The Stories We Tell (30 page)

*   *   *

There wasn't a perfect place or time to tell Cooper what I believe, what I plan. But the kitchen counter, each of us on a bar stool, going through the mail, becomes the place and the time.

His scar has puckered now, pulling his left eye upward, as though he's looking down at me from a far corner. He reaches his hand up to touch its edges, to feel the damage once again.

“Cooper.”

“Yes?” he mumbles, tossing a pile of solicitations in the trash.

I take the paper out of the trash and place it in the recycle bin. “I need to talk to you.”

“I don't need a recycling lecture.”

“What?”

He points to the papers without looking up.

“No, that's not it.”

He's distracted and his finger traces the scar, as if to remind both of us of the damage already done. His hair has started growing back and it stands out in different directions, the far corners of the world, unkempt in its new growth.

“The night of the wreck,” I say.

He holds up his hand. “My God, Eve. Can we please stop this? Just stop.”

“Then you don't have to talk about it. I will.”

He walks to the wine refrigerator and pulls out a bottle of Pinot Grigio, pouring himself a glass and taking a long swallow before turning to me. “I can't debate this anymore.”

This is what happens when people talk to me this way: I can't find words. My body tingles. My mind focuses on small, insignificant details, like the color of the counter, a dirty towel hanging on the sink's edge, the petals falling off the daisies in the vase. But this time, I draw from some deeper well of belief. “Here is what I think happened,” I say.

He holds up his hand. “I told you what happened. You've never been obsessive before. What is wrong with you?”

“I've been asking myself that question for so long, Cooper. You have no idea how many times I've asked that in the middle of the night. What is wrong with
me
?”

“I don't know,” he says, quietly now. “There's been a lot of stress here. But it will be okay.”

“No. You don't get it. I answered the question and I found that nothing is wrong with me. Only with my beliefs.”

“What?” He takes a long—too long—swallow of wine.

“Here is what I believe. You went out that night with Mary Jo and—”

He lifts his wineglass. “Stop it now. This is absurd.”

“Yes, you were.” I take a breath, betraying the woman who begged me not to reveal the source. “She told me.”

“Bullshit.”

“I'll start over. So, you were out with Mary Jo when I thought you were in Charleston. You were trying to calm her because she was upset about two things—her so-called relationship with you and some risky accounting. You saw Willa and you were already in panic mode about trying to fix things with the erratic Mary Jo. You took Willa outside, maybe not to take her home, but to try to explain yourself. Willa got upset, and you got in the car to take her home. It was raining and you were fighting. I don't think she grabbed the wheel. I think you were upset and didn't keep your eye on the road and that my sister was a convenient scapegoat. Either way, you hit that homeless man and killed him before you slammed into the tree. You dragged him into an alley while your OnStar called nine one one, and lucky for you, my sister was unconscious.”

He's finished his wine during my recitation and he pours another glassful. “You've gone insane.”

“Great answer.” I stand.

“You have no idea how this all works. You need to listen to me.”

“How what works?”

“If you really think that story is true, Eve, do you understand what that means?”

“Yes.” I turn to walk away.

“Don't walk away from me, Eve.”

I do.

“I'm serious. Do. Not. Walk. Away. You will regret this.”

My body floats as if above the floor, above the house, above the earth. The fragile dream breaks like one of my Waterford wedding flutes crashing to a tile floor, unmendable pieces splintered and irretrievable.

*   *   *

I stay at Willa's that night and we are on the couch at 2:00
A.M.
Gwen is asleep beside us, and the movie we watched—
Love Actually
—is still playing, but the sound is off. Willa nods toward the kitchen and I follow her. On the table is the
Savannah News,
open to an article entitled “Finding Home” by Noah Parker. “Read it,” Willa says.

It's a long article, the first in a three-part series about Savannah, but the part Willa wanted me to read, the part I needed to know was this: The man who'd been found on Preston Street had been claimed by his family. His name was Skipper Linton and he'd been in and out of rehab; he was seventy-two years old. When the police, under pressure, investigated his death, other homeless witnesses came forth to say they saw Skipper get beaten up over a fifth of vodka.

“Oh, wow.” I fold the newspaper over and sit at Willa's table.

She sits next to me. “I don't want you to leave … Cooper because of me.” She covers her mouth with her hand and tears quickly fill her eyes. “You cannot break up your marriage or life because I had a bad dream about a dead man on the car. You were right about that.”

I shake my head. “It's more than this man. It's more than you or your dream! I'm doing this for me. And for Gwen. And for the truth.”

“You know what everyone will say, right?”

“Yes, they'll say he's a good man and I'm a terrible person for never having appreciated being part of the Morrison family and that my studio success is owed to their name. They'll say I left him when he needed me most. They'll say I was nothing but white trash from the beginning. That's what they'll say. Well, let them.”

My sister smiles at me.

“But,” I say, “there's more than one way to be unfaithful, and he's been lying about everything. Where he was. Who he was with. Our money.”

“
Your
money,” Gwen says, correcting me.

“And the worst part—he used you, Willa, to cover up his lies. I cannot … I will not … I won't live with him knowing this.”

“This is my fault. If I hadn't shown up here, if…”

“You walked into a mess that night and not one bit of this is your fault.” I hold out my hand. “Don't kid yourself. If you hadn't shown up, it would have been something else.”

“I'm sorry,” she says.

“No.
I'm
sorry. I've spent so much time making sure we all look good that it took me too long to see it isn't good at all. Our family was an image wavering like that game we had as kids when we'd imagine that the clouds were animals or castles or anything real at all. It was once real; I know that. But somewhere along the way—I don't know where or when—it came undone and I pretended it was all okay when it wasn't. I can't unsee or unknow the truth now.” I take a breath.

