Pieces of My Sister's Life (33 page)

36

Y
OU MEAN YOU
EAT
FLIES
?” Gillian asked the eight-armed, black-leotarded girl.

“Certainly,” the girl said. “Flies, bugs, grasshoppers, choice beetles, moths, butterflies, tasty cockroaches, gnats, midgets, daddy long legs, centipedes, mosquitoes, crickets. Anything careless enough to get caught in my web.”

We watched, Justin to my left, Eve on his other side laughing wholeheartedly at everything, even lines the rest of the audience found only worthy of a chuckle. She’d taken off her catheter for the performance, but even though her face had reddened as Justin ushered her from her wheelchair across the row of seats, now I couldn’t see even a trace of the pain she must be feeling.

Onstage, Gillian was glowing. An hour ago she’d grimaced at her pink self in the mirror. “I look like a hot dog.”

“That’s because I didn’t draw in the whiskers yet,” I’d said, and added a spray of black lines against the pink circles on her cheeks.

When I was done we’d stared at her reflection. “Do pigs even have whiskers?” Gillian said.

“I guess they don’t.”

“Do we have time to wash them off?”

Across the classroom, a teacher had clapped. “I need Fern, Avery, the Arables and all the pigs.”

“Guess not,” I said.

And Gillian had made a face at me. “I have never been so humiliated in all my life.”

But once she’d reached the stage, her whole demeanor had changed. She was Wilbur the pig, modest, ingenuous, alive.

“Look,” Eve whispered to Justin. “She has boobs.”

It was true; in her pink leotard you could see Gillian’s new breasts, the size of golf balls. I started to chuckle, but then saw Eve and Justin turn to grin at each other, with the pride parents might have discovering their child’s first tooth.

I smiled widely so I wouldn’t cry, not exactly sure what it was that made my eyes sting: the little kids so serious in their animal outfits, Gillian’s new breasts, her happiness, the three of us. All of it together. Like Eve, I had the simultaneous urge both to laugh and to cry at every line; it felt beautiful, but also, somehow, like an ending.

At intermission we sat a minute without moving, staring at the drawn curtain. “Wow,” Justin said finally.

“They’re amazing,” Eve said. “All the kids, they’re so
here,
of this earth, you know?”

“They don’t even know when they’re funny,” I said. “That’s what makes it all so hysterical, they say their lines like what they have to say is the most solemn, important thing on earth.”

Eve smiled softly. “It is the most important thing. I wish I’d seen this a month ago, a year ago. Seen how life goes on.”

“Year after year,” Justin said, “it’s all the same. You remember our school plays? In sixth grade I played Mark Antony in
Julius Caesar
. It was the crowning achievement of my life, probably still is.”

“Were we like that?” Eve said. “I don’t remember ever feeling like that even back then, like your existence matters, like the world cares what you do with your life.”

“I was sure it did,” Justin said. “I think I kind of still believe it.” He gave a short, scoffing laugh. “God, that sounds conceited.”

“Not conceited, it’s the truth,” I said. “But I guess I never felt like that either. Maybe it had to do with being a twin, feeling replaceable.”

Eve glanced at me quickly, then back at the stage. “You weren’t ever replaceable.”

I smiled at her. “Neither were you,” I said.

As soon as the curtains opened on Act 2, I was a goner. I let myself go, keeping a finger near my eyes to catch the tears before they fell, until I noticed Eve, her eyes distant, her cheeks wet. I kept my eyes on her face as Charlotte the spider prepared to die, knowing her tears, like mine, were more about life than about the dying.

“Why’d you do all this for me?” Gillian asked. “I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.”

“You’ve been my friend,” the spider girl said. “That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die. By helping you, I was maybe trying to lift up my life a trifle. Anyone’s life can stand a little of that.”

Justin took Eve’s hand. After a minute, he took mine, too. We sat there watching the little girls who would be women, who weren’t yet ready but were maybe more ready than we thought. “She looks like you,” Justin whispered. And Eve and I turned to smile at him through our blurred eyes, as if he was talking to us both.

