Fatality (12 page)

“I ordered him to give me a second opinion of what’s going on. Mom and Dad are ballistic and you won’t come to the phone. What are you going to give me now—the Aunt Sheila treatment?”

Rose stared at him.

“Come on,” said Tabor impatiently. “You haven’t talked to Aunt Sheila in years. You won’t even write her thank-you notes if she remembers presents. Last time even
I
was embarrassed and I thanked her for your Christmas present in
my
letter.”

How strange and terrible was memory. It cascaded down in a waterfall of its own. Drops of thought, rainbows of understanding, splashes of depth.

The memory of Aunt Sheila and Mom talking blended with the memory of Mr. Lofft’s book tape and Anjelica’s movie tape and the police then and the police now asking the same questions. Rose might have been sitting on the leather reclining seat in the big brown Navigator, listening to Anjelica open the bag of chips, looking out the window, and seeing nothing but the interior of her soul.

“Let’s help Mom set the table,” she said, getting up before Tabor could stop her. She stepped inside and tripped over his luggage just behind the door. Tabor traveled with more possessions than a Victorian explorer.

Rose had taken Tabor’s duffel bag that weekend to go to Anjelica’s. Aunt Sheila had been genuinely annoyed. “Oh, don’t take that tatty old thing. It stinks of sweaty sneakers. Here. Use my suitcase. See how pretty it is, with flowers on the fabric?” Rose had refused the loan of the suitcase.

“That smells wonderful, Mom,” said Rose, entering the kitchen. “What’s the spice?” She didn’t listen to the answer. She was busy avoiding her father’s look. He knew perfectly well she didn’t care what the spice was.

Dinner was delightful. Rose even tried the okra. It was as squishy and tasteless as she remembered. The shrimp, chicken, and rice, however, were creamy and thick and wonderful.

Tabor talked about himself, and in Lymond fashion had wonderful stories about college and friends and class, failure and success.

All Lymonds talked. Their specialty was family stories. Lymond ancestors ran away from home, worked in a coal mine, fished for cod, died at sea, and specialized in losing lots of money. When Rose was little, though, she loved her mother’s stories best, because Mom’s stories were always about Rose. Mom used to take out one of the old calendars she saved each year, flip to any page, and start talking. “Look, Rosie!” she’d say. “When you were five, you had a December ballet program.

Look at this little note. I was responsible for bringing food to the reception.”

“Tell me what I did,” Rose would demand.

“You were a snowflake. You snowed so beautifully. I was so proud. All your grandparents and greats were there. Let’s find the right album and look at your snow photographs.”

O, family, thought Rose. I cannot be the one to damage the beauty of our family.

She held herself far away from the knowledge of who had really damaged the beauty of the family.

Mom set out an ice cream cake, Tabor’s favorite dessert but not Rose’s. Then Mom sliced through the frozen cake, saying in the cheery voice of one giving a toddler extra long tub time with a new yellow ducky, “You know what let’s do now? Let’s reconstruct that weekend.”

Rose left the table. “I’ll be washing my hair.”

“You’re staying here,” said her mother sharply.

“I’ve told you a hundred times, I have nothing to say.

“Stay here, Rose,” said her father. “We have to work this through. Your mother and Tabor and I are part of this nightmare whether we want to be or not.”

You’re
not
part of it, thought Rose. Whether you want to be or not.

She flung herself into the one chair in which she could not be touched but would be fully protected by the wide, curving wings of the upholstered arms. She pretended the protruding arms were the veiled sides of her nun’s habit and part of her silence.

Mom marched to the shelf in the TV room where she kept the used-up engagement calendars and the photograph albums. Most people had gone years ago to complex date books of the Filofax type or handheld computers. But the Lymond family engagement calendar still sat on the counter in the kitchen below the wall phone, next to a mug of pencils and Post-its in many colors. Written in Mom’s tiny neat hand on those calendars were the details of their lives: dentist appointments, car pool responsibilities, committee meetings, ball games. Rose knew now that there had been omissions in those entries.

“Here we go,” said Mom, finding November just where it always was, toward the end. “Sheila was here that weekend.”

“Aunt Sheila was here two weeks,” said Tabor. “I remember because I was pretty sick of her by the time that visit ended. Rose was the lucky one, getting away for a few days.”

