Lena wanted to press her hand to Annie’s mouth.
Stop talking.
But Annie did not. She hugged a throw pillow to her chest and pulled its tassels as the words bled out of her.
She was the reason, Annie said, that Bryce didn’t see Tim on the road. Lena must hate her. Lena watched Annie and realized that yes, she did. She hated Annie with a passion too consuming and fiery to be contained. The hatred was going to erupt and spill over both of them like molten lava, preserve them, charred, in this spot forever.
And Annie would never know the real reason.
Maybe if Annie could shut up for a moment, but no, she kept gushing out her truth, and it changed everything Lena knew. The facts that Lena had just now—after fifteen years—started to accept hadn’t been facts at all.
Annie claimed she’d give anything to do that night over, she’d been close with Bryce in high school, and he was such a good person, he had deserved the future she had stolen from him.
Aside from the therapist, Mike was the only person who knew. He was Annie’s best friend from college, always a little in love with her, always right there with her. They’d never even told Laurel’s grandparents.
After Tim’s death, all of those stories came out about his DUIs, and Annie remembered the ones Tim had told about his own father. She supposed a part of her had been petrified for Laurel from the beginning.
It was incredibly frustrating that Laurel didn’t understand how much better it would have been, to keep believing Mike was her biological father. You lied about the most important thing in my life, she had accused, and Annie couldn’t make her see that the lie had been a gift.
Except—
Annie stopped fiddling with the pillow and forced eye contact with Lena.
Around them, suited caterers did the final preparations, lit the tea lights, placed the silver trays on the buffet tables.
Annie had always craved a connection to Lena and Rachel. She’d insisted they live in Cottonwood to be close to them, which Tim’s large check had allowed them to afford. She used to walk past the Meekers’ house every day, try to catch a glimpse of either of them.
She’d fantasized that they would see Laurel and just know.
A year or two after the night of the accident, Annie sat in Deb Gallegos’s backyard as their daughters, bare-chested in swim diapers, splashed in an inflatable wading pool.
Out of the corner of her eye, Annie saw Lena’s white SUV drive past. She noticed the absence of that familiar pounding in her ears. Her body wasn’t twitching to follow.
She liked Cottonwood, she realized, she was happy here.
It was beautiful, there were excellent schools and friendly neighbors. Their family could grow here, could pretend to be just another boringly comfortable unit until it felt like the truth.
“Please say something.” Annie’s voice was plugged and nasal. “Do you want me to tell Rachel? I can tell her that the accident wasn’t all her father’s fault.”
“God, no,” Lena said.
“I’m sorry,” Annie said. She started to cry again.
Lena allowed herself a moment before she put her hand on the rough pillow, atop Annie’s fingers. Annie sniffled, glanced up.
Lena could tell Annie everything. It was an appealing thought: the two of them carrying the burden together.
But in Annie’s eyes, Lena saw a hint of something released.
What good would it serve?
From the street came the sound of a car door slamming. “Look at the balloons,” a voice said, “the balloons!”
Don’t be selfish. Rachel’s voice in Lena’s head was unyielding: Give her this.
“It was an accident,” Lena said. “It was all a horrible accident.”
Annie’s exhale was shaky and relieved. She shut her eyes and pressed the tips of her fingers into them. Her shoulders slouched, then heaved.
“We’re going to be fine, dear,” Lena said. The phrasing was an echo of something she’d heard before.
Evan. She sounded like Rachel’s Evan, reaching through a dark, cold void, trying to manufacture a closeness from nothing.
Lena gripped Annie’s hand a little too hard. “It’s all going to be fine.”