We Were Liars(39)

I hesitate.

I can see the fire. The smoke. How huge Clairmont looked as it burned.

I know, irrevocably and certainly, that we set it.

I can see Mirren’s hand, her chipped gold nail polish, holding a jug of gas for the motorboats.

Johnny’s feet, running down the stairs from Clairmont to the boathouse.

Granddad, holding on to a tree, his face lit by the glow of a bonfire.

No. Correction.

The glow of his house, burning to the ground.

But these are memories I’ve had all along. I just know where to fit them now.

“Not everything,” I tell Johnny. “I just know we set the fire. I can see the flames.”

He lies down on the floor of the kitchen and stretches his arms over his head.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“I’m fucking tired. If you want to know.” Johnny rolls over on his face and pushes his nose against the tile. “They said they weren’t speaking anymore,” he mumbles into the floor. “They said it was over and they were cutting off from each other.”

“Who?”

“The aunties.”

I lie down on the floor next to him so I can hear what he’s saying.

“The aunties got drunk, night after night,” Johnny mumbles, as if it’s hard to choke the words out. “And angrier, every time. Screaming at each other. Staggering around the lawn. Granddad did nothing but fuel them. We watched them quarrel over Gran’s things and the art that hung in Clairmont—but real estate and money most of all. Granddad was drunk on his own power and my mother wanted me to make a play for the money. Because I was the oldest boy. She pushed me and pushed me—I don’t know. To be the bright young heir. To talk badly of you as the eldest. To be the educated white hope of the future of democracy, some bullshit. She’d lost Granddad’s favor, and she wanted me to get it so she didn’t lose her inheritance.”

As he talks, memories flash across my skull, so hard and bright they hurt. I flinch and put my hands over my eyes.

“Do you remember any more about the fire?” he asks gently. “Is it coming back?”

I close my eyes for a moment and try. “No, not that. But other things.”

Johnny reaches out and takes my hand.





60




Spring before summer fifteen, Mummy made me write to Granddad. Nothing blatant. “Thinking of you and your loss today. Hoping you are well.”

I sent actual cards—heavy cream stock with Cadence Sinclair Eastman printed across the top. Dear Granddad, I just rode in a 5K bike ride for cancer research. Tennis team starts up next week. Our book club is reading Brideshead Revisited. Love you.

“Just remind him that you care,” said Mummy. “And that you’re a good person. Well-rounded and a credit to the family.”

I complained. Writing the letters seemed false. Of course I cared. I loved Granddad and I did think about him. But I didn’t want to write these reminders of my excellence every two weeks.

“He’s very impressionable right now,” said Mummy. “He’s suffering. Thinking about the future. You’re the first grandchild.”

“Johnny’s only three weeks younger.”

“That’s my point. Johnny’s a boy and he’s only three weeks younger. So write the letter.”

I did as she asked.



On Beechwood summer fifteen, the aunties filled in for Gran, making slumps and fussing around Granddad as if he hadn’t been living alone in Boston since Tipper died in October. But they were quarrelsome. They no longer had the glue of Gran keeping them together, and they fought over their memories, her jewelry, the clothes in her closet, her shoes, even. These affairs had not been settled in October. People’s feelings had been too delicate then. It had all been left for the summer. When we got to Beechwood in late June, Bess had already inventoried Gran’s Boston possessions and now began with those in Clairmont. The aunts had copies on their tablets and pulled them up regularly.

“I always loved that jade tree ornament.”

“I’m surprised you remember it. You never helped decorate.”

“Who do you think took the tree down? Every year I wrapped all the ornaments in tissue paper.”

“Martyr.”

“Here are the pearl earrings Mother promised me.”

“The black pearls? She said I could have them.”

The aunts began to blur into one another as the days of the summer ticked past. Argument after argument, old injuries were rehashed and threaded through new ones.

Variations.

“Tell Granddad how much you love the embroidered tablecloths,” Mummy told me.

“I don’t love them.”

“He won’t say no to you.” The two of us were alone in the Windemere kitchen. She was drunk. “You love me, don’t you, Cadence? You’re all I have now. You’re not like Dad.”

“I just don’t care about tablecloths.”

“So lie. Tell him the ones from the Boston house. The cream ones with the embroidery.”

It was easiest to tell her I would.

And later, I told her I had.

But Bess had asked Mirren to do the same thing,

and neither one of us

begged Granddad