An unthinkable thing, p.1
An Unthinkable Thing, page 1
Advance Praise for AN UNTHINKABLE THING
“A magnificent example of all the elements of fine fiction—an engaging narrative voice, a profound evocation of time and place, a complex braiding of plot lines—converging to create the perfect tale. Add to this enticing mix a deeply compelling mystery that doesn’t wholly reveal itself until the final page, and what more could any reader ask for? If I were a judge on the Edgar Committee for Best Novel, this story would be at the top of my short list.”
—William Kent Krueger, New York Times bestselling author of This Tender Land
“From the enticing first pages to the shocking last lines (don’t peek!), Nicole Lundrigan’s An Unthinkable Thing explores the trauma of loneliness and the power of belonging, through the eyes of a tender, unforgettable young narrator. You’ll be deeply moved by this thoughtful and atmospheric page-turner.”
—Ashley Audrain, New York Times bestselling author of The Push
“In Nicole Lundrigan’s An Unthinkable Thing we meet 11-year-old Tommie Ware, whose life is forever changed by the dark secrets of the wealthy family his estranged mother works for. Gothic horror meets literary suspense, this novel showcases Lundrigan’s impressive talent for crafting a story that is propulsive yet measured, never giving up its mysteries too easily. Flawlessly captivating, this is the book I’ve been waiting to read all year.”
—Karma Brown, #1 nationally bestselling author of Recipe for a Perfect Wife
“In An Unthinkable Thing, Nicole Lundrigan goes deep behind the glittering curtain of a perfect family, skillfully revealing their darkest secrets one shocking layer at a time. Expertly paced, with a voice that’s both tender and innocent, this twisted suspense story’s jaw-dropping events kept me glued to the pages until the ultimate satisfying surprise. A must read.”
—Hannah Mary McKinnon, internationally bestselling author of You Will Remember Me
“I read An Unthinkable Thing with my heart in my throat. Nicole Lundrigan masterfully sets the stage with a nostalgic late-1950s backdrop, then ratchets up the tension as she slowly reveals that nothing is quite what it seems. This slow burn mystery builds to an inferno that will keep readers riveted until the final, satisfying page. Five enthusiastic stars!”
—Nicole Baart, bestselling author of Everything We Didn’t Say
Praise for the Arthur Ellis Award–shortlisted HIDEAWAY
“Authentic, disturbing and unbearably tense, Hideaway will leave you reeling.”
—Shari Lapena, #1 internationally bestselling author of The Couple Next Door
“A terrific psychological suspense story hinging on the spellbinding character of Gloria, the mom from hell…Just when you think you have it all figured out, Lundrigan’s plot swerves. This book has to be saved for a binge read.”
—The Globe and Mail
“In elegant, stylish prose, Lundrigan captures the bewilderment of childhood…. If ever there was a book that will hook you with hatred and love, Hideaway is it. With a great, tense finish, you’ll be desperate for the right characters to win. I loved Maisy as much as I do Scout Finch, and that’s saying something.”
—Roz Nay, internationally bestselling author of Our Little Secret
“Lundrigan is a fearless writer, and has created an unforgettable, psychologically complex, smart, dark story in Hideaway. Questioning ideas of safety, truth, and responsibility, it’s a bone-chilling tale that goes places you’ll never expect—your heart will be racing by the final, shocking climax and you’ll never stop cheering for the irresistible child heroes Rowan and Maisy, even in the darkest moments.”
—Grace O’Connell, author of Be Ready for the Lightning
Also by Nicole Lundrigan
Hideaway
The Substitute
The Widow Tree
Glass Boys
The Seary Line
Thaw
Unraveling Arva
VIKING
an imprint of Penguin Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited
Canada • USA • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China
First published 2022
Copyright © 2022 by Nicole Lundrigan
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
www.penguinrandomhouse.ca
Publisher’s note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: An unthinkable thing / Nicole Lundrigan.
Names: Lundrigan, Nicole, author.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210239522 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210239530 | ISBN 9780735242678 (softcover) | ISBN 9780735242685 (EPUB)
Classification: LCC PS8573.U5436 U58 2022 | DDC C813/.6—dc23
Book design by Emma Dolan, adapted for ebook
Cover design by Emma Dolan
Cover images: (cracked glass) © showcake / Shutterstock.com; (fish in bowl) © Antonio Ibarra / EyeEm / Getty Images
a_prh_6.0_139713515_c1_r0
Another one for my three.
Sophia
Ella
Robert
And Leonard, too.
Who cannot be left out.
Cover
Also by Nicole Lundrigan
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
“The trees were full of silver-white sunlight and the meanest of them sparkled.”
