The Other Sister, page 36
“I know what really happened to your mother, Marie,” he says. “That night.”
“Which night?” I hear myself asking. There have been so many.
He smiles like I’ve made a terrible pun. “The night she died, Marie. I know you did it for us. You knew she was trying to leave us, again.”
No. Stop.
My mind clears of memory, and I’m not plowing through mud anymore. I’m filled with a knife-edged clarity.
He’s telling the story over again. He’s changing the story.
He’s putting it on me.
“What kind of woman abandons her kids?” he says to me. “I’ve never blamed you for being angry at her. I just, I’ve always been sorry I couldn’t protect you better. I did try. I swear to God I did.”
Leaving. That was true. That was real. She was going to leave. Like a normal person. She was going to cut her losses and get out.
I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t. I’m trying to shape the words, but I can’t. There’s no air in my lungs, no strength to draw breath. My hand’s trembling so bad, I almost drop my glass.
I almost forget the knife in my other hand. Almost, but not quite.
I raise the glass, so he’s watching me. I ease my hand from my pocket. The knife is small and my hands are careful.
I swirl the amber liquid in the glass he’s handed me. The ice clinks. It’s a very different shade from the amber of the pill bottle. More dark gold, far less orange. My father’s sad, patient eyes are watching me, waiting to see if I really understand. This is the only way I will be allowed out of this house, this town, this family, this life.
And he’s showing me why I have to take it. Because if I don’t, he’s going to start telling people a new story. He’s never actually laid the blame for my mother’s death at any particular doorstep. Not really. Not outside the family, anyway. He’s held that back.
Just in case.
“You know how hard this has been, baby girl. It’s killed me to see what this has done to you, how hard you’ve worked and tried. I wish…”
“What do you wish?” The ice clinks. The cold of the glass is burning my fingertips.
“I wish I’d tried harder to keep her away. I should have done something the second she showed up. I knew she would ruin what we had. But you wanted your sister back so badly, I just didn’t have the heart. I should have been stronger, for your sake.”
I look into my father’s eyes. He is so sorry that this is the way it has to be. He wants me to understand him and forgive him. He has tried so hard to make his family what it is supposed to be.
“It’s all right,” I tell him.
I raise my glass. I down the drink—the whole bitter, foul mess—all in one gulp. I cough, I retch, and I blink hard. I lift my eyes to him again. I thought I’d see shock. I thought I’d at least surprise him this once. But no. It’s still that eternally sad, eternally patient, nightmare look of his. That’s all he has to give me. That’s all he’s ever had.
“I’ll take care of Robbie,” he tells me. “You don’t have to worry.”
I set the glass down.
And I lunge forward, right for his guts. He’s inches away, he’s old and he’s worn and he trusts me.
And he’s still faster than I am. He grabs my hand and he twists hard and the knife is gone from my fingers and I can’t even see where it went.
“Oh, Marie,” he says. “What has she done to you?”
He shoves me backward onto the couch, and I let him. The knife is in his other hand, but neither one of us needs it anymore, do we?
I let my head fall back on the couch, and I wait for what’s coming. Heat drags itself up the sides of my throat until it gets to my head and leaves me dizzy. I am never leaving this room.
I just thought he’d die first. I thought I had finally done something right.
I feel my father’s cool, steady fingers, feather-light as he brushes back my hair and kisses my forehead.
“Goodnight, baby girl. Sleep tight,” he whispers.
My drink churns my stomach. Its vapors swirl through my veins and my lungs. I feel the walls peel gently open, like wings. I feel my mother at my shoulders.
“I don’t think so,” says someone.
My father lifts his gaze from me. “Geraldine.”
2.
Geraldine strolls through the doorway, as comfortable here as my father ever was.
She is dark and solid against the white walls.
“Quick, call the ambulance,” says Dad. “I think your sister might have—”
“Taken mom’s old pills?” Her voice is as flat, as dead as his. They are playing their scene out together. Saying what has to be said so they will remember it correctly for later.
