Emily drove home quickly, her vision blurring with tears. She didn't want to overreact but she really had no other option. Daniel had lied to her about the most fundamental part of his being: his name. What kind of a person did that? Even if he had changed his name because he hated it or was embarrassed by it, that was the sort of thing Emily would expect to crop up in conversation at some point. She didn't go by her full name of Emily Jane but she'd still spoken about it to Daniel and even then, in that specific conversation about names, Daniel hadn't piped up and said anything. Which led her to believe it was because he was deliberately hiding his identity from her.
And if he could lie to her about that, then maybe what the women had said about the string of broken hearts he'd caused could be true as well.
As she pulled up to the house, Emily saw that Daniel was in the yard, tending to the shrubs. He looked up, frowning, at the sound of her speedy approach and the squealing brakes as she slammed the car to a halt. She parked the car carelessly at a strange angle, then sprang out from the passenger seat, leaving it with its engine running and the door wide open. Then she stormed across the lawn heading right for Daniel.
"Who are you?" she cried, jabbing him in the chest as she reached him.
Daniel staggered back, looking shocked and confused. "What the hell kind of question is that?"
"Tell me!" Emily yelled. "Your name isn't Daniel, is it? It's Dashiel. Dashiel Morey."
A crease formed between Daniel's eyebrows. "How-"
"How did I find out?" Emily cried in an accusatory manner. "I had to hear it from two old women in the flea market. Because you didn't have the guts to tell me yourself. Do you know how humiliating that was for me?" She could feel her blood boiling at the mortifying memory.
"Emily, look I can explain," Daniel said, bringing his hands to her shoulders.
Emily shoved his hands off from her shoulders. "Don't touch me. You've been lying to me this whole time. It's true. Just tell me straight Your name really is Dashiel?"
"Yes. But it's just my name that's changed. It's-"
"I can't believe this. And the women? That's all true too, isn't it!" She threw her hands up exasperated.
"Women?" Daniel asked, frowning.
"All those hearts you broke! You have a reputation, Daniel. Or should I say Dashiel?" She turned away, tears pricking at her eyes. "I don't even know who you are anymore."
Daniel exhaled with emotion. "Yes you do, Emily. I'm exactly the same person I always was."
"But WHO is that?" Emily cried, bringing her finger up to his face. "A violent criminal who puts people in hospitals? A sensitive photographer running away from home? Some lothario who uses women up then discards them when he's done with them? Or are you just the silent, stammering caretaker who is freeloading off me?"
Daniel's mouth dropped open and Emily knew she'd pushed it too far. But she couldn't stand to be deceived, by Daniel of all people, after everything they'd been through together. She'd shared so much with him-her dreams, her pain, her past, her bed. She'd trusted him, perhaps naively so.
"That's below the belt," Daniel shot back.
"I want you off my land," Emily shouted. "Out of my carriage house. Get out! Take your stupid motorcycle with you!"
Daniel just stared at her, his expression somewhere between appalled and disappointed. Emily had never thought she'd see him look at her that way. It felt like a dagger to the heart to see that look in his eyes, to know it was directed at her and that her cruel words had caused it.
Daniel didn't utter another word. He walked calmly to the garage and wheeled out his bike. Then he gunned it to life, gave her one last, stony stare, and drove off.
Emily watched him go, her hands held in tight fists, her heart beating wildly, wondering if that was going to be the last time she would ever see him.
*
Emily trudged wearily back into the house. The argument with Daniel had taken it out of her, exhausted her. She desperately wanted to speak to Amy, but had recently gotten the feeling that her friend was growing exasperated with her. Their text exchanges had become shorter, less frequent, and days would pass without hearing from her. If she called her now with woes about a man she hadn't even gotten around to telling Amy she was dating, that would probably be the nail in the coffin for their friendship.
