The Other Sister, page 11
“I know. And I did try, but she said she wanted to see the house. What could I do? It is her property.”
Dad crouches down in front of me. He takes the glass from my hand, and then takes both my wrists. He holds me firmly. Not hard. Not so I will be hurt. Just so I will pay attention to him, and not the room. Not the patterns. Not the cold on my shoulders and the splits in the walls.
“It’s your property, baby girl.” He frowns at my wounded hand. The tape holding down my bandage itches. I hate it. It’s ugly. I want to rip it off and miraculously reveal a perfect palm underneath. “You’ve been taking care of it since your mother died. She’s done nothing to earn it.”
Which she? I struggle to remember how many conversations we’ve had about the undeserving “shes”—the ones who didn’t earn, didn’t pay attention, needed to be taught a lesson.
You have to focus, Marie. He wants to talk about Geraldine. Say something.
But Dad speaks first. “I know it was my fault Geraldine ran away after your mother left us.” He releases one of my wrists to cover my bandaged hand instead. His palm is warm and moist. It is costing him to make these admissions. “I couldn’t…I couldn’t understand how badly she was hurting, too. All I could think was how dare she do that to me, to us, when we all needed to be there for each other…I wanted to kill her, Marie. I really did. And she knew it and she’s never forgiven me. I can’t blame her for that. Or you, either.”
His eyes are hollow as he looks at me, and the rings under them stand out, even though his cheeks are flushed. I try to remain detached. I try to be open to the details of setting and atmosphere. The arrangement of the bottles on the sideboard. The crows cawing in the woods. The tilt of the pillows. They are all full of meaning, but I can’t make myself understand them. I can’t understand anything.
There’s only one thing I can do that will ease my father’s mind.
“It was my fault,” I tell him. “I wasn’t there for Geraldine, or Mom. I was all wrapped up in my own little world and I stopped paying attention to what was happening with my own family.”
With that, Dad smiles, sadly, patiently. “Oh, baby girl, you can’t blame yourself. There were so many people to take care of,” he whispers to our joined hands. “I leaned hard on you after, well, after your mother became so incapacitated. She never recovered from what her sister did, trying to abduct you both. But I needed you, Marie. And it wasn’t that I didn’t understand what it’s like to be saddled with so much responsibility. It was just the same for me after my father died.”
The walls shift uneasily, but Mom at least is drifting away. We are not talking about Geraldine anymore. We are talking about him and his life. She’s heard it all before.
“My father failed us all, Marie, just like your mother failed you. He left us with nothing. That should have taught me better…but I loved your mother, Marie. I couldn’t help myself. Sometimes…I hated myself for how much I loved her. Maybe it was a mistake, not divorcing her. I just…all I wanted was to keep the family together.”
And just like that, we are back on familiar ground. He’s said this so many times, I have memorized every break and ragged inflection of his voice.
“You did everything you could, Dad. For all of us. Geraldine has always had a cruel streak,” I try to bring us back around to a more comfortable direction. “I guess I thought, maybe this time, now that Robbie’s leaving, we could try again, but, now I just don’t know…”
Dad squeezes my bandaged palm. The scab breaks beneath the loving pressure of my father’s hand.
“I was too harsh. I didn’t always let you know how much I loved you, how much I’ve always depended on you.”
“But you did, Dad.” I give my hand a little shake to assure him. He loosens his fingers so I can draw away, before he realizes I’m bleeding again. “I couldn’t have ever asked for a better father.” Smile, Marie. Smile and be brisk. “I’ll go down and talk with Geraldine tomorrow, right after I see Carla about Windward Hill.”
“All right.” Dad straightens himself up so he’s looking down at me. “I guess that will have to do. If you’re really too busy to take care of this first thing…”
“Well, you know that anything with Geraldine takes ten times longer than it should. I don’t want to delay things for the Dickinsons’ house if she decides to be…difficult.”
