The Truth We Bury: A Novel

“Like hell, old man. Mom and I are done listening to you, done keeping your secrets. It was all lies and bullshit anyway, wasn’t it, you old fuck?”

Lily stared at Erik, not believing that this wild, foul-talking man was the same as the Erik she’d known from infancy. The change in him seemed impossible; it made her head swim.

Winona crept into the open doorway, and Lily saw her own shock mirrored in Winona’s eyes. But there was some other element working in Winona’s expression, too. Was it remorse? Apology? What is this about? Lily opened her mouth to ask, but Winona’s attention had shifted, and she was looking at Lily’s dad now. He was standing a few feet to Lily’s right and a little closer to the porch, and while he held the shotgun easily enough, Lily knew that could change in less than a second, less than an eye blink. He was a crack shot.

AJ came to stand beside Lily, and they exchanged a glance. Her heart was hammering so loudly, she wondered if he could hear it.

“We can’t talk unless you put the gun down,” her dad said to Erik.

“I can talk just fine.” Erik swung the .45 at AJ. “You think you’re such a big fuckin’ hero. Who’s the hero now, huh?”

“Why don’t you just say what’s on your mind, Erik? We’re all friends here.” AJ held his ground, and Lily marveled that he could.

“Ha! We’re a lot more than friends, vato.”

“What do you mean?” AJ asked.

Winona came over the threshold onto the porch. “Erik, no—”

“I’m done, Mamita. We both are. Can’t you see? We’re not getting a fucking dime. Jeb lied to you.”

Was he talking about an inheritance? Lily imagined, although she didn’t really know for sure, that Erik was included in her dad’s will, along with Winona. Her father wouldn’t leave them out. They were family.

Family . . .

The word resonated in Lily’s brain. The weight of it, its possible meaning, fell like a stone to the floor of her gut. She was cold, suddenly so cold. “Dad?” She glanced sidelong at him.

But he wouldn’t look at her. His chin was lowered nearly to his chest; his eyes were closed. He looked done in, beaten—old and frail. Lily had never thought of him as frail. Not even after he’d fallen the other day.

“What kind of a game is this, Erik?” AJ hitched forward on his crutches. “You murdered Becca and then Kate. You shot me. You’ve twisted the evidence, trying to frame me—”

“That part was easy. It helped you’d been arrested before. You saw how the cops—everybody went for it.”

“We were friends, Erik. Granddad has never been anything but kind to you and your mom. He’s given you everything. He built this house—”

“You want to know why? Guilt.”

Winona grasped Erik’s arm. “No, mijo. Not like this. Not like this.” She clung to him, desperate to silence him.

He shook her off. “Guilt,” he repeated.

“He’s crazy,” AJ said softly, as if he meant only Lily to hear.

She glanced past him at Shea, standing on his other side, looking shell-shocked. They all were. Where were the police?

“Can you explain what Erik is saying, Winona?” Lily appealed to his mother.

But she only shook her head and sank to her knees as if she no longer had the strength to support herself. Her braid was unwound, and its tip dragged in the dust on the porch floor. Somehow, the sight loosened a memory in Lily’s mind from a long-ago morning. She’d been maybe fifteen or sixteen when she’d gone into her dad’s bathroom, the bathroom he’d once shared with her mother, and found a robe—Winona’s robe—hanging on a hook on the back of the door. She’d known it was Winona’s because she’d often stayed overnight with Win.

When she was angry with her dad.

When she needed a mother’s touch, a friend to talk to. Another woman.

Win had been all those things.

Now, holding her eyes, a knowing came to Lily, and Winona saw that it had come and wrenched her gaze away. Her shoulders heaved, but if she was crying, she made no sound.

Lily looked at her dad. “Is Erik your son?” she asked. “Yours and Winona’s?”

“You got it, Lily.” Erik was excited. “That’s the goddamn answer to the million-dollar question of who in the fuck I am—your half brother and AJ’s uncle.” Erik laughed, but it was a harsh, broken sound. “It’s crazy, isn’t it? But it’s true; there’s paperwork on it.”

“Did you just find out?” Lily addressed Erik as if she believed what he was saying. She spoke as if the discussion, the situation, was rational and comprehensible, but inside she was reeling.

“I’ve known it nearly all my life, but Mamita said we could never tell anyone. She said if word ever got out, the good life we had here would end and we’d have to go back to Oaxaca to her family. No way was I going there, so I kept their secret. It was part of the deal.”

“We thought it was best for him, for everyone.” Lily’s dad spoke for the first time.

Lily stared at him, mute. AJ, too, seemed incapable of speech.

“Bullshit! You never wanted me.”

“Erik.” Winona’s protest was laced with sorrow.

He rounded on her. “He may care about you, but he’s treated me like shit my whole life.” Erik looked out at the rest of them. “How do you have a kid, watch him grow up right under your nose, and never recognize him? Never call him son? He’s my dad”—his voice broke—“but I couldn’t call him that. Do you know what that’s like?”

“What deal are you talking about?” AJ asked.

“Maybe we could all go inside—”

“No, Granddad. Let Erik say what his problem is.”

“You want to know, vato? He cut me out of his will. That’s my problem. All these years I keep his secret, keep my mouth shut about who I am, figuring it’s going to be worth it. I’ll get my share of his estate, something like a quarter million. That was the deal, the promise he made Mom. If I never let on I was as much an Axel as you or Lily, he’d cut me in for my share. Isn’t that right, old man?”

“You didn’t want any part of the ranch, Erik. I asked you to come on as my foreman, but you turned me down flat. Three times. You left me no choice. I’m not leaving the xL to somebody who doesn’t give a shit about it.”

“I don’t see AJ taking on the job of foreman, but you didn’t cut him out of your will, did you?” Erik swung his gaze to AJ. “Do you know how it’s been for me, bro? Hearing you call him Granddad, watching how he treated you with respect like you mean something to him. Like you’re something more to him than the dirt under his boot heel?”

“Jesus, Erik,” AJ began, “I didn’t know anything about any of this.”

“You were never shit to me.” Erik’s voice rose, shattering in the air like so much glass. “A pain in the ass. A snot-nosed kid I had to look out for. Another fucking responsibility Jeb piled on me.”

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