“Do you regret it? Any of it?”
“You’re asking an old man to look back on his life’s choices and tell you if you’re about to make a mistake.”
“Well. Yeah.”
“My life ain’t yours. My regrets—whether they exist or not—aren’t yours.”
She had expected as much. But still had hoped for a magic bullet.
“Okay. Next hypothesis. I think we’ve been looking at A. Campbell all wrong.” She saw it in his cagey expression. Wallace had already gotten there, and he hadn’t said anything to anyone.
“Say it,” he insisted.
She took a breath. “I think A. Campbell was Ava Campbell, not Aaron.”
“Not much of a stretch of the imagination there, considering the evidence,” he said.
“The handwriting on the manuscript in the secret room that matched the captions on the photos. The fact that Aaron’s pipe was next to the armchair, not on the desk. The fact that Ava Campbell would disappear from the public eye for long stretches of time. Possibly about the same length of time it would take to finish a manuscript,” she recapped.
“Not to mention the romantic story lines in the books. They had the fingerprints of a woman all over them.”
“I missed that one,” Maggie confessed.
“Don’t beat yourself up. You’re too busy chasing the almighty dollar and losing your mind over paint swatches and sandpaper.”
“If that weren’t the truth, I’d take offense.” The only reason she’d managed to come up with the theory was because Silas had dumped her in a kayak with nothing to distract her. That time, that stillness, had unearthed a lot of things that still required some excavating. The fact that Silas knew that was exactly what she’d needed was one of the things requiring excavation.
“I also think I figured out where Ava Dedman Campbell came from,” she said.
“What are you saying, girlie?”
She laid it out for him, walking him through it. When she was done, he gave a noncommittal hum. “Might have a hell of a time proving it.”
“I think it might be easier than we think. There’s this thing called the internet.”
“You and your internets and your Facey Tweets,” Wallace barked.
“Leave my Facey Tweets alone. They might be all I end up with.”
“So you still want to keep working on this even though you’ve been making all this noise about leaving and your big-deal network offer?”
“How did you know about that?”
He shrugged, all innocence. “I may have accidentally borrowed your computer a couple of days ago.”
“How did you know my password?” she demanded.
“You talk out loud a lot when you have those headphones on.”
Maggie shook her head in surprise. “Facey Tweets,” she snorted. The cagey old goat.
“Well? You staying on?”
“I’m here until we have a last chapter,” she promised.
44
Silas opened his door and then thought about closing it in his visitors’ faces. His mother read the intent and bustled inside, looking cool and fresh in gray linen pants and a white sleeveless sweater. Mama B followed with a devious smile and a swirl of her full skirt in blues and yellows.
Kevin was much more enthusiastic about their visitors. He pranced back and forth between the women, lavishing them with licks.
“Are we really doing this?” Silas groaned as his moms made themselves at home on the couch he’d just vacated.
“Blaire, do you smell that?” Mama B asked, spreading her skirt out and tucking her feet up under her on the cushion. She was clearly settling in for the long haul.
“I do, Breonna,” Blaire said, nudging the greasy pizza box he’d left on the floor with the toe of her sandal.
“It’s the smell of a crisis that could have been avoided with a little awareness and effort,” Mama B said, adding a tsk-tsk at the end.
“I’m not in crisis,” he argued. “I am fine. I get up and go to work every day just like I always have.”
“Why is every pair of underwear you own piled in your dining room doorway?” Blaire asked innocently.
“That was Kevin.” Silas pointed an accusing finger at the pit bull curled on the couch between two of his favorite women. The dog had also left the refrigerator door open overnight. He’d awoken to room-temperature beer and old ketchup. He hadn’t gotten up the energy to hit the grocery store.
“Sit down, Silas,” Blaire said in her therapist voice. She gestured toward the recliner that was buried under the debris of the Pouty Life, as Taylor and Niri dubbed it anytime one of the siblings was down after a breakup. This was Sy’s first personal foray into the Pouty Life.