The Other Sister, page 37
With all this behind me, I tell David the tale.
I tell him how Dad abused us. I tell him how he stole, from Mom, and from Aunt Trish, the other sister, the crazy, rebellious, bad sister in the castle.
I tell him we weren’t ever kidnapped by Aunt Trish. We ran away. I told him why Marie did her about-face and became the perfect, loving, obedient daughter when Dad showed up on her doorstep to take us home.
Marie knew if she didn’t give Dad exactly what he needed, he’d peel us off one by one, looking for it. She was trying to save me, and our mother, and herself in the only way she could. It wasn’t her fault it didn’t work.
I tell David that Dad killed Mom. Pushed her down into the gully while Marie stood beside my hospital bed. This is true enough.
I tell him Dad burned down the old house. He used the remains of the rum he’d brought me as accelerant. I say he knew I’d been fighting with Tyler (oh, Ty) and wanted to frame me for my lover’s death.
I wonder out loud when he decided killing Tyler would be a better idea than killing me.
I do not tell him about the pillow, or Marie’s long-ago attempt at poisoning Dad on the night Mom died. None of that is important to anybody but me.
“The house,” he says. “The fire. You’re sure about that?”
“Yes. I’m sure. Dad even bought the rum. I’ll bet Marie kept the receipt.”
He doesn’t even question the likelihood of this.
“Jesus Christ, Geraldine,” he says.
I am silent, and that is agreement enough.
David pushes himself to his feet. We are the only ones in the family waiting area tonight. He paces to the door, and back again.
“You’re lying,” he says. “Again.”
I don’t bother to argue. “What are you going to do about it?”
We stare at each other, measuring, judging. We each know how far the other will go now, and it is not an easy feeling.
We are still standing like this when the orderly knocks softly on the threshold. “Dr. Monroe?” He looks at David first, but has the grace to look embarrassed when I get to my feet. “You can see her now.”
“Thanks.” I’m still a little wobbly as I stride past him. David follows me.
“Sorry,” says the orderly. “Just family for right now.”
2.
The room is dim and quiet. My sister is propped up on a pile of pillows. There’re tubes in her arm and a monitor that’s mercifully way quieter than the old-style ones. Her right hand has a fresh bandage. So does her left.
She doesn’t stir as I walk into the room. Not until I lay my hand over hers.
Her eyes flutter open slowly.
“Hi,” I say. “How are you?”
Her tongue pushes against her teeth. I fill a cup with water from the in-room sink and help her swallow. She settles back on the pillow.
“Better?”
She nods.
I glance at the door. The orderly hurries past. No one is paying attention to us.
“I’ve told David what he needs to know. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Marie doesn’t care. Yet. That’s the drugs. Blunting memory as well as pain. “Home now?” she whispers.
“Soon.”
Her wounded hand spasms in mine. “You? Like we said?”
I am silent for a long time as I look into my sister’s bleary eyes. Slowly, I feel doors open in the back of my mind. I see it then, the way she does. The long years ahead of us. Me and Marie in the Rose House. Remaking. Rebuilding. Restoring the walls that have been torn down. Carefully building up our broken lives, with David watching, instead of Dad. I see us making a place where we can stay. We will be safe this time. No one will ask too many questions or expect difficult answers. We can finally be real sisters. We’re going to build our tree house, our rope bridge, our castle. Snowy White and Rosy Red, looking out for each other, for better or for worse. And if David or anyone else decides they don’t like it…
No. I don’t have to think like that. Not ever again. That’s over. This is it. Happily ever after. The end.
Except maybe not quite.
Because something else has happened. I don’t know yet, but I think. I believe.
I think maybe I’m pregnant.
Acknowledgments
No book is created by the author alone. I’d like to acknowledge the hard work and tremendous help I had from my editors and agents, the honest feedback of all the members of the Untitled Writers Group, the unflinching support of the SFNovelists and Michigan Sisters in Crime who saw me through the rough spots. And first, last, and always, the constant support of my husband and son. Thank you all.
About the Author
Sarah Zettel is an award-winning author. She has written more than thirty novels and multiple short stories over the past twenty-five years, in addition to hiking, cooking, stitching all the things, marrying a rocket scientist, and raising a rapidly growing son.
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Sarah Zettel, The Other Sister
