Pieces of My Sister's Life (11 page)

“You think I choose this? Alone is what God give me and I got no right to complain ’bout what God give. But it ain’t my choosin’.”

I had no idea what to say to this. It made me want to curl up in her lap. “You’re not happy?”

“Oh, chile, that ain’t it. All I needs is my own self. All I needs is all I got.” She smiled softly. “But thing is, Kerry, when you finds love you got to treasure it, reach for it with both your hand. Could be it make you lose your footin’, but in the long run findin’ your heart is more important than findin’ your feet.”

I watched her, the thick ring on her thicker finger, this woman who somehow could take whatever came her way. I knew what she was saying, but the truth was I didn’t want to lose my feet. Because I wanted to own Justin and I wanted to own Eve, both. And what I knew was that anything could happen; they could both float away like our mother, like Daddy, like the summer flowers that lost their color no matter how tight you held.

Later that afternoon I returned home to find Eve in the hallway, sitting cross-legged by the attic steps, her newly short hair still a shock to me. It exaggerated the slight difference in her features, the narrow line of her cheekbones where my face was more rounded, the pouty swell of her upper lip, always fuller than my own. She waved me over, gesturing at a banker’s box. “Come look.”

Inside were old school notebooks, report cards, manuscript paper with rows and rows of capital and lowercase
R
’s. I sat beside her and fingered through it, the innocence of third-grade stories and fingerpainted faces.

“If we could go back, what would we tell them?” Eve said. “I mean about all the stuff they’d have to go through.”

“I guess we’d tell them that things’ll be tough, but they’ll turn out okay in the end.”

“Will they?”

I gave her a look but she was staring at a drawing, a blue pond with a fountain in its center, spouting rainbow colors. “When we were little I used to be able to blur my eyes and let the pictures take over,” she said. “Sink into them and be somewhere else. Maybe that’s the problem with growing up, there’s no escape.”

I traced my finger across the spirals in a notebook, feeling sorry, but also wanting to show her there was hope. “I guess I don’t want to escape,” I said. “Things’re getting better, getting good for me now, and they’ll get better for you too if you just wait. If I had a choice, I couldn’t really think of anywhere else I’d rather be.”

Eve watched my face for a long minute, then turned away and began to toss the papers haphazardly into the box. When she’d finished she stood and lifted the box, her jaw tight. “Sometimes, Kerry,” she said, “I don’t know you anymore.”

Maybe that was why I let Justin convince me I should lie. It was a holding-on-to-what-I-could kind of thing. And that lie was, in a way, what precipitated everything that came after, which is ironic if you really think about it.

It was a week before Christmas when he suggested it. We were lying on his bed, he on pillows with his writing, me against the wall, my legs draped over his knees. There’s an art to fitting two people comfortably on a single bed without cramping. Eve and I had mastered the best positions, this being one of my favorites.

I was trying to work out a budget. Eve had somehow come up with the next month’s rent, and I was working through the numbers in our bank account and trying to figure out how she’d managed it. Regardless, I knew that by February we’d be scraping the bottom of the barrel. Maybe if we worked full-time on weekends, we’d make enough after taxes to get by. I tried to convince myself, even knowing it was impossible. There was so little business in the winter that even Mr. Caine didn’t work full-time.

Justin gestured at his notepad. “I got an idea.”

I smiled, letting myself drift away from the numbers and the worry. “Oh yeah?”

“How ’bout this. On the night they fall in love, Morwyn makes Gaelin soup, a fairy recipe. So after they eat they’re sitting together by the fire, their stomachs churning, and they kiss.” Justin grinned. “And guess why their stomachs are churning.”

“Oh no,” I said. “You wouldn’t.”

“Poisoned strawberries,” Justin said. “I like it. It’s romantic. She could nurse him back to health.”

I punched his arm. “Know what I think? A guy would have to be an idiot to fall in love with a girl who poisons him.”

“Not true. I just have to remember never to let you cook for me again. Just wait till I write this, and you’ll see how romantic it is.” He watched me with clouded eyes. “So listen, Ker. I was thinking if we worked it right, Christmas might be a great chance to spend some time together. Alone.”

