We Were Liars (18 page)

what if

in another universe,

a split reality,

God reached out his finger and

lightning struck the Clairmont house?

What if

God sent it up in flames?

Thus he would punish the greedy, the petty, the prejudiced, the normal, the unkind.

They would repent of their deeds.

And after that, learn to love one another again.

Open their souls. Open their veins. Wipe off their smiles.

Be a family. Stay a family.

It wasn’t religious, the way we thought of it.

And yet it was.

Punishment.

Purification through flames.

Or both.

NEXT DAY, LATE
July of summer fifteen, there was a lunch at Clairmont. Another lunch like all the other lunches, set out on the big table. More tears.

The voices were so loud that we Liars came up the walkway from Red Gate and stood at the foot of the garden, listening.

“I have to earn your love every day, Dad,” Mummy slurred. “And most days I fail. It’s not fucking fair. Carrie gets the pearls, Bess gets the Boston house, Bess gets Windemere. Carrie has Johnny and you’ll give him Clairmont, I know you will. I’ll be left alone with nothing, nothing, even though Cady’s supposed to be the one. The first, you always said.”

Granddad stood from his seat at the head of the table. “Penelope.”

“I’ll take her away, do you hear me? I’ll take Cady away and you won’t see her again.”

Granddad’s voice boomed across the yard. “This is the United States of America,” he said. “You don’t seem to understand that, Penny, so let me explain. In America, here is how we operate: We work for what we want, and we get ahead. We never take no for answer, and we deserve the rewards of our perseverance. Will, Taft, are you listening?”

The little boys nodded, chins quivering. Granddad continued: “We Sinclairs are a grand, old family. That is something to be proud of. Our traditions and values form the bedrock on which future generations stand. This island is our home, as it was my father’s and my grandfather’s before him. And yet the three of you women, with these divorces, broken homes, this disrespect for tradition, this lack of a work ethic, you have done nothing but disappoint an old man who thought he raised you right.”

“Dad, please,” said Bess.

“Be quiet!” thundered Granddad. “You cannot expect me to accept your disregard for the values of this family and reward you and your children with financial security. You cannot, any of you, expect this. And yet, day after day, I see that you do. I will no longer tolerate it.”

Bess crumpled in tears.

Carrie grabbed Will by the elbow and walked toward the dock.

Mummy threw her wineglass against the side of Clairmont house.

“WHAT HAPPENED THEN?”
I ask Johnny. We are still lying on the floor of Cuddledown, early in the morning. Summer seventeen.

“You don’t remember?” he says.

“No.”

“People started leaving the island. Carrie took Will to a hotel in Edgartown and asked me and Gat to follow her as soon as we’d packed everything. The staff departed at eight. Your mother went to see that friend of hers on the Vineyard—”

“Alice?”

“Yes, Alice came and got her, but you wouldn’t leave, and finally she had to go without you. Granddad took off for the mainland. And then we decided about the fire.”

“We planned it out,” I say.

“We did. We convinced Bess to take the big boat and all the littles to see a movie on the Vineyard.”

As Johnny talks, the memories form. I fill in details he hasn’t spoken aloud.

“When they left we drank the wine they’d left corked in the fridge,” says Johnny. “Four open bottles. And Gat was so angry—”

“He was right,” I say.

Johnny turns his face and speaks into the floor again. “Because he wasn’t coming back. If my mom married Ed, they’d
be cut off. And if my mom left Ed, Gat wouldn’t be connected to our family anymore.”

“Clairmont was like the symbol of everything that was wrong.” It is Mirren’s voice. She came in so quietly I didn’t hear. She is now lying on the floor next to Johnny, holding his other hand.

“The seat of the patriarchy,” says Gat. I didn’t hear him come in, either. He lies down next to me.

“You’re such an ass, Gat,” says Johnny kindly. “You always say patriarchy.”

“It’s what I mean.”

“You sneak it in whenever you can. Patriarchy on toast. Patriarchy in my pants. Patriarchy with a squeeze of lemon.”

