The Other Sister, page 32
That’s the second time that somebody’s said that to me. I glance toward Amber. She’s fishing around in her tool kit now. I wonder how much of this she knows. I wonder how much of this anybody knows.
“My own fault, I suppose. Again.” Grandma’s sigh is short and sharp. “I should have sat you down and told you the full story. But you were so young, it seemed needlessly cruel, especially after Stacey died. And the truth was…the truth was there was so much I couldn’t admit. I was willing to take any excuse, just so long as it allowed me to keep silent.”
“Grandma…”
“Lisa Burnovich,” she says, “was having an affair with my husband.”
3.
I stare at my grandmother. My eyes must be popping out of my head like in an old Warner Brothers cartoon. This cannot be happening. I cannot possibly be hearing this.
“Mom’s mom was…”
“Screwing Martin,” she says, and my cheeks burn. I swear she smiles a little at having successfully made me blush. Payback’s a bitch on so many levels. “Martin Senior, I mean, of course. My Martin. Your grandfather. He was infatuated with her. She made him feel like a boy again, he said. They were, according to him, going to run away together.” Her gaze is turning inward. Grandma’s never been one for sharing family stories with me and Marie. She’s always left that to Dad. And now I’m getting some idea why.
“My husband explained it all very carefully. How he felt, how she felt, all the plans they’d made while I was out at my bridge nights and committee meetings. He wanted to be sure I understood the legal procedure for asking for a divorce on the grounds of abandonment. He was confident I could handle it all, once I had the details in hand. He was a great one for plans. He always had so many, and he would spend hours explaining them. Usually over dinner. Sometimes Martin Junior and Pete would almost forget to eat their dessert listening to them.” She is seeing her past, and it is leaving her pale. “Unfortunately, he was less successful at carrying them out.”
I can’t even begin to think what I should say.
“Regardless, after our little heart-to-heart, I went up to the Rose House to see Lisa. I was prepared to plead with her. Even tolerate her, if it proved necessary.”
“You loved him that much?”
Her mouth tightens, so do her hands. “I did not love him at all. Not by that point. I’d stood by him because I had no choice. You girls have no idea what it was like for divorcées back then, especially in a small town. What he really told me that night was that I was about to become an abandoned woman with three children to support and no income beyond whatever alimony the court assigned. I would put up with anything to avoid that. Even my husband’s floozy.”
I try to imagine her then, a wife and mother in a prosperous rural town. As someone who could have married for love, and then spent her life trying to keep up appearances and remember what her sacrifice had been for. And then…and then…
I can’t do it. I’ve spent too long thinking I know her. It’s going to take more than these few moments to tear down all those old images and start fresh.
Guilt wells up inside me, cold and unfamiliar.
“Lisa listened,” she tells me. “I will never forget the look on her face. Then, she just burst out laughing.
“I thought at first she was laughing at me and my pathetic pleading. But that wasn’t it. She was laughing at the idea that Martin thought she’d run away with him. You see, she was perfectly happy with her life. The Rose House was a social hub then. She and Forrester had plenty of money. She liked her men on the side, and he liked his women, and they were furiously jealous of each other. They kept on cheating, kept on blaming, kept on…” She struggles to control herself. “I didn’t understand it. I’m not sure she understood it, but it didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to change it.
“She promised to set Martin straight for me. She offered me a drink. I don’t know why that was the final indignity, but it was. I left her there.” Grandma’s trying to control herself and speak calmly of her wrongs, but it is not easy. “I promised myself I’d never set foot in that house or have anything to do with its occupants again.”
She waits for me to make some little remark about the patently spectacular failure of this promise, but I’ve got nothing.
“Did Lisa do it?” I ask instead. “Did she break it off?”
“Oh yes. I know she did, and she told him about our talk.”
“He told you that, too? Jesus, Grandma…”
“I know because two days later, my husband climbed up on our roof and jumped.”