And I have to watch. Because I’m dizzy and I can’t move. The whole room is spinning. This is new.
“You okay, Marie?” asks Geraldine.
My tongue is thick and uncomfortable. And there’s something else. “No. I think. I’m going to be…sick.”
She’s ready for it. Geraldine is always ready for the unpleasant. She grabs the wastepaper basket and shoves it under my face. I vomit. It’s painful and it’s ugly and it stinks and it doesn’t stop. I feel her hand on my back.
Dad doesn’t move.
“It’s okay,” Geraldine says. “It’s okay. Just let it come out. It’ll be okay.”
I lift my head. I am hot and hollow. Geraldine looks at me, and I wait to see the triumph, the awareness of betrayal. My last sight before Mom takes me into the walls and under the floors with her and Aunt Trish.
That’s not what I see in my sister’s face. I see anger. I see hate. But it’s not for me.
Geraldine eases me back on the sofa. She stands up. She turns around.
“Fun fact, Dad,” she says. “Marie tried to poison you, once upon a time.”
“What are you talking about?” Is there a lilt in his voice? I can’t tell. My ears are ringing.
“Marie tried to poison you,” repeats Geraldine slowly. “The night Mom died. She used the pills from the bedside table.” She holds the bottle up and rattles it at him. Why is she doing that?
“You’re lying.” He reaches for the bottle, but she snatches it back.
“Not this time. And you should be grateful, Dad. Because of me, you got twenty-five extra years.”
“Geraldine, this isn’t funny. Marie is—”
“See, I’d been trying to sober Mom up. I figured if I could get her off the junk at least a little, she’d get stronger and I could get her to run away with me. So, I’d been swapping her pain pills for aspirin and stuff.”
She pauses to let that settle in. It takes a long time.
“That’s what Marie gave you when she tried to kill you. An overdose of aspirin. And that’s what you’ve given her. Twenty-five-year-old stale goddamn aspirin.”
“Of course, you didn’t know that,” Geraldine continues. “You thought you were killing your daughter. Just like you thought you were hooking me.”
She reaches into her pocket and brings out a fist. And opens it. Little white pills rain down like hail.
“Those were plan B,” she tells him. “And you handed them to me. A half dozen over forty-eight hours, because you wanted to be sure you had me hard on the line before you made your move.” I can’t see her face from this angle, but I hear the wild grin in her voice.
Dad sighs. “I know you like to think people believe your stories, Geraldine…”
“Yeah, well, they will this time,” she says. “Because I’ve got backup. Right, Marie?”
I lift my face. There’s vomit on my chin. I don’t know what’s in my eyes. It’s hard and hot and completely unfamiliar. I have no name for it.
“Yes, Geraldine,” I say. Because what else am I going to say?
Snow White said, “We will never desert each other.”
Rose Red answered, “No, not as long as we live.”
And the mother added, “Whatever one gets she shall share with the other.”
—“Snow-White and Rose-Red” from Kinder und Hausmärchen Vol. 2, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, 1812
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
THE ROSE HOUSE
1.
It is a sight to behold. My father is staring at Marie and Marie is staring right back. She’s a more complete disaster than I’ve ever seen her. Except the once, when I dragged her through the cold. But then she looked dead, and now she looks alive. Really, truly, fully alive.
“No, Marie,” says Dad. Calmly, of course. No need to get excited. Not yet. He’s got one hand in his pocket. Very casual. “You agreed. You promised me you would be strong.”
“Cops are already on their way, Dad,” I tell him. Marie’s going to live, but she can’t be in good shape. I need to keep his attention on me. People are coming, but I don’t know when. There’s still time for all this to go very, very wrong.
Dad turns toward me, one motion at a time.
“You bitch,” he says, calmly, of course. “You goddamned useless junkie bitch.”
He brings his hand out and my breath seizes up in my throat.
He’s got a knife. A paring knife. Where the hell did that come from?
