There was a careful calculation behind Mom’s eyes as she considered, the smile stiffly in place as options were weighed. I knew what it was then; now I even know what the formula was.
Lee Montor + Annabelle Usher = Tress Montor.
Montor > Usher [therefore] Tress = [unknown]
In other words, Annabelle Usher married up. Her last name might be worth something, but the Usher bank account certainly wasn’t. Lee Montor was a great guy from a good family who scored a beautiful wife. And they loved each other.
I close my eyes, not having to remember to know that it was true. Tress’s parents had loved each other, something that had taken me some time to sort out once I started doing overnights at their place. Her house was a lot like mine in so many ways—modern and clean, with a shiny kitchen and a well-groomed dog. But Tress’s house had added touches: Annabelle’s garden in the back, where my yard had only a shorn lawn. A piano that wasn’t there just to hold family pictures. Lee would play; I hummed the song he would rattle off for us whenever Tress asked, no music required.
“The cold song,” I’d say, then an echo, Lee’s voice correcting me. “Coldplay.”
It took me a while to figure out it wasn’t just things that made her house different but the actual family. I bounced into their kitchen one afternoon to refill our water bottles, Tress waiting outside on the trampoline, only to surprise Lee and Annabelle. They had jumped away from each other, guiltily, Annabelle pushing black hair from her eyes.
“Hey, kiddo, what do you need?”
I’d gone back out to the trampoline, ice cubes clinking inside the bottles, and handed one to Tress. “I think your parents were kissing,” I said.
“Ugh.” She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, they do that a lot. Hey, want to see me flip in midair?”
I watched Tress, her hair fanning out behind her, sweaty and loose as I sucked on my water, wondering what it was like to have parents who kissed.
And it was like that for a long time, right up until it wasn’t anymore.
Right up until that night.
I’ve shied away from it ever since, not wanting to remember, not wanting to know what I saw. But Tress wants to know, and Tress is someone who looks right at the cockroaches.
“Right up their assholes,” I agree with myself.
Tress wants to know, and Tress can take it. Remembering is the only way I’m getting out of this. And if Tress Montor wants me to remember, that’s what I have to do.
Chapter 45
Cat
If I am still and quiet
I can see
other lifetimes, slipping past us,
in a place, where they ended.
The girl does not know
there is a boy above her
swinging
from the rafters,
his toes brushing her forehead.
She does not see the woman,
sobbing
at the dresser.
Does not hear the baby
screaming
in the corner.
She sees and hears and feels and knows
only now,
in this place.
And I marvel at the limits
of humans.
Chapter 46
Tress
The cat sits and stares.
His eyes go from mine, to above me, to the corner, ears turning different directions as he picks up sounds I can’t even imagine. But I’d be a fool to think he isn’t highly aware of me, every movement, every breath. I rest my back against the closed door, exhaustion getting the better of me.
I have that luxury, the luxury of sitting.
In the basement, Felicity does not.
“Shit,” I say to myself, quietly, and gain the cat’s full attention again, eyes on my lips, ears pricked forward.
“I don’t know what to do,” I tell him, and one ear swivels away from me, as if I have said something only worth half his attention.
“I’m holding someone captive in the basement,” I tell him, and the ear comes back, cocked. “I hit her in the head with a brick and I chained her to the wall, and I’ve got her halfway sealed into a tomb, and I probably gave her a concussion, and I think she’s got the flu, and I might have fractured her ankle.”
It’s a lot, when you string it all together like that. A lot of bad things that I did, all of them translatable into a different language, that of legalese and criminal charges. Kidnapping, assault, false imprisonment, menacing. My hands shake, and I rest my head against the door. There’s a small thump, and the cat shifts, curious.
“The thing is,” I tell him. “There’s something that fixes it all. The big gamble.”
His eyes latch on to mine, and I read there what is always stamped on his features, a constant feeling, one that moves through his mind, is embedded in his muscles.
“Murder,” I say, and the cat yawns.
His tongue lolls out, long and pink, teeth clicking back together sharply. It’s a show, put on for me. I can kill you.
“I can do it, too, you know,” I say, and he cocks his head, almost goading.
“If I have to,” I add. “I don’t want to. I didn’t think . . .”
I didn’t think, that’s the real admission here. I didn’t think Felicity could last this long. Didn’t think she would continue to defy me. Didn’t think she would insist she doesn’t remember.
“What if she doesn’t?”
I’m asking questions to the cat, who has ceased listening, eyes roaming the room. My phone vibrates in my hand, and he jumps down from the bed, velvety paws dulling the thud of two hundred pounds of organic killing machine hitting the floorboards. Standing, he’s the same height as I am sitting. He faces me, lifts a paw, and begins to bathe.
I risk a glance at my phone. There’s a text from Hugh.
Where did you go?
I don’t even consider answering him, either honestly or with a lie. Instead, I call.
“Hey.” He picks up on the first ring, voice blurred from drink. “You still up there? What are you doing?”
Facing down a panther is the correct response. Balancing the threat of going to prison for what I’ve already done versus the idea of outright killing Felicity and getting away with it is another correct answer. Realizing that my entire plan of learning about my parents’ fate is worthless if Felicity truly doesn’t remember is a correct answer.
“Chilling out,” I say. “Needed some space. Too much going on.”
“Tell me about it,” Hugh says, and I hear Ribbit in the background.
“Who is it? What do they want? Are they calling about me?” Ribbit asks. That last question is desperate, high-pitched, hopeful.
“Let me talk to my cousin,” I say, and there’s the sound of the phone being handed over. “Ribbit?”
“Tress?” There, always, under my name I still hear the slightest hint of worship. “Tress, are you watching? Did you see? I’ve got like four thousand new Twitter followers, and a shit ton of friend requests.”
“They’re not your friends,” I say. My words are sharp and distinct, biting down on the ends of his blurry, wandering syllables. “Do you hear me? Nothing that’s going on right now is okay.”
“Brynn Whitaker is bringing me beers. That’s more than okay.”