Her words are heavy, and sharp-edged from disappointment. I wonder if she’s ever told anyone this story before. I mean, she must have, at least once. But not often. That tone is too raw.
“I’ve never known how your father found out that Lisa was involved with his father,” she says, talking right over my thoughts. “I think Pete may have known, and perhaps he let it slip. But I don’t know.”
“You mean…you didn’t tell him?”
“What on earth makes you think I’d tell my son something like that?” She’s genuinely shocked, and I’m genuinely surprised.
“Because he’s always said you were the one who wanted the Rose House. He’s always tried to impress you and—”
“Impress me? He’s spent his whole life humiliating me,” she snaps. “He blamed Lisa for his father’s death, but he also blamed me. I’d failed him, you see. I lied to him. And he decided he was going to get his revenge on me as well as her. He’s spent years parading his victories in front of me—destroying his brother for not hating well enough or long enough. Bringing my family under his thumb. Making me watch while he tore any shred of independence out of any of them. And, of course, marrying Lisa’s daughter. That was a brilliant move. He flowered early, my…” She chokes and she stops.
My son. She tried to say it and she failed. My ruined heart finds a way to break just a little for her.
“And now comes the grand finale,” she says. “I am to be locked up in Lisa’s house to die.”
Her eyes are glittering. That’s the biggest shock yet. In my world, Grandma Millicent is hard as nails. Grandma Millicent is my father’s co-conspirator, his support and confidant.
But she’s right. I have been blind. And now, she’s about to cry.
“What do you want me to do?” I ask.
“I am hoping against hope I can save at least some of my children,” she says. “If you are…established somewhere, perhaps Amber will have someplace to go when it all falls down. Perhaps Walter, or Carla. All I’d ask is that you do not leave them in the lurch if they come to you for help.”
She doesn’t mention Marie, and that’s what gives her away. Grandma knows who started the fire. Grandma is trying to get me out of town before I can spill any beans I might have. It’s the same kind of desperation that took her up the hill to plead with her husband’s mistress. Because her family, her second son, might be deeply, desperately, fatally flawed, but they are all she has.
I don’t understand that choice. I will not understand it. Because I don’t want to.
I watch Amber instead, kneeling on her boat deck, elbow deep in the hatch. She sits back on her heels, takes off her hat, and wipes her forehead. She looks at the sky, and then toward the house. She must see me here, because she waves.
I wave back.
“Will you do it?” asks Grandma impatiently.
I lower my hand. It curls into a fist. No surprise.
I consider what she’s said. I really do. She’s offering me a chance to get away. A chance to establish—I don’t know—some kind of sanctuary against what’s coming. I wonder who she’s been talking to. Besides Dad and Marie. Grandma’s not stupid, and she’s got her own friends. The club ladies. Those old women in their hats who get drunk on Bloody Marys and mimosas, decrying the rest of us who are simply lazy and unmannered. They still know everybody who counts around here. They can find answers when they need them.
“I’m sorry, Grandma,” I tell her as I get to my feet. “Maybe before. But not now.”
“I think I understand.”
I think she does, too. Something else I never expected.
4.
There’s a side door out to the yard and the lake. Amber watches me walk out onto the grass and down to the edge of the sand. She wipes her hands on a shop towel and comes to meet me at the foot of the dock.
“She’s tired,” I say. “I’m heading out.”
“Sure,” Amber says, but I can tell there’s more to come. I’m not sure I can take it. I’m completely wrung out. I want to go hide myself from…everything.
“Geraldine, I don’t know whether you’ll believe this or not, but I really am sorry about what happened. He seemed…I would have liked to get to know him.”
I do believe her. I’m just taking everybody at their word today. “Thanks.”
“Do they…did they find out what happened?”
“Not yet. But they will.” Because Dad wants them to. He’s made that pretty clear.
Unless, of course, Dad is playing another game. Which is never, ever out of the question.
