And then they cleaned her, smearing away the last remnants of oil. With hands and grass and their own shirts, they excavated her features while they themselves remained painted and nearly indistinguishable. Slowly, Shelly appeared. Her face, so grown up with strong cheekbones and hollow under-eyes. Her bitten fingernails and long limbs.
They continued to do this until every part of Shelly was revealed.
* * *
In the stark presence of a body, everything changed.
The adults saw the care with which Shelly was exhumed by their children. They witnessed the bravery of which their children were capable, and they were awestruck.
They made a second circle around Shelly Schroeder. Mesmerized, Dominick, Sai, and the Ponti men forgot they were supposed to shield Maple Street and in particular, the Schroeders. Or perhaps they simply abandoned that silly plan, faced now with its reality.
Hands in pockets, Rhea limped forward. Once she came closer, the rest did, too. They saw Shelly’s sides and back, pristine yet mottled with tiny bruises. They saw, too, that her skort was stained with blood.
“Let me have her,” Rhea said, but the Rat Pack would not. Dave and Charlie joined hands, to prevent her from pushing through the child-made link. Ella stayed wrapped inside Shelly. Rhea limped, circling to the weakest of them. She pushed through Mike and Mark Ottomanelli. Shelly’s shirt was lifted, her skort hiked up. Visible: horsehair brush bruises and pricks, still scabbed and never, ever healed.
Ella extricated herself at last. Her expression was agony. “You did this.”
Rhea fell, her knees buckling just like that time years ago.
“You hit her with the brush. I was with her that morning. She was too sad to stay in the house. That’s why she ran out so early. It had nothing to do with Mr. Wilde and you know it.”
Rhea tried to stand. She pressed her hands to the earth, grunting. The Rat Pack watched her. The grown-ups watched her. Fritz and FJ and all the rest. All eyes. Slowly, she stood. She gazed upon Shelly. Not sleeping. Not trapped in time.
She screamed, as she had screamed last time. Howling and awful. The sound reverberated down the hole. It pounded against the earth and sky, shattering and augmenting in a hungry loop.
The people of Maple Street heard, and this time they knew the answer to the question they had been asking all summer: Shelly Schroeder. Shelly Schroeder. What happened to you?
They understood the scream for what it was.
They made a wide path for Rhea as she staggered away from her daughter’s body, beseeching once again. No one wanted to be near her. To touch her. Way in the back, some were startled to see Fritz taking hold of FJ, as if to shield him. But mostly, they saw Rhea. Her mouth opened wide, an intolerable pain-wail emitting from and through her.
She walked through the crowd that parted for her.
At last, she came to the back. To Gertie Wilde, who did not budge.
“Rhea,” Gertie said.
Rhea’s stark and terrified expression went still. She stopped screaming, and at last there was quiet.
“This is the worst thing,” Gertie said.
“You and Arlo did this,” Rhea said, loud, for all to hear.
“I’m so sorry, honey. I feel so bad for you,” Gertie answered. And the people of Maple Street at last understood what Gertie had meant when she’d said she was sorry.
Rhea fidgeted inside that heavy pocket and took a closer step.
Gertie didn’t know what Rhea carried. Her instincts warned her to protect Guppy and shrink away. But that old conversation had been playing in her mind: I’d like to talk about it with you, because I know you like Shelly. I know you like me. I know you won’t judge… God, aren’t I a monster? She’d been thinking, too, about the way she’d shirked in a moment just like this, with Ralph the dog: a body found, over the hole.
Still, these thoughts were not what moved her. What moved her was Julia, who’d gone to such reckless lengths to produce her best friend.
Gertie opened her arms.
Bewildered, Rhea froze, hand in pocket. “It was Arlo,” she said, still loud enough for all to hear. “He raped her at sleepovers. You all can see the blood.”
“Your daughter is dead,” Gertie answered. “There was an accident and now she’s dead.”
Rhea’s breath gulped and gasped as if she were drowning. “She’s not dead. She’s in the murk. I have to find a way to the other side,” she said. And then she heard herself, recognized all the eyes on her, and looked ashamed. “It was Fritz,” she said. “He did it. He hit her. He raped her. And Dom Ottomanelli, too.”