Family of Liars, page 16
Then I move him a second time, getting him to the edge of the boat, sitting him against its hull. I climb in. I reach over, grab him under the arms again, and pull his body onto the seat. I lay him down and get out.
I take the loose board to the beach by the foot of the dock. I kick off my shoes and roll up my pajama pants. I wade in and I wash the board, forcing myself to touch the sticky, hairy nails, rubbing them clean.
Bess comes back with the bag of supplies. I spray the board with cleaner and rinse it again in the ocean. Then I give the cleaner to Bess.
She takes the paper towels and my flashlight. She scrubs the dock, going over each board, looking for signs of blood or hair.
Meanwhile, I collect several large, heavy rocks from the beach, lugging them to the motorboat and setting them carefully inside. Then I load in the rest of Bess’s supplies. I check the bag she brought. “You forgot the whiskey,” I say, alarmed.
She looks up from scrubbing the dock. “I didn’t—I didn’t know what to take,” she says. “The bar cart was confusing. Like, is bourbon whiskey? Is rye?”
“So you brought nothing?”
She nods. That is so Bess. If she’s not sure she’s doing something perfectly, she won’t do it at all.
“I need the whiskey” is all I say. “Where’s Penny?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m going up to Clairmont.”
“But—”
I don’t give Bess the chance to complain about being left alone with Pfeff’s body. I walk up to the house as quickly as I can. I enter through the mudroom, being careful not to make a sound. There are cases of hard liquor in the cellar. I should have told Bess to go there, instead of to the bar cart.
I have to flip a light on in the basement—Bess has my flashlight.
And when I do, Rosemary is sitting in an old wicker rocking chair.
58.
SHE IS WEARING leggings and one of my T-shirts. It is much too big for her. Her feet are bare. “I just woke up,” she says. “I wasn’t like, sitting here in the dark for a long time.”
“You scared me, buttercup,” I say.
“Your pajama pants are wet. What are you doing?”
“I’m—” I can’t tell her what I’m doing.
“Why were you swimming in pajamas?” she asks.
“Rosemary.”
“What?”
“Why are you here?”
“I don’t know!” Her face crumples. “I sometimes wake up and come see you, is all. I’ve never come to the basement before.” She looks around. It’s a big room with a low ceiling. Everything is neatly labeled. In the harsh overhead light, it seems bleak. The corners are still dark and the paint on the walls is cracked. “I’m scared.”
I kneel in front of the rocking chair and hold her hands. “It’s just a creepy basement, ’kay? All basements are creepy. If we go upstairs, it’ll seem just like any other night, with Tipper and Harris sleeping at the top of the house and flowers on the kitchen table and good food in the fridge and the moon shining in the windows.”
“But why are you up?” she asks. “Why are you down here? Why are you wet?”
Oh god. I want to console her. I want to help her to feel at peace. But I cannot cuddle in the middle of the night when I am covering up a murder.
“I woke up,” I tell her. “I went down to the water for a bit to think. Then I thought I might—well, I’m not proud of this, but I thought I might drink some wine to help me go back to sleep.”
“Don’t drink wine all by yourself in the middle of the night,” says Rosemary, appalled. “It’s how you get alcoholic. Even I know that.”
“You’re right,” I say. “You’re totally right. Why don’t we go upstairs together, super quiet, and I’ll take a bath and you can—I don’t know. Do you want to read or make another friendship bracelet?”
Rosemary nods.
“Come on, buttercup. Should I pick you up? I’m not sure I still can, but I’ll try.”
She reaches up and I lift her. Her legs wrap around my waist. We shut the basement light and walk slowly, slowly up the stairs to my room on the second floor.
I turn the fan back on, to mask any sounds from the dock area. The curtains are drawn.
I set Rosemary down on my bed and kneel before her. My heart is drumming and my hands are shaking, but I want to make her feel safe and loved, despite what I’m going to do next. “Do you remember when you and Tomkin made the biggest sandcastle? Far up the beach so it wouldn’t get washed away? We ringed it with rocks and decorated it with shells.”
“Um-hm.”
“Mother let you bring cups and mugs down to the water so you could mold lots of different-sized piles. And you were so proud.”
“We have a picture of it,” says Rosemary. “In one of the albums.”
“Yes. That was a good time. Think about that. It was such a good day.”
Rosemary begins to cry softly.
Oh, not now, little one. Don’t need me now. “Why are you crying?”
“I’m not going to make a castle again,” she says. “I’m never going to make another one.”
“Oh, love. We could make one.”
“I’m not going to see Tomkin again, either,” she says. “I saw him for the last time, and I didn’t know it was the last time.”
“You could see him,” I say. I don’t want to tell her Tomkin won’t be coming to the island again.
“No,” she says. “I am just here to visit you. And Mother, but she doesn’t want me.”
“But maybe if you visited him, you’d feel better. Tomkin would play with you. He’s much more into board games than me, and you could teach him to weave the bracelets.”
Rosemary shakes her head. “I only come to this house. And you. I told you that already.” She wipes her nose on the hem of her shirt. “It’s what happens. I’m not the boss of it. I’m just here.”
