All the Beautiful Lies(20)

Harry turned back into the house and thought of calling Alice but quickly decided against it. Instead he wandered back into the living room and looked out at the rainy day, trying to wrap his head around the new information. He felt as though his body was reacting to the news faster than his mind was; his chest hurt, and his limbs felt electrified, like he needed to do something physical. He realized the feeling was anger. His father might have been killed. Harry’s mind flashed on the young brunette woman that he’d seen outside of the house and at the funeral. He remembered that he was going to ask Alice about her today. He stared at the window. It was still raining, but a streak of blue sky had appeared over the tree line to the west. Harry suddenly needed to get out of the house. He grabbed one of his father’s raincoats from the row of pegs in the front hall, and stepped through the door onto the front steps. He felt instantly better, breathing in the damp air. He walked to the end of the driveway, then arbitrarily turned right and began to walk, head down, the diminishing rain pattering on the hood of his father’s coat.





Chapter 9





Then



Edith Moss’s funeral was held at a church in Biddeford, and she was buried in a family plot. Alice wondered if that was what she would have wanted, considering the way she talked about her family, but Alice also knew it didn’t matter. Her mother was dead and would never know the difference.

Edith’s two brothers were there, and some of their kids from assorted girlfriends and ex-wives. Alice hadn’t seen any of them since they’d moved out of Biddeford to Kennewick. “Good riddance to bad rubbish,” Edith had said. Alice actually liked her uncle Claude, even though he was supposedly the worse of the two Moss brothers; he rarely worked, and drank all day. But he was always in a good mood, and when Alice was a little kid, he’d give her packs of fruit-flavored chewing gum. Her uncle Theo, who never gave her anything, was a construction foreman with a bad back who was now on disability. In the receiving line, he said to Alice, “Guess you get all that Saltonstall money, now, eh?”

“I guess,” Alice said, resolving to never see any of her Biddeford relatives again.

A few of Jake’s friends from the bank came but no family. Gina came, of course, and so did Justin, and a few other kids from high school that Alice barely knew. Justin couldn’t take his eyes off Alice during the brief, terrible reception in the church’s basement. She wondered if he was trying to figure out if her “boyfriend” was there. Would he know she’d been lying? She didn’t particularly care one way or another. She hadn’t thought she’d ever see him again after the party at his house, and she was pretty sure that now she’d never see him again after her mother’s funeral.

Everyone kept asking Alice what her plans were. Was she going away to college? Would she come back to Biddeford? She told them she didn’t know yet, but she did know. She wanted to keep living with Jake. She’d take classes at MCC, just for something to do, but now she had Jake all to herself. She pictured them trying new restaurants up and down the coast, maybe even traveling together.

After the reception, Jake drove Alice back along Route 1 from Biddeford and through Kennebunkport. “I don’t want to go back home quite yet,” he said.

“I don’t, either.”

They went to the Brasserie for an early supper. Alice was wearing a Laura Ashley dress and more makeup than she usually wore. Jake ordered a dinner for both of them and a bottle of wine. The waitress brought the bottle and two glasses and never asked Alice for ID. Alice hadn’t touched any of the deviled ham sandwiches or potato salad they’d served at the church, and she was starving. She ate all the bread herself, soaking it in the garlic butter from the escargot. She tried her steak rare, the way Jake ordered his, instead of medium, the way she usually got it, and it tasted better, much better, especially if you didn’t think about the pool of bright red juice on the plate.

They hadn’t talked about Edith’s death since the night it had happened. As soon as Alice, having watched her mother choke to death, had turned to find Jake watching her, she’d immediately said, “We need to call an ambulance,” and Jake had gone to the wall phone and dialed 911. After hanging up he rushed to Edith’s side and pressed two fingers against the side of her neck.

“She was like this . . . she was like this when I got home,” Alice said, her whole body beginning to tremble.

“When did you get here?” Jake asked.

“Just now. Just a minute ago. How long have you been down here?”

Jake took Alice by her shoulders and moved her backward away from her mother’s body. “I thought I heard something and came down the stairs. I’m so sorry, Alice. Your mother was drinking, and I shouldn’t have left her down here.”

“No, no. I shouldn’t have even left the house tonight.”

“Shhh,” Jake said, pulling Alice into his arms and holding her while her trembling turned into uncontrollable shaking.

When the EMTs arrived, one of them asked Alice if this was how she’d found her mother.

“She wasn’t moving,” Alice said. “She was just lying there.”



After dessert, Jake said, “Let’s stay here tonight. I can’t face going back home. I’ll get us two rooms.”

“Okay,” Alice said.