go?”

  “I don’t know. What’s open?”

  “Not much.” Restaurant choices are slim in February. In the summer there would be fifty places to choose from, but there’s only a handful open now. Even the places that stayed open for the holidays are closed.

  “Moby Dick’s? It’s that or the Blue Crab, unless you want to go to Egret.”

  I hesitate. I’m not sure if I want to see Connor, especially with Evvy, but I know he won’t come to me. “Moby Dick’s, I guess.”

  We make a plan for Evvy to pick me up in an hour, and I head home and grab Champ to take him for a quick walk. I hustle him into the back seat, intending to drive toward the dog park, but instead I find myself heading for Osprey Beach. I park the car by the sea rail. It’s dusk and the sky is inky and pink, the rocks of the jetty silhouetted against the gray ocean. Champ whimpers at my side and tugs on his leash, itching to run free. In the late fall and early spring I walk here often, before the summer season beach rules banning dogs come into effect. The beach is empty now, the wind by the ocean too sharp for even the most intrepid runners or dog walkers. Champ guides me down the steps that lead to the sand. The metal railing is freezing even through the fleece of my gloves.