“Amber? I need a favor.”
“What?”
I suck in a long breath and try to push past the exhaustion that fills my shattered self. “If anybody asks, and I mean anybody…after I got done with Grandma, you and I hung out for a while, okay? I didn’t want to go h…back to the house.”
She watches me for a long minute. “Maybe we took the boat out?” she suggests. “You love it on the water, and I wanted to help you take your mind off things.”
“Yeah. I appreciated that.”
“We didn’t talk much,” she adds. “Small stuff. I don’t even really remember what.”
“Me either,” I agree. “We just kind of hung out. Drank some wine.”
“There was definitely wine. Kind of a lot.”
I say thanks and she says you’re welcome and I walk back to the driveway and out the opening in the cinderblock wall.
I leave my car right out front where I parked it, and instead I head up the road. When the traffic clears, I cross both lanes, and make my way across the ditch and up the hill on the other side.
I catch myself hoping I remember the way. So much has changed. Not that it matters. Because I’m not going to stop.
Where do they come from, all these powerful women? The birth mothers strong enough to make children from wishes, but so weak they can’t save themselves afterward?
—Dr. Geraldine Monroe (margin notes)
GERALDINE, SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD
THE ROSE HOUSE
1.
Something’s wrong.
Geraldine felt it the second she and her mother walked into Aunt Trish’s clammy kitchen. The trash stank and the flies buzzed, and even though it was getting dark, the kitchen lantern hadn’t been lit yet.
Is that it?
“Trish?” Mom called into the empty kitchen. “Trish! Come on out, Trish! We got a surprise for you!”
“Maybe she’s in the great room?”
Aunt Trish had cleared some space between the ruined books. Sometimes they’d all sit there, looking out the rose window, and pretending to make plans. They were going to fix up the house, finally. They were going to go shopping. They were going to leave town, going to move down to Florida or out to Montana.
Going To games, Geraldine always thought. Is that what everybody does?
Mom picked up the flashlight they kept by the door and pushed the switch. Somewhat to Geraldine’s surprise, the beam flickered on.
“Trish!” Mom plunged into the dark. “Trish!”
Later, when she could stand to think about it, Geraldine would remember that she wasn’t surprised. At least, not by how they found her.
She was lying at the foot of the staircase, on her face, with her ragged hair spread out around her shoulders. There was a paint can beside her, spilling a dark, tacky puddle across the tiles that mixed with…other things. The smell made Geraldine stagger.
But she wasn’t surprised. The surprise was how calm her mother remained. Stacey didn’t scream. She didn’t cry. Maybe she’d already felt it, like Geraldine had. Either way, Stacey just knelt down beside her sister. Geraldine couldn’t move. Geraldine wanted to hurl. Stacey put her hands underneath Trish and turned her. She tried to be gentle, but Aunt Trish flopped and thudded. Geraldine clapped her hands over her mouth, holding back the screams and the sick.
Mom laid her hand on Aunt Trish’s forehead. She drew her palm across her sister’s eyes so they closed. She touched one hand, and then the other. And folded them neatly across her sagging breasts.
“Go find a blanket, or something,” Mom said. “She needs to be covered up.”
Geraldine wanted to argue, but how could she? She thought franticly and then ran up the stairs into the twilight of the second floor. She blundered her way to the old children’s wing. Bits of paint and plaster crunched underfoot as she opened the old cupboard. Inside was still a mostly anonymous pile of junk, but there was an old bedspread in there. She’d seen it at some point. Maybe Aunt Trish had told her a story once about who made it and how and when.
I should have listened more. I should have…done something.
Dirt and who-knew-what showered down when Geraldine shook the thing out, but it was better than nothing. Barely. She carried her find back downstairs.
Mom was still on her knees. She took the bedspread and draped it neatly across her sister’s body. It was covered in rings and roses, Geraldine noticed. That probably meant something.
