Dead Beautiful (2 page)

“Why?” I choked out. When I was growing up, my parents had always seemed to have an answer to even my hardest questions. But now, for the first time, they were silent. I wiped my eyes and touched my mother’s lips. They were parted just enough for me to see a thin shred of cloth peeking out. Gently, I pulled it from between her lips and held it in front of the light. It was tattered around the edges and had the soft consistency of gauze. I turned it over in my hand and looked down at my mother. There were no signs of violence, no bruises or scratches on her body, no blood. But the gauze, the coins—this was the work of a person. The mere thought of it made my heart race. I turned and stared into the darkness, wondering if I was alone.

The woods seemed to be caving in on me, the tops of the trees circling and bending together. Images of my parents dying clouded my mind, and I felt dizzy and disoriented. Holding the cloth in my fist, I rested my head on my mother’s chest and closed my eyes, listening to the creaking of the trees and hoping that when I opened them it would be morning and the woods would be empty and filled with sunlight, and everything would be clear. Around me the cool night air blew through the branches, and the shards of white cloth fluttered on the ground, like moths clinging blindly to a screen.

The day they buried my parents, I felt the first chilly breath from my past. I was lying on the floor of our living room, staring at the insects collecting on the edges of the windowpanes, when the doorbell rang. Annie’s mom, Margerie, who was staying with me through the funeral, answered the door.

“Mr. Winters, I’m so glad you came,” she said in a hushed voice.

I listened. The quiet murmur of voices, the sound of shoes scraping against the mat, and then a deep cough.

Footsteps.

“Renée,” Margerie said gently.

I didn’t move. Two feet stopped in front of me. I stared at the large brown shoes, the tassels, the creases embedded just before the toe.

“Renée, your grandfather is here.”

I sat up. My hair was matted to the back of my head.

“Hello, Renée,” my grandfather bellowed in a deep voice. He extended a large leathery hand to help me up. He had a professorial essence, with white hair, inordinately long earlobes, and a fleshy, oversized face that seemed stretched with gravity. The sweet aroma of pipe tobacco emanated from his clothes.

Ignoring his hand, I lay back down. Brownie Winters, my mother’s father. It seemed odd that we shared the same last name, even though I hadn’t seen him since I was seven. He had gotten into a loud argument with my parents, and then he was gone, the screen door slamming behind him. I hadn’t heard from him since. Not even a card on birthdays.

“You missed the ceremony,” I said coldly, staring at the folds of his neck.

He sighed. He had my mother’s eyes, watery blue and somehow sad. “I didn’t find out what had happened until this morning. I hope you can forgive my absence.”

I said nothing. My mother used to tell me stories about the rigid rules he’d set while she was growing up in Massachusetts, about how he was only concerned with money and appearances and the family name, which was why he demanded that I have her name instead of my father’s. My mother’s childhood seemed so different from mine, growing up on a dreary estate in the woods. She’d always said it was lonely, that she had spent more time with her housekeeper than with her parents, which was probably why she and my father had moved to California. Our house was the kind where you could touch things, my mother used to say. It was modest but lived in, with stucco walls covered with photographs, and big glass windows that let in the morning light. The grass was never mowed on time, and the pool out back was littered with leaves and beetles that always got stuck in my hair; but on a hot summer day it all seemed perfect. I stared at my grandfather’s shoes. They looked uncomfortable.

“I’m going to be staying with you for a while,” he said, putting on his spectacles. “For a long while, I think. Your parents willed me as your legal guardian, which I’ll admit came as a surprise, given the outcome of our last encounter. A pleasant surprise, of course, though I never would have wished it to happen under such tragic circumstances. I’ve always regretted not being a part of your life.” He paused, and then spoke again, his voice gentler. “It sometimes helps to dwell on the good memories. They remind you that happiness does exist, though it may not seem that way now.” When I didn’t respond, he shifted his weight. “Well then, I suppose I’ll look forward to seeing you at dinner, which will be served promptly at seven thirty.”

I closed my eyes, willing myself not to cry. Even though he was my legal guardian, and almost the only family I had left, I didn’t care if he stayed with me or if I never saw him again, and I definitely wasn’t planning on eating dinner. I had lost my appetite completely since the night in the forest. I was alone, utterly alone, and I had no idea where my life would take me, or how I would live now that my parents were dead. People filed in and out of the house, but to me they passed in a haze, resembling shadowy figures more than actual humans.

