“Shut up. Don’t you listen? I have nothing to say to you. You are a parasite. This is some sort of game for you, but this is my life. My father was murdered. Murdered. And it destroyed my family. Completely, utterly, irreparably. And now, thirteen years later, you’ve arrived to dredge everything up all over again? What could I possibly want to say to you other than go fuck yourself?”
Undeterred, Poppy took a step toward me, those huge eyes of hers even wider. “Aren’t you interested in the truth?”
I shivered, remembering how I had said nearly that same thing to Lanie that very afternoon. Unwilling to let Poppy see the chink she had made in my armor, I crossed my arms over my chest and infused my voice with steel. “Warren Cave had his day in court. He was found guilty.”
“Primarily because your sister claimed she saw him do it. But what if she wasn’t telling the truth? I understand she may not be a paragon of virtue.”
The instinct to protect my sister—something I thought I had outgrown long ago—flared, and before I was aware of what I was doing, I thrust my finger in Poppy’s weasel-like face and snarled, “Shut your mouth, you gossip-mongering bitch.”
Poppy Parnell did not recoil; instead, she seemed oddly thrilled. “That’s a pretty strong reaction you’re having there.”
I retracted my finger and choked back a couple of profanity-laced retorts. With as much serenity and conviction as I could muster, I said, “My sister ruins everything. If you are even half the investigative journalist you claim to be, you should know that Lanie has betrayed me time and time again. But she is my sister, and I will not let you drag her name through the mud.”
“Can I quote you on that?” Poppy asked, pulling some equipment from her bag.
“Go fuck yourself,” I said, and turned away.
The ceiling of my old bedroom housed a constellation of glow-in-the-dark stars that Adam and I had attached one long-ago afternoon. Adam advocated for realistic placement, constructing Orion and the Big Dipper, while I bounced on the bed and attached them at random. When the last star had been hung, Adam shut the door and pulled the curtains, simulating dark as best he could to allow us to admire our handiwork. “I’ll think of you every night when I see them,” I had promised. Now as I stared at them, all I could think of was whether everything I had believed over the last thirteen years was wrong. What if my father’s murderer was walking free? What if my sister was more of a liar than I had ever imagined?
Downstairs, the front doorbell rang. I reluctantly dragged myself off the bed, already exhausted at the effort required to politely converse with yet another well-meaning neighbor bearing a casserole or ham or Harry & David basket of cheeses.
Just as I opened the bedroom door, I heard an unambiguously Kiwi “G’day.”
“Hello,” Aunt A said pleasantly, unsuspecting.
Upstairs, my body had turned to stone. I held my breath, waiting for the caller to speak again. I must have misheard.
But then I heard Caleb—unmistakably Caleb—say, “I’m looking for Jo, please.”
“And whom shall I say is looking for her?”
“You can tell her it’s Caleb, ma’am.”
“Please, come in,” Aunt A said, her voice frothing with enthusiasm. “I’ve heard so much about you. It’s such a pleasure to finally meet you. I’m her Aunt Amelia.”
There was silence before Caleb cleared his throat and said, “Oh, ah, I see.”
Oblivious, Aunt A continued. “It’s so good of you to come. Please make yourself right at home. I’ll run upstairs and fetch Josie. That little rascal didn’t tell me you were coming.”
“It was, ah, a surprise.”
I stood motionless in my bedroom doorway, torn between the desire to hide and the desire to run. Neither was a viable option. In moments, I would be forced to admit that I had lied to Caleb—lied to him over and over again, about everything.
When Aunt A’s footsteps sounded at the turn of the staircase, I ducked through the open door of her craft room. Before Aunt A had filled it with yarn and scrapbooking materials, it had been the spare bedroom that, for a matter of months in 2002 and 2003, housed my mother. I gently pulled the door closed behind me, nausea settling over me as I remembered hearing the muffled sounds of my mother talking to herself through this same door.
“Josie?” I heard Aunt A say.
In desperation, I glanced toward the open window. It was just over the roof of the front porch; I could slide out onto it and—My fevered thoughts were interrupted by the sound of heels clicking up the porch steps, and then I heard a voice that made everything eminently worse.
“Well, well, well. What have we here?”
“Ah . . . hello,” Caleb said suspiciously.
“Oh! Caleb. I had no idea you were coming,” Lanie said, affecting a breathless voice that I supposed must be her imitation of me.
Aunt A called my name again, her voice sounding closer.
I looked back at the window. The only certain way to avoid the disaster waiting downstairs was to disappear again, but I couldn’t stomach the thought of running. I was almost thirty years old; it was time for me to face my reality, no matter how unpalatable it might be. With a breath of firm resolve, I abandoned the safety of the craft room and began descending the stairs. At the curve of the staircase, I paused to gather myself and took the opportunity to look around the corner at my sister and my boyfriend. Lanie turned in flirtatious circles in front of Caleb, diamond earrings sparkling. Jealousy and a dull sense of déjà vu combined into a hard, cold lump in my stomach, tinged with unease. The behavior was odd even for my unpredictable sister. What was she hoping to accomplish? Adam’s concerns about Lanie’s stability rattled around in my head.
“How do you like my new sweater?” Lanie trilled.
Caleb cocked his head and ran a hand through his loose hair, still in desperate need of a haircut, his expression one of complete befuddlement. “Uh . . . do we know each other?”
“It’s me!” she said, barely able to contain her smirk.
“I’m not . . . Jo?” he asked unsurely, his brow deeply furrowed.
Lanie laughed triumphantly. It was time for me to put a stop to this bizarre charade.
“Josie!” Aunt A exclaimed, appearing at the top of the stairs. “There you are! Caleb is here. You should’ve told me he was coming! I would have had the cleaners come. Or at least picked up the place a little.”
“Sorry,” I murmured, beginning my unavoidable descent to the ground floor. At the base of the stairs, I cleared my throat and said, “Lanie, that’s enough.”
She inclined her head toward me, blue eyes dancing, and smiled innocently. “This one’s a keeper.”
“If you don’t mind,” I said stonily.
“Nice to meet you,” Lanie said to Caleb, her voice sugarcoated. Then she stepped into the living room, shouting, “Aunt A? Did I leave my wallet here earlier?”
Caleb turned to me warily, as if I might not be myself, either. “Jo, what the hell is going on?”
I intended to meet his eyes but ended up looking at his right earlobe instead. “That was my sister.”