MR. PARK ENTERTAINS A NOTION
IT’S hard to imagine that Monday will dawn like any other morning, a perfectly ordinary day on which they will be obligated to get out of bed and dress themselves and attend school. And yet, Blair thinks, time has a habit of progressing, regardless of how one might feel about it.
The day passes in a haze, teachers’ voices blurring together in a staticky fuzz. When the bell rings, signaling the end of Journalism, Blair and Cam exhale in simultaneous relief.
“Blair, Cam,” Mr. Park says from the front of the room. “Please stay after class. The rest of you, thanks for all your hard work today.”
Jenna the irritating junior gives them a malevolently triumphant look as she slinks out of the classroom.
Blair has no trouble recognizing the essay sitting on Mr. Park’s desk as she and Cam approach. She’s the one who wrote it, in a feverish spurt over the weekend, desperate to meet their deadline. Cam helped.
Sort of.
If you count delivering irritating monologues clearly cribbed from Sophie while Blair frantically typed as helping.
“Did you like our editorial?” Blair asks anxiously, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.
“Sit, sit.” Mr. Park gestures to the empty front row of desks.
Blair’s heart sinks. This conversation, apparently, is going to take a while.
Not good.
“The editorial,” Mr. Park says. He gives her a Mr. Park look over the rims of his round glasses. “It has a few more grammatical errors than I am accustomed to seeing in your work.”
“Our work,” Cam says hopefully.
“And it’s a bit on the short side,” Mr. Park says. “Despite the page count.” He looks down at the printout on his desk. “I am an old man, Blair Johnson, but I do notice when my students attempt to disguise brevity with a font the size of a diner menu.”
“Right,” Blair says.
“Perhaps the two of you will consider spending a bit more time on revision than you did in generation,” Mr. Park says.
“Sure,” Cam says. “Whatever you think. That sounds great. Can we go?”
“No,” Mr. Park says. “I’m not interested in talking to you about your editorial. Your worst work, Blair, is significantly better than the best of what most of your peers have to offer, but that is no reason to be lazy. I’d appreciate it if you fixed this. But I’d much rather hear what the two of you were actually doing in my class for the last two weeks, since it clearly wasn’t working on your editorial.”
“Ah,” Blair says.
“Mmm,” says Cam. “We were. Um. You know, I’m not very good at writing, so Blair was helping me. With writing.”
“You didn’t write a word of this,” Mr. Park says to Cam mildly. “Though I recognize the influence of Sophie. How is she, by the way? Tell her to email me if she has a moment. I’d be delighted to hear from her.”
Cam’s eyes are wide. If Blair herself were not terrified, she would be enjoying the sight of Cam stunned into speechlessness.
“We,” Blair says. “We, uh.”
“I had the most fascinating conversation with my colleague Karyn on Friday,” Mr. Park continues.
Karyn? Blair thinks.
And then she thinks, Oh, no.
Ms. Lackmann’s first name is Karyn.
“The two of you went to see her last week, did you not? And then, over the weekend, I received an equally fascinating email. A transfer request, from a freshman. Most unorthodox at this time of year, don’t you think? I believe you know this young person. Mattie Brosillard?”
Cam glances at Blair. “We, uh, know them. A little bit. From around.”
Mr. Park folds his hands on his desk and gazes at them with a pleasant ruthlessness.
“Mattie’s sister went missing five years ago, I’m told.”
“We did hear something about that,” Blair manages.
“And briefly returned two weeks ago before going missing again? On Friday?”
“I don’t know,” Blair says. “Anything. We don’t, I mean. Know anything.”
“Very interesting,” Mr. Park says. “A story that seems almost familiar.”
“No,” Cam says. “No, nothing familiar. I don’t think.”
“I do,” says Mr. Park.
He waits. Silently.
It’s the oldest trick in the journalism book: Let the silence get so big it takes on a personality of its own. Most people can’t stand to let it sit there.
Being on the other side of that silence, it’s no wonder why.
“We can’t tell you,” Blair blurts.