Eve had been struggling to breathe, her jaw stretched with effort, a blue tint beneath her nails. I knew everything now. I also understood that I’d never know for sure if Justin had ever really been mine, or even if he’d ever been completely hers. But I also realized that none of it mattered. All that mattered was that she would find the strength to pull in one more breath, that the pause after this next rasp would be no more than a pause, that we’d have the time to say everything that needed to be said.

Eve had hurt me, taken away my life, but she hadn’t known enough about life to understand what she was doing. So it had happened, so there were lies. But there was also no going back.

I propped Eve on pillows but the angle hurt her neck, and so I tilted the head of the bed slightly and rubbed my palm over her chest, talking in what I hoped was a soothing tone about the murky summer heat, a heron migration and bumper boats in the harbor. Inside, though, my heart was ricocheting off my ribs, my own breath laboring as if to mirror hers.

I knew she wasn’t listening, and after a while was sure she must’ve fallen asleep, but when I stood to cover her, she grabbed my wrist with more strength than I’d known she still had. “Please,” she whispered.

I looked down at her scrawny fingers, the tiny sores that had started this week all up and down her arms. I knew what she wanted, of course. She’d been asking again and again, each time with more fervor. The problem was she knew that even though it all might be over in hours, it might take weeks or even months; months like this or worse. She might fall into a coma, might lose kidneys and liver and stomach but still live. It was horrific to think about, but even more horrific to imagine helping her die.

I kissed her fingers, then pried them from my wrist. “You should sleep.”

“Fuck it,” she said. “You think—” She couldn’t finish, fought for breath.

I rubbed again helplessly at her chest. “I know” was all I could say. She swiped my hand away, her wrist loose, and I wanted to stay but I couldn’t bear to just stand there. So I walked from the room, every muscle in my body knotted.

Justin was standing in the hall. He rocked heel to toe, heel to toe, a heartbreakingly childish posture. His eyes were red and I reached for his hand.

“You’re good with her,” he said. “Really you are, you know just what she needs and how to give it.”

“She needs to die.”

Justin ignored me. “Somehow you can get past it, let her say what she needs to say without showing how it hurts to watch her.”

“She needs to die,” I said again, then closed my eyes tight. “She needs—”

“I know.” Justin slid his arm around me and I leaned against him, buried my head against the soap-sweat smell of his shirt.

His other arm enfolded me, and my stomach churned with an aching homesickness, a loss and longing to do with Eve and Justin both. So when he cupped his hand at my chin, I tilted my face to him, let him kiss me, kissed him back, pulled his tongue to rasp warm and sweet against my tongue. My head was racing with senseless voices. I was shivering with them, unable to pull closer and unable to pull away. Until the voices swelled to anger, and with a sudden agonizing jolt I cried out and pushed him. I stumbled back, sucked air in and out through my mouth as if I could erase the taste of him.

He looked down at me. “Oh,” he whispered.

I backed to the door, nearly fell.

“Kerry, I’m sorry, I just…I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, hurt anyone.”

I shook my head, opened the door and stepped back onto the porch, feeling an almost physical tearing, like walking through taffy.

Justin followed me onto the porch and shut the door behind him. He stood there a moment watching my face before he spoke. “Okay.” His voice was tight, his face flushed. “Okay, Kerry, you know it’s out there between us. Ignore it or not, it’ll always be there, and I’ve been trying to ignore it, but Jesus, it’s driving me crazy. It’s like I see you and you’re everything I loved in Eve, and I realize that maybe the only things I loved in Eve were the things that reminded me of you.”

“Don’t!” I stumbled down the porch steps and raced down the drive, thinking,
No, no, God no
…I could hear his footsteps following, the crunch of gravel, so I ran to the shed that had been Justin’s office. I ran inside and closed the door, leaning against it.

He banged his fist against the door, then thrust it open, propelling me back. His hand grasped the back of my head, his breath heavy as he pressed his mouth on mine, so hard my teeth bit against the inside of my lips. He slid his face to rest his cheek against my cheek. “It’s right,” he said hoarsely. “It’s so right.”

My legs were too weak to move. I shook my head, but even as I did he lifted me.

