Patricia shook her head, let go of my hand. “Goodbye, Girl One.”
25
The farther we got from the Bishops’ solitary farmhouse, the more I realized how far-flung we were, barely a lit window in sight. I was floating—my body unable to withstand the weight of what I’d just learned. The Volvo’s gas gauge hovered precariously near empty, the road illuminated by cold stripes of moonlight. Cate was asleep in the backseat, her breathing soft.
I told Tom everything, brusque and objective. Like I was a stranger to the story. Tom didn’t speak for a long time. I watched his face closely, and even in the dimness of the car interior I could tell that he wasn’t shocked. A muscle jumped along his jaw, and he nodded as he listened, but if anything, he seemed angry. Like I was only verifying something he’d known.
“Well?” I asked at last. Daylight was impossibly far away. “Aren’t you going to say something? Do you think my mother killed Bellanger?”
“I don’t know why you’re asking me.” Tom was speaking too carefully.
“Because you were the one who suggested that Peters didn’t kill Bellanger.”
A heavy exhale. “Yeah. Okay? Yeah, I knew,” Tom said. “At least, I knew it had to be one of the women at the Homestead. Something went wrong way before the fire. Lily-Anne’s death should’ve pulled everyone closer together instead of chasing them away.”
My head was tight with the pain, palms clammy. I wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or resentful that he’d kept this hidden from me for the past few days, giving me the gift of assuming my mother was the innocent party.
“I wanted to be proven wrong,” Tom added, more softly now, some of that anger dissipating. “I know this is hard on you.”
If he felt sorry for me right now, I was going to break down. Any tiny sign of kindness would push me over an edge. “Please don’t,” I said. Crying would sap the last dregs of my energy.
We drove in silence for a while. “Where to?” Tom asked finally. “We need to crash for the night soon. I spotted a motel about ten miles back—”
“The Homestead,” I interrupted, surprising myself. “I need to see it.”
“Josie, that’s not such a good idea,” Tom said, speaking gingerly. “I went there already. It’s … not what you’d expect. It hasn’t been well maintained.”
“I want to go.”
Tom didn’t press the issue any further. This late, the radios mostly produced static or lovelorn songs dedicated to people who weren’t listening. I almost drifted down into sleep, again and again, but each time I began slipping into those pockets of darkness my mother waited for me, the flicker of flame reflected bright in each pupil, and I’d jerk awake.
“We’re here,” Tom said at last, and I sat up straighter, looked around. For a second I thought Tom was joking. Then, in the moonlight, I spotted a pentagram spray-painted onto a tree trunk, neon-orange against the muted silvers and grays. We were at the right place.
I emerged into the stirring chill of the night air. Insects chirped and sang. The woods had grown back, reclaiming their spot. In my head all these years, I’d imagined that the Homestead would still be a smoldering ruin, perpetually leaking smoke into the sky. But it had healed, of course; the trees, younger than me, were small and upright. The clearing was overgrown with calf-high grass. This spot where the course of human history had been irrevocably shifted. If Bellanger had lived, this place would’ve become a museum or a research institute. As it was, the only glimmers of its former glory lay in how heavily it had been vandalized.
Graffiti ribboned around tree trunks. I spotted glinting nests of old food wrappers, beer bottles, trash. A few memorial wreaths, now limp and weather-damaged. Near my feet, a yellowish tangle lay in the grass, a deflated balloon of a condom. I stepped back quickly, trying to imagine the people who came here. Curious tourists passing through, having noticed the Homestead in some guide to off-the-beaten-path attractions. The remaining zealots, both those who loved us and those who hated us. Teenagers, late at night, escaping their parents’ attention. The idea of teens making out at the very spot where sexless birth had enjoyed its heyday had a skewed romance to it.
I shut my eyes, breathed deeply. Had Bellanger died knowing what my mother had done to him? Did her guilt extend to me too? His letters had held almost nothing but love and pride, a constant push for me to do better. To never forget my role as Girl One. If he’d somehow been able to write a letter to me after 1977—a letter on my seventh birthday—what would he have said? Knowing that my mother had taken him away from me. Knowing that I’d grow up to look just like his murderer.