This time, it’s Cam who kicks Blair’s ankle.
“Cam, he’s not stupid,” Blair says.
“Why, thank you, Blair,” Mr. Park says.
“Mattie is our friend,” Blair says. “Yes. Obviously. I think you should let them into Journalism. Not that it’s my decision. That’s your decision. Of course. But we can’t tell you what we were doing.”
Mr. Park raises an eyebrow.
“Because it’s not our story,” Cam adds, rallying to Blair’s side. “It’s Mattie’s. We were just sort of—there. That’s what we learned last year. That’s what you were trying to get me to learn, Mr. Park, and it worked. Because you’re such a good teacher.”
“What did you learn, exactly?” Mr. Park asks.
“The difference between a good story and a story that’s ours to tell,” Cam says. “That’s what I learned. I think. Mostly.”
Mr. Park sits back in his chair and looks at them for a long time.
“Okay,” Mr. Park says at last.
“Okay?” Cam asks.
“Okay,” he says, nodding. “Explanation accepted. I don’t normally allow freshmen into my class, as you know, but this Mattie is quite talented. They sent me a few samples. A bit imaginative for Journalism, but we can work with that. I trust, Blair, that you’re willing to act as a writing mentor if they join the class?”
“Me?” Blair asks, startled.
“Yes, you,” Mr. Park says. He’s not doing a good job of hiding his smile.
“But I—” Blair stops.
But I’m not any good at writing, she was going to say.
Why was she going to say that?
That’s not the kind of thing she’s going to need to say in New York.
“I’d be glad to,” she says.
“Then that’s settled.” Mr. Park picks up their—her—ridiculous editorial and drops it in the trash. “I’m looking forward to your revision. By Friday.”
“Yes, Mr. Park,” Blair says.
“Now go home,” Mr. Park says, waving a hand at them regally.
“Yes, Mr. Park,” Cam says.
“I’m going to miss you both next year,” Mr. Park says. “I’m afraid things will be awfully dull.”
“Oh, I think Mattie will keep you on your toes,” Cam says.
“Wonderful,” Mr. Park says. “See you tomorrow.”
THE DEPARTURE
Sophie flies in on the second night of winter break. Irene offers to take Cam to pick her up at the airport, but Sophie goes instead to her parents’, for what she says will be a few days. To see how it goes, she says.
How it goes lasts six hours, and then she’s at Cam’s door.
“Hi,” she says.
Cam flings her arms around Sophie without a word. Sophie buries her head in Cam’s shoulder.
“I came out to my dad,” Sophie says, her voice muffled by Cam’s sweatshirt.
Cam leans back, looks at her. “How did it go?”
“Can I stay here?”
“Obviously,” Cam says.
Sophie is looking up at Cam, her perfect face still. “For a while?” she asks.
“Obviously!” Irene shouts from the living room.
“Don’t be a dummy,” Cam says. “Come in.”
Mattie moves from Cam’s room to the couch. Blair has been over all day, hopefully eyeing the oversized pot in which Brad boils spaghetti noodles, and the day before that. So has Brad. Irene tells a long, boring story about her time in Williamsburg squats—“Thirteen people and six cats, and for a while we didn’t have running water,” she says, with a gleam in her eye that looks alarmingly like nostalgia. Kitten is beside himself, elated by his new, lap-abundant life.
It is a kind of cozy, cheerful chaos that Cam has never experienced in all her tenure in this tiny apartment.
To her great surprise, she likes it.
That night, she goes into the bathroom to change into her pajamas. Which is silly, she knows; it’s not like Sophie hasn’t seen her naked before. It’s not like Sophie hasn’t spent the night at her house before, for that matter.
But this feels different.
“This feels different,” Sophie says in Cam’s room. She’s sitting on Cam’s bed. She’s here, where Cam desperately wants her, back in Cam’s world, back in Cam’s life at last, and Cam doesn’t know what to say.
“I don’t know what to say,” Cam says.
“The last three months were hard,” Sophie says. “We can start there.”
