Family of Liars(67)

For my sins, I was delivered my sister, loving, penitent, and grateful.





76.


THINGS HAPPENED AFTERWARD as I have told you.

We got supplies from Clairmont. We loaded the boat and scrubbed the dock.

I went back for whiskey and found Rosemary in the basement. I abandoned her in her time of need to finish the drowning of Lor Pfefferman.

We had to wait at Goose Cottage for Major and George to go to bed.

Penny held my hand.

Bess handled Pfeff’s room. I made coffee.

I was startled to witness my sisters’ unquestioning loyalty. I knew I was only half theirs, only half a Sinclair, and yet they stood next to me in this crisis as if the three of us were one. As if they believed me heroic and good.

We drove the boat out far, far.

We weighted his body with the anchor and gave it to the sea.

We burned the paper towels and talked about camping with Buddy Kopelnick. We slept, briefly, under the stars.

We came home and we lied.





77.


TWO WEEKS AFTER Pfeff’s death, when there are only the five of us and the staff on the island, my parents plan Bonfire Night.

It’s a thing we do every year in August. No real reason. After supper, we go down to the Big Beach and burn stuff. Old newspapers and copies of the New Yorker, recipes cut from magazines that Tipper no longer wants, the name cards from the Who Am I game, things like that.

We make s’mores and sing camp songs from when Tipper and Harris were young. “Show Me the Way to Go Home.” “Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.” “Be Kind to Your Fine Feathered Friends.”

In my bedroom the day of the bonfire, I find an old notebook, one that I wrote and sketched in back when I was the girl I used to be. In it, I now write: I, Caroline Lennox Taft Sinclair, killed Lawrence Pfefferman.

I killed Lawrence Pfefferman.

I killed Lawrence Pfefferman.

I write it over and over until the words cover several pages. Then I take the notebook with me to Bonfire Night.

As we burn Harris’s magazines and Tipper’s fabric scraps, as we sing the silly songs we have sung together since childhood, I throw the book into the flames.

This is the only time I will ever tell, I say to myself.

I have burned the confession.

It is over.

And I never do tell anyone, until now.



* * *



—

MANY PEOPLE COMMIT crimes when they are young. Violent acts, felonies. In lots of states, once you come of age, you can seal your juvenile records. In other states, your records might be expunged.

The idea is that we can be forgiven for terrible things we do as children. That we can be redeemed, given the chance to start again.

I cannot say whether Pfeff would have been redeemed. Sometimes I think of him as incorrigible—I believe that he would have taken what he wanted from Penny and from countless girls after her, had he not been stopped. Saying no but not like she means it, he said. She doesn’t account for a guy being drunk or revved up or whatever.

I think, then, that nothing would ever have taught him right from wrong. Guys like him go to prison or run the country, and in neither case do they become anything more than rapists who fancy themselves rogues.

Other times, I think of his deep love for life, of his enthusiasms and his generosities, his shame and his small kindnesses. And I think he could have become a good man.

Either way, I do not think he deserved to die.

I know he was capable of terrible things.

But so was I.



* * *



—

THE POLICE STOP by one more time before the end of the summer. They shake hands with my father like old friends when he and I meet them on the dock. Everyone walks up to Clairmont, where Tipper offers cold drinks and fresh-baked shortbread. Bess and Penny come down to listen and be decorative.

The officers tell us that Pfeff’s status is now Missing, Presumed Dead. Given that he was last seen swimming in open water, they explain that they can “presume death” without waiting any longer.

Tipper says the family has already had a memorial.

The police say that often happens. Families need closure. Communities need to grieve.

“We should have gone,” says Penny, sounding upset. “You didn’t tell us about it.”

“We couldn’t go,” says Harris sharply.

“Yardley went,” I say. “She told me about it, after.”

“We could have gotten to Philadelphia.” Penny is a wonderful actress.

“Not without a tremendous hassle,” Harris says. “And the Pfeffermans wouldn’t have wanted us. They wouldn’t like the reminder.”

“I sent flowers,” says Tipper. “Don’t worry.”

When the officers are gone, Harris asks to see me in his study.





78.


THE STUDY IS a large room at the back of the ground floor, decorated with manly objects I suppose could be described as trophies: those original New Yorker cartoons in frames, a taxidermied swordfish, shelves and shelves of books. Harris sits behind the desk and I take a seat opposite him.

“Now that the boy has been declared dead,” my father says, “I want to tell you that I ran out of sleeping pills a few weeks back.”