Lisette had only met her aunt and uncle a handful of times. We did not do summer vacations or Christmas visits. In the way of little kids, she hadn’t been curious about her aunt and uncle, who to her were distant adults, ancient, another species. But two years ago she’d seen one of Dodie’s shampoo commercials, which was inescapable on TV at the time. She’d watched those commercials in fascination, going silent whenever one of them came on duringThe Young and the Restless.
She’d asked me questions about Dodie. Where did she live? Wasshe married? Was she a runway model like Cindy Crawford? Was she rich? Was she really that pretty? Was she in magazines?
Clay, of course, had discouraged her. He was against Lisette having anything to do with my side of the family, and Lisette’s questions about Dodie probably gave him nightmares of our daughter thinking she’d become a model. He’d told her that her aunt and uncle weren’t interested in her, and Lisette’s questions had gone quiet after that. I couldn’t argue otherwise with any honesty, and even if I believed that Lisette should be around either of my siblings, there was nothing I could do about it. It was part of the infuriating helplessness of not having custody.
“They’re here.” I answered her question, trying to calculate how much to say. If I told her about ghosts, about aliens, about dead childhood friends and dead suicidal boys whispering in my ear at the hospital, I would never be allowed to talk to Lisette again. “He was their little brother, too. We all want to know what happened to him. So we came here to look for ourselves and find out.”
“Like, investigating? What exactly are you doing?”
“We’re going through the house. Comparing our memories of what happened. I’ve made some inquiries in town.” I made it sound routine, when in fact I’d passed out at the storage rental place and Bradley Pine had had to carry me out of the hospital like a sack of grain. So much for honesty.
“Have you seen him?” Lisette asked. “Ben?”
I sagged against the kitchen wall, my hand sweaty on the phone. Lisette knew I had been in the hospital. She knew it was because I saw things that weren’t there, things that I claimed were ghosts. She had learned all of this from Clay, not from me. I never talked to my daughter about the people I saw. I never wanted her to know how crazy her mother was, how ashamed I felt. The shame weighed me down, but I was so used to the drag of it that I hardly noticed it anymore.
My daughter had never asked me about it. Not only was she asking now, she sounded as if she might believe me.
“No,” I replied, the honesty a shield this time. “I haven’t seen him.” Despite everything, I didn’t want to be the crazy woman in Lisette’s eyes, the mental patient. Just this once, couldn’t I be normal? For a few minutes? “It’s nothing like that, Lisette. It’s simply that we never got an answer, and now we’ve decided to look for one.” I paused, then added, “Please don’t tell your father any of this. I told him that this was a family visit, that’s all.”
“Dad doesn’t know? About Ben?”
That was my marriage to Clay, right there. I had never told my own husband about the death of my little brother. “No, and there’s no reason for him to know now. I have to be here for a little while, do this one thing, and then I’ll be back. If you tell him too much, he won’t let me talk to you anymore.”
Lisette seemed to think this over. “I think you should find whoever killed Ben, then get them arrested,” she concluded. “Maybe Uncle Vail can beat him up.”
“Okay,” I said. “Maybe. I’ll be back as soon as I can. I miss you.”
Annoyance now. “Jeez, Mom.”
“I know, I know. I’ll call. Every night, if you want.”
“Noteverynight.”
“Every other night, then.” I really did miss her. I wanted to see her face, even if it was in its usual affected sneer, even if she was sulking or rolling her eyes. I wanted to listen to her talk about anything at all. I wanted to hear her careless, thumping footsteps in the house and the rattling in the kitchen as she rifled through the fridge. I wanted her clothes dumped on top of the washing machine and her backpack dropped in the hall. I wanted all of it. There hadn’t been much good in my life, and Lisette was a whiny bitch, but she wasmywhiny bitch, my surly, curled-lip princess who flitted from sourness to white-hot rage and back again. I didn’t just love Lisette, Iknewher.And I knew more than anyone that she had every right to be angry. I hoped she banked that anger, stoked it carefully, and kept it for life.
After I hung up the phone, I stood in the kitchen, in the silence. It was late, the darkness outside the window deep and seamless, as if we were in space. Either Dodie or Vail had left a lamp on in the living room, and another light reflected down the stairs from the upstairs hall. There was a silent agreement among the three of us not to sleep with the lights out.
A closet door opened and shut upstairs with a squeak. A drawer shut in Dodie’s bedroom. Vail’s footsteps—even in socks, he couldn’t walk quietly—sounded in his bedroom. Then a creak as his childhood bed protested as he got in. A thump from Dodie’s room, probably her dropping something off the dresser.
And then, half a second later, like an echo of the other sounds, there came the staccato rap of knuckles from high up in the attic.Knock, knock, knock.
My breath stopped in my throat. Upstairs, Dodie and Vail went instantly silent.
The silence stretched on, beating like a heart.
“Good night, Ben,” I whispered softly, then turned toward the stairs to go to bed.
29
Dodie
The car came up the driveway just after eleven the next morning. Violet had gone to the grocery store. Vail and I were bickering as we emptied the ancient museum that was the kitchen cupboards, deciding what to keep and what to trash. So far, every argument had ended in trash. Vail had filled two garbage bags and dumped them in the backyard.
“This kitchen needs new wallpaper,” I said, fixing my ponytail and glaring at the awful paper we’d had to look at growing up, a pattern of twined flowers and fussy stripes that some housewife thought was pretty back in the forties.
“Yeah,” Vail said. His back was to me as he stared at the top shelf over the sink, where we’d found decades-old rags and a bar of soap furry with dust. He was wearing an old gray T-shirt and hadn’t shaved again this morning. He put his hands on his hips and tilted back, peering.
“It’s ugly,” I said.
