The Other Sister, page 26
The house door opens, and a man comes out. He’s wearing jeans and a ragged T-shirt for some band I’ve never heard of. He’s knuckling his eyes and scratching his chin.
It’s him. The one I heard her with the other night. It must be.
“Can I help you?” he asks warily.
“I…I…Where’s Geraldine?”
He squints at me and considers the question. “Are you Marie?”
“I…yes. I…”
The stranger holds out his hand. “Tyler Prescott.”
I stare like I expect him to hit me. “Where’s Geraldine?”
Tyler Prescott withdraws his hand, trying to cover the awkwardness by pointing over his shoulder. “Asleep. She can sleep through anything.” He smiles and waits for me to smile back.
“Yes.”
“Your son’s okay,” he tries. “His dad took him home.”
“I…yes, he let me know. Thank you.”
We stand there. The morning is already warm. Sweat prickles under my arms only to be turned to a chill by the breeze. I wait for the world to shift and the ground to sag. I want to see what this man will do when it happens. How good he is at pretending.
But the world stays steady, and he and I are left to stare at each other.
“Do you want me to get Geraldine?” he asks finally.
“No. Thank you. No. She…” I swallow, and I look at the broken glass. “Did she say what happened?”
“Yeah, she did.”
My fear is instant. She didn’t. She wouldn’t. Not even at her worst. She would never lay our secrets out to a stranger.
“She said your father did it to chase her off. She said there’s some kind of money…” He hesitates, editing Geraldine’s words in his mind. “Problem…?”
“Oh.” It’s not the worst thing, but it’s bad enough.
He thinks my silence is for the broken glass. “Hell of a thing. They got my car, too.”
“Yes.”
“Look, Ms. Monroe, we don’t know each other, but I’ve been with Geraldine for over a year now. I love her. I swear, I didn’t come up here to make waves. I just…she’s hurting, and I want to help. That’s all, I promise. She came up here to make things right so we could…Well, look, what I’m saying is, if there’s anything…any way I can help smooth things over…just say the word.”
Over a year. The words settle into me. This man, this boy, looks to be barely older than Robbie. He’s been with her over a year. And she didn’t say one word while we talked and planned and promised.
I look at his bright, distressed eyes and see his expression of gentle regret. He doesn’t want to be saying these things. He knows it’s painful. But he loves her. He just wants everything to be right.
He doesn’t realize how very, very familiar I am with this expression, not to mention the arguments and behavior that go with it. I live with them every single second of every single day. I am an expert in all their shades and hidden meanings. I am not taken in, not even for a moment.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Really I am, but the only way you can help is to leave us alone.”
His bearded jaw juts out. “Right. Okay. Guess I’d better go get Gerie then.”
He goes back inside. The ancient screen door slams shut behind him.
She lied to me. She lied to me.
I can’t breathe. I’m falling, from the tree, from the stairs, from the cliff over the lake. The air crawls up my arms and into my ears, whispering obscenities and accusations in my mother’s voice as it spirals into my brain.
She said she was coming home to help.
She said she was sorry. She wanted to make it right.
She made me believe we were finally going to be together.
And she lied about all of it.
The house door opens and Geraldine steps out. She looks so young in her cargo shorts and a misbuttoned shirt. She’s shoving her dark hair out of her eyes, showing her scabs and her bruises, all that damage she has done to herself. She stares at me, bleary-eyed, belligerent, so familiar. The person I have loved longer and more than anyone else.
I should go to her, talk to her, try again to understand her. Convince her, console her, remind her. She is my sister.
But she lied.
I turn on my heel, shut myself into the car my father picked out for me, and drive away.
The most famous of the traditional story about two full-blood sisters is, of course Bluebeard. As usual, in the original story it’s very different from the version that got famous. But the moral is the same. It’s more of a horror story than a fairy tale. But then again, the line between the two is very fine. “Beware of the charming stranger,” the story says. “He’s going to take you away from home, and you are never coming back.”
—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.
Marie’s gigantic black car rounds the curve and is gone, leaving behind the rush of the wind in the trees and the shouts of the crows.
Tyler’s moving closer to me, angling to press his body against mine, but I’ve already pulled away. I head for the bathroom and lean across the little sink. I brace both my hands on the porcelain, staring into the basin for a long minute. When it becomes clear I’m not actually going to be sick, I turn on the cold water and fill my hands. I smack the cold against my bruised face like I’m hoping the shock will jolt something loose. It doesn’t work. So I do it again, and again.
When I’m gasping for air, I shut the water off and look up into the mirror. I want to see what my sister saw that lit her face with so much hatred. But the truth is, I don’t need to look. I know exactly what I’ve done, and that only makes it worse. I’ve made and broken promises to both sides with equal speed.
I just wish I knew what I was going to do next.
Tyler moves into the mirror frame. He looks haggard and hungry. Guilt clenches my stomach. He’s looking at my reflection, my bruises, scabs, and scar, studying them all for the truth he hasn’t been able to find in my real face.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all?
