Lies We Bury(74)

I knock twice. I’m not here for anything but a confession.

Footsteps approach from the other side, and the fresh scab on my inner elbow feels like it might spontaneously combust into new embers. I plant my feet to be ready for whatever happens next.

The dead bolt unlocks, and I feel a flash of fear that Shia will be the one to answer, then yank me inside and hold me until the police arrive. The inner door cracks open. A woman stares back at me, full of suspicion from behind the screen.

“Can I help you?” she says. The door opens wider, another six inches, and I meet an older version of Serena Delle. Ash-blonde hair hangs in wisps around a full, lined face, and the same pug nose wrinkles at the sight of me. However, instead of Serena’s ghostly blue eyes, this woman examines me with brown eyes. She hunches forward, almost in a bow, in a more exaggerated way than Serena used to shuffle about our high school hallways. She licks thin lips, the kind that might close around a cigarette a dozen times a day.

“Miss? Can I help you?”

No movement comes from behind this woman, and I don’t hear a back door slam or feet taking off through the backyard. “I’m . . . I’m looking for Serena. Is she here?”

The woman’s face falls. The door opens all the way, although the screen door remains shut. “Were you a friend of hers?”

“What do you mean . . . ‘were’?”

“Serena died. Three years ago. She killed herself.” The woman bites down on her lip. She stares at the ground, then flicks sharp eyes to mine. “Did you know her?”

My plans out the window, I stammer the truth. “I . . . yes. I did. Back in Arch. I wanted to say hello.”

If Serena is dead, and by suicide no less, who sent the Tru Lives reporter to talk to me? Who is Shia working with? What the hell is going on?

The woman’s face softens. A pink birthmark is visible on her clavicle, similar to the starfish shape that was on Serena’s hand. “What’s your name, honey?”

“Claire. Claire Lou,” I add, not missing a beat.

“Well, Claire,” she says, pursing her lips. “You’ve arrived just a few years too late. Serena could have used a friend out here. Arch wasn’t very kind to her growing up, but then you probably know that, having been classmates. I don’t know, it’s all so hard to tell as a parent . . .” Her voice trails off as a delivery truck rumbles down the street. “I was hoping Serena would get a fresh start in Eugene when she went to U of O. But that seemed to have made things worse.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. In high school, Serena kept to herself as far as I knew. But I did learn that Serena had some . . . eccentricities. She left dead animals for a girl, Marissa Mo. Did Serena have some kind of fascination with that family?”

Hearing Serena’s mother dismiss the ways her daughter made my life so challenging makes me push for the answers I can never get from Serena now. Why the squirrels? Why the stalking?

The woman glares at me. She doesn’t look as certain that I am a kindred spirit, a friend to her beloved, lost child. “Serena had her faults, and you’re right, her quirks. There was a lot of pressure on her to be this political prop for her father. But she was a good person. I . . . I never learned what that business was between her and Marissa. I moved up here after her father and I divorced; then she followed about four years ago.”

She wipes an eye with a chipped pink nail. “I wish she were here to see you, Claire. Did you want to come inside? I have some juice I could open up. Or a wine cooler.”

“That’s very kind. Thank you. But I should get going. I’m sorry for your loss,” I add genuinely.

When I reach the street, I turn back to find Serena’s mother still watching me. She lifts a hand in goodbye, frozen in the doorway. Once I’m past the sight line of her house, I remove my camera, then take a photo of the trees, the home’s rooftop just visible and missing several shingles.

I walk quickly to the light-rail station, hoping a train arrives the moment I do, listening for vengeful footsteps behind me. Now, instead of imagining Serena’s heavy gait, my ears strain for the sound of a stranger racing toward me, unhindered, with no intention of stopping.





Twenty-Nine

The second light-rail pulls away from the station, and I wait for the air to clear before inhaling a breath. Without an obvious direction to travel in, I take refuge on a nearby bench. Removed from the stark knowledge that Serena killed herself, and that I may have precipitated her sense of loneliness, the knots in my stomach release, if only by a small margin.

My phone pings. Another news alert from the Portland Post. I click on the link, and a video pops up, showing Chet exiting Karin’s pink convertible. A box of doughnuts is visible in the back seat. Did they stop by Jenessa’s work? Voices shout at Chet, asking him what he is doing there and what he is going to do now that he’s on parole.

He turns and faces the camera. His hair is combed and gelled, unlike when I saw him a few days prior, and he appears rested, fresh faced. Fooling a board of prison officials into believing you’ve learned from your abusive ways will do that.

“I’m simply happy being free for the first time in twenty years,” he says with a modest shrug.

I’m just a regular person. Right.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to say hi to someone very special.” He turns and walks into the lobby of an apartment building. In the corner, visible through the glass wall and beside a faded chair, a lily of the valley potted flower adds a splash of white and green to the brick wall.