Burning September (4 page)

“Who’s playing semantics now?”

“I’m an attorney.  I’m allowed.”  He crossed his arms over his button-down and fixed me with a stare again.  “I’m going to assume half of what you told me is the truth.  You didn’t see or hear her leave in her vehicle, did you?”

“No.”

“She didn’t confess to you when she came back inside?  Mention anything to do with Brian?”

“Only when she expanded on her theory that his face looked like a hairy fat woman’s vagina.”

It looked like he wanted to laugh, but mastered the urge.  “I can see it now that you mention it,” he said, flipping to the picture of Brian in his files.  “Anyway.  Nothing—
nothing
—that happened that day was different in
any way
from all the others?”

I looked at my cheap plastic flip-flops, smacking one against the heel of my foot.  “I—”

“You’re lying.”

“What?” I spluttered.  “But I didn’t even
say
anything.”

“What was different on that day?”

I tried to glare but must not have been too skilled in that regard, because he didn’t so much as blink.  He was a tornado and I was a house of cards. 

“I smelled gasoline,” I finally said, with the feeling of bodily deflation.  “Not—not a lot.  But some.  And that could have been due to anything, anyone, neighbors barbecuing or the gas station—”

“Across the street.  Yeah, I stopped there before coming here.  Don’t look like that, all isn’t lost.  Nobody but you said she smelled like gasoline, and—” he consulted the report—“I see you forgot to mention that bit to police.  They didn’t even speak to Caroline until a few days after the fire, when any remaining scent would have dissipated.”  He returned his attention to the sheaves of paper in his lap. 

“What—what kind of evidence do they have against her?”

“I’m not sure.  Still waiting on it.  All I have are a few statements and the incident report.  The police haven’t subpoenaed cell phone records, so I’ll be putting in a request of my own from AT&T.”  He consulted his watch.  Probably about to feign a meeting he had to attend to get the hell out of this madhouse.  “Should paint a better picture of what happened that afternoon.”

“So you don’t know what her defense is going to be?”

“I thought I’d go with
not guilty
.”

“That goes without saying.  You’re dodging all my questions but demanding honesty from me.  Hardly seems fair.”

He latched his briefcase shut and stood.  “I’m not entirely sure at the moment, but I have a few ideas.”

I waited for a longer explanation.  None came, only an infuriating smile.  “Well,
what
?  What are your ideas?  This isn’t a joke to me.  Stop smiling.”

He didn’t.  “Victim-blaming, for starters.  Brian’s got a long criminal history.” 

“Caroline said you didn’t even speak to her at the facility.”

“The loony bin?”

“She’s not crazy.”

“Oh, I know that.”  He gave me a thumbs-up and an over-exaggerated wink.  “Good thing nobody else does.”

“Why didn’t you want to talk to her?  She could give you information I can’t.  I’m just the idiot little sister.  I’m nobody.”

“You’re not nobody to me.  It’s not often attorneys make house calls.  I like working from the outside in.  I’ll talk to her eventually.”  He headed backward for the front door.  “You look like her, though.  More so from a distance.  Up close you can see your softer edges.” 

I didn’t look like her.  Caroline was the kind of woman people stopped to stare at, amazed she went to the supermarket and stopped for coffee like everyone else, startled she wasn’t up in the sky, hanging out on some cloud in Olympus.  I wasn’t a siren like her.  Nobody had to chain themselves to the mast around me. 

He grabbed the doorknob, calling over his shoulder.  “I’ll be back to see you, Katya.”

“Well,” I huffed, getting to my feet.  “Well, can you at least
call
first?”

“Sure.”  The stupid self-impressed smile returned.  “Give me your number.”

I rattled off the digits, kind of hating him, kind of not.  Should I snarl or smile?  He seemed capable, but I’d never met anyone so exasperating. 

