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“I need to go home,” I say, raising my head slowly.
“I promise to call you tomorrow and give you an update,” he says. “I know there’s no way for you—or your family—to forgive me. But I’m going to make sure you get all the money. That’s what my brother wanted.”
38
Now
THE FIRST THING I DO IN THE MORNING, AFTER FEEDING TUNAand starting the coffee maker, is fold up the collage I made about C.J. and me and stuff it in my kitchen wastebasket. The work served its purpose, and I don’t need to look at it ever again.
When I wash my face, I see that my eyelids are nearly the size of plums, swollen from the sobbing I finally did in bed last night as I replayed the conversation with Liam again and again. I kept urging myself to be grateful that Chloe hadn’t had to fight off a sexual assault, that she hadn’t spent the last minutes of her life in a state of abject fear, but, still, I knew there must have been a few terrifying seconds as she stumbled backward and felt only unforgiving air beneath her. Did she have a split-second realization that her life was about to end, that she would never be a TV host or anchorwoman or famous war correspondent? Had her head exploded with pain as she hit the ground and her neck snapped in two?
Finally, close to dawn, a small swell of relief joined the sadness—because, as selfish as it sounds, I now know for certain there wasnothing I could have done to save my sister that night. I fell asleep at last around five.
I’m nursing a second cup of coffee when my buzzer rings, startling both Tuna and me. But then I remember it must be Nell, and it is. I buzz her in and open the door to her a minute later.
“Cute place,” she says, panting from the hike up the stairs. She sounds sincere, though maybe she’s still feeling sorry for me. She explains she has a guy helping her and the plan is for her to stay with the van while he lugs the collages up the three flights. I shut Tuna in the bedroom and wait by the front door until the bearded, twentysomething helper arrives with the first batch. He makes three trips in all, sweating by the last one. The pieces are encased in brown paper and bubble wrap, with the name of each collage written in black marker across the bubbles.
“Thank you,” I say as he leaves, closing the door behind him and locking it again. All ten pieces are now leaning sadly against my small bookcase. It hurts to look at them, and I’m tempted to toss a blanket on top, like a tarp over a dead body, but I decide it will only make me more aware of them.
As soon as I let Tuna back into the living room, I summon the nerve to text my mother, David, and Nicky and ask if they can be available for a Zoom call at seven tonight, a time when I’m pretty sure they’ll all be home from work. I give no explanation—I’m certainly not going to say it’s about Chloe and leave them in a state of anguish all day. Besides, my mother will probably assume I’m planning to come clean about why my show was canceled. Sure enough, they all respond without any questions.
I spend the rest of the day doing as many mindless chores as I can drum up: washing my kitchen floor, scrubbing the bathroom tiles, lugging towels and sheets to the laundromat. Anything to keep my mind off the Zoom call ahead, as well as Liam Whaley, andwhether he’s really en route to Dover, Massachusetts. I dread the thought of breaking the news about Liam and Chloe, but my family needs to hear it from me, not the police.
Just before seven, I carry my laptop to the table and click on the Zoom link I forwarded to everyone. Soon after I see my face on the screen, a window opens showing my mother and David sitting side by side on the nubby green couch in the den, a room I’ll never set eyes on again since they’re moving next month. And then suddenly Nicky slides into view on the couch. She’s obviously decided to join them there, rather than calling in from her own place.
“Thanks for doing this,” I say. “Sorry if I threw off anyone’s plans, but I have something pretty serious to share.”
The three of them bunch a little closer together, perhaps from an instinctive desire for moral support. Do they assume I’ve fucked up my life beyond repair and am about to dump the details into their laps right now?
“Is this about the other night?” my mother asks coolly.
I don’t feel even a moment’s satisfaction from knowing I’d read her mind correctly.
“No, Mom, it’s not about the other night. It’s about Chloe—I have some news.”
I force myself to get to the point immediately—that a man, knowing I was Chloe’s sister, reached out to me last night with information. He confessed that he was the one who was with her in the woods that night and that her death was an accident.
Both my mother and David emit moans of despair, and Nicky bursts into tears. Before any of them can pepper me with questions, I fill in all the blanks I can, emphasizing Liam’s claim that he hadn’t assaulted Chloe.
“He simply confessed all this to you out of the blue?” David says, sounding fairly dubious.
“Not out of the blue. He said he’s been tortured for years and finally decided to turn himself into the Dover police, which is supposedly happening tomorrow.”
“What’s his name?” David demands. “Where is he now?”
I explain why I can’t give the name yet, but David looks unconvinced.
“What makes you think he isn’t some nutjob?” my mother snaps. “Or that he’s lying about what really happened to cover himself?” Her eyes are wild with grief and anger.
“I don’t have any proof,” I say, “but I sense he’s telling the truth.”
She shakes her head. “There’s something you’re not telling us. I can feel it.”
“I’ve shared every detail he gave me, Mom,” I exclaim, feeling my own anger flare and not bothering to disguise it. “You have no right to accuse me of withholding anything. I didn’t then, and I’m not now.”
“Okay, okay,” David says, tamping down the air with his hands. He turns to my mother. “Margo, what possible reason would Skyler have for not telling us everything she knows?”
“None,” I say, not giving my mother time to respond. “The bottom line is that Chloe went out into the woods with a stranger and a bottle of wine without telling me where she was going and ended up slipping over the edge of a ravine. It seems it was a terrible accident, and there’s nothing I could have done to save her.” I choke back a sob. “I know you prefer the version where I didn’t tell you the full story, or the one where I’m somehow to blame, that she could have been saved if I’d only thought of summoning the National Guard to look for her that night or something else of that magnitude, but I know now for sure that I did everything I could.”