Dad lunges. That tiny blade is out and down, and I feel it graze my skin as I dodge. Dad isn’t expecting to miss. He stumbles against the threshold. I shove him forward, letting his momentum help him down.
Where’s the knife? I think. Where’s the knife!
But that’s a mistake. I’m looking for the weapon, and I take my eyes off Dad. He gets his hands around my ankle and he yanks. The world spins and I fall. My head cracks hard against the floorboards.
“You’re just like her.” His voice grates as he looms over me. “None of you will ever learn!”
He lunges, but, somehow, impossibly, Marie is there.
“Don’t you touch her!”
She dives. She’s trying, but my sister doesn’t know how to fight. Not like this. He twists and shakes and throws her off. By then, I’m on my feet.
“Tag,” I whisper, wiping at my mouth. “I’m it.”
My heart is hammering. My mind is full. I’m alive, too. I’m filthy, angry, brazen, and burning, but I’m alive and all the restraints, all the terrible, tyrannical reality is gone. I can do anything here and now. And I will.
Dad’s gaze slides off me, to Marie. I feel her beside me, but I don’t dare look. I have to keep my eye on Dad. Whatever he sees, that’ll remain between the two of them.
Whatever he sees, Dad turns. And Dad runs.
I’m laughing as I take off after him. The front room flashes past. I barrel through the pocket door and cut left, getting between him and the front door. I think I hear Marie, but I don’t stop. Dad wavers and dodges and pivots toward the great room and the French doors. I swing around, right at his heels.
He misjudges, stumbles against a chair. I see the knife flash in his hand. I’m right on top of him. Grab and swing and shove and scream. Hard. He topples forward, into the pines, into the roses.
The crash shatters the whole night.
“My child, if I do not chop off both of your hands, then the devil will take me away…Help me in my need, and forgive me the evil that I am going to do to you.”
—“The Girl without Hands” from Kinder und Hausmärchen Vol. 1, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, 1812
MARIE, PRESENT DAY
THE ROSE HOUSE
1.
I see Geraldine shove my father forward with all her might. The window, the crowning glory of the Rose House, explodes into a thousand pieces around him. It is beautiful. It is terrible.
My father falls onto the terrace and is still.
I walk across the carpet, slowly, softly. Geraldine is there. Perhaps she touches me. I am not sure. I do not have the attention to spare her now. I have to see to our father.
He groans, and rolls onto his back, and he screams. I’ve never heard him scream before. It is a high-pitched, terrible sound.
I don’t blame him, though. He is hurt, very badly. He’s bleeding from…well…everywhere. His scalp is very bad. His arms. His legs. There’s a large shard embedded in his thigh. Black blood surrounds the shattered glass spreading out beneath the moonlight.
He’s done screaming, for now at least. He sees me coming toward him.
“Help me,” my father whispers. “Marie.”
I would, but unfortunately, I don’t have a free hand. Both my hands hold the pillow I picked up off the couch as I passed. I thought I might need it. It is good to be prepared. My father has taught me I need to be prepared for anything.
“Marie. Marie. We agreed. You wanted this.”
“Marie, stop.”
Who said that? Geraldine? No. It can’t be. Geraldine would not talk like that.
“I protected you, from them, from all of them,” Dad whispers. His words are slurring. “I saved you. Baby girl. You know I did. You told me you understood.”
I kneel down. The glass is everywhere. It cuts me deep like the knife cut me, but I don’t mind.
“But I lied to you, Dad,” I tell him. “Every day since I was seventeen. Since you killed your brother and raped my mother and pulled me out of Aunt Trish’s house, I lied to you and you believed me.”
I lean over my father and the mask that is Marie in the mirror falls away, like the stained glass fell. I look into those bottomless eyes, and my father sees me. Finally. Truly.
And I see him. He is an old man, my father, and he has finally worked out exactly which of his girls he should fear.
Finally.
