Burn Our Bodies Down(46)

“Say what you mean, Margot,” she tells me, when I wait a heartbeat too long. “This cryptic nonsense is for other people. Say it plainly.”

The anger in me roars to life, hot and quick. I’ve been holding it in since the station. And I know some of it belongs to Mom, but she’s not here now. Gram is.

“There were two,” I say, stepping forward so Gram has to look up at me. “Mom and Katherine. Twins.” There is so much more I could say. Me and that girl, maybe my cousin, and you lied over and over again. It would feel good, but it wouldn’t get me what I want. I have to take it slow. Bit by bit. Answer by answer.

I can practically see her deciding how much to give me. Deciding whether she can lie. She must realize she can’t. After a deep breath, it rolls out of her. “Yes,” she says. “Your mother and her sister. Jo and Katherine.”

It feels like the first sweep of a fan on a summer day, like cracking a window in our Calhoun apartment when Mom’s out and she won’t know. Not good, exactly, but welcome all the same.

Now for the next part.

“I know you told the police Katherine ran away,” I say. “But I also know you never looked for her.” I can feel my energy draining. This is too much. “You must know where she is, Gram. You have to.”

“Nowhere,” Gram says. So softly it’s worse than if she’d screamed. “I’m sorry to tell you this. I really am. But she’s dead, Margot. She has been for a long time.”

I was bracing for disappointment. For Gram to call Katherine a mystery and leave it at that. But this? It feels like drowning. Like the end. “No,” I say. “That’s…You told the police…”

“I did,” she admits. “It wasn’t the truth. She died in that fire. Just before your mother left.”

The apricot fire. Mom said Katherine started it, and Gram said she ran, and I can’t fit any of it together. I can’t. “Why would you lie to them?”

“They would never have understood.” She smiles, reaches out to me. “Not like I know you will.”

“I don’t,” I say. “And I don’t believe you, either.”

A flash of pure annoyance crosses Gram’s face, startling me, and her hand drops. “Believe me or don’t,” she says sharply. “Neither one will bring Katherine back.”

“Back from where? Where’s her body?” Prove it. That’s the Nielsen family motto, after all. You’re hurting? Prove it. You deserve something better? Prove that too. “If she really died in that fire, why didn’t they find her?”

“Those,” Gram says, standing up, “are questions for your mother.”

No. No, I am done with everybody passing me off to someone else as their problem. “Why? Katherine’s your daughter.”

“Yes,” Gram snaps. “She was, in fact, my daughter, and she’s dead, and I don’t particularly enjoy talking about it. So perhaps we could be kind to one another and leave the subject alone.”

I wish being kind were what mattered. But there’s too much here that’s not right. Too much I need to know. “Please,” I say. “Gram, you have to give me something.”

Gram sighs, shuts her eyes for a long moment. “All right,” she says, when she’s looking at me again. “I can show you their room, at least.”



* * *



—

It’s at the far end of the hall, behind a door with a silver knob. Gram brought the key with her from her room, and I stand back as she unlocks it, her touch lingering as she eases the door open.

“Would you like me to go?” she asks. “If you want to be alone—”

“No.” And it sounds like I ripped the word right out of me. “Please don’t.”

I need someone here to see it with me. I need someone else so I know it’s real.

Inside. My heartbeat loud in my ears. The only sound in the world.

The first things I notice are the beds. Two of them, narrow and neatly made up. The headboards are matching—iron scrollwork, like the one in my room, but black instead of white—and the covers are the same. Yellow and white stripes, with a smattering of flowers across the top.

A large window sits between the beds, letting in the afternoon light. It faces away from the Miller house, looking out at the highway. In front of it, a large nightstand with two drawers is dusted clean. Two closets. Two vanities, the mirrors fresh and blazing with sun. Everything matching, everything just so.

“Which side was my mom’s?” I ask.

Gram clears her throat. “Do you know,” she says, “I don’t remember.”

I start to laugh. It’s too loud, too much, but I can’t keep it in. She doesn’t remember. Or she does, and she’s lying, and that’s just as bad.

“Margot,” Gram says. “You might have had a bit too much sun.”

She sounds concerned. She sounds like she means it. And if she thinks I’m going to take anything she says at face value ever again, she’s out of her mind.

I crouch in front of the nightstand. Two beds, a drawer for each. I reach out to the left one, pull it open to find a crumpled receipt and a pair of red plastic sunglasses.

I can’t picture Mom wearing those. Can’t picture her ever being young enough, vivid enough. Maybe this was Katherine’s side.