The Lies We Told (16 page)

“Don’t come,” she said to Brent. “You just said it’s still bad there, so stay. I’m going to focus on my work here. There’s so much to do.”

He hesitated. “I think I should be with you,” he said.

“I’m okay. Adam’s here. They just moved us into a trailer.”

“How’s he doing?”

She saw Adam a few yards away from her at the table. He held the phone to his ear with one hand and rubbed his forehead with the other. His mouth moved, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying. She knew he felt the same pain and fear and love that she felt. It was a bond Brent would never be able to share.

“He’s hanging in there,” she said.

Brent was slow to respond again. “You sound…I don’t know. Not like yourself.”

“I don’t
feel
like myself.” She didn’t. For the first time in her adult life, she felt impotent. Even after her parents died, she’d been able to take control despite the terror and the guilt. She’d had to.

“What can I do?” Brent asked.

“Keep thinking she’s okay,” she said.

Once more, he hesitated. “Rebecca…do you really think—”

“Yes!” she said sharply.

“I wish I was there with you right now,” he said. “I wish I could hold you.”

It wasn’t like Brent to speak so lovingly, and she knew what most women would say. What she
should
say:
I wish you could, too
. That would be a lie, though. She was many things, but a liar was not one of them.

“I know,” she said. “Thank you.”

“I love you,” he said.

“You, too,” she said, because she did. Not the way he wanted. Not the way she wished she could. But she did love him.

Closing her phone, she sat on the bed a while longer, watching Adam. He still rested his head wearily on one hand. She could hear his voice now, flat and tired. Listening to him, she felt her body sink into the thin mattress. Grief could absolutely paralyze you, she thought, and she refused to be paralyzed.

She needed a run. Just a quick one before she checked out the school. Getting to her feet, she could hardly wait for the oblivion the track would offer her. She changed into her shorts in the coffinlike bathroom, then jotted the word
track
on the pizza box in front of Adam. He nodded without moving the phone from his ear.

She had the track to herself. At the north end, she stretched for a long time, loosening her muscles, clearing her head. She wouldn’t let in a single thought, nothing more than the mantra of her footfalls on the surface of the track. She began running, her pace steady and soothing.
Left, right, left, right.
She listened to the soft padding of her feet against the ground, and soon her breathing settled into an easy rhythm.

She circled the south end of the track and saw the bleachers to her right. Three people sat in the midsection, and she blinked, because she was certain no one had been there a moment earlier. Yet there they were, as familiar as if she’d seen them the day before. Husband. Wife. Daughter. She wouldn’t look at them. She kept her eyes straight ahead.
Left, right, left, right.
She wouldn’t look.

Run, Becca, run!
the woman shouted.

Always her mother cheering her on, while Daddy and Maya sat with their noses buried in books, rarely—if ever—glancing in her direction.

At least they come to your meets,
her mother’d said when she complained.
Not everyone’s whole family comes.

Daddy’d sit with his arm around Maya, reading over her shoulder, pointing to something on the page. Helping her with her homework, maybe. Rebecca didn’t know. All she knew was that he never looked up. No matter how fast she ran. No matter if she
won
. Rebecca could win a thousand trophies and they couldn’t compete with a single one of Maya’s A’s.

She was at the north end of the track now and she looked over her shoulder at the bleachers. Empty.

“No one was there to begin with, you idiot,” she said out loud. She slowed her pace, the muscles in her legs quivering, her stomach tight around the one bite of pizza she’d eaten. She
thought of the ghosts on the bleachers.
My whole family may be gone now,
she thought suddenly.
I have no one.

A shudder of grief coursed through her. She stopped running altogether, bending over to catch her breath, her hands on her knees, knowing that she’d spent too much time resenting Maya and not enough time loving her, and wishing for a second chance.

I
OPENED MY EYES TO SEE A TINY
A
FRICAN
-A
MERICAN WOMAN
standing in the doorway of the living room. I must have fallen asleep sitting in the cockeyed chair, and now I felt as if I were dreaming. Squinting my eyes, I lifted my head from the back of the chair.

“Well, lookit you!” the woman said. “You’re alive. I was afeared for a second you done met the reaper, way you was sittin’ there, dead to the world.”

