The Truths We Make (House of Poe #1)

9. Watery Graves

Watery Graves

Thursday, Present

T he funeral went off as expected.

Exuberant in its darkness: the black hardwood coffin, with ash grey silk lining, that sat empty in the room. The seven holy men, meant to usher in Paxton to whatever lie in front of him now, garbed in enough wealth to drown them.

Luxurious in its morbidity: the blood-red roses, thorns climbing up every stem, that lined the entire grave and crypt. The ravens that were released, blessed to look over the memory of this generation’s first son.

Everything Poe is thought to be. Everything Madeline knew the papers, the followers, the history books, would want to see.

And very little of what Paxton actually was.

The only comfort I found was knowing he’d love finally being accepted by this show. He always worried that they might just disown him altogether when he died. Death was talked about so often in Dellbrook, I never stopped to realize that maybe he knew it’d play out like this. As if some prophet met him in his dreams to devolve secrets better left to gods than men.

Oliver hands me a damp cloth from across the bench seat of the town car we’re in, breaking me from exploring the existential-ness of it all. I stare at him, forgetting where I am. He smiles softly, knowing me well enough to pick up the signs of my slip from the moment. He points to his cheeks.

“For the ashes,” he whispers, even though it’s just us in this car.

Right. With no body to show, Madeline made do by providing a bowl of ashes that each guest could dip their fingers into and spread across their cheeks - a physical show that we all carry Paxton with us. They weren’t his actual ashes. I was told those were safely in the family crypt, away from prying hands, but I wasn’t sure everyone knew that from the way Annie Murphy pinched some into the locket she was wearing around her neck.

The procession we are in would continue to the house, where we would all commence the necessary glad-handing and posing that the funeral didn’t offer the time nor space for until the next event. Soon enough, it’ll be all over, I remind myself again. The dying ache I’ve felt since leaving New York has been growing since arriving back in the suburbs, and unsurprisingly, only amplified when in the presence of Oliver. I was beyond ready to shove it back out of sight.

I look over to find him lost in the drab landscape that’s flying by his window. His teeth are clenched together, allowing for his jaw muscle to tick from the strain. He isn’t quite drunk, but definitely not sober by the glassiness in his eyes. I wonder how long he’s been ping-ponging between the two. As far as I knew, he had sworn off the stuff. At least, that was before. Everything had been different then. If I gave his imperfections no other quarter, surely I could for this. For now. His brother just died and if I didn’t fear what alcohol would loosen up in me in his presence, I might be drunk, too.

But I wasn’t the one predisposed to ruin my life over a drink and had used it as a coping mechanism one too many times as proof of my problem. I should leave it alone but can’t. A heart can only change so much.

“How long have you gone?” I ask, not breaking my stare as his head bobs with each dip and turn of the road.

“Mmmm,” he hums, pointedly lost without me.

“I said, how long have you gone? Between drinks? Has it only been like this since Pax died?”

He finally turns to me, cheek and jaw still bouncing up and down with tension. I don’t look away. I don’t move a muscle as I wait. The silence stretches on.

“Too long,” he sighs, then turns back to look to the road. “And yet, not long enough. ”

Riddles and puzzles. Poems and words. He thinks the incompleteness of his answer is sufficient. It isn’t, but I won’t press like he wants me to. I won’t let him know I see through the layers. That I know he wants me to see the jagged darkness he hides from everyone else. I won’t build on our past. Instead, I, too, look out my window. Only to realize we’re no longer following the procession.

“Where are we going?” I hiss at Oliver.

It’s just like him to kidnap me from a funeral. I just pray this isn’t some misguided romantic gesture. Or a reckoning for our mistakes.

“South Carolina. You made it clear I only have you until Sunday. Madeline will understand,” he says.

Right. I should know better than to think he would give up or move on when the clue led us to another state. Plane tickets are not obstacles in his world. My skin prickles at the destination, knowing my own roots lay near, but I don’t let it overshadow that the boys have history there, too.