Nobody corrected this slight on Aunt Sheila.

“We did a lot with Sheila that week,” said Mom, sounding pleased. “The new aquarium, the theater, the car races. On Friday, Rose had swim class after school, Mr. Lofft was due to get Rose at four-thirty, Tabor’s band was here to practice, and then you and I took Sheila into the city, Thomas, to see a play.”

Rose maneuvered herself upside down in the armchair so that her spine lay on the seat, her legs in their faded jeans stuck up the back, and her head hung toward the floor.

“You used to do that when you were little,” said her father affectionately. He could never hold onto his anger. “You were taking gymnastics and wanted to be famous on a balance beam. You were always twisting yourself into pretzels so you’d become flexible.”

“I don’t remember that,” said Tabor. “How come you didn’t stick with gymnastics, Rose?”

“I wasn’t flexible. Or good. I just wanted to wake up one morning and be famous.”

“If Milton Lofft comes to trial, you’ll get your wish,” said Tabor.

Rose tucked herself into a doughnut.

“Now, Saturday you had a football game, Tabor, and we sat with the Finneys.”

“We won, too,” said Tabor. Tabor never forgot his victories. Actually, he never forgot his defeats, either. Tabor was fond of thinking about his past activities.

“Saturday night your band played someplace called The Train Whistle.”

“Juice bar,” said Tabor. “It flourished for about two weekends. The thing about Saturday was Verne calls me up just before I leave for the football game to say he’s quitting because he has better things to do.” Tabor still sounded offended. “I think it’s a real testimony to my sportsmanship that I could still play a winning game and go straight from the locker room to arrange rides and a substitute bass player.”

Rose waited for them to ask about Milton Lofft and it took, by her watch, twelve more seconds.

“Tell me one thing about Milton Lofft’s,” said Tabor. “Did he really have a sixteen-car garage?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And it faced front and back, eight cars to a side, each one in its separate little garage.”

“What did you get to drive?”

“I didn’t.”

“You are being so annoying,” said Tabor. “This can’t have anything to do with anything. You can at least describe the cars.”

“No, I can’t, because we didn’t drive after all, even though Anjelica said we would. It was just some empty boast of hers.”

“What did you do?”

All the Loffts really did was watch television. Like so many driven people, Mr. Lofft had to be up to speed on every event in the world, the nation, the state, and the region. The house thrummed with the voices of reporters.

“We just ran from one activity to another,” said Rose, upside down. “We were busy, you know, the way little kids are.”

This was largely untrue. They had been seventh graders. Rose had left behind her little-kid behavior, and Anjelica perhaps never possessed it. She and Anjelica just walked around in an odd, slow silence, as if Anjelica were wishing she had invited somebody else.

“Did Milton Lofft mention the murder?” asked Tabor. “What was he wearing? Was it bloodstained?”

Rose felt a sudden surge of wrath toward her brother. All her life, he had assigned her to fetch. Rose, get me my soccer ball. Rose, bring me my laptop. Rose, I’m taking your cell phone. Rose, I’ll have a Coke with crushed ice, not ice cubes. Hurry up, Rose.

And she had obeyed, loving every moment of his attention—even every moment of his lack of attention. And for what? So he could gang up against her when the whole reason for this was—

Rose righted herself. Even though ice cream cake was Tabor’s idea of dessert and not hers, she might have some. “Tabor, back when it happened, I told everybody I didn’t see anything. Which I didn’t. And by now, it’s so blank of a memory that I can’t even truthfully say that I didn’t see anything. I can only say I’ve forgotten.”

There was silence.

“Sugarplum,” said her father softly, “I could believe that if you hadn’t destroyed the diary for all the days surrounding the murder.”

“That’s just coincidence,” said Rose, and could have ripped her tongue out.

Her brother stared.

Her mother frowned, eyes white and glassy.

Her father went very still. “With what other event,” he said carefully, “does the murder coincide?”

Why could she not remember a simple rule like silence?

Why couldn’t it be bedtime?

Or better yet, next year?

“I can’t understand why you have to analyze every syllable,” she said hotly. “It’s against the law to forget things?”

“Rose!” shouted her mother. “There is no reason for you to protect Milton Lofft! You start talking to us and you start
now.”

