Family of Liars(63)

“You have to go. You can’t haunt this island.” Rosemary never visited our mother after Tipper sent her away. Not once. If I banish Pfeff, I think he will go.

“I came to say sorry,” he says.

“It’s too late for that.”

“I saw my mom last night, up in Pevensie.” Pfeff walks forward, through the water. He looks alive and solid, squinting in the sunshine. “I had to say goodbye to her,” he continues. “Make sure she’s all right.”

“Okay.”

“And—she made me see I have a lot to apologize for. She cooked me some eggs and toast in the kitchen up there.”

“Did you tell her how you died?”

“No.” He scratches the back of his neck. “I was trying to—you know. Make her feel better. Tell her I’m okay.”

“What do you remember?” I ask. “I mean, about—about how you died?” I don’t want him to tell his mother the truth.

“Not much, actually,” he says. “I was drunk. Everything’s kind of fuzzy because of that.”

“And?”

“I was on the dock with Penny. And I felt a sharp pain in my head. I might have screamed. There was blood in my eyes. Then everything went dark and very quiet. Like a long sleep. It was comfortable after that, actually. Like a rest.”

That’s what Rosemary says, too. That it’s comfortable. The actual dying didn’t hurt.

“Then I woke up again last night,” Pfeff continues. “And I found myself on the beach. With like, my feet in the sand. I was hungry and everything. Just like being alive. It was so strange. I thought, I’m here for some reason, I guess. And I walked up to Pevensie because that seemed like where I wanted to go. And I knew I was right when I saw my mom sitting on the porch. She was staring out at the night. So I talked to her. I wanted her to know I loved her and stuff. I was worried she didn’t know, because we’d kind of been in a fight all summer. So I told her. After that, we just hung out. We kept talking, and I filled her in about the summer, about George and Major and living in Goose. The stuff we did. And also about you and me.”

“What did you tell her?”

“How it ended badly when I scammed around with Penny.”

I stare at him. Shaking.

“She asked a lot of questions,” Pfeff continues, “and…she made me think how it might have felt to you. For all that to happen. And I really am sorry. That I hurt your feelings.”

I should banish him. I need to, so Penny and Bess and I can stick to our lies. So Penny and Bess can be safe. But I have wanted Pfeff to be sorry since I first saw him with Penny. I need to hear him out.

“I see that you must have been very upset,” says Pfeff. “And that I probably led you on. And that Penny wasn’t the best person to— I was wrong.” He holds his hand out in my direction. “Can we say sorry to each other and set it to rest?”

Wait. “You want me to say sorry?”

“I’m saying sorry,” he says. “So yeah. You owe me an apology, too. Don’t you?”

“No.”

“I think you do. You got so mad, and you turned Yardley against me and all that. Even George and Major. George and I had a whole argument about it. And Penny. Penny is confusing, you know? One minute she’s all Come hither and Let’s be alone and I know how to make a guy feel good, and the next minute she’s changing her mind. She doesn’t account for a guy being drunk and revved up or whatever, and she’s saying no, but not like she means it, and now you’ve both decided I’m this terrible person. That’s the problem, right? That Penny told you I’m terrible.”

I stare at him.

“Did it ever occur to you that Penny says shit behind your back?” he goes on. “Did it ever occur to you that I wouldn’t have been with her if she didn’t like, explicitly go after me in the first place? That she put me in that situation?”

“Leave us!” I shout, the words exploding out of me. “I don’t want you here!”

“Aren’t you sorry?” he cries. “Aren’t you sorry at all?”

Saying no

but not like she means it, he said.

She doesn’t account for a guy being drunk and revved up

or whatever.

She put me in that situation.

“No, Pfeff,” I tell him. “I’m not sorry. For anything. At all.”

In this moment, I don’t care if his mom loves him. I don’t care if there were good things about him. He was hurting Penny, and my loyalty is with my sister, no matter what else she has done.

“Carrie,” he persists. “I’m like, back from the dead to talk to you. You don’t want to apologize?”

“I’m through with you, Lawrence Pfefferman,” I say.

“But—”

“No. You don’t get to say sorry. Not to me, not to Penny. We won’t forgive you.”

“You wanted to talk to me,” he says. “We were standing right here. Remember? You were begging me.”

“And you didn’t care.”

“Come on.” He takes a step toward me.

I put up a hand to stop him. “Nothing you do matters anymore. You are not welcome here. Stay away from my family.”