As she walked through the corridor, she felt like everything had been tainted by Daniel. The splotch of paint on the floorboards beside the staircase from when they'd been painting the hall and he'd sneezed. The slightly crooked picture frame they'd spent the good part of an hour trying to get straight before giving up and concluding that it simply had to be the wall that was wonky, not the frame. Everywhere she turned, she had a memory of Daniel. But right now Emily wanted space from him, not just physically but mentally. And that's when it occurred to her that there was one room in the house that she had not yet set foot in, that was not tainted by Daniel. One room that had remained perfectly preserved, not just for the last twenty years but for twenty-eight years. And that was the bedroom she and Charlotte had shared.
Emily climbed the stairs now, filled with anguish. Ever since she'd arrived here she'd been avoiding the room. It was a habit she'd picked up from her parents, who never went in there again after Charlotte's death. They'd immediately moved Emily into another room in the house, had shut the door to the room that reminded them of their deceased child, and had simply never opened it again. As if it were that easy to eradicate the pain of her death.
Emily walked right down the corridor and went up to the door. She could see faint scratches and dents on the wood from when she and her sister would carelessly slam the door running through while playing tag. She rested her hand against it, wondering if now was a bad time to do this since she was already in a fragile state, or whether she was going inside as a sort of punishment to herself, a way of causing self-inflicted pain. But she wanted to be close to her sister. Charlotte's death had robbed her of having someone to confide in. She'd never been able to talk to her about boy troubles or relationship woes. Now she felt like this would be the closest she could get to her sister. And so she gripped the door handle, twisted it, and stepped over the threshold into a room that had been preserved in time.
Walking into that room was like unearthing a time capsule or stepping into a family photograph. Emily was immediately hit with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia. Even the smell of it, though hidden beneath the aroma of dust, brought back memories and feelings she had all but forgotten. She was unable to hold back her tears. A great sob ripped out of her and she clutched her mouth as she took a small step forward into the room containing all those precious memories of her sister.
The girls had been given the biggest room of the house. There was a mezzanine at one end and huge floor to ceiling windows at the other with a view over the ocean. Emily had a flash of memory of making her dolls climb the ladder to the mezzanine, pretending it was a mountain and they were intrepid explorers. Emily smiled mournfully to herself at the memory of a time long past.
She paced around the room, picking up items that had remained untouched for almost three decades. A coin bank in the shape of a bear. A plastic neon pink toy pony. She couldn't help but let out a laugh at all the garish toys she and Charlotte had filled the room with. It must have driven her mom crazy that her daughters were in the most beautiful, stylish room of the house and had filled it with rainbow octopuses. Even the wooden dollhouse in the corner had been covered in stickers and glitter.
There was a large built-in wardrobe on one side of the room. Emily wondered whether their dress-up princess outfits were still inside. They had all the Disney ones. Her favorite had been the Little Mermaid and Charlotte's had been Cinderella. Emily went over and opened the wardrobe door. When she looked inside she discovered that all of Charlotte's outfits were still hanging there, untouched since her death.
Suddenly, looking at the clothes caused Emily to have another flashback. But this one was so much more vivid than the scraps of memory that had come back to her as she'd walked around the room. This flashback felt real, immediate, and dangerous. She gripped the wall to steady herself as she saw, with clarity, the moment when her clasp on Charlotte's hand had slipped and the little girl had disappeared, her bright red raincoat swallowed up by the gray rain.
"No!" Emily cried, knowing how the story ended and desperately wanting to stop the inevitable, the moment when her sister fell into the water and drowned.
Then suddenly the vision was over and Emily was back in the bedroom, her palms slick with sweat, her heart racing a mile a minute. She looked down to find that she was tightly gripping the sleeve of that very same raincoat; its polka dot design was unmistakable. She must have gripped it during the terrifying memory.
Wait, Emily thought suddenly, looking at the tiny red raincoat in her grasp.
She scrabbled around in the wardrobe and found Charlotte's boots with a ladybug design.
Emily had always believe that Charlotte had fallen into the water and drowned because she'd let go of her hand in that storm. But here were her clothes. Unless her mom had had them dry cleaned after Charlotte's body had been returned to them, then put them back in the wardrobe along with all of her other clothes, Charlotte must have come home that day, alive and safe. Could it be that Emily had conflated two events in her mind? That the death of Charlotte had come after the storm? Had been caused by something else?
