The Cousins(56)

Milly’s mouth twists. “I’ve been trying to forget, but yes.”

“Sorry. But you know how Dr. Baxter almost knocked over the table?” Aubrey nods distractedly as she replaces the box in the filing cabinet and takes out another one. “He did that on purpose.”

Aubrey pauses halfway through pulling the reel from the box. “What?”



“He was watching you guys, totally clear-eyed, and then you said something—I don’t remember what—and he banged his knee on the table and started acting all confused.”

Milly puts her hands on her hips, frowning. “You never said anything about that.”

“I thought Dr. Baxter was doing us a favor,” I say as Aubrey starts up the process of loading the blue reel onto the microfilm machine. “Getting everyone out of an uncomfortable situation. But then Archer got that letter, and—I don’t know. Maybe we were talking about something he didn’t want anyone to know.”

Milly’s face goes splotchy. “Look, my mother was not impregnated by one of her brothers. That’s—”

“That’s not what we were talking about,” Aubrey interrupts. Her eyes are on the screen as she spins the dial to keep pages moving.

“Yes we were,” Milly says testily.

“At first, yeah. But Dr. Baxter didn’t do anything until I said, ‘I’d more easily believe they all killed somebody than that.’?”

There’s a long beat of silence. I can’t think of a good response—I’d completely forgotten about that until right this second—and nobody speaks again until Aubrey says, “Here it is. December twenty-second, 1997.” She twists a dial to enlarge an article on the screen with the headline LOCAL WOMAN DIES IN TRAGIC ACCIDENT. Milly and I lean over her shoulder to read the rest of the article.

Milly speaks first, her voice breathless with relief. “It was a car accident,” she says. According to the coverage, Kayla Dugas, who was then twenty-one, left a downtown bar one night and drove her car into a tree a half mile from Cutty Beach. The autopsy report showed she had a blood alcohol level over the legal limit, but just barely. “She was alone.”



“Cutty Beach, though,” Aubrey murmurs, her eyes locked on the screen.

“Your father is the only one who ever talks about that,” Milly says. “And Kayla’s car accident didn’t happen on the beach. It happened near it. It’s a reference point, that’s all.”

“Hmm.” Aubrey is still staring at the article. “It says here that Dr. Baxter was the attending physician after the accident.”

“Of course he was,” Milly snaps. “This is Gull Cove Island we’re talking about. He was probably the only physician.”

Aubrey finally looks up, her brow creased. “Are you…mad about something?”

“I’m just—what even is all this?” Milly asks, gesturing between the filing cabinet and the microfilm machine. “What are you trying to prove? That our parents murdered some girl and Mildred kicked them off the island because of it?”

Aubrey blinks. “I’m just trying to understand what happened.”

“Why don’t you ask Mildred?” Milly says. “Since the two of you get along so well.”

“We don’t—” Aubrey starts, but I break in.

“We’re going to be late. The funeral starts in fifteen minutes,” I remind them. This conversation isn’t headed anywhere good, and we’ve already been here too long.

“I’ll wait outside,” Milly says. She spins toward the door, ponytail flying.

Aubrey watches her go, hurt and confusion written all across her face. “What is going on with her?”

“Come on, Aubrey. You know,” I say. I always thought Aubrey was pretty in tune with other people, especially Milly, but she just stares at me blankly until I spell it out. “Your grandmother basically ignored her on Sunday and spent the whole time talking to you and me. It made Milly feel like shit.”



“Did she tell you that?”

“She didn’t have to.”

“But Milly doesn’t care about Gran!” Aubrey insists. “She doesn’t even have a grandmother name for her.”

“You really think that?” I ask. “You think Milly wears that watch every day because she doesn’t care about her grandmother? Because she doesn’t want your grandmother to care about her?”

“She…” Aubrey bites her lip, her face conflicted. “She’s Milly. She’s already the best grandchild. The best Story out of all of us. Well, you don’t count—no offense—”

“None taken.”

“But JT’s horrible and I’m…Nobody’s ever thought I was anything like my father. Milly is beautiful and glamorous and stylish and—”

“And none of that mattered to Mildred,” I finish.

Aubrey’s face crumples. “Oh God. I could tell something was off when we were shopping for dresses. But it didn’t hit me, till you said it—Gran was ignoring Milly.” She twists her hands. “I was just happy that she seemed to like me. I never thought she would.”

“It’s not your fault. The more I see of your grandmother, the more I think JT might’ve been right all along. She likes to play games.” I almost add what I’ve been thinking since Sunday; that Mildred wasn’t interested in us so much as Adam and Anders. All of her questions were just a roundabout way of forcing us to talk about them. But Aubrey doesn’t need to hear that; she already believes she’ll never be as important as her dad. Instead, I point toward the clock on the wall. “Look, we really have to get out of here. I haven’t been to a funeral in a while, but I’m pretty sure it’s bad form to walk in late.” I reach for the machine to start the rewinding process, but Aubrey stops me.