“Clairmont seemed like the seat of the patriarchy,” repeats Gat. “And yes, we were stupid drunk, and yes, we thought they’d rip the family apart and I would never come here again. We figured if the house was gone, and the paperwork and data inside it gone, and all the objects they fought about gone, the power would be gone.”

“We could be a family,” says Mirren.

“It was like a purification,” says Gat.

“She remembers we set a fire is all,” says Johnny, his voice suddenly loud.

“And some other things,” I add, sitting up and looking at the Liars in the morning light. “Things are coming back as you’re filling me in.”

“We are telling you all the stuff that happened before we set the fire,” says Johnny, still loud.

“Yes,” says Mirren.

“We set a fire,” I say, in wonder. “We didn’t sob and bleed; we did something instead. Made a change.”

“Kind of,” says Mirren.

“Are you kidding? We burned that fucking palace to the ground.”

AFTER THE AUNTIES
and Granddad quarreled, I was crying.

Gat was crying, too.

He was going to leave the island and I’d never see him again. He would never see me.

Gat, my Gat.

I had never cried with anyone before. At the same time.

He cried like a man, not like a boy. Not like he was frustrated or hadn’t gotten his way, but like life was bitter. Like his wounds couldn’t be healed.

I wanted to heal them for him.

We ran down to the tiny beach alone. I clung to him and we sat together in the sand, and for once he had nothing to say. No analysis, no questions.

Finally I said something about

what if

what if

we took it into our own hands?

And Gat said,

How?

And I said something about

what if

what if

they could stop fighting?

We have something to save.

And Gat said,

Yes. You and me and Mirren and Johnny, yes, we do.

But of course we can always see each other, the four of us.

Next year we can drive.

There is always the phone.

But here, I said. This.

Yes, here, he said. This.

You and me.

I said something about

what if

what if

we could somehow stop being

the Beautiful Sinclair Family and just be a family?

What if we could stop being

different colors, different backgrounds, and just be in love?

What if we could force everyone to change?

Force them.

You want to play God, Gat said.

I want to take action, I said. There is always the phone, he said.

But what about here? I said. This.

Yes, here, he said. This.

Gat was my love, my first and only. How could I let him go?

He was a person who couldn’t fake a smile but smiled often. He wrapped my wrists in white gauze and believed wounds needed attention. He wrote on his hands and asked me my thoughts. His mind was restless, relentless. He didn’t believe in God anymore and yet he still wished that God would help him.

And now he was mine and I said we should not let our love be threatened.

We should not let the family fall apart.

We should not accept an evil we can change.

We would stand up against it, would we not?

Yes. We should.

We would be heroes, even.

GAT AND I
talked to Mirren and Johnny.

Convinced them to take action.

We told each other

over and over: do what you are afraid to do.

We told each other.

Over and over, we said it.

We told each other

we were right.

THE PLAN WAS
simple. We would find the spare jugs of gas, the ones kept in the shed for the motorboats. There were newspapers and cardboard in the mudroom: we’d build piles of recycling and soak those in gasoline. We’d soak the wood floors as well. Stand back. Light a paper towel roll and throw it. Easy.

We would light every floor, every room, if possible, to make sure Clairmont burned completely. Gat in the basement, me on the ground floor, Johnny on the second, and Mirren on top.

“The fire department arrived really late,” says Mirren.

“Two fire departments,” says Johnny. “Woods Hole and Martha’s Vineyard.”

“We were counting on that,” I say, realizing.

“We planned to call for help,” says Johnny. “Of course someone had to call or it would look like arson. We were going to say we were all down at Cuddledown, watching a movie, and you know how the trees surround it. You can’t see the other houses unless you go on the roof. So it made sense that no one would have called.”

“Those fire departments are mainly volunteers,” says Gat. “No one had a clue. Old wood house. Tinderbox.”

“If the aunts and Granddad suspected us, they’d never prosecute,” adds Johnny. “It was easy to bank on that.”

Of course they wouldn’t prosecute.

No one here is a criminal.

No one is an addict.

No one is a failure.

I feel a thrill at what we have done.