In a flash, Emily ran out of the room and downstairs to where her cell phone was in its usual perch by the front door. She grabbed it, scrolled through the numbers, and dialed her mom. The sound of ringing filled her ear.
"Come on, pick up," she muttered under her breath, willing her mom to answer.
At last, she heard the static noise that indicated the call had connected, and then she heard her mom's voice for the first time in months.
"I was wondering when you'd pick up the phone and apologize to me about running away from New York."
"Mom," Emily stammered. "That's not why I'm calling. I need to talk to you about something."
"Let me guess," her mom said, sighing. "You need money. Is that it?"
"No," Emily said forcefully. "I need to talk to you about Charlotte."
There was a long, heavy silence on the other end of the phone.
"No you don't," her mom said, finally.
"Yes I do," Emily insisted.
"It was a long time ago," her mom said. "I don't want to drag up the past."
But Emily wasn't going to let her make excuses anymore. "Please," she pleaded. "I don't want to never speak about her. I don't want to forget. It's not like we have anyone else."
At this, her mom seemed to soften. But she was as blunt as she ever was. "What made you decide you suddenly wanted to talk about her?"
Emily chewed her lip, knowing her mom wouldn't like the answer. "It was Dad, actually. He left a letter for me."
"Oh, did he now?" her mom said, the bitterness in her voice unmistakable. "How very nice of him." Emily tried not to feed into her mom's anger. She didn't want to get into that old argument about her dad. "And what did the letter say about Charlotte?"
Emily shifted from foot to foot. Even after months away from her nonplussed mom, the old need to please her resurfaced, making Emily feel anxious and agitated. It took her a while to formulate her sentence, to get out the words she needed to say.
"Well, he said it wasn't my fault that Charlotte died."
There was another long pause from the other end of the line. "I didn't know you thought it was your fault."
"Why would you?" Emily said. "We never spoke about it."
"Because I didn't think there was anything to talk about," her mom said defensively. "It was an accident and she died and that was that. What on earth could have given you the impression that you were in any way to blame?"
Emily felt her mind swirling again. It felt so alien to be engaged in this conversation with her mom after so many years of silence, and so many months of estrangement. She felt a shard of pain lodge in her throat as tears found their way into her eyes. "Because I let go of her hand in the storm," she stammered through her sobs. "I lost her and then she drowned in the ocean."
Her mom exhaled loudly. "It wasn't the ocean, Emily. That wasn't how she died."
Emily felt like her world was crashing down around her. Everything she'd believed to be true was shattering. Not only had Daniel betrayed her trust, but now she couldn't even trust her own memories?
"Then how did she die?" Emily asked in a quiet, nervous voice.
"You really don't remember?" her mom asked, sounding shocked and bemused in equal amounts. "Emily, your sister drowned in the swimming pool. It was nothing to do with you or the storm."
"Swimming pool?" Emily repeated in a daze.
But no sooner had the words left her lips than a swarm of memories hit Emily in a flurry. She dropped the phone and ran to her father's study. There she grabbed the key chain she'd found in the vault, with all its many keys. She raced through the house, the noise of her heavy footsteps distressing the puppies and making them yap in anger.
She ran straight out the front door without bothering to put her shoes on, and up to the barn. Raj had removed the fallen tree from its roof, so she just had to step over the broken planks to get inside. She went past the destroyed darkroom and the boxes that contained the rain-ruined remains of Daniel's photographs, then up to the door she'd seen the first time she was in here, the door to nowhere. She fumbled with the chain, trying one key after the other, until she found one that fit the lock, turned it and pushed the door open.
It swung open and hit the side, making a bang echo out. Emily peered into the new, undiscovered room. And there it was. The large empty swimming pool in which Charlotte had drowned, and in doing so, changed the course of Emily's life forever.
She could see her now, her little sister dressed in her Care Bear pajamas, face down in the water. The memories came back to her with the force of a tsunami.
