Page 92 of The Family Plot
I picture what could happen next: Elijah coming back, hauling Charlie off to a sealed-up room, just like the one beneath the shed. Could I really do that, send him back there, even if the punishment would fit the crime? Is that what I want for my brother—to relive the worst of his life, to be stuck in a cell with the ghost of our father, to grip the bars and forever feel the handle of the ax?
Who would that benefit? Who would that save?
“He wanted to die?” I ask Charlie. “You swear to me—no more lies, no more confessions after this: Andy begged you to kill him?”
It won’t be enough to make it okay. But I need to be sure.
Charlie’s head sinks toward his chest. Moments pass, the room strangled of its air. Then, blinking out a tear that races down his face, he nods.
“And you didn’tintendto do it?” I press. “You didn’t kill him because… because he wanted to tell someone about Dad, and you wanted to keep your involvement a secret?”
He snaps his head up. “I wouldn’t have done that. I didn’t evenseeAndy anymore. I only saw myself. And I wanted to… I wanted to kill that part of myself. The crying, begging, hopeless part. But not Andy. I never wanted to hurt him.”
“But you did,” I say. “You hurt him instead of helping him.”
He looks like I’ve hit him, eyes round and sad like a little boy’s. Still, he nods again. “I know,” he says.
I nod, too.
I couldn’t save Andy. I didn’t see his whacks against trees the way I should have: as a cry for help, as proof that he needed more than I alone could give him. But as I stare at Charlie, at all the pain kept caged inside him, I see that I have the chance to save someone else.
Finally, belief sinks into me, spreading across my bones. I marvel at the weight of it: heavier and lighter than I thought it would be.
And though it hurts like hell to say it, the words like barbed wire on my tongue, I force them out: “I won’t tell.”
Tate and Mom exhale in relief, but I thrust a hand into the air. “On one condition.”
Tate narrows her eyes. “What condition?”
“Charlie needs help,” I say. “Look at him.”
His expression hasn’t softened—no sagging of his features that would mean he’s letting go. It’s all inside him still: shame, self-loathing, immeasurable misery. He’s taut with it right now, limbs tense, face almost gnarled.
“It isn’t over for him,” I say, “just because he told us what happened. He’ll still be performing, out in the world, with everyone else, and it will continue to devour him. And then who knows what he’ll do—kill someone else, maybe?”
“I’d never,” Charlie insists. “I never wanted to hurt Andy, I swear. I don’t want to hurtanyone, not ever again.”
“Not on purpose,” I say. “But you kept everything inside you, all bottled up, for so long. It’s no wonder it exploded out of you like that. And now who knows what could happen the next time someone triggers you, like Andy did that night.”
“So…” Tate draws out the syllable. “What are you suggesting?”
I wipe a hand across my cheek, feel the tears that spill, even as I speak. “Actually, you suggested it. Therapy.”
“You told her I should go to therapy?” Charlie asks Tate.
“No! I told her”—she glares at me—“it’snot an option.”
“It’s going to have to be. He needs to see a therapist. And not just him! We all do! We—”
I stop, squeezing my eyes shut, trying to dam up my tears. Iwait until I’m no longer crying, and then I open my eyes to begin again.
“We’ve been so isolated, all our lives. Everyone thinks they know us, butnobodydoes. Tate, you said yourself, it’s hard for you to make friends. And it is for me, too! But even worse than that”—I think of Greta, the hurt warping her face as I told her to go—“I’ve pushed away the only one I have. And I don’t think that’s normal.We’renot normal.”
“I’m sorry,” Mom murmurs. “I did that to you all, I’m so sorry.”
“See?” I say. “This is what I mean. Yeah, Mom, you fucked up. Actually, ‘fucked up’ doesn’t begin to cover it. But what is your plan to move on from that? Are you going to apologize the rest of your life? I don’t want that for you. And Tate, I want you to havefriends, not just followers. We needpeoplein our lives. Not just gossipers. Not just ghosts.”
I look out toward the foyer, at the shrine of Mom’s parents hanging above the stairs. It strikes me now: How different, really, are those picture frames from my laptop screen? For years, she and I have kept them pinned in place, the people we’ve lost, but we’ve really only pinned ourselves.
