Page 60 of The Family Plot
Tate takes a tiny step forward, the only distance she can move. “Whatever else you did,” she says, trying to be heard above Mom’s noise, “whatever lies, whatever—” Tate turns her head sharply, as if Mom’s confession is only now landing, sudden and stinging, a slap across her face.
“Andy’s death wasn’t karma for anything,” she continues. “That’s just… superstition, it’s—”
“Andy was killed with his own ax!” Mom screams. “Just like his namesake! I called this into the world. I lied about murder and he was murdered.” She drags a hand down her face, fingers clawing at her cheek. “And those women. The shed. Murder has been circling us for decades! How can that not mean something?”
“I don’t know,” Tate says. She looks at me, eyes a little wild, like she’s asking me to step in, to speak to our mother, but I have nothing to say.
“I don’t know,” Tate repeats. “I don’t know, I…”
She slumps against the wall again, sliding down until she’s perched on the floor. I slump back, too, opposite her. But Charlie is pillar-straight. His fists clench, unclench. His nostrils flare.
“I’m so sorry I lied,” Mom says between sobs. She presses the heels of her hands against her cheeks, as if to dam up her tears. “I can’t undo it, I can’t take it back. But I’m so sorry. To all of you. To Andy most of all.”
“You’resorry?” Charlie shouts. He slaps the wall, making the rest of us jump.
“I am,” Mom whispers after a moment. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t—” He covers his face, groaning into his hands, and when he speaks again, his slur is gone, each word precise. “What else have you kept a secret? What else did you know and never say?”
I tilt my head, surprised by the rage in his questions. Surprised by the questions themselves.
“N-nothing,” Mom stutters. “I don’t know what you— Nothing, I swear.”
From her place on the floor, Tate touches Charlie’s leg. “Hey,” she says quietly. “Mom didn’t know.”
Charlie scoffs.
“Know about what?” I ask.
I point my light toward Charlie’s face, watching as his eyes lose the gleam of their anger, as they dim into resentment instead. “The shed,” he mutters.
Mom gasps. “No! I didn’t! I had no idea.”
Charlie shrugs one shoulder, the movement lacking his sharpness from a moment ago. “You lied to us our entire lives.”
“Not about that!” Mom cries. “If I had any idea what was down there, I would have…”
She continues on, but I’m not listening. I’m focusing, instead, on the sketches again, tugged toward an earlier thought.
“But they’re so similar,” I say, and silence swells around my interruption. “Mom—why did you tape up your drawings like this? Exactly like the photographs in the shed.”
“Seriously, Dahlia?” Tate stands up with a grunt. “First, you accusemeof taking those photographs, and now you’re accusing Mom?”
“She accusedyou?” Charlie asks.
“I wasn’t… I wasn’t accusing you,” I say. “Or I didn’t mean to,anyway. But Mom”—I turn back to her—“did you ever see the wall of photos? Is that why you…?” I gesture to her sketches.
“No! I’ve never been down in that room, not even when my father used it. It was always just storage, just—” She touches her forehead. “I don’t know what else to say. I already told the police.”
Charlie stiffens. “Told the police what?”
“They found my drawings last night, during their search. Detective Kraft pulled me aside, and I explained everything as I explained it to you—my lie about my parents, my fears about Andy—but he asked me about the similarity to the photographs, and I told him I don’t know! It’s just a coincidence.”
“What did Elijah say?” I ask. “Did he buy that?”
On the phone today, he was still pushing me toward his theories about Dad. Did he see this wall as further evidence that he might be guilty, that perhaps Dad copied Mom’s collage? Or worse, did the connection between the photos and the sketches nudge Elijah toward a different theory? One where Mom was involved with the Blackburn murders, too.
“Did hebuythat?” Tate seethes. “Why don’t you just say it, Dahlia? You think we’re all a bunch of killers.”
