“He used to work here,” I say. “Carter told me about him.”
“Never heard of the guy,” Jessie says. “If Mary knew who he was, she never told me. And I don’t know why she wouldn’t. She told me everything else about this place. She probably knew more about the Hope family murders than anyone except Lenora.”
One particular Polaroid in the pile catches my attention. Taken in Lenora’s room, it shows Lenora and Mary at the desk. Lenora’s in her wheelchair, hunched over the typewriter. Mary’s behind her, leaning in close. A sight so familiar it stings.
I pick it up and show it to Jessie. “When was this taken?”
“A couple weeks ago.” Jessie plucks the photo from my fingers and arranges it in a pile with the others. “They were always typing.”
“Do you know what?”
“Mary never told me,” Jessie says as she stands and crosses the room to her dresser, where she drops the Polaroids into the top drawer. “At first, I thought it was some kind of physical therapy. You know, working on Lenora’s motor skills. But they were there all the time. Sometimes even after Lenora was supposed to have been put to bed.”
She moves to a tape recorder sitting atop the dresser next to a hardcover copy of Lace with a library sticker on its spine. She pops a cassette from the recorder and hands it to me. “This is for Lenora. Part one of the new book. Maybe it’ll take her mind off everything.”
“Thanks.” I pocket the cassette and head to the door. Before leaving, I turn back to Jessie and say, “Did anyone else know about the typing?”
“I don’t think so,” Jessie says. “I only knew because I walked in on them one night. I thought it would be a cool picture, so I stood in the doorway and took it before they realized I was there. Mary kind of freaked out about it. She made me swear not to tell anyone. I probably shouldn’t have even told you.”
But I’m glad she did.
Because now I know why Mary knew so much about the Hope family and what happened that night.
Lenora told her.
I see that look you’re giving me. I’m more observant than people give me credit for. And right now I can tell that you think you won’t like where all this is going.
You won’t.
But I promised to tell you everything, so that’s what I’m giving you. My deepest, darkest secrets. Things I’ve never told anyone before.
Only you, Mary.
Only you.
TWENTY-ONE
The fingers of Lenora’s left hand sit atop the typewriter, atypically still. Under normal circumstances, they’d be sliding from key to key, slowly but surely adding words to the blank page I’ve wound into the carriage.
But these circumstances are anything but normal.
A pall has settled over the house now that the police have left. The place is quiet and the mood somber. A resident of Hope’s End is gone, and while I never knew Mary Milton, I feel her loss all the same. We were alike in so many ways. More than I ever imagined.
That’s why I brought Lenora to the typewriter after dinner instead of guiding her through her circulation exercises. An infraction I know Mrs. Baker wouldn’t approve of. I stand next to Lenora, hugging myself despite the gray cardigan thrown over my uniform. Although the storm has passed, it’s left behind a damp chill that seeps through the windows, giving her room the shivery air of a ghost ship.
Fitting, seeing how on the desk next to the typewriter is the page Lenora had typed on earlier. Two words catch my eye.
my sister
“Why did you lie to me about Mary being scared of your sister?”
Lenora looks up at me, apprehension flashing in her green eyes. Then she types.
it wasnt a lie “Your sister is dead, Lenora,” I say, tightening my cardigan around me. “And ghosts don’t exist. So you’ll have to do better than that to hide the fact that you and Mary spent a lot of time typing.”
Lenora can’t hide her surprise. She tries, but her expressive face betrays her. There’s a slant to her lips and a twitch at her right eye, like she’s working hard to keep it from widening.
“You were telling her your story, weren’t you?”
Lenora taps twice against the typewriter. With it comes a twinge of disappointment that I wasn’t the only person she trusted enough to tell. I’d thought I was special and that there was a specific reason Lenora chose me. Now I have no idea why she’s doing it.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Or Detective Vick?”
Lenora slowly pecks the keys.
it had to be a secret “Who decided that? You or Mary?”
mary
“And whose idea was it to start typing your story?”
Rather than signal for me to hit the return bar, Lenora types Mary’s name a second time, running it together with the first.
marymary
I’m not surprised, given that Jessie told me Mary had been obsessed with the Hope family massacre. She said it might have even been the reason Mary took the job caring for Lenora. If that’s true, then it makes sense she would want to hear Lenora’s version of things.
“That’s why she bought the typewriter, isn’t it?” I say. “She wanted you to write it all down for her.”
This brings another two taps from Lenora.
“Did you want to?”
Lenora thinks about it a moment, her face falling into that pensive expression I’ve come to know so well. When she types, her response is as rambling as I imagine her thoughts to be. Further evidence that what she’d typed with me had all been written before. The second draft, so to speak.
not at first i didnt want to talk about what happened because the memories make me sad but i loved the idea of writing again so i told her yes “How long had you been working on it?”
weeks
Even though I’m pretty sure I already know the answer, I say, “So what you typed with me, you also typed with her?”
Lenora taps twice before typing additional information.
and more
“How much more? About you and Ricky?”
Lenora keeps typing. Ten keys she presses slowly and deliberately, making the importance of her response clear.
everything
“When did you finish telling her?”
Lenora doesn’t need to think about it.
the night she left My stomach suddenly drops. Mary knew everything about the night of the murders—including who did it, how they did it, why they did it. And the day she learned all that, she— Jumped.
That’s what I should be thinking, since it’s what Detective Vick said happened. Yet it feels wrong. Like a lie. Instead, a different word ricochets through my brain.
Died.
That’s the brutal truth.
And it can’t be a coincidence.
“Did Mary ever tell you why it needed to be a secret?”
Lenora types instead of taps.
yes
She then adds three more words to the line.
she was scared I glance again to the page beside the typewriter, onto which Lenora had typed the same answer to a different question. As I do, a thought occurs to me. Something I should have considered sooner but was likely too scared myself to contemplate. But now there’s no avoiding it.
“Lenora, did you really think Mary left?”
I study her face—the key to all her emotions. Even the ones she’s trying to hide. This time, though, she doesn’t even attempt to disguise the way she feels. Sadness clouds her features as she taps once against the typewriter.
No.
“You thought she jumped?”
Another single tap. One that kicks my pulse up a notch.
“Do—” I swallow. My mouth, suddenly dry from fear, can barely get the word out. “Do you think what happened to Mary is because of what you told her?”
Two taps from Lenora confirm my worst fear.
She thinks Mary was murdered.
Swirling within that dreadful realization is another, smaller thought. One brought about by another quick glimpse of the page next to the typewriter.
“What did Mary do with the pages the two of you typed?”
Lenora responds with a confused look.
“She helped you write the whole story.” I think about the pages the two of us have typed, now sitting with Lenora’s pill bottles in the lockbox under my bed. If Mary and Lenora had typed for weeks, why haven’t I seen any evidence of it? Every piece of paper inside the desk is blank, and I saw no sign of typed pages anywhere else in Lenora’s room or mine. “That must have been a thick stack. What did Mary do with them?”
Lenora’s reply—she hid them—doesn’t help me.
“Do you know where?”
This time, her response provides a bit more clarity.
in her room
A bad feeling skitters down my back. What had once been Mary’s room is now my room—and the truth about the murders has been hidden there all this time.
A truth that might have gotten Mary killed.
The rest of the evening passes with agonizing slowness. I bathe, dress, and lift Lenora into bed, the whole time telling myself that we could be mistaken. Maybe Mary really did jump. Maybe she had deep wells of despair within her that she could no longer control. Maybe this is just another sad chapter in the overall tragic story of Hope’s End.