I snuggle her. Her sobs slow down. She sniffles a few times.
I think of Bess, down on the cold dock with a dead body.
And Penny—where the hell is Penny? Is she back? Did she get what we need?
“I’m going to run my bath,” I tell Rosemary. “And get out of these wet pajama pants.”
She nods. “Okay.”
“Just hang out, and I’ll be back in a little bit. I gotta warm up, and I need the bath to make me sleepy.”
“Um-hm.”
I grab a clean pair of sweatpants and an old pink sweatshirt. I go into the bathroom and shut the door. I run the water, but I don’t put the plug in the tub, and I don’t run it hard, because I don’t want to make any noise that would wake our parents.
I put on the dry clothes, shove my feet back in my sneakers, and ease open the connecting door to Bess’s room. I tiptoe through it and run downstairs. I throw my damp pajamas into the laundry and grab a bottle of whiskey from the basement. Then I run as fast as I can to the family dock, leaving my sad, isolated, needy ten-year-old ghost of a sister waiting for me to come back.
I feel worse about this betrayal than anything else, really.
59.
BESS IS ON the dock. “Where’s Penny?” I whisper when I am close enough for her to hear.
“She never came.”
“Did you look for her?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Why not?”
“You didn’t tell me to.”
“Did you get the boards clean?”
“I went over them twice.”
“What did you do with all the paper towels?”
“They’re in the tote bag.”
“Good. We can burn them later. Stay here.”
“Where are you going?”
“To see what’s keeping Penny.”
“Should I come?”
“I said stay here.”
“I don’t want—I don’t want to.”
“Just stay.”
I leave her and head to Goose Cottage. I am reaching a hand out to the gate when I hear “Carrie.”
Penny is crouched in the bushes, just off the walkway. I kneel down by her. “Are they still awake?”
“They were. They went upstairs finally, and it took forever, but Major’s light is off now.”
“Is George’s off?”
“It was when I checked. His room is around the back of the house.”
“How long does it take people to fall asleep?”
“Not that long, I don’t think. They were drinking beer earlier.”
We walk around to the back of Goose. George’s light is still off, but the bathroom light is on.
“Is someone in there?” whispers Penny. “Or are they just wasting electricity?”
“Probably wasting.”
We go back to where we can see Major’s window. We sit down on the walkway to watch. And Penny, who hasn’t ever really cared how I feel,
who thinks only of herself—
selfish,
beautiful
Penny—
reaches out to
take my hand
like she did when we were kids.
She used to reach for my hand
when Harris was mad at us,
when we had to recite poems for Nana and Grandpa,
when Tipper was late to pick us up from dance class,
while we sat together on the boat and saw Beechwood Island emerge from the empty expanse of the sea.
We hold hands now, and wait.
There are footsteps on the walkway and Bess comes into view.
“You’re supposed to be with Pfeff,” I whisper.
“You took forever,” she says. “I got worried.”
“It’s okay. The boys weren’t asleep. But I’m pretty sure they are now.”
“If I help, we can get in and out faster,” Bess says. “I’ll go upstairs and do his room.” She tucks her sunny hair behind her ears with resolve. “It’ll be easiest for me.”
That is true. Bess can mess up Pfeff’s room without recalling the smell of Pfeff’s neck, the curve of his cheekbones, the way he looked in that one sweater, the way he dog-eared the pages of books. She won’t care about his Edgartown socks, or the pillow where he laid his head at night.
“Good,” I say. “Penny, you get beach towels and thermoses. I’ll make the coffee.”
And we go.
It feels almost like slow motion, the three of us silently entering Goose, separating as Penny goes into the pantry, Bess begins her stealthy climb of the stairs, and I open the cabinet where the coffee can is stored.
Penny lines up four thermoses on the counter. She finds a beach bag, still full of sunblock and warm, unopened cans of Coke. She shoves four towels into it. She grabs my arm and whispers, “Do we need a bathing suit?”
“Bess got them.”
“For him. A bathing suit for him.”
“No,” I say.
“Why not? He would have one on.”
The coffee begins percolating through the machine and into the carafe. “No.”
“But—”
“Listen,” I say. “Do you want to take his pants off and put a suit on him?”
Her face pales.
“I don’t, either,” I say. “And we really don’t need it. We’re gonna weight him down and nobody’s ever going to find him. Not in a million years.” I don’t feel anywhere near as certain as I make myself sound.
“Okay,” says Penny. “I trust you.”
We stare at the coffee maker as it hisses and the pot fills.
Bess comes down the stairs. Gives us a thumbs-up.
When the coffee is ready, we pour it into the thermoses, cap them, and head out. I grab a bag of potato chips on the way out the door.
60.
WE ROW GUZZLER away from the dock. Me on one oar, Penny on the other.
We don’t want any noise from the motor.
It is two-thirty a.m. now. Lights in all the houses are out, except the ones George and Major left on in Goose.
When we are a good ways out to sea, we pull in the oars and I start the engine. The air is cold and the water looks black. After a bit, we can no longer see the land, and it seems as if the black of the sky is the black of the sea and we are afloat in the middle of nothingness.
