The Other Sister, page 4
As he approaches, Amber and Walt are both suddenly trying to find something to look at that is not my face.
“Amber, you’re running on empty,” Dad announces jovially. “Walt, you might want to get back and check those steaks. Shame to overcook such good meat. Geraldine, come help me with the refills, will you?”
4.
Dad’s study is a haven of traditional masculine competence. The furniture is all rich leather and dark wood. The broad desk is empty except for the blotter and the computer. It’s also angled to face the door. Nobody is going to sneak up on Dad.
A curated selection of family photographs hangs on the navy-blue accent wall. Mostly they’re of Marie and Robbie. You can track my nephew’s growth from a plump toddler to a rangy young man looking stiff and awkward in his sport coat and tie. Dad is there, and Grandma Millicent. There’s one carefully composed portrait of Millicent’s children: Dad, Aunt June, and poor, dead, deluded Uncle Pete. Grandma’s dead brothers are absent. No cousins are in evidence, either, and no spouses, not even Robbie’s father. Going just on the photographic evidence, my nephew seems to have been the result of a virgin birth.
I let my gaze drift across our edited family until I find the one representation of me. I haven’t moved. I’m still bottom corner, left. I’m eleven years old. Marie in the same portrait is thirteen. We’re wearing matching dresses covered in big sunflowers. Marie’s got a bow in her hair. I sport a crooked ponytail. That eleven-year-old me hasn’t got the scar yet, and her face is freckled and sunburnt. She’s been told to smile, but she looks like she’s baring her teeth for an attack.
From this angle, eleven-year-old me seems to be looking out past my grown-up shoulder toward Dad at the vintage minibar. There’s a whole sideboard full of booze in the great room, but the best stuff stays in here. The imported single malts. The top-shelf vodka. The wine that’s been brought up from the (locked) state-of-the-art cooler in the basement. He’s slowly mixing up the fresh drinks, giving me time to get all tense and awkward.
It’s okay, I assure my young self. I know this trick.
“How’s Marie doing?” he asks finally.
I ignore him and let my gaze tick backward up the timeline of Marie’s and Robbie’s lives, to the middle of the wall and the spot I’ve been avoiding.
And there she is. My mother. Stacey Jean Burnovich Monroe.
She’s the only casual shot in the sea of studio portraits. She was caught shoving her hair back from her tanned face. Her hair was always the most remarkable thing about Mom. It’s a natural blond so fair it’s almost white. Sun streams through the tangles and fine strands, making them glow. It’s a close-up so tight, it might be a selfie, if they had had selfies in the late eighties. You can see every line that time, anger, and raucous laughter have carved around her wide mouth and summer-brown eyes.
Since she died, Dad has kept her right in the middle of the office wall. That way, everybody can see how important she still is to him and how much he misses her. It also means you’re less likely to notice how this picture is the only trace of the late Mrs. Stacey Monroe left in the whole house.
“Geraldine?” says Dad behind me. “I asked you a question.”
“Yes,” I agree. I also turn around. Dad is still pouring and mixing, his competent hands running on autopilot. Those hands are gnarled and spotted with veins like tree roots running down the back. They give him away. He’s hiding it well, but my father is an old man. I take a little vicious comfort in this.
“Like I told everybody, Dad, Marie is fine. It’s just a messy cut. You must have heard me. I only repeated it about six times.”
“Is it the truth?”
And they’re off!
“If you’re worried, why don’t you go up and check? I’m sure she’d love to know how much you care.” I bare my teeth. Me and eleven-year-old Geraldine.
“Marie knows I love her,” says Dad softly. “And what worries me…” He pauses for a sigh, like he needs to collect himself for what’s coming. “Is what you’ve been telling her. Yes, I heard you say her hand is fine. I also heard you say you’re on sabbatical.”
“That’s right.”
“Now, I know it’s been a while since I was in college, but I seem to recall it’s professors who get sabbaticals. The last I heard, you were just a lecturer.”