Three months? Has it really only been three months?
“The last three months felt like ten years,” Cam says.
“I know,” Sophie says.
“Do you want to break up with me?” Cam blurts. “You can still stay here. Of course. For as long as you need to. But if you want to break up with me, that’s okay. I mean, it’s not okay. With me. But it’s your decision.”
Sophie looks at her. “Come here,” she says.
Cam sits next to Sophie on her bed. Takes Sophie’s hand.
Thinks, Let me keep this.
Please.
“No,” Sophie says, and at first Cam thinks Sophie is saying no to what she’s begged for in her head. But Sophie is still talking. “I don’t want to break up with you. I don’t want to lose you. But I don’t know how to do everything I want to do and still have enough time for us. And I understand if that’s—if you can’t.”
“Can’t what?” Cam asks, confused.
“Can’t do it,” Sophie says. “If it’s too much.”
Cam thinks about this.
“You could text me twice a day at noon and six p.m. your time,” she says.
Sophie is taken aback. “Is that what you want?”
“No,” Cam says. “Blair said that was something I could ask for, though.”
Sophie smiles. “Was that all she said?”
“No,” Cam says again. “It was more complicated. It was about how I have to figure out what I want.”
“Have you?”
“I want you around all the time,” Cam says. “I want to go to college and think even more interesting things than I think now and learn about the structure and formation of galaxies. I want to be an astrophysicist. And have my own lab. And I want you to be there every day.”
“I could unionize your graduate students,” Sophie says.
“You won’t have to,” Cam says. “I’ll unionize for them. Give them a union. Whatever.”
“I can’t be there for you every day, Cam,” Sophie says. “There are a lot of things I need to do. There’s so much work.”
“I know,” Cam says. “I know you can’t. Can we keep trying?”
“Yes,” Sophie says.
“Will you call me more?”
“Yes,” Sophie says.
“Okay,” Cam says, absurdly happy.
“It’s not going to be easy for us,” Sophie says.
“Easy is for the little people,” Cam says.
Sophie smiles. “I love you,” she says. “So much.”
“I know,” Cam says. “I love you too.”
“I know,” Sophie says. “Turn out the light. I haven’t gotten laid since I left Oreville.”
“Good,” Cam says, and does.
In the morning, Brad comes over with a Christmas tree. “Fascism,” Cam says sorrowfully, as he and Mattie stand it up in a corner of the living room.
“Tell Irene to get out the ornaments,” Brad says.
“We’re communists,” Cam says. “Communists don’t have Christmas tree ornaments.”
Brad gives her a long, level look, decides she’s not joking. “I guess I’ll have to buy you a stand too, then,” he says. “Costco’s going to be a nightmare.”
“Ruth’s probably out somewhere,” Mattie says. “We can raid my garage.”
Brad gives them a fist bump, points a stern finger at Cam. “If you take that tree hostage while we’re gone, I’m coming after you,” he says.
“She won’t,” Sophie says, coming into the living room. Cam looks over at her girlfriend, her heart surging with love.
“I guess we can have a tree this year,” Cam says, putting her arms around Sophie. Sophie leans into her side. “Since Mattie wants one.”
“Good girl,” Brad says, and hugs all three of them. His arms are long enough to reach.
True to her word, Irene takes them out to Olive Garden on Christmas Eve. Cam and Sophie, of course, but also Blair, and Mattie, and Brad, and Jenny and her girlfriend, Ellie.
My family, Cam thinks.
Brad, she knows, had to fight the impulse to protest her choice of location. But he lets Cam have her joy.
After all, even Brad cannot provide her with a bottomless breadstick basket.
Her heart is full.
Cam and her chosen family, secure in the warm glow of faux-rustic lighting, sit at a massive fake wood table in front of a massive fake wood fireplace in which a gas fire merrily burns. Outside is December, cold and wild with storms, and inside is everyone she loves.
Irene puts her head on Brad’s shoulder, and he wraps one brawny arm around her. Irene is violently and vocally opposed to the patriarchal institution of heterosexual marriage, but last night Cam caught her discussing Brad’s need for the robust spousal health insurance coverage provided through her work.
