“Wait,” Lulu said. “The last day—of her life? In July?”
Scotty nodded, picturing the perspiration on Beth’s face, how Scotty had gently wiped it from her brow.
“You were the last to see her? After Pete left?” Lulu asked.
“Who said it was after Pete left?” Scotty asked, feeling pressured. “Kate knows. It was before.”
“Yes,” Kate said to Lulu. “Scotty was over there early in the morning.”
“Beth liked to garden in the shade, before the sun rose over the trees. But even then—it was scorching. Lulu, you keep talking about support. Well, that’s one way I helped Beth—planting mint and thyme and petunias and lobelia. And encouraging her to tell Jed the good news—that he was the dad.”
“But she didn’t want to,” Lulu said. A statement, not a question, with implied criticism.
“No, she didn’t want to,” Scotty said, narrowing her eyes. “And that was wrong.” She felt startled by the vehemence in her own tone.
“Did you see her go into the house? When Pete was still in there, before he left?” Kate asked.
Scotty scrunched up her face, not only trying to recall the exact sequence but calibrating how to tell it to Kate and Lulu. She had been so hungover; maybe things would have gone differently if she hadn’t gotten so drunk the night before. She had still had alcohol in her bloodstream when she’d arrived at Beth’s. She really needed to do something about her drinking.
“Yes,” she said. “I did. I convinced her to leave the rest of the gardening till sunset—it would be so much cooler then. I told her to go inside and lie down in the air-conditioning.” She choked up. This was the part she hated to remember. She wished she could erase it from her mind. “I keep thinking, if I had just stayed. If I hadn’t sent her in there, to him. To Pete. I should have just stayed out there, insisting she tell Jed—I could have driven him to her. She could have had the happiness of telling him he was the father, instead of going into that house, and . . .”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Lulu said. “You couldn’t have known.”
“When I think of what was done to her,” Scotty said. She pictured Beth’s fractured skull, blood pouring from the caved-in side of her head, and she felt so sick she had to keep herself from throwing up. “You know, my girls hadn’t even had breakfast by the time I got home. I walked in and cut up a pineapple and some ice-cold watermelon, put everything on the table for the girls, for when they woke up. Isabel would stay in bed all day if she could, but that day it was humid; she was up and waiting for me. Julie too.”
On other summer days, she might have heard the screen door opening, seen Nick running water at the sink after his jog. She’d watch him taking a long drink, his body glistening with sweat. She could actually smell it now—not dank and awful, but the scent of the man she loved.
She would push from her mind the suspicion that he was having an affair, or wanted to have one, with one of those women he ran with. They used to be happy. They used to have a great marriage. She looked from Kate to Lulu. These two would never understand. But Beth had.
“Cheating,” she said to Lulu and Kate now. “I never even thought about it before Pete and Nicola. They opened the door to it, such a terrible door. And Beth walked through it, straight to Jed. I would have expected her to be stronger.”
“Scotty!” Lulu said.
“I’m grateful, Scotty,” Kate said. “That she saw you that day; she spent some of her last morning with one of her best friends.”
Scotty’s eyes filled. “She did. I made sure of it. And after Isabel woke up—it was still so early, but God, it was so hot she just couldn’t stay in bed—I called Beth. Isabel and Julie were right there at the table, listening to me talk to her on the phone.”
“When did you go over and find the UPS note?” Kate asked.
“The what?” Scotty asked, distracted by the sound of a car coming up the driveway. She peered down the hill, but it hadn’t rounded the corner yet.
“Never mind. Back to the phone call. What did Beth say when you talked to her?” Kate asked. Scotty understood her friend’s thirst for every memory of her sister. She got that, and she would make sure Kate received what she needed.
“Well, Isabel and Julie were right there next to me, eating their breakfast. I was gazing at them, thinking of how lucky Beth and I were to have daughters. So I said, ‘Sweetheart, I’m here for you. We might disagree about a few things, but you know I love you. And when Sam gets back from camp, we’ll have a mother-daughter day.’”
“And what did Beth say?” Kate asked, thirsty for more.
“That she couldn’t wait. That we could go to Watch Hill and have lemonade at the Olympia Tearoom, and watch Julie ride the carousel, and maybe the older girls too . . .”
“No, she didn’t,” Julie said, crouched by the shed.
“Julie!” Scotty said, shocked to hear her voice. “I thought you were inside with Isabel, getting Sam.”
“Air talk, Mommy. You talked to the air, not a person.”
Scotty tried to laugh, noticing how Kate looked puzzled and Lulu looked suspicious.
“What is ‘air talk,’ Julie?” Kate asked.
“When Mommy talked to no one. On the phone, saying words, but no one to listen. The phone line just ringing and ringing.”
“What are you talking about, Julie?” Scotty asked, grabbing her arm and giving it a shake. “Don’t lie! You know it’s wrong.”
“Not lying!” Julie cried out.
“Just stop this. Be quiet; go find your sister.”
“But, Mommy,” Julie said, tugging on Scotty’s sleeve. “I picked up the phone in your bedroom, Mommy, and you were talking to no one. Sam’s mother not on the phone. No one on the phone. And we weren’t eating breakfast, either. It was lunchtime already.”
“Julie, the adults are having a conversation,” Scotty snapped. “Do you want a time-out?”
“Daddy was gone to the boat. Remember? Mr. Lathrop came to pick up Daddy and they left, and it was after that, lunchtime, you called and talked to the air. Lunchtime, Mommy.”
“Beth wasn’t talking?” Kate asked. “When your mother called her?”
Julie shook her head.
“For Godssakes,” Scotty said. “I came home for breakfast. I called Beth. We had a conversation before the men left, and she was fine.”
“Lunch, not breakfast,” Julie said. “And talk to air, ringing phone, not Mrs. Lathrop.”
“There was no one on the line?” Kate asked, and Scotty felt her gaze burning straight into her.
“Don’t listen to her,” Scotty said.
“It was lunch, tuna fish, not breakfast. That’s when you got back from Mrs. Lathrop. Blood on you here,” Julie said, touching the side of her neck and under her chin. “I told you, Mommy, wash it off, wash it off.”
Scotty didn’t listen to the rest. She saw the way Kate’s face crumpled and turned red, how she lurched toward her, and Scotty turned away. She began to walk, then run, toward the house. She was running just like Nick ran, away from what he didn’t want—in his case her—and she ran away from what she didn’t want: the sight of Kate’s eyes when she realized the blood Julie had seen had been Beth’s, from when Scotty had bashed her head in—when Kate realized what Scotty had done to her sister.