“Not if you’re in Manhattan and we’re in West Virginia.”

“What I was thinking is, what if we didn’t go? Maybe we get a return of the stomach bug, something incapacitating.”

“They’re not stupid, Justin. They’ll figure it out.”

“Bet you anything they don’t. You obviously don’t understand how gullible my parents are. Look at this innocent face, do I look like I could lie?”

“And Eve would have to go to Bert and Georgia’s alone? I can’t do that to her.”

“Eve wants you to be happy, doesn’t she? She might not be thrilled about it, but I’m sure she’d understand.”

“Maybe she would.” I pulled my legs away, suddenly scared, trying to shake the knowledge that I was risking something important. But of course I was enraptured by the idea, the two of us alone together, our own quiet heaven, and in the end, being me, there was no way I could resist.

And so the day before Christmas, while Eve was still asleep, I slipped into the bathroom. I reddened my nose with blusher, hollowed my eyes with purple shadow, hacked sick coughing noises for good measure, then traipsed back to bed. I watched Eve for a minute, then realized my noises hadn’t woken her, so I made a guttural huffing sound somewhere between a sigh and a cough. It didn’t sound at all real, but it did work to wake her.

Eve lifted her head and switched on the bedside lamp. She stared at me, her eyes slowly focusing. “Ker?”

I let her get a good look at my bruised face, then buried it into my pillow. “Go ’way.”

My stomach twisted as she came to sit by me.
I’m sorry, so sorry.
“I’m dying,” I moaned. It was pretty unconvincing, like a kid actor on a Friday night sitcom.

“Kerry, Christ…I’ll get someone.”

She ran to the phone and I squeezed my eyes shut, kept them shut even after she returned. Minutes later the front door opened and Mrs. Caine strode up to the bedroom. She felt my forehead and smoothed back my hair. “Seems like there’s always somebody sick at Christmas. That time of year.”

I was shaking, deep shudders that seemed to radiate from my chest. Mrs. Caine frowned. “Heck, Kerry, you’re shivering like an earthquake. Must’ve got it from Justin.”

“He’s sick?” My voice was unsteady. I had degenerated to a Saturday morning cartoon.

“Fever of a hundred and two.”

“Kerry…” Eve was standing in the corner, her jaw tight. I followed her eyes. She was staring at my pillow, faint streaks of red and purple makeup that had smudged from my face. I grabbed the pillow and hugged it to my chest, widened my eyes at her, pleading.

“Guess I should stay home and tend the sick,” Mrs. Caine said.

“Oh no, hey,” I said, now fully sunk to the credibility of a Teletubby. “You don’t have to do that. I know your parents would be all upset.”

“I won’t,” Eve said. She was watching me, a flush spreading to her cheeks.

Oh, I’m sorry.
“Eve—”

“I’m not going there alone, dammit. No way.”

“This is just awful,” Mrs. Caine said. “I was talking to your grandma last week, and she asked me what I thought you girls might want for Christmas gifts. She sounded so excited to have you there.” She sighed. “But I guess these two basket cases could use you around, Eve, to bring tea and tissues. Doesn’t seem right separating you girls on Christmas.”

I felt a soft stretch in my chest almost like relief, until I looked into Eve’s tight face, her narrowed eyes and short hair making her look like a stranger.

I narrowed my eyes back at her, and we clenched our teeth, glared silently. Finally, Eve spun away. “Forget it,” she said. “Maybe your fever’s catching, because I swear, just standing here with you makes me feel sick.” She grabbed her purse and strode out the door.

“Eve?” Mrs. Caine glanced at me, then strode after her. “Eve!”

I hugged my knees and my vision blurred. I knew what I’d done. And part of me knew nothing would ever be the same again.

11

I
HADN’T SEEN EVE
for a week. And now, as the ferry pulled into the dock, I was suddenly apprehensive. Which I told myself was stupid, since Eve and I never held a grudge. Grudges just weren’t practical when you lived in the same bedroom and shared toothpaste and tampons. In the driver’s seat, Justin tapped his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of the radio, and I tapped a stuttering rhythm on my seat, four beats to his one.