He lifted me and kicked the door shut and I didn’t let myself think. Without seeing it happen, without knowing how it had come to be, I was on the dusty floor, Justin over me. And somehow there was suddenly no question in it, only need. All of it coming together, the dusty green of the shed walls, the shells and stones on the window ledges, this floor where I’d sat with him and entered the magic world in his mind, all slipping me back to a place I’d never left. The feel of him was so familiar, the red mole on his shoulder, his taste, smell, his lips on my lips, my neck, my breasts, the precise curve of his back, I knew it all so well. And somehow Eve was there, too, part of this joining, the Eve who’d joined us in tidal pools and fingerpaints, had listened to stories on rainy afternoons. This joining was not in spite of her but with her, a heavy aching sadness as I stroked him and finally, with a torturous bliss, guided him inside me. He moved against me slowly, rasped breath like Eve’s labored rasp, like making love not as a person with a person but as wave on wave of warm water, melting and disappearing. Not feeling the floor against my back or the sweaty summer air, not skin or breath or heartbeat, only a shuddering that started in my chest and spread out through torso and arms and legs like life into something dead.

He stayed inside me for a long while after, running his fingers over my face like he was learning me again. I was sobbing, I couldn’t help it. This had happened; it had happened, it was wonderful and it was wrong, and it was the last and only time.

Justin stroked back my hair, looking into my eyes. “You could stay,” he said softly. “Eve wants you to stay.”

“No she doesn’t, Justin, not really. She just thinks it’s the right thing to want.”

“Maybe it
is
right.”

I closed my eyes, absorbing the shiver of his hand against my cheek. “It’s not,” I said. “There’s too much around it.” Too much history, too much of Eve and something deeper, hidden, a fear that staying with Justin might make Eve’s death a relief.

He didn’t ask me to explain, only rolled off me. Finally he took my hand. “I know.”

He stayed silent a minute and I laid my head on his chest, focused on the rise and fall of his breath and the softness of his skin against my cheek. Finally I spoke. “Then maybe we can do it, help Eve.”

Justin stiffened.

“Because I guess what I was thinking, I kept thinking there was maybe something else I wanted from it. But now I know the only reason would be for Eve, to give her what she needs.”

Justin pushed me away and lay back, staring at the ceiling. He shook his head against the floor.

“All this time she’s been too strong to die before she was ready, before she’d said everything she needed to say. But now she’s also too strong to live when she’s ready to die. You know it’s true.”

He shook his head again, faintly.

“It’s the only selfless thing we can do for her. Forcing her to live like this, it’s like a punishment. She doesn’t deserve that, Justin.”

“Kerry please…” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I won’t. I can’t, especially not now, not after this.”

“Can’t because of her or because of yourself?”

He turned to look at me, then stood and pulled on his jeans. “You won’t, Kerry. It’s my decision to make.”

“Technically, Justin, it’s Eve’s decision.”

“That’s bullshit. She’s not thinking straight, and obviously neither are you.”

“So you’re going to put on blinders just because it’s the easiest thing, and then when she dies they’ll write you up in the
Times
as the long-suffering husband.”

“Better than being written up as a murderer.”

I shook my head blankly. “Is that what you think this is?”

Justin grabbed his shirt and glared down at me. “She’s my wife,” he said. “Don’t you dare touch my wife.” And then he kicked at my heaped clothes and spun away.

I pulled my sweater over my naked body and listened to the door slam shut. I should go to Eve and tell her the pain was over, it was time. I should go and absorb as much of her as I possibly could. But right now my legs were wet with Justin’s sex, and I couldn’t put the two things together. They weren’t related. Weren’t except in this one way. That Justin would never forgive me for what I was about to do and so, in the end, this would be my way of choosing Eve.

37

G
ILLIAN WAS CURLED
against Eve’s chest. I stood outside the den, a carton of ice cream in one hand, in my pocket a bottle of pills.

“You know what Mr. Allen told me?” Gillian said. “I went to him because I thought maybe you wouldn’t feel strong enough to go to graduation, so he said he’d set up speakers and call you on the phone so you could hear it. I mean, if you can go for real that would be better, but if you can’t at least you’ll be able to hear.”

I saw a muscle twitch in Eve’s face. “That’s really nice of him,” she said. “I can’