The Other Sister, page 31
You have no idea, sis. Except there’s a glitter in her eyes that says maybe she does.
“He says there’s not a lot to go on.” Dad takes an appreciative slurp of coffee. “They found that rum bottle in the ruins. Looks like that might have acted as an accelerant. He maybe got careless with a cigarette and…” He shrugs.
I notice Dad doesn’t mention how that rum got into the house in the first place. Neither does Marie, of course. It wouldn’t be polite.
“Anyway, Gary says the way things look right now, they’re going to be putting it down as an accident. Unless something new turns up.”
“Will something new turn up?” I ask him. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Marie’s hand pause as she reaches for her juice glass.
“Well, I wouldn’t know, would I?” Dad smiles. He saw it, too.
I wonder if the sheriff’s office has gotten hold of Angela yet. I consider asking, but only for a minute. The fact that Tyler was a person, that he might have meant something to me, has been dismissed from the conversation. And anyway, I’m not sure what I’d do if I had to face Dad and Marie’s mild, pitying looks in response to his name. I might not be able to hang on.
“Another waffle, Geraldine?” Marie pushes the platter toward me.
I help myself and reach for the butter.
“Where’s Robbie?” I ask as I spoon yet more strawberries onto my plate.
“He’s staying with his father. We decided it would be best until things settle down.”
“Lots of shakeups coming,” adds Dad. “Did Marie tell you, Geraldine? We’re moving your grandmother and Aunt June into the house.”
I glance at Marie. She’s chasing soggy waffle crumbs around her plate. This tells me everything I need to know about who “we” actually is. I wonder if Dad bothered to tell her about his little plan before now.
“Of course, you can still stay as long as you want,” Dad is saying. “There’s plenty of room. But, well, there’s bound to be some shuffling around. Still, Marie will manage everything just fine.”
“It’s what she’s good at,” I say. “I wonder if this is what Grandma wanted to talk to me about?”
“What?” says Dad, and this time, there’s a frown on his face. “When?”
“Before.” Despite my determination to meet and match the level of denial surging around this table, I cannot make myself say before what. “She asked me to come over. She had something to tell me. I should probably find out what.”
“You can call after breakfast,” Dad says.
“She’s always up by nine,” Marie adds.
Uncertainty churns inside me, thick and nauseating. I see the two of them, poised and perfectly comfortable in this blank modern space they’ve created out of Aunt Trish’s ruin. Together, they’ve covered over so much. Everything that didn’t fit the picture has been disappeared. I don’t forget the pockets and piles of things Marie has squirreled away. I don’t forget how I came to be here. But at the same time, when I see my father so calm and relaxed with her, I have to wonder. What if I’m wrong again? What if I was wrong from the beginning? Or not from the beginning. Just from last night.
There are so many points where I could have been mistaken, so many wrong turnings I could have made. And each one of them means there’s something different waiting behind the masks we all wear.
Jesus.
I swallow and set my fork down on the side of my plate. My tongue is thick. “I think I’d rather go down there. I…need to get out. Clear my head a little.”
“I’ve got some errands,” says Marie. Although, what the hell those could be at this point is anybody’s guess. “I’ll take you.”
“If it’s all the same, I’d rather go on my own. If it’s okay with you, Dad?” I add. Because that’s the one move Marie cannot possibly protest.
Dad considers. He takes his time with the idea and enjoys every second. We sit here, Marie and I, awaiting his pronouncement. My scar twitches and my head pounds.
“I think it’s a great idea,” says Dad finally. “You should talk with your grandmother, Geraldine. Especially if…you’re going to be here awhile.”
“Great,” agrees Marie instantly. What else is she going to do? “Maybe we can go shopping after you get back? You’re going to need some things.”
“Yeah, I can’t keep wearing your clothes, can I?”
Dad watches us from over the rim of his coffee cup. I can tell the idea of me and Marie having a girls’ day out tickles his particular fancy.
