“Yes, hello,” she was saying. “So Riley is your twin? I'm sorry,” she told Debbie in a teasing way, and Riley, across the room with Wilder, called, “I heard that!”
Riley rounded up the girls on his way over, and Emma looked mollified as she rode piggyback on her redheaded uncle. “Giddy-up!” she commanded him, and Riley waved farewell as he galloped out the front door, yelling, “Hurry up, Sterno, I'm starving!”
“Bye, Mom,” Evelyn added, pausing to peck Erica's cheek, and Matthew collected Cody again, while Bryce tried not to stare at his insanely gorgeous shirtless torso. She felt the heat from her lower body rising up and into her arms and cheeks and nipples, and as he turned to head out the door, he said casually, “See you later.” She thought,
Please oh please let that be a promise
.
It was beyond reason, she knew, a game she was playing, letting herself feel these crazy things because there was no chance they could actually act on themâ¦
could we?
For a moment she imagined what people might say if anyone were to ever know what had happened between themâ¦
Jesus Christ in heaven
. This was something she would never even so much as breathe a word of to Trish, who knew every last thing that had happened to Bryce since the dawning of their friendship. Trish would skin her alive for even continuing to admit to her desire for him.
Put a goddamn cork in it, Bryce!
she heard her best friend snap at her. This went way beyond messing around on Wade, which was a forgivable offense, as both girls were quite certain Wade hadn't always been faithful. Trish's voice again came into Bryce's memory, asking for the hundreth time,
What are you doing with Wade, anyway?
But even dear, forgiving Trish would have trouble accepting Bryce's feelings at present. Because despite everything, Matthew was her uncle, her relative, no matter how very much she desired him. Trish would kill her. Matthew's family would kill him.
“Bryce, honey, you don't mind riding out to the cemetery with me, do you?” Erica was asking her, and Bryce snapped back to attention, praying her aunt hadn't noticed the way she had been staring out the window at Matthew as he loaded the kids into the truck.
Minutes later Erica was driving south of town, Bryce in the passenger seat, a cold soda balanced between her legs. Erica promised they would grab something to eat on the way back. Bryce didn't mind. The air felt good rushing into the cab of the small red Ford that Erica drove, and she wasn't exactly hungry anyway: the grand tour of the campground, courtesy of Riley, had included no shortage of stories about past escapades the family had faced owning the place, including a tipped outhouse that Riley had gone into great detail about.
“Bryce,” Erica suddenly said, in a tone that made the younger woman sit up straight on the seat. “May I ask you something?”
Oh Jesus, oh shit
. But Erica went on, “Tell me about Michelle. Is she okay these days?”
Bryce almost blew out a sigh of relief, and slumped her spine slightly against the tan vinyl. How to respond to that? “She's the same as she's ever been,” she finally said, staring out the window into the sun-drenched landscape, but seeing the Wagon Box Court before her eyes, the interior of the trailer she'd called home for as long as she could recall. She decided not to sugar-coat things, certain Erica was not fan of bullshit, and could probably smell it a mile away.
“How has she been as a mother to you?” Erica went on, staring down the road. She'd reserved this conversation for a moment like this, when Bryce was trapped beside her but not forced to make eye contact, a trick Erica had learned over the years.
Bryce plucked at the neck of her t-shirt, which felt suddenly damp and clingy. She swallowed the excuses, then found that she couldn't bring any words forth. Erica said softly, “That bad, huh?”
Bryce shook her head mutely; how could she possibly explain to this woman how it felt to see your mother's blood gushing onto the floor of the kitchen, or filling the bathtub? How it felt to be disregarded, untouched and certainly never praised, ignored or screamed at through a blue-gray haze of cigarette smoke? For the first time all day, Bryce craved a smoke so badly her fingers twitched. Erica couldn't possibly understand: she loved her children deeply, that was obvious.
Erica let it rest and they drove for another 10 minutes in silence, until she made a right-hand turn through a wrought-iron gate someone had painted white.