When we are truly far out, so far out that it seems impossible Pfeff’s body could ever wash to shore, I cut the motor. I drop the anchor.
We unwrap Pfeff’s head. I do not think anyone will ever find his body, but if they do, my sweater should not be on it.
The skin of his face is cold. I shut his eyes.
We remove his sneakers and his lobster socks, putting the socks into the shoes, like he would have left them if he’d gone swimming.
We take the rocks I collected on the beach and shove them into his front and back pockets. It is a horrendous operation. His skin is clammy and hairy. The rocks do not go in easily.
We are worried there is not enough weight to make him sink, so we roll his pant legs and tuck smaller stones into the rolls.
“I still think he should be in a bathing suit,” says Penny. “If anyone finds him. We should have brought one.”
“That won’t help when he’s weighted with stones,” I explain. “We have to weight him, and once we weight him, it’ll be obvious what happened to anyone who finds him.”
“These stones won’t be heavy enough. He’s not going to sink.”
She’s right.
“The anchor,” I say.
We pull it up. It’s on a chain attached to yellow nylon rope. We use the Swiss Army knife, the same one we used to cut the strawberry cake that first Early Morning, and work the blade through the nylon. Then we tie the rope tight around Pfeff’s waist.
Penny stops abruptly and covers her face with her hands.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. Though of course, everything is wrong.
“We shouldn’t do this.”
“Let’s just finish it.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
She lifts her eyes to me. “We should go home now and tell everyone the truth. It’s not too late to change our minds.”
“No.”
“They’ll understand. We’ll tell them—I don’t know what we’ll tell him, but we’ll call the police and—”
“Penny.” I try to speak softly. Calmly.
I explain to her and Bess what will happen to the person who killed Pfeff.
I explain what will happen to Penny, as well.
“He’s dead,” I say. “He was not a good person. We have to just get through this and wish it never happened. We will lie about it extremely well and then we will just forget it. Never think of it. Never talk about it. And it’ll basically disappear.”
“I can’t forget it,” says Penny.
“You can. Like you did Rosemary.”
Penny looks at me, stricken. “I didn’t forget Rosemary.”
I stare at her.
“I didn’t,” she insists.
“It seems like you did.”
“I think about her every single day.”
Bess nods. “I … This sounds weird, but I kind of pray to Rosemary. Like she’s an angel or something. Before I go to sleep. I like to think she’s looking over us.” She shivers. “But not now.”
I sit with this for a moment. They do not ever talk about her. Not one word since Penny and I were up in the attic, and when I yelled at Bess. “I can’t tell that either of you thinks about Rosemary for even a second,” I tell them.
“Mother and Daddy don’t like to talk about her,” says Bess. “It’s too much. I try to, you know, respect them that way.”
“I don’t like people knowing my feelings,” says Penny simply. “It feels too naked.”
“So we can do this,” I say. “We are good at it.”
“What?” asks Penny.
“Acting. We have been pretending everything’s okay all year, and we will keep pretending everything’s okay. We know how. It’s the family way. And after a time, it will be okay. Understand?”
They nod.
“We just have to get through this next part and the rest will be easy in comparison. No way out but through.” I quote my father’s motto.
Bess holds the anchor.
I take Pfeff’s shoulders.
Penny takes his legs.
We lift him and step onto the seats. The boat tilts with our weight, all on one side, but we do not lose our footing.
We drop Lor Pfefferman into the sea, the anchor around his waist.
We watch his body sink.
“ ‘Of his bones are coral made,’ ” says Penny, quoting Shakespeare. “ ‘Those are pearls that were his eyes.’ ”
61.
I TURN ON the motor and we move away. Soon we cannot tell where Pfeff lies, and we stop the boat again.
We change clothes—into the bathing suits and cover-ups that Bess brought.
We put our sweatshirts on.
We use a lighter, stored in the motorboat for our parents’ cigarettes, to burn the paper towels that Bess used to clean the dock. We toss the burning papers into the air and watch them disintegrate to nothing, tiny orange sparks settling on the sea and then extinguishing.
I open the bottle of whiskey and we pass it around in silence.
It is about 3:45 a.m.
We lie all three together under a rain tarp on the floor of the boat. But it is hard to sleep.
“Remember when that friend of Mother’s took us all camping?” says Bess.
“Um-hm,” I say, though I don’t, really. I have a fuzzy memory of hot dogs cooked on sticks and a bright yellow backpack filled with supplies. That’s about it.
“I was like, only three,” Bess says. “We all slept together under a blanket like this. I was way too young to go camping.”
“You peed the bed,” says Penny.
“Did not.”
“Oh, you totally did,” says Penny. “I woke up with Bess pee all down my leg. I had to go to the creek and wash in this freezing, freezing water, and our bed was all pee-covered and we had to put everything in a black plastic bag to bring it home to Mother to wash.”
“Who was that guy?” asks Bess. “Why did he want to take us camping?”
“Beats me,” says Penny. “But he gave Carrie this bag of mixed jelly beans, I remember. And he said ‘Share them with your sisters,’ but he totally put her in charge of them. She would dole them out two at a time, like she was queen of the jelly beans.”