“What are you going to do?” Tyler asks my reflection.
“Get some breakfast,” I say. “Get your car into the shop. They should open around nine. Get some sheeting and maybe some plywood for the windows…”
Tyler’s finally recovered his voice. “Geraldine, this is crazy. You cannot stay here.”
He keeps saying you. Not we. My heart shrivels. I should take it out and put it in a box, in a duck, in a well, in the woods…
I close my eyes and swallow and try to stamp down on the tangle of my thoughts.
“It’ll be fine,” I say. “We’ve both stayed worse places.”
But Tyler’s not buying it. I knew he wouldn’t. I know what is happening, I can see the ending clearly. I’ve read this story. I’ve written it.
I can still stop.
“It will not be fine! You said your—”
“Never mind what I said, okay? It doesn’t matter.” I push past him, heading for the bedroom. I’m half dressed, and feeling fully naked. Battered. Burned.
Tyler, of course, follows. “How the hell does your father smashing your house windows not matter!”
The tangle inside me snaps and, in a flash, I see red.
“See, this is why I told you to keep your nose the fuck out of my business!”
“Do you have any idea how insane you sound right now?”
“Yes, actually, I do,” I say, because I have nothing left in me but honesty and anger. “That’s the other reason I told you to stay away!”
“So, I was just supposed to leave you out here?”
I can still stop this.
“Yes! How many times to I have to say it? Yes! When I walked out on you, you were supposed to take the goddamn hint!”
“I love you, Gerie!”
“It doesn’t matter!”
My scream rings off the walls. It fades and slowly dies. Tyler steps back. His expression goes blank. I can imagine him standing in front of his father, the man who tried to beat holiness into his children, wearing that same solid, stoic expression.
“You really mean that.”
“Finally!” I throw my arms out wide and shout to the ceiling. “He gets it!”
“This isn’t you. I don’t know who the hell…”
Stop this.
“You’re wrong, Tyler. This is me. I really am the crazy lady in the ruined house in the woods.”
He’s out of words. He’s out of breath. He takes two steps forward. Anger seethes behind his eyes. For a minute, I think he might actually hit me. I’m ready for it. I want it.
Hit me, break me, kill me, stop this. Stop me. You can do it, Ty. You’re the only one who can.
He takes my face in both hands and kisses me, hard. I freeze. My mouth stays shut, my body stays stock still. I don’t even lift my hands. His tongue stabs at my lips, blunt and insistent, and I just clench tighter.
He pulls back.
“Well. I guess that’s that.”
Tyler turns and walks away. Tyler slams the door and heads for his damaged car without looking back.
My mouth moves, shaping words. There’s no sound because there’s no breath left in my body.
Let him go.
I’m moving. Toward the door. Down the hall. Out into the living room. Out into the morning air and the shifting light and shadows and birdsong. I’m still talking, still making no sound.
I promised. I have to. It’s all my fault.
It always had to end this way. Because of the fire that didn’t start and the accident that didn’t happen and the fact that I couldn’t ever convince Marie to come out with me, so I’ve come back to her.
Tyler slams his car door. He shoves the key in the ignition.
It’s family, Tyler. I can’t get away. I can’t. I’ve tried.
He cranks the engine, and cranks it again.
This is my world. I was stupid to think there was anywhere else. This is all there is. Everything else…I just break everything else.
He slams the heel of his hand against the steering wheel and cranks the ignition once more. This time, it catches.
Yes, get out of here. This is better. This is the right thing.
He throws the car into reverse. I hear the gears grind. The Toyota lurches around—back, grind, forward, grind, back—making a clumsy circle like a wounded dog.
Good-bye. Good-bye. Good…
“Tyler!”
But he doesn’t hear me.
No wicked stepfather tales. Why didn’t anyone ever tell them that story?
—Dr. Geraldine Monroe (margin notes)
MARIE, PRESENT DAY
THE ROSE HOUSE
1.
Dad is in the formal dining room when I get home. He must have made his own coffee. I hope he got it right. He is very particular.
“Marie,” he says mildly as I walk in. “I was worried.”
“Yes, I’m sorry.”
“Did you find Robbie?”
“Yes.”
“Good. With the party Sunday, it would be a bad time for him to get up to some adolescent shenanigans.”
The party. Oh. “Yes.”
Dad puts his mug down on the coaster. He is always careful of the things we use. A little less so of the people, perhaps, but that’s what it is to be human, isn’t it?
“There was a phone call for you while you were out,” he tells me. “Larry Kappernick.”
“Oh.”
“I didn’t know Larry knew what eight o’clock looked like.” Dad chuckles. I think I smile. I am not sure. “We chatted a bit. He said he’d been looking into a few things for you.”
“Yes.”
“He said you were concerned Geraldine had been shading the truth and asked him to call some friends at Lillywell.”
He waits for my explanation. “I didn’t want to upset you.”