I bring the pillow down, hard, fast, silent. Just like I’ve practiced. Blood is warm on my hands, glass from the shattered roses bites into my knees. His hands grab my wrists.
“Stop. Marie. It’s enough! It’s enough!”
I’m bleeding. I’m screaming. The house is screaming. Mom, Aunt Trish, Uncle Pete. All of us. All my living. All my dead. All his dead. Screaming together.
Geraldine, too. “He does not get to do this to you!”
Hands grab my shoulders and drag me back. I’m thrown sideways, so I roll and crash against the hearth. My skull cracks against the stone. My empty hands come down on more glass. The pain blinds me. When I can see again, I see my sister standing between me and my father, an avenging angel, a mad witch, like our mother, like her sister.
“It’s over, Marie,” she says. “You don’t have to do any more.”
I am trying to understand. I push myself up onto my knees. I reach my hand out, looking for support. And Geraldine is there. Her hand is strong in mine, and she pulls me to my feet.
Geraldine would never let me fall. I remember that. Not really.
“Marie?”
Dad’s still here. That’s a surprise. He’s calling for me. I’ve never refused him. I don’t know how.
“Marie, please.”
We look at each other, my sister and I. She sees me, too, but then she always did. Geraldine steps aside.
I reach my father’s side and settle onto the carpet again, more carefully this time. Behind us, there’s a thump and a whooshing noise. A smell of burning cloth and foam. I know what’s happened to the pillow, which, of course would have my father’s blood all over it and might have been somewhat difficult to explain, if it comes to that.
“Marie, help me,” Dad whispers. “Marie. You love me. You’re my girl. You’ve always been my girl.”
“I was never yours, Dad,” I say, and he hears, and he sees my face and my hands, covered in the blood. Mine. His. Ours.
I press my ruined hands against his heart, and his face. He struggles feebly under my attentive touch. I want this memory under my palms to blot out all the others.
There’s noises coming from somewhere. Voices. Footfalls. None of it is important. What is important is this moment, here between my father and me. What is important is my hands on his heart, feeling the beat spasm and slow. My gaze holding his. The memories raging between us.
“It’s okay, Dad,” I tell him. “You can let go now.”
“Marie…”
“I’m here, Dad. Let go now. You’re done. It’s all over now.”
All over but the shouting, isn’t that what they say? And there is shouting. I can recognize the voices.
“Hurry. Please,” Geraldine is saying. “David, thank God it’s you. He tried to kill her, David. He tried to kill Marie.”
“Mom!”
It’s Robbie. Oh, my son. Of course you came, too. And it’s David. My hero. Always where he’s needed. He’s almost too soon this time.
But not quite.
Beginnings are unavoidable. But endings need trust. We made it through. We got this. The wicked have fallen. We can look away now.
—Dr. Geraldine Monroe (margin notes)
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
WHITESTONE HARBOR MEDICAL CENTER
1.
“Tell me what happened,” David says. “All of it.”
We’re back in the emergency room, David and me. At least, we’re in the waiting room. It’s comfortable, in that carefully designed impersonal style of modern hospitals. Marie has been admitted and the doctors are with her. They’re removing the shards, stitching the wounds, searching out the extent of the damage.
They’re never going to find it all.
“Geraldine?” David prompts grimly.
My cuts were less extensive than Marie’s. I’m already cleaned up and stapled shut. I refused the painkillers. I need to stay alert. Because I knew this was coming. Cousin Gary and his team are back at the house, but they’ll be here very soon. Somewhere, Tyler’s sister Angela is trying to rent herself a car and find directions from the Traverse City airport.
I am not looking forward to her arrival. But I can’t think about that yet.
I feel like this is the moment that everything else has led up to. All those stories. All those years coming to understand why people tell fairy tales, and how they are important. And all the time with Dad, of course. I should be grateful, and I am, in a perverse sort of way. It was Dad who taught me and Marie how to lay down tracks and wear the masks until we couldn’t tell them from our own skin. It was all so we could tell the stories that need to be told and make people believe.