“I’m sorry, Trish,” Mom whispered. “I am. I was…I’ll do better now. I promise.”
Geraldine was amazed. Geraldine was appalled. She wiped her palms on her jeans, like she was the one who’d been handling the dead. But in her mind all she could think was they couldn’t let their chance go. They might not ever have another shot. Mom might not be strong enough. Dad and Marie might not be distracted enough. It was sad. She felt terrible. But she’d tried her best, really she had. If only Aunt Trish had been able to hang on just another couple of days…
But it didn’t matter. Not anymore. They had to move.
“Mom?” Geraldine forced the word out. “Mom? We should go. We need to…tell somebody,” she finished lamely.
Just got to get her back in the car. She can’t stop me once we’re in the car.
“You go,” Mom said. “I’ll stay with her.”
“No, Mom. You shouldn’t be here alone. It’s…it’s…a bad idea. We’ll come right back, okay? With help,” she added.
But Mom looked up, and when Geraldine saw the look on her face, she took a step back.
“I’m not going anywhere,” said Mom and her voice burned in the dark.
“What are you talking about? You can’t…”
Mom heaved herself to her feet. Her face was wrong. She was happy. Intensely, dangerously happy. “She’s dead. The house. It’s mine.”
“What?”
“It’s mine!” she shouted. “And I’m going to hold it over his fucking head!”
“Mom! Are you crazy? What are you talking about?” But she knew. Of course she knew. After all these years, how could she not?
“He’s tortured us for fucking years to get hold of this place. And now it’s mine! Trish had her will written, and I’m the heir. He’s never going to get it! I can’t wait to see the look on his face!”
“Mom! Stop it!”
But Mom wasn’t listening. “He never got it from Trish, and he won’t get it from me. He’s gonna die of a fucking heart attack when he realizes I’m not going to give it to him!”
“Mom! It’ll never work! Please! Just…just let him have it. If this is what he wants, then he can keep it, and we can go. We don’t have to be his slaves anymore! We can do whatever we want, have real lives, our lives!”
“Fine. You go. I’m not stopping you. But I’ve waited twenty goddamned years for this and I am not going to miss it!”
“No! I am not leaving you with him, you stupid, crazy bitch!”
Mom slapped her. A good, hard backhand right across the face. Geraldine didn’t even think about what to do next. She just balled up her fist and swung. Randomly, blindly. She felt the connection and heard the thump.
Mom fell onto the floor and lay there, almost as still as her sister beneath her rotten shroud.
2.
Geraldine stared at her mother’s limp frame. She lifted her gaze to the ruined house and breathed in the dark and desolation.
After that, she kind of lost her mind. Probably she screamed. Maybe she grabbed up the hammer Aunt Trish had left behind during one of her attempts to fix things and attacked the walls. Maybe the ancient world so carefully created by poor, crazy Addison tore like paper, raining dust and faded paint into her blinded eyes.
But she didn’t remember. She only retained the anger, and the despair.
When the storm passed and Geraldine came to, she was in the great room. Her arm ached. She looked around her. Paint cans were scattered around. More paint was splashed against the wall. There were gaping holes in the plaster. She was staring at the rose window, vaguely aware she’d been about to smash it. She looked at the hammer again, and then tossed it away. It clattered against the hearth and fell still.
Geraldine stood still for a minute, staring at the hammer and the black and empty hearth. Then, she turned and walked calmly into the kitchen.
The Coleman lantern was in its usual spot beside the cast-iron stove. She shook it. It was empty. But the rusted can of fuel beside it wasn’t.
“G?” She heard her mother’s voice, thin and wobbly. “Geraldine?”
Geraldine wiped her mouth with the back of her gritty hand. Her scar hurt. She picked up the fuel can and wrenched open the cap. The smell of white gas was a shock to the system and her head cleared in a single, painful burst.
“G?”
She poured a puddle out onto the cracked tiles and kicked the empty lantern over on top.
