You Let Me In - Camilla Bruce Page 0,71

police would never be looking for clues among the roots and the stones, deep within the mound.

“She blames you,” I told Pepper-Man when Mara had left. “She said it was you who strung up my brother and planted that spear by his feet.”

“Of course she would say that. She is angry because I hit her.”

“Did you, though? Did you kill my brother?”

He didn’t answer me outright. “I will always protect you and Mara, even when you do not want me to.”

“He was going to fill in that hole.”

“And plant tulips—yes, I know. But buried bones always whisper, Cassandra. Before he knew it, he would have had scores of flowers bleeding in his lap, their petals shaped like bears and hearts. It would spread like a toxin through the earth, taint everything it touched with rage and violence. Better he is buried properly. Better it is not a secret.”

“But Ferdinand—”

“Is at peace now, and that was what you wished for, was it not?”

I couldn’t really argue with that. “They still blame me, though, Mother and Olivia.”

“Of course they do. They would not be who they are if they did not.”

“She is my daughter, though, so I guess they have a point. If I hadn’t taken Mara to the mound, none of this would have happened.”

“But Cassandra, what difference does it make? Is the world a poorer place for your father not being in it?”

“But Ferdinand—”

“Was not fit for life.”

“He might have been, though, if—”

“It is done,” Pepper-Man spoke into my ear. “It is over now, my Cassandra. It is done.”

And it was.

* * *

Father’s funeral was a beautiful disaster, as disasters go. I didn’t expect it to be any different, still I felt I had to go, to see him buried if nothing else.

The church was filled with flowers—white: roses, carnations, lilies. The casket was closed, as it ought to be, he wasn’t a pretty sight, even when alive. His coffin was shiny and black amid the dull white, rested on a sheet of tulle. Mother’s eyes were hidden behind a veil, it drooped from her pillbox hat like a black wave. Her hair was tied back with a black velvet bow; less curly now, less yellow, more a faded gray. Her suit was very chic, though; she still had a very slim figure. She sat between you, Penelope, and your mother. The latter was sporting a black dress and satin gloves, wore thin, high heels that made her seem tall. I remember you because you didn’t wear black, but navy blue. Maybe your mother hadn’t thought to buy you funeral clothes. The pearls you wore were old, and so was the ivory ring on your finger. I remember both well from my mother’s box of gems. Passed on to you, then, I guess you have them still. She wanted to make sure, I think, that none of her finery ever came to me. Janus, I don’t remember you at all. Maybe you were sick that day—or maybe I just didn’t care to look.

I didn’t sit down beside you in the front row. I squeezed in at the back, among his more distant acquaintances and neighbors from my childhood. My purple clothes and moonstone bangles made me stand out like an exotic orchid in the sea of black and somber charcoal. Those who knew me gave me strange looks. Wondering, I suppose, just why it was that I stood there in the back—yes, stood, because the church was crammed with people, quite possibly due to the dramatic circumstances—the family tragedy, as the newspapers called it. He really didn’t have that many friends, but everyone wanted to come and look, at Mother, at you—the grieving family. Survivors is what you were, every last one of you. Survivors of a family tragedy that ended in blood and violence on Ferdinand’s well-kept lawn.

Just as they came to look when Tommy Tipp died that second time.

It’s just human nature. They really can’t help themselves.

I remember the service as hot and smelling of perspiration caught in synthetic fabrics, generously mixed with the scent of roses and candle wax. About halfway through, my mother must have gotten the whiff of me somehow, because she kept turning back, looking. Her lips were thin and white behind the veil.

I kept my eyes on the casket, though; that was why I was there, to see him lowered in the ground, to see him disappear. See the result of my daughter’s anger and assure myself it was true.

I wondered what his