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I clear our plates from the table. “How long have you known my brother?” I am inclined to hold up air quotes as I utter the word known, but I’m very pregnant, and I’m very tired.
This, and I don’t yet know what she knows.
I wonder if Davis told her about his brother and how he murdered people. I wonder if he told her that people will probably never know the truth, not for certain, even if they suspect, because I never told anyone about the notebooks I found in the workshop. No one except Davis.
Not even my husband and I discuss what’s in those notebooks. He has his suspicions, I’m sure. Johnny was his best friend, after all. But if you never say the truth out loud, then does it actually count?
“I’ve known him…” she replies. “Let’s see.”
I watch her as she tallies things up. She chews at her bottom lip and it reminds me so much of another young woman sitting in that same spot, all those years ago. “Wait. I got it. Coming up on a year now.” She smiles. “Ten months, four days and roughly eighteen hours, to be exact.”
She brushes a crumb from the tablecloth into her hand. “Davis is amazing.”
“Seems risky, meeting a man in prison.”
“Yeah, it was.” I’m not expecting her to say anything more, but when she opens her mouth, words come spilling out. She speaks like she’s rehearsed what she has to say, like she’s afraid she’s not going to get to say her piece unless she says it in a hurry. “It was crazy, really. But a friend of mine came to stay here, and she told me all about it—mostly about it being haunted. Then I was curious, so I looked the story up… I love true crime—it’s funny because I think I remember hearing about it when it happened. But I was young, you know?”
You’re still young. I smile and it’s like déjà vu. Nothing ever changes.
She waves a hand in the air. “So I wrote to him.”
“You wrote to him?” I think of Shelby and I wonder how such a thing can happen. “You just looked up a man in prison and decided to become pen-pals?”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly like that.” She giggles. “I didn’t expect to fall in love. I guess I just really wanted to know him.” She looks up at me. “Does that make sense?”
It does, and it doesn’t. But what an explanation of love, if I’ve ever heard one. I guess I just really wanted to know him. “Your parents can’t be too happy,” I say. “Do they know where you are?”
“They’re livid. But they’ll come around, eventually. You know how it is.” She watches as I wipe down the table and fill the dishwasher. When I look over at her, she’s staring at her fingernails. “In the meantime, Davey said we could hang out at his place.” She raises her brow. “And so, here we are.”
A tight smile fixes itself on my face. When it fades, I swallow hard. “And so, here you are.”
