Page 59 of We Were Liars

THE CUDDLEDOWN DOOR is locked. I bang until Johnny appears, wearing the clothes he had on last night. “I’m making pretentious tea,” he says.

“Did you sleep in your clothes?”

“Yes.”

“We set a fire,” I tell him, still standing in the doorway.

They will not lie to me anymore. Go places without me, make decisions without me.

I understand our story now. We are criminals. A band of four.

Johnny looks me in the eyes for a long time but doesn’t say a word. Eventually he turns and goes into the kitchen. I follow. Johnny pours hot water from the kettle into teacups.

“What else do you remember?” he asks.

I hesitate.

I can see the fire. The smoke. How huge Clairmont looked as it burned.

I know, irrevocably and certainly, that we set it.

I can see Mirren’s hand, her chipped gold nail polish, holding a jug of gas for the motorboats.

Johnny’s feet, running down the stairs from Clairmont to the boathouse.

Granddad, holding on to a tree, his face lit by the glow of a bonfire.

No. Correction.

The glow of his house, burning to the ground.

But these are memories I’ve had all along. I just know where to fit them now.

“Not everything,” I tell Johnny. “I just know we set the fire. I can see the flames.”

He lies down on the floor of the kitchen and stretches his arms over his head.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“I’m fucking tired. If you want to know.” Johnny rolls over on his face and pushes his nose against the tile. “They said they weren’t speaking anymore,” he mumbles into the floor. “They said it was over and they were cutting off from each other.”

“Who?”

“The aunties.”

I lie down on the floor next to him so I can hear what he’s saying.

“The aunties got drunk, night after night,” Johnny mumbles, as if it’s hard to choke the words out.

“And angrier, every time. Screaming at each other. Staggering around the lawn. Granddad did nothing but fuel them. We watched them quarrel over Gran’s things and the art that hung in Clairmont—but real estate and money most of all.

Granddad was drunk on his own power and my mother wanted me to make a play for the money.

Because I was the oldest boy. She pushed me and pushed me—I don’t know.

To be the bright young heir. To talk badly of you as the eldest. To be the educated white hope of the future of democracy, some bullshit.

She’d lost Granddad’s favor, and she wanted me to get it so she didn’t lose her inheritance. ”

As he talks, memories flash across my skull, so hard and bright they hurt. I flinch and put my hands over my eyes.

“Do you remember any more about the fire?” he asks gently. “Is it coming back?”

I close my eyes for a moment and try. “No, not that. But other things.”

Johnny reaches out and takes my hand.