The Truth Against the World (24 page)

25

Twyllo arall, twyllo'th hunan.

To deceive another
is to deceive thyself.

Welsh proverb

My feet were pounding the sidewalk on autopilot as I made my way back to the cottage, but my mind was like a video stuck on replay. The way Mr. Lewis's old hands had clutched at the arms of the chair. The way Gareth had looked at me just before I'd explained about Olwen. The sick feeling I got at Mr. Lewis's refusal to talk about anything that had happened. I felt a flutter of panic in my chest and returned to my standby coping mechanism, repeating words with each step.

Tristwch
. Sadness.

Gobaith
. Hope.

The orange light from the setting sun illuminated the white-painted shopfronts on Cwm Road, and I hurried a little faster. My parents were going to be livid; I was supposed to be home an hour and a half ago. And, of course, I was already on thin ice. I tightened my hands into fists in my jacket pockets. Gareth had tried to convince me he'd sort it all out on his end, but I wasn't so sure. He'd walked me out of his great-granddad's house saying he would make sure to get the full story, and then he'd come over the next morning to explain everything, so we'd have an airtight case for my parents.

I wanted to believe that would work. Oh, how I wanted to. Deep down, though, I wasn't sure if it mattered. Why I was trying to get every last detail before telling them? What if I just showed them the metal box?

But this wasn't just my story to tell. It was Gareth's as much as it was mine; as much as it belonged to anyone besides Edward, Rhiannon, and Olwen. It didn't seem right to tell my parents without Gareth there. It would be like a betrayal of everything we'd already done together.

Once on the grounds of the Gypsy Farm Cottages, I paused under the trees, composing myself before going up the path to Primrose Glen. I had an excuse ready, but Mom and Dad would still be angry, and I would still have to live with whatever the next few hours would bring. I took a deep breath and opened the door.

My shoulders slumped. There were my parents, sitting stony-faced on the couch, Dad's dark eyebrows a hard line, Mom's face pale and set. The room was utterly quiet, and I couldn't break the silence.

“Well? Where were you?” Mom's words were clipped and hard, and I felt them almost physically. “And why didn't you pick up your phone?”

I took a step back but stuck to the plan, futile as I knew it would be. “I'm so sorry, Mom, I completely lost track of time,” I said, which was more or less true. “I was with Hugh and Annie in HMS Tasty's, practicing Welsh. I'm really, really sorry.” I hoped the worry on my face, in my voice, sounded enough like remorse. They'd find out the truth soon enough anyway.

“Well, that's interesting,” Mom said, tapping her fingernails on the end table. “Because we were just over at the pub ten minutes ago and guess who we saw there?”

I blinked. “What were you doing at the pub?”

“Looking for you,” Dad said. His voice sounded angry and scared and it ripped right through me. “We asked Hugh and Annie if they'd seen you and they said they'd left HMS Tasty's more than an hour ago. But when we went down there to check, we didn't see you there.”

“What were you doing wandering around for an hour? We trusted you to be responsible.” Mom got up and paced, and I backed away, toward my room, to get out of the way.

“I—I was walking.” I couldn't meet their eyes, so I played with the strap on my backpack.

“We were worried.” Dad looked up at me. “Why didn't you just call us?”

“I don't know,” I said, truthfully. I should have. I wasn't thinking. I could have avoided this. But it was ridiculous, too. “It was only an hour or so.”

“I was just about to call Mr. Lewis in case you'd gotten it into your head to try to see Gareth. I'm glad you were sensible about something.” Mom threw that out casually, but it stung.

My temper surged all of a sudden, and I couldn't see the point in lying anymore. I had a right to be doing this, even if nobody else could understand that. It wasn't even for me. It was for Gee Gee. She couldn't very well take care of this from beyond the grave.

I dropped my backpack on the floor, swallowed down angry tears, and steadied my voice. “You know what? I
was
with Gareth. And his great-granddad. And I had a really good reason for it. I know you don't want to hear any ‘excuses,' but I'm doing this for Gee Gee. It's
about
Gee Gee. Gareth is going to stop by tomorrow morning so we can explain everything, together, and I really hope … I really hope you can trust me. Please.”

My chest was tight, and in the tense, brittle silence, all I heard was my own ragged breathing.

“Yes, I should have called to tell you I was going to be late, and I'm sorry,” I continued, my tears spilling out now no matter how I tried to keep them in, my words overflowing one after the other. “I know you didn't want me to see Gareth, and I really am sorry
I had to go behind your back. But please just trust me this time, okay? You know I'm not irresponsible. Think about it. I wouldn't even ask if it wasn't important. It means—it means everything.”

I met my dad's eyes, then my mom's, suppressing the urge to look away. They both stared at me for a moment, seeming lost for words.

