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I trail my fingers along the railing as I head upstairs. Past my old bedroom, vacuum stripes on the carpet. My father’s room looks bright with a fresh coat of paint and polished windows. In my ears, I listen to myself tell the story of my parents, young and in love, grappling with their own enormous secret. Of Poppy, sharp and smart and determined to uncover the truth through filmmaking. And of Danny, shouldering the biggest secret of all, one that eventually destroyed him. I tell the story exactly as my father and I agreed upon. That he and my mother really had been in the oak grove all that time. That Mr. Stewart had been eager to supply an alibi for them, a lie to cover his own lack of one.
But underneath it all lives my mother’s secret, the one she’s been trying to live with since 1975. One my father and I decided would never surface and why my father allowed the world to believe he’d killed both of his siblings. A man still protecting the young girl he’d once loved so much.
“There isn’t any proof that Paul Stewart killed Poppy or Danny,” I say. “No physical evidence linking him to the crime scene. A murder weapon that vanished fifty years ago and is unlikely to ever turn up.”
My mother had discarded the knife. For a time they’d kept it hidden inside Poppy’s windowsill. My father checking on it multiple times a week, making sure it was still there. Until one day it wasn’t. Only my mother knows where it went, and I have no intention of asking her.
I step into my father’s empty office and stand in front of the repaired windows, taking in the view one last time. Thinking of all the books he’d written here. Of all the sleepless nights, turning over events from hischildhood. Believing the worst of a brother he’d once loved. The space that was both a sanctuary and a prison.
“Poppy had discovered the truth of what Paul Stewart was doing to kids inside the equipment shed at the high school,” I hear myself saying, “and what he’d done to Danny. She’d wanted to meet my father back at the house to tell him, but he didn’t get there in time.” My voice sounds steady, though my words rip through me, still wishing for a different ending. “One of Danny’s friends overheard them arguing about it and told Danny, who knew what she was going to reveal.” My voice grows quieter in my ears, and I turn away from the view and face the wall of empty bookshelves, waiting for someone else’s library. “We’re not sure what happened after that, but the result was the death of my aunt and uncle. Two young kids with their whole lives ahead of them.”
This is the story I tell Jessica. But my father and I aren’t so sure. We can assemble the pieces of the puzzle that we have, but the truth belongs to Poppy. To Danny. And of course, Mr. Stewart.
Jessica’s voice pulls me back again. “Several other victims of Paul Stewart—both men and women—have come forward since the memoir was published, with their own stories, spanning from the mid-seventies all the way through 2011. I hear he was indicted?”
“Yes, a couple weeks ago.” The police had arrived at Paul Stewart’s door with a search warrant, California’s laws allowing prosecutors to file multiple charges against him despite the many years and decades that have passed. Within hours, he was taken into custody.
“Does it bother you that he won’t be indicted for the murders? That the man who took your aunt and uncle’s lives won’t pay for that?” Jessica asks.
“Paul Stewart will still go to jail. He’ll pay for heinous crimes he committed against people who are still alive to suffer from the effects of those crimes. They’re the ones who need justice, more than my aunt and uncle need it.”
I stand in the doorway to my father’s office and take one last look atthe place where I used to curl up and do my homework, just to be near him. Where I sat once again, not so long ago, and witnessed the beginning of the end of my father’s brilliant mind.
Then I turn away, closing the door behind me.
“I’d like to pivot to the house where the murders took place,” Jessica says. “Which your family still owned. You recently had it torn down. Why?”
“All my life, this story has lived inside of me. The pieces and the players, the questions. I spent a lot of time inside that house as I finished the memoir. In Poppy’s room, seeing what she saw, imagining who she dreamt of becoming. I stood in the spot where Danny died. Sat in the kitchen where they ate as a family.” I paused for a moment, then continued, saying the biggest truth I could at the time. “But after the book was done, I needed to close the loop. After the house was demolished, I sold the lot, and now someone is going to build something new there. Which feels like a metaphor for all of us, to build something better on top of the ashes of a painful history.”
“That’s a lovely way to put it,” Jessica says.
Downstairs again, I slide open the French doors and sit on my father’s wrought-iron bench to wait. In the distance, I see the motion of the electronic gates slide open and a car coming slowly down the driveway. It rolls to a stop, and I rise, making my way around the side of the house just as Tom steps from it, standing uncertainly next to the open car door.
Yesterday, I’d sent him the address and a time, with the wordsI need to show you where I came from.
And because he’s Tom, he came.
Vincent
March 3, 1975
I sit on the back step drawing with a stick in the dirt, the sky turning from pink to purple as the sun sets behind our house, and watch Poppy in the middle of the yard, spinning. She wears a long skirt, one I haven’t seen her wear for a while, and she’s pinned one of our mother’s old scarves to the back of her head—a wispy blue and green piece of fabric so light it nearly floats through the air, tucking it under the paper birthday hat our mother insisted we all wear. As she spins, flashes of her smile blink at me. She holds her new camera in her hands, the Super 8 our father bought for her birthday, despite our mother’s protests.
Our parents lean into each other on the bench of the picnic table, the remnants of Poppy’s birthday gifts a scattered mess of empty boxes and crumpled wrapping paper. Danny sits in the chair next to the firepit, feeding wood into it, keeping the flames strong and warm.
I glance at the house next door, the For Sale sign in front sporting abrand-new Sold sticker on top, and wonder who bought it. Perhaps a family with a kid my age, someone who doesn’t already have preconceived ideas about who I am. Someone who hasn’t heard all the rumors, listened to all the mistakes I’ve made over the years, trying and failing to fit in.
Poppy pauses to catch her breath. In the dirt at my feet, I sketch a house, a square with a triangle on top. On the radio, the song turns to “You Are So Beautiful,” by Joe Cocker, and my father stands, pulling my mother up to dance. I imagine dancing to that song with Lydia. My arms around her waist, pulling her close and never letting go. A flare of disbelief, that she’d picked me, explodes inside of me.
Poppy resumes her spinning, the scarf under her hat swelling out like a wedding veil caught in the wind, and I wonder what she’ll be like when she gets older, who she might grow into as the years pass. My father’s birthday toast echoes through my mind:When Poppy was born, she was beauty and grace and light. And she continues to be that, all her beautiful days.
Then I think of the story still tucked in my backpack, to what my English teacher had written at the top.I might see a budding author in these pages. Keep up the great work.The first compliment a teacher has ever given me. The idea burns bright inside of me, and I imagine a future where things aren’t so hard. For the first time, I can see possibility in myself. Trying harder in school. Writing more stories. Maybe even getting paid to do it.
Above us, the first stars are just beginning to appear. The windows behind me cast a warm glow on the ground, patches of light illuminating the rosebushes not yet in bloom. My father gives a bark of laughter, and my mother soon follows. I wish I could freeze time. To live inside this moment forever. My family, its best version of itself.
“Vince, come and spin with me,” Poppy calls, finally setting down her camera. “You know you want to.”
I hesitate, but only for a second. Our parents smile at me, and Dannylaughs, rolling his eyes as he pokes the fire, sending bright sparks into the air. I drop my stick and go out to join her, grabbing her wrists and leaning back, knowing my sister will always be there to hold me up.