Jo’s mind raced to catch up with what Patricia was asking. My God, she was right. After all these years, she didn’t know what had happened to Billy. How could she tell her he had drowned? How could she tell her they may have found his missing bones while searching for her daughter? She wouldn’t tell her, not about the bones. It didn’t change anything where Patricia was concerned. In fact, it seemed cruel.
Her throat felt dry. “Dee Dee is okay. The same.” Bitter. She swallowed hard. “But Patricia,” she said as gently as she could for both their sakes. It had been so long since she said the words out loud. “Billy is dead.”
“What do you mean, dead?” She held the doll to her chest and searched Jo’s face in the dark. “I don’t understand.” She grabbed Jo’s forearm. “He’s really dead?”
“Yes.”
Patricia continued trying to see something in Jo’s face. Jo could only imagine what she was searching for—grief, guilt, truth. Eventually she released the grip on Jo’s arm. She turned away. She was quiet for some time. “It’s just so shocking.” She curled in on herself, hugging the doll. “How?”
“He drowned,” she said, surprised how much it still hurt, how raw the pain still felt.
Patricia shook her head. “No, that can’t be. Not Billy. He knew the lake better than anyone. He couldn’t just drown.”
“You’re right,” Jo said, and turned her head away. “He couldn’t.”
Not unless he’d had help.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Caroline rubbed her eyes and sat up in bed. Her mother was talking to someone in the kitchen. She picked up the old alarm clock from her nightstand. A sliver of moonlight gave off enough light to see that it was three a.m., the dead hour. She had heard the term watching one of Gram’s television detective shows. She thought it was a cool phrase. However, having been awakened in the middle of the night during the dead hour wasn’t as cool as it sounded in daylight.
Someone in the kitchen burped, which meant it had to have come from Johnny. When wasn’t he disgusting?
Her mother continued talking in a hushed voice, and something about her tone pulled Caroline from the bed. It was obvious whatever they were saying they didn’t want anyone else to hear. She dismissed the idea they were whispering because it was the middle of the night and they didn’t want to wake anyone. Johnny wouldn’t have cared. He only thought of himself.
She could say the same for her mother, but that kind of thinking always made her feel bad. She couldn’t discount the times her mother had tried to be the kind of mom Caroline had wanted—one who baked treats for special occasions, cheered from the stands at sporting events, applied Band-Aids to booboos, prepared home-cooked meals.
Her mother wasn’t good at being a regular mom.
But maybe Caroline should give her a break. After all, Caroline was fed—mostly fast food—but still, she never went hungry. Her mother had sent store-bought cookies into school for Caroline’s birthdays, and twice her mother drove past the ballpark looking for one of Caroline’s softball games, only to discover she went to the wrong field.
She peeked through the crack of her bedroom door. The overhead light in the kitchen allowed for a narrow view of the table, the pantry, a basket hanging on the wall. Gram had several baskets, all hung in the kitchen for decoration, but also for use. Gram thought nothing of grabbing one of them off the wall and filling it with chips or pretzels or popcorn.
Her mother and Johnny were sitting at the far end and out of sight, their voices muffled. She slipped into the hall to listen, stopping to hide in the shadows.
“I’m glad Gram’s okay,” Johnny said. “I would’ve been here had I known.”
Her mother said something Caroline couldn’t make out.
“We took the girls to the drive-in. What else were we supposed to do? It’s too damn depressing hanging around here.”
Caroline heard the strike of a match. Her mother or Johnny or both were smoking.
“Whose car did you use?” her mother asked.
“Chris’s mom’s.”
“Damn it, Johnny. I wish you wouldn’t have. Why didn’t you ask to use one of our cars?”
“What difference does it make whose car we used?”
“It just does. I don’t want you taking anything from them.”
“What does that mean? I wasn’t taking anything from them. What do you have against Chris? What has he ever done to you?”
“I don’t have anything against Chris. It’s not him.”
“Then who is it?”
Her mother didn’t respond.
“Tell me, Mom, because I know it’s something, and whatever it is, I can handle it.”
There was a long stretch of silence.
“It’s Chris’s mom, isn’t it? What happened between you two?” Johnny asked. “Why don’t you like each other?”
Caroline craned her neck, eager to hear her mother’s reply. There was another long silence. Caroline’s mind raced. It must have something to do with Billy. Wasn’t Chris’s mom, Dee Dee, Billy’s sister?
Movement across the hall caught her attention. There was a dark shadow behind her parents’ bedroom door. Her mother said something, but she missed what it was, too distracted by the dark figure.
“Dad,” she whispered.
He darted away without saying a word, taking his shadow with him. Then Caroline heard Johnny say, “Whatever, I’m going to bed.”
Caroline scurried back to her bedroom and climbed underneath the covers. She wondered what her mother had said to Johnny. It couldn’t have been much, or he wouldn’t have retreated so quickly. But what was strange and what bothered her more than missing a big part of their conversation, was why her father would be spying on her mother and Johnny too?
She burrowed under the sheets. Maybe her father felt as she had—closed off from her mother, pushed away. Johnny was the only one who had a solid relationship with her. When was the last time her mother had sat in the kitchen and talked with her? Had she ever? Not that Caroline remembered.
A batch of tears threatened to spill, and she swiped her eyes repeatedly until the skin underneath was dry and raw. She wouldn’t cry over the things her mother did or didn’t do. She was too old for that. She just wished she didn’t feel so alone and mixed up inside. What she wanted more than anything was for her mother to hold her, comfort her, and tell her everything was going to be okay, that what she was feeling was normal. It would pass. The summer would continue, and there wouldn’t be any secrets to hide. And whatever happened with Billy was not a big deal, nothing for her to worry about, she should leave it lie, forget about it, and enjoy herself while she was here.
But Caroline knew she couldn’t do that. Her parents were both involved in something and she had to know what it was and why. Besides, how could she pretend this summer was like all the others when a little girl had drowned? Wasn’t Sara the reason her parents stayed at the lake? Wasn’t another drowning the reason her parents’ past felt so close to the surface, to the here and now? Otherwise, her mother would’ve split after a day or two, and her father would’ve hit the road hauling whatever it was that kept him away from home sometimes for weeks. Caroline would’ve been dropped off to stay with Gram like every other summer, forgotten about by her parents, tormented by her brother.
* * *
She was restless most of the night. Her mind wouldn’t settle down. Thoughts of both Billy and Sara washed over her, pulling her under, sinking her into the deep, dark abyss to the bottom of the lake.
The next thing she knew she was standing outside her bedroom window in her nightgown. The summer air was unseasonably cool. She shivered underneath the swaying branches of Willow. She didn’t remember crawling out the window, but she must have. Otherwise, how could she have gotten outside?
One of the branches brushed against her arm as though vying for her attention. What is it? She asked the tree, saying the words inside her head. Do you want me to climb up? She took a step closer, when a little girl poked her head out from behind the trunk.