The Last September: A Novel

“I imagine a trial. And then a hospital.”


A hospital. And what sort of hospital would it be? Even before this—before being accused of a crime—the wide and rolling lawns that Daniel had paid for were far behind Eli. People grow weary of mental illness. The way it rises, again and again. The way it never gets cured, never goes away. I had grown weary of it the day I left Charlie alone at the house. I couldn’t handle the reappearances of Eli, in all his various states, the way we’d martial ourselves to get him hospitalized, to get him well, get him working, only to land in precisely the same spot, over and over again. Eli’s hospitals had already gone from private to state. And now they would end with the only permanent one possible: for the criminally insane. If he landed there, would it feel any different to him, from all the other incarcerations, against his will? The unspeakable horror, he once wrote to Charlie, about mental hospitals.

Unless Eli managed to paddle away, to somewhere else. I nodded to Daniel as if I believed him and headed into the house, his hand sliding off Sarah’s head, so that finally he could reach up and smooth his hair back into place.

I PUSHED THE DOOR to our room open with my hip, the sleeping child draped heavily over my shoulder, to find Ladd there, sitting on my bed, his legs resting sideways to keep his shoes off the covers. This the only indication of politeness—he looked agitated, angry.

“What was that?” he said. “What the hell was that?”

“Shh,” I hissed, waving my hand toward Sarah, though she was out cold.

Ladd swung around, placing his feet on the floor, and I laid Sarah on the bed. “Get me a diaper,” I said to Ladd, jutting my chin toward the bag in the corner.

He stood up obediently while I unsnapped Sarah’s onsesie and peeled off the soaking diaper.

“You shouldn’t be in here,” I said as he handed me a clean one.

“Eli didn’t do it?” Ladd said.

I wondered how he possibly could have heard—through which open window. Had he already been waiting in my room? Or maybe he’d been standing on the deck or skulking in the bushes, watching me.

“Shhh,” I said again. I lifted Sarah and placed her up toward the head of the bed and then built my little barrier of pillows around her.

“That doesn’t seem safe,” Ladd said, his voice shifting to normal. “Shouldn’t you put her in the crib?”

“What the hell business is it of yours?” I all but shouted at him. We both paused, startled, then looked at Sarah. She didn’t stir, her cheeks crimson, her little chest rising and falling.

“Maybe it’s not,” Ladd said in a fierce whisper. “But that other business. You can say it’s not mine all you want, but that doesn’t make it so.”

“You can say Eli did it all you want. Everyone can say it. But that doesn’t make it so.”

“Who then,” Ladd said. “If not Eli, who.”

I sat down on the bed, placing one hand on the flushed rise and fall of Sarah. “I don’t know.”

“No suspect?”

I didn’t answer. Ladd should have been able to figure it out, my mental list of possibilities.

“Me?” Ladd said. He pointed to his chest. “Seriously? Have you gone that crazy?”

“No,” I said, knowing full well what crazy looked like. “I haven’t gone crazy, not at all.”

Just at that moment, Daniel appeared in the doorway. I wondered where the dog had gone, probably cowering downstairs under some furniture. Ladd stepped back, away from me, and looked at his uncle.

“Ladd,” Daniel said.