“Wynnie, we do trust you,” Dad said with a small smile that seemed hard to force out. “We'll just have to think about this, is all.” He looked at his hands, then back at me. “I just wish you'd tell me, if there was something about Gran we need to know.”

“Sorry, Dad.” I winced. I had kept things from him, things he had a right to know. But soon enough he'd know all of it.

“Wyn, you need to understand that this is not over,” Mom said, her voice simmering with suppressed anger. “I am not happy to have to call Mr. Lewis yet again and give excuses for my daughter's behavior.”

Lovely. Now I was being referred to in the third person. I breathed in; breathed out.
Bore
. Morning.
Noswaith
. Evening.

Wait a minute.

“Call him? You don't have to call him.” My heart sank. What would that do to our plans? What if that just ended up making Mr. Lewis clam up forever?

“I think we do,” Mom said. “You made that necessary. If you're going to act like a child, we're going to treat you like one.”

“You don't understand, I—” I cut myself off. I was not the one acting like a child. Mom could go ahead and call Mr. Lewis if she wanted to see someone act like a child. “Fine. Go ahead.” I turned on my heel and went straight to my bedroom. I could feel my parents' eyes like frigid ice cubes on my back, but I didn't turn around.

Once the door was shut and I was alone in my small room, I finally allowed myself to let go. Today had been too much. I'd tried so hard, was still trying so hard to help Olwen, and it seemed like nothing I did helped. I sank onto the bed and took shaky, gasping breaths. One line from Gee Gee's diary kept running through my head:
Edward is gone and I've nobody left but Olwen
. Not long after that, Olwen had died.

Gee Gee. She was gone now, too.

I inhaled sharply, realizing something. I didn't have anything to lose now. I had nothing to lose except time, and nothing to regret except not trying. It only took a moment—as quick as a little girl's smile, a heartbeat—but I realized I would do whatever it took to make sure Gee Gee could have her Olwen back again, even if it was too late. And it wasn't too late; it wouldn't be too late until I'd left Wales.

I lay back on the bed, my chest rising and falling more evenly now, and I thought about Gee Gee. I'd always known that she'd been the one to suggest my name when I was born; the one to whisper it in my dad's ear when Mom was gasping and laboring, wondering if I would be a boy or a girl. Later, Gee Gee told me she'd had the strongest feeling I would be a girl, and she'd told my dad I should have a proper Welsh name to keep the family heritage alive.

Now, I wondered if naming me after her lost daughter was Gee Gee's way of trying to keep a part of Olwen alive. But I could never take the place of the first Olwen. No matter how many times I'd asked to hear the story behind my name, Gee Gee had never told me the real one.

When I finally ventured out of my room the next morning, the atmosphere was still tense and my parents were silent all through breakfast. I nibbled at a piece of buttered toast, trying to make it last as long as possible. Gareth had to come; I'd texted him twice already, but I'd only gotten one reply:
Soon. Promise
.

Mom and Dad sat on the sofa reading while I did the breakfast dishes, but I knew they were just waiting for me to come in so the real discussion could start.

Our last official “family discussion” had been about traveling to Wales with Gee Gee. This one promised to be a thousand times more painful.

After drying the dishes and putting them away, I texted Gareth a third time, my fingers trembling.

But he didn't answer. And he still hadn't come.

26

Nid hawdd gwybod y cyfan.

It is not easy to
know everything.

Welsh proverb

“Why won't you tell us what happened?” Gareth's voice was nearly a shout and he was shaking with rage. A nearly sleepless night hadn't helped clear his head at all; in fact, he could hardly think straight. All he could think about was Olwen.

“I'm an old man. I have a right to my privacy after all this time, don't you think?” His great-granddad's voice was laced with sarcasm as he strode across the kitchen, dropping dirty breakfast dishes into the sink. “Do you really think it's any of your business?”

“It might not be any of my business, but Wyn's got a right to know what happened to her great-gran.” Gareth thought he could see sadness in his grandfather's face, behind all the anger. “Maybe it's painful for you to remember Rhiannon, but Olwen needs her!”

His great-granddad's face was thunderous, as was his voice. “I've spent a lifetime trying to forget.”

“Well, Wyn and I don't look forward to a lifetime of nightmares and ghosts,” Gareth retorted, enunciating each word clearly. He leaned against the kitchen wall, his head aching.

His granddad stopped in his tracks. For a long moment, he stared at the floor, arms folded across his gray wool sweater.

“What would you know about nightmares and ghosts?” he said quietly.

Gareth didn't let up. “You know, when you found me with the boxes on my head, I was looking for her letters. I know you've still got them—they have to be here.” Unless his great-granddad really had wanted to forget, completely and finally. He wiped beads of sweat from the back of his neck.

