“What the hell are you talking about?” Brenda snarls, and I hear a bit of the gravelly voice she used in my office. “What is wrong with everybody today?”
“Seriously, Kayla.” All of Ellie’s attention is on me. “What do you mean?”
“You shot a bunch of squirrels with a pellet gun and threw them on my redbud tree.” I’m guessing now.
“That was Brenda?” My father sounds astonished. I don’t answer him. I’m too busy staring her down.
“You’re insane,” she says.
“Leave Brenda alone,” Miss Pat says. “I thought you were a nice girl, but you—”
“You went to tremendous lengths to try to prevent anyone from finding that grave,” I say to Brenda. “Why? What’s your connection to it?”
Brenda laughs. “You’re completely out of your mind,” she says. “You’re so obsessed with your ‘Shadow Ridge Estate’ that you can’t think straight.”
“You tried to scare me away,” I say. “It had to be because of Win.”
“Don’t say that name!” Miss Pat nearly shouts, and I ignore her.
“You didn’t want anyone to find him,” I say to Brenda. I’m trembling, afraid of her. She took my daughter. She told me she wanted to kill someone. What is she capable of? Yet, I can’t stop talking. “You probably were there the night everything happened, like Miss Pat said. You knew Win was buried in my yard, didn’t you?”
She glares at me, opening her mouth as though she’s about to say something, but she can’t seem to find the words, and I keep talking. I look at Ellie.
“Your uncle Byron,” I say. “Remember how he wanted to buy my lot?”
I can practically see the light bulb going off in Ellie’s brain. Her eyes fill with horror.
“Uncle Byron?” Buddy asks. “Why the hell would he want land in Shadow Ridge? He was knockin’ at death’s door for two years before he passed.”
“Byron knew the grave was there,” Daddy says quietly.
“Well, you figured it out. Congratulations.” Miss Pat slaps her hands on her thighs. “Of course Byron knew the grave was there. He should have. He’s the one who dug it.”
“Hush, Mama. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Brenda tries once more to put a hand on Miss Pat’s arm, but the old woman slaps it away.
“But Uncle Byron was at a poker game with Daddy that night.” Buddy looks perplexed. “He and Daddy took Garner to the hospital.”
At the mention of her husband, Brenda leans forward, her cheeks suddenly bright red. “They did take Garner to the hospital,” she says, “but not from our house.” She turns to look at Ellie. “Garner didn’t fall off the ladder at our house! That was a made-up story we told the hospital. He was with everybody else at the circle in the woods, ready to put an end to you and your so-called boyfriend, and you killed him!” She picks up her bottle of iced tea and throws it at Ellie. Daddy is quick to get to his feet as though he can somehow reach Ellie in time to protect her, and I suddenly realize that after all these years, all these decades and all her distrust of him, my father still cares about her.
The bottle strikes her on the shoulder. She’s stunned but not hurt, but I feel the shock wave in the room. Dead silence follows Brenda’s words as we all try to make sense of them. I reach for my father’s hand. Tug him back to the sofa again.
“What is wrong with you?” Ellie leans toward Brenda. “How could I have killed Garner? I would never—”
“Listen to what she’s saying, Ellie,” Buddy interrupts her. “She’s sayin’ there was no poker game. It was made up to…”
“As a cover-up,” Daddy says. “Because Byron and your father … they were there in the clearing. So was Garner. It sounds like the whole damn town was in the clearing, like your mother said.”
“Except you!” I add, because I’m completely certain now that whoever drove my father’s truck, it wasn’t him.
“But why would you say I killed Garner?” Ellie turns to Brenda, who’s gripping the arms of her chair now, her knuckles white.
“You killed him, Ellie. You killed Garner and made me lose my baby—the only child I’d ever have! Garner was climbing the steps of the tree house and you kicked him off and destroyed my whole world, all for that stupid boy you’d only known for a month.”
Ellie gasps. “That was Garner?” she asks. She sounds like a wounded child.
“Oh, don’t give me that innocent crap!” Brenda stands up. “And then you have the nerve to show up here, all these years later, saying ‘Can we be friends again? Can we start over?’ Like hell! I would just as soon kill you as be your friend! God, I loathe you!”
“That’s enough, Brenda,” Daddy says. He’s on the edge of the sofa as though ready to jump up again. His voice is firm, but not angry. I hear pity in it.
“Don’t you get it, Ellie?” Brenda asks. I feel her shaky rage, though her voice isn’t loud now. It’s worse than that. The rage is coiled inside her, ready to spring. “Your father couldn’t wait to put an end to the boy who was dragging his family through the mud, and he had a whole lot of help from the rest of Round Hill.”
Buddy makes a gasping sound as he tries to sit up straight in the recliner. “Daddy could’ve gotten the key to my shop off the rack in the kitchen, like Kayla said.” He looks at Brenda, a wounded expression on his doughy face.
Ellie’s cheeks are shiny with tears. “I can’t believe Daddy would do that.”
“You’re right about that.” Miss Pat nods. “He was a weak man. He went along with it, but he didn’t know the whole plan. We kept it from him. He didn’t know that boy would end up killed. He couldn’t take it, either. He wasn’t the same afterward.”
My father frowns. “But if he drove my truck, he had to know—”
“I just said he was a coward, didn’t I?” Miss Pat sounds impatient. “I’m the one who drove your damn truck, Reed! I’m the one who did what everybody else was afraid to do!”
For the first time in fifteen minutes, a hush falls over the room. We stare at Miss Pat, who turns her head away from us, red blotches high on her cheekbones. Still no one speaks. Finally, Brenda reaches over to rest a hand on Miss Pat’s.
“Oh, Mama,” she says quietly. “Now you’ve gone and done it.”
Chapter 52
ELLIE
December 2010
I stare out the living room window of my family home. Across the street, where the leafy green dinosaurs and dragons used to roam, sprawling new houses rise from the cold earth. Stone and wood, most of them. When I arrived in Round Hill and saw those houses going up, I thought, They don’t belong here. Now I can see that my house is the one that doesn’t belong. Just like me. In another week, I’ll be home in San Francisco. I’ll have Christmas with my cherished friends. What I’ll tell them about my time here in Round Hill, I don’t yet know. All I do know is that I need distance from it. Physical and emotional distance.