As Close as Sisters (23 page)

“What do you think? I was fucking freezing,” I said, an edge in my voice I didn’t like. All of a sudden, I was annoyed with Lilly. Maybe with all of them.

It was Lilly’s turn again, and she went into the ballroom. “Let’s see,” she said, eyeing each of us, the sound of suspense in her voice as she picked up the green game piece and a weapon and dropped them on the ballroom square. “Mr. Green did it in the ballroom with a . . . rope.” She looked at McKenzie who was sitting next to her. “Can you disprove that?”

McKenzie showed her a card from her hand. Lilly made a face and marked a box off on her clue sheet.

McKenzie took up the die. “What
did
you do, Aurora? Shimmy down a drain pipe, cold
nips
and all?”

“No. I hollered down to people on the street.” I leaned back in my chair, wishing I had a cigarette, or better yet, a joint.

“Did you stand behind a potted plant?” Lilly asked.

“Of course not. I was trying to get someone’s attention, three stories below. A nice French gentleman was happy to go to the front desk and let them know that there was an issue with my balcony door.” I took my turn with the die, headed for the hall. “I met him for drinks later.”

31

McKenzie

I
glanced at Aurora. I didn’t like the tone in her voice. She’d had too much to drink. Not for the first time since we’d gotten here, but there was something different about her overindulgence tonight. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

I knew she was upset about Jude. I’d tried to talk to her about him, with Janine and Lilly, and alone. Her response had been to pretend she was okay with his visit, with his engagement, with all of it. She wasn’t ready to talk yet, I guess.

I took my turn and ended up in the billiard room. I scooped up Aurora’s game piece, put it in the billiard room with mine, and guessed Miss Scarlett in the billiard room with a wrench. Janine took a moment from texting Chris to show me the wrench card.

“I hate this game,” Aurora complained. “Now I’m stuck in the fucking billiard room.”

“Aurora, could you please pick a different word?” Lilly asked.

Janine looked up from her cell phone. Aurora wasn’t the only one with tone now.

“I know it’s just a word,” Lilly said, “and maybe around your artsy friends it’s cool, but—”

“Cool?”
Aurora asked, her voice thick with anger and sarcasm. “What? Are we in middle school again, Lillian?”

Lilly exhaled with irritation. “You know what I’m saying. I don’t like it, and you know it. I never have.” She was getting on her high horse now, the way only Lilly could with Aurora. “And I’m going to have a child soon, and I’m going to tell you now that I don’t want you talking like that in front of her.”

Aurora didn’t say anything back. Which worried me more than if she had just gone off on Lilly.

We each took another turn, now in silence, and Aurora had the die again. She had exited the billiard room on her last turn, as per our rules, but now she was back inside it. She picked up the little revolver and tossed it into the room with her red plastic playing piece. “Miss Scarlet did it in the conservatory with a .38.” She looked up but not really
at
us. “I guess she actually did it in the
bedroom,
didn’t she?”

Janine had been texting Chris again. Her thumb froze over her phone, and she looked over at Aurora.

“If she’d had her way, it would have been Miss Scarlet in the
bathroom
with a .38.” Aurora’s voice sounded strange. Not like herself at all. Not even like herself after too much gin.

Lilly looked at me, then at Aurora. We were all looking at Aurora now. She had the oddest look on her face. Like she was about to cry or . . . dissolve. No one said anything. I think we were all trying to figure out just what was going on. Because something was
definitely
going on.

Aurora’s mouth tightened. She went from looking hurt or lost or something, to looking like she could have hurt one of us. “Because I would have, you know that? If I’d had the gun that afternoon. When I got out of the shower to see Buddy standing there, looking at me the way he was looking at me.” She paused to sip from her glass.

Buddy had walked in on Aurora in the bathroom? This was the first we had heard of it—in twenty-eight years.

We all seemed to be frozen. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what. Lilly looked shocked. Janine . . . devastated.

“He came into the bathroom while you were in there?” Janine whispered.

“Yup. Same day. That last day.” Aurora sounded as if she could have been talking about taking the garbage out. “Remember, the lock didn’t work? Your mom was always asking him to fix it, but he never did.” The momentary silence was deafening. We were all waiting, unable to imagine what Aurora would say next.

“You guys were all downstairs in the kitchen. Kathy too. Your brother had already left for his friend’s house. Everyone was laughing and talking. I could hear you from the shower upstairs. Your mom had made spaghetti, Janine, and burned the garlic bread. I smelled it when I stepped out of the shower. You know something? I smell that burned garlic bread every time I step out of the shower,” she said.

I noticed that Aurora’s hand around the glass trembled ever so slightly as she went on.