“You could have told me. I didn’t pack for a trip, Oliver. I didn’t even bring my cell phone with me. You know, since I assumed we would be only going a couple of blocks.” The sour notes in my tone are sharp and they ping against the roof of the car and back with a snap that makes me feel like my mother.

The Eve of before would have loved this. Did love this. Sporadic adventures and unimaginable surprises, big or small. The thrill of chasing the unknown. Of feeling needed to solve life’s mysteries. I soaked them up. Cooed at their perfection like each was born of brilliance. Now though, my thoughts slip to forgotten clothes and other baggage, both internal and ex, that I need to hold tightly if I’m going to make it through this spine-splintering anxiety that has been eating at me. Oliver looks cross, his derision at this change in me, plain.

“You have a bag in the car. I had Melissa pack anything she thought necessary for a two-day trip from your room. And you can live without your phone for a day or two. Unless you need to call Isabel, or that boyfriend of yours. Ro, was it?” He looks at me as if he’s asking a genuine question. I feel myself welling up with both frustration and embarrassment that he’s still swimming in my familiar waters. He shrugs his shoulders. “Well, I’ve got mine if you need one for anything.” He looks away, sighs, then can hold the disappointed silence on his face no more. “Did New York wipe your memory, or have you always had this little faith in me? ”

His words are a kaleidoscope, causing my mind to shatter into a million different retorts:

If only New York could erase you.

You’ve known where I’ve been this whole time? Did you visit? Did you know I was sleeping in the bed of another man?

I had faith in you — I worshiped you until I didn’t. You know when everything changed, why are you asking me this?

Melissa touched my things? Did she find the black lace lingerie that I had no business buying, let alone packing, but couldn’t stop myself, even knowing Roger was staying behind? Did she tell you about it?

I can’t say any of them. My vocals have been robbed by the tightness in my chest and if God had any mercy, he would bless me with a distraction so that Oliver would stop looking at the spot that’s coincidentally stinging in my eyes. But his benevolence doesn’t extend to wretches like me, and the car stays silent and waiting.

Fine. If he wants to dig graves and dance around the edges as if he will never fall in, I am not above pushing him. My breath pulls in, the perfect Edgar quote welling onto my lips, like an arrow being drawn to shoot. My aim is perfect and with any luck, it’ll teach him to stop poking at open wounds.

“Years of love have been forgot, in the hatred of a minute,” I say aloud.

Every syllable that floats to his ears brings his frown further down, his brows more drawn, and the pain more evident than before. The last word doesn’t even get said before he’s back to staring out the window.

We ride along in silence.

Oliver hasn’t said a word to me since the car ride. We’ve taken a flight, ordered a car, and driven to the ocean. Nevertheless, he pretends I no longer exist. We sit in a dusty little pullout on the side of a roadway, staring out onto a neglected beach. Broken pillars and scatters of plastic can just be seen below the pathway’s tiny hill. Oliver’s hands still cling to the wheel, and I cannot take another second of his cold shoulder.

“I can’t believe you remembered this place,” I say, words hushed and leaking from the dam of a heart that’s too full.

His frown deepens, hands squeezing against the leather of the rental. I know it isn’t the best thing for me to say, given our last conversation, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. I’m over being held to a secret standard we never talk about. If we can’t heal our past, maybe careless words can make it not hurt so much.

“You’ll have to lead from here,” he sighs out. “I don’t exactly know the rest of the way.”

My chest falls. Constricts. Remembers. I open my door and hear Oliver doing the same. Taking slow steps, I lead him into the sand and the graves of rotting tide pools and broken driftwood. I don’t know why I start explaining. Maybe it’s the smell of salt slipping off the waves, or the sudden chill of déjà vu, but once I start, I find myself unable to stop.

“You know, the moment I’d stepped onto this beach with Paxton was the first time I’d felt like you didn’t see me. That I knew, the second I got back in that car, you’d never see me as one of you again.” I suck in my breath, a cold shot of ocean stinging my throat. “Not that I ever felt like family. Or that other people weren’t sure to rub my nose in mud while reminding me I wasn’t.” The memories feel like pebbles in my veins, my heart desperate to pump them out.