Then his anger faded as he saw his great-granddad's stricken expression. The old man closed his eyes and put his head in his hands; his elbows rested on the kitchen counter and he looked thin and exhausted. Some of the tension drained out of the room. In the morning sunlight streaming through the window, they formed a sad tableau: Gareth, breathing heavily and trying to stay calm, and his great-grandfather, leaning forward, head down.

Then the man drew in a ragged breath and began to speak, in a barely audible voice, not moving from his hunched position.

“I was only seventeen,” he said thickly. “I didn't realize what would happen. She was so lively, so pretty, and I was lonely. I'd been here just a few weeks with my mother when I saw her for the first time. I didn't know anything then.”

He paused. Gareth was afraid to speak. A car door slammed outside and birds sang nearby, but the stillness in the house was complete. Finally, his great-granddad continued.

“I didn't know,” he said again. “I thought I loved her, but … everything was so hard. I was too young to have a baby. I was far too young to deal with the way people treated us after everything happened. They never liked me then. They wanted to ruin it for me—for us. It was different when I came back here, after I'd been working in the mines and married a Welsh girl from Swansea—your great-gran, Ellen. We had two little boys and another on the way. We were a respectable, hardworking family, and they couldn't take that away from me.” He finally straightened, leaning against the sink and facing Gareth.

“But did Great-Gran know? About what happened before?” Gareth was afraid of the answer.

“No, I never told her.” Edward sighed heavily. “And nobody else ever did either. We had a good life here that way. Things were changing, then—more and more English moving in, and I didn't feel so much like I was an unwanted stranger. I started to feel at home here. I could send my sons to an English-speaking school, where they'd have more advantages in the world. It was better that way.”

He looked at Gareth, his eyes pleading. “Look how well your father has been able to provide for you, Gareth. I wanted things to be better for my children and grandchildren than it was for me, leaving my ruined shell of a home in London with almost nothing in my suitcase, going to a place where I knew nobody.” His eyes looked distant again, and sad, but he didn't seem angry anymore. Gareth realized that he wasn't angry, either, though he still felt deeply disappointed. He wasn't sure that would ever change. He wasn't sure he'd be able to forgive.

Now, though, at least he could understand.

“I never wanted Olwen to die, you must believe that,” his great-granddad said, taking a step closer. “There wasn't anything I could do. I did everything I could for my children after that. Everything!”

“I know,” Gareth said. “It's okay.” He wasn't actually sure it was okay, not yet anyway, but it would be, probably. He felt a surge of emotion for his great-granddad. Pity. Fondness. Love, despite everything. He straightened up, walked to the doorway and turned around one last time.

“Listen … would you … would you come with me to visit Wyn? I think we owe her this explanation. Her mum and dad, too,” he added. “Please?”

“Well.” His great-granddad raised his head, looking worn-out and defeated. “Well. There's nothing else for it, is there.” Then he added, in a barely audible voice, “I can't hide forever.”

“What was that?” Gareth couldn't help a small, self-satisfied smile. He'd heard his great-granddad perfectly clearly, but he had to hear it again, just to be sure.

“Well, it's about time everybody knew the whole story, isn't it. It isn't fair to … Wyn … to have her parents punish her when you two were just trying to do right. You'll have done more for Olwen than I ever have, if you can set this whole matter to rest.” He sighed. It was the first time he'd mentioned Wyn by name, as far as Gareth could remember, instead of just calling her “the girl” or “her.”

“But … I don't know,” he added. “Maybe it would be better if it was just you who went there.”

“No,” Gareth said, his voice a little shaky. “Please. It would … mean a lot.”

His great-granddad shook his head. “I hardly know them, Gareth. What—”

There was a sharp series of raps at the door. They both jerked.

“Don't worry, I'll get it,” Gareth said. Was it Wyn? Had she somehow managed to get out of the house this morning? He went through the kitchen and opened the front door, blinking into the morning sunlight.

A tall, scrawny figure was backlit against the bright rectangle of doorway, leaning inward at an alarming angle.

“You, boy!” said a whispery, brittle-sounding voice.

Gareth backed up a step, squinting into the light. This was odd. It was Peter Robinson, from the Cwm Tawel Museum. Peter had given him the creeps a bit that day at the museum, but now he felt a stirring of fear deep in his gut.

“When are you going to learn to leave well enough alone?” Peter rasped, eerily echoing Edward's words of a few minutes before. Had he been eavesdropping through the window somehow? “You and the girl insist on dragging the past out into the light, past that should stay past!”

The words echoed in Gareth's head, sounding disturbingly familiar. Then he remembered the anonymous note from several days ago and felt his anger rising again. He was tired of people telling him not to do things he had a perfect right to be doing. His first instincts had been spot-on; there had been something odd about Peter when they'd talked to him about Rhiannon.