“I reached for the towel, but he got to it first. He held it out in front of me. Taunted me with it. I tried to cover myself with my hands.” Aurora gave a little laugh that was without humor. “I know it’s hard to imagine me being shy, but I barely had tits.” She shook her head stiffly. Like she couldn’t believe what she was saying. Or what had happened . . . “I knew he was a creep, but I didn’t know grown men could—not until I saw it in his eyes.”

Janine’s tears were spilling onto her cheeks. “He didn’t—”

“Oh my God,” Lilly breathed, staring at Aurora.

“No, he
didn’t,
” Aurora spit. “But he was going to.” She was angry now. With us for some reason. But with Buddy, too. I knew that. Even if she didn’t realize it right now.

“Don’t you get it? You guys had the story wrong.” She set her glass down hard on the table, so hard that the game pieces on the board rattled. She drew a deep breath. Closed her eyes. “And I let you believe it.” She turned her head and looked directly at Janine. “I wasn’t your
hero,
Janine. I didn’t
save
you that night. I saved
my fucking self
.” She practically shouted those last words.

Janine drew back from her, more in response to Aurora’s volume than what she was saying.

“I don’t understand.” Lilly leaned over the table. “You’re saying that Buddy came into the bathroom and saw you naked while we were downstairs making dinner that day? But you didn’t go into Janine’s room until—” She stopped and started again. “Did you know? Did you know he was in Janine’s room that night?”

“I didn’t know until I opened her door.” Aurora glanced in the direction of the beach. The doors were closed, the light reflecting off the glass; we couldn’t see the dunes or the ocean beyond them, but I knew she was thinking about the water. About swimming.

Aurora’s voice took on an ethereal quality. “When I walked in, I saw what he was doing to Janine. I knew I was next. I knew he would be in my room soon. It was only a matter of time. So I closed the door very quietly. I went downstairs. I got the gun, and I went back upstairs. I probably would have shot him right in the bed with you, Janine. But when I walked in your room, he saw me. He came toward me, and I . . . I pulled the trigger.”

Janine was crying quietly. Lilly loudly. I was, surprisingly, dry-eyed.

Aurora stood up. Swayed and steadied herself against the table.

“Aurora,” I said.

She didn’t seem to hear me. “So I’ve been lying to you all these years. Making you think I . . . I did something
noble
. I didn’t.” She hesitated. “I’m sorry, Janine. It wasn’t about you. It was about me.” She didn’t look at her. “I’m going to go for a walk.”

The three of us were quiet long enough for her to get halfway to the doors. Still stunned I guess.

“You want me to go with you?” I asked, getting out of my chair. I felt like I was moving in slow motion. Thinking in slow motion. What Aurora had said didn’t make sense. How could she not have told us, all these years? She had to be lying. But the look on her face . . . I knew she was telling the truth. A truth she’d been hiding twenty-eight years.

“No offense, but you’re not much of a walking buddy, Mack.” Aurora reached the doors.

“Aurora, wait,” Janine called after her.

Aurora opened the door, stepped out onto the deck, and was lost in the darkness.

I turned to look at Janine. She was crying, but she wasn’t falling apart. Lilly was falling apart. I put my arm around Lilly, but I was still looking at Janine.

“I don’t even know what to say,” she managed. “I can’t believe he—”

“Janine,” I interrupted. “Look at me.”

Slowly, Janine lifted her gaze until she met mine.

“He was a sick fuck,” I said. “That’s already been determined. What your father did to anyone, including you, is not your fault.” I was surprised by how strong my voice was. By the fact that I wasn’t crying. “And whatever happened to Aurora doesn’t change the facts of what happened to you. You’ve spent enough money in therapy to know that, right?”

Janine seemed to mull that over in her head for a minute. Like me, I guess she felt as if she were processing in slow motion.

“Right,” she said finally. She squinted, trying to get her thoughts wrapped around what had just transpired. What had transpired all those years ago. “Aurora thinks I care
why
she did it? She did what I didn’t have the guts to do.” She blinked. “It never occurred to me to kill him. She saved me.” She stared at the floor. “Christ, she was fourteen.” She looked at me again. “Does she really think I care
why
she did it?”

“I know it doesn’t make sense, Janine. I don’t know what’s going on with her. I don’t know why she would tell us this tonight. Too much to drink. Jude. Me.” I gave Lilly a squeeze and let go of her. I went around the table and put my arms around Janine. For once, she didn’t fight me.

“I should go after her,” she said into my shoulder.

“Let her be for a little while. Let her sober up.”

“You don’t think she’ll go swimming, do you?” Lilly asked. “She’s too drunk to be swimming.”

I exhaled. It was certainly a possibility that she would. But one of us being with her wasn’t going to stop her. “She said she was going for a walk. I think she probably needs to go for a walk and decompress.” I let go of Janine.