“Sabbatical’s a blanket term. When you’re in the humanities, you’re pretty much expected to write a book. If you’ve been a good little worker bee, you get time off to do it.”
“I see.”
Dad folds his arms and leans against the minibar. Casual, in command. I feel short and squat, the dark and lumpish invader in this lean and golden family. I used to pretend I was a changeling. I used to climb trees, up so high the branches would barely hold me. I’d hide there, waiting for my real family to come get me. My real family were gnomes and trolls and crows. Dark and dangerous monsters who rode black horses, and trailed ghosts and secrets. Unlike the daylight family I’d been stuck with, my real family could command their ghosts, and they would share those secrets with me.
“You’re lying, Geraldine,” says Dad. “Like you lied about your car breaking down. You’re not on sabbatical. Something’s happened to you.”
He waits for me to deny it, or blanch. Or maybe start crying. I’m sure any or all of those would do.
I shrug. “Gold star for you, Dad.”
“Are you going to tell Marie and Robbie? Or do I have to?”
“Are you going to tell Marie you stole Robbie’s graduation present?” I say back. “Or do I have to?”
Dad, of course, receives this bitter repartee with all his usual patience and understanding.
“I am not playing your games, Geraldine. Do you think for one minute I will let you come in here and ruin my family?”
“Your family?”
“My family. You abandoned us years ago.”
“After you told me it would be better if I wasn’t around anymore.”
Dad’s gaze doesn’t flicker, not even a little. “Since you were bent on suicide, I thought you should at least kill yourself someplace your sister didn’t have to watch.”
Memory digs its teeth in—the hospital room, the terrible lethargy that was the aftermath of blood loss and hypothermia. Marie’s face was stark white then, just like it was when she saw the cut on her hand.
Mom was dead, but I didn’t know that yet. Dad was busy with the people who mattered, covering up his wife’s undignified departure from this world, as well as my unsuccessful attempt to follow along.
But I didn’t know that yet, either. I just lay there hating Marie with all the strength left in me. I hated her because there she was sitting beside my hospital bed, and because my last, desperate, and unsuccessful attempt to spark even a tiny desire to live involved getting drunk and screwing a guy I barely knew. Who just happened to be her then boyfriend. How the hell could she still love me after that?
Away in the real world, I smell beer and tobacco, and I jerk my head around.
“My God,” whispers Dad. “After all these years, you still twitch like you’re the one who got bit. How do you live with yourself?”
He moves forward. With each step, the years slide away. I shrink down until I’m just a fifteen-year-old girl, bloated with fear and anger. This isn’t the suicide time, or the murder time, we’re regressing to. Oh, no. We’re headed straight back to Disappearance Week. I’m shut in our bedroom again, and there’s no way out. There’s never going to be any way out. There’s just my father’s patient, searching eyes and his cold, steady voice telling me what’s going to happen next. And the pain. The pain of my stitched-up lip fills my face and my skull so full, I’m sure it’s never going away.
If you want to hide from everybody who loves you, then you get to hide, he says. You’re going to bed for three days. You’re not coming out, no matter how hungry you get or how bad you have to pee. If you do, you’ll be staying in bed for four days. Then five.
What about Marie? I hear my shaking, stammering self ask.
Don’t you dare try to blame Marie, he whispers. Marie is a good girl. She loves her father and understands what is expected of her. She never would have done this except for you.
My father’s words are like handcuffs and deadbolts. They’re actually worse than blows. Because while I’m shut in our bedroom, Dad’s going to tell our teachers that Marie won’t talk about what happened at Aunt Trish’s house. He’ll tell them we were only gone a couple of days, not a week. He’s going to tell them I won’t leave my room. No matter how much he begs or shouts, I won’t even get out of bed. No one would believe the truth, not when the lies sound so much more reasonable.
I’m so worried about my girl, he’s going to whisper to them all. What should I do? Please, what should I do?
