Don't Tell

“Other things have changed, too,” he said, his eyes laughing again. “Where are you staying?”

“At Aunt Jule’s,” I replied. “Does your uncle Frank still live next to her?”

“Yup, and he and Jule still don’t get along, my parents still live on the other side of Oyster Creek, and Mom still teaches at the college. Things haven’t changed much around here.”

His face grew more serious. “You know, I waited for you to come back the summer after your mother died. And the one after that. When the third summer came and you didn’t, I figured you never would.”

I shrugged, as if things had just turned out that way.

“So why did you finally return?” he asked bluntly.

I told him the least personal reason. “Aunt Jule said she had to see me and insisted that it be in Wisteria.”

His face broke into a sunny smile. “I’m glad she did.

Listen, I have to get back. Tim is covering for me at the dunking booth.”

I nodded.

“See you around, “ he said.

“Yeah, see you,” I replied, and continued to watch him as he walked away. He turned around suddenly and caught me staring, then he grinned in a self-assured way that told me he was used to girls admiring him. I could never have predicted that the round-cheeked boy whose feet were always caked with river mud would turn out like this.

I glanced at my watch. Aunt Jule would be expecting me — not that she had ever stuck to a schedule, but she knew I did. I retraced my steps, pausing for a moment at a table of handmade jewelry.

Her again — the girl I had seen before. This time she was hiding in the narrow space between two brick houses, watching me from the shadows.

Was she a friend of Nick’s? I wondered, feeling uncomfortable. Perhaps she was someone who had dated him once and never gotten over him. Why else would she be watching me?

You’re acting the way Mom used to, I chided myself; someone looks at you twice and you read into it. It’s just a coincidence.

Wanting to avoid another scene at the dunking booth, I took a detour onto Shipwrights Street and stopped to admire an herb garden in a tiny front yard. There she was again! I found it disturbing that someone with such unhappy eyes would shadow me. At the end of the block I returned to High Street, feeling safer in a crowd.

I had parked my Honda in front of the old newsstand and stopped there to pick up a local paper. As I stood at the counter inside, I remembered buying a pile of magazines and comic books after my mother’s funeral My father, hoping to comfort me, had given me a twenty to spend and waited in the car, talking to his advisers by phone. I remembered looking at the tabloids that day, reading their glaring headlines: SENATOR’S WIFE MURDERED, SENATOR STOPS INVESTIGATION.

But it wasn’t my father who kept the police at bay the night my mother died and in the weeks following. Aunt Jule had argued fiercely with the sheriff and the state police, insisting the drowning was an accident, begging them for my sake not to stir up rumors with a pointless investigation.

Aunt Jule, whose long roots in this town gave her more clout than my father, had been my protector, and the house where my mother felt haunted, my refuge. The headlines made me cringe, but I had been taught that tabloids lied.

And I never stopped to wonder if my mother’s death was truly an accident or if Aunt Jule might have been protecting someone other than me.

three

I bounced my way over the potholes of Aunt Jule’s driveway, past her rusty Volvo, and thumped to a stop. From the driver’s seat I gazed up at the house, hoping it would look as I remembered. In most ways it did.

The long rectangular frame of the house was covered with gray clapboard. Its double set of porches, upper and lower, ran from end to end and a wood stairway led down from the upper porch. Along both porches there were doors rather than windows, each room having at least one exit to the outside. But unlike the pristine image I carried in my mind, the doors sagged with potbellied screens, and the paint was peeling badly. The river side of the house, which was identical to the garden side but exposed to the water, probably looked worse.

I climbed out of the car. The pungent smell of boxwood and the fragrance of roses surrounded me — just as I remembered! Between the house and myself were two big gardens, a square knot garden on the right, bristling with bushy hedges and herbs, and a flower garden on the left.

“Lauren! You’re here!” Aunt Jule cried out happily, stepping onto the lower porch. “Do you need help with your suitcase? Holly,” she called.

No matter what clothes Aunt Jule bought, she always seemed to be wearing the same outfit — a denim skirt or pants with a loose print top. Her long brown hair had streaks of gray in it now and fell in a thick braid down her back.

We met at the head of the path between the knot and flower gardens.

She threw her arms around me. “Hello, love. It’s good to have you back.”

“It’s good to be back,” I said, hugging her tightly.

“I’ve missed you.”

“And I’ve missed you.” I saw Holly emerging from the house. “But promise you won’t make a fuss over me.

When I was a little girl, my godmother would welcome me like visiting royalty and wait on me for the first few days.

Holly would get so mad she wouldn’t speak to me. It was only when Nora and Nick did, and she felt left out, that she would warm up and assume her usual position of ringleader.

Holly strode toward us, taller now than both her mother and I. Her shoulder-length hair was almost black, a glorious, shimmering color that contrasted sharply with her blue eyes.

She had the beautiful eyes and brows of an actress, the kind that caught your attention with their drama and careful shaping.

“You look great!” I said.

She hugged me. “You, too. Welcome back, Lauren. I was so excited when Mom said you were coming. Is there something I can carry?”

I opened the trunk of my car, took out a full-size suitcase, and handed her an overnight bag.

Aunt Jule hovered close by and touched the smaller bag’s soft leather. “How nice!” she said. “You should get one of these, Holly.”

“Right, Mom. Shall we put it on our credit card? Come inside, Lauren. You must be thirsty,” Holly said, starting up the path.

“Oh, Lord!” Aunt Jule’s hand flew up to her forehead. “I forgot to check what we have to drink. There could be—”

“Iced tea or lemonade,” Holly told me, smiling. “I made a pitcher of each. Which would you like?”

“Iced tea, please.”

My godmother and I followed Holly into the house, entering the back of a wide hall that ran from the garden side to the river side of the house. We set my bags at the foot of the stairs and turned right, into the dining room.

It looked exactly as I remembered — a collection of dark wood chairs scattered around a long table that was buried beneath mail, magazines, and baskets of Aunt Jule’s craft stuff. The mahogany table might have been a valuable antique, but it was badly scarred by years of water rings and the grind of game pieces into its surface. One reason I had loved to come here was that, unlike my parents’ elegant town house, it was almost impossible to “ruin” something.

In the kitchen Holly set four glasses on a tray and began to pour the tea.

“Where’s Nora?” I asked.

“She’ll come around sooner or later,” Aunt Jule replied casually.

Holly glanced sharply at her mother. “I assume you told Lauren about Nora.”

“Not yet. Lauren has just arrived.”