Page 67 of Everyone Here Is Lying
Bledsoe says, as they pack up to leave, “There will be an autopsy on Marion Cooke. All pretty straightforward.”
•••
Avery has gone upto her room to rest, exhausted after everything that’s happened, especially the interview with the detectives. It went fine. The main thing is, Marion’s dead; she can’t contradict her.
She listens intently and hears the detectives leave the house. Her father hasn’t left with them. Her parents are still in the living room, talking in low voices. Michael is in his room, the door closed. Shecreeps quietly out onto the landing, where they can’t see her, and tries to overhear what they’re saying.
At first she can’t make it out, but then, as always, they forget to keep their voices down.
Her father says, “Aren’t you worried about her?”
“Of course I’m worried about her!” her mother replies.
“I—I don’t mean that,” her father says.
“What do you mean, then?”
She hears her dad walking toward the foot of the stairs and ducks out of sight. He’s probably checking to see if she’s there. She hears him go back into the living room, and creeps back out.
“I mean”—her father lowers his voice, but Avery can still hear it—“do you believe her, that it happened the way she said it did?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” her mother asks, aghast.
“Oh, you always believe everything she says,” her father says, sounding irritable. “You always have.”
“I believe you knocked her to the floor!”
“Yes, I did,” he admits heatedly. “I don’t know what came over me, Erin. It was like she was goading me, on purpose—but I know that’s no excuse. I was instantly sorry. I’ve never felt so much shame and remorse in my life. I hated myself for it; I still do. I begged her to forgive me. I told her I loved her, that I didn’t mean to hurt her. That I should behave better. For Christ’s sake!” His voice sounds frustrated. “She left that bit out of her account.” Now he sounds bitter. “But she didn’t forget about how I asked her not to tell you.” There’s a silence, and then he says, sounding uneasy, “Don’t you think she’s—manipulative?”
“Children are always manipulative,” her mother says dismissively. “They try to get their own way.”
“Not like her though,” he says. “Michael’s not like that.”
Avery feels a familiar spurt of anger at her father.
Her mother speaks. “I know Avery is difficult, I’m not denying that. God knows. She’s willful, and oppositional, and not very good with people, but I don’t like what you seem to be implying.” She pauses. “You seem to be suggesting that—that things didn’t happen the way she says.”
“What if they didn’t?”
Avery has to strain to hear him now.
“How can you say that?” her mother replies angrily. “After everything she’s been through! Talk about blaming the victim! She’s only nine years old!” There’s a moment where neither of them speaks. Then her mother says, “I think you should leave.”
“I’m going.”
Avery can hear him moving downstairs; she’ll have to retreat, so that he doesn’t see her from the door.
“Erin,” her father says, “I love Avery, she’s my daughter—but I’m afraid of her. I’m not sure what she’s capable of. Just... keep your eyes open.”
“Get out.”
Avery sneaks back to her bedroom.
Fifty-one
Erin remains on the sofa, unmoving, after her husband leaves. She’s thinking about how they used to be, as a family, and what they’ll be like now.
It’s repugnant to her, what William was suggesting. She thinks he’s trying to whitewash what he did—to shift the blame for his shameful behavior onto his daughter somehow. He struck her and he feels embarrassed and ashamed and sorry for himself now that she and the detectives know the real extent of it. He doesn’t like it that Avery is still angry at him for it—angry enough to tell the truth. Perhaps he’s worried that he might be charged. Maybe he should be.
