Family of Liars(66)

Don’t pretend you would never hurt anybody.

I believe I am finally being punished.

My punishment is that Johnny is dead. Others are dead, too.

Those deaths can never be undone. The loss is a canyon, yawning wide, rippled with stones and striated with layers of clay and silt. I have been thrown into the canyon and will never be able to climb out. I must live out my days in this loss.

I deserve that.



* * *



—

I TOLD THE story of virtuous Cinderella and her unworthy,

unlovable

nonbiological sisters,

stepsisters who commit violent acts out of jealousy, cutting off their heels and toes.

I also told the story of the stolen pennies, in which a guilty daughter

is unable to rest and lives on after death, in agony because her crime has stained her conscience.

And I told the story of Mr. Fox, in which a person who seems lovable

has a very grand house and

turns out to be a murderer.



* * *



—

HERE IS THE truth about what happened the night Lor Pfefferman died.





73.


I WOKE FROM Halcion sleep at one a.m., like I said before. But not because Bess was opening my door.

No one needed me.

I woke chilled, and got up to drink some water and turn off the fan that sat in my window. My head was foggy because I had taken extra pills.

I heard a voice. A soft sound, outside my open window.

It said, “Please, Penny. Please.”

Pfeff.

I understood immediately. Penny had chosen Pfeff over me, for the second time. The “please” he’d once said to me, he was now saying to her.

I thought then, as I told you before, that Penny knew how her betrayal had wounded me the first time, she knew how cracked and broken it made me feel, she knew because I told her, and still,

none of that mattered in the face of her need to be wanted, to be the prettiest girl in the room, to make Erin jealous, to be the straight girl my parents wanted, to kiss a boy she thought was hot— all of that mattered more than I did.

I was not her full sister. She could feel it. I was convinced of it. I know now that this idea is false, that families are made and earned and need not be built on biology, but in the moment, it seemed undeniable. I was not enough. I was not worth even a small amount of self-restraint.

I went downstairs and stepped outside via the mudroom door.

I ran along the walkways to the dock. There, I could see the outlines of the sailboat and Guzzler, black against the moonlit sea. And I could hear Pfeff again. “Please, Penny.”

I was so angry at him for wanting her, and so angry at her for going near him again. How could she? After Erin was gone. After she’d said sorry, however unconvincingly. After she saw the hurt she’d caused.





74.


WHEN I TOOK up the board, and when I brought it down, over and over,

with all the strength of my batter’s swing, when I brought it down, my head spinning with jealousy and rage, I wasn’t sure if I was hitting Pfeff, the boy

who dumped me for my sister, who wouldn’t apologize and wouldn’t even talk, or if I was hitting

my sister, my beloved sister, who’d had so many boyfriends, who was really our father’s firstborn,

who’s always been the

beauty of the family, and who has never, ever hesitated to take what was supposed to be mine.

It was Pfeff I killed. But I could just as easily have killed Penny.

I am Cinderella’s terrible, jealous stepsister.

I am the ghost whose crime went unpunished.

I am Mr. Fox.





75.


I LOOKED DOWN at what I had done and Pfeff lay on the dock. His shirt was off. It was a plain gray T-shirt and it lay crumpled on the ground. His belt buckle was undone, and his jeans were unbuttoned, pulled partway down on his hips along with his boxers.

He was wearing sneakers. His socks had small red lobsters on them.

I touched his wrist, not knowing what else to do.

There was no beat.

Penny had run away, down the dock to the sand. She was knee-deep in the water, rubbing her hands together and cleaning her face, as if trying to wake herself from a nightmare.

As I turned to go to Penny, Bess appeared at the end of the dock.

“I came to see,” she said softly, when I got near her. “They said they were going for a walk.”

I realized I was still holding the board. I dropped it with a clatter.

Penny came out of the water toward us. “Carrie saved me,” she said. “I don’t know what you saw, Bess, but Pfeff—all of a sudden his shirt was off and he was like, tugging my pants down and his pants down.”

She told us everything, about the Please, Penny and how scared she felt, and then she explained that I came to her rescue.

And all the while I thought, I tried to kill my sister.

Did I try to kill my sister? Did I know what I was doing? Or did I want to kill Pfeff?

I did not have an answer. And I do not have one now. But I can say this: I was not rescuing Penny.

As she spoke, telling the story to Bess, it dawned on me that she saw me as the hero. The protector.

She threw her arms around me. “I’m so sorry, Carrie. I’m so sorry. I don’t deserve you. I’m so glad you came.”