chapter twenty-nine-1

When I came home and walked in through the garage, I noticed that a couple of six-packs of my father's beer had been pushed against the wall, along with the type of high fiber cereal he used to eat that looked more like pellets than actual sustenance. Beside them both was a garbage bag filled halfway with other assortments of food, like the granola bars Emily ate or the hot mustard she liked on her hot dogs. I walked into the kitchen, seeing cupboard doors left open, before I noticed my mother's wedding ring behind the sink, near a bottle of dish soap, unattended. It wasn't as if my mother never took off her wedding ring to wash the dishes, but it somehow seemed different there, alone, with no dishes in the drying rack. Like it was there for good now. It wasn't until I heard footsteps upstairs, creaking against the floor, that I understood what my mother was doing. I went up and ventured closer to the doorframe of my sister's bedroom, to the door that had been closed ever since she was arrested. It was now open, and my mother was standing inside. Emily's dresser drawers had been pulled open and emptied, the surface that used to be cluttered with perfumes and tangled jewelry now cleaned and bare. Garbage bags were scattered throughout the room, objects inside protruding against the plastic, and her bed had been stripped of its sheets, the duvet and pillows discarded on the floor. My mother was running a hand through her hair when she saw me, a garbage bag clenched in her hand. She offered a tired smile, as if she had replaced gardening with this new hobby of cleaning out her homicidal daughter's bedroom. "I figured it was time to maybe throw this stuff away," she explained, even though I hadn't asked her anything. "I'd donate them, but it just feels wrong giving the less fortunate a killer's clothes. I don't know." "You're getting rid of their stuff?" I took a tentative step beyond the threshold and into her room, the familiar scent of her perfume masked by the chemicals my mother was using to clean the windows. I had a feeling that if I went into my dad's office, the remnants of him and what he'd left behind would be stuffed into bags just like hers, or they would be soon. "Even Dad's?" "I don't think we can really work things out anymore, sweetheart," she said. "Your father loves you girls so much. And with your sister—I think he can overlook some things that I'm not sure I can." "Do you still love her?" I murmured, wondering what the right answer was supposed to be. It was easier not to love her after I'd realized what she'd done to Elizabeth Monner. But now as I stood in her room, starting to remember the moments that had nothing to do with Elizabeth Monner or Griffin Tomlin or Wilson Westbrooke—like the nights we'd spent in her bed watching movies on her laptop, or doing our makeup together in here before school—I felt torn. Torn between whether to believe that version of her had ever really existed or that she had been like Griffin, a mirage that turned to mist when you got too close. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with her now that everything within me felt dulled. "I'll always love her," my mother said. "I love her more than I'll ever be able to tell her, but there's still so much I don't understand. She's done horrible things, and I'm not sure I could handle seeing her again until I've forgiven her for that." She walked to the closet and began pulling sweaters from the hangers. "If you want any of this, you should grab it now before it gets tossed. I doubt she'll be coming back to get it. You still don't want the car, right? I already put an ad in the paper." "No." I grasped one of the perfume bottles sitting in a cardboard box, bringing it to my nose and breathing in the scent of berries and whipped sugar. I thought of the things Emily'd done, not just to Wilson or to Griffin or to Elizabeth, but to me. "Do you think you can forgive her?" She folded one of the sweaters. "I'm never going to be okay with any of the things she's done," she said. "But I think that someday I'll forgive her for them. I love you girls too much to never forgive either of you." I put down the bottle, the smell suddenly sickly sweet. "It's not like she deserves it." "I don't think forgiveness is about what someone else deserves. I think it can be about what you're willing to let go of." She took another sweater off the hanger, glancing over her shoulder at me. "That's something I think we need to talk about, sweetheart." "Mom—" "Your sister isn't Griffin." She smoothed her hand over the knit material of the sweater she held over her arms before she set it gently in one of the garbage bags. "She committed awful crimes, but she isn't the boy who raped you. And I know it must be so frustrating that he died before you could prove what he did, but convicting Emily isn't the same as convicting him. And it won't feel the same either." I looked away, uncomfortable and unconvinced. She'd left my bedroom window open for him, her violent version of a romantic gesture, like flowers or a box of chocolates. "It's okay not to feel the same way about Emily. You don't have to group her with Griffin Tomlin. She's your sister. You two had such happy memories together. That doesn't have to change." "Mom, she killed people. Raped them. I can't just focus on everything else." She hesitated thoughtfully before she sat down on the edge of the bed. "Right now, I think you're focused more on what she did than everything else. But you don't have to ignore it, just remember there was more to her, even if it was just to you." Then she smiled, reaching her hand out to me and rubbing my knuckles with her fingers. "You're so much like your father. You focus so much on one thing, you forget everything else. Like Kolby. You focused on him not taking the news so well. Or Bex—you remember her, right? Best friend a few years back." She smiled as I rolled my eyes, nodding. "Did you and Bex get into a fight about Griffin?" "It wasn't really a fight, but she didn't really react that great either when she found out." "Has she talked to you since then? Tried to apologize?" "I mean, yeah, but—" She widened her eyes. "Then let her! And what about that other girl? Aniston? You used to be friends with her too. What happened there?" "She lied to me. She knew Emily killed the girl they found in our backyard, but she didn't tell me, and we were supposed to be"—I glanced at her, almost embarrassed to be saying this out loud—"solving it together."