The Forgotten Hours(24)

“Tommy says he has to keep the lights on. Safety when people leave the club, yada yada,” she says, putting the cups down on the arm of the chair, where seconds earlier Katie’s fingers had been intertwined with Jack’s. “Dance is almost over. So, you know, whatever.”

“What’s this?” Jack asks. “Nectar of the gods?”

“Don’t you know it.” Lulu grins at him. “I sweet-talked Tommy into pouring us a couple of beers.”

The party is about to wind down; people who’ve been drinking and talking on the deck are heading back inside as the square dance caller announces the last dance. “Now grab a little lady and go, gents, go!” he roars, and the music starts up again. A fiddle sawing away. Thumping bass. Hoots from the crowd. The music is very loud, and she feels it in her bones. Jack, standing, reaches out for her elbow, taking her by surprise. He raises his eyebrows at her, an invitation to dance; she stands and slips her hands in both of his. She doesn’t resist—she can’t. It’s all in good fun, after all.

They lean away from each other and then thrust toward each other in an exaggerated way as though it’s a joke, though it isn’t. They swing their arms around their heads wildly. Neither of them knows any of the steps, but they make it up as they go along, exaggerating their movements and snorting with laughter. The song goes on forever, and finally she trips over his feet, and they topple over onto the grass. But instead of stopping, they roll along the ground, laughing and laughing, and his body is so powerful and long against hers that she feels as though the hours they’ve spent joking around as friends all summer have been a prelude to this exact moment when they are sandwiched in each other’s arms. They roll to a stop, and he kisses her again, and this time it is another real kiss, less gentle than before. They are invisible to everyone.

But they aren’t invisible. Lulu stands, openmouthed, not two feet away. Her face is naked, shocked; she takes a clumsy step back. “You bitch,” she says. “You fucking bitch.”





11

Dear Katie,

I found an email for you in the old directory from Eagle Lake. Is it still [email protected]? I’ve tried writing to you there but it bounces back. I know it’s been a while. I also tried calling but the phone rings and rings. Maybe you moved?

It’s hard to know what to say, but I really need to say something. I still can’t believe what’s happened. Where are you? I want you to know that I think about you all the time.

Are you angry at me?

It was too much; she stopped reading and sat back on her haunches. Her curiosity had gotten the better of her, and she’d dragged the box into the kitchen. Lovely, earnest Jack. She didn’t understand why he’d thought she was angry at him. He’d tried to reach out to her, and she hadn’t known that. Would things have been different if she’d known? Would she have gone to see him, after the conviction?

I can’t forget when you left. I didn’t even realize that you were saying goodbye! You looked so pretty in the rain and then I tried to find you again and I couldn’t. I just feel so bad about the trial. Now I can’t reach you. I don’t know if you’ve had enough of me or if you don’t know I’ve been trying to get in touch.

The other letter had also been torn open. Who had intercepted them—her mother? Her father? Why would they have kept them? A small bud of fury lodged in her chest: How dare they. She wondered how she would have reacted if she’d received the letters, if she would have felt less alone. In her gut she knew that things would have, somehow, turned out differently. Or was that just the flimsy yearning of her teenage self?

The second letter was dated five weeks later. It was written in ballpoint pen on lined paper torn from a notebook.

My parents and the lawyers said I’m not allowed to contact you but I’m worried so I’m writing again. I need to tell you that I’m very sorry. I’m sorry about what I have to do and if I had a choice I wouldn’t do it. But I have to. I thought it was important to tell you that. I can understand if you’re angry. But I’m not the bad guy. I think if we could see each other again, I could explain things to you.

My mom said I had to just tell the truth and I’m trying to focus on that and on knowing that the truth is always good, but it doesn’t always seem like that.

He signed the letters with a flourish that betrayed his youth. What was it that he had done, and why were lawyers involved? She had always assumed that until the verdict was made public, he wouldn’t have known anything.

The old pirate box was full of junk, but now that she’d started looking through it, she didn’t want to stop. A sense of resolve had built up inside her, and though it was uncomfortable, it also promised a kind of freedom—the freedom to stop running and to start facing the questions she still had. There were reams of handwritten notes on trial strategy, dry stuff that was hard for her to understand. A few photocopied articles about past cases that her father’s lawyer must have used to bolster his defense, the legalese impenetrable; she didn’t recognize the cases they referred to. There were a few business cards and a series of bills for tens of thousands of dollars; she suspected the trial had bankrupted the family, but she didn’t actually want to know the details. Had her mother kept all this because of the divorce and the settlement?

Then she stumbled on two photos of Lulu, both taken around the same time and from a distance. In them, Lulu wore her dark hair short and was looking down at the sidewalk as she walked. In one picture, she was with her mother, Piper, and they appeared to be having an argument. Judging from the background, it was springtime, maybe outside their apartment in Blackbrooke. Katie guessed these might have been taken in the months leading up to the trial.