Jesus Christ. What am I doing?
Marie just beams at me. She can do that. Because Marie knows.
I let her smile and I let her look, and I let them enjoy this moment. Because whether I’ve been wrong, or whether I’ve been right, this is going to be the last little moment either of them gets.
Here’s a piece of trivia almost nobody knows beyond a few specialists. All those evil stepmother stories—the ones where she abandons her children, or murders them outright, or exposes them to cold and starvation, or steals their voice, or their name, or their food to give to her other children—those wicked women weren’t stepmothers in the stories told to the brothers and their associates. They were the birth mothers. The real mothers.
Jacob and Wilhelm had to make decisions about transcription and translation when they sat in their studies sorting through their material. They had no problem with self-mutilation, or birds pecking out eyes, or people being rolled down hills in barrels full of nails. But they thought depictions of mothers plotting elaborate infanticide was a step too far. Especially Wilhelm. Wilhelm thought the traditional tales could, and should, be improved. In modern-day language, he wanted them made more “accessible.” So he softened the blow by killing off the real mothers and replacing them with more acceptable monsters.
But the mothers are still there, underneath. It’s just that nobody talks about them, or if they do, nobody believes they mattered.
Somehow, that makes it worse.
—Out of the Woods: Musings on Fairy Tales in the Real World,
Dr. Geraldine Monroe
GERALDINE, SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD
STACEY B’S SANDWICHES AND STUFF
1.
Geraldine slammed the trunk shut. Good. Done.
She looked at her watch. Marie should be out at the restaurant now, doing what the hell ever she and Daddy had planned.
Time to go.
“Mom?” Geraldine called as she headed back into the house. No answer. The light was on in this living room, but no one was there. A whole lot of banging, rattling, and swearing was coming out of her parents’ bedroom though. Shit.
Geraldine sucked in a breath and knocked on her parents’ door. “Mom?”
There was a muffled grunt. She took it for a yes, and walked in.
Mom was there, rooting through her dresser drawer, head down, trying to see into the back corners.
Shit. Again.
“You okay, Mom?”
“No, I’m not okay.” Mom slammed the drawer shut. “Haven’t been okay for fucking well ever. Did you take my pills, Geraldine?”
Geraldine’s heart banged once. Okay, okay. Play it cool, G. “You ran out,” she lied. “Don’t you remember? I called up this morning to refill your prescription.”
“Oh. Oh.” Mom sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed her arms. “Did they say when…?”
“This afternoon.” Geraldine sat beside her.
“I need…something, G,” she whispered in that weak, pleading voice that always left Geraldine feeling sick. “There’s got to be something left, right?”
Geraldine squeezed her hand, carefully. Mom had been eating more lately, but she was still thin as a rail, and way too weak. She’d been smoking more, too. A real four-pack-a-day habit.
They’d worry about that later.
“What you need, Mom,” she said, “is a vacation.”
“What are you talking about?”
Geraldine grinned. “I’m talking about an absolutely awesome, girls-only summer road trip. We’ll go up to Copper Harbor, and stay for a few days, and then down to the Wisconsin Dells, and then it’s Milwaukee. You and me and Dad’s credit card and the beer capital of America!” Okay, so it wasn’t Dad’s card. At least, it wasn’t only Dad’s card.
“How did you get your father to give you his credit card?”
“Who says he gave it to me?”
Mom blinked at her and she wavered.
“I don’t know, G…” She was looking her bedside table, at the spot her pills weren’t.
Where the hell did the pills even go? That bottle had been more than half full this morning. Probably rolled under the bed or something and she just forgot about it.
“Come on, Mom,” Geraldine said. “We deserve it. I’ll leave the card if it’ll make you feel better. I’ve been saving up from the store.” Which was even mostly true. “The car’s gassed up, I even packed for you. It’s all planned. We can pick up your prescription on the way,” she added.
Mom swallowed and wiped at her mouth. “What about your sister?”
