I’m utterly chilled as the image comes into better focus. It’s a line drawing, quite well done, of a woman sitting at the bottom of a staircase. Her face is severe, her expression a controlled rage, ink-black hair pulled tightly back into a bun. She’s wearing a black, puritanical dress buttoned to the neck, white collar circling her neck. I think Hester Prynne, but I know that’s not right. I know because Hester Prynne wasn’t known for clutching a hatchet in her hands, which this woman is doing. There’s a single word in bold type at the bottom of the poster: Lizzie.
Jesus Christ. My niece has only one poster on her bedroom walls, and it’s a drawing of Lizzie Borden?
I’m now less intrigued by snooping in this house and am much more concerned about finding Max. I leave Willow’s room and walk quickly down the hallway to the master bedroom. I’m about to knock on the door when I pause and listen a moment.
The sounds from behind the door leave no doubt as to what I’m listening to: sex. Either Peter and Cora are in there together or someone is watching porn. My immediate discomfort is quickly supplanted by anger; I leave Max for a few hours with my family, and instead of spending time with him, they disappear to screw? I look at my watch. It’s not even eight thirty.
I don’t knock. I just can’t bring myself to do it. Not yet at least.
I turn and head back downstairs.
Living room. No one. Same goes for family room. Basement. Laundry room and even the garage.
Then, as I’m in the garage, I notice a glow through the glass of the door leading from the garage to the back patio. I thread my way along the wall until I reach the door, and as I peer through, I see Max.
Max and Willow. They’re sitting in chairs on the back patio, each of the kids bundled in a fleece blanket. Their backs face me and they’re hunching toward the flames rising from a large stone firepit in the center of the patio. After my eyes take a few seconds to adjust to the dark, I recognize what they’re doing. Roasting marshmallows.
For a moment, my body warms as if I were sitting next to them, facing the flames. This sullen teen with the Lizzie Borden poster is hanging out with Max on a Friday night, roasting marshmallows. Improbable as I would have thought, perhaps she’s the most redeeming one of the family.
I watch from the darkness of the garage, my boy hanging out with his cousin. They’re talking but I can’t make out their words.
For a moment, this feels like a normal family.
After I moved away for college, it would have been forgivable for someone with my history to have never spoken to their family again. Forgivable, understandable, and probably what I should have done. But there’s that tiny ember that never quite leaves you, that minuscule source of heat that burns inside, telling you that, no matter who your family is, they are special and shouldn’t be cut from your life like some malignant tumor. Nothing is more important than family. That’s what my father said the night Caleb Benner bled in our house. Without family, we have nothing. It’s so easy to dismiss such clichéd phrases, but clichés only exist because of the truth on which they’re based. In all my years away from Bury, all the years with Riley, a small part of me always missed my family. It’s so messed up. Borderline Stockholm syndrome. But without that tiny ember smoldering inside me, I don’t think I ever would have come back here. But now, watching my son and niece, I see it for what it is. I didn’t come back here just for my father’s financial support. I came here because of an illogical desire to be with my family. To be a Yates, grotesque, cancerous warts and all.
And seeing these two, roasting marshmallows, it’s almost a validation of that desire. That maybe we can share a closeness that’s always been just out of reach.
I crack the garage door open, not necessarily trying to remain silent but not announcing myself either. I want to hear a bit of their conversation, mostly because I love hearing Max talk when he doesn’t know I’m around. Observing him in the wild.
“—you mean by that?”
His voice. He sounds anxious. Not what I was expecting.
“It’s true,” Willow says. “I’m surprised you didn’t know that already. It’s a good thing I’m here to tell you.”
“It’s not true.”
I know that voice. Max is stressing out. My instinct is to go to him, but I resist. I want to know what exactly she’s telling him.
“My mom told me everything, and she knows because your mom told her. Sisters, you know. They share everything.”
“You’re lying.”
I grip the door handle, my stomach clenching. Nausea rising. Whatever Willow is talking about, it’s clear she’s already told him, so interrupting her now wouldn’t do any good. Max has already heard something I’m sure I didn’t want him to hear.
So I listen, fingers squeezing the cold door handle, heart in my throat.
“But my mom didn’t do anything,” Max says.
“That’s not what the cops think.” Willow’s voice is calm, coy, and the perfect pitch to extract maximum pain. Now I understand why she has that poster on her wall. Lizzie Borden isn’t some kind of ironic fuck-you to Willow’s parents. She’s Willow’s idol. “They think she killed your dad.”
“Shut up.”
“What happened that night?” she asks. “What really happened? I mean, you were there. Were your parents fighting? Was it a normal night?”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“It’s okay, Max. You can tell me. You can trust me.”
My body heat rises a
