The Stories We Tell (23 page)

“What is real, Cooper?”

His voice floats from the closet. “I am.” And then he emerges with that smile. “And you are. And this family is.”

“So we just pretend that night didn't happen.”

He speaks slowly, enunciating each word. “How am I supposed to pretend it didn't happen when I'm paying the outlandish hospital bills for your sister, who doesn't have insurance and needs therapy? And I'm facing at least two surgeries. No, I don't think we can pretend it didn't happen. But we can stop looking for excuses for Willa.”

The hollow, floating hope inside me sinks. There is nowhere else to go when the conversation goes here, back to this cul-de-sac.

Cooper returns to the closet, and when he comes out, he's fully dressed, his pale blue tie tight against his Adam's apple. “Are we okay here now? I hate leaving if you're mad at me.”

“I'm not mad,” I say. “I'm confused.”

He bites down hard, teeth on teeth. His jaw clenches on the side. “You're not the one who was hit in the head. I have no idea why you're the one who's confused.”

“Who were you with that night, Cooper? Who were the clients you were with?”

“I already told you. Harvey Bern and his wife, the owners of the Anglers, that charter group that does the fishing show on NBC Sunday mornings. They're trying to decide whether to pay a huge sum of money to advertise in my magazine. It's the largest advertising deal we've ever had.”

“Mary Jo wasn't there?”

Cooper slams the top of his suitcase down. “No, Eve. Mary Jo, the freelance accountant, was not there.”

“Why does Willa think she was?”

“I'm not trying to be a jerk here. I'm just saying what you already know, so don't make me the bad guy. She was unreliable before the accident, so why would you believe her now?”

“It seemed so real; her memory seemed so real. The way she heard that woman's voice and then fell apart.”

“What do you mean, ‘heard' her voice?”

“Whoever she is, she's a nut job, Cooper. She came to the studio.”

“What?”

“When Willa thought she remembered her voice, she went a little nuts.”

“Shit, I'll take her off the accounts.” Cooper holds out his hand for me and I take it this time. He pulls me close. “I love you. I'm sorry this is so hard for you, but you can't freak out every time Willa freaks out. We'll all go crazy. We have our own family to protect.”

He's right. If I go off the tracks every time Willa does, we'll all be in a mess. It just seemed so authentic—the memory rising with the music and the voice, the language of that particular night returning to my sister in full. But it was a ghost, a shadowed memory of another night, another woman, and another place.

“Cooper, I have one more question.”

“I have a plane—”

“I know, a plane to catch. This will only take a second. I need to know why you emptied my business account.”

“I didn't empty it. I moved things around for a few days. Nothing is missing.”

“Okay, but why? And why didn't you say anything to me?”

“Eve, I've always managed the money, and you've always trusted me. I was liquidating a money market account to pay our bills—family bills—and the money hadn't made it to our account yet, so I just … switched.”

“I don't get it. Why couldn't you pay family bills without liquidating an account? Is there … something I don't know?”

“No, it wasn't a big deal. I'd invested in a new stock and didn't have enough cash flow. Nothing to worry about at all.”

“That's what Fritz was talking about.… Now I get it. You should have told me. That's my company. Our payment to a provider bounced. You can't do that.”

“I can't do that?” He squints at me and his scar puckers.

“No, you have to tell me.”

“Okay. Next time, I'll tell you.”

“No next time. Don't use Fine Line money to pay family bills. Please.”

“I have to go, Eve. I'm going to miss my plane.” He smiles and holds up his right hand. “I swear never to move things around without telling you.”

He hugs me good-bye. A dry kiss to the side of my lips and he's gone.

I'm as tired as if Cooper and I had run six miles while having that discussion. I want to lie down, sleep a month, when I hear Gwen's voice. “Mom?”

“Hey, Pea.”

“I believe Willa,” she says.

We're on fragile ground here, mother and daughter. One wrong move or sound and everything will shatter.

