to meet because he’s dead. Abandoning my hiding spot, I descend the staircase, trying to imagine how to condense ten years of life into one brief summary. It all boils down to one thing that rings truest of all. “I was scared.”
“Of what? What was it that scared you away? I have to know.”
I plop down on one of the rickety old steps, which groans under my weight. “I don’t remember, exactly. There’s a whole section that’s just like this … blackness. It’s like a movie reel that’s been spliced in spots. I remember some things and can’t remember others.”
She slides onto the step just below mine, twisting to face me. “You remember Maw Maw, though. You have to. You remembered the gardenias.”
“Some things are clear.” The conversation is harder than I imagined, and I have to look away to keep from seeing that sliver of hope in her eyes fade. “Others, not so much. Brie, I don’t … remember all of what happened to her.” Just one horrific snapshot that I still can’t get out of my head.
“Nothing? A name, or a face, or something small?”
The question brings to mind the horned skull and those holes where terrifying black eyes peered out at me. “I remember a skull, but … it’s sketchy. Almost like a cartoon at this point, and I don’t know if it’s real, or something I made up. Remember those stories Maw Maw would tell us of TonTon?”
“Yeah.”
“I swore that’s who came after me. For stealing that candy. But I don’t remember anything about those people who broke into our house. I don’t remember what they did. There’s an emptiness that I’ve been trying to fill for the last nine years of my life.” I lean forward, resting my elbows on my thighs. “I wish I could remember for you.”
“Me, too.” Face downtrodden, she nods. “After the murder, I lost my voice again. Marcelle and I went to live with my Great-Aunt Clothilde. Sheriff asked me questions, but I never said a word about nothin’. Just didn’t trust him, for some reason. They asked about the girl they saw on camera, but nothing ever came of it.”
Nothing would come of it, because I wasn’t born in a hospital, like most babies, and I didn’t have a birth certificate. They couldn’t have identified me, if they’d tried. And it’s probably better they didn’t. Growing up with Russ was no picnic, but growing up in the foster system probably would’ve been a nightmare for me. Back in Marquette, Russ had one of his buddies design a fake certificate, just so I could go to school and lead a relatively normal life. Which was actually far from normal.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “For calling you selfish. God, that was probably the most idiotic thing I could’ve said.”
“No, you’re right. It was selfish to stay away.”
“Why the hell would you want to come back here? To this? I mean, you’re stayin’ in the house where your daddy was murdered? For what?”
“To settle some things before I have to leave again.”
“Again?” The disappointment of her tone is practically palpable. A brief silence hangs on the air between us. “Where would you go?”
“I don’t know yet.” I huff and rest my chin on the heel of my hand. I’d love to just hop on a boat and sail. Just keep sailing, you know?”
“Yeah. I know. I know that feeling well.” The rubbing of her thumb over a tattoo inked in cursive across her wrist draws my attention. Si seulement …
I jut my chin toward it. “What does it mean?”
“It’s a question I’ve asked myself so many times over the years. If only, what then? If only you and I hadn’t gotten into that argument that night. What would our lives be now?”
I’d forgotten about the argument. It was the reason I came home, instead of staying the night at Maw Maw’s after the movie, the way we planned.
“What if you’d spent the night and Maw Maw hadn’t gone to get you the next morning?”
“My father would still be dead.”
“But two lives would’ve been spared,” she adds.
I don’t have to correct the implication in her words. While I didn’t die along with Maw Maw and my father, I might as well have.
“So many things might be different. Who knows where I’d be today. Where you’d be.” Once again, her eyes trail over the surrounding destruction. “Who knows?”
“It might not have changed anything, at all.”
“I guess we’ll never know.” She huffs a breath. “So, where’ve