It’s the closest Irene will ever get to admitting she wants to put a ring on him.
If Brad and Irene get married, does that mean she will have two parents? Will she have to call Brad Dad? This thought is unimaginable.
She looks over at Brad, whose chin rests now atop Irene’s sleek dark hair.
No, she thinks.
Brad’s not going to ever make her do anything she doesn’t want to do.
Unless it’s something like eating more salads.
“How’s the book coming?” Brad asks Blair.
“Oh, the book,” Blair says, shifting in her seat. “It’s, uh, on hold.”
“What?” Cam asks. “What does ‘on hold’ mean? What did that Meredith person do? I’ll kill her.”
“No, no,” Blair says, laughing. “It was me. I wrote her.” Blair glances at Mattie. “I said that it wasn’t my story to tell and I was pulling the proposal. And she would have to wait until I found another idea. One that was really mine.”
“What did she say?” Cam demands.
Blair flushes. “She said, um, that she totally understood.”
She flushes harder.
“And?” Cam demands.
“And that I was so talented she could wait for whatever I came up with next,” Blair squeaks.
“Well, you are,” Brad says.
“Blair Johnson,” Cam says, radiant with pride. “Are you telling me you actually stood up for yourself?”
Blair, beet-red, smiles. “Yeah,” she says. “I guess I did.”
“What are you going to do?” Irene asks.
“I’m going to move to New York,” Blair says. “And then we’ll see what happens.”
“You are?” Irene is delighted. “You’re moving to New York? Oh, I will make you the longest list of where to go and what to eat and what to do—you have to take the Staten Island Ferry and go to Kalustyan’s to buy spices and sit in the Temple of Dendur—you know, that’s the best place in the entire world to cry—and most of the great show venues are closed now, but I can still give you some places—”
“The dinosaurs,” Cam interrupts. Once Irene gets started about the greatness of New York, she will keep going until everyone around her is asleep or dead.
“I’m saving the dinosaurs for when you come visit,” Blair says.
“New York’s a four-hour train ride from Cambridge,” Irene says.
“I am aware of that,” Cam says.
“You’ll have to start out in some roach-infested apartment with forty-three roommates and no working hot water,” Irene says dreamily to Blair. “God, I’m so jealous.”
“Move back,” Cam says.
“Too late for me,” Irene says dismissively.
“Why?” Brad asks.
Irene turns in the circle of his arm to look at him. “You would hate New York,” she says.
“How do you know that?” Brad asks. “I’ve never been there.”
Irene stares at him.
“See,” Cam says. “People are surprising, Irene. And it would be much more convenient for me never to have to come back here.” She gives Blair a piercing look. “What about Luke?”
“Cam,” Sophie says.
“No, it’s fine,” Blair says. She looks at Mattie. “Is it okay if we talk about this?”
Mattie nods.
“Ruth sent my brother to rehab,” they say. “Somewhere in Colorado. With horseback riding and coloring.”
“Art therapy,” Blair says.
“Sounds a lot better than state detox,” Jenny says wryly.
“Did you talk to him?” Irene asks Mattie.
They shake their head. “He called me a bunch of times, but I haven’t called him back. Maybe I will one day. But not for a long time.”
“Have you talked to him?” Cam asks Blair.
“No,” Blair says. She reaches for one of Cam’s breadsticks. “I got so wrapped up in the story that I missed the person,” she says.
“My brother can be charming,” Mattie says.
“You were right,” Blair says ruefully. “About the project thing. I can’t fix anybody. I don’t want to fix anybody. I think it’s time for me to focus on my own story for a while.”
She looks up from the breadstick. Cam is gazing at her in wonder.
“I’m proud of you,” Cam says.
Blair blinks. “You are?”
“Yes,” Cam says. “I am.”
“Becca called me too,” Mattie says. “She left a message. She wants to talk to me about … about Lola. She said she understands if I don’t want to talk to her.”