My grandfather hovered above me, but I remained silent and waited until I heard him pat the pockets of his pants and retreat to the kitchen. Overhead, the ceiling fan churned the air until it grazed my neck in thick, hot breaths.

The next week went by in a blur. I spent most of my time wandering around the house, trying to keep cool and avoid my grandfather, who seemed to always want to talk about my future, even though I was still stuck in the past. He was a professor—a retired professor now—ever since my grandmother passed away when I was a baby. Now that he was here, I was practically confined to the house. Almost overnight my life became a regimented routine. “Rules help us live our lives when we lose the will to do it on our own,” he said. He’d brought his estate manager with him, a bald, saggy man named Dustin, who cooked, cleaned, and chauffeured my grandfather around. Meals were served three times a day: breakfast at seven, lunch at one, and dinner at seven thirty. Sleeping through breakfast was prohibited, and I had to finish everything on my plate before I could leave the table. Normally that wouldn’t have been a problem, but the food Dustin served wasn’t the easiest to stomach: foie gras, escargot, beluga caviar, black pudding (which wasn’t actually pudding), sweetbreads (which weren’t sweet or made of bread), and spiny lettuce that looked more like a reptile than a vegetable.

My grandfather corrected my table manners at dinner, eyeing my ripped jeans and tank tops with distaste. My posture was terrible, he said, and I held my fork like a barbarian.

Tonight was no different. I scowled at him, wanting to fight back, but I had quickly learned to pick my battles and I didn’t have time for an argument. I glanced at the clock. It was eight. I had to get out of the house. Everything—the plates, the silverware, the roll of paper towels hanging over the sink, the jar of coins sitting on the mantel—reminded me of my parents, of the way they died. But if I wanted to leave, I had to do it soon, because for the first time in my life I actually had a curfew. Ten o’clock.

“I’m going out tonight,” I mumbled.

Dustin stood in the corner of the room in an antiquated suit, his hands clasped behind his back as he gazed at the ceiling, pretending not to listen. I stared at him uncomfortably.

My grandfather put his fork down. “Please, try to enunciate.”

I repeated myself, this time louder and more annoyed.

“Better,” he said, and checked his watch. “It’s getting late, though. You should stay in tonight.”

Outside, the sun was setting over the houses that lined our street. “But it’s still light out,” I protested.

“I don’t feel comfortable with you going out at night by yourself. It’s not safe.”

“I won’t be alone. I’ll be with... Annie,” I said, improvising.

“I’d rather you not go,” he said firmly.

“Then I should probably go upstairs, where I can sit alone in my room for the rest of my life, because that would be the safest thing to do.” Picking up my plate, I stood.

Dustin moved to collect my setting, but my grandfather waved him away, and I felt slightly victorious as I turned my back to them and carried my dishes to the kitchen.

“Renée,” he called out to me, “may I ask you a question?”

I ignored him and turned on the faucet.

“How did you find your parents?”

It caught me off guard. The sponge slipped out of my hand and sank into the soapy water.

“I already told you.”

“Yes,” he said quietly, “you did. But I think there’s more.”

I didn’t respond.

“I know we haven’t talked about your parents; I wanted to let you mourn them in your own way, without my interference.”

The kitchen was cramped—a tiny room of appliances just off the dining room—and I could feel my grandfather’s eyes on me through the doorway.

“I haven’t been present in your life up until now, but I know how difficult it is to lose someone you love. Your mother, Lydia, was my daughter. Her death was no accident. We both know that. After all, you were the one who found them.” He paused. “Please, humor an old man.”

For the first time since he’d moved in, his words seemed reasonable. I turned and raised my eyes to his. “We were driving back from the beach when I told Annie to take Prairie Creek Drive instead of U.S. 101.”

“Why?”

“Because I thought it would be faster,” I said, not revealing the true reason, which was that I’d felt inexplicably pulled in that direction.

“What happened next?”

“I saw their car on the side of the road. We pulled over and I went into the woods. Annie waited for me.”

“And then what?”

Scenes of the redwood forest flashed through my mind.