Rose Lake Cemetery
was written in scrollwork across the top, and the older woman slowed to a crawl as they entered the tree-filled space, which seemed populated only by dust motes this lazy afternoon. Bryce hung her right arm out the window, studying the acres of gravestones, some of which appeared to be older than this century. Moments later Erica stopped the car and climbed out, headed without words towards a plot of graves under an enormous weeping willow, a tree so massive Bryce doubted she and Erica together would be able to reach around its trunk. The delicate green branches swept the air like curious fingers, and Bryce hurried after her aunt, parting the swaying tree limbs with her hands.
Ahead of her, Erica paused and then bent carefully beside an old, rose-tinted headstone. Bryce crept to her side, reading the words with a small start of surprise: it was a name she recognized.
Margaret Evelyn (Bryce) Sternhagen, beloved wife and mother
. And beneath these words, her dates:
1937-1960
.
“This is your grandma's grave,” Erica said unnecessarily, her voice low, as though they were in a library. Bryce bent to her knees too, and wanted to touch the headstone, but held her hands in her lap instead. Erica spoke again in a hushed voice. “Can I tell you something? Wilder wants Daniel, your grandpa, to be buried here, by his mother. But he won't go through with it, because of how Matty might feel. He loves Matthew enough to think of that kind of thing.” Erica brought her folded hands against her lips for a moment. “I wanted to bring you here today, before the funeral tomorrow, Bryce. I wanted you to know that you are loved here, and thatâ” For a moment she paused and gulped a little, and Bryce moved her left hand and touched her aunt's back timidly, gently. Erica pressed her lips together hard, but then continued. “I wish Daniel had been able to see you again, honey. He loved you very much, even if you didn't know it. He was a damn good man, and my husband and Matty looked up to him very much. This is going to be hard for Matty especiallyâ¦it hasn't sunk in for him yet, that his daddy's gone for good.” Erica reached and touched Bryce's knee lightly; in the tree above them, some kind of bird was chirping and chirping at them, as though begging them to listen. Bryce thought of Matthew being hurt in any way and her insides curled over on themselves.
“Erica, I'm sorry,” she whispered in response, unable to express how she felt in any better way. “I'm so sorry. I feel like I don't know anything.”
“Bryce, it's not your fault,” Erica said, sounding a little more in control. She swiped at her sunburned cheeks with her knuckles, then sat back on both heels. “Wilder loved his mother so much. I wish I'd've known her. I was only two years old when she died.”
“Where will he be buried?” Bryce asked then, still keeping her own voice low. The air here seemed almost unstable, as though to speak louder would disturb some terribly fragile balance. Bryce breathed through her nose and smelled the greenery, and lilacs, blooming some distance away in a splash of showy dark-purple, but close enough to spice the air with their wonderful perfume.
“Oh, here in the cemetery. But by Lydia, his second wife. Matty's mother,” Erica added. “She's about 20 yards that way.” Erica gestured, and Bryce suddenly twitched as a chill darted up her back.
“I forgot, I've been here before,” she whispered. “But it was raining that day.”
“Yes, it was. I'd forgotten that. It was an awful day. It was the last time I saw Shellyâ¦or you.”
Bryce recalled the icy rain on her arms and scoured her memory for any other glimpses of Matthew. It had been his mother's funeral, and now tomorrow he would have to bury his fatherâ¦and he was not even 30 years old. She saw him in her mind then, small and slim, no traces yet of the man he would become. Crying hard and not trying to hide it, as most boys of his age would have done. She twisted the hem of her faded t-shirt and closed her eyes, not wanting to remember him grieving.
“Here, I meant to leave her something,” Erica said then, and stood abruptly. She jogged back to the silent car. She leaned in and produced a cluster of wildflowers, while Bryce studied her grandmother's name chisled into the smooth stone surface and thought about the picture of this very woman in a drawer in Oklahoma. A picture that meant something to Michelle; how would her life have been different if not for this headstone? What had happened?
Erica placed the bouquet as gently as someone laying down a sleeping baby. She kissed the fingertips of her right hand and touched the stone for an instant, whispering, “Thank you for my Wilder,” and then turned and walked quietly back to the car. Bryce knelt in her wake for a long moment.
Tuesday, June 29, 1971 - Rose Lake
From the
middle row of the station wagon Michelle glared at Lydia's profile, curling her spine away from the molten vinyl, her toes pressed against the floor in a vain effort to keep the skin on her thighs from sticking to the seat beneath her. On her left Wilder sat with his sweating face tipped to the open window, listless, staring out at Main Street as it baked silently under the noontime summer sun. Between them, strapped into his carseat, tiny Matthew dozed, his head lolling along at every bump in the road. Michelle glanced at him for a moment, her gaze softening a little. He was sweet, even if his mother was a troll.
