Page 11 of The Family Plot
I wait for Mom to protest his plans for the memorial. She was the one who made us live this way—shuttered and shut in, protected from people like the ones who killed her parents, our boundaries shrinking smaller each time the Blackburn Killer struck. I can’t imagine her welcoming islanders into our home, offering them dessert as they gawk at our grief. But she only sighs.
“The cookies were for you kids,” she says. “These are chocolate chip. Tate’s favorite.”
I bite back my bitterness. Is Mom aware that Tate is going to minimize Andy’s death to an eight-by-ten display? Does she know that, right now, the daughter she’s baking cookies for is “gathering supplies” to turn him into an exhibit? A post?
“And then I’m going to make snickerdoodles for Dahlia, and peanut butter for you, Charlie. And then who knows what else—sugar, or oatmeal raisin, or, oh! My mother used to make these raspberry almond cookies that would melt in your mouth. Except—we’d need jam, raspberry jam, and I don’t know if…”
She trails off as she darts toward the pantry. Charlie crosses his arms, amused, and I look closer at Mom. Grains of brown sugar freckle her cheek; clumps of flour whiten her hair.
“You don’t need to make us cookies,” I say. “It seems like a lot of trouble.”
“Don’t be silly,” Mom replies. “I just… I got distracted down the hall for a minute. Forgot to keep watch.” She laughs, high and girlish. “I can handle cookies, Dahlia. Cookies are easy.”
Except I’ve never seen her bake them before. Or anything else for that matter.
“Odd that the smoke detectors didn’t go off,” Mom muses, shoving aside boxes of pasta, cans of beans. “I’ll have to call someone about that.” She swallows, and it’s the first moment since we’ve walked in that she seems even remotely sad. “I suppose that’s something Daniel would have done.”
Her voice hitches on Dad’s name. Her face crumples, and in the creases of her skin, there’s the weight of what she’s lost. My eyes sting with tears, but before my vision can blur, the moment is over. Mom smiles so wide it scares me.
“First!” she chirps. “We’ll need these cookies. I’ll have to redo the chocolate chip, start again from scratch.”
As she dives back into the pantry, I can only stare. This bustling, beaming version of my mother is so unlike the one I know. That mother smiled thinly, when she smiled at all. That mother couldn’t make it up or down the stairs without stopping to gape, for minutes sometimes, at her parents, no doubt remembering their gruesome end.
Now, Mom mumbles as she runs her hands over rows of spices, canisters of sugar and flour. Then she spins around.
“We’re out of baking powder!” she cries. “I’ll need to go into town to get some.”
She reaches back to untie the waist of her apron and pulls it over her head, revealing the same sweats from yesterday.
“Tate’s going,” I say. “Why don’t you let her pick it up for you? I can tell her to—”
“No!” Mom shouts, and it shocks me, honestly, to hear her raise her voice. “I’m perfectly capable. I can get the baking powder. I can call about the smoke detectors. I can make my children’s favorite cookies!”
By the last syllable, she’s shrill as a teakettle. And now she’s twirling toward the door and shoving it open. Charlie and I watch the door swing hard in her wake.
“Well,” Charlie says. “That was… a thing that just happened.”
He picks up a burnt cookie from the pan on the stove, sniffs it, inspects it, and taps it against the counter. Black crumbs flake off the cookie’s surface.
“I think she forgot the chocolate chips,” he says. Then he looks at me. “Well. Now that we know the house isn’t burning down, I better get back to work. The LMM won’t curate itself.”
“Charlie,” I say, “don’t you think it’s a bad idea to—”
“Uh, uh, uh,” he interrupts, wagging a finger in the air. “Criticisms of the LMM will only be receivedafterthe LMM. Just like any other show. At that point, you can publish a full-page review in theBlackburn Gazettefor all I care.”
He spins around with exaggerated grace, and then he leaves me alone.
They’ve all gone crazy. Charlie, Tate, Mom. They want to display Andy, exploit him—or bury their heads in a bowl of flour—so why should I stay here a minute longer? This memorial, this museum, won’t be about him. There’s no way I’ll stand there, in a room of gossip guzzlers, and tell them how he carved his name all over this house. How he always stubbed his toe on the fourth floorboard from the top of the stairs. How I thought that was the funniest thing.
My phone chirps with a text, muffled by the pocket of my sweater.When I pull it out, I see Greta’s name, and I close my eyes before I read her message, aching with nostalgia.
I want to go back. Back just a couple days, to the little apartment that always smells of cinnamon. Back to Greta’s knocks on my door, offering me search tips I hadn’t thought of yet:Have you checked assessor’s websites?Some nights, when she got off work, we’d set up our laptops side by side—her on her message boards, toggling between open tabs; me crossing one city off my list before moving on to the next—and I want to go back to that. Back to when I believed my twin was alive, and my biggest problem was that I couldn’t find him.
Oh my god, Greta’s written,I just saw your text, I can’t believe it. I’m so sorry. How are you doing? What can I do?
My fingers hover above the screen, unsure what to type. I know friends are supposed to support you in times of tragedy—but friendship remains an uncomfortable fit for me, like an itchy sweater, or a too-tight turtleneck. Back when we first met, Greta glommed on to me quickly, giddy that, most times, when she referenced a cold-case murder, I actually knew what she was talking about.It’s like we share a language, she said one time—but it’s a language I grew up speaking and therefore find no beauty in, whereas Greta labors over learning it, marveling at its every sound. We’re not as similar as she thinks we are. We’re not like me and Andy, who didn’t need language at all.
Call me when you’re ready, she texts now, but I slip the phone back into my pocket.