“Don't you think there are some things that need to be out in the open? Some secrets need to be told,” Gareth said calmly, but his voice was strained. “It's so far after the fact now. What's the harm?”

“Who is it, Gareth?” His great-grandfather's voice drifted around the corner.

Gareth opened his mouth to reply, but Peter shot out a hand and grabbed his forearm, painfully wrenching him outside into the front garden.

“Harm?” Peter hissed, his eyes bulging. “Don't you think you've done enough harm already? We'd all forgotten about Rhiannon's—mistakes—until you and
she
came and stirred things up again. Those sorts of things can't happen here.”

Gareth pulled his arm away and rubbed it. “But you weren't even around then! Wyn said you were living on a farm in Ammanford. How did you even know what happened?”

“Oh, everyone knew what happened. I came back and found out soon enough.” A strange expression overtook the anger on Peter's face; it was almost like disappointment. “Rhiannon was like my older sister. More than … ” He trailed off, rubbing his head. “And then she went and did … that. With an outsider—an Englishman.” He seemed to have forgotten the fact that he himself had come from Coventry, a war evacuee just like Gareth's great-granddad.

Then his face grew dark and he looked back at the house. Edward Lewis stood there in the doorway; neither of them had heard him approach.

“If it hadn't been for you,” Peter said, his voice low and frightening, “none of that tragedy would have happened. She wouldn't have gone astray. She would never have left us.” He almost looked like he was going to lunge at Edward, his lanky legs in a slight crouch and his fists clenched at his sides.

“What's all this now?” Gareth's great-granddad frowned, standing his ground.

“We don't want you here,” Peter growled. “We've put up with you for far too long, for the sake of Ellen and your little ones, but those times are long past. Can't you see you don't belong? We were happy before! We—” He broke off, and Gareth could almost see the scared little boy he must have been, eyes huge, entering this place for the first time to find himself doted upon by his new family.

“Who's ‘we'?” Edward asked. “I've been here nearly as long as you have, Peter. We both chose to make our lives here, for better or for worse. There comes a time when you have to let the past go,” he added slowly, quietly. At some point, he had edged surreptitiously toward Gareth, and now the two of them formed a barrier between Peter and the little house.

“‘Who's we?' Well, myself, of course, and there's Cati Lloyd, and Marged Jenkins—Margie's mum.” He drew himself up to his full height, which was considerable.

“That makes three of you, then,” Gareth's great-granddad said dryly. He didn't seem fazed at all; in fact, he seemed much more relaxed now that he'd admitted the truth. “I think I can live with the negative opinions of three individuals in a town of four thousand, especially when two of them are daft old women. Now, would you please clear off my property?”

Gareth didn't bother to hide his smile.

“I won't clear off! Why won't you stop making things worse?” Peter stepped closer and loomed menacingly over the two of them. “All these years, and you have to go reminding us all again.”

“Don't make me ring the police.” Edward turned toward the house and then stopped, abruptly, staring off behind Gareth. Peter, too, was staring, an expression of horror on his narrow, birdlike face. He backed up several steps. Finally, he turned away and almost ran back down the street.

“I thought he'd never leave,” Gareth said, looking at his great-granddad. Edward still stood there, his face drained of all color.

Something was wrong. Gareth whirled around.

Quickly, almost too quickly to see, he thought he saw a flash of white dress, of long black hair. But then there was just garden and rosebushes and white lilies swaying in the breeze, casting their black shadows onto the side of the house.

“Did you see—?” Gareth stopped, not knowing exactly what to say that wouldn't sound daft.

“I thought I saw—yes.” His great-granddad's voice was shaking and barely audible, and he didn't look at Gareth for a moment. Then, just as quietly, he said, “Let's please just go in and have some tea.”

They didn't speak as they went back into the house, but something had changed between them. His great-granddad had seen at least a glimpse of what—who—was driving him.

He hoped.

After they'd had a cup of tea in the sunny, mercifully ordinary kitchen, Gareth tried again.

“Please come with me to see Wyn and her parents,” he asked. This time, he didn't beg. He just hoped.

There was a long silence. Gareth jiggled his legs, cleaned his glasses, and resisted the urge to repeat himself.

“All right.” Edward looked at him across the table. “But you can do all the talking.” He managed a small smile, and Gareth tried to smile in return.

The atmosphere still seemed fragile as they readied themselves to go, Gareth putting on his jacket while his great-granddad got the car keys.

“Wait,” Edward said as they were about to go out the front door. “Before we go.” He walked slowly toward the back bedroom. Gareth heard a cabinet open, and some rustling, and then his great-granddad returned with a handful of yellowed envelopes.

“Take these. I don't need them anymore,” he said.