And then Eve stepped onto the dock. I felt an inner sigh of recognition, the exact feeling of a lost child who finally, after an hour of crying and wandering through aisles, distinguishes her mother from a crowd of strangers. I kissed Justin’s cheek and slid from the car to greet her. Eve strode towards me and I flung my arms wide. “Eve, I missed you!”

She reached forward without speaking and thrust her bags at me. I grappled with them as she jumped into the front seat beside Justin. “Merry Christmas!” she said. “God, Justin, what a hell of a week. Yestereday we went snowshoeing. Fucking snowshoeing! Those two old farts gliding around like ballet dancers.”

Justin glanced at me. I forced a smile, then opened the back door and ducked inside, trying to think of something to say. “Wow” was all I came up with.

“I actually thought about buying you snowshoes, Justin, for Christmas, give you some idea what pure hell is like. Too bad I already bought something else.”

I watched the back of Eve’s neck, the hair fringing her blue scarf, a knot of foreboding in my chest. “Oh yeah,” I said. “You’ll like her present, Justin, it’s really nice.”

I’d been with her when she chose the Harleys calendar.
A different bike for every month!
It had made me feel smug that she’d think the repair shop was some kind of career choice. I myself had pored over catalogues looking for the perfect gift, finally settling on a leather portfolio for his papers and a gold Cross pen. Eve had thought they were way too practical to be romantic, the kind of gift grandparents would give when they didn’t know their grandkids, like footie pajamas. But he’d been using them every day now, said they helped his words flow.

“Well, you didn’t miss much here,” Justin said. “At least you had snow. For us every day was like this, fog on top of more fog. Felt like everybody else was off doing something exciting, like some party where we weren’t invited.”

“Well what did you expect?” Eve said. “She’s hardly the party type.”

Justin laughed. He laughed like Eve’s words were some private joke, then winked into the rearview as apology. “It was okay, though. I guess neither of us is.”

It was okay? Okay? I remembered Christmas Eve, how I’d taught Justin how to waltz. And then he asked me to dance alone, so I’d twirled
grand fouettés,
watching him watch me. I was totally embarrassed at myself until I saw his face, his eyes all liquid like he was looking at something awe-inspiring, a foreign city or Niagara Falls. Afterwards we’d lit a fire and just sat, hand in hand, gazing into it without speaking. If I’d died right then and there, I would’ve felt like my life had been complete. To me it had been as close to perfect as perfect ever got.

Justin glanced again at me. “Anyway, it’s good to see you, isn’t it, Kerry?”

“At this moment not especially,” I said. I couldn’t see Eve’s face, so I tried to gauge her reaction by the tilt of her head, the thrust of her shoulders. From the back at least, she looked ready to punch someone out.

She sat a minute without moving, then turned, her eyes looking past me, out the window. “Did you even notice I wasn’t there?” Her voice was lilting in a fake, overdone kind of lilt.

I shook my head. “How can you ask that?”

“To tell you the truth, I’m surprised you even showed. I was thinking I’d be walking home.”

“Jesus, Eve, stop acting like a martyr.”

“What, you saying you give a damn? What about while you were here screwing in secret and left me waddling through snowdrifts? You really gave a damn?”

Silence. I tried to think what to say and came up with nothing, so I gave up and hunched in my seat. Justin cleared his throat. “Well, we better get going before we freeze out here.”

He started the engine. I smoothed my hands over my legs, up and down, up and down, drowning in the radio’s drumbeat.

When the car stopped, Eve jumped out and opened my door. She reached for her bags without even glancing at me and I grabbed at her hand. “Hey.”

She looked down at our hands without speaking, jaw clenched like she was considering whether or not to pull my fingers out of their sockets.

“Come on, Eve, get over it. Stop acting so weird.”

She raised her head and her face suddenly looked so young, so lost. But then she pulled away. “Acting weird,” she said softly. “Gosh, you’re right, how awful of me.” She lifted her bags and carried them to the house, calling over her shoulder, “C’mon, Jussy, you gotta open your presents.”