She reaches across the table and takes my hand. “We'll be okay, Eve. Whatever happens, whatever you do, we will be fine.”

“Let's get some sleep,” I say, and stand to hug her, motioning to the living room.

My heart is hollow and my insides swept clean. I'm afraid I won't ever feel anything like real love again until I see my daughter asleep on the couch. I cover Gwen with a blanket and kiss her forehead. “I love you, Pea.”

“I know,” she replies, and rolls over, burrowing her face into the couch pillows.

*   *   *

I'm answering e-mails at the studio the next morning, faking normalcy, when Gwen and Willa show up with coffee and croissants, and smiles—big smiles. “Morning,” they say in unison.

They approach the table and I grab a chocolate croissant. “Thanks for the nutritious breakfast.”

They sit next to each other but face me. “What are you working on?” Gwen asks.

“The last commandment:
Love.
”

The last ideas are almost done, lined up at one end of the table. Pantone color charts and finished sketches lie about; font choices and sizes have been chosen. The polymer plates and font blocks will come next.

“
Love,
” Gwen says. “I didn't know you'd picked the last one.”

“Just two days ago,” I say.

“I love the Love.” She looks up at me, those eyes of Cooper's staring at me. “I have an idea, but you might get mad.”

“Why would I get mad?”

“Because it's almost the same as my tattoo.” She cringes. “Sorry.”

“A feather?” I ask.

“No.” She touches the word
Love.
“Wings.”

“Yes,” I say.

“Yes,” Willa agrees.

Max's voice comes from the still-open barn doors. “Perfect.”

We all look up. Willa and Gwen laugh; I smile. He walks toward us in his jeans and crumpled soft blue button-down shirt. “Remind me why you don't work for us,” he says to Gwen, a smile in his voice.

“Because I'm too cool.”

“True that,” Max says, imitating her lingo.

Francie arrives with her earbuds in, singing to the Civil Wars' “Falling.” “I can't help falling/Out of love with you.…” Then she looks toward us and quickly releases her buds.

“Keep going,” Gwen says. “It's so pretty the way you sing.”

Francie waves her hand toward us and comes to our side, points at the card line. “This all came together so beautifully.”

Max drops his backpack and sits with us. “Gwen suggested wings for the
Love
idea. I think it's brilliant. You?”

Francie sits next to Max and lifts a thick piece of cotton paper from the torn pile, drawing in silence. Max turns on the music; Gwen nibbles on a croissant; and Willa stares at me with a cautious eye because, without knowing I'd done so, without anyone else noticing, tears have puddled under my eyes.

I wipe at my eyes furiously and mouth the words,
I'm fine
. I'm telling the truth, because although I know that a storm is coming, at that moment I'm with everyone I love and the world, for that minute, has settled into its place.

 

twenty-three

Cooper's scar is flaming red and I can't stop looking at it as I avoid his eyes. He's crying, and I know it's real; he's scared and hurt and wants to mend it all.

“I want to take it all back. I'm sorry. I should never have lied about that night. I did it to protect you. To protect us. I didn't want you to know my business was failing. I didn't want my parents to know.”

God, how I loved this man once.

“So you wanted me to think that my sister was drunk. That you were having an affair, that you would lie about meetings and places, that you would shift money around—all these things were better for me to believe than that the company was failing?”

“I didn't think about it that way. I just wanted to protect you and Gwen from something that would make you worry, when I knew I could fix it.”

“Can you tell the truth about anything at all?”

He reaches behind his chair and pulls out the
Savannah News,
slamming it onto the coffee table. “Did you read this?” He points to the article “Finding Home.”

“Yes.”

“I didn't kill anyone, Eve. I didn't hit anyone or lie about it.”

“I know that now.”

“Did you really believe I'd hit a man and leave him?”

“I didn't know where your truth ended and the lies started. I didn't.” I look up to Cooper and see a slight smile.

“See? What I did wasn't that bad.”

“But … you threw my sister under the bus. You were willing to blame her, to lie about her to save face? My sister: For God's sake.”

He touches his bandage and attempts humor. “I didn't really get to save face, did I?”

There he is, the charming, smart man I fell in love with—my husband. But I feel nothing. The anxiety is gone and a windless empty space remains.

He pushes on. “All the stuff you were worried about had nothing to do with me. I didn't kill anyone. I didn't sleep with anyone. You are making this so much bigger than it is.”

“All those lies—all of them about money and who you were with and why—are no different from cheating. How can you separate them?”

“I'm sorry. It was wrong. But I don't have a mistress. I didn't hit a man and walk away. I just.… It was for us. For our family.”

“No, it wasn't. It was for you.” I can see by the look on Cooper's face that he doesn't get it. “It was for
you,
Cooper. Your image. Your gratification. Your ridiculous pride.”

The air shifts and Cooper leans back in his seat to cross one leg over the other. His face is altered, and not just by the scar and the pulled skin but also by the wave of anger that comes, immediate and flaming. “And you want to talk about image? It's what you do for a living. It's all you've ever been about.”

“Maybe. But if that's true, I'm lying to myself, not to you. I'm not dragging your family into chaos, or hiding where I am, or shuffling money, or moving people around to make it seem better. You're right: I've been trying to save an image of a family. But now I'm going to save my family.” My voice isn't my own; it belongs to someone stronger, braver than I am. I stand to look down at his anger, at his impotent rage to fix what is now shattered.

“Really? Saving your family?” he shouts, and I stumble backward with the force. “Because Mary Jo told me that you and Max seemed a little too cozy at work. You want to tell me about that?”

“About
that
?”

“Yes. I've always wondered about you two.” He's gaining momentum now. “About your
friendship
.” He spits out the word.

I can't believe how calm I am. “Friendship—yes. Love, kindness, all the good things.”