Alice found me in the red parlor room like that. She froze in the entryway, eyes wide, holding two glasses of whiskey on the rocks. “The hell? This is some Goonies shit here.”
“It’s my stash,” I replied with a hiccup. She came over and slid down to the floor beside me, and set down our drinks. She picked upMidnight Matineeand flipped it over to the back. “He knew, didn’t he?”
“Knew what?” Alice asked, feigning innocence. I could tell she was lying—what kind of older sister would I be if Icouldn’ttell? I glared at her and she shrugged, putting the book back into the lockbox. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. He definitely didn’t tell the whole town.”
“Alice!”
“Oh I’m going tokillwhoever told you.”
“No one did. Well... Dad did.” I showed her the letter.
“Good,” Alice declared. “Turns out no one wants to piss off the guy who’ll put them in a casket. Don’t wanna be looking like a clown.”
“Oh my god, he didn’t threaten anyone, did he?”
She gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I am sworn to secrecy.” We put the note and the rest of the books back into the box, and I slowly began to shuffle through the rest of it. Journals, concert stubs, little notes filled with smaller stories. She watched, stirring the ice in her glass. “Dad found mine, you know.”
“Your stash?” I asked. “Yeah, it’s in the knot in the tree out near the Ridge.”
She gave me an astonished look. “Youknew?”
“Carver found itagesago.”
“His is—”
“Under the woodpile in the backyard,” we said together, and laughed.
I took a sip of my drink. It was a lot stronger than the drinks Dana made. It personified Alice—she was there, in your face, unable to be forgotten. I admired that about her. She wouldn’t have let her ex-boyfriend steal her stories and publish them. She would’ve chased him down, and shit in his shoes, and penned an article for theNew Yorkerpainstakingly detailing how much of a liar Lee Marlow was. Not just to me—but to his colleagues, to his friends, to journalists, and to colleges and deans asking him to be their guest professor.
She would have annihilated him.
As the sun began to sink across the evening sky, the shadows in the parlor grew longer and darker, but we didn’t get up to cut the lights on. There was a certain kind of softness to the way the goldenlight filtered in through the windows and kissed the dark corners. We knew this funeral home with our eyes closed, anyway, and the floor wasn’t that uncomfortable yet.
“So, I’ve something I’ve been meaning to tell you.” Alice shifted to sit cross-legged and downed half of her drink.
“This should be good,” I teased.
Alice squirmed. She did that when she was trying to keep a secret that was physically trying to escape her body. “Karen read most of the will before you arrived, so you missed this part of it.” She pursed her lips tightly together and was quiet for a long moment. “You had your ghosts with Dad, and I thought I had nothing. But...” She looked around the parlor, as fondly as Dad always did. “I had this place. Well, Ihavethis place.”
I realized with a gasp. “Dad gave you the business?”
She gave the smallest nod. “After Mom dies, of course, but—he put it in his will. He said it went to me. And Mom said she’d happily turn it over before she kicks it but I really don’t want itthatbadly and—”
“Oh, Alice, I’m sohappyfor you!”
“Really?”
“Yes,really, you idiot! I’m so freaking happy! You’re the only one who understands this place—reallyunderstands it. I can’t imagine it in better hands.”
Her bottom lip wobbled, and then she threw her arms around me. “Thank you,” she said into my shoulder.
I hugged her tightly. “I know you’ll do a great job, Al.”
She finally let go and sat back on her feet, and wiped her eyes. “I think I met my crying quota for the year.”
“It’s okay to cry sometimes.”
“Not with thirty-dollar mascara on!”