“Memory's a strange thing, Gwen.” I pat the bed for her to come sit with me, but she stands firm. “It's not something reliable like a photo. Or a video.”

“But Aunt Willa would never make something up like that.”

“Were you listening to us?”

“How could I help it, Mom? You guys were, like, totally screaming at each other.”

“I don't think Willa made it up. But I do think her mind made it up. Does that make sense? I've learned that when there are blank spaces in our memories, we can fill them in with other images, other memories, other dreams.”

“Not Willa. She doesn't lie.”

“I don't think she's lying. But I don't think she knows the truth, either.”

“I don't think
you
know the truth.”

“I might not, Gwen. But here's one true thing: I can't have our family fall apart. I can't.… I'm doing what I can to keep it all together, and help Willa.”

Gwen rolls her eyes, a skill mastered when young. “So you
just
believe Dad?”

I don't answer; I can't.

“I don't.” Gwen shakes her head and her hair falls to the side, and there it is: the dreaded ink on skin.

“Stop,” I shout, and shoot from the bed to her side. “What is this?” I hold her shoulder and lift her hair. There on the bottom of her scalp, directly on her hairline, is a half-inch feather, dark and permanent: a tattoo.

She jerks away from me and bolts down the hallway, slamming her bedroom door for emphasis.

“Gwen, open up.” I'm at her door, trying to speak through the crack, wanting to crawl under the small space between floor and door.

“No. You'll just lecture me.”

“Just let me in.”

Silence.

I lift my hand to bang on the door and then think better of it. A small feather at the base of her neck; the slightest rebellion, not meant to be seen. I take a deep breath and walk away, moving down the stairs to the kitchen.

I roll paper into the typewriter and hit the keys to type a note, which I leave on the counter for her to find when she finally emerges.

To the moon and back … I love you, Mom.

 

seventeen

The phone rings and I hope someone will answer it.

I hope no one answers it.

I'm parked on Preston Street, alone in the car. Somewhere in Charleston, a phone rings in the Anglers' office.

“Hello.” The voice is soft, trained to answer the phone.

My finger hovers over the end button. She tries again. “You've reached the Anglers. How may I help you?”

I close my eyes. “Yes, may I please speak to Harvey Bern?”

“May I tell him who is calling?”

“Yes, this is Eve Morrison, from
Southern Tastes
magazine.”

“One moment, please.”

I've practiced this conversation, how I'll pretend to be the publisher's dutiful wife, asking if a client is happy with his advertising. But my mouth is dry when he comes on the line.

“This is Harvey.”

“Hi, Mr. Bern. This is Eve Morrison, Cooper's wife. I'm making some follow-up calls for
Southern Tastes
and want to make sure you're happy with your advertising campaign after your meeting at the Bohemian.”

The deceit. I feel nauseous.

“Well, Mrs. Morrison, I'm glad for your call, but we haven't decided on our campaign yet.
Southern Tastes
is one of our favorite online magazines, but we haven't made a decision. And you must have us mixed up with another meeting.”

“Another meeting?” I ask.

“We've never met with Cooper in Savannah. Only in Charleston.”

“Well, please do forgive me.” I throw out my best southern accent.

He laughs, and I imagine an older gentleman with white hair and smile crinkles around his eyes. “No need to forgive. Thanks for following up. I should be back with Cooper soon.”

“Thanks for your consideration, and have a lovely day.”

“You, too, ma'am.”

And there it is. One more lie to add to the equation.

*   *   *

The car outside Willa's cottage is beat-up and dusty, a faded blue Corolla missing its bumper. A tuft of Spanish moss sticks out from under the tire on the passenger side, as if the car came straight through the yard instead of the traditional driveway route.

The lights are on inside the cottage, even though the midday sun flares directly toward the windows. I stand at the door for more than a minute before knocking. Somewhere in the back of the house comes Willa's laugh, the same one she's had her entire life, full and throaty, a laugh that could never be called quiet or mysterious. I hear voices, too; their conversation is clear behind the door.

“How many times have you had to visit the morgue?” Willa asks.

