“Oh, honey.” She reached out to rest her hand on my arm. “You know why she took her life, right?”
“Guilt and fear,” I said. “She was afraid she’d end up in prison.”
Verniece nodded. “She killed someone and she was going to have to pay,” she said. “I know they didn’t find her body, and some people believed she’d faked her death to avoid going to prison, but the Potomac is a big river, and they couldn’t search everywhere.” She spoke kindly, the way she had spoken to me about my supposed adoption, and there was something about Verniece’s voice—her whole demeanor—that had a way of calming me.
I felt tears collect in the back of my throat. “I want it to be true.” I twisted my hands together, rubbing them back and forth. “I want her to be alive. I need my family, Verniece. I’m managing everything to do with the house and Daddy’s estate and I’m worried about Danny and … I feel like I’m a little kid with too much on her plate.”
“You poor dear! I never should have told you about your adoption, at least not now, when you’re dealing with so many other things.”
“My mother’s best friend knows nothing about that,” I said firmly. “I really think you have my mother mixed up with someone else.”
She looked at me a moment before nodding. “Maybe,” she said, and I knew she was saying it only to placate me. “Maybe I’m remembering wrong.”
“Where can I find Tom right now?” I asked.
“He’s probably stopped off for a nip someplace where you wouldn’t want to go.” She looked toward the road as though expecting to see his car any moment. “Tom’s a good man and he’s been a good husband for all these forty years,” she said, “but the bottle has a bit of a hold on him, I’m afraid.”
I thought about the affair my father had kept hidden for Tom. I felt sad for Verniece, being stuck with a man like that. Feeling like she needed to defend him.
“Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“Oh, you never know with Tom.” Verniece smacked a mosquito on her bare knee. “And depending on how much he’s had to drink, you might not get any clear information out of him,” she added. “Better to try to see him in the morning. You can bet that when I see him, I’ll ask him what he meant about your sister. All I can think is that you must have misunderstood him.”
“I don’t know what else he could have meant.”
“I’ll talk to him. But”—she let out a sigh—“I should tell you something, Riley. It might explain why Tom would say something so hurtful to you.”
“What?” I braced myself, not sure I wanted to hear.
“See,” she said, “your daddy was planning to give us the RV park.” She tightened her lips together as though afraid she’d said too much.
“He was?” I remembered the look Tom had given me in Suzanne’s office when he mentioned the park.
Verniece nodded. “He and Tom had been talking about it for a while, and now with your father gone … if we seemed ungrateful about getting that pipe collection, that’s why. Tom expected so much more. He thought we’d be able to sell the park and have a little easier time of it in our later years.”
I was shocked. Why on earth had my father been so generous with Tom Kyle? “Oh,” I said, “I had no idea. I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “That’s life, I guess. But my husband is bitter about it. I’m afraid he was just taking it out on you with what he said about your sister.”
I looked down the gravel lane, wishing I would see his car coming around the bend. “I wanted it to be real,” I said quietly.
“I know, dear, but sometimes we have to face the truth.” She shifted in her chair. “I was actually there at the river that day,” she said.
“What day?” I asked, confused.
“The day after it happened. You remember we lived up there, since Tom worked for the Marshals Service?” She looked into the distance as though she could visualize the scene. “I saw the yellow kayak caught in the ice out in the middle of the river. The police and firefighters and everyone were there, and they looked overwhelmed by how they’d get to the kayak, much less how they’d find a … someone under the ice. Your sister could have been out in the Chesapeake Bay by then, honey.”
I shivered, although the temperature was well into the eighties. “I just wish it could be true,” I said. “I don’t remember her. I never got to know her. But I need her right now.”
She looked at me kindly. “You can lean on me, Riley,” she said. “I know I’m not your mama or your sister or even an aunt, but you can talk to me anytime. All right?”
I made myself smile at her. “All right,” I said. “Thank you.”