It’s a handgun, but it might have been reptilian from the way Anne holds it at arm’s length.
“Omigod,” Joy breathes.
Margo breathes something less polite.
I am so hit by the implications of a gun existing that I barely breathe at all.
But Anne does—breathes, thinks, acts in ways that suggest she has envisioned this scenario before. Securing her grip on the weapon, she rushes past us out of the shed.
“Stop!”Margo yells.
“Go back to the house, Joy,” I order and take off after Anne. The light escaping the grimy windows of the shed is absorbed in an instant by the murk, but I know the way. She has made a beeline for the beach stairs and is racing down.“No, Anne, wait!”I shout, because I know what she plans, and she shouldn’t, absolutelyshould not.
The rain has picked up again, thickening the pungent smells ofvegetation and marine life, but nothing slows her. Racing across the wet sand and down the sodden dock to its end, she hauls back, puts everything she has into a side-arm swing, and hurls the gun far out to sea.
Stumbling to a stop beside her, I watch in horror as it disappears. Given its import, it should make some sort of show before going down. But if even the smallest splash occurs, it is lost in the rain-roiled waves.
“Anne!” I protest, dismayed,“why?”
She turns on me, voice rising over sea and rain. “Whynot!I don’t want a gun around. He threatened Jack, he’ll threaten other people, he just loses it sometimes without knowing what he’s doing, and now you and Margo are here—andJoy,do you want a gun aroundher?What kind of mother are you? What kind ofawfulmother wants a gun anywherenearher child?”
“You said there was no gun, you swore it,” I charge, refusing to look back when footsteps patter from behind. I’m suddenly, powerfully livid at Anne—livid that a gun did exist, livid that it is now gone, livid that she didn’t consider anyone’s wishes but her own. Mostly, I’m livid that she doubts I’m a responsible mother. She stood up there on the bluff all but crying at the thought of raising a child alone. But everything I’ve done for Joy all these years, I’ve done alone. It was me, only me—no Bill, no Dad, no Lina, no cozy little Bay Bluff to help—and I’ve produced an incredible person, so clearly I’ve done something right.
Anne may be right. I haven’t been here for Dad. But I’m a good mother. She hasno rightto question that. And I’m a good sister, if keeping the three of us in touch is any measure. She didn’t help with that, not one bit. It has been me, all me, spending a lifetime trying to keep peace.
Well, fuck that. Birth order only goes so far. Attack me, and finally, belatedly, wholeheartedly, I attack back.
Here on the dock in the dark under a steady rain, I let go in a voice that is fierce after years of restraint. “You call Margo selfish,but you’re the selfish one, Anne. You had no right to do what you just did. It was thoughtless and uncaring. What happened that night happened toallof us. Just because we weren’t here doesn’t mean that gun didn’t shape our lives. It’s haunted us for twenty years—wasthebiggest question—and you just threw away all the answers. What in the hell were you thinking?”
Eyes dark, mouth tight, there is little sugar in her heart-shaped face. “That gun would tell us nothing.”
“How do you know? It had a story. If we’d been able to confront him with it, he might have talked. If it had a serial number, it could have been traced.”
She doesn’t blink. “Why? You want to stir up the whole sordid story again? I mean, God, Mallory, it’s not like a medical examiner can match a bullet to a body. There’sno body.”
“That’s not the point!” I shout. The ocean air blows through my increasingly wet clothes, but it’s not cold that shakes me. It’s anger. “The point is, we might have learned something. He denied having a gun that night. If we’d been able to trace this one to a later manufacture date, we’d have known for sure that he was telling the truth. If he didn’t buy it, we might have been able to find out who did. Maybe it belonged to Elizabeth. Maybe Dad tried to take it away from her and it accidentally went off. Maybe she deliberately shot herself.”
“Maybe Anne bought the gun,” Margo says from my side. The poised Chicagoan is gone. Like the rest of us, she is soaked. Joy is beside her, and while I want her back at the house, out of the rain, and away from ugliness, it’s too late to shield her. To her credit, she knows to keep her mouth shut.
Not Anne, who cries, “Are you kidding? I would never buy a gun. I don’t want totoucha gun.”
“But you knew he had one,” Margo says.
“I did not.”
“You knew it was in the shed.”
“I did not! What iswrongwith you?” She points a shaky fingerup at the bluff. “Did you not see me back there? I didn’t even know there was a loose panel! You did, Margo—and if I hid a gun there, wouldn’t I have known about the earrings—earrings Mom meant for me—earrings thatyou stole?” Perhaps remembering them now and wanting to get them, she tries to dodge past us, but we are three blocking her one, all four of us bedraggled. And I’m not done.
“It was Dad then,” I say. “Dad hid the gun there.”
“Why does itmatter? The gun is gone! He can’t use it. We’re safe. That’s one good thing about Margo being a thief—it led us to the gun—and anyway, Mallory, why should I listen to you? Put you to the test, and your true colors show. I always knew you were on her side.” Her gaze broadens. “If either of you cared for Dad, you’d know I did the best thing.”
“Just because the gun is gone doesn’t mean it didn’t exist,” Margo says.
“Itdidn’t,” Anne insists. “That gun hadnothing to dowith what happened to Elizabeth.”
“Well, wouldn’t it have been nice to prove that,” I say. I’m growing desperate, like she is an impenetrable wall getting thicker by the minute. “I have tried so hard, Anne—have tried to keep things calm between us—and all you can think about is who’s on whose side? What about the common good? What about working as a threesome? What about consulting each other and reaching a consensus? Did it not occur to you thatwemight have thoughts about disposing of the gun? Did you not think to ask?”