“Do you?” Jenny asks.
“I think so,” Mattie says. “It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t Luke’s fault either. I know Darren told them they would both go to jail if they told anyone. They were really young and really scared, and here was this older person, telling them what to do. I’m not excusing them, but I understand it. Once you start lying like that, it must take over your whole life. But I don’t know if I can ever forgive either one of them for not telling me what happened.”
“That’s fair,” Brad says.
“That’s more than fair,” Irene says. “It’s wise.”
“Becca loved my sister,” Mattie says. “We can talk about that, and see where it goes. Luke … I don’t know. We’ll see.”
A thoughtful silence falls. Cam, beneficent, passes around her breadstick basket.
“So, what now?” Sophie asks, taking Cam’s hand. Mattie watches with hungry eyes. “Can you stand a life out of the limelight, Cam?”
“Yes,” Cam says.
“No internet stalkers this time around,” Blair says.
“No forums calling for our death,” Cam agrees.
“Nobody saying you’re reverse racists,” Brad says.
“There’s no such thing as reverse racism,” Sophie says.
“He knows,” Irene says, gazing at Brad in a loving manner. Jenny catches Cam’s eye, mimes sticking her finger down her throat behind Irene’s back.
“Is it weird?” Mattie asks. “You were so famous last time. And this time, nobody knows what you did.”
“What you did too, Mattie,” Cam says.
“It isn’t weird at all,” Blair says. “It’s your story.”
“We did learn something last year,” Cam says. “Whether we wanted to or not.”
“Speak for yourself,” Blair says placidly. “I haven’t learned a thing.” She sits up suddenly. “Wait a minute. Mattie—the DNA test. You said when we first talked to you that you never tried that, because you don’t have a credit card. How did you figure out how to get one, in the end? Who paid for it?”
“Oh, that,” Mattie says. They shift awkwardly in their chair. “Technically, you did.”
“I did?” Blair asks, startled.
“I stole your credit card the night you came over and looked at the security footage. The rush fee for the test was kind of expensive. I’ll pay you back. I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not,” Cam says.
“No,” Mattie agrees. “Not really.”
Finally, Mattie smiles.
Blair smiles back. “It’s okay,” she says. “I think I deserved it.”
“Blair took me by the house today,” Mattie says to the rest of them, serious again. “Ruth’s house. To pick up some clothes. And I found— Can I tell you this?” They glance around the table. “I don’t want to ruin Christmas.”
“You won’t ruin Christmas,” Irene says gently. Mattie gives her a grateful look.
“This came in the mail a couple of days ago,” Mattie says. They slide a thick, battered manila envelope out of their bag and hand it to Cam. It’s addressed to Mattie in block letters and postmarked from Moab, Utah. There’s no return address. Inside, there’s a black notebook, the twin of Mattie’s own, and several sheets of paper.
“What is this?” Cam asks.
“Lola’s journal,” Mattie says.
“Which Lola?” Brad asks.
“Both,” Mattie says. “The first half my sister wrote. The rest, she did. She found it in my sister’s room when she moved in. That’s how she knew what to say. Who to be. She pretended we had all these memories in common. But I looked for this every day for months. Everywhere in the house. And she’s the one who found it. She wrote…” Mattie trails off.
“Wrote what?” Jenny prompts gently.
“She wrote me letters,” Mattie says. “And yesterday, I got this text. It’s a location. I tried calling the number the message came from, but it doesn’t work.”
“Location for what?” Cam asks.
“It’s in the park. It’s where my sister is buried,” Mattie says.
“How does she know that?” Cam asks.
“She made Darren tell her,” Mattie says, almost awed. “She called him and told him she’d watch him for the rest of his life and if he ever did anything to hurt me, she’d hunt him down and kill him. That’s what she wrote me, anyway. You can read it if you want.”
“I don’t think it’s any of my business,” Cam says.
“No, I want you to,” Mattie says. “Maybe it will help. I don’t know.”
Cam takes the notebook from them. It takes her a while to read through the pages covered in the other Lola’s bold scrawl. When she’s done, she looks at Mattie, who nods.