Lydia braked abruptly, cranked the wheel into an open parking space, then looked back at the three of them in the rearview mirror. She was wearing more make-up than normal,
town make-up
, Michelle thought, and her hair was piled up on her head with bobby pins.
“I'll be right back,” she told them, glancing away from Michelle and into her own eyes, fussily running a finger under one. “Shelly, you keep an eye on the boys.”
“No shit,” Michelle muttered, and Lydia's sharp gaze darted back to her stepdaughter's. Her irises looked dark enough to swallow light.
“Watch your mouth,” Lydia hissed, and Wilder turned his gaze to his sister, hoping she'd let the troll have it, but it was hot, and Michelle slouched back against the seat in momentary defeat, regreting it the moment her shoulder blades met the scorching fabric. Lydia didn't spare another word for them, nor glance, and slammed the car door in her wake, startling Matthew enough to wake him. The baby blinked in the bright sunlight, disoriented, and let out a howl of protest, rubbing his brown eyes furiously with both fists.
“Now lookit,” Wilder grumbled, jerking a thumb at the baby.
Michelle bounced the edge of his carseat.
“It's okay, buddy,” she murmured, but he wasn't satisfied with that, and although Lydia must have heard him wailing through the open car windows, she disappeared into Ryan Law Offices without a peep back in their direction. Michelle bit the insides of her cheeks and kept bouncing Matthew's carseat, while Wilder clapped his hands over his ears and tilted low on the seat, his bottom lip protruding slightly.
The baby didn't let up for the next 10 minutes.
“I'm gonna run away!” Wilder declared for the third time, and Michelle caved.
“I'll go get Lydia,” she told her little brother, speaking loudly enough to be heard over the red-faced squalling of the baby.
“Hurry!” he yelled at her, and then to Matthew, “Shut
up!
”
“Don't yell at him!” she scolded, shouldering the creaky door to budge it, climbing out into the sun. She hurried up the curb and over the sidewalk, smelling purple petunias, wondering what the hell was taking so long. Lydia informed them at breakfast that she had an errand to run, and when Michelle pressed the matter, Lydia told her that she had to stop and see a lawyer about her mother's will.
“What's a will?” Wilder had asked, but Lydia was through answering questions.
Michelle pressed against the heavy wooden double doors and entered a cool dim hallway with more doors all along either side. She glanced around in frustration before noticing one open about a foot and anxiously pushed through. It was a small room, carpeted in forest green, windowless and stuffy. No one was seated behind the huge wooden desk and Michelle wanted to sit down and cry in aggravation, hating her stepmother more than ever, but suddenly she heard a muffled voice leaking from another door behind the desk. Her tongue had flicked between her teeth to form the word
Lydia
before she stopped herself and swallowed the name whole. What motivated her to creep silently forward, she would never know â Nancy Drew, maybe, or just a feeling in her gut â but she did, and gingerly tipped her right ear against the heavy door that smelled faintly like cigar smoke.
“â¦just want you to see him,” Lydia was saying, and Michelle bit her bottom lip, because it sounded like she was crying.
“What goodâ¦thatâ¦do?” replied a man, speaking low, difficult to hear. Who was it? One of the lawyers, probably. Was Lydia's mother's will making her so upset? Michelle pressed closer, straining.
“He's going to grow up in this town!” Lydia said then, her voice louder, more shrill. Michelle pictured the way her stepmother's eyes must look right now, wide and frightening, eyebrows forming high archs over them. “You'll see him eventually, you bastard! Will you ignore us on the goddamn street?”
What?
The man sounded angry now, and his voice rose, too. “What the hell do you want from me, Lydia?”
“I want decency from you, you son of a bitch!” she shrieked. No denying the rage now, and Michelle clapped a hand over her own mouth, afraid, but too stunned to go back outside. Lydia sounded unhinged, not that this was anything new, but why? Who were they talking about? Then something breakable smashed against a wall in there, shattered to bits. Michelle dropped instinctively to a crouch, her stomach curdling.