I can imagine them there, three underage teenagers drinking beer behind the lighthouse at the end of the pier all the way over in Boelen, while somewhere between Dunford and Port Sitsworth, Marcus Daley was strangling Amy and I was answering a battery of questions about seeing her climb into a blue car.
“When the beer was gone, we got bored. Someone had the bright idea — it was probably Darius — to goof around with this fire trick. We bought four cans of aerosol hairspray from a convenience store and snuck into the abandoned mill. Ricky lit up the first jet of hairspray. We were drunk, probably still high, and we thought it was the most amazing thing we’d ever seen. Homemade fireballs. But then one of the cans caught on fire in Ricky’s hands, so he threw it to the ground and we ran like idiots from the building. We thought the can was going to explode. We kept waiting for it, for the big boom, but nothing happened, so we just left.”
My guess is they were laughing when they got back to the car; meanwhile, in Dunford, police were combing our neighbourhood for clues and Amy’s mom had to be escorted back to her own house.
Somehow, miraculously in hindsight, Darius drove the three of them back to Jeremy’s house and they spent the next few hours playing video games and smoking more pot in Jeremy’s basement, oblivious to the tragedy unfolding on Lindell Drive. By the time Ricky walked home, after being gone for over six hours, there was only one police car left on our street.
“I think the police car freaked him out,” Jeremy admitted. “Because of the pot. But he told me later that he relaxed when he realized it wasn’t in front of his house. Then he found out your neighbour girl had gone missing. I think that scared him, you know, because of you. Because it could have been you.”
I remember his reaction. I didn’t think his fear had anything to do with me.
“Later,” Jeremy said, “I think the next day, we found out that the Boelen Mill had burned down. That really freaked us out.”
That burning can of hairspray that Ricky dropped didn’t do nothing after all, it started a fire that blazed out of control while Darius, Jeremy, and Ricky were driving back to Dunford.
“I mean, the mill was a wreck of a building to begin with, it was slated for demolition, but we all knew we’d be in huge trouble if we were caught. Ricky said it would kill your mom if her son was charged with arson. It was his idea to make sure we all stuck to our original story about being in Leeville that night. Obviously, none of us wanted to get caught.”
It’s hard for me to reconcile these facts with the vague, half-formed — sometimes fully-formed — suspicions I’ve carried with me for almost the whole of my life. I guess there had always been a small part of me that wanted to believe in my brother’s innocence. I’m still trying to convince the grown-up version of me it’s actually true. And yet another part of me still resists, even knowing the facts. Almost every decision in my life has hinged on the knowledge that my brother is a monster. And that I protected him. I have carried that shameful secret around for so long that I have formed my life around it. I have lost so much, and justified it all, because of that single stupid belief.
And if that one thing is no longer true, then I am afraid to ask myself: what else in my life isn’t either?
CHAPTER FIVE
•
RICKY OPENED HIS EYES THIS morning. It was only for a few seconds and I wasn’t there to see it, but Mom was. Although Ricky looked right at her face, apparently he made no sign of recognizing her. According to Mom, Ricky simply stared at her briefly, then closed his eyes again. Still, it’s something. Dr. Hooverston says it’s a good sign. And since I am sitting with Ricky now, I am praying that he will have another small moment of wakefulness while I am at his side, no matter how short that moment is.
I very much want the chance to look into his eyes and tell him I know the truth now. I want to see him for who he is, not who I’ve always believed him to be. I want to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry for believing the worst of him. I’m sorry that he might have been driving to see me when he had the accident. In all likelihood, though, the next time he opens his eyes, he will be alone. Or it will be a nurse leaning over him. Mom and Brenda and I spend hours with him, but none of us can maintain a constant vigil. I have returned to the plant after taking a short leave. My interview with Crystal Clear Solutions turned out to be a mere formality — just like Jason kept trying to convince me. And, while I spend as much time in the evenings at the hospital as I can, in the end, even I have to go home to sleep. We’ve tried to establish a schedule of sorts, to increase the odds of someone being with Ricky if he wakes. When he wakes.
Jason has come to the hospital with me several times. We haven’t discussed the conversation we were having about our relationship the night of the accident, although I know it will come up again. He’s giving me space