“But before then, I could see you and just know that you believed I belonged. And most days, that was enough. Then… then, you got so mad about my actual blood, and you saw what I had every chance of becoming, and I knew you’d never look at me the same. I hated it,” I finish, head turning away from Oliver.

My tears well and I can’t pull them back anymore as a few slip down to my chin. We’re almost to the site from so long ago when I catch on to something new. Large driftwood is driven down into the ocean bed, unable to be unearthed by whoever might try. The hope that Paxton was here, and the overwhelming flood of sadness knowing this was where the first crack in my heart happened, the one that would start its weakening until the moment it was bound to break, was all too much.

Oliver sees the driftwood too, and my somber words get swept away. Eagerness blossoms across his face alongside the sadness that matches mine. I know him well enough to know he wants to say something, but we’ve both been struggling to find words that don’t stab like knives. We’re bound to bleed out from good intentions if we don’t just stop. I’m grateful this time, that he clenches his fists and moves ahead, allowing me to release the memory without a fight. It’s the best thing he can do for me now.

Thankfully, we reach the spot, giving us both a needed distraction. What looked like a pile of garbage from a distance is a memorial, not so unlike the one from many years ago. And yet, so much larger, and more beautiful. A mountain of shells cascades down from the driftwood, smashed pieces filling in as if the mosaic patterns of it all were intentional. Blushes of internal pinks, ivory ridges, and the rare flare of orange and browns burst from the sand like a jagged bed of nails, waiting for an unsuspecting foot.

Oliver and I stand and stare for a moment, taking in the glory of it. The time and precision. The very feeling that Paxton is still here with us. I turn to Oliver.

“Now what?” I ask, a shy smile playing on my lips, tears only a sticky remnant on my skin. For a minute he smiles back—we’re just kids again solving a puzzle Pax left for us to find him. If you can solve it, I’ll play with you, he’d say.

Then reality slaps him, the roll of it rippling across Oliver’s face reminding us both that it isn’t Paxton we’re looking for this time.

He shrugs. “I guess we dig around? Was there anything you did that might be a clue of what we should do next?”

I shake my head. “Not that I remember. The driver came looking for us shortly after it was built, telling us you were insisting we leave.”

“OK, well, look around. There’s got to be another clue.”

He doesn’t wait for me to respond before he’s crouching down, examining the shells. I leave him to it, instead moving toward the large driftwood stuck into the ground. My hand drifts down each piece, the smooth wood barely scratching my palms as I do.

The pieces are cut jagged, but well-worn from a lifetime of rough waters. Just like me. Just like us . Like the swell in a storm, I know it’s here I could drown. And that means Paxton knew it too. I eye every piece, fingers and nails digging into crevices and marks, looking, until one finger breaks free.

“Eve, look at this. It looks like he left a bunch of mementos in waterproof bags. There are photos of us. And ticket stubs. And… god, I don’t even know what all this is. Is that? He stole my favorite pen. I knew it ! Can you believe it? Eve? Eve!”

I don’t stop to look. In fact, I barely hear him knowing that the items must be a distraction. Instead, I focus on the thin sheet of wood that has been glued onto the larger piece with great care. I claw at it frantically to give, determined to know what’s underneath. With every flake that comes off, I see spatterings of dark paint and then finally the last of it is gone. I stand before the message. What would look like graffiti to anyone else is to us art .

“Oliver…” I whisper.

He stands, the shells and memories that are zipped in plastic bags, clattering around him as he does. He comes to a halt next to me. Then he laughs as if madness has taken hold and he's excited for the ride.

“I’ll go get the shovels,” he says before trekking back to the rental for us to exhume the next piece of Paxton’s puzzle.

The pads of my fingers glide over the words, each one burning as I do.

Even in the grave, all is not lost.