She stared at the phone on the table. “I want to call Chris,” she said. “I’m going to go out on the deck and call Chris.”

“Good idea.” I handed her her phone. “I’ll get Lilly some tissues.” I searched Janine’s gaze for a moment, checking to make sure she wasn’t about to lose it, I guess. She wasn’t. Our Janine is tough. We all know that. This was just further proof.

“Come on,” I told Lilly, going back around the table to put one arm around her and steer her down the hall toward the kitchen. “Let’s get you a glass of water.”

Sniffling, Lilly looked to Janine. “McKenzie’s right, you know that, right?” she asked. “You know what Buddy did to Aurora isn’t any more your fault than what he did to you. You understand that.”

Janine managed a little smile and a slight nod. “I’m just going to go out and call Chris.”

32

Janine

“Y
ou want me to go with you?” McKenzie asked me. She was standing in the doorway of her bedroom. “Help you look for her?”

Lilly was lying down on McKenzie’s bed. She was having those damned fake contractions again, which would have been worrying me if I wasn’t so worried about Aurora out on the beach alone right now. Possibly in the water, swimming for who-the-hell-knew where.

At lunch Aurora had been telling us about a woman in her sixties who had swum from Cuba to Florida. Maybe Aurora was attempting the Delaware to Cuba swim right this minute. It wasn’t as far-fetched as it might sound. Not for Aurora, who we all knew was just a little nutty . . . and getting nuttier by the year, apparently.

“No, I’ll find her. You stay here with Lilly.” I pointed. “She okay?”

McKenzie nodded.

“You?” I asked.

She smiled at me from under the brim of the ball cap she was wearing. Her girls had given her the hat advertising a local brewery. “Peachy.”

“Good. Well, hopefully I’ll be back . . .
we’ll
be back shortly.” I turned away.

“Hey, Janine?”

I turned back.

“Chris coming tomorrow?” McKenzie hesitated. “I kind of overheard.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Tomorrow morning.”

“Lilly will want to make a big celebratory breakfast.”

“Waffles and bacon,” Lilly called from McKenzie’s bed, lying on her back, stroking her bare belly in big circular motions. “But someone will have to go out for OJ!”

I smiled to myself. I wasn’t sure
celebratory
was the right word, but it was sure as hell going to be interesting. “Be back as soon as I can,” I told them. “I’ve got my phone if you need me.” I patted my shorts’ pocket. I’d put on a hoodie. It was after eleven and probably a little cool on the beach. “I’m going to take Fritz with me.”

“Call if you need us,” McKenzie told me.

Fritz waited for me on the deck. He was watching through the salt-treated rungs of the rail. Maybe there was a rabbit in the dune grass. Or maybe he was already trying to pick up Aurora’s scent.

“Come on, boy,” I called. I grabbed a towel someone had left to dry on the rail and threw it over my shoulder.

He trotted down the steps behind me. We crossed the dunes and headed straight for the water. There was no sign of Aurora there. I looked up and down the beach. Not many people out. A few voices drifted in the darkness, but none that were distinguishable. . . or recognizable.

“North or south?” I asked the dog. Like he had any more idea than I did.

He lifted his nose and sniffed, then trotted north. Downwind. Made sense. Lost kids on the beach usually did the same thing. I fell in behind him.

I was glad to be out of the house for a few minutes. Just to be alone. I used to go to great lengths to
not
be alone, but I was finding it easier. Sometimes even pleasant.

So Buddy had gone into the bathroom and seen Aurora naked.
Looked
at Aurora naked. I guess I should have been more shocked about her revelation than I was. I guess I’m not because there’s nothing that anyone could say about him that would shock me. Well, if someone said something
good
about him,
that
would have floored me. I’m glad, of course, that he didn’t touch Aurora. And that she took away his opportunity to try.

The thought crossed my mind that she could have told someone at the time, an adult, but it didn’t linger. I know what kind of person Aurora is. That wouldn’t have been her style. To rely on someone else. Certainly not an adult. And she knows me. God knows I would have been too scared to speak up if anyone had questioned me about my relationship with my father. I’d have lied to hide my shame.

That thought was like a trip wire. Trip wires triggered explosions in the field. In this case, inside my head.

God damn it!
I pressed the heels of my hands to my temples.

I tried not to think about the first time Buddy came into my room.

I had gotten really good at blocking the memories, but sometimes they seeped through the cracks . . . or just exploded in my head.

My mother had gone away overnight to see her sick aunt or something and taken my brother with her. I was twelve. Twelve fucking years old. He’d just walked into my bedroom in the dark and climbed into bed with me . . . climbed on top of me. He didn’t say a word. I didn’t even realize what was going on until it was too late. Then I only struggled for a second before he wrapped his hand around my throat and told me if I made a sound, if I
ever
made a sound, to anyone, first he would kill my dog Scooter, then he would kill my brother, then my mother, and then me. He told me that because he was a cop, he knew how to get away with it.