Dad considers this, washing it down with another sip of coffee. “He said you were right,” he tells me finally. “Geraldine was fired.”
“I wanted everything to be as normal as possible, so we could all enjoy graduation.” No. That’s not the right thing to say. Why can’t I think of the right thing to say?
“Seems there was some scandal with her and the dean, and she was sleeping with a student…?”
A student. Tyler Prescott. Sloppy, sleepy, standing right behind her and trying to tell me everything he had done he had done from love. “Yes.”
“I tried to warn you, Marie. I told you I don’t know how many times…”
“Yes.”
“I thought you were the one who would listen. I could always count on you, no matter what. We were a team, you and I. Not like the others.”
“Yes.”
“I’m disappointed, Marie.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re going to have some work to fix this.”
“Yes.”
Yes, I am.
Fairy tales are not big on second chances. The wicked sister never gets to turn around and say, you know, that thing where I tried to kill you and marry your husband? That was a mistake. I have reconsidered my life choices. In the stories, redemption can only come from the hand of God, and God is a tight-fisted old bastard.
—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.
I can’t do this.
I thought I could stand him hating me because I deserve it, but I am melting down. Dissolving into anger and confusion. I hate myself, my family (like that’s hard), and everything around me. I’m lost in electric, ecstatic confusion with no way to reclaim the certainty I thought had hardened inside me.
I know—I know—I have to let him leave.
Atonement costs. A piece of your foot. Your beloved horse. Your hands. I have to pay—and pay heavily—to stop being the wicked sister and finally prove to someone somehow that I deserve a life of my own.
But this price is too steep.
Tyler isn’t answering his phone. Until he does, I can’t say I’m sorry. I can’t explain. The fight was a mistake. Sending him away was a mistake. Staying alone, here in the empty house with the broken windows while all the craziness closes in on me, it’s all part of the same huge mistake.
I knock glass shards out of the windows, shattering them on the ground and the floor. I prowl the empty rooms, I guzzle the Diet Coke and shots of rum until I’m sick and dizzy. I try to find a way out of the endless loop of thoughts spinning through me.
I shouldn’t have sent him away.
He shouldn’t have come here.
I shouldn’t have sent him away.
He shouldn’t have come.
I shouldn’t have come.
Somewhere in the back of my head, I know this rage will eventually evaporate. That only makes it worse.
I try to clean up, but it’s hopeless. I don’t have the tools. I catch myself standing outside with one glass shard in my hand, wondering where it would hurt the most to cut. The pain will break the cycle. Let me focus. I can pay the price with blood that I can’t pay with honesty.
I drop the shard and run back into the house.
Inside, I strip all those photographs off the wall. My first impulse is to tear them up, but instead I stuff them into my purse. I’ll throw them all in Marie’s face. They’re all going straight into her face. All of them. This is her fault.
This is my fault.
It doesn’t matter. Not anymore. I’m going to blow the whole thing sky high. Just as soon as I explain it to Tyler. Just as soon as I can see past how much I hate everything I am and everything I’ve done and everything I plan on doing next.
Just as soon as I talk to Tyler and explain.
Tyler has left me alone. Just like I said I wanted. I said it because I could not let the outside world in and still keep my promise to help destroy my father. I could not adequately explain why Marie and I had to take matters into our own hands.
I climb into the car and fumble for my phone. I call David, but he’s not answering. In desperation, I call Marie. I remember the hate in her eyes as I listen to her voice mail message.
“Marie, please, pick up. I need to talk to you. I need…”
I need a reminder that there is something real happening here. That my heartbreak has a point and a purpose.
I need my sister.
There’s a click and a shuffle and my heart swells.
“Marie. Thank God. Listen, I know you’re angry and I’m sorry. I am. I wanted to tell you. We were coming up last night, but we found Robbie instead and he…”
“Marie’s not ready to talk to you just yet, Geraldine,” says my father’s voice.
The phone slips from my fingers and thuds onto the floor mat.
“Geraldine?” says Dad from down by my feet. “Your sister told me what happened at Lillywell. She’s very upset that you lied.”
My lungs are heaving. He probably hears, but I can’t stop it.
“I’ve been talking to her,” he says. “I told her we should hear your side of the story.”
Slowly, the flood of emotion I’ve been drowning in since sunrise drains away. Listening to my father reminds me exactly who I am. I welcome it, even though it makes my skin crawl.
“Geraldine?”
I have to duck awkwardly around the steering wheel to pick my phone up.
“When did you ever want to hear from me?” I ask him.
“Things change, Geraldine. Even for an old man. I don’t see why we can’t sit down and talk this through.”
Something’s wrong. Something’s happened, something that matters to him. He wants something. From me.
“Where’s Marie?”
“You sound like you think I’ve buried her in the back garden.”
Because that’s what I do think. Because I remember the car ride out to the county asylum when I was thirteen, the endless threats to lock Mom away. And Aunt Trish, barricaded in Rose House.