“I won’t let you put Marie and Robbie through this, Geraldine,” says my father. “You’re going to leave, right after graduation next Sunday. I’ll let Marie down easy. She doesn’t have to know you’ve lost your job, or that you’re trying to buy Robbie’s affection with money that isn’t yours.” He pauses because despite my best efforts, he sees something in my eyes that isn’t simple anger or old fear.
He knows. He sees I’m planning something, we’re planning something. In that moment, I’m so sure of this, it’s all I can do to keep it together.
“Whatever’s going on can stay your private disaster,” he tells me.
He’s sure this’ll work. Why wouldn’t he be? It’s worked every other time I’ve tried to come back. Usually, he doesn’t even have to say anything. At most, I can stand four or five days of his sad, loving commentary on my every move. Then I lose my patience and my nerve and take off all on my own.
Because there has always been something about Dad, about being here, that makes it impossible to think straight.
Anger presses down against me. This is nothing like the bright, impulsive fury that makes you yell at your boyfriend or throw rocks at your ex’s car. This is old, thick, and slow. It’s sick and sweet, built up across the long years of our lives. I inhale it deeply and hold it in my lungs for as long as I can, because I know that as long as I feel this way I can do anything, and I will not give a shit what happens next.
“You stole two thousand dollars, Dad. It was sitting right there on the counter. Robbie didn’t take it. Marie couldn’t. There was nobody else in the kitchen. You stole from me, and your grandson.”
We’re toe to toe, almost nose to nose. I smell the martini and aftershave. Inside I’m crawling and I’m screaming and trying to get away. But I can’t. I’m sneaking out the window to save myself, but always creeping right back. I’m falling hard, slamming face-first onto the steps. My teeth and skull are rattling, my skin is splitting wide open to let out the blood and the pain. I’m swimming out into the frigid lake, trailing yet more blood into the black water.
But this once, I am not backing down.
“I’m staying, Dad. I know what you’re really doing, and so do you.”
Right on cue, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I yank it out.
“You’re going to take that, now?” Dad asks, scornful and surprised.
I glance at the screen and my hand shakes, just for a second. Tyler. Tyler. Thank you, damn you. Go away, Tyler.
“If it’s so important you’d better go ahead.” Dad’s permission comes mixed with equal parts contempt and resignation.
“It’s just a faculty friend,” I lie. “From the business school.”
“Lillywell has a business school?”
“Well, it’s pretty small, but it does have one specialty that gets it into the top ten lists.”
It’s news to Dad that my college is considered good at anything, and it puts a particular gleam in his eye. The one that says, Maybe there’s something useful here after all.
“What’s the specialty?”
Don’t, G. You’re going to screw everything up.
“Forensic accounting,” I say.
I watch that gleam of pride and condescension fade. Will I regret this later? Oh, yes. I know I will.
But for now, I smile and I smile, and I keep right on smiling.
Where do stories really begin?
True beginnings are easy to miss. The story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is a good example. The story does not begin with Snow White herself. It begins with another queen who sits sewing by her tower window. We’re never told if she has a name. But she does have power. When she pricks her finger and blood falls on the snow covering the ebony windowsill, she says, “I wish I had a daughter with skin as white as snow, hair as black as ebony, and lips as red as blood.”
And it happens, just as she asked.
Fairy tales are filled with women whose wishes come true. Usually, they are the “real” mothers of the heroes and heroines. They have no names and, with few exceptions, are never mentioned once the heroine’s journey gets under way. But it is their unnamed presence and their disregarded power that shapes the story.
—Out of the Woods: Musings on Fairy Tales in the Real World,
Dr. Geraldine Monroe
STACEY BURNOVICH,
SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD
THE ROSE HOUSE
1.
Later, Stacey would remember how happy Martin looked the first time he walked into the Rose House. His coffee-brown eyes swept the foyer, taking in the slate floor accented by art tiles, the broad staircase that turned at precise angles as it traveled to the second story, and the heavy ceiling beams with their iron bands. Only then did those glittering eyes settle on her.