And when he left, I slouched on the sofa and reached for the tarot deck. 
King of Swords
. Represents intellectual authority and clarity of vision and mind.  Typically his appearance would caution one to leave emotions and unnecessary tidbits out of the equation; focus on facts only.  Or the reader could go the obvious route and claim it depicts a strong-hearted man, decisive and smart.  But the sword he holds is double-edged, and he could be ruthless, manipulative and judgmental if he wishes. 

***

In retrospect, I must have been an idiot not to know what Caroline had done.  From the fire on, she’d stopped all mentions of Brian, become remarkably blasé about anything to do with him and Hailey Whatsherface, and I’d been ecstatic.  If I’d never heard his name again, it’d be too soon.  She’d awakened from a long sleep after biting that poisoned apple, resumed planning grand ideas for weekends, trying inventive recipes, preaching about my first year of college and all its importance.  A constant stream of advice punctuated every thought she’d voiced. 
Wanna watch Dr. Phil?  Better not get used too used it to it, once you start classes you’ll have to say sayonara to daytime TV.

It was one hell of a surprise when Detective Slater pounded on our front door that night.  I was shocked stupid, rendered mute, unable to pick my jaw up from the floor.  I couldn’t even say goodbye as they towed her out, since I’d forgotten what my voice was for. 

Back my noon
, my ass.  It wasn’t until five days later that I was able to see her at her new home, Breakthrough Recovery Center, with bandaged wrists and dull eyes underlined with purple shadows.

Her appearance surprised me more than her alleged crimes and her new residence combined.  Nobody had taken the trouble to mention the specifics of what went on after her arrest.  I’d assumed she’d done something marginally crazy to land in a loony bin, like screamed colorful obscenities to the point they’d thought she might have become possessed.

Breakthrough’s visiting room was bland and cold, and my sister never looked sicker against that gray backdrop.  She smiled for me though, which I thought counted for something.  But when she didn’t reach over to hug me, I suddenly learned why.  The bandages.  The restraints.  She’d done something awful.  And not just to Brian.

“It’s not what it looks like,” she said right away, bobbing her head at her wrists.

“It looks like you’ve tried to off yourself,” I managed to choke out, collapsing on the worn couch beside her wheelchair.  “What the hell, Caroline? What happened?  Wait—don’t tell me.  They’ve probably got cameras, microphones everywhere, God, this is lunacy, this whole fucking thing—”

“They don’t have cameras or mikes here.”  She shook her head.  “You watch too much TV.  I’ve been saying it for years.”

And as if it were a monster that had lain dormant within me my entire eighteen years, waiting for the dam to break, I was livid.  Ragged breathing, flexing fingers, a sharp pain springing up behind my eyeballs.  Her pithy attitude and snappy words couldn’t lighten the mood, and if she kept it up, I’d tie her slippery tongue up in knots. 

“I hate to break it to you, but it looks like you’ve been locked up somewhere for the criminally insane, and if you think they wouldn’t love to catch you saying more than you should, you’ve got another—”

“This isn’t an asylum.”  She rolled her eyes, supremely unconcerned.  “It’s not run through the prison system.  There aren’t cameras or mikes or undercover cops working as aides.  They don’t record phone calls and visitor’s conversations.  It’s a mental health joint.  They’re here to help me get over my loss and suicide attempt.”

I don’t think I’ve ever been madder at anyone in all my life, and I loved Caroline more than anything.  I poked a finger hard into the bandaging on one of her wrists, hoping to hurt her like she’d hurt me.  “Jesus, how could you
do
that, how could you do that to
me
, to
yourself
, how
could
you, after Mom—” 

“As much as I enjoy seeing the role switching here,” she stage-whispered over my hoarse lecture, “This isn’t
Freaky Friday
, and Lindsay Lohan you are not.  I didn’t do anything too fatal.  I’m fine.”

“If you were fine they wouldn’t have you straight-jacketed.”

“Velcro restraints do not a straightjacket make.”

