“Katie,” Willa offered with a look of mild disdain. “Mandy’s older sister’s name is Katie. I was there for supper, but Zoe and I are working on a science fair project together, so I went to her house after we ate. Katie was supposed to text you.”
“Oh.” Juniper hadn’t picked up her phone since she’d tossed it on the far side of the couch after Everett’s unsettling call. But she remembered those quick trades, the back-and-forth free flow of junior high and high school. Willa and Zoe were exchanging a knowing look, and that was familiar too. “Hi, Zoe.” Juniper took a few steps and stuck out her hand, wondering too late if it was weird to shake hands with her teenager’s best friend.
But Zoe grinned, a sweet, gap-toothed smile that told Juniper her parents weren’t concerned about orthodontics, and curled her fingers around Juniper’s. “It’s really nice to finally meet you, Mrs. Baker.”
There were so many things wrong with Mrs. Baker that Juniper wasn’t sure where to begin. Instead of bothering, she just said: “Call me Juniper.”
Zoe shrugged, making one of her long braids slide over her shoulder. “Okay. My dad’s in the car. I’d better go.”
She was gone before Juniper could wonder if it was normal for a father to sit in the car instead of coming in to say hello to his daughter’s best friend’s mom. But she didn’t have long to consider it.
“What’s all that?” Willa dropped her backpack on the floor with a thud.
“All what?”
Willa spread her arms wide to encompass the living room and the little nest Juniper had made for herself on the couch. The notebooks were stuffed out of sight, but her computer remained on the coffee table, and there was a profusion of different-colored pens and highlighters, a pad of sticky notes, and the uncurling roll of old newspapers that Juniper had “borrowed” from the library. It looked like a harried grad student had recently vacated the premises.
“Just working on some stuff,” Juniper said with what she hoped was nonchalance. “I wasn’t expecting you to show up. I mean, I was going to pick you up in just a bit. Mandy sent me the address…”
“But I wasn’t at Katie’s anymore. Cameron and Hunter had to go to bed, and Zoe and I needed to work on our science fair project.” Willa let her coat slide off her shoulders and down her arms until it was dangling by her fingertips. Then, instead of turning to hang it up on the hook behind her, she let it drop to the floor. She rushed across the living room and plucked a single Moleskine notebook from where it was peeking out beneath a throw pillow. Tracing a fingertip over the name written across the top, she fanned the pages and started to read.
It was all over in the span of a few seconds. One moment Willa was standing in front of her, and the next she was flipping through Juniper’s case notebook on Jonathan. Juniper knew it was Jonathan’s notebook because they were all color-coded, and his was a rich burgundy. She must have missed it in her hasty attempt to hide the evidence of her unorthodox research.
“Put that down,” Juniper said, numb with shock.
“I know all about this, you know.” Willa turned a page. “About what happened before I was born. All those things everyone said about Uncle Jonathan.”
“Willa—”
“Grandma and Grandpa think I don’t know, but I do. How could I not? Everyone knows. Like I wouldn’t hear. Like I wouldn’t look it all up myself.”
Juniper could see that Willa was shaking with emotion. The pages of the notebook were shushing softly in the tremulous grip of her hands. Stepping carefully around the couch, Juniper reached out to ease the Moleskine from her daughter’s grasp. Willa jerked away.
“You’re just like everyone else!” Willa took a few steps back, and drilled Juniper with a glare that was filled with all the fear and fury, all the frustration of being locked out for years. “?‘You’re too young to know. It’s in the past. It doesn’t matter. Someday you’ll understand,’?” she singsonged.
“Willa—”
“Do you know what they call me?”
“What?”
“My nickname. Grandma and Grandpa won’t talk about it, and everyone else says they’re just trying to protect me, but I knew in kindergarten that my uncle was a killer.”
Juniper’s fisted knuckles turned white. “Jonathan didn’t kill anyone.”
“Oh yeah? Then why do you have a notebook with evidence that says he did?”
“It’s not like that—”
“BeeGee,” Willa interrupted, her voice cracking. “They call me BeeGee. It’s short for Butcher’s Girl, because Jonathan butchered Calvin and Elizabeth Murphy.”
“Oh, Willa.” Juniper’s heart felt like a stone in her chest. She struggled to breathe around the weight. “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe—”
“I wish everyone would stop babying me.”
Willa was holding the notebook, but she wasn’t reading it anymore, and Juniper carefully moved toward her daughter. When she reached for the Moleskine, Willa let it slide from her fingers. It was a sign of resignation, the resolute understanding that nothing would change. The girl sank to the edge of the couch and curled her arms tightly around herself. She wasn’t crying, but in some ways her lack of tears was unnerving to Juniper. This pain had been inured inside of Willa, lacquered by years of disregard and silence. It had calcified harsh and bright, the sort of tumor that could rot a person from the inside out.
“I’m sorry.” Juniper sank carefully to the couch beside her daughter and held the notebook closed between them. “You’re right—I think everyone was just trying to protect you. But clearly we’ve done more harm than good.”
Willa was shrinking before Juniper. Wrapping herself tight with the thin whips of her dancer’s arms, ducking her head so that her hair hid her face, pulling everything close. Juniper knew exactly what she was doing. She had done it a thousand times herself. Shrink. Be small. Make yourself tiny, invisible, insignificant. Maybe if you contract to the size of a pinprick, no one will notice that your heart has shattered and scattered in the wind. Maybe no one will realize that you have ceased to exist.
Juniper wanted to say: “I see you. I understand.” But she didn’t. Instead, she reached into her backpack and took out the entire stack of notebooks. Balancing them on her lap, she asked, “What do you want to know?”
This was Willa’s history, too, and she deserved to know. Juniper remembered all too well what it felt like to be carved out of her own story.
Willa’s eyes widened. First in suspicion, and then in shrewd calculation. “Everything.”
“I don’t know everything,” Juniper said honestly. “Sometimes I think I don’t know much of anything.”
“Well that’s definitely not nothing.” Willa dipped her chin at the stack of notebooks and cautiously slid from the arm of the couch to the cushion.
It felt a bit like taming a wild animal. Or at least trying. Every move mattered, every word required careful measure. Juniper was well aware that there were some things Willa should never know, but surely she deserved better than whatever scraps she could salvage from a furtive Google search on the school’s firewalled computers. Accurate information was always preferable to the theories of armchair detectives and crackpot conspiracists. And it was sobering to think that no one had ever sat down with Willa and had this conversation. Difficult as it would doubtless prove to be.
“Okay.” Juniper exhaled hard. “Calvin and Elizabeth Murphy were murdered on the Fourth of July the summer before you were born. Cal was shot twice at nearly point-blank range, and Beth was shot once in the back.”
Willa didn’t flinch.
“No one was ever charged with their murders, but there are more than enough suspects to keep me constantly guessing.”
“No witnesses?”
Juniper’s teeth grazed the inside of her bottom lip, but she managed a thin smile. “No.”
“But Uncle Jonathan was found at the scene of the crime.” Willa sounded so adult.
“He made the 911 call.” Juniper nodded. “When the police came, he was holding Cal’s gun.”
“And standing over his body.”
“It wasn’t like that.”