always been helping Wayne. Who knows?" I said nothing. "If that's the case," I said, "then my sister is dead." "I know." I said nothing. "Cope?" "What?" "It's not your fault." I said nothing. "If anything," she said, "it's mine."
I stopped the car. "How do you figure that?"
"You wanted to stay there that night. You wanted to work guard duty. I'm the one who lured you into the woods." "Lured?" She said nothing. "You're kidding, right?" "No," she said. "I had a mind of my own, Lucy. You didn't make me do anything." She stayed quiet. Then she said, "You still blame yourself." I felt my grip tighten on the wheel. "No, I don't." "Yeah, Cope, you do. Come on. Despite this recent revelation, you knew that your sister had to be dead. You were hoping for a second chance. You were hoping to still find redemption." "That psychology degree of yours," I said. "Its really paying off, huh?"
"I don't mean to-"
"How about you, Luce?" My voice had more bite than I intended. "Do you blame yourself? Is that why you drink so damn much?" Silence. "I shouldn't have said that," I said. Her voice was soft. "You don't know anything about my life." "I know. I'm sorry. It's none of my business." "Those DUIs were a long time ago." I said nothing. She turned away from me and looked out the window. We drove in silence.
"You may be right," I said.
Her eyes stayed on the window.
"Here is something I've never told anyone," I said. I felt my face flush and the tears push against my eyes. "After the night in the woods, my father never looked at me the same."
She turned toward me.
"I could have been projecting. I mean, you're right. I did blame my self to some degree. What if we hadn't gone off? What if I had just stayed where I was supposed to? And maybe the look on his face was just the pure devastation of a parent losing a child. But I always thought there was something more in it. Something almost accusatory."
She put a hand on my arm. "Oh, Cope."
I kept driving. "So maybe you're on to something. Maybe I do need to make amends for the past. But what about you?" "What about me?" "Why are you delving into this? What do you hope to gain after all these years?"
"Are you kidding?"
"No. What are you after exactly?"
"The life I knew ended that night. Don't you get that?"
I said nothing.
"The families-including yours-dragged my father into court. You took away everything we had. Ira wasn't built for that kind of hit. He couldn't take the stress."
I waited for her to say more. She didn't.
"I understand that," I said. "But what are you after now? I mean, like you said, I'm trying to rescue my sister. Short of that, I'm trying to find out what really happened to her. What are you after?" She didn't reply. I drove some more. The skies were starting to darken.
"You don't know how vulnerable I feel being here," she said.
I wasn't sure how-to answer that. So I said, "I would never hurt you."
Silence.
"Part of it is," she said, "it feels like I lived two lives. The one before that night, where things were going pretty well, and the one after, where things aren't. And yeah, I know how pathetic that sounds. But some times it feels like I was pushed down a hill that night and I've been stumbling down ever since. That sometimes I sort of get my bearings but the hill is so steep that I can never really get balanced again and then
I start tumbling again. So perhaps-I don't know-but perhaps if I figure out what really happened that night, if I can make some good out of all that bad, I'll stop tumbling."
She had been so magnificent when I knew her. I wanted to remind her of that. I wanted to tell her that she was being overly melodramatic, that she was still beautiful and successful and that she still had so much going for her. But I knew that it would sound too patronizing.
So instead I said, "It's so damn good to see you again, Lucy."
She squeezed her eyes shut as though I had struck her. I thought about what she said, about not wanting to be too vulnerable. I thought about that journal, all that talk about not finding another love like that, not ever. I wanted to reach out and take her hand,