My full name is Cadence Sinclair Eastman, and contrary to the expectations of the beautiful family in which I was raised, I am an arsonist.

A visionary, a heroine, a rebel.

The kind of person who changes history.

A criminal.

But if I am a criminal, am I, then, an addict? Am I, then, a failure?

My mind is playing with twists of meaning as it always does. “We made it happen,” I say.

“Depends on what you think
it
is,” says Mirren.

“We saved the family. They started over.”

“Aunt Carrie’s wandering the island at night,” says Mirren. “My mother’s scrubbing clean sinks till her hands are raw. Penny watches you sleep and writes down what you eat. They drink a fuckload. They’re getting drunk until the tears roll down their faces.”

“When are you even at New Clairmont to see that?” I say.

“I get up there now and then,” Mirren says. “You think we solved everything, Cady, but I think it was—”

“We’re here,” I persist. “Without that fire, we wouldn’t be here. That’s what I’m saying.”

“Okay.”

“Granddad held so much power,” I say. “And now he doesn’t. We changed an evil we saw in the world.”

I understand so much that wasn’t clear before. My tea is warm, the Liars are beautiful, Cuddledown is beautiful. It doesn’t matter if there are stains on the wall. It doesn’t matter if I have headaches or Mirren is sick. It doesn’t matter if Will has nightmares and Gat hates himself. We have committed the perfect crime.

“Granddad only lacks power because he’s demented,” says Mirren. “He would still torture everybody if he could.”

“I don’t agree with you,” says Gat. “New Clairmont seems like a punishment to me.”

“What?” she asks.

“A self-punishment. He built himself a home that isn’t a home. It’s deliberately uncomfortable.”

“Why would he do that?” I ask.

“Why did you give away all your belongings?” Gat asks.

He is staring at me. They are all staring at me.

“To be charitable,” I answer. “To do some good in the world.”

There is a strange silence.

“I hate clutter,” I say.

No one laughs. I don’t know how this conversation came to be all about me.

None of the Liars speaks for a long time. Then Johnny says, “Don’t push it, Gat,” and Gat says, “I’m glad you remember the fire, Cadence,” and I say, “Yah, well, some of it,” and Mirren says she doesn’t feel well and goes back to bed.

The boys and I lie on the kitchen floor and stare at the ceiling for a while longer, until I realize, with some embarrassment, that they have both fallen asleep.

I FIND MY
mother on the Windemere porch with the goldens. She is crocheting a scarf of pale blue wool.

“You’re always at Cuddledown,” Mummy complains. “It’s not good to be down there all the time. Carrie went yesterday, looking for something, and she said it was filthy. What have you been doing?”

“Nothing. Sorry about the mess.”

“If it’s really dirty we can’t ask Ginny to clean it. You know that, right? It’s not fair to her. And Bess will have a fit if she sees it.”

I don’t want anyone coming into Cuddledown. I want it just
for us. “Don’t worry.” I sit down and pat Bosh on his sweet yellow head. “Listen, Mummy?”

“Yes?”

“Why did you tell the family not to talk to me about the fire?”

She puts down her yarn and looks at me for a long time. “You remember the fire?”

“Last night, it came rushing back. I don’t remember all of it, but yeah. I remember it happened. I remember you all argued. And everyone left the island. I remember I was here with Gat, Mirren, and Johnny.”

“Do you remember anything else?”

“What the sky looked like. With the flames. The smell of the smoke.”

If Mummy thinks I am in any way at fault, she will never, ever, ask me. I know she won’t. She doesn’t want to know.

I changed the course of her life. I changed the fate of the family. The Liars and I.

It was a horrible thing to do. Maybe. But it was something. It wasn’t sitting by, complaining. I am a more powerful person than my mother will ever know. I have trespassed against her and helped her, too.

She strokes my hair. So cloying. I pull back. “That’s all?” she asks.

“Why doesn’t anyone talk to me about it?” I repeat.

“Because of your—because of—” Mummy stops, looking for words. “Because of your pain.”

“Because I have headaches, because I can’t remember my accident, I can’t handle the idea that Clairmont burned down?”