At the time, I remember being the most afraid for my dog, of all things.

That intimidation worked for a while. Then, when I got older, he started in on the whole idea that it was all my fault, what he did to me. How I had
tempted
him. How I
made
him do it. How nasty I was. How ashamed my mother, my friends would be if they found out.

I believed him. I believed it was my fault, and I was
so
afraid someone would find out. When I started becoming friends with Lilly, McKenzie, and Aurora, I remember being petrified they would, somehow, know what my father did to me in my bedroom at night.

I thought it was my fault, but not Aurora. Not Aurora who was able to recognize Buddy for the monster that he was, and was willing to protect herself.

Like sand shifting under my feet, I moved back to the present. Aurora. Aurora was out here somewhere. I gazed north, up along the waterline.

I felt bad that Aurora thought I would care why she went downstairs and got the pistol that night. That I would think any less of her, knowing her
true
motivation. She stopped him when I couldn’t. End of story.

I felt bad for Aurora, but it also ticked me off a little that she thought I would care. All these years she’s known me and she didn’t know me any better than that? I’d always suspected Aurora was screwed up in the head, but this . . . guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.

I found her T-shirt and shorts about three blocks north of the house. I recognized the artsy graphic shirt she’d been wearing. At least she hadn’t gone in naked.

I stood at the edge of the water, my bare feet wet, trying to spot her in the water. “Come on, Aurora,” I murmured. “Don’t be an idiot.” It had crossed my mind back at the house, and again when I was walking, that she could drown, as drunk as she was, as upset as she was. But Aurora was stronger than that. Better than that. I knew she wouldn’t do that to us.

Fritz stared out into the dark water. Whined.

“I don’t know,” I told the dog. We stood there for a long time, then I sat down, next to her clothes, willing to wait until she came back for them. Even if it meant sitting there all night.

Maybe another twenty minutes passed before I thought I spotted someone in the water, north, swimming south, beyond the breakers. I stood up, and Fritz and I walked to the edge of the water. It was dark, and the moon hadn’t come up yet so I couldn’t see much. As the swimmer got closer, I recognized the stroke. It was Aurora, all right.

I called her name. She didn’t answer, but the swimmer headed in for the beach.

When she walked out of the ocean, water streaming off her hair, I was waiting with the towel. Neither of us said a word as I picked her clothes up off the sand. We just started walking south, her in her bra and panties, me with my dog and her clothes.

We walked all the way back to the house in silence. An oddly comforting silence. I could tell Aurora was spent, physically and emotionally. And mostly sober. I found another towel hanging from a hook next to the outside shower, and I offered it to her after she rinsed off and wrung out her long blond hair. She dropped her bra and underwear and wrapped one towel around her head and the other around her naked body. I scooped up her clothes and followed her up the steps to the deck and into the house.

“Janine?” McKenzie called from the bedroom. Then, hesitantly, “Aurora?”

Aurora walked into Mack’s room, and I went in behind her. McKenzie was lying in the bed, in a sleep tee and boxers. Lilly was in one of her silly, white, little girl nightgowns. Curled up asleep beside McKenzie.

I was halfway in the room when I realized that McKenzie wasn’t wearing a scarf or one of her nighttime terrycloth turbans. She was bald, except for the slightest cast of red peach fuzz on her head. I didn’t say anything about it.

McKenzie pushed up on her elbow and put out her hand to Aurora. In just the towels, she climbed into the bed and stretched out, sandwiching the sleeping Lilly between her and McKenzie. McKenzie laid her head on the pillow, but she was watching me.

“There’s not enough room,” I argued, knowing exactly what she wanted, without her having to say it.

She tilted her fuzzy head ever so slightly, beckoning me. I glanced over my shoulder at Fritz, who had settled down in the doorway between the dark house and the pale light of the bedroom.

I hesitated. Then gave in and climbed into bed. It was a close fit with the four of us. I didn’t have a lot of room, especially since I tried to lie there for a minute without touching Aurora. But then she rolled onto her side, throwing her arm around Lilly’s belly. McKenzie met my gaze over the two of them and then shut out the light and lay down.

I rolled over and put my arm over Aurora to touch Lilly’s belly . . . and to feel the warmth of McKenzie’s hand. I closed my eyes against the tears that stung them. We had done this when we were in middle school, all slept together. And in high school, and occasionally in college. But I couldn’t remember ever having slept like this in our adult lives. All lying together in the same bed, and feeling the rise and fall of each other’s chests with each breath.

I drifted off to sleep.