“Do you think it means something that Oliver shot himself in the brain?” Allison asked.
“I think it means he was very depressed,” Roland said. “But maybe he was trying to put a bullet into the thing that was causing him all his pain. I know I should be feeling bad for his mom, and I do, but I keep thinking, Poor Dad. To lose a patient is bad enough but to lose one like that...”
“Dad talked to me about the graveyard,” Allison said.
“The graveyard?”
“He said every surgeon carries a graveyard inside them. And all the patients they’ve lost are buried in it.”
“It’s a lot to carry around with you,” Roland said. “And he lived with us, too. He was Dad’s son for a few months. No wonder he didn’t tell us about Oliver. It probably broke his heart.”
“I’m sure it did,” Allison said. “He always liked things to be nice and happy at the house. He tried, anyway.”
“We all had such shitty childhoods,” Roland said. “He was just trying to make up for that. You were happy with us, right?”
“I was as happy to be with you then as I am now.”
“So...?”
She turned and gave him a quick grin. “Very happy.”
They drove on longer in silence, but the tension had disappeared and now it was a companionable sort of quiet. Roland moved his hand a little higher up her thigh.
“You can ask me what I’m thinking about again,” Roland said.
“I think I can guess.” She patted his hand and playfully took it off her thigh and placed it on his. “Driving here.”
“Sorry.”
“You are not.” She laughed, when suddenly the magnitude of the day hit her like it hadn’t before. Hit her hard. “Oliver shot himself.”
“Yes, and...?”
“He was fine at the house with us.”
“Or he was pretending to be,” Roland said. “Brain surgery can have some odd outcomes. Dad says issues can pop up years after operations. Maybe something like that happened with Oliver.”
“I guess so. But now I want to talk to Kendra and Antonio even more.”
“Kendra and Antonio?” Roland sat up straighter in the seat. “What about them?”
“I asked McQueen to get me their addresses, too.”
Roland shook his head and she didn’t know why.
“What?” she asked.
“I wish you wouldn’t talk to her.”
“Why not? I always liked her. I think she liked me.”
Roland went quiet for a few seconds before answering.
“Remember when I told you that you were my second?” Roland said. “She was my first.”
Allison almost ran off the road.
“Kendra? She was your girlfriend?”
“Yeah. Sort of. I mean, we didn’t really date. You don’t have to date when you’re living in the same house.”
“When did this happen?”
“A few months after you left. I was seventeen. She was fifteen. I’d feel weird about it if you saw her. Kendra probably would, too.”
Allison would, too, but that didn’t matter. The timing, that was what mattered.
“A few months after I left... Any chance she was in love with you while I was there?” Allison asked.
“Allison, Kendra wouldn’t push you down the stairs because of you and me.”
“That’s not an answer to my question.”
Roland said nothing. Then Allison thought of something.
“Did you tell her what happened that day? On the beach?” Allison asked.
Slowly Roland nodded.
“Why did you tell her?”
“I didn’t mean to but she knew something was wrong. She’s very intuitive. She could tell I felt guilty. This was the day after it happened and you were acting so weird and I guess I was acting weird, too. I had to tell someone or I’d go nuts.”
“What did she say about it?” Allison asked.
“It was thirteen years ago,” he said.
“Was she upset?”
“No, not with me.”
“But she was upset with me?” Allison asked. “Angry?”
“Scared,” Roland said. “But not mad. Although I think she said we were being ‘stupid.’”
“If she was half as in love with you as I was,” Allison said, “and you told her that you and I had fooled around, what do you think she would feel?”
“I don’t think she was in love with me at the time,” he said. “She never said she was.”
“I never said I was, either,” Allison said. They drove a few more miles before she could speak again.
“What exactly did she say when you told her?” Allison asked.
“She reminded me of Dad’s rule about us, you know, not doing that sort of thing with each other.”
“I remember that rule,” Allison said.
“Kendra said that was the sort of thing that got kids kicked out of group homes. Dad wasn’t going to kick me out—I was adopted—but he might kick you out, she thought. She was worried about you, not me.”
“Is that all she said?”
“She told me to make sure it never happened again. That’s all.”
“And you’re just telling me this now?” Allison asked.
“Trust me, if you knew Kendra the way I did, you would know she wouldn’t push you or anyone else down the stairs. Or call your aunt and terrify her. That’s not like her at all.”
“Was it like Oliver to kill himself?”
Roland didn’t answer.
“Do you know where she is?” Allison asked.
“I don’t know her address. Long time ago I asked Dad if he ever heard from her, and he said as far as he knew she was fine and well and living in Olympia. Works at home doing something in computer programming. There’s really no reason to bother her.”
Allison wasn’t sure about that.
“Now you’re being too quiet,” Roland said after they’d driven for about another fifteen minutes in silence. “What are you thinking about?”
“I was thinking about that day. You told Kendra but nobody else, right?”
“Right...”
“And Dad didn’t tell you Oliver killed himself. No one told me about your sister, Rachel, until Deacon did a few days ago. And Dad didn’t tell you all about that phone call to my aunt. And he didn’t tell you all that my fall might not have been an accident. On top of all that, Deacon and Thora said they were together when my fall happened, but Deacon said they were outside and Thora said they were inside, which means one of them or both of them aren’t telling me the whole truth. That’s a lot of secrets in one house, isn’t it?”
Roland said nothing.
“Just has me wondering,” Allison said.
“What?”
“What else are you all hiding from each other? And from me?”
“You don’t have to sound so suspicious,” Roland said. “There’s a big difference between keeping secrets and wanting your privacy. None of us—me, Deac, Thor—we don’t ask each other about what happened to us in BC times.”
“BC?”
“Before Capello,” he said. “We don’t want to talk about it. We don’t want to pry. None of it is secret. It’s just...private.”
“I respect your right to privacy, but I think there are some things I deserve to know.”
“You’re right, you do. If I thought for one second Kendra did it, I’d tell you. We broke Dad’s rules, me and her, and so we’ve never told anyone we were a couple. That’s private,” he said. “Not some deep dark secret.”
“What if Dr. Capello knew?”
“What?”
“What if he knew about you and Kendra? Possible?”
“Possible, maybe,” Roland said. “We didn’t tell him, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t figure it out. We were sleeping together sometimes while he was one floor above us. Deacon could have found out and blabbed. Or Thora even. Why?”
“Follow me here,” she said, excited because the pieces were clicking into place. “The day after I came here, I told your dad I didn’t feel safe staying at the house because I didn’t know who’d hurt me. He wants me to stay for, you know, reasons.”
“Me,” Roland said.
“You.”
“And because he loves you and missed you.”