I remember now, summer fifteen, Johnny, Mirren, Gat, and I squashed into that Clairmont swing together. We were much too big to fit.. We elbowed each other and rearranged ourselves. We giggled and complained. Accused each other of having big asses. Accused each other of being smelly and rearranged again.
Finally we got settled. Then we couldn’t spin. We were jammed so hard into the swing, there was no way to get moving. We yelled and yelled for a push. The twins walked by and refused to help. Finally, Taft and Will came out of Clairmont and did our bidding. Grunting, they pushed us in a wide circle. Our weight was such that after they let us go, we spun faster and faster, laughing so hard we felt dizzy and sick.
All four of us Liars. I remember that now.
This new swing looks strong. The knots are tied carefully.
Inside the tire is an envelope.
Gat’s handwriting: For Cady.
I open the envelope.
More than a dozen dried beach roses spill out.
57
Once upon a time there was a king who had three beautiful daughters. He gave them whatever their hearts desired, and when they grew of age their marriages were celebrated with grand festivities. When the youngest daughter gave birth to a baby girl, the king and queen were overjoyed. Soon afterward, the middle daughter gave birth to a girl of her own, and the celebrations were repeated.
Last, the eldest daughter gave birth to twin boys—but alas, all was not as one might hope. One of the twins was human, a bouncing baby boy; the other was no more than a mouseling.
There was no celebration. No announcements were made.
The eldest daughter was consumed with shame. One of her children was nothing but an animal. He would never sparkle, sunburnt and blessed, the way members of the royal family were expected to do.
The children grew, and the mouseling as well. He was clever and always kept his whiskers clean. He was smarter and more curious than his brother or his cousins.
Still, he disgusted the king and he disgusted the queen. As soon as she was able, his mother set the mouseling on his feet, gave him a small satchel in which she had placed a blueberry and some nuts, and sent him off to see the world.
Set out he did, for the mouseling had seen enough of courtly life to know that should he stay home he would always be a dirty secret, a source of humiliation to his mother and anyone who knew of him.
He did not even look back at the castle that had been his home.
There, he would never even have a name. His existence had been a shameful secret.
Now, he was free to go forth and make a name for himself in the wide, wide world.
And maybe,
just maybe,
he’d come back one day,
and burn that
fucking
palace
to the ground.
Part Four
Look, a Fire
58
Look.
A fire.
There on the northern tip of Beechwood Island. Where the magnolia tree stands over the wide lawn.
The house is alight. The flames shoot high, brightening the sky.
There is no one here to help.
Far in the distance, I can see the Vineyard firefighters, making their way across the bay in a lighted boat.
Even farther away, the Woods Hole fire boat chugs toward the fire that we set.
Gat, Johnny, Mirren, and me.
We set this fire and it is burning down the house.
Burning down the palace, the palace of the king who had three beautiful daughters.
We set it.
Me, Johnny, Gat, and Mirren.
I remember this now,
in a rush that hits me so hard I fall,
and I plunge down,
down to rocky rocky bottom, and
I can see the base of Beechwood Island and
my arms and legs feel numb but my fingers are cold. Slices of seaweed go past as I fall.
And then I am up again, and breathing,
And Clairmont is burning.
I am in my bed in Windemere, in the early light of dawn.
It is the first day of my last week on the island. I stumble to the window, wrapped in my blanket.
There is New Clairmont. All hard modernity and Japanese garden.
I see it for what it is, now. It is a house built on ashes. Ashes of the life Granddad shared with Gran, ashes of the magnolia from which the tire swing flew, ashes of the old Victorian house with the porch and the hammock. The new house is built on the grave of all the trophies and symbols of the family: the New Yorker cartoons, the taxidermy, the embroidered pillows, the family portraits.
We burned them all.
On a night when Granddad and the rest had taken boats across the bay,
when the staff was off duty
and we Liars were alone on the island,
the four of us did what we were afraid to do.
We burned not a home, but a symbol.
We burned a symbol to the ground.
59
The Cuddledown door is locked. I bang until Johnny appears, wearing the clothes he had on last night. “I’m making pretentious tea,” he says.
“Did you sleep in your clothes?”
“Yes.”
“We set a fire,” I tell him, still standing in the doorway.
They will not lie to me anymore. Go places without me, make decisions without me.
I understand our story now. We are criminals. A band of four.
Johnny looks me in the eyes for a long time but doesn’t say a word. Eventually he turns and goes into the kitchen. I follow. Johnny pours hot water from the kettle into teacups.
“What else do you remember?” he asks.
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.”