Justin turned to give me a commiserating sort of smile. “Just give her some time.”

I got out from the car and slammed the door, suddenly blaming him as much as myself.

Inside, Eve slipped off her coat and ran upstairs. She returned with a flat wrapped package, which she handed to Justin with a smile.

Justin unwrapped the calendar, wearing a too-polite smile. “A new bike for every month!” he said.

“Hold on,” I said, running to the closet. Heart in my throat, I retrieved Eve’s wrapped gift, a stone petroglyph I’d bought last summer, two stick-figure women curled around each other, joined.

Eve gave me a smile that showed her teeth, then set the gift down without opening it. “Gee, thanks,” she said. “I got something for you too, Kerry, kind of a joke, a gun that shot laser light and made sounds like an automatic. Thought we could freak the hell out of Bert and Georgia, remind them how they almost made me blow out my brains.” She shrugged. “But it wasn’t so apropos with me there and you here, so I returned it. Bought these instead.”

She bent to her suitcase and pulled out two packages. I smiled and reached for them, but Eve handed them to Justin. “Merry Christmas.”

My stomach twisted. Justin stared at the gifts with clouded eyes, then turned to me like he wanted me to take them.

“Go on,” Eve said. “I promise you’ll like these.”

Still watching me, Justin tore at the wrapping and pulled out a book.
Tricks and Trends in Writing for Children,
it was called. He flipped the pages and smiled. “This is great, really perfect. Thanks so much, Eve.”

He opened the smaller package. I felt a strange rumbling in my chest, as if my insides were being boiled. In the box was a package of briefs with William Shakespeare’s portrait on the rear, a fountain pen printed on the fly.

“Been picturing you in those all day,” Eve said. “Wanna model for me?”

Justin’s face flushed. He rested his hand at my elbow. “That’s a little much, Eve, even for you,” he said. But his eyes were shining with an undeniable delight.

I found the watercolors in an upstairs closet and the memory washed over me, soft as the paints themselves, of how we used to sit at this table, the three of us, swishing our brushes in muddy water and trying to stay in the lines. It seemed like so long ago, and at the same time so short ago that it hurt.

I brought the kit downstairs and found an old
Boston Globe,
dated before Daddy’s death, then sat to obliterate its news with my brush. What had Eve and I been doing back on August 3? Jumping waves, reading
Teen
magazine, braiding each other’s hair. Also on that date was a rape, a stabbing, and peace talks between Israel and the PLO. I blotted out each and every one of the stories with a rainbow of colors, red staining to orange to yellow to green. But it didn’t help. Not really at all.

There was a tap on the window and I looked up to see Justin blowing on his fingers. I rose to open the back door.

He kissed me on the temple. “Guess our week in paradise is just about over,” he said, then lifted the multicolored newspaper. “What’s this?”

I shrugged. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“It’s a sunset, isn’t it? Sun’s too small in winter for good sunsets, so you painted your own.” He smiled and lifted the brush, smeared a circle of orange inside the wash of colors, then dabbed the brush on my nose. “There you go.”

I batted the brush away and Justin held up his hands. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“How could she, Justin? How dare she?”

Justin sat across from me. “You’re talking about that gift.”

“She’s trying to prove something, I don’t know what. That she can replace me, or she can screw it all up, something.”

Justin looked down at his hands and spoke quietly. “Try and think how this has to be for her.”

“You think how she’s acting is okay?”

“I’m just saying I understand it. You remember back when we dug for pirate gold, you and me? I’d just heard that legend about the buried treasure up by Cow’s Cove, so we dug these holes through from the Ashtons’ yard to the Sheffields’. We came home completely covered in mud, and we were racing each other to the shower when Eve saw us. And you remember what she did? She went and told Mrs. Sheffield about the holes in her lawn. She felt the same way then as she does now.”

“Except now she’s ten years older.”

He watched me for a minute before he spoke. “You do that, you know, both of you. Things aren’t going the way you like and
bam,
you just turn off.”

“I’m not supposed to be upset?”

