Eliza Starts a Rumor(77)

She looked back down at her plate and moved her food around a bit. Her daughter, Kayla, let out a gasp, followed by a teary “Mom.” Luke, who was sitting at the head of the table, dropped his wineglass, and it shattered on his plate. Red wine splattered everywhere, yet literally no one moved to clean it up. Tears trickled down Kevin’s face. And then, as they all watched, Eliza picked up her plate, still full of food, and stood up. She looked at Mandy.

“Should we clear the dishes?” she asked, in a stupor.

Amanda led her away from the table. “I think people are still eating. Why don’t we go upstairs?”

She let Amanda lead her away. Luke instructed everyone to stay put and followed them up. Sadie and Pippa were soon in tears, too; Sadie’s were quite uncontrollable. It was obvious that Carson was feeling both guilty and overwhelmed. Alison and Olivia took the girls away, offering up the babies as a good distraction. Dean Barr was ashen, completely destroyed by what his comment had ignited. Mandy’s dad tried his best to make him feel better.

By the time Mandy came down, everyone had dispersed from the table. Kayla, clearly her mother’s daughter, was bagging up the leftovers into Tupperware and Ziploc bags to send everyone home with food for when, if ever, their appetites came back. Dean approached Mandy.

“I’m going to go. I feel awful.”

“It’s OK. I’ll walk you out.”

As Amanda stepped out of the house she remembered lying on the front lawn when she was a little girl, staring at the clouds, wondering if that moment was real or just a dream. It felt a bit like that right now. Unreal.

The streetlights came on, flooding her with more memories: the hours she had spent with Eliza running around with the neighborhood kids playing Capture the Flag or Red Light, Green Light, until those same lights signaled it was time to go home for dinner. She had thought theirs was the most innocent of childhoods, until tonight.

She pictured their teenage years, dousing themselves in Love’s Baby Soft and putting on mascara on the school bus in an effort to get the attention of their teacher-crushes. At the time, flirting that way had felt just as harmless as a game of tag.

Mr. Barr interrupted her thoughts. “I’m so sorry. This is all on me.”

“Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s all on me. I’m the one who started this whole game back then to begin with. I would go on and on about how immature the boys in our grade were who were interested in me just to avoid things I wasn’t ready for. And to make matters worse, this whole time, since I’ve been back, I’ve probably been stirring it all up again, going on and on about you—about this.” She motioned to the space between them and started to cry.

Mr. Barr went to wipe her tears and she jumped back.

“I can’t,” she said. It was obvious that all that was sweet between them had instantly soured.

“I understand.” He paused and added sadly, “I don’t think I can either.”

Amanda was relieved that they were both on the same page. He continued. “I’m going to speak to the principal about taking that goddamn plaque down before the show. I should have brought up my suspicions before.”

“Well, I hope they believe you. I can’t imagine Eliza finally opening up about this and then having her integrity questioned. But it happens all the time.”

“I’ll let you know what the administrators say.”

As Mandy turned to go back to the house, she saw Carson standing behind a tree smoking.

“You’re smoking again?” she scoffed. When she got close, she could see he had tears on his face. She had only seen him cry at the movies, and not on account of the drama, on account of the box office. She was dumbfounded, yet without sympathy. She knew what Eliza had said was hard for everyone to hear, and how it had affected her was even harder to witness. But Carson deserved to hear it—and see it. She was not going to comfort him. He saw that.

“Tell the kids I say goodbye, and that I’ll see them on Sunday at the show.”

Luke came to the front door and called out to Mandy.

“OK. I have to go,” she said.

“Tell Eliza—um—forget it,” he mumbled and left.

Luke sat down on the front step. Mandy sat down next to him.

“She’s asleep,” he said. “I gave her a Valium that we had in the medicine cabinet from somewhere.” He began to cry. “When we got upstairs, I sat her down on the bed and I lifted off her sweater to put on her nightgown. Her arms were cut up. She’s been cutting herself. When she saw that I saw, she said, ‘I’m sorry, I just wanted to feel something.’”

Mandy started to cry, too. “She hasn’t been leaving the house. I should have told you, but I couldn’t betray her.”

“What?”

“She’s barely left the house since the twins’ graduation. It’s when they announced that honor for that horrible man.”

Luke filled her in on what had occurred at the ceremony. “They made a speech about him and had a slideshow. I feel sick that she had to sit through that, with everyone clapping and singing his praises.”

“It must have triggered her, Luke. She didn’t leave the house for four months in high school. We never knew why, but it must have been . . .”

She didn’t complete her sentence. She couldn’t bear to say it out loud, to hear it out loud again.