—Flannery O’Connor
PROLOGUE
When I was a young boy, my aunt often told me a lie makes things worse. But she never explained that the truth can, too. I learned that lesson on my own during the summer of 1958, when I was eleven years old.
Before that, I’d had a fairly regular childhood. I was raised by my aunt Celia, and we lived in a small walk-up apartment on a potholed street in Lower Washbourne. Like most of our neighbors, we didn’t have much, but we managed. A nice old couple named Mr. and Mrs. King lived directly below us, and my best friend, Wally, was in the building across the street. When it was warm, Wally and I would bike to the lake to hunt frogs or catch fish with string and safety pins. And children were always outside skipping rope and playing kick the can. School was decent, too. My teacher, Mrs. Pinsent, often told my aunt I was bright but distracted. Apparently, I had a fondness for daydreaming.
But in the weeks before the end of that school year, a shift happened. Not a change I saw or heard, but more something I felt. My easygoing aunt, who’d cared for me every single day since I was born, was different. She’d grown more intense about everything. All at once, she was bothered by the stray cats in the alley and the chips on the rims of our cereal bowls. She began to complain about the looping staircases we had to climb to reach our apartment. She spoke repeatedly about wanting a house with a fence and a yard.
I blamed those changes on the new man she’d been seeing. He was one of her patients from St. Augustine’s Hospital, where she was a night nurse. I suspected him of making promises he’d never keep. I suspected her of believing them. Even though I hadn’t met him, I recall having a damp awareness that he was not a good person. I’d hoped she’d forget about him, like she had with all the others, and everything would return to the way it was before. But it never did. Instead the worst possible thing occurred, upending my life in ways I could not have fathomed. I was forced to leave our apartment and taken to stay with my birth mother. She was a live-in housekeeper and worked for the Henneberrys, Washbourne’s wealthiest and most respected family. I soon discovered nobody had a clue who they really were.
Three decades have passed since that hot August afternoon when the Henneberrys—mother, father, and son—were murdered. While that may seem like long enough for the memories to dull, I occasionally wake up during the night and I’m still there. Standing on that manicured lawn. The gun is going off. Once, twice, three times. My shirt is sprayed with their blood and my tongue tastes of metal. When I look up, my mother is beside me. Her maid’s uniform has a red smear across the line of buttons. She grips my arm. “Thomas? Listen to me!” I can’t meet her eyes.
Then comes the slow crunch of tires over the gravel driveway. The doctor has arrived, but the dozens of pill bottles he carries in his black bag can’t change what has already happened. “Hurry!” my mother cries. She’s yanking off my soiled clothes. “I need to wash your—”
The car door slams. Even now I can recall the exact dilemma that swirled through my child’s mind. He is coming toward me. I only have a moment to decide.
Am I going to tell the truth?
Or am I going to be good and brave. And tell the lie.
Greenlake Chronicle
March 17, 1959
TRIAL BEGINS FOR 11-YEAR-OLD ALLEGED TRIPLE-KILLER
A hush came over the courtroom in Greenlake today as opening statements began in the trial against 11-year-old Thomas Leon Ware. Ware stands accused of the shooting deaths of Washbourne’s most prominent family, Muriel Henneberry, 36, Dr. Raymond Henneberry, 41, and their son, Martin, 16. Muriel was the only daughter of millionaire businessman and philanthropist Martin Oliver Gladstone. Ware has pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutor Clay Fibbs said in a statement, “The Henneberrys’ sole mistake was opening their door to a dangerous individual. Thomas Ware is the illegitimate son of their housekeeper, a boy with a troubled history. But still, they welcomed him with open arms. And violence, unspeakable violence, was the result of their generosity.” When asked for comment, Defense Counsel William Evans said, “Nothing’s as neatly cut as Mr. Fibbs would have you believe. But we’ll try this case in the courtroom. Not on its steps.”
If found guilty, Ware will be the youngest person ever convicted as an adult for a capital crime in our country. Testimony begins tomorrow, with Muriel Henneberry’s personal physician, Dr. Arnold Norton, taking the stand.
CHAPTER ONE
On June 14, 1958, my worst problem was the smoke in my eyes. Wally and I were on the fire escape of my apartment using his wood-burning kit. He’d brought me a thin board, and I was moving the hot metal point to form the letters of my name. The T was squiggly, but the o was turning out better. When it was finished, I planned to hang it on the bedroom door, even though it wasn’t just my room. I shared it with my aunt. If I had time, maybe I’d burn her name, too. Tommie and Celia.
I was about to begin the first m but Aunt Celia was screaming. Again. “Tommie? Get in here! Quick, quick!”
“What’s she on about?” Wally said. He rubbed the fuzz on top of his head. The day before, Wally’s mother gave both of us identical end-of-school haircuts with her black clippers. Wally’s hair was now a shadow of orangish blond and mine was plain brown. He had freckles and a gap between his front teeth. I had neither.
“Probably a bug,” I said.
“She cuts people open and she’s scared of a few more legs?”
I laughed and handed him back the wood burner. “Nurses don’t cut people open, Wally. They sew them up.”
I stepped over the electric cord and climbed through the kitchen window. Sure enough, when I got to the bathroom, I found my aunt standing on the toilet seat, her fists pressed into her chest, and an enormous orange earwig in the bottom of the sink.
“It crawled right up the drain,” she said.
It was trying to escape, but it kept slipping. I reached in and cupped it inside my hands.
My aunt shuddered as she stepped off the toilet. “You always take care of me, Tommie.”
I did, or I tried to, anyway. As much as I could. Scraping the dishes or bringing her breakfast when she woke up after her shift, or brushing the dirt off her best shoes with the silver buckles.
She turned back to the bathroom mirror. “Now can you get rid of it? And tell Wally he needs to go. Your mother’ll be here soon, and you still haven’t scrubbed your face. Or behind your ears.” She leaned in close to her reflection and dotted lipstick on her mouth. Then she wiped it off with toilet paper. “I look old, don’t I?”
“You’re only thirty-three.”
“Shush, Tommie. Twenty-nine. No, I’ll be twenty-eight. Twenty-nine sounds like such a fib.”
“Okay,” I said, though I didn’t get it.
She applied her lipstick again and then glanced at me. “You’ve got a ring around your neck, too.”
The earwig’s legs were tickling my palms and my stomach knotted up. I frowned.
“Why that face? Don’t you want to be clean for your mother? With your birthday tomorrow, I know she’s excited to see you.”
I doubted that very much. My mother was a stranger to me. When I was only two hours old, she’d given me to my aunt and gone right back to work at the Henneberrys’. They all lived together in an enormous house in Upper Washbourne, and I heard they had a pool and a beach and plenty of woods for roaming. More grass than a whole park. Barely Twenty-minutes away by bus.
When I was smaller, I spent a lot of time dreaming about that place. In my head, it was like a picture out of a magazine. The Henneberrys even had a son who was a few years older than me, and I was certain he’d show me around. But in my almost eleven years, my aunt and I had gone to visit exactly zero times.
Aunt Celia got closer to me. Her mouth was moving. Then I heard her say, “I swear sometimes I’m talking to air.”
“Sorry.” I couldn’t help it. I got distracted a lot. Like my teacher said.
I carried the earwig outside to the fire escape and opened my hands to show Wally. Instead of running away though, it stayed on my palm. Never budged. I think it was staring at us. Or maybe it was stunned. Going from a gunky drain to all that sunshine had to be a shock.
“He’s jumbo,” Wally said, and backed away. “Good thing your aunt’s got us men around to protect her.”
“Sure is.” Wally didn’t like bugs either, but I wasn’t afraid. And even if I was, I’d never show it. I shook the earwig off and it skittered away.
“Hurry up, Tommie,” Aunt Celia called from the bedroom. Then she peeked around the doorframe. “And goodbye, Wally.”
Wally packed his kit into the box and climbed down the metal stairs to the street. He crossed the street and disappeared through the glass front doors of his building. His apartment was also on the third floor, but it had three bedrooms because he had a little sister named Sunny. If we caught each other at the right time, Wally and I would wave from our windows. Aunt Celia and I were on a waiting list for the next two-bedroom available, but when we moved, I was really going to miss waving at Wally.
As I went back inside, Aunt Celia was changing her blouse again.
“Why are you fussing so much?”
“Because I want to fuss.” She fixed a pink scarf around her neck. “What’s wrong with looking nice for my sister?”
I knew Aunt Celia’s efforts had nothing to do with my mother and everything to do with her new boyfriend. He was the worst one yet. Whenever they had plans, Aunt Celia waited on the front stoop. I often spied on her from the fire escape. She just stood there, hands clasped, even when it was raining. And when the man finally drove up in his dark car, he barely slowed down. He would sound his horn and she’d dash off the bottom step, her skirt swishing back and forth. Sometimes as he drove away, he’d hang his arm out the window. I always stared at his hand. His fingers. White and fat and ugly. I worried they’d made those five tiny bruises I’d seen on the top of Aunt Celia’s arm. I counted them while she was asleep.
“Tom?”
I’d bet a nickel she was going out to see him once my mother had gone.
“Tommie? Can you hear me?”
“Huh?”
“Get ready, I said, and then go downstairs and greet her.”
