Everything You Are(95)

“I’m too old for this,” Len says, but he looks more energetic than any of the rest of them.

“Really, there are no rules,” Katie says. “Except for the coffee rules. Those always apply.”

Celestine has forgotten all about the lake, for now. He’s under everybody’s feet, sniffing at the hot dogs and buns, asking to be petted.

“Can I give him one?” Allie begs. “He looks so sad. And starving.”

“He is neither,” Phee objects, shaking her head at the dog, who sits looking up into Allie’s eyes as if his very last breath depends upon her giving him a handout. “He’s too big to start feeding him table food. Little dogs are cute when they beg. A dog this size turns into a terrorist. If you really want to feed him, come with me. You can give him his breakfast.”

“All right,” Allie says, stroking the dog’s head. “Come on, Celestine. Why’d you name him that, anyway? Since he’s a boy dog.”

“A whole bunch of popes were called Celestine, so it can be a boy’s name. Plus, he was already named that when I got him. Enough things in his world were already different, I figured at least he could keep his name.”

Jo is waiting at the top of the stairs, a bundle of blackened metal rods under one arm, a bag of marshmallows in her hand. “Roasting sticks. Haven’t used them in years, but they were in the closet waiting. Everybody sleep okay?”

“Some did, some didn’t,” Phee says. “We’ll be right down.”

Once inside the cabin, she unpacks the box that holds the container full of Celestine’s kibble, as well as his bowl and treats. “One scoop,” she says to Allie. “Set it over by the door where we put his water bowl last night.”

While the girl is feeding the dog, Phee proceeds with her real motive for getting Allie away from the crowd. She crosses to the cello case, unlatches it, and lifts out the cello.

Allie comes to stand beside her.

“You know you want to play. You’re like your dad that way. Music is your soul.”

“Even if I hurt people?”

“And people hurt you by trying to keep you from it. Listen, Allie.” Phee turns to look directly into her eyes. “You’d be helping your dad out, if you play. It might help him remember. I think at the least it would comfort him to know that the cello is being played.”

Allie floats her palm across the strings.

Jean emerges from the bedroom, looking from one to the other. “Could have sworn I heard something about breakfast.”

“You did!” Allie says, taking a step back. “Down by the firepit. Oh, and Katie made coffee.”

Jean is the most perceptive and sensitive woman Phee has ever met. The timing of this interruption isn’t by accident. Jean doesn’t give her an opportunity to ask, slipping out the door ahead of Allie.

Phee leaves Celestine inside, to keep him out of trouble and out of everybody’s plates. She feels like she’ll need her full attention for whatever is going to happen. Fifteen minutes later, she thinks maybe she’s been wrong and that nothing is going to happen at all.

The mood has taken on the tone of a classic adventure. People laughing, burning hot dogs and their fingers. Dennis spills his coffee, and Katie fetches him a refill. Once, Allie actually laughs. Braden is the only one quiet, reserved, his face more like a man on the rack than a man on an adventure. Jean is watchful and anxious, but that’s normal behavior for her.

When the last hot dog has been roasted, the last marshmallow burned, a silence falls, all of them sitting around the warmth of the fire. And that’s when Jean says, very quietly, “Jo, Allie, Braden has something to tell you.”

His eyes widen; he jerks upright in the chair. Phee feels the way his breath snags on something sharp in his throat. Feels the mood of the group shift to watchful, uncertain. Len glances at her, a small warning, but she shrugs her shoulders at him. This isn’t her doing, at least not directly.

“It’s better this way, Braden,” Jean says. “Trust me. Trust them. Get it over with. Spit it out.”

He pales visibly at those words.

“What?” Jo asks. She looks shaken, glancing from face to face around the circle as if she’ll read an answer written somewhere.

“You sure about this, Jean?”

“I’m sure,” she says.

Braden swallows, visibly. “I . . . remembered something last night.”

Jo’s hands dart to her face, and he shakes his head. “Not that, Jo. Not how he died. Something else. It’s going to hurt you, both you and Allie.”

He takes another breath. “When Mitch came out here to talk to me, that night, he wanted to tell me something. He had a confession.”

Jo stares at him, lips parted, eyes dark. “Trey.” A statement, not a question.

“How did you know?”

“I didn’t, until now. Just always wondered. It’s the only thing I could think of that would bring him out here.”

“What about Trey?” Allie asks.

“Your mom and your uncle Mitch were . . . Trey is, was, your half-brother, Allie.”

She stares at her father with her mouth gaping open, then closes it with a sharp snap. “Mom? You’re kidding, right? I mean, Mom wouldn’t even tell a fib. How could she ever . . .” Allie’s eyes travel from Braden to Jo and back again, and her words fade into confusion.