E. Lockhart - We Were Liars

I looked at Mummy. At her infuriatingly concerned face, her leaking eyes, the tipsy slackness of her mouth. “You have to stop asking,” she said. “The doctors think it’s better if you remember on your own, anyway.”

I made her tell me one last time, and I wrote down her answers so I could look back at them when I wanted to. That’s why I can tell you about the night-swimming accident, the rocks, the hypothermia, respiratory difficulty, and the unconfirmed traumatic brain injury.

I never asked her anything again. There’s a lot I don’t understand, but this way she stays pretty sober.

DAD PLANS TO take me to Australia and New Zealand for the whole of summer seventeen.

I don’t want to go.

I want to return to Beechwood. I want to see Mirren and lie in the sun, planning our futures. I want to argue with Johnny and go snorkeling and make ice cream. I want to build bonfires on the shore of the tiny beach. I want to pile in the hammock on the Clairmont porch and be the Liars once again, if it’s possible.

I want to remember my accident.

I want to know why Gat disappeared. I don’t know why he wasn’t with me, swimming. I don’t know why I went to the tiny beach alone. Why I swam in my underwear and left no clothes on the sand. And why he bailed when I got hurt.

I wonder if he loved me. I wonder if he loved Raquel.

Dad and I are supposed to leave for Australia in five days.

I should never have agreed to go.

I make myself wretched, sobbing. I tell Mummy I don’t need to see the world. I need to see family. I miss Granddad.

No.

I’ll be sick if I travel to Australia. My headaches will explode, I shouldn’t get on a plane. I shouldn’t eat strange food. I shouldn’t be jet-lagged. What if we lose my medication?

Stop arguing. The trip is paid for.

I walk the dogs in the early morning. I load the dishwasher and later unload it. I put on a dress and rub blusher into my cheeks. I eat everything on my plate. I let Mummy put her arms around me and stroke my hair. I tell her I want to spend the summer with her, not Dad.

Please.

The next day, Granddad comes to Burlington to stay in the guest room. He’s been on the island since mid-May and has to take a boat, a car, and a plane to get here. He hasn’t come to visit us since before Granny Tipper died.

Mummy picks him up at the airport while I stay home and set the table for supper. She’s picked up roast chicken and side dishes at a gourmet shop in town.

Granddad has lost weight since I saw him last. His white hair stands out in puffs around his ears, tufty; he looks like a baby bird. His skin is baggy on his frame, and he has a potbellied slump that’s not how I remember him. He always seemed invincible, with firm, broad shoulders and lots of teeth.

Granddad is the sort of person who has mottos. “Don’t take no for an answer,” he always says to us. And “Never take a seat in the back of the room. Winners sit up front.”

We Liars used to roll our eyes at these pronouncements—“Be decisive; no one likes a waffler”; “Never complain, never explain”—but we still saw him as full of wisdom on grown-up topics.

Granddad is wearing madras shorts and loafers. His legs are spindly old-man legs. He pats my back and demands a scotch and soda.

We eat and he talks about some friends of his in Boston. The new kitchen in his Beechwood house. Nothing important. Afterward, Mummy cleans up while I show him the backyard garden. The evening sun is still out.

Granddad picks a peony and hands it to me. “For my first grandchild.”

“Don’t pick the flowers, okay?”

“Penny won’t mind.”

“Yes, she will.”

“Cadence was the first,” he says, looking up at the sky, not into my eyes. “I remember when she came to visit us in Boston. She was dressed in a pink romper suit and her hair stuck up straight off her head. Johnny wasn’t born till three weeks later.”

“I’m right here, Granddad.”

“Cadence was the first, and it didn’t matter that she was a girl. I would give her everything. Just like a grandson. I carried her in my arms and danced. She was the future of our family.”

I nod.

“We could see she was a Sinclair. She had that hair, but it wasn’t only that. It was the chin, the tiny hands. We knew she’d be tall. All of us were tall until Bess married that short fellow, and Carrie made the same mistake.”

“You mean Brody and William.”

“Good riddance, eh?” Granddad smiles. “All our people were tall. Did you know my mother’s side of the family came over on the Mayflower ? To make this life in America.”

I know it’s not important if our people came over on the Mayflower . It’s not important to be tall. Or blond. That is why I dyed my hair: I don’t want to be the eldest. Heiress to the island, the fortune, and the expectations.

But then again, perhaps I do.

Granddad has had too much to drink after a long travel day. “Shall we go inside?” I ask. “You want to sit down?”

He picks a second peony and hands it to me. “For forgiveness, my dear.”

I pat him on his hunched back. “Don’t pick any more, okay?”

Granddad bends down and touches some white tulips.

“Seriously, don’t,” I say.

He picks a third peony, sharply, defiantly. Hands it to me. “You are my Cadence. The first.”

“Yes.”

“What happened to your hair?”

“I colored it.”

“I didn’t recognize you.”

“That’s okay.”

Granddad points to the peonies, now all in my hand. “Three flowers for you. You should have three.”

He looks pitiful. He looks powerful.

I love him, but I am not sure I like him. I take his hand and lead him inside.

ONCE UPON A time, there was a king who had three beautiful daughters. He loved each of them dearly. One day, when the young ladies were of age to be married, a terrible, three-headed dragon laid siege to the kingdom, burning villages with fiery breath. It spoiled crops and burned churches. It killed babies, old people, and everyone in between .

The king promised a princess’s hand in marriage to whoever slayed the dragon. Heroes and warriors came in suits of armor, riding brave horses and bearing swords and arrows .

One by one, these men were slaughtered and eaten .

Finally the king reasoned that a maiden might melt the dragon’s heart and succeed where warriors had failed. He sent his eldest daughter to beg the dragon for mercy, but the dragon listened to not a word of her pleas. It swallowed her whole .

Then the king sent his second daughter to beg the dragon for mercy, but the dragon did the same. Swallowed her before she could get a word out .

The king then sent his youngest daughter to beg the dragon for mercy, and she was so lovely and clever that he was sure she would succeed where the others had perished .

No indeed. The dragon simply ate her .

The king was left aching with regret. He was now alone in the world .

Now, let me ask you this. Who killed the girls?

The dragon? Or their father?

AFTER GRANDDAD LEAVES the next day, Mummy calls Dad and cancels the Australia trip. There is yelling. There is negotiation.

Eventually they decide I will go to Beechwood for four weeks of the summer, then visit Dad at his home in Colorado, where I’ve never been. He insists. He will not lose the whole summer with me or there will be lawyers involved.

Mummy rings the aunts. She has long, private conversations with them on the porch of our house. I can’t hear anything except a few phrases: Cadence is so fragile, needs lots of rest. Only four weeks, not the whole summer. Nothing should disturb her, the healing is very gradual.