“You should probably get back to your work,” I say.
Aiden fixes up the flowers, sets them down firmly, turns to me in his indirect, no-eye-contact way. “I’s too young to know ’bout you at the time. I’da been only little when you was born. One time, when I’s older, I saw a picture of her, with her belly.”
I saw it, too. The photo from the scrapbook, with the baby bump.
“She said the baby didn’t live. She got real sad.”
Probably the same thing that she told Holden VI, that I didn’t live, that I was stillborn.
A little white lie. To protect me, so Aiden wouldn’t look for me. So Holden wouldn’t look for me. So nobody would ever look for me.
His darting eyes, just for a single moment, make contact with mine before skittering away again. “You look like her,” he says. “A good bit like her.”
“I’m lucky. She was very pretty. And courageous. She did a brave thing for me. So did you, Aiden. If there’s anything I can—”
“You wanna see her grave?” he asks.
I start to speak, but a lump fills my throat. I nod and follow him.
It’s a simple grave, farther to the south of the cemetery, an ordinary headstone kept up pristinely.
Gloria Jane Willis
March 5, 1964 – July 12, 1994
Our Beloved Mother
Our beloved mother. Even though, for all practical purposes, Aiden was an only child. Even though, as far as he knew, I didn’t survive the birth. Still, he included me, the sibling he never really had, the sibling he never knew.
My—our—biological mother. The woman who gave me up to save me. A prostitute who surely wanted something better for herself, and for her son.
And for her daughter.
July 12, 1994—the day Gloria was killed in a hit-and-run. The day before the seven hours of hell, when I was plucked off the street and taken to 7 Ocean Drive, so Holden could take my life, too, and end any vestige of the tortured, maniacal Dahlquist bloodline.
I look over at Aiden, whose eyes have filled with tears.
“I still miss her,” he says, his voice quaking. “You’da—you’da liked her.”
“I know I would have.” I take Aiden’s hand in mine. “But you still have family. You still have me. You’re my hero, Aiden. And you’re my brother.”
I lean over and kiss him on the cheek. He recoils slightly. I don’t get the sense that a lot of women have kissed him in his life.
“Okay,” he says awkwardly. His face brightens just a bit. “That’d be okay.”
123
I NESTLE MY feet into the sand and let out a long sigh. The beach is utter chaos in mid-August, kids running everywhere, boats and parasails and sand castles, but to me it feels like complete and total peace.
Four months, almost to the day, since it all happened.
Four months since Justin’s murderous ways were exposed and he was taken into custody, a now-infamous killer who will go down in history with the legions of others. Someone told me they did a Google search on his name and got over ten thousand hits.
Hooray for him.
“Let’s go watch,” says Noah, sitting next to me.
“Not sure I want to.”
“Oh, c’mon. Come on. You don’t wanna watch?”
I relent, pushing myself out of the sand, fitting my toes into my sandals, my fingers intertwined with Noah’s.
“Your hair’s getting long again,” I say. “Are you going back to Surfer Jesus?”
“Hey, be nice to me,” he says, squeezing my hand. “I’ve been through a lot. I’ve been shot at by a cop two times.”
“But she intended to miss each time,” I add.
“So she says. So she says.”
We climb onto the pavement of the parking lot and walk up Ocean Drive.
A thick crowd is gathered at the gate of 7 Ocean Drive. A couple of news crews as well. It’s been like that ever since everything happened. They say there was a spike in tourism this summer due to all the people who wanted to come see this house.
So there will be a few people, some shop owners, who might be sorry to see what’s about to happen. But I think most people will approve.
“Just in time,” Noah says.
The wrecking ball slams into the roof first, crushing the slate inward, the spears and ornamental gargoyles disappearing in a satisfying rush, a collective gasp of awe from the crowd. They told me it will take hours to knock down the entire mansion. I told them I didn’t care how long it took, I just wanted everything gone. The house. The tunnel and dungeon beneath. The carriage house.
It’s my property, after all. That’s what all the lawyers concluded after reviewing the trust documents. The property went into trust because nobody knew that Holden VI had left behind any offspring. So now it’s mine.