“Beautiful,” he said.
“It’s a crypt.” Stacey shrugged, pretending she didn’t realize he was talking about her. She’d dressed to impress in her white tube top and frayed cutoffs with the sunflowers on the back pockets. She’d spent an hour teasing out her stupid, freaky, white hair so it floated around her bare shoulders.
And it was all paying off. Martin was looking at her, slow and careful. He had dressed for the occasion, too. He wore a crisp white dress shirt and dark slacks pressed so they had a crease in them.
Like he’s going to church.
“Show me around?” Martin asked.
“Okay.” Oh, yeah. Come into my parlor, you pretty boy. Stacey’s skin heated up. Pete was going to flip out, and it would serve him right. So would Trish, and it would serve her right, too.
“The first thing that greets the visitor to Rose House is the grand foy-ay.” Stacey began in her snottiest fake English accent. “The overhead beams and graceful staircase are carved from local red oak. The accent tiles were custom designed by the Potawatomi Pottery Company to match the magnificent art glass window created by the studio of Louis Comfort Tiffany, which we will see later.”
“No way.”
“Yes, way. They did a layout of the place in some magazine back in like the twenties. My mom could recite it from memory.” Stacey did the game show hostess walk. “If we look to the left, we see the beautifully proportioned pocket door, leading to…” She grabbed the iron handle and heaved the door open. “The front parlor!”
Martin stepped across the threshold like he was stepping onto the stage.
“What makes this room remarkable are the walls, hand-painted by Addison Walters, the oldest son of Hamish Walters, who built the Rose House.” Stacey fell back, one hand on her cocked hip, the other gesturing to the room. “A noted local artist, Addison drew his inspiration from Whitestone Harbor’s magnificent landscape. This room, as you can see, allows the viewer to feel they are standing on the peaceful shores of Lake Michigan.”
Martin turned, looking at the painted walls, with their fake pebbles and the beach grass and rippling sand. He lingered on the gray storm clouds and delicate sunset colors up above the three picture windows. Stacey was glad he was taking his time. It let her get a full look at him. Hmm. Not much in the butt department. Or in the shoulders. Of the brothers, Pete definitely had the better build. Martin’s glory was all in that perfect face and sunrise-gold hair. Those deep, dreamboat eyes.
Stacey couldn’t even remember the first time she’d seen Martin Monroe. Growing up, he’d always been just another boy in the halls of the Lincoln Monroe Comprehensive School. But suddenly, he was everywhere: in the cafeteria, in study hall, at Janice Wilkinson’s party, and Judy Mayor’s and Beau Shamanski’s. It was like she couldn’t turn around without seeing him behind her, staring.
At first, she thought it was because he didn’t like his brother going out with her. If she was being honest with herself, she’d have to admit she’d only started dating Pete Monroe because she knew it would absolutely kill his stuck-up old bitch of a mother, Millicent.
But after a couple months of Pete’s fumbling and complaining, Stacey found herself wondering if she’d picked the right brother. So when Martin looked, she started looking back. When he started saying hi in the halls, and at the parties, and the stupid school dances that people only went to because there was nothing else to do, she said hi back. And when Pete took off for a smoke with his buddies, she danced a couple of dances with Martin.
And finally, there was today.
“It’s even more amazing than I imagined,” Martin breathed.
“You imagined it?” Jesus H. Christ. He could not possibly like this place.
“Mmm-hmm. Full of crap, aren’t I? But you don’t know how many times I’ve looked up here and thought, it must be great, having a place like this, where nothing can touch you.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you had to live in it.” Stacey folded her arms, trying not to see the shadow of her mother sitting on that sofa, quiet, calm and absolutely at home. “I told Trish we should sell the place. It’s not like we need fifteen rooms and a three-car garage.” It wasn’t like they’d be throwing crazy parties here, or having to get away from any more screaming fights, or…or…or…anything.