I sat up straighter, wincing at the pain in my rib cage and the stiffness in my lower leg. “I was pretty out of it,” I said. Through the window screen, I could hear the chickens in their coop, clucking and scratching the dirt. “Are you looking for Simmee?”

“No, sweetness, I’m lookin’ for
you
.” She limped across the room toward me. “I wanted to check that leg of your’n. Though if Simmee’s around—” she glanced toward the kitchen “—I want to git her to do them tarrit cards for me.”

Lady Alice. Nothing like I’d been picturing her. She was a teeny speck of a woman; she couldn’t have been more than
four-foot-ten. Her short gray hair was thick, and she was dressed in black pants, a black shirt with seed pearl buttons, black boots and a black shawl. It was an incongruous outfit anytime, but particularly in the warm early days of September.

“You’re Lady Alice?” I asked.

“Sure am.” The woman sat next to my legs on the ottoman, then drew my right leg onto her lap, handling it like a piece of delicate china. “Gettin’ tiresome without the electric, ain’t it?” she said, rolling my pant leg carefully up to my knee. “I brung a flashlight so I can git a good look here.” It wasn’t yet dark in the room, but she ran the beam of the flashlight up and down the long wound. The glow from the light played on her cheeks. She had to be at least sixty, but except for the deep laugh lines around her eyes, her skin was as smooth as a girl’s.

“Looks good, don’t it?” she said, more to herself than to me. “Them pretty little stitches?”

I looked down at my leg. It was still red, but definitely improving. “Yes,” I said. I wouldn’t tell her about the infection or the antibiotics. “Thank you for treating it.”

“I used to sew all the time back when my hands was good,” she said. “Made quilts for everone of my babies, and their babies, too.”

I saw that her fingers were gnarled, the knuckles inflamed. It must have hurt to run that row of delicate stitches up my shin, and I saw her handiwork in a tender new light.

“Tully told me they was other folks on that plane with you,” she said. “Sad about that girl pilot. He said it was a right mess out there.”

“I was lucky he came along when he did.” I meant it and yet I wanted even more from him. I wanted him to come up with a way to get me back to Adam and Rebecca.

“Yes, ma’am,” Lady Alice said. “That Tully, he’s a good ’un.” She rolled the pant leg down again. “Where’s he at? Out huntin’?”

“I think so.” I had no idea how long I’d slept. I looked toward the wall by the door again. One gun was still missing.

“I need to get back to the airport,” I said, as though Lady Alice might have some magical way of transporting me there that Simmee and Tully hadn’t thought of. “Tully said his boat washed away. You don’t know where I can get a boat, do you?” I nearly whispered the question in case Simmee was close by. I was remembering her “patience is a virtue” statement.

“I had one myself.” Lady Alice stood up and looked out the window, hands on her hips. “Belonged to Jackson, but once he was gone, didn’t see the point no more. Give it to my son Larry in Ruskin. Simmee always gets me what I need when she goes to town.”

“Jackson was your husband?” I asked.

The woman turned to me, a look of surprise on her face. “No, darlin’,” she said. “My
son
. My baby. They didn’t tell you ’bout him? Lost him two months ago. Tully’s the one found him, just like he found you. Only he was too late for Jackson.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” I wasn’t sure what else to say, but a silence stretched between us and I felt the need to fill it. “How old was he?”

“Twenty-two. Him and Tully was like this.” She held up two twisted fingers, as close together as she could get them. “Like brothers. Tully showed up about the same time Larry left home, and Jackson was talking ’bout leavin’ hisself. Couldn’t take bein’ cooped up with a old lady. Then Tully come and Jackson had himself a new huntin’ and fishin’ buddy. I know Tully’s takin’ it bad. Hurt him almost as bad as it hurt me,” she said.

“What happened?” I asked.

Lady Alice sighed, a huge sound coming from that tiny
body. She walked over to the plaid sofa and sat down, leaning forward with her hands on her knees. “He went fishin’, like he done nine-million-trillion times before,” she said, “and the boat got stuck in the muck over to Billings Creek. He got out to—” she made a jostling motion with her arms “—wiggle it free, an’ I reckon he slipped. Hit his head on a tree stump or rock or…don’t really matter what. Tully went lookin’ for him when he didn’t come home, but by the time he found him, it was too late. He brung him home to me over his shoulders. Cryin’. Ain’t never seen Tully cry before. More’n the sight of my own son with that big ol’ split across his forehead, I see Tully’s face when I remember that night. See them tears smudging down his cheeks.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said again.