“I asked her, but she wants to stay here. She says Dad needs her or something.” The truth was Geraldine hadn’t bothered to ask. Marie would never leave Dad, not even for a couple of weeks. Marie was going to stay his baby girl until she died. But as of now, that was her problem.
“I can’t leave Trish. You know she’s in bad shape.”
“You’re not going to. We’ll stop and get her on the way, too.”
Mom’s mouth moved, like she had to repeat Geraldine’s words to get them to make sense. She ran her hand over her forehead. She was sweating. Jesus. All these weeks and she still hadn’t stopped sweating.
“What’s gotten into you, G? You think Trish is going to want a road trip? She won’t even leave the house.”
“You’re going to convince her. This is it, Mom.” Geraldine wrapped her hands around both her mother’s. “This is our chance.”
Come on, Mom. Come on. You can do it. All you have to do is believe the story. You don’t have to poke holes. Just believe what I’m telling you long enough to get in the car. That’s it. Please.
Mom sucked in a deep breath. She looked at the nightstand again, and Geraldine thought something inside her was going to explode.
Then, slowly, almost like she had to try to remember how all the muscles worked, a grin spread across her mother’s tired, sallow face.
“Okay, G,” she said. “Let’s go.”
No one ever asks where the power comes from in these families. Like the hatred, it’s simply taken for granted. But would anyone be that surprised to find out these two things grow from the same root?
—Out of the Woods: Musings on Fairy Tales in the Real World,
Dr. Geraldine Monroe
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
MILLICENT MONROE’S RESIDENCE
1.
I have never understood Grandma Millicent’s house. Or maybe I should say, I’ve never understood why she lives there. Dad has always talked about how much Grandma loved the Rose House, and how happy she was that it was in Monroe hands, where it belonged. And it’s not like he and Marie don’t have the room for one more. Or two, if she brought Aunt June. Or even three, because Amber would come, too, at least some of the time.
But this was where she stayed—a little ranch house on the lakeshore, tucked behind a painted cinderblock wall. She could have made a small fortune renting the place out to the tourists, especially after Dad engineered Whitestone’s miraculous turnaround, but she never did.
I ring the bell, grip my purse strap, and wait.
I don’t want to be here. I do not want to sit in front of my grandmother and listen penitently to whatever the latest lecture is. But I’ve got no choice. First of all, Dad only let me go so easily because he knew I was coming here. And there’s every chance he’ll call and check. No matter what he says out loud, he does not trust me. That’s fine, though. I don’t need him to trust me.
What I do need is some cover for what I’m doing next. Not much. Just a couple hours. I suppose I could ask Carla, but I’d rather not do that to her.
I’m about to ring the bell again when I hear footsteps, and the snap of a turned deadbolt. Amber pulls the door open. Our eyes meet and I watch her swallow her immediate, sarcastic surprise.
“Jesus, Geraldine, come in!” She grabs my wrist and draws me inside. “I…I’m so sorry about what happened.”
I pull back awkwardly and we stand together, too close, in the tiny front hall. What do you do in this situation? Hug? Not us. Never us.
“I was expecting your mom,” I tell her.
“She’s still asleep. She was kind of upset about…things.” Amber meets my gaze and we both silently agree to let it go at that. Mentioning the fact that there’s some chemical help in Aunt June’s veins is not called for, or even really worth mentioning. Not right now, anyway.
“I wanted…” I have to stop and start again. “I had some stuff to talk to Grandma about. Is she here?”
“Yeah. She’s on the sunporch.” Amber jerks her chin toward the inside of the house. “You want me to come with you?”
“Yeah,” I say, and I surprise myself by meaning it. “But I don’t think Grandma does.”
Her mouth tightens in a familiar, cynical smile. “Probably not. Well. Good luck. I’ll be out on the dock if you want…anything.” She grabs her sun hat off the hook and heads out the door.
