The Last September: A Novel

“Who?” Maxine said, her face incredulous. “Who do you think? Charlie’s brother.”


She knew Eli’s name. But it had become too heinous to speak. Someone out there lurking, waiting to appear, to pounce. I remembered Eli flying off the roof of the fraternity house, arms outstretched, a superbeing with heightened powers. Until he hit the ground and became mortal. I remembered another dusky night, the way Charlie had let his own head smash to the pavement to save his brother.

“Eli wouldn’t hurt us,” I said. “I’m not even sure he hurt Charlie.”

I recognized the look on Maxine’s face. It was the same way Charlie and I used to look at Eli. The moment someone said something so off the wall that you knew logic had left the building, so you had no idea what to do or say next. Maxine took a sip of wine and then a deep breath, visibly composing herself.

“Brett,” she said. “Who else? Who else in the world? And how?”

“I don’t know. But someone else. And Eli saw it. Or else he showed up just after and found Charlie that way.”

“He was covered in blood.”

“So was I. I was covered in blood, but nobody suspects me.”

Maxine frowned, as if what I’d said was worrisome on some level that made it more necessary than she’d thought, to stay with me. Lightfoot’s ears twitched. The house ticked a bit in the silence between us. Water whooshed as the automatic sprinklers outside turned on. I ran my hand over Lightfoot’s tiny spine. She sat taut, alert and listening.

“I’m so sorry, Brett,” Maxine said, moving past whatever guilt she was grappling with. “For everything. But I have to go away for a while. I have to close the house and go home. I would have by now, you know, anyway, if not for all this.”

I nodded, mostly because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. Either now or later, when Maxine left. If only I could disappear, like Eli. But I had a small child. The money in my bank account would only carry me through these next months if I didn’t have expenses like rent. What would your mother say? For the first time, I knew. She would tell me to get out of Saturday Cove as fast as possible. But even if I’d been able to come up with a destination and the means to get there, Charlie lay buried in the Blue Creek cemetery. I’d rather be with Brett. How could I leave him?

“I’m sorry,” Maxine said again. “I wanted to help.”

“You have,” I said. “You really have. So much.” I took a sip of wine, less because I wanted it and more because I wanted her to see me accepting something she’d given me. Being helped. Maxine could have offered to let Sarah and me stay here, in her empty house, after she’d gone. She could have invited us to come with her to Newton. But if we stayed or followed, the fear of Eli would remain with us and therefore with her. She had already done as much as she possibly could, and a person can never do any more than that.

“Do you have somewhere to go?” she asked. “Someone who can help you?”

I looked up at the ceiling, toward the room where Sarah lay, breathing quietly. She had no way of knowing that in the whole world, there was only one broken person to look after her. And there remained the possibility—what all reasonable people would call a very strong possibility—that Maxine was right to be afraid. Maybe at this very moment Eli stood out by the lake, watching the house, keeping tabs on my movements, waiting to make a movement of his own. Even if Eli hadn’t killed Charlie, someone else had. A murderer still moved freely about the world, our world, his whereabouts a mystery.

“Yes,” I told Maxine. “I have someone who can help me.”

ON THE DAY CHARLIE died, when I moved to get out of the chair, Ladd held me closer. “Don’t go,” he said. “Stay.”

I let him kiss me a little longer.