I'd Give Anything(59)

“But that wasn’t why?”

“Maybe a little. Mostly, though, I just loved doing exactly what I wanted to do. I liked following through on my impulses. So when I was little, I’d always be the kid who climbed too high in the tree or went out too far in the ocean or got up and danced when I was happy at school. When I got older, I’d skip school or stay up all night writing or sneak out or decorate my boyfriend’s house with paper snowflakes.”

“Or jump off cliffs in the dark,” said Avery.

Avery’s mother shut her eyes and tipped back her head and smiled. “I’d stand on the edge of that quarry, with the air on my skin, and I’d feel alive in every cell. And jumping, jumping was like flying.” She opened her eyes. “I guess my wildness was actually pretty tame, but it didn’t feel that way to me.”

“I don’t think it was tame. Zinny was awesome.”

Her mother reached across the table and squeezed Avery’s hand. “I don’t know if she was awesome. But I know I loved being myself, even during those years when kids are supposed to be full of self-consciousness and doubt. I reveled in being Zinny Beale.”

Her mother’s eyes got serious and she shook her head. “Trevor and I dared each other and pushed each other and never, ever, told on each other and always took each other’s side. But his hatred for our mother grew and grew, and it spurred him to go further and further, and I knew it was happening. I saw him getting too mad, pushing the boundaries too far, but I never tried to stop him. To even mention it would’ve been disloyal.”

“You did, though. When he stole the stop signs.”

“I can’t even tell you how many times my mind has gone back to the night of the stop signs. Over and over. How Trevor said he was afraid our mother was turning him into a monster like her. I tortured myself with that night. Because I let him off the hook too easily. So then when he set the fire, I thought it was partly my fault. I’d let it happen.”

Avery said, softly, “But remember? He didn’t set it.”

Her mother gave a startled laugh. “Right! He didn’t. Wow.”

Avery sensed something coming alive in her mother, and she thought she recognized it, even though she’d seen it only in the pages of an old journal. Not just one thing, either: fierceness, courage. Avery looked at her mother and caught a glimpse of Zinny.

“Someone did,” said Avery. “It’s weird to think that the whole time you thought Uncle Trevor did, the person who really did it has been walking around with that secret. I hope it wasn’t Daniel.” Her mother had told her about Daniel, about how a lot of people twenty years ago had thought he’d done it.

“Mom, do you think it could have been him?”

“No,” her mother replied after a pause. “My gut tells me that he couldn’t have endangered all those people. He’s the nicest person I’ve ever met, like instinctively nice. Nice without trying. But—”

“But what?”

“He was going through a hard time. He was angry about moving in the middle of high school and about not being able to find his place at his new school. Anger can push people. And so can alcohol. He drank too much back then. He told me that.”

“You’d have to be really, really angry to set a fire,” said Avery.

“I know. I can’t imagine the Daniel I know being that angry.”

“Are you going to talk to him about it?”

Her mother sighed. “There’s part of me that just wants to let it go. I like him so much, and I know whatever he used to be, he’s a good man now. I know it.”

“Mom, can I say something crazy?”

“Sure, baby.”

“Maybe there’s a reason that you were drawn to Daniel. Like maybe somewhere in your head there was that picture of him you said Uncle Trevor remembered seeing.”

“That’s possible. I was in a kind of heartsick haze when people were spreading that photo around, but I had to have seen it. Still, you’d think that if my subconscious recognized Daniel, it would also have sent me running straight in the opposite direction.”

“Maybe. But maybe you’ve never completely thought Uncle Trevor did it. Maybe, deep down, you’ve always wanted to know the truth. Or maybe—”

“What?”

“Maybe it’s truth that pushed you two together. Like truth wants to make itself known. Does that sound crazy?”

Her mother laughed. “Maybe just a teensy bit.”

“Okay, but it’s not crazy to think the truth is better, right? Better than lies or secrets. Even when it’s scary or super hard to face or when it doesn’t set anyone free—because maybe it doesn’t always—the true story should still win.”

“I think it’s taken me my entire life up to this moment to learn that,” said Avery’s mother. “And here you are with it already figured out.”

Her mother raised her water glass. “Here’s to the true story forever and ever!”

And, after a couple of seconds, Avery clinked her glass against her mother’s, and they both drank.



That night, Avery wrote a note and sealed it inside an envelope, and the very next day, after school, before she could chicken out, Avery took the bus to the coffee shop where Cressida worked. When it was her turn in line, she asked the twenty-something-year-old woman working behind the counter if Cressida was coming in that day.