Page 63 of What You Never Knew

Shoving the wallet in my back pocket, I think about just closing the drawer as is but figure I should probably get rid of the garbage for Ezra’s sake. Gathering up all the Kleenexes into a ball, I catch a glimpse of something else sitting there in the drawer. A key ring with two keys on it, both tarnished with age. I lift it out to get a closer look. There’s an old tag tied to the key ring that reads AVRIL ISLAND, and the keys are each labeled with pieces of masking tape—one reads DOCK SHED, the other GARDEN SHED. It’s pretty much identical to the set of keys that has always hung on the key hook at the front door of our cottage, except that with this set, the main cottage key is missing. If I had to guess, I’d say it was West’s old set, and that most likely Willa was in possession of the missing key. I slip the key ring into my pocket and shut the drawer.

From the kitchen I call Ezra with the information he needs. He thanks me and says he’ll be back soon. Before leaving the stone cottage, I do a bit more looking around—pulling drawers open, lifting the lids on things to peer inside, opening closets, taking a look in the medicine cabinet.

My search having turned up nothing substantial, I stand at the living room window, debating whether or not to give up and go back to the boathouse. That’s when I notice them, three black birds, the very same kind I found on my verandah, hopping around the base of the feeder, pecking at fallen birdseed.

Moving back to Willa’s room, I go right to the window. There’s a lock at the top and it looks as though it’s secured, but when I give the window a push, it pops open easily, providing a very convenient mode of escape. Was Willa my tormentor?

There’s the sound of a boat approaching, so I quickly shut the window and rush out of the stone cottage. I’m there in time to greet Ezra as he pulls up to the dock. He looks pale, all of the life drained right out of him. Other people’s deaths will do that to you.

“Everything go okay?” I ask, even though I know nothing is okay for him right now. He gives me a weak smile and a nod, then busies himself tying up the boat.

Upstairs, I pour Ezra a cup of coffee. “You look like you could use this,” I say, passing it to him.

“That bad, huh?” He tries a laugh, but it comes out more like a grunt.

“Is there anything I can do for you, Ezra?” I ask, wishing I could make the pain that’s sitting in his eyes disappear.

“You could tell me why my mother was really at Avril Island last night.” His words catch me off guard. “I remember hearing you tell the firefighters that you were taking care of my mom, but I don’t really understand why you’d take her to Avril Island or why you’d be the one taking care of her, since it’s Judy’s job. And the really strange part is that the fire department told me today that they found my tin boat on the other side of the island.” He sighs deeply and runs a hand through his hair. “So you see why I’m confused? I mean, what the hell were my mother and my boat doing at Avril Island last night?”

“That’s your boat, the tin tippy?”

He nods, eyeing me with suspicion.

I don’t need any more proof than that. Willa was the one sneaking around Avril Island, leaving dead birds in her wake and record players on. She was the one I chased that night, the one who escaped in the tin boat.

“She was the one trying to scare me off the island,” I say, as the understanding dawns on me.

“Who was the one?” he asks in frustration.

I think of the many secrets other people have woven through the fabric of my life. Thick, black thread that marred everything, changed the structure of it all, and I know I can’t be the one to continue sewing that thread. I will not take up that needle and spread it through Ezra’s life as well, even if it does mean incriminating my sister and revealing his mother’s part in all of it.

“I will tell you, Ezra. I will tell you everything that I know and the things that I don’t, but we need to get comfortable. It won’t be easy, and it will take a while.”

I tell Ezra how I believe it was Willa coming to the island all this time, doing things to try to scare me away. I tell him everything she told me before setting the cottage on fire, even the part about my sister pushing my father and killing him.

He listens quietly, asking only one or two questions, his face serious, his emotions kept mostly at bay. He shows only a split second of shock when he hears that it was May who killed my father and then sympathy for what that must mean for me. We spend some time speculating on what my sister heard that night that brought her out of the cover of the stairs to confront my father with such rage, then accept that we will probably never know and agree that perhaps it’s for the best.

I leave the part about his father’s grave for the end. I don’t have any answers around it, and I don’t want to be the person who delivers such horrific news—two parents lost within twenty-four hours is unbearable. But he has a right to know, which means I have no choice.

“There’s one last thing,” I say, reaching for his hand. “Do you remember me telling you about the cross at the tree, how it kept reappearing?” He nods. “I thought it was kids messing with me, but then it dawned on me that it was actually a grave.” He gives me a funny look, but I just keep going, now that I’ve got the courage. “I dug it up, all around the tree, and I found a body.”

“Your father’s?” Ezra says.

I shake my head. “Yours.”

He narrows his eyes with skepticism, and I feel his hand tense in mine. I quickly tell him about the leather bracelet on his wrist and the photo with West that matched it. How I figure it must have been Willa putting the crosses there and visiting it regularly. “But I don’t know how he died or ended up there. Willa didn’t tell me anything about your dad.”

Ezra gently pulls his hand from mine. “I do,” he says, and the room feels as though somebody has set it spinning.

“You knew your dad was dead all this time, but you told me you had no idea where he was?” He nods his head slowly, remorse clouding his blue eyes. “Why did you lie to me, Ezra?”

“I was protecting my mother, June.” Like mother, like son, I think to myself.

I pull my legs up under me and cross my arms over my chest, tucking myself away from him, the betrayal sitting large between us. “Protecting her from what?” He doesn’t say anything. “I will walk out of here right now, Ezra Keen, if you don’t tell me the truth. I just confessed to you that my own sister was responsible for my father’s death. You can’t get more vulnerable than that.”

He gives a nod of concession, then sits up from the couch, leaning his elbows on his knees and staring out at the lake. “It was one night quite a few years back. She was having one of her episodes. Calling out, saying that she saw angels, that they were coming for her. When I went in to console her, she thought I was a priest.” He gives his head a shake, as though he can’t even believe he’s telling the story. “She asked if she could confess her sins so that she would go to heaven. Of course I told her she could. I just wanted her to calm down and go back to sleep.”

He gets up and goes to get a glass of water, bringing one for me as well, even though I’d like something much stronger at this point.