The screen door squeaked open, and we both looked toward the kitchen.

“Do I hear Lady Alice?” Simmee smiled as she walked into the living room. God, she was a beautiful girl. The falling orange sun sent shards of light into the room, and Simmee’s hair and skin glowed so brightly that it nearly hurt my eyes to look at her.

Lady Alice stood up. “Nothin’ wrong with your ears, child.” She did her best to wrap her arms around Simmee and her belly, but her fingertips barely reached the girl’s back. “I brung this one into the world,” Lady Alice proudly announced to me, “and right soon I’ll be doing the same for her own little one.”

“Hope not too soon,” Simmee said, and the anxiety I thought I’d detected earlier was there again in her face.

“Oh, you’ll be fine, Simmee,” Lady Alice said. She looked at me. “Child worries too much. Thinks she can’t take care of a little one.”

“She’s taken very good care of me,” I said.

“See that?” Lady Alice said to Simmee. “You’re worryin’ on no account. Now, where your tarrit cards at?”

“You want another readin’ already?” Simmee asked. “Done one just last week, Lady Alice. What d’you think’s changed?”

“Don’t sass,” Lady Alice said.

“All right. You wait here while I get ’em. You mind Miss Maya bein’ here while I do the readin’?”

“’Course not.” Lady Alice smiled at me as she sat down again. “Maybe Miss Maya wants her tarrit read, too.”

No way,
I thought.

The screen door squeaked again as Simmee walked into the kitchen, and I knew Tully must be home. I felt a rush of hope. Maybe he’d come up with a plan to get me out of there.

“You git us some supper?” I heard Simmee ask him. I couldn’t hear his response, but a moment later, he walked into the living room, the gun slung over his shoulder, and suddenly the shards of light that had so enchanted me in Simmee’s face turned Tully’s eyes an icy blue. I looked away quickly, even though I knew I was imagining the ice in his eyes. The day after the shooting in the Brazilian restaurant, I’d been shocked to learn that the killer’s eyes had been
brown,
not the blue I could have sworn I’d seen when he raised the gun.

“How’s our patient doin’?” Tully asked. He moved out of the light and I could look at him again—at his perfectly normal, pretty blue eyes. He was grinning. “How d’you like rabbit, Miss Maya?” He seemed to take up more of the space and air in the room than the three of us women put together.

“I’ve never had it,” I admitted.

“Oh, girl, you in for a treat!” Lady Alice slapped her knee.

Tully walked across the room, slipped the gun from his shoulder and leaned it against the wall next to the other one. There was a smear of something dark on his cheek.
Blood,
I thought.

“She’s right,” he said to me, then turned to Lady Alice. “And I got plenty, Lady Alice, so don’t think you’re gettin’ out of here without havin’ supper with us.”

“I’m fine at home.” Lady Alice dismissed him with a wave of her hand.

“You’re a stubborn ol’ woman,” Tully said, but his voice was filled with affection.

Lady Alice looked at me across the room. “This boy’s so good to me,” she said.

I was frustrated with the banter. They were treating me like a houseguest instead of someone desperate to go home.

“Tully?” I examined his face for a sign that he’d given my plight even the tiniest bit of thought. “I still need to figure out how to get back to the Wilmington airport,” I said. “Have you thought of any options? I asked Simmee if it was possible to wade across to the mainland, but—”

“Only if you want to drown yourself.” Lady Alice cut me off with a laugh.

Tully sat down on the sofa and leaned toward me, elbows resting on his knees. “I think that strip of land connectin’ us to the mainland might be gone for good this time, Miss Maya,” he said. “Happens, you know. Look at them barrier islands along the coast, how new inlets slice straight through ’em after a good storm. I think Last Run might be a permanent island itself, now.” He sat back. “Ain’t no big deal, though. Larry’ll come check on Lady Alice here eventually, and she’ll tell him ’bout you and next thing you know, you’ll be back with your kin.”

“When do you think he’ll come, Lady Alice?” I asked.

“Oh, he’ll come when the spirit moves him,” she said. “No tellin’ when that’ll be.”

So would he come in a week? A month? I seemed to be the only person concerned that we were cut off from the rest of
the world without power. “What will you do if Last Run
has
turned into an island?” I asked Tully.