Cam hands the book to Blair.
One by one, they pass it around the table.
The waiter brings shrimp scampi, fettuccine alfredo dripping with a cream sauce that makes Brad wince, fried mozzarella, a frightful appetizer called “Lasagna Fritta” that Blair is at a loss even to describe.
Jenny’s the last to read the other Lola’s book, Ellie looking over her shoulder. “Wow,” she says finally when she’s done.
“And this,” Mattie says, unfolding a printout of an online article. “She sent me this too.”
“Read it out loud,” Blair says.
WOMAN SOUGHT IN CONNECTION WITH ARMED ROBBERY OF PINE OAK BANK
August 17, 2022
Pine Oak, Iowa
Police are searching for a woman captured in a surveillance video in connection with the armed robbery of the Pine Oak branch of Iowa Savings and Security Bank. No one was harmed during the robbery, which police have described as “very well-planned, almost methodical,” but police reports indicate the thieves stole over $500,000. Two people have already been arrested as suspects in the robbery: Earl Sticklin, 18, of Pine Oak, and Marcus Hayes, 20, also of Pine Oak. The third, female accomplice is believed to be Shari Ross, 18, of Pine Oak. Her identity is not confirmed and she remains at large.
The article is accompanied by a grainy security-camera photo of a young woman in a black stocking hat looking directly into the lens with a mocking smile.
“That’s her,” Cam says, taking the printout from Mattie.
“No wonder she needed a new passport,” Blair says.
“She sent me this too,” Mattie says, showing them a book. A mint-condition copy of The Big Sleep, the same edition Darren destroyed.
“Why did she leave me all this?” Mattie asks. “I could go to the police. Tell them she was here.” They shake their head. “Not that they would believe me. Believe any of it. And not that I could find her now.”
“I think it’s her way of apologizing,” Blair says. “She’s trusting you with the truth.”
“And she found out where Darren buried your sister for you,” Cam says. “So you didn’t have to ask him yourself.”
“Why?” Mattie asks again.
“Because she cared about you, Mattie,” Blair says. “Cares. In her own way.”
Mattie sits with this for a moment, their face a wash of emotions.
“Yeah,” they say. “I guess she did. Does.”
Blair can’t imagine the feeling.
Mattie, all alone in that gaudy mansion with a brother who knew the truth and lied to them for years and a mother who didn’t care. A mother who’d been ready to send away their sister. A mother who the other Lola could’ve easily convinced to send them away too.
And the other Lola. A liar, a thief, a grifter—and, despite everything she’d done, the one person who’d fought for Mattie in that house.
The other Lola could’ve stayed. Blair has no doubt about that. She was ruthless, and clever, and fearless. But staying would’ve meant getting rid of Mattie. Getting Mattie sent to a place no better than jail. A place that could easily have destroyed them.
And, no matter how many lies she’d already told, the other Lola couldn’t do that.
Instead, she’d run.
And then she’d given Mattie the truth.
Mattie laughs softly through their nose. “Funny,” they say. “She’s the only person in my family who turned out to have a backbone. Other than my real sister.”
She’s the only person in your family who loved you enough to protect you, Blair thinks.
Mattie meets her eyes.
Mattie, Blair knows, is thinking the same thing.
“We’ll take you to your sister,” Blair says.
Cam nods. “Tomorrow, if you want.” She clears her throat. “You have us now, Mattie. For life.”
“Tomorrow’s Christmas,” Mattie says, their voice shaky.
“We’ll come too, if you want us to,” Irene says. “Or not. If you’d rather be alone. That’s totally up to you.”
“I’d like it if Cam and Blair came with me,” Mattie says.
“I’ll pick you both up around noon,” Blair says.
Christmas Day is clear and sharp and cold. A pale skin of frost glitters on the dark earth as Cam and Blair and Mattie walk through the woods to the place where Darren and Luke buried Lola.