I square my shoulders, grab hold of my purse like it’s a lifeline, and head in.
Grandma Millicent sits in a basket chair in a puddle of sunlight streaming through the clear glass windows. There’s a book lying open, and a sweating glass of iced tea on the matching table beside her. Her slippered feet rest on a cushioned stool.
She looks up, startled when I walk in.
“Geraldine. You should have called.” This is my grandmother’s idea of a pleasant greeting. “Sit down. Tell me how you are doing.”
I sit. I rest my purse on my knees. I try to find something benign to say, but nothing comes. Instead, I look out the windows. Outside, the tiny sloping yard ends in a strip of sand. There’s an aluminum dock with a motorboat moored to the end, a twenty-footer with a wooden deck.
While I watch, Amber comes around the house with a toolbox in one hand and the sleeves on her white shirt rolled up. No surprise. She’s always liked boats better than cars. She drives like a maniac and can turn that thing on a dime. We used to go out together when we were younger. Usually after we were both drunk enough we could finally stand each other.
Now, Amber steps easily over the gunwale and makes her way to the engine hatch. It’s strange to see her moving with so much purpose.
“Geraldine?”
I yank my attention back to my grandmother. “Yeah. You, uh, you had something you wanted to talk about. Before.”
I wonder, distantly, if I’ll ever be able to finish that sentence. It probably doesn’t matter.
“Yes,” says Grandma. But I have to wait while she slots her marker into place and closes her book. She rests her hand on it for a moment, like it’s a Bible and she’s just been asked to take an oath.
What’s going on?
Whatever it is, Grandma has clearly made up her mind. She faces me fully and folds her hands in her lap.
“I never thought I’d say these words again, Geraldine,” she tells me. “But I will give you one hundred thousand dollars to leave Whitestone.”
2.
I choke on nothing but air. Being offered an enormous bribe by your got-to-be-ninety-by-now grandmother will do that to you.
“What?”
“I believe I spoke clearly enough.”
“You want to pay me to leave?” I say, just in case. I’m having some trouble jump-starting my thoughts.
“Yes,” she answers, a little testily, and I can’t blame her. Grandma never did suffer fools. “It’s for your own good as well as ours.”
I rub my scar and my bruise. My eyes dart around the room, looking for clues as to what’s really going on. Grandma tsk-tsks at my fidgets. Anger hits immediately. It also shows me a tiny detail I almost missed.
“Wait. You said ‘again.’ What do you mean, again?”
Grandma sighs, impatient with the fact I’ve caught her. But she doesn’t dodge the question. Which is really surprising.
“The last time I said anything like this,” she says, “was to Lisa Burnovich.”
“Lisa Burnovich?” I echo. “Lisa was…”
“Your other grandmother. Your mother’s mother.”
My mouth is hanging open. I close it and try to pull myself together. The truth was, I’d never thought about my two grandmothers in the same space. Lisa and her husband died before Mom and Dad even got married. Car accident or something. Mom barely ever talked about it. And by the time I tried to get some kind of answer out of Aunt Trish, it was hard to tell whether she was talking about her own parents or a whole different set of Burnoviches from a hundred years ago.
I never stopped to consider the fact that not only had Lisa Burnovich and Grandma Millicent probably known each other, they might have been about the same age.
How very careless, Geraldine.
“What were you paying her for?”
Grandma’s eyebrows arch sharply. “You honestly don’t know? You hated me enough when you were growing up, I just assumed your father had told you.”
“I hated you because you were a raging bitch, Grandma. You treated Mom like…”
“A tramp?” she suggests without any rancor at all. “I suppose I did. I couldn’t separate her from her mother. I suppose I should have tried a bit harder, but at the time I simply didn’t have the strength.”
“I don’t understand. You had us all by the—”
Grandma Millicent, though, is not in the mood to listen to another of my pointed accusations. “Dear Lord, you girls. You blunder around blind to anything except what’s happened to you.”
