He smiles wanly. “I trust you. You’ve done dozens of cases with my help, but you never really needed me.”
“Bullshit,” I say. “Why aren’t you pestering me about leaving my location on, and wearing AirTags as earrings, and committing the license plate of every car behind me to memory?”
He doesn’t answer right away, and I’m sorry I asked, because I have a pretty good guess at what he’s about to say.
“Margaux, the reason I picked this one is because it’s big. You could retire off of it.”
“I thought we don’t take pay—”
“I’m not talking about money, and you know it,” he says firmly. “I mean this is the one that will finally even the score and give you peace. If you can nail this guy, avenge the woman he’s likely killed,andget his sister the payout she deserves, you can let go of what we did. You can see that you are a good person. You can stop trying to prove it to yourself, and go enjoy your life.”
The words are too much, and I can’t process them. I feel that steel wall coming up around my heart, preventing me from feeling what it’s so desperate for me to feel. But the questions still filter through: What if it’s not enough? What if I can’t be redeemed?
But all I say is, “Where is this coming from?”
“I know you still feel guilty about that night with the fire,” he says, breaking our cardinal rule. “I replay all of the accusations too. And the trial. The way they separated us.”
It’s amazing how words cause us to time travel. One moment I’m in the hospital with my brother, and the next I’m a small child in a courtroom, as a lawyer in a three-piecesuit explains in detail that my brother and I deserve to be in jail for the rest of our lives for what we’ve done.
The night of the fire, our childhoods died along with our parents. Our innocence. Our dreams.
The truth is that I wouldn’t have turned to petty crimes. I wouldn’t have been so angry at the world. I wouldn’t have been so willing to throw my shot at happiness away. I really would be like the other parents at Collette’s school, snipping at my husband about leaving his towel on the floor or flirting with a waitress. Maybe I would be an interior decorator full-time and enjoy it. Maybe I would have more children, not bound by the paralyzing fear that they’ll end up broken like me.
I’ve never allowed myself to want those things. I’ve looked on from the outside, into the pretty, well-lit windows of the neighbors’ houses, past their manicured lawns and flower beds. I’ve told myself they’re all unhappy. Their lives are shallow. Their marriages are falling apart. Their kids are driving them crazy.
I have to pity and resent them. I have to stereotype their wealth, beauty, and personas. It’s the only way I can bear being on the outside. It’s the only way I can live without regret.
“This is it for me, kiddo,” he says, using the nickname he’s had for me all my life. “I’m not going to be here for much longer, and this is the only way I can think to make sure that you’ll be okay.”
Don’t you do it, don’t you cry.I scoff. “You’ll live to be a hundred just out of spite,” I say. “And besides, I’m not quitting.”
“It was always inevitable we’d have to stop somewhere,”he says. “You may not want to stop now, but what about when Collette is old enough to ask real questions? Do you really expect to sneak out of the nursing home to chase a lead when you’re eighty years old?”
He says that like it’s a bad thing.
“You sound like Waylen,” I say, crossing my arms.
“I’ve never liked him,” my brother says.
“You hired him, you twit.”
“Yeah, because he’s a criminal.”
“Wasa criminal,” I correct. “And barely even that.”
Waylen was always pristine. Even now, he’s impeccably groomed. He folds his laundry before putting it into the hamper. He’s quiet as a mouse when I’m sleeping. He’s gentle and soft-spoken, a great cook.
He’s the sort of person I would have fallen in love with anyway. I know that much. If I met him at a party, or on a bus.
“You owe yourself a good life, Margaux,” he says, not taking the bait and arguing with me.
“Bit late to sound all brotherly, isn’t it?” I bite. I don’t know why I’m so angry. It’s this place, this illness that’s eroded him so much and so quickly. It’s the guilt I carry for not knowing sooner, and the anger that he hid it from me so well.
“You want me to retire so that I can go be a housewife, all of a sudden,” I accuse.
He only smiles, which makes everything worse. “I want you to go be Margaux,” he says.
“Who the hell is Margaux?” I ask.
