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Daisy
My plan toresolve this has fallen apart, one big screwup, fueled by grief and ego and a hunger for vengeance. After my mother died, I went to group therapy for adults who’d lost both their parents. At first, I seemed fine. Resilient—that’s the word a friend used, and that’s how I felt. I’d watched both my parents die in hospital beds. I’d nursed them through the end, and I hadn’t broken.
People always expect me to be fragile. When I’m quiet, they see shyness. Where I have a slight build, and they see a waif. Where I prefer solutions to confrontations, they see timidity. I fit a stereotype, and that stereotype screams neither inner nor outer strength, and so, when people praised my resilience, I’d been pleased.
Then came the guilt. Guilt that I hadn’t defied my mother sooner to be with my father. Guilt that I hadn’t stayed with Dad and Gran, and let Mom leave by herself. Guilt that I had breathed a sigh of relief after her death. Others might tell themselves they were relieved she “wasn’t suffering anymore,” and of course I was happy for that, but I was also happy not to be the one suffering, sitting by her bed, nursing her, hoping it would win me the gratitude and reconciliation my soul longed for. That moment when she would look in my eyes and say, “I know I wasn’t always the best mother, but I love you, Celeste. Thank you for being here.”
She never said those words, and I hate her a little for that. Looking back, though, I realize that she was, in her way, saying them every time she drove the nurses off, insisting her daughter would look after her, every time the pain had her clutching my hand, begging me not to leave, every time she woke in a panic because I’d stepped out.
That guilt is what drove me to therapy. Mom was gone, and I was free, and I wasn’t sure how to deal with that, caught in a maelstrom of comingled grief and relief. Joining that group felt like accepting failure. Then I looked around at the people in that group, and I didn’t see weakness—I saw the strength to admit they were floundering.
What I learned is that, for some, like me, grief manifests as guilt. A focus not on what I lost but on what I failed to do. Because, again, I gravitate toward solutions rather than confrontations. I want to fix things, whether it’s a sick parent or a crooked door.
I couldn’t tell my father how I’d secretly wanted him to follow us to Pennsylvania. How I dreamed of him striding through our door and rescuing me from Keith. Then I was at his bedside as he was dying, and he was so happy to see me, so confident that he’d made the right choice letting me go.
Same with my mom. I needed to tell her that I loved her for leaving Keith when she caught him in my room. But also tell her how hard it’d been to spend the next five years watching her mourn a failed marriage and subtly blaming me.
I’d poured all my pain and anger into caring for them, and when they were gone, that left a void of things left unsaid, things that I felt selfish for needing said.
Then there was Gran. She wanted nothing to do with me, and that hurt so much. I relied on solutions instead of confrontations. Sneak her money, and then, in a year or two, I’d reach out again.
That never happened. One day, I deposited money and was told her account had been closed, her estate settled. That’s how I learned my grandmother was dead.
I’d dug deeper, reached out discreetly and discovered that her prodigal granddaughter had returned home. The woman who may have killed my grandmother was still living in her house, passing herself off as me.
I came here to find out whether this imposter murdered my grandmother and to discover her true identity. Yet I feel no closer to finding that information than when I started.
What have I done? Well, I’ve gotten as far as checking the prescriptions in the imposter’s bathroom and writing down the names so I can investigate further, see whether that could be how she murdered my grandmother.
What else? I found her lover’s dead body, but I’m lying about that to the police, who are now searching my room, where they will find his cell phone, because I am in over my head. In so far over my head. Playing private investigator when I’m too clueless to even hide a murdered man’s phone.
There’s the old adage about digging yourself in deeper with every move you make. I’m not digging. I’ve purposefully stridden onto a minefield, confident I’m not in any real danger. I haven’t done anything wrong. If things go sideways, all I need to do is make that phone call. Tell the police I’m the real Celeste Turner.
Except now I’m standing in that minefield, and the path back has disappeared.
I need to march up to the searching police and declare myself.
I’m Celeste Turner, and Liam found out, and he confronted me, only I cut a deal with him. We had reached a mutually acceptable agreement, and we’d parted amicably.
It all makes perfect sense, see?
Yes, but there are a dozen other theories that also make sense, including one where, enraged, I shot him.
I didn’t kill Liam, but I’m not sure how much that means in the end. I had motive and opportunity.
I don’t see an easy solution, so what am I doing? Cooking dinner and baking cookies, and I can pretend that’s a cover—see, deputies, I’m not the least bit worried—when the truth is that I’m burying myself in work.
The police began their search in the shed. They’re now inside, and I’m resisting the urge to check on their progress, see what they’ve found. There’s nothing in the shed. Nothing in the lanai. The incriminating evidence is up in my room, where they’ve had a young deputy posted since they arrived.
Is that the only evidence?
What about my gun?
Liam took it from the shed. What if he’d had it with him when he was killed? Confronted someone and they got the gun and used it to shoot him? A gun registered to me.
When the doorbell rings. I don’t even get to the kitchen door before Celeste answers.
“Hey,” Tom’s voice slides back to me. “Everything okay?”