Five years is a long time in the forest. And a location point looks small and easy to find on a screen, but out here in the wild? Surrounded by feral green and dripping leaves and half trails left by deer darting through the undergrowth?
The point the other Lola sent them, the place that Darren gave her, could be anywhere. Or nowhere. It could be under their feet, or a dozen yards away. There’s no clearing, no telltale patch of trampled earth. No place free of growing things where pale bones show themselves.
Just the heavy smell of sodden wood and sleeping trees, of coming snow, of clouds.
We’ll never find her, Blair thinks. Not if we come out here with a backhoe and cut down every tree for a mile.
Just thinking about cutting down trees here, in this place, feels like sacrilege.
As if they can hear her, Mattie looks down at the phone in their hand, checking one last time. And then they put it away in their pocket, turn their face to the dripping emerald canopy above. They close their eyes, listening.
Cam and Blair listen too.
If you hold still enough here, Cam thinks, I bet you can hear things growing.
“There was a nurse log there once,” Mattie says, opening their eyes and pointing to a row of massive firs growing in a straight line, their roots entangled at their bases. “So long ago that it’s rotted away now. But that’s how they grow. Seedlings take root in the fallen tree. They don’t all make it. But the ones that do grow up strong, because the old tree fed them.”
They look around one more time.
Cam and Blair are silent.
“She would’ve loved it here,” Mattie says. “But she’s gone now. Let’s go home.”
Dear Mats,
The last time we saw each other, you asked me how I can live with myself. It’s a funny question, if you think about it. The answer is: easily. Breathe, eat when I’m hungry, sleep when I’m tired, drink when I’m thirsty, get drunk when I want to forget. The body manages itself, when you give it what it needs to survive.
I know that’s not what you meant. But that’s your answer. I think your sister and I were more alike than you might want to admit. It was easier than it should’ve been to live inside her skin. You loved her, but I understood her. Those are different things.
Anyway. A bit of business: You’re wondering how I knew what happened to your sister, in the end. I was still in the house when he showed up, the night you confronted me. Though I was already packed. I heard the key turning in the lock, and I knew it was him. You weren’t coming back. And Ruth and Luke always come through the garage. So I hid under the bed and waited. He came crashing in, screaming her name. Lola, Lola, Lola. I buried you. I don’t know the whole story, but I can guess. I saw the gun. I know he left you that book. It’s not hard to see the kind of man Darren is. Not if you know how to look.
Sorry, Mats. I know you loved him. I wish he’d earned it.
I called him from the road. Our conversation was short, but I said a few things he’ll remember for a long time. Darren’s very afraid of the police, Mattie, but now he’s much more afraid of me. I told him I would watch him until the end of his life, and if he ever did anything to hurt you I would pull out his tongue with pliers and fill his mouth with molten lead and boil him alive in oil and leave his bones on Ruth’s lawn to rot. But I’d start with his baby, if he ever has one, and then I’d move on to his girlfriend, and I’d make him watch what I did to them before I got around to him. You don’t need to worry about Darren. I hope you never think about him again. Some people don’t deserve our memories. Keep your sister in your heart, where she belongs, and let everything else around her go.
Do you think about me as much as I think about you? I never had a sibling. If I did, I would’ve wanted them to be someone like you. Smart and brave and funny and resourceful. A person solid at their center, sure of themselves. You might not know it yet, but you are. I wish I could be there to see the world welcome you. I know you’re going to do great things.
This is the last time I’ll write you, but I’ll carry you with me for a long time. And maybe, one day, we’ll find each other again. Somewhere unexpected, out on the open road. We’ll recognize each other, the way you do when you find someone familiar in a dream. I’ll tell you where I’ve been, and you’ll tell me what you got up to after I left. That’s the happy version of the story. That’s the one I prefer.
I’m in the desert now, on my way to somewhere new. Another family, another story. Another chance to be a different person. To write the first line on a blank page and see how far it carries me.
But I’ll never forget what it was like to be your sister for a while, no matter how many other girls I become.
Good luck, Mats.
I’ll be seeing you.
Love,
the other Lola