Her parents had told them they were getting a pool put in the summer house. She and Charlotte had kept trying to guess where the pool would be, had tried sneaking into different rooms looking for it, then had finally found it in the outbuilding. Charlotte had wanted to swim right away, but Emily knew they wouldn't be allowed to without supervision and had reminded her little sister to keep it a secret that they'd found the pool. That evening their mom went out and their dad fell asleep on the sofa. Charlotte must have gotten out of bed to secretly swim. Something had woken Emily, maybe the unusual silence from the lack of Charlotte snoring in the bed beside her. She'd gone looking for her and found her in the pool. It had been Emily who'd had to rouse her father from his drunken stupor.
Emily shook her head, feeling suddenly nauseous She didn't want to believe it. Was that why she had no memory? Because seeing her dead sister had traumatized her so much she'd blocked it out entirely? And her mind, in attempting to fill in the blanks, had turned the guilt she felt at being the one to rouse her father into a different type of guilt, into blame?
It hadn't been the storm. It hadn't been her fault. She had lived under a cloud of guilt for all these years for no reason-just because she'd learned from her parents to ignore her problems, to forget the things she did not like about her past. Because of them she'd repressed the trauma of finding Charlotte floating face down and lifeless in the pool twenty-eight years ago, and her mind had tried to fill in the blanks, to explain Charlotte's absence, picking the memory that made the most sense.
It really wasn't her fault.
Emily collapsed to her knees at the edge of the pool and cried.
*
It was the sound of Mogsy's frantic barking that finally brought Emily back to her senses. She looked up, not sure how long she had been sitting there at the side of the pool staring into the emptiness, but when she stood up and went back into the barn, the sky she could see through the hole in the roof was black. Stars winked down at her and the moon was hazy. That's when Emily realized it was obscured by smoke. She sniffed and smelled burning.
Heart racing, Emily rushed through the barn and out onto the lawn. She could see the house ahead and smoke billowing from the kitchen window. Mogsy and the puppies were barking from inside.
"Oh God, no," she cried aloud as she ran across the grass.
When she got to the kitchen door, she went to reach out for the door handle when a sudden force shoved her out of the way. She stumbled then looked up. It was Daniel, suddenly appearing out of nowhere.
"Did you do this?" she screamed, terrified that he'd committed arson out of revenge.
Daniel stared at her, horrified by the accusation. "If you open the door you'll create a suction draft. The flames will race toward the oxygen. Toward you. I was saving your life!"
Emily was too panicked to feel guilty yet. All she could think was that her house was on fire and the puppies were trapped inside, their shrill barks echoing in her ears. Through the kitchen window she could see orange flames dancing upward.
"What do we do?" she cried, grasping her hair with panic, her mind blanking.
Daniel ran to the hose that was attached to the side of the house for watering the lawn. He twisted the handle and water began to gush from the end of it. Then he smashed the window in the kitchen door with his elbow and ducked as the flame was drawn toward the source of oxygen, shooting out above him. He put the hose through the window and blasted the flame with water.
"Go to the carriage house," he shouted to Emily. "Call the fire department."
Emily couldn't believe this was happening. Her mind was swirling, filled with confusion and terror. Her house was on fire. After all the work they'd put into it, the whole thing was literally going up in flames.
She made it to the carriage house and pulled the door open. She grabbed the phone and just about managed to pump 9-1-1 into it.
"Fire!" she shouted when the call connected to the emergency operator. "West Street!"
As soon as she'd relayed that information she ran back to the house. Daniel was nowhere to be seen and the door was wide open. Emily realized he'd gone inside.
"Daniel!" she screamed, terror taking hold of her. "Where are you?"
Just then, Daniel emerged through the smoke, carrying the basket of yapping puppies, Mogsy rushing along at his heels.
Emily fell to her knees and scooped the puppies up in her arms, so relieved that they were okay. They were soot-stained. She grabbed Rain and wiped the ash from his eyes, then did the same with the other pups. Mogsy licked her face and wagged her tail as though she possessed the ability to understand the gravity of the situation.
Just then Emily saw flashing lights reflected in the glass. She turned back to see the fire truck screaming along the usually quiet street. It came right up to the house, then the fire officers inside leapt out and sprang into action.
"Is there anyone inside the property?" one of them asked her.