He looked at me as though he didn’t understand my question. “Just keep on like we are now,” he said. “No difference, really. We ain’t got no car to begin with. We just need to get us another boat.” He smiled at me, that perfectly symmetrical, handsome-as-all-get-out smile, as he got to his feet. “You don’t understand us ’cause you ain’t like us,” he said. “You like your luxuries, but we ain’t never had any so we don’t miss ’em. They just tie you down, anyway.”

“You’re probably right,” I agreed because I didn’t know what else to say. I remembered Simmee saying that Tully loved it when the power went out. He was definitely eating up the survivalist routine.

“I’m gonna go clean that rabbit,” he said as Simmee returned to the room. He pecked her on the cheek. “Y’all work up an appetite with them tarrit cards now, hear?”

“Oh, we will.” Simmee was carrying a small rectangular, maroon velvet bundle. The tarot cards, no doubt. She sat next to Lady Alice on the sofa, and I sank lower in the lopsided chair. I felt a bit chastened by the conversation with Tully, as if I was expecting too much from him. From all of them. Maybe I was. I was an intruder in their lives, after all.

Simmee placed the velvet bundle on the table with great care. Unwrapping the fabric, she removed the deck and rested it on the corner of the table. Then she spread out the velvet, smoothing it with her hands, and began shuffling the cards.

“You thinkin’ of your question, Lady Alice?” she asked.

“’Course,” Lady Alice said.

Simmee apparently had a little ritual worked out, steps she took with the deck to make it look like something sacred. She cut the cards with exquisite care. She held her hands flat above
Lady Alice’s as the older woman cut the deck again. Then she began laying the cards on the velvet. “Now, you keep thinkin’ of your question while I make the septic cross,” she said.

I frowned. Septic cross? I’d observed enough tarot card readings back in my college dorm days to know that the pattern in which the cards were laid out was called a Celtic cross. I didn’t know why, but hearing Simmee mangle the term, knowing she had probably mangled it for years and maybe even learned it that way, both touched and hurt me. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

From where I sat, the cards looked old and worn, almost flimsy. Simmee glanced at me. “Want to come join us here, Miss Maya?” she asked.

“No, thanks.” I’d never been one for the occult. I didn’t believe in any of it on a rational plane, but I supposed I
did
believe on some gut level, which is why, although I’d watched my friends have their cards read, I’d never wanted a reading myself. I was afraid of hearing something I didn’t want to hear, and that was especially true right now, when my future felt so uncertain.

“Some people don’t like to know the future.” Simmee read my mind, as she flipped one more card off the top of the deck.

“Me, I like to be prepared,” Lady Alice said with a firm nod of her head. She was staring at the cards as if they’d disappear if she took her eyes off them.

I rested my aching head against the back of the chair and watched the two women, one very young, the other slipping into her senior years. One fair as wheat, the other dark as molasses. Lady Alice giggled at something Simmee said, and I smiled at the warmth between them.

I’d nearly dozed off again by the time they were finished. “You stay and eat with us, Lady Alice,” Simmee said. “Tully’ll walk you home later in case the moanin’ starts.”

The moaning?

“Ain’t all that hungry.” Lady Alice got stiffly to her feet. “You just watch our patient, here, ’right?” She waved to me. “Bye, now, sweetness,” she said.

“Goodbye, Lady Alice,” I said. “And thank you.”

Simmee remained seated on the sofa, straightening the deck of cards with her hands before wrapping them again in the velvet cloth. We heard the screen door squeak open, then shut with a bang. Simmee lifted her gaze to me and I saw that her eyes glistened.

“She keeps hopin’ I’ll say somethin’ about Jackson,” she said. “That’s her son that died.”

I nodded. “She told me.”

“What’d she say about him?”

“How Tully found him.”

Simmee flinched, and I understood. I knew how a memory could make you flinch. “It was awful,” she said. Then she sighed, leaning back in the sofa. “She didn’t used to wear them black clothes all the time. She don’t take ’em off now ’cept to wash ’em.” She looked at the velvet-covered deck of cards. “Don’t know what she wants to hear, exactly, but I know that’s what she’s hopin’ for. That I’ll say somehow he ain’t dead. That it wasn’t his body Tully brung to her house.”