Charlotte opens the cellar door with the lock on the outside, flips on the light, and carefully climbs down the narrow staircase. Olivia waits in the doorway.
“What do you think?” Charlotte asks. “The Sine Qua Non 2011 or 2012?”
“Sheesh, Mom.” Both bottles are valued over four hundred dollars apiece. She must really be upset with Dwight. His client gifted him the bottles and he’s been saving them for his and Charlotte’s fortieth anniversary in another three years. “A cheap cab is fine.” Drinking wine is not what Olivia had in mind, but she’ll play along. It might loosen Charlotte’s tongue.
“Really, Olivia. Don’t insult me.” Charlotte pulls a bottle from the rack and reads the label. “I need to make a point.”
The spiteful inflection in Charlotte’s tone prompts a memory. Lily locked in the dark cellar. Their mom’s silhouette in the doorway. As far as Olivia knows, it happened only once. The punishment must have been effective. Lily must have told Charlotte whatever it was their mom wanted to know.
Charlotte will continue to find excuses not to share why Dwight pursued Lily, what happened between them, and whether Josh had been caught in the middle and physically and emotionally suffered the consequences. She’ll blame it on the wine. She’ll stall. She might even faint, just so she doesn’t have to talk. She’s just that stubborn.
“What about the Daou red blend?” Olivia suggests, backing away from the door. The last thing she sees before she closes the door is Charlotte’s alarm. Olivia tells herself she’s not a bad person. Despite what Lucas thinks, she isn’t anything like her mom. She isn’t a daddy’s girl. She just wants some fucking answers. Her nephew needs his mom.
Olivia bolts the door and turns off the light.
“Olivia? Olivia!” Charlotte shrieks.
Olivia presses her back to the door. “I’m sorry.”
Charlotte races up the staircase and rattles the knob. “Olivia!” She knocks loudly. “Open the door this instant.” She pounds on the door and Olivia’s teeth rattle.
“Remember when you locked Lily in the cellar to get her to confess?” Olivia eventually found out her sister had put a dent in the hood of Dwight’s car while playing basketball. She’d denied it was her fault until Charlotte locked her in the cellar. “I need to hear everything you know about Lily. Please, Mom, I just want to find her.”
“Nothing I say will make up the years I lost with my little girl.”
“Try me.”
“You’ll never forgive me.”
Olivia turns her ear to the door. Her heart knocks against her sternum. “What won’t I forgive? . . . Mom?”
Charlotte goes dreadfully quiet. Olivia imagines her mom on the other side of the door, huddled at the top of the stairs in the dark, sulking.
Olivia sinks to the floor, folds her arms over her knees, and rests her forehead in the crook of her arm wondering who will outlast whom, her or her mom?
A large crash startles Olivia awake. She lifts her head, rubbing her eyes. It’s still daylight, and she’s still leaning against the cellar door. She didn’t mean to crash. But after a four-and-a-half-hour nap last night and a week of broken sleep, she can barely keep her eyes open. Her heart races. How much time has passed?
She glances at her phone, relieved it’s only been thirty-five minutes as opposed to hours. There’s a text from Blaze asking how things are going, and she loves that he’s asking. He’s making burgers for him and Josh. Will she be home for dinner? Does she want one?
She replies that she hopes to be home soon. Standing up, she lightly raps on the door. “Mom? You doing okay?”
Charlotte doesn’t answer. Olivia presses her ear to the door. Did she hear a crash or was that a dream? It sounded like a wine bottle shattered.
Or a wave crashing on rocks, like the ones in her recurring nightmare. She hears them every time, right before she sees the glint of the knife in Dwight’s hand. Had she been dreaming about that again?
Olivia unbolts the door and turns on the lights. “Mom?” She peers into the cellar. Charlotte isn’t anywhere. “What the—?” Olivia climbs halfway down the stairs. Where could she have gone? There’s nowhere to hide. There isn’t a back exit. She does notice the floor is clean, so whatever she heard, it must have been in her head.
Olivia reaches the bottom of the staircase and moves deeper into the cellar. A knee joint cracks behind her. Something hard hits her shoulder.
“Ow!” Olivia whirls, rubbing the tender spot.
Charlotte stares at the bottle like she’s baffled it didn’t break and Olivia isn’t passed out.
“Are you trying to kill me now?” Olivia blurts, shocked her mom attacked her. She yanks the bottle from Charlotte and reads the label. “This wine’s half a grand. Trust me, I’m not worth it,” she says, making light of this ludicrous situation. Her mom tried to knock her out.
With a wail unlike anything Olivia’s heard come from her mom, Charlotte drops to her knees. She wraps her arms around Olivia and presses her cheek to Olivia’s belly. “It wasn’t me,” Charlotte cries. “It was your father.”
Olivia goes rigid, arms wide as if afraid to touch her mom. “What are you talking about?” she asks.
“Benton St. John. Lily overheard your father and me arguing. That’s why she ran away. She believed your father would kill her just like he killed her father.”
“What?” Olivia stumbles back. If Charlotte wasn’t holding on to her, she would have fallen into the wine rack. “Benton St. John—”
“Is Lily’s father.”
The announcement smacks Olivia, leaving her breathless.
“I slept with him once. You have to believe me, Olivia. It didn’t mean anything. But your father went insane. He couldn’t take my cheating. He was afraid if word got out it wouldn’t only ruin his reputation. My affair with Benton would ruin his chances during elections.”
“So he killed him?” Olivia’s breath escapes. She looks around the cellar, unfocused. The walls are closing in.
“Yes.” Charlotte sobs.
Olivia shakes her head in denial but feels as if she’s known all along.
Her nightmare.
She has been dreaming about Benton’s murder. Did she witness it? Impossible. It was dark, and she was only five. She wouldn’t have remembered much, if anything at all. This revelation creates a cyclone of emotions. Her knees almost buckle with the weight of them. Is this why she’s been so averse to being betrayed? Has she known deep down her father has been betraying her all along? It’s just a dream, Olivia. She feels sick.
“The police questioned Dad. He wasn’t a suspect after. What did he say to them? How did he get off?”
“He had an alibi.”
“You? Oh god, Mom.” Charlotte has been covering for Dwight for three decades. He’s betrayed them all.
Olivia tucks Charlotte’s tear-damp hair behind her ear. “Did you see him . . .” She chokes up.
Charlotte shakes her head. “I found blood on the knife.”
Just like her dream. Olivia gulps.
“He threatened . . . He threatened me.” She cries harder.