She shook her head and watched, stunned into silence, as they ran in through the kicked open kitchen door.
Daniel came up tentatively beside her. She looked across at him, at his ash-filled hair and soot-stained clothes.
"I'd only just fixed that damned door," he said.
Emily let out a half sob, half laugh. "Thank you for coming back," she said quietly.
Daniel just nodded. They turned back to the house and watched silently as the cloud of smoke turned into nothing more than a thin plume.
A few moments later, the fire officers emerged from the house. The lead one walked up to Emily.
"What happened?" she asked him.
"Looks like you had a faulty toaster," he said, holding up the mangled object.
"Is there much damage?" She braced herself for the news.
"Just smoke damage caused by the melting plastic. You might want to air the place out for a while. The smoke is toxic."
Emily was so relieved to hear that the house had only suffered some minor smoke damage that she threw her arms around the fireman's neck. "Thank you!" she cried. "Thank you so much!"
"Just doing my job, Emily," he replied.
"Wait, how do you know my name?" Emily asked, taken aback.
"From my dad," the fireman replied. "He's very fond of you."
"Who's your dad?"
"Birk from the gas station. I'm Jason, his eldest. You know next time you have a party, invite me too, won't you? I don't think Dad's had as much fun in all his life as he did that night. If you're that good a hostess, I want in."
"I will," Emily replied, a tad stunned by the events of the evening, and the way everyone knew everyone in this small town.
Emily and Daniel stood and watched the engine drive away, then went inside to assess the damage. Other than the stench, a black smudge running up the wall, and a melted rectangle on the countertop, the kitchen was fine.
"I can pay for the broken window," Daniel said.
"Don't be silly," Emily replied. "You were helping."
"It was hardly a fire at all. I overreacted. I just didn't want Mogsy and the puppies to choke on the smoke." He picked up Mogsy and rubbed her behind the ears and she rewarded him by licking his nose.
"You did the right thing," she added. "Fires can spread quickly. Thanks to the hose you caught it before it spread." She looked at Daniel, at his bowed head and stooped shoulders. "What made you come back?" she asked.
Daniel chewed his lip. "You didn't give me the chance to explain myself. I wanted to clear my name."
After everything he had done for her, Emily owed him that much. "Okay. Go for it. Clear your name."
Daniel pulled up a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. "Dashiel is the name I was born with," he began. "But it was also my father's name. I was named after him. So I had it legally changed when I walked out of his house because I didn't want to become a deadbeat alcoholic like he was."
Emily shifted uncomfortably. Her own father had drunk often. Was that another thing she and Daniel shared in common?
"Those people in town," Daniel continued. "They remember me as Dashiel because they want me to be bad. They want me to turn into him. To become bad." He shook his head.
Emily felt herself shrink in her seat with embarrassment. "And what about the women?"
He shrugged. "We all have past relationships, don't we? I don't think I've had more than would be normal for a young guy in this day and age. Those women are probably suspicious because I never married, you know? They think I'm a lothario because I dated, had some long-term relationships but never settled down. I'm not a monk, Emily. I have had past lovers. But I think you'd be more confused if I hadn't!"
"That's true," she said, feeling even more remorseful. "I'm sorry I let them get to me. That I let them convince me you were a bad guy."
"Do you see now that I'm not? That I'm not that guy who puts people in the hospital? Who can't take any responsibility and flunks out? Who would be stringing you along romantically and setting fire to your house?"
When he said it aloud, it did sound kind of ludicrous. "I see that now," she said in a sheepish voice.
"And you DO know who I am. I'm the guy who sat with you one night in a storm nursing a puppy back to health. Who took you to a secret rose garden on a warm spring day. Who bought you cotton candy. Who kissed you and made love to you."
He reached out for her hand. Emily looked at it, the palm open and inviting, then slid her hand in his and interlaced her fingers with his.
"Don't forget that you're also the guy who saves me from a fiery inferno," she added.
Daniel smiled and nodded. "Yes. I'm that guy too. A guy who would never want to hurt you."
"Good," Emily said. She leaned in and kissed him tenderly. "'Cause I kinda like that guy."
