Goodbye Earl(91)

OD: Thanks for coming in, Sparrow.

SK: Of course. You can put this in some sort of file somewhere? I know there’s nothing to be done now about what Trey did to Naomi back then, but…it’s still important for women to tell the truth, even if it’s late.

OD: I agree with you.





42





Kasey


On Monday night, Silas showed up at the farmhouse unannounced, and Kasey zapped with wild panic that maybe he was there to arrest her.

No. He was the same Silas she’d known back then. Right? But what if— No.

He’d traded the cop car for his black truck and gotten a haircut. He’d swapped his uniform for a T-shirt and dark jeans, a pair of all-white slip-on sneakers. Tonight? He was annoyingly handsome. Why these irrational, conflicting feelings? Why tonight? Her heart had been jumping rope lately anyway, from the murder and the new Trey nightmares, but now it was going double-speed double Dutch for too many different reasons.

Her hands were shaking when she let Silas in, but she tried to act as normal as possible. He didn’t seem any different. Everything about him was still familiar. He still smelled the same and had the same scampish look in his eyes.

“I’m assuming you know all about how the Foxberrys knew Roy was responsible for your mom’s death and helped cover that up?” he asked after they exchanged heys.

“Yeah, I know. Is that why you’re here?” Kasey was about to ask him if he wanted to sit down, but he kept talking.

“Grayson said some guys from construction have been bringing it up again lately and apparently they’ve all known for years, but there was nothing they could do about it. The Foxberrys had the police force in their pocket back then.”

“Yes. I just got off the phone with Ada,” she said. Ada had FaceTimed her, and she ignored a phone call from Devon to keep talking to her. Ada also let her know that she told Grayson what happened to Trey and he was obviously sworn to secrecy, but maybe he told Silas anyway? Didn’t they tell each other things?

“Okay. I figured as much,” he said. “I…I am so sorry.”

“Sorry we skipped the whole part where I tell you the truth about how my mom died, because I should be the one who’s sorry,” Kasey said. Couldn’t she just tell him everything and be done with it? “Do you want a beer?” She walked into the kitchen and he followed her.

“Something stronger?”

“Even better.”

Kasey had hated buying that bottle of Foxberry Bourbon last week, and she’d poured the rest of it out after Trey was in the water, ripped off the label, and recycled the glass. There was a non-Foxberry bottle of Tennessee whiskey in the cabinet and she got it down, held it up for Silas.

“Yes, thank you, and you don’t have to apologize for anything. It was a long time ago,” he said.

“I feel like we’ve been saying that to each other a lot lately, haven’t we? Everything was a long time ago. But if it was such a long time ago and we should be over it, why the hell aren’t we?” she asked.

Kasey steadied her hands as she poured two short glasses of whiskey and tried to calm herself as they clinked.

This is Silas. Silas is one of us. Always has been, always will be.

They went into the living room and sat on opposite ends of the couch. She put her back against the side and stretched her legs out toward him. When she looked down at her fingers, Silas did too.

“Where’s that big ol’ rock that’s usually blinding me, Fritz?” Silas asked and drank.

“On my bedroom dresser. Or the bedroom dresser. Feels weird to say my about anything in this house yet, although it is…mine,” Kasey said. The last time she’d lived there was a long time ago.

Everything was a long time ago and everything is right now.

“Why aren’t you wearing it?”

“I took it off to move those branches and I decided to keep it off because I’ve been doing other stuff around here.” Kasey looked at him as she drank. I took it off so I wouldn’t lose it while we were killing Trey. Could Silas read her mind? His eyes crinkled in the corners now; she loved those new crinkles. He also had a new, small scar on his right forearm that hadn’t been there fifteen years ago. She wondered what differences he’d noticed about her.

She’d filled out a little, but she liked it. When she was a teenager, she didn’t love being so skinny, too skinny. She’d secretly wanted a body more like Ada’s because she looked more like a woman and less like a little girl. Kasey had a baby face, but her body finally gave her the breasts she’d wanted when she was in college. The first time he’d seen her completely naked, Devon had told her that he wished he were a better artist so he could draw her properly because she had the most beautiful body he’d ever seen. She laughed and told him it was a brilliant line, but she’d already slept with him so he didn’t have to try to get her in bed anymore. He told her he was serious, and got out a pencil and a pad of paper and sketched her by the lamplight. She still had the drawing pinned on the wall above her bed.

She missed Devon. During their last quick call, he’d pressed her some more about when she was coming home to New York, and she’d been as gentle as possible with him, understanding his anxiety. She imagined another timeline where they were sitting in shorts in the sunshine at a Vampire Weekend concert with their friends, sharing a tall boy. She put herself in his Brooklyn apartment in the dark, thought about how his place was her second home. Her bamboo toothbrush in the cup next to his, as well as her tube of LunaCrush salt toothpaste he hated so much it made her laugh. How much she loved how he sat in a chair, resting his hand on his thigh. His thighs. She thought of his sister, Honora, her colleague who’d also become one of her close friends and who had texted Kasey yesterday saying hey and asking what was up. Kasey had written her back quickly saying things were okay and she would talk more soon. She sent her a picture of the lake with heart emojis, successfully compartmentalizing the fact that Trey died in that dark water.