Rose hacked off a huge piece of cake, knew she couldn’t swallow it, and set it back down.

“I assume,” said her father, “that you really did witness the murder. So not only did you spend a weekend with a murderer, but you somehow cherish the experience and believe it should be protected. Rose, that is twisted and terrifying. I’m calling Ellen Klein and asking her to see you.”

“Ellen Klein! Dad, that’s Chrissie’s mother! I cannot go see Ellen Klein. Anyway, she specializes in anorexia and self-mutilation. What will people think? If you send me to Mrs. Klein, I can’t say anything to her, either,
because there isn’t anything to say.”

Sunday they went to church.

Tabor had no use for church, but for once he didn’t say so, and Rose was relieved, because there was enough confrontation already.

The four Lymonds filled a pew, but none of their relatives were there. Lymonds had strong theological beliefs, so the Episcopalian Lymonds were irked by the Baptist Lymonds, and the Presbyterian Lymonds held the Unitarian Lymonds in low regard. In a few hours, however, Nannie from her church, Mopsy and Popsy from theirs, Aunt Laura and her family, Uncle Matt and his family, the Wickham cousins and their steps would gather for Sunday brunch. The adults liked to compare sermons—unfavorably—and share gossip, of which they had a great deal, since among them, they saw everybody who attended any church at all.

Rose dreaded brunch.
She
was the gossip.

Any relative who had decided to sleep late, skip church, and forget brunch had changed his plans. Getting Rose’s story would be the highlight of the week.

Her father’s sweet tenor rang out on the first hymn and Tabor’s baritone took the bottom line. “It’s the only good thing about church,” he whispered to his sister. “Four-part harmony.”

It was certainly the only kind of harmony in Rose’s family right now.

During the prayer of confession, Rose looked at her parents. Dad, of course, had a furrowed brow and cradled his head in his hands, probably agonizing about where he went wrong with Rose. Mom was serene, as though she had nothing on her conscience. This had always been the case. Whatever was said in prayer and sermon, Mom floated through, never considering that it might apply to her.

After church, they all got in the car and Mom said brightly, “I thought we’d go to that new Vietnamese restaurant. How does that sound?”

It sounded awful. Rose detested ethnic food. But she said nothing. She braced herself for the younger cousins—Caitlin, Oliver, Joel—who would pester her for details of cop cars and jails. For the older cousins—Grace, Morgan, Michael—who would not know how to treat her. For the aunts and uncles, trying to support Mom and Dad, but visibly glad their kids weren’t behaving like Rose. For her grandparents, who would find Rose’s every move appalling. For Nannie, who even more than Ming believed she should not get the silent treatment.

Inside the restaurant Rose felt blind. She couldn’t see a single person she knew, let alone the Lymond hordes.

“Table for four?” asked the maître d’.

“Thank you,” said her father, following him to a small booth in the back.

“Four?” said Rose, bewildered.

Her mother said, “It seemed easier, Rose.”

The silver was wrapped in a heavy, starched pink napkin. Rose had difficulty extracting it without dropping it to the floor. She could hardly tell the fork from the spoon. She could hardly distinguish which end was the handle.

They’re ashamed of me, she thought.

The secret, which had been inside her, swelled up and flourished, like some terrible external cancer.

Tabor was exhausted from the plane ride, the time changes, and the fact that he had not slept Saturday night, for worrying about what Rose knew. He could not remember ever being glad to attend church. But this morning, he had a feeling of safety. Whether it was being surrounded by family or the impossibility of further talk on dangerous subjects, church seemed truly to be a sanctuary.

The restaurant, however, was going to be torture. It certainly had not been chosen with Rose in mind, since her idea of good food was still a peanut butter sandwich.

In a dose of brotherly love that surprised him, Tabor took over the conversation. He talked easily, embroidering one story, enlarging on another, falsifying a third. His eyes came frequently to rest on his silent sister.

He tried to remember Rose four Novembers ago, but all that came to mind was how he despised her silly friends twittering like birds at a feeder over him and his friends. He couldn’t remember what Rose looked like at twelve, just that he had not wanted her around. That had been the year of being musical. All he lived for that year was applause. He ached to impress other musicians, to impress a crowd, to impress a girl. He had not really noticed the girl who was his own sister.