Page 91 of The Family Plot
I want to latch my fingers onto his. I want to tug him free of our father’s grip. And I want to go back and know him—really fucking know him—and tell him that, even in that knowing, I love him, I love his untamable parts.
I stay on the floor as long as I need to. A long time. A really long time. Sobs threaten to tear me apart, to crack me open like an earthquake does the ground. But my body is relentless; it keeps me together, trapping my agony inside me—a sharp, ricocheting thing.
When I finally drag my arms off the wood, lift my head to look at my family, I see that I’m the only one left crying. Mom’s gaze is wet and haunted and fixed on Charlie, but her tears have paused for now. Charlie keeps his eyes on his lap, folding and unfolding his hands, glaring at his own fingers like he wishes they belonged to somebody else. Tate is watching our brother so fiercely I imagine he can feel her stare like a windburn on his cheek. Her lips are pushed to the side, like she’s deciding on something, and even before she speaks, I know that what she says will make me sick.
“We’ll keep it a secret,” she tells him.
And there it is, a tidal wave of nausea, about to take me down. “We’llwhat?”
“He’s suffered enough,” she says, whipping her head toward me. “And you heard what he said: he was only giving Andy what he wanted—a way out. Right?”
She looks at Mom, who’s frozen in her chair. “I…” Mom says, butwhen seconds pass and she doesn’t continue, fury rockets through me, blasting through my grief.
“You can’t possibly agree with her,” I seethe. “HekilledAndy. He killed your son!”
“He says… he says Andy wanted that,” Mom murmurs.
“Andy wantedhelp! Or that’s what he needed, at least. Not an ax in his fucking skull!”
“I know. I know. And that’s my fault. I kept it…” Mom bows her head. “I kept it too dark in here to see the real darkness. I should have noticed. I should have protected you all so much better than I did.” Her breath shivers as she exhales. “I’m so sorry, Charlie. I’m sorry I didn’t know.” She lifts her eyes to him. “I didn’t protect you then, but I can protect you now. Tate’s right, you’ve suffered enough.” She clasps a hand over her mouth, triggering her tears. “My god, how you’ve suffered!”
Tate nods eagerly, watching Mom. Then she pivots toward me. “Please, Dahlia.”
“You’re crazy,” I fume. “What do you think is going to happen? The police are closing in on Dad. Elijah was here today, nosing around the house, and it’s only a matter of time before they find definitive proof that Dad was the Blackburn Killer. And once they do, they’ll—”
“They still won’t know about Charlie,” Tate says. “Or Andy. And we don’t have to tell them. We can play dumb, pretend we had no idea about Dad. We can let them assume it was always him, alone out there, and that he murdered Andy, too.”
No. No way. Charlie took my brother from me, hekilled him, instead of getting him help. He never spoke up, for all the years it happened to him, and that was the problem, that’s what made Andy the person he became: someone without hope. And now they want me to keep quiet, too?
I’m already shaking my head as I look at Charlie, but his expression stops me. He still isn’t crying, but there’s anguish on his face so jagged it seems like it would cut me if I touched him. Gone is his confident swagger, his condescending smirk. All that’s left is pain. And I know—despite my fury, I do understand—that it’s pain that’s always been there, that the swagger and smirk have been masks to protect the tortured boy beneath. I know, now, that it was like that for Andy, too, that even when he screwed up his face to hack at trees, his hardened features were just a cover for his raw and chronic suffering.
And if Andy really wanted to be gone…
No. I clench my jaw, rejecting the thought, pressing my teeth together as it tries to creep back.
If Andy was truly begging Charlie to end his suffering…
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” I sob at Charlie. “You’ve lied for years, and even when you confessed last night, you still held something back.”
Charlie nods, glaring at the coffee table. Then he looks at me. “You’re going to have to take my word for it,” he says. “Is that going to be enough?”
For me, it never has been—not even with Andy, the one person in this world I told myself I trusted. I never took him at his word when he said there was something wrong in our house. And look how that turned out. I made him my entire world, and I still didn’t know enough about him to save him; I still didn’t trust it was true when he told me we needed to leave.
And now here’s Charlie, asking me to believe him, to trust that the gaping hurt in his eyes is a symptom of truth-telling.
But it could all be an act. Another role he’s learned to play.
“Please, Dahlia?” Tate says again—only this time, it’s a question instead of a statement, a desperate plea. When I look at her, I see itall over her face: the fierce and painful love she has for Charlie, a love that’s us-against-the-world even though he’s made this world so hard.
My sobs slow as I consider her. How much did Tate have to bleed for her dioramas, knowing that her brother had been a part of their gruesome story, knowing that she could make the story smaller, make it bite-size, but she could not make it gone? How much bitterness has Tate swallowed down over the years, just to keep the sweetness of her relationship with Charlie?
I think of my own coping mechanisms—my incessant searching, my conviction that my twin and I knew each other’s minds—and now, taking in my sister’s tear-streaked face, it’s like I’m seeing her for the first time. We’re so similar, it turns out: loving someone who’s shattered, holding them so tightly, as if our arms could keep them whole. And I know, Iknow, that if the roles were reversed, if Andy had been the one to kill Charlie, if it had beenhishands on the ax,hisswings that ended my other brother’s life, I wouldn’t have told a soul. It wouldn’t have been right, maybe—but it would have been love.
Everyone’s waiting for me to answer. Mom’s fingers push against her lips, eyes set on mine. Tate leans forward, begging me without any words. And Charlie—I try to read his face: how his cheeks seem hollowed out; how his jaw juts back and forth. I could choose to see it as something he’s rehearsed, an expression he’s crafted to appear vulnerable, ashamed, tortured by years of trauma. Or I could choose to see it as truth. I could choose to believe my brother—the only one I have left.
“I’m sorry, Dahlia,” he says, and his voice is so small, cowering at the back of his throat. “I’m sorry to all of you. Mom, Tate. And fuck, Andy, I—” The sentence cuts off, snipped like a string, and he shakes his head, leaving it dangling.
“But Dahlia,” he continues, “I know what I took from you. I knowyour loss is different. And I’m always sorry. I’m always so fucking disgusted.”
