Page 9 of Sins or Secrets
“I know.”
Lilly was married to my uncle, Barry.When I was a kid I was at their place more than my own.My dad used to get so jealous, but he understood my obsession with Uncle Barry’s adventures because he liked hearing them too.My grandfather was a marine. The taste for adventure skipped my father and went straight to me.Back in the day, when I wasn’t getting my ass in trouble, my days would include listening to Uncle Barry’s war stories while eating Aunt Lilly’s pie,then spying on her as she taught her dance class in her studio by the lake.Or rather, watching her niece as Lilly taught her.
“I didn’t even know Lilly was that sick until things got bad.” That was eight months ago.
“I’m sorry, man. I know she meant a lot to you,” Ethan sympathizes.
“Thanks.” I nod appreciating his words then push to my feet.“I better get going if I want to get some work in tonight.”
“Alright soldier, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Cool, I’ll call you if I see anything suspicious.”
He gives me a curt nod and I head back to my car allowing the fresh cool night air to wash over me.
The one thing I noticed straight away when I came home was the air in Wilmington was different to anywhere I’d ever been.Fresher and captivating with that edge of the saltiness from the sea.It lured me to explore no matter what time of day or night it was.
When you travel around the way I did for years, you notice little things like that.
Prior to being a marine, I’d lived here all my life and never really noticed the little things I don't take for granted anymore.
I slide into my car and pull out of the parking lot.The minute I turn down the road that leads back into the city Lilly crosses my mind again.
I still kick myself for not knowing she was as sick as she was.I’m supposed to be perceptive yet I didn’t suspect anything at all.
Lilly was one of those people who didn’t like anybody fussing over her.She was one of those people who was like a mother to everybody.Mostly me.
I think it was because she took pity on me when she found out my mother died before I was five, leaving Dad and my sister, Avery, who hadn’t even turned one yet.
It was Lilly’s motherly ways that stopped her from drawing attention to how sick she was.She didn’t want people to worry, and not when she knew the inoperable tumor in her brain would kill her one day.
She had that tumor for three years and it was only eight months ago that I found out about it.By then she was in a hospice and I was being told she had a few months to live.Based on the condition I saw her in, I was pretty sure the doctors literally meant few as in three but Lilly was a fighter.She gave a good fight.
I went to visit her every day and saw her struggles for myself.I felt Uncle Barry would want me to be with her as much as I could.
While I was happy to see her as much as I could, it disgusted me that none of her family members came to visit her.
It was me who was with her when she died.Me, reading that poem she loved.In Memoriam by Tennyson. She used to recite it to me when I was a kid.Reading it to her as she lay in that hospital bed was like she’d already died.When she took her last breath something died in me too.
Over the last few months, there was one thing after another centered around Lilly’s family.One or another to remind me of Quinn.
I’ll be the first to point out that there was a correlation between all the scandals and Lilly's aggressive decline.
The first thing to hit was reports that Peter Cambray might have been involved in electoral and securities fraud.
When that might was confirmed hard evidence supplied by a man called Braxton Robson the news took off like wildfire.Days after that we all heard how Peter blew a hole right through Braxton’s heart with a shotgun then killed himself after with a bullet to the head.
The scandal was true and it ruined him.The man couldn’t stand being in the hot seat with everybody finding out his dirty secrets so he took matters into his own hands and got out of this world while he could.
The thing about all that was while everybody was shocked, I wasn’t.To me that was just the one batch of shit people found out about.There would have been much more.Like what I remembered back from years ago when the Cambrays lived here and one of their workers turned up dead in the river.I always thought Peter killed him and I don’t think I was the only one who thought so.
The month before Lilly died the Cambray scandal took a different turn with word that Quinn and Riley Lanford were getting a divorce.The couple had supposedly decided on an amicable split.I don’t know what to make of that.
Like everything in the past nothing made sense.
But it doesn’t need to anymore.
The funeral’s tomorrow.
