He carried it across the hall to his office and set it gently on the desk, staring at the tiny white square shape it made there in the middle of the leather blotter between the stapler and the letter opener. He reached out and slowly unfolded it.
Chapter 2
Kennedy rode with her father for an hour with the flowers he’d brought clutched against her chest, breathing in, smelling them. She had been surprised when she saw that Gerry had laid an old jacket of hers from the closet across the front seat. It had a cluster of round pins still clinging to the lapel—one for the band the Smiths, an AIDS awareness button, and one that she knew had made Laine and Gerry glare with worry: No means no. She pulled the jacket around her more than put it on. She’d wondered if there would be some sad polyester shirt or crushed velvet top to be returned to her upon release, but they had only her wages for her. Between the flowers and a McDonald’s milkshake Gerry insisted was once her favorite, he was like an eager boy who had come to take her on a date.
The drink was a punch of sweet that delighted and then quickly nauseated her. Kennedy was overwhelmed. The smell of the daisies, the world flying past her beyond the window—it was all starting to seem like a trip: the point where the cresting acid would make the banal world beautiful. She gripped the inside of the car door with one hand. It was dizzying.
Gerry drove fast and talked fast. “I’m sorry Carter didn’t come. I’m sure she’ll be at the house.”
But Kennedy said nothing. She didn’t felt like speaking. She just wanted to breathe in the delicate air.
Gerry tapped some buttons on the BMW console and connected a call. Kennedy listened to the ringing, an ordinary thing that seemed alien to her, coming as it did from within a car. After the ringing, her sister’s recorded voice came out of the speakers. “You’ve reached Carter Randall, I can’t pick up.” Then silence.
“Carter? It’s me. I’m out,” Kennedy said to the windshield of the car when Gerry nodded at her.
“Give us a damn call, how about it!” Gerry exclaimed.
Carter Randall. Kennedy had almost forgotten she still went by it. Carter had discarded their surname, Wynn, years ago, like a baby-doll dress. At the height of the media coverage it made sense to all of them for Carter to hide under their mother’s name. No one in her family had thought any of this would be permanent. It would right itself like any other record-skip in suburban life, no more serious than a possum in the garage, a quiet separation, or a DUI. Her dad was a lawyer after all. He had told Kennedy all the charges would be dropped. He had told her the defense attorneys were looking into the possibility that the crime was connected to the Colonial Parkway Murders—a string of lovers’-lane murders a few years before that had never been solved. I-64 ran practically past the woods, he’d argued, and these victims were all young people too.
A year after Kennedy went to jail, Carter had brought in a page from SPIN magazine showing Trent Reznor wearing a homemade “Free Kennedy Wynn” shirt during his Richmond concert. It was a rush, and for a minute Kennedy felt free from the not knowing—all the thoughts of Did I do this? But ultimately it only put murder groupies onto her family. People who clipped things from newspapers or, a few years later, found case details online. Those fans dubbed her “Dead Kennedy,” just like the kids in high school had done. Carter tried not to tell her about the emails and phone calls that still sometimes made their way through filters. Men wanting to get in touch with Kennedy, others telling Carter, “You’ll do,” because of their resemblance.
Carter had once been a mathlete and won scholarships to Drama Summer Intensives, but Kennedy had attended more college inside of a prison than Carter had managed to outside of one. She often wondered what Carter might have been without her as a twin.
There was a faint scent of perfume on the collar of the shapeless black dress Carter had chosen for her, which Gerry had brought to the prison. Kennedy wondered if she’d tried it on.
She noticed that Gerry took a different exit from the highway, one she didn’t remember. It meant they didn’t have to drive down Smoke Line, past the woods.
“Here we are,” Gerry said, pulling up to the house in Blueheart.
Kennedy hadn’t realized they were there already: after fifteen years away, the neighbors’ houses all looked generic to her. She saw their house was bigger and more ostentatious than she had recalled. The Wynn house was pale brick and stucco. The roof peaked in four separate places to imitate a Victorian skyline. The portico columns held up nothing. The front hall towered, the highest peak, even though it was an empty room used for little more than removing one’s shoes. They always did remove their shoes, even in high school, when she and Carter wore Docs that could take a half hour to undo.
Gerry was gently cursing about the fact that Carter’s car wasn’t there yet, but Kennedy barely noticed. She opened the SUV door and got out, feeling suddenly shaky on her legs. She stared up at her old home.
“Where does she live now?” Kennedy asked. In all the visits over the years, Carter had mostly told her about Gerry, or about current music, films, or trends. The visits, she supposed, had been meant to distract her from her surroundings, and Carter had been good at it. She’d heard about Carter’s boyfriend and sex life over the years, but they’d never discussed Haley. It was only at her final visit, six months ago, that Carter had brought her up. “I still miss Haley,” she said, and when Kennedy only nodded, Carter pressed. “Tell me honestly . . .” Carter faltered and didn’t ask, though her face said everything.
Kennedy reached for her mantra: “I don’t know what happened that night.”
“I think I’m a little tired of that line after fifteen years.” Carter’s visits stopped abruptly after that. She wasn’t there for visiting hours the following weekend and had not returned since.
Gerry waved his hand. “She and Alex broke up. I don’t get it. She moved into an apartment in the Museum District. It’s all right, they’ll get back together soon.”
Her father pocketed the keys and began to detail the afternoon plans: catered lunch, neighbors and family he’d invited to stop in. Plans. Plans were something she hadn’t had in a decade and a half. She glanced down the cul-de-sac at the stately houses, their blank windows, wondering if people were watching her arrive home and if they’d really come by later.
Kennedy remembered how Carter had complained about their parents’ need to impress after moving to Blueheart Woods from the city, how they were hippies turned yuppies turned people who yelled about welfare reform during the 1992 election. The girls’ natural distrust of their parents had been inchoate until the night Carter made Kennedy watch Manufacturing Consent, the documentary about Noam Chomsky. Politics were always beyond Kennedy; she’d spent civics class with her head down, hair hiding her sleeping eyes. But when the double videocassette from the library and three joints were finished she saw her parents as one part of a larger, oppressive agenda. The word hegemony was stuck in her head for weeks, like a curse.