The Cousins(7)

I blink at him. He can’t really expect me to answer that question. Not after the bomb he dropped last night. But he just gazes back calmly, putting a finger in the book he’s holding to mark his page. I recognize the cover, the bold black font against a muted, almost watercolor-like background. A Brief and Broken Silence, by Adam Story. It’s his novel, about a former college athlete who achieves literary stardom and then realizes that what he really wants is to live a simple life off the grid—except his rabid fans won’t leave him alone.

I’m pretty sure my father was hoping the book would turn out to be autobiographical. It didn’t, but he still rereads it at least once a year.

You might as well, I think, my temper flaring. No one else does.

But I don’t say it. “Where’s Mom?”

“Your mother…” Dad hesitates, squinting as the sunlight streaming through the picture window reaches his eyes. The light brings out glints in his dark hair and gives him a golden glow he doesn’t deserve. It makes my chest hurt, now, to think about how mindlessly I’ve always worshiped my father. How deeply I believed that he was brilliant, and special, and destined for amazing things. I was honored that he’d given me an A name. I was the Fifth A, I used to tell myself, and one day I’d be just like them. Glamorous, mysterious, and just a little bit tragic. “Your mother is taking some time.”



“Taking time? What, did she, like…move out?” But as soon as I say it, I know it isn’t true. My mother wouldn’t leave without telling me.

Eloise startles awake and jumps down, stalking across the living room with that irritated look she gets whenever her nap ends. “She’s spending the afternoon with Aunt Jenny,” Dad says. “After that, we’ll see.” A different note creeps into his voice then—petulant, with an undercurrent of resentment. “This is hard on all of us.”

I stare at him, blood pounding in my ears, and imagine myself responding the way I want to: with a loud, disbelieving laugh. I’d laugh all the way across the room until I was close enough to rip the book out of his hands and throw it at his head. And then I’d tell him the truth: There is no us anymore. That’s ruined, and it’s all your fault.

But I don’t say or do any of that. Just like I didn’t push Coach Matson into the pool. All I do is nod stiffly, as though he said something that made actual sense. Then I trudge silently upstairs until I reach my bedroom door and lean my head against the cool, white wood.

You know what you did. My grandmother’s letter from years ago said that, and my father has always insisted that she was wrong. “I can’t know, because nothing happened,” he’d say. “There’s not a single thing that I, my brothers, or my sister ever did to justify this kind of treatment.” And I believed him without question. I believed that he was innocent, and treated unfairly, and that my grandmother must be cold, capricious, and maybe even crazy.



But yesterday, I learned how easily he can lie.

And now I don’t know what to believe anymore.





I’m going to be late.

I’ve been in this car for almost three hours, driving seventy-five miles through stop-and-go traffic from Providence to Hyannis. It’s been the longest, most expensive Uber trip of my life.

“Typical last weekend in June,” my driver, Frederico, says as we crawl through Saturday-morning Cape Cod traffic. He brakes as the light we were about to pass through turns yellow. “What can you do, right?”

I grit my teeth. “You could’ve run that light, for starters.”

Frederico waves a hand. “Not worth it. Cops are everywhere today.”

Google Maps says we’re just over a mile away from the ferry that will take me to Gull Cove Island. But even when we get through the red light, the line of cars ahead of us barely moves. “I’m supposed to leave in ten minutes,” I say, hunching forward until my knees bump the seat in front of me. Whoever last rode shotgun in Frederico’s car likes a lot of legroom. “Are we gonna make it?”



“Wellll,” he hedges. “I’m not positive we’re not gonna make it.”

I suck in a frustrated breath and start stuffing papers back into the folder I’m holding. It’s full of press clippings and printouts about Gull Cove and Mildred Story—mostly the island, though, because Mildred’s practically a recluse. The only social event she ever shows up for is the annual Summer Gala at Gull Cove Resort. There’s a picture of her in the Gull Cove Gazette at last year’s event, wearing a giant dramatic hat and gloves like she’s the queen of England. Donald Camden, her lawyer and sender of the infamous you know what you did letter, is standing next to her. He looks like the kind of smug asshole who would enjoy the job.

Mildred is now best known for being a patron of the arts. Apparently she’s got a massive private collection of paintings and sculptures, and she spends a ton of money supporting local artists. She’s probably the only reason there’s still an artist community on that overpriced pile of rocks they call an island. So she has that going for her, at least.

The back of the folder has a few things related to Aubrey, Milly, and their parents. Old reviews for Adam Story’s book, coverage of Aubrey’s swim meets, an article about Toshi Takahashi making partner in one of New York’s biggest law firms. I even dug up an old New York Times Vows column on his and Allison Story’s wedding almost twenty years ago. Nothing about their divorce, though.