“Don’t you think we should have heard something by now?” Aunt A worried, using a chopstick to push a breaded piece of chicken around a paper plate, leaving behind a bright smear of technicolor sauce. She had ordered in enough Chinese food to feed a small army: boxes of sweet-and-sour chicken, beef with broccoli, sesame pork, General Tso’s chicken, and vegetable lo mein, along with multiple tubs of soup and piles of egg rolls, fried wontons, and crab-less crab rangoon. None of us felt like eating, but we had nonetheless assembled glumly around the table, piling food onto our plates that we knew we wouldn’t eat. Only Ann, oblivious to the seriousness of the situation, ate more than a mouthful. Bubbles made off with a crab rangoon and scarfed it greedily in the corner.
“These things can take time,” Ellen said. “But she’s in good hands. Alec Greene is one of the best criminal defense lawyers in the whole state.”
I disassembled a fortune cookie, methodically breaking it into small shards. I did not share Ellen’s optimism. It had been twelve hours since Lanie had gone to the police station, six since Adam had called bullshit on Lanie being there voluntarily, and one since Alec Greene, the attorney Peter had recommended, had arrived in Elm Park to confer with Adam in his home. As far as I knew, neither Adam nor Alec had yet made it to the police station. There was no news, but that definitely did not make it good news.
“Should she even have a criminal defense attorney?” Aunt A asked, forehead creases deepening. “Doesn’t that imply she’s done something wrong?”
“No one should submit to police interrogation without an attorney,” Ellen said authoritatively. “Especially if they’ve just pointed to a murder weapon that’s been missing for thirteen years.”
I unfolded the slip of paper hiding inside the cookie: The truth will set you free. I resented maxims masquerading as fortunes, and, given the circumstances, it seemed particularly obnoxious. I shredded it and buried it in my untouched pile of white rice. Caleb squeezed my knee under the table.
“This is a nightmare,” Aunt A murmured, her chin trembling. “Just when I think we’ve hit rock bottom, that things can’t possibly get any worse, we get knocked to our knees again by something even more awful. The things Lanie is saying Erin did . . .”
Aunt A trailed off in a ragged choke, and I reached out to touch her soft shoulder. More than anything, I wanted to tell her that things were going to be okay, to reassure her the way she had done for me so many times when I was young. But I couldn’t say with any certainty that things were going to be okay; I could barely even conceive of a scenario in which that would be a possibility. All I could do—all any of us could do—was hope.
“How can that be true?” Aunt A asked, her voice thick with suppressed tears as she clutched desperately at my hand. “I used to worry your mother was a danger to herself, but I never imagined she could hurt someone else, especially your father. She loved him so much.”
“Obviously not that much,” Ellen said darkly. “Shooting someone in the back of the head isn’t usually how you demonstrate your affection.”
“Ellen Maureen,” Aunt A snapped. “For God’s sake, show some respect.”
Ellen looked away, chastened.
“And on that note,” Caleb said, abruptly pushing his chair back from the table, “I’m going to start clearing the table.”
I stood to help him, but he gently pushed me back into my chair and began stacking our hardly touched paper plates. As he ferried them out to the kitchen and began making return trips to collect the still-full takeout boxes, Ellen murmured an apology to her mother and Ann passed Bubbles another crab rangoon. On a different day, Aunt A might have reprimanded her grandniece for feeding fried food to the aged cat, but on that evening, when Lanie sat at the police station, her future unknown, the shadow of her accusation hanging over us, Aunt A merely winced.
“When’s Mom coming home?” Ann asked suddenly.
“Soon,” Aunt A said, her voice cracking on the lie.
Ellen’s face was pained as she watched Aunt A swallow back tears, struggling to maintain an unconcerned fa?ade for Ann. She squeezed her mother’s hand and then turned to Ann with false brightness and suggested a game of “beauty parlor” upstairs. I remembered how dismissive my sister had always been of Ellen’s attempted makeovers, and I had to wonder what she would think of Ellen turning the nail polish brushes and mascara wands on her eight-year-old daughter, but Ann eagerly agreed. As Ann raced for the stairs, Aunt A nodded a silent thanks to Ellen, who kissed the crown of her mother’s head in return.
As Ellen and Ann mounted the stairs, Aunt A turned to me, her eyes dripping with new abandon, and asked, “It’s possible Lanie’s wrong, isn’t it? More than possible, actually. It’s likely—don’t you think? She was so certain it was Warren Cave. If she was confused once before, doesn’t it make sense that she would be confused again?”
“I don’t know,” I murmured, offering a noncommittal shrug. I wanted to tell her that she was right, of course, that Lanie was obviously just confused, that all those years of drug abuse had eaten holes in her brain and made her memory unreliable. Of course our mother—her sister—hadn’t committed the horrific crime Lanie had accused her of. Of course Lanie was wrong. But I had read the words our mother had written in the back of the handbook, and I had seen the look in my sister’s eyes. There had been no confusion there, only horrified realization. Lanie wasn’t wrong, not anymore.
“This can’t be true,” Aunt A moaned stubbornly, more to herself than to me.
“Listen,” I said, taking her warm hand between both of mine and squeezing tightly. “It’s been a rough couple of days. No, screw that, it’s been a rough couple of weeks. We’re all exhausted and our emotions are raw. None of us are thinking clearly right now. Let’s just try to put this out of our heads for a bit, okay? Soon Lanie will be home and we’ll have a chance to talk to her ourselves.”
“You’re right.” Aunt A sniffled, returning the squeeze. “My nerves are completely frayed. I’m going to go upstairs and lie down. Please get me if you hear from Lanie.”
I nodded.
She paused with her hand on the doorframe and looked back at me. “You’re a strong woman, Josie. I’m proud of you.”
I hung my head as she walked away. I wasn’t proud of myself. I was ashamed of my childhood obliviousness to the tension that must have existed in our home, and I regretted the years I had spent at war with my sister. What if I had come home earlier? Might we have put our heads together and figured out the truth? If we had done that, maybe we could have found a way to find our mother and gently approach her, and maybe she wouldn’t have felt compelled to hang herself. Maybe we could have saved an innocent man years in prison. I shuddered to think of Lanie in custody, and I once again reproached myself for allowing her to go unaccompanied with the police. I shouldn’t have let her out of my sight, and I shouldn’t have sat still for so many hours, trusting first the police department and then Adam and the attorney. Where were Adam and the attorney? Shouldn’t they have some news by now? I fired a text message to Adam, a demand for an update phrased as a request.
There was a sudden knock on the front door. My heart leapt.
Lanie.