Page 13

Steeple Hill was smaller than I remembered.

Smaller. More self-conscious.

I’m not sure what made me turn down Seaside Lane.

It had never entered my mind when I’d returned for my father’s funeral.

After the funeral I’d gone straight to the Realtor’s office, told them to dump everything in the house, fix the place up, and put it on the market for as much as they could possibly get.

I had been clear about never wanting to see it again.

I was still clear about never wanting to see it again.

And yet I’d brought the key. And here I was, driving down Seaside Lane, for one last look.

It turned out property values had jumped over the last few decades and $1.

5 million for three beds, two baths in the heart of Steeple Hill had attracted multiple offers.

There was no mortgage on the house, so yes.

If W the past scoured away with harsh, industrial cleansers.

The tall, multipaned windows that once framed views of wind-battered oaks and the overgrown front garden now offered a stark, lonely view of the gravel drive and a short privacy wall of new plantings to shield this yard from the neighbors.

The Jennings back in my day. I wondered who lived next door now.

The kitchen, once cluttered with dusty knickknacks and miscellanea, mismatched pots and pans, now gleamed with cold, impersonal granite and stainless-steel appliances. I ran my fingers over the cool, sharp edges of the counter, the faint chemical tang of cleaning agents lingering in the air.

The small breakfast nook where my father, brooding and hungover, would sit drinking his morning coffee and staring out at the wild, overgrown garden, was gone, the windows replaced, sunlight shining on an empty space.

I turned down the narrow hall to the back of the house, my heart resuming its painful thud as I reached the door of my old bedroom.

My hand hovered over the knob as I remembered things I did not want to remember.

The “faggot” books that went into the trash, the little stray cat I’d wanted so desperately to keep, the punches that came out of nowhere when I least expected them, the college acceptance letters I’d found tucked away in his desk.

For long moments I stood there, breathing quietly, softly, struggling with it.

There’s something wrong with you .

You hear it often enough, you begin to believe it.

When I finally turned the handle, the door swung open smoothly, silently, the hinges freshly oiled. But then I’d had always kept the hinges well-oiled. The room was completely empty, stripped of everything that I remembered, everything that had made it mine. Even the built-in bookshelves were gone.

It was just a clean and tidy white box.

My eyes blurred in hot, unwilling reaction and the late afternoon light slanted through the large windows, distorted in attenuated, skeletal shadows across the freshly painted walls.

I exhaled slowly, shakily, and turned, pulling the door shut behind me with a soft, final click.

“Keiran?”

I was getting into my car when I heard someone call my name.

I looked around in confusion and saw a tall, slim woman in jeans and red T-shirt walking rapidly up the road toward me. She had short salt-and pepper hair and looked to me like she was maybe in her fifties.

“Yes?”

She resembled my Realtor, Betty, but as she reached me, I realized it was Judy Jennings. In my memory she was still a woman in her thirties.

“I thought it was you.” Her smile was self-conscious, maybe uncomfortable. “You probably don’t remember me. Jim and I live next door.” She nodded back toward the green and white two-story on the other side of the new privacy wall.

“Judy,” I said. “I remember.”

“We saw you at the funeral, but you didn’t stay.”

No, I hadn’t stayed longer than it took to make sure he was well and truly going into the ground.

“I had a flight to catch.” Which was true, although the flight had been booked for that evening.

“Of course. You’re living in New York now.”

It wasn’t a secret, but I did wonder how she knew that.

“We—Jared and I—just wanted to tell you…we were sorry.” She swallowed, surprising us both. She said, a little randomly, “He was a good neighbor.”

I nodded. That was true. He was definitely the guy to call in an emergency—unless he was the emergency.

“But…” Judy stopped, her expression troubled. “When you didn’t come back, after the funeral, Jared and I started talking. About the old days.”

“The good old days,” I murmured. I wasn’t mocking her. Maybe myself.

She bit her lip, said quietly, “We should have done something. We knew things…weren’t right. But he was the sheriff.”

It took me a second or two. I couldn’t quite say it was okay. It had not been okay. But I did understand. He had not been a man to cross.

Judy was still talking, still trying to explain.

“After he lost his job, we thought about going to Sheriff Rankin, but they were friends. And…you were older and making plans to go to college. We kept waiting—what if we made it worse? And then you were gone. We watched you drive away that morning.” She rested her hand on her heart. “It was such a relief.”

I honestly didn’t know what to say to her. I finally came up with, “It was a long time ago.”

“Yes. But you’re all right now? You look so-so…” She gestured helplessly. “Polished.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean… Well, you’re all grown up.”

“Yes.” No denying that.

“You’re in New York and you’re a-a writer?” She looked so hopeful.

“An editor,” I said. “Yes. I’m all right. Everything worked out in the end.”

“Thank God.” It sounded sincere. “I used to pray that wherever you were, you were okay. You were happy.”

It’s silly, but I was genuinely touched by the idea that now and then Judy Jennings had prayed for me.

“That was nice of you.”

She winced, although I meant it sincerely. She started to say something, hesitated. Finally, she asked, “Did you ever get in contact with your mother?”

I stared at her, not understanding, but then remembered that the Jennings had lived next door for as long as I could remember.

They might even have known my mother. So yes, they’d have heard the original story: that my mother had run away.

Even after my father started saying she’d died, most people believed he was just saving face.

“No,” I said. “That would have been up to my mother.”

She bit her lip, looked toward the back of the house. “I don’t know…”

She stopped.

A weird crawly feeling came over my scalp.

I started to say—I’m not even sure what.

I stopped, too. I couldn’t ask. Didn’t want to know what she suspected.

Didn’t want to hear what she and Jim had speculated about over the breakfast table for the last thirty-six years.

Could still not acknowledge the thing I had also come to suspect, as I grew older.