“I just kept running. I... I didn’t know where I was going;

I just knew I had to go deeper.”

“And then?”

“And then I saw the coins.”

The faucet was still running. I watched the water cascade over the dishes.

My grandfather’s voice broke the silence. “And then what happened?” he said gently.

I turned to him. “That’s it. I found them. They were dead. Do you want me to relive the entire night? You know what happened. You read the police report. I told them everything I know.”

I turned away and wiped my eyes over the sink.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I know it’s difficult for you with your parents gone, and now with me here. It’s strange and unexpected that the fates should bring us together again after all this time. But think. Does it not seem odd to you that you happened to stumble across your father’s car on the side of the road, and that you were then able to locate the bodies of your parents, which were a mile north of their car? The redwood forest covers more than three hundred square miles, yet you were able to find them within half an hour.”

“Maybe it was a...a coincidence.” That was what the police had called it.

He raised a white, bushy eyebrow. “Was it?”

“What are you implying?”

“I’m not implying anything,” he assured me. “I’m just trying to understand.”

“I don’t know how I found them. I just did. I didn’t even think about it; I just started running.”

My grandfather looked like he was about to say something, but instead he leaned back in his chair and rested his chin on his fist. “You need new shoes. The ones you have on now are far too juvenile for a girl your age. We’ll get you a pair next week.”

Baffled, I looked down at my Converse sneakers. His remark shouldn’t have made me angry, but it did. Here he was with his questions and rules and ten o’clock curfew, making me get rid of my favorite sneakers, forcing me to relive the one moment in my life I wanted to forget, and generally ruining my already ruined life.

“I don’t want new shoes,” I screamed. “I want my parents back.” I ran upstairs, slammed the door to my room, and slid to the floor in an angry heap. Without thinking, I called Annie. She answered on the third ring.

“I have to get out of here,” I told her. “Can you pick me up?”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

We drove to the marina. I’d barely seen Annie since the day we’d gone to the beach. When I hadn’t come out of the woods that night, she’d called the police, then went in to find me. After they discovered me with the bodies of my parents, and brought me home, she hadn’t asked about what I’d seen or how I’d felt. I was relieved that she didn’t know what to say, because I didn’t either. How could I explain to her that I had died that day in the forest too, that nothing had meaning anymore? The things I used to love—lacrosse, the beach, books, history, movies—they all seemed pointless now.

And then there were the people—the neighbors, the girls from the lacrosse team, the relatives, people from town —constantly stopping by the house, telling me about how they’d known my parents and how much they would miss them. For the first time in my life I was actually glad that my parents hadn’t let me have a cell phone, because it was one less thing to answer. The police came. They had questions. Did I know why my parents were in the forest that day? Had they behaved unusually in the days prior? Did they have any enemies?

“No,” I answered. “No.”

But the hardest part was making sense of it all. The cause of each of their deaths was a heart attack, which could have been reasonable had it not been for the circumstances. It was too much of a coincidence that they’d both suffered from a heart attack at the exact same time. Yet the medical report confirmed that everything else inside their bodies was intact and healthy, and that there were no signs of violence, struggle, or anything out of the ordinary, with one exception: autopsies revealed that soil and ribbons of white fabric were found in the mouth of each of my parents. Was there anything strange about the fabric? “No. Just ordinary gauze you might find in any hospital,” the police told me. But no one knew why it was there.

The police deemed that the heart failure had been brought on by a “hiking accident,” but to me it was anything but resolved. “How could it be an accident?” I’d shouted at the police officers, the doctors, the nurses. “Do you actually expect me to believe that they both died of a heart attack at the
same exact moment
? That’s impossible. They were healthy. They were supposed to be at work. They had
gauze
in their mouths! How is that natural?” They gave me sympathetic looks and told me I was going through a rough time and that they understood. They were going to keep the case open. But I knew there wasn’t enough evidence to base a case on. Was it murder? I wasn’t sure. Why would anyone want to kill my parents? And why the forest, the coins, the cloth? If someone had killed my parents, it was intentional, and that meant they were still out there. But then there was the way my mother had looked unexplainably older than she had the day before. How could that be? Maybe they
were
hiking and had heart attacks. Maybe it was suicide. Maybe I was losing my mind.