A male voice, strong and sounding of cigarettes, replies, “Shit, more than I can count. It's part of the job.”

“I don't know if I could do that. I'd like writing the stories, but I don't think I could see … that. You know, see death all the time.”

Willa opens the door wide and I see a man—tall and rugged, as if he's just driven in from out west and needed to stop for water. His dark hair pokes from all angles and his beard is cut clean and sharp to the edges of his angular face. He holds out his hand. “Hello, Mrs. Morrison. I'm Noah from the
Savannah News.
We spoke on the phone.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Willa closes the door as I enter. “He was just telling me some stories about our city that we'd never know.… It's fascinating and terrible.”

Fascinating and terrible.
That's the last thing I'm in the mood for.

Willa motions me toward the kitchen but continues talking about Noah, awe in her voice. “Noah has seen murders and overdoses; he's met gang leaders and drug dealers. And here we are, just reading about it in the paper, like it exists somewhere else.” She pauses and then hands me a thick manila envelope.

“What's this?” I ask.

“Photos of the man who died on Preston.”

“What?” I yank my hand away. “I don't want to see this.”

“Neither did I. But it's real.”

Noah rubs his hand across the stubble on his cheek. “You should see it. Everyone should. That's why I'm writing this piece. People need to know what's going on in this city aside from fancy horse-drawn carriages and beautiful old buildings.”

I hold my hands behind my back, as if handcuffed. “I don't need to see it to know it's true: There's a dead man.”

Willa pushes the envelope toward me again. “Sometimes we have to look at it. Really look to understand. It wasn't as real to me until … I saw it.”

“It's real to me, and seeing it won't change that. Have you found out anything new? I mean, do we know how he died?”

Willa glances at Noah, but then answers me. “Not much, really. The man has been cremated by now and numbered.”

“Numbered?”

“Yes, numbered. The guy has a number, Eve, not a name.” Willa cringes. “A freaking number. It's too awful to imagine. How do you get so alone that you're only a number?” She closes her eyes against the thought. “Anyway, the photos and autopsy they did showed he died of blunt trauma to the abdomen, where he then bled out internally. I thought maybe if I saw his face, I'd … I don't know, maybe recognize him? But there was blunt trauma to his face also.”

“Blunt trauma,” I repeat.

Noah shuffles his feet as if to move or leave, but he remains in the same spot. “I'll let you two be. I wanted to know if Willa remembered seeing this man that night, but she doesn't. So … I'll be getting on.”

Willa walks him to the door as I sit at the kitchen table with the unopened envelope in my hand. Do I want to look? Or know? Or see? Without answers, I am still sitting there as Willa returns to the kitchen. “Listen, Willa, I know you want answers. I know you do. So do I. But we have to let this rest. We can't make up a story by piecing together all these dream images. We can't.”

“I'm not making up a story out of dreams.” Willa speaks in a whisper but forced, like air is being pushed through a furnace full blast. “That man is dead, and that's not a dream. That woman, Mary Jo, and her voice are real.”

“Just because they're real doesn't mean they are part of that night.”

“I wouldn't believe me, either.”

“Willa.” I say her name as if it's a quiet offering.

“That reporter wasn't here to involve me. Or Cooper, for that matter. He only wants to know if we saw anything.”

“And you believe that?”

“You don't?”

“I don't know what to believe. Nothing is adding up.”

“How so?”

I spill it, all of it. I tell her about the money being moved and the cards that have arrived at the studio. I tell her about Harvey Bern and how he denied meeting with Cooper. Words fall out and nothing adds up to a coherent story.

She sits quietly for a long time, and I wonder if she's understood me, if she's absorbed anything I said.

“Something isn't right,” she says.

“You think?”

Our laughter comes full force. We're sisters hiding under the bed once more. “Whatever it is,” she says, “it will be all right. It will. Whatever happened that night, whatever the hell really happened, isn't just about me, or my injuries. Now it's about you and your marriage. Your life.”