“What I do? I have this image in my head of how I want things to be, and I keep it there whatever happens. Like I tell myself a story and I keep acting and reacting like the story’s true, and eventually what happens and what you want to happen meet up. You pretend Eve’s okay and eventually she will be.”

I shook my head, my throat dry with shame. I’d let Eve travel the same ocean that had swallowed Daddy, the same ocean that had lured away my mother, and for what?

Justin’s gift for me had been a red silk nightie with spaghetti straps. I knew what it meant and it terrified me, the eight-year-old part of me that was just hearing about sex and thinking nuh-unh, no way, never. It was only when I’d imagined Eve’s eyes, sympathetic and reflecting my same fear, that I’d felt like there was nothing wrong with me. It was only because of Eve that I’d been able to say I wasn’t ready.

“Life isn’t one of your stories, Justin,” I said now. “You can’t wish something into happening. That’s not how it works.”

Justin sighed and gave me a smile that looked half pitying and half exasperated, like I’d just told him I didn’t believe the world was round. “Trust me,” he said. “Just talk to her like nothing’s happened. I know Eve, and I bet you anything she’s looking for an easy way to forget she’s angry.”

This pissed me off a little, that he’d suggest he knew Eve better than me. When the truth was, Eve wasn’t that way at all. When she had her mind set about something, she kept it there forever, chiseling herself deeper and deeper into the grooves of it until there was no way out. And even if eventually she might pretend she was forgiving you, she never forgot.

When Eve got home late in the afternoon, she strode right past me like she didn’t notice I was there and climbed to the bedroom. I waited a few minutes, then went upstairs and stood at the door.

She was at the mirror straightening her skirt. She twirled, glancing over her shoulder to see the back view. “It’s your room too,” she said without turning from the mirror. “You can come in.”

I stepped inside and reached into my pocket. “We got another brown envelope Christmas morning.” I handed her the money. “Twenty dollars each.”

She tucked both bills in her skirt pocket. “Now our financial troubles are over.”

I watched her, tracing my finger against the door frame. “You’re dressed up.”

“I’ve got a date.” Her voice was tight.

I sat on the bed. “A date?”

Eve shrugged, reached for her lipstick. “It’s really not your business, is it.”

I watched her smooth the maroon gloss on her lips. “Listen, I’m sorry I made you go out there alone.”

She ignored me, only rooted through her jewelry box. I took a deep breath and went on. “It was nice being with Justin, but I missed you like anything. Christmas wasn’t the same, not having you, not having Daddy, in a way it made me feel like I was all alone.”

Eve held gold hoops up to her ears and eyed her profile in the mirror. I stood behind her, watching the echo of our reflections. “And I know it must’ve been ten times worse for you, being all the way out there. So I’m sorry, Eve, real sorry about it. I was being a selfish jerk.”

Eve spun suddenly to face me. The twisted anger on her face was like a physical punch, and I flinched back. “Don’t you get it?” she said. “It’s not that I had to go out there alone, which sucked to high hell, but I would’ve done it for you if you asked.”

Her nose reddened, her eyes filled and I reached for her arm, but she slapped me back. “You lied to me! And you made plans, kicked me out without even caring, without asking if it was okay. I’d never do that to you, Kerry, no matter what. Even if someone was pulling out my toenails, I wouldn’t!”

She slammed the door open, hard enough to dent the wall plaster, then strode down the hall. I sank to my knees on the cold hardwood floor, feeling like I’d just swallowed a tennis ball without chewing, and listened to the click of Eve’s heels down the stairs and out the door.

It was after midnight by the time Eve got home. I lay in bed waiting as she stamped up the stairs, then closed my eyes, pretending to be asleep. But she flew into the room. “Ker-co,” she called. “Ker-eeoh.”

She wrapped her arms round her waist, spun in a circle and flopped onto my bed.

She was drunk.

“He’s amazing, really totally amazing. I think I could probably fall in love.”

I put my hand against her back, part of me alarmed but also flooded with a longing. All was forgiven. “In love with who?”

Eve curled up on the bed. “Mmmghh,” she said.

I shook her shoulder. “Where were you?”