“Oh, shut
up
, Caroline.”  I pounded my fist against my forehead, kneading my knuckles into the space between my eyebrows.  “This isn’t some drama skit, you’re not the lead actress, this is
serious
, real life—I never thought you’d ever be this—this—”

“Stupid?” She supplied, an amused arch in her brow.  “Reckless?  Sallow and unhealthy?  Am I getting warmer?”

I gagged on a derisive snort, opened my mouth to retort, but her eyes shot warning daggers, and she found her voice first.

“Enough,” she said, and I knew, just like old times, who was boss.  She knew how to lay down the law better than most actual mothers.  Even with suicide wounds and jaundiced skin.  “Whatever you think this is, it isn’t.  It’s what I had to do.  Rubber rooms are much better than prisons, I’m sure you’ve gathered, from all that
Law & Order
.”

“So you actually did it.” I felt the angry flush fading from my face.  “You killed him.”

She shrugged as much as she could with wrists belted to a wheelchair.  “Not one of my finer moments.”

“You killed him for
nothing
.” 

“Not for nothing.  He had it coming.  He just chose the wrong person this time.”  She let loose a huge sigh.  “If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t know if he was inside or not.”

“It doesn’t make me feel better.  At all.”

She sucked in a huge breath, blinked tired eyes, lips dragging down at the corners. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?  I could have helped.  Could have stopped it, knocked some sense into you.”

“That’s
why
I didn’t tell you.”  She averted her gaze.  “Look, I didn’t know what to do, okay?  All I could think about was fucking Brian out there, gamboling about with his new playthings, after all I’d done for him, and it was
bullshit
.  Why did he get to do that to me and carry on like nothing happened?  It was making me crazy, I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t think—I shouldn’t have.  I know that.  But I’m not sorry.  He deserved it.  He took something from me too, you know.  Something I couldn’t get back while he was still out there living his lovely fucking life.”

Her logic was about thirty-seven kinds of wrong, but he had taken something from her, turned her into a shell, and that shell—her catatonic skin coffin—had been one of the scariest things I’d ever witnessed. 

“You know he’d trade drugs for sex?  Yeah, I didn’t either, not until later.  The whole time we were together.  I could have caught something from his nasty ass, I’m lucky I didn’t.  Could have gotten AIDS or whatever.”

Taking stock of her fellow patients in the visiting room, I felt AIDS was the least of her concerns.  These weren’t the crazy homeless people shouting on buses. Their demons were obvious, oozed out their gaping, pallid pores, seemed to invade the air.  A thrill of terror fingered my spine every time my gaze locked with one of them.  They looked capable of far more than mere arson and murder. 

Caroline couldn’t have turned into something like this, it was impossible.  She’d have kept herself sane out of pure spite.

“You still could have come to me.  You can come to me about anything, and I would have been there for you.  I
was
there for you.”

“It was my issue,” she said, lank hair swaying as she shook her head.  “You’re the child.  My adult drama isn’t for you to fix.”

“Don’t patronize me, Caroline,” I said in the kind of withering tone I must have learned from her.  “I’m not a child.  You didn’t tell me because I’d have stopped you, end of story.  You didn’t want to be stopped.”

But I couldn’t have stopped her any more than I could have kept hornets from building their hives beneath the broken air conditioning unit outside our windows.  It would happen regardless, nothing I could do, not unless I wanted to acquire a million stings. 

“That’s true, in essence.”  Her lids dipped heavy over her eyes.  Even her irises had a faded look from being locked up.  A milky, glazed amber.  “You didn’t see Mom before.  You didn’t see what she looked like before she did it.  And that was happening to me.  I felt it.  Every day it felt like I was getting worse, and it scared me.”

Long silences never bothered her much, and I hadn’t been too concerned by them either, up till that point.  My skin prickled the longer it stretched, endless and icy.  I looked away, and promptly wished I hadn’t.  A girl with red, raw flesh I’d only seen at the butcher shop occupied the space in which my gaze had fled.  Half her face bubbled like hot wax, eyebrows and lashes curled into singed nubs, lips nothing more than a flayed, flaking scab, bald but for one long butter yellow strand swept behind what was left of her ear.