Dad nods in sour agreement, and our eyes meet. He sees right through me, sees how calm I am remaining, how well I can pretend everything is normal.
“All right, Marie. We’ll do it your way.”
Dad smiles, and I smile. I let him see my relief. Why shouldn’t I? It’s real. We are back on the right path. The symbols and shadows sink into the carpet. They are no longer needed.
“Do you want another drink, Dad?” I get to my feet, carefully, in case the floor shifts.
“Nah, I think I’ll hit the hay.” He stretches his shoulders. “Where’s Robbie got himself to?”
“He’s in Petoskey, playing roadie for his friend’s band and staying over for a graduation party. He’ll be back Wednesday.” I think. I hope. “Why don’t you head up? I’ll clean up here.”
“Thank you, Marie.” He kisses my forehead. “Goodnight, baby girl.”
“Goodnight, Dad.”
He leaves me there to pick up the glasses, find the cloth to carefully wipe the damp ring off the table, and take care of all the other small business to restore perfect order.
Because that, after all, is what his baby girl is for.
When we talk about the Household Tales, we eventually have to turn our attention to that other sister—the ugly one, the wicked one, the natural child of that evil stepmother. Whatever her mother says—go out into the cold, commit murder, cut your own foot—that ugly daughter does, no questions asked.
The natural conclusion is she must love and trust her mother.
But there could be something else driving her.
After all, the wicked sister knows she’s not pretty, and that people don’t like her. She gets to watch that other girl—the pretty one, the good, beloved one—be sent to her death.
How could the other sister keep from wondering if it might be her turn next?
—Out of the Woods: Musings on Fairy Tales in the Real World,
Dr. Geraldine Monroe
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
STACEY B’S SANDWICHES AND STUFF
1.
About a quarter mile back into the trees behind our house, there’s a gully, a long, V-shaped gouge carved out by years of spring runoff and passing deer from the hills. On its slopes, the maples and oaks are slowly taking over from the pines. One birch waits like a ghost. Sprawling clusters of Boston fern unfurl wherever there’s enough sunlight.
I’ve been avoiding this place. All day yesterday, I kept to the house—unloading the car, fixing up what comforts I can with the stuff I brought along. Compared to some places I’ve been, it’s not too bad. Like the night on the edge of the Gobi when Shin Liu and Daniella and I had to shut ourselves in the car to keep from being smothered by the sandstorm. The old house is positively paradise compared to that. Then there was that night in the truck stop parking lot outside of Pittsburgh, with that skeezy long-haul guy who was not going to take no for an answer. That was really bad. I wonder if his knee ever healed.
But this, this is bad, too. Because down there at the bottom of the gully, that’s where they found my mother.
I stare down the slope. It’s steep. Almost a cliff. A seasonal stream trickles over the rocks.
They found Mom down there, sprawled on her back in the mud, an aging Snow White, thrown out of her coffin to make room for a better princess.
Overhead, the crows shout at each other.
She’s here! She’s here! Here! Here! Here!
She is here. I feel her. Her presence coils under the leaves. It snakes up through the soles of my shoes, into my ankles and my shins. It burns through every scar—all that need and greed and hot, bitter resentment. I feel her cold skin under my hands, the slouching weight as I heave her into bed, yet again. The sour, sick smell of her all the mornings when I cleaned her up.
I imagine her staring up at the trees, mouth open. Hey, somebody get me a drink! Jesus, G, get the lead out. Do you expect me to wait here all day? Every detail, including the smells of blood and mud and fresh water is a part of me, despite the fact that I never actually saw her dead.
The last time I really saw my mother was in the driveway of the Rose House. She flung her arms out and tipped her white face up to meet the rain while she waited for me to gun the engine and put us both out of our misery.
When Mom was lying on her back at the bottom of this gully, I was in the hospital with tubes in my arm and up my nose. Because despite my very best efforts, I had survived the glass shards and the lake and the hospital room to be released to my father’s care.
He brought me straight here.
Shaky as a kitten, I followed him down the hillside, using roots as steps and sapling trunks as handholds. My skin strained against my scabs and stitches. The rain had freshened the stream, and it was running cheerfully down the hillside, adding its chatter to the birdsong and the wind. The deep, cloven impression of a deer track made a little puddle at the edge.
I thought you should see, Dad said. I thought you would want to know.
And he proceeded to tell me all about it—how Mom was found, where she was found, what the sheriff and the EMTs and everybody else had to say about it. How quickly they assured him it was an accident. Sheriff Boyd had already told him they’d probably find out she’d been drinking too much, again.
I stood there in the mud, listened to every detail, and waited for my grief to come.
Instead, intense, insane euphoria boiled up from the bottom of my broken heart. With every word he spoke, I wanted to laugh and spin around and fling my arms out.
Look at me! I ran down my drunk of a mother and she stood there in the middle of the goddamned driveway and let me do it! Ding-dong the witch is dead! Whee!
I wanted to ask, How did she even get here? I killed her up at the Rose House. That’s, what? A mile away as the crow flies?
But all I did was shove my freezing hands into my jeans pockets and look up into my father’s eyes.
Oh, Geraldine, he breathed.
With those two words, I understood. He knew what I’d done. But he was never going to tell. So, I couldn’t tell, either. He folded his arms around me. He was always physically strong, and he crushed us together. He smelled of fresh air and sweat, and he held me tightly against him until my ribs burned.
I didn’t pull away. I can still feel the press of his polo shirt against my cheek as I hugged him back as hard as I could.
I thought he was glad I’d done it. My becoming a murderer was a sacrifice for the good of the family, like he always talked about. I thought it would bind us together. Now, he would finally love me, like he loved Marie.
In that moment, for the first time since I woke up in the hospital, I was glad I hadn’t died.
Maybe for the last time, too.
But that was twenty-five years ago. Now, I stand up here on the edge and feel like I should pray, maybe. Apologize. Maybe then I won’t have to do the rest of it.
I wonder, weirdly, what Marie is doing now. I wonder if she ever comes back here.
But this is all just delaying the inevitable. I made my choices. There is only one way out for me.
My heart skips a beat, and I lean into my anger. I’m flying. I’m falling. The pain, when it comes, is bright, and I welcome it.
The Household Tales have changed over time, sometimes out of all recognition. Let’s take Cinderella as an example.
In the original, when Cinderella’s mother dies, she plants a sapling on the grave. Then, when she’s told she can’t go to the ball, Cinderella runs to that tree and calls, “Shiver and quiver, my little tree, silver and gold throw down over me.”
A beautiful dress and shoes drop down from the branches. Cinderella goes to the ball on her own to steal the prince from her stepsisters.
Then comes the self-mutilation, and later, the maiming at the wedding by Cinderella’s friends, the birds of the forest.
It’s worth noting how many times it turns out that the good sister is not as helpless as she looks.
Or as good.
—Out of the Woods: Musings on Fairy Tales in the Real World,
Dr. Geraldine Monroe
GERALDINE, NINE YEARS OLD
HEADED UP THE HILL ABOVE M-131
1.
POSTED:
PRIVATE PROPERTY
NO HUN ING
NO TR SPA IN
The metal sign had been peppered by so much buckshot that the bottom line was pretty much chewed off. Geraldine didn’t even slow down. She waded past through the hip-high Queen Anne’s lace and blaze-orange Indian paintbrush, dodging the clusters of poison ivy. She had to hurry. There was a storm rolling in. Clouds scudded overhead, propelled by a wind that smelled of lake water. The sky to the west had already turned an ominous charcoal gray.
Marie, though, stopped at the shot-up sign. “You’re gonna get in trouble!”
“So will you! You better go home!”
Two whole summers had passed since Mom told Geraldine the story of the Rose House and its bad-princess-turned-wicked-witch. Since then, Aunt Florence had packed Ruby and Walt into the pickup truck and left Uncle Pete behind. They were in Detroit for a while, and then Indianapolis. Then, nowhere.
When Marie found out their aunt and cousins were gone, she’d started crying. But Dad sat her down and told her she didn’t need to worry. They weren’t losing a family, they were gaining one. Now, they would have whole bunches of Monroes to be friends with.
Geraldine didn’t cry; she was too angry. Mom didn’t cry, either.
Dad was right about the family anyway. Walt and Ruby were replaced by a fresh flock of cousins, as well as aunts and uncles, some of whom kind of came and went. Every Friday now they had to go to dinner with them all at Grandma Millicent’s. Geraldine and Marie had to put on dresses and get their hair braided, which was a pain. Sometimes, Geraldine eyed Mom’s big sewing scissors and thought how nobody could braid her hair if it was, like, really short.
“What are you even doing up here?” Marie had finally caught up with her. “There nothing up this way except…”
Geraldine broke into a trot. Black-eyed Susans and meadow grass rasped against her bare legs.
“It’s not safe, Geraldine!” Marie clutched at her elbow, but Geraldine shook her off. “You can’t go up there!”
But “there” was already in sight. “There” was a wide, low house, so battered by the weather it was almost as gray as the gathering clouds that seemed to crawl out of the hillside. But it crawled blind, because it had no windows, just sheets of plywood covered in graffiti.
Whitestone was full of abandoned houses, but this one was special. It was big and it had been famous once. Everybody told stories about it at sleepovers and Halloween parties. They said it was home for rats and bats and ghosts and bloody killers with hooks for hands.
It had taken Geraldine forever to realize that this haunted ruin must also be the witch’s castle Mom told her about.
And if this was the castle, then the witch might still be inside.
“It’s condemned,” Marie was saying.
“It’s ours!”
“What are you talking about?”
Geraldine didn’t have the breath to explain the whole long idea chain, so she just said, “Mom’s sister lives up there.”
A flash jerked Geraldine’s gaze to the horizon. Clouds sagged low and lumpy over the lake. Lightning flickered down.
One, two, three, four…
Every four seconds between lightning and thunder was a mile. Geraldine made it to twelve before the low rumble rolled lazily up the hill.
“We gotta get home.” Marie labored through the weeds behind her. “Besides, Mom doesn’t have a sister.”
“She does. She told us. Don’t you remember?”
Marie shook her head, and Geraldine felt her eyes bulge with disbelief.
“How could you forget? You’re the one that’s so in love with fam-i-ly.” She drawled the last word.
The very first dinner with Grandma Millicent and the new family, Marie started kissing up. She trailed around after the new cousins and lost every single cutthroat game of Hearts or Monopoly they played. That should have made them like her better, but never did.
Geraldine hated the way these cousins treated Marie, almost as much as she hated the way Grandma Millicent and the new aunts treated Mom. Almost as much as the way everybody pretended like Aunt Florence and their real cousins were dead. No, it was like they never existed in the first place.
She knew she was supposed to behave, but she just couldn’t. Instead, she shouted at them all. She hid from the cousins and wouldn’t kiss Grandma.
Not that Mom seemed to mind. She’d just laugh and say, “You tell ’em, G! Let ’em have it.” Which should have made Geraldine laugh, too, but somehow it just made her confused, and that made her angrier.
Dad, though, Dad got upset. Afterward, he gave Geraldine talking-tos that lasted for hours. He grounded her for days at a time, so she could only come out of her room to take care of Mom. He threatened to lock her in on Friday nights, unless she started acting like a real part of their family.
Geraldine found herself eyeing that threat like she eyed the scissors and her too-tight braids. Except, some part of her got frightened, too. Dad stopped talking about their cousins and their cousins disappeared. If she was locked up in her room, he might stop talking about her, too, and then she’d be the one who disappeared.
Which was way stupid and she knew it, but the idea wouldn’t go away. Not even up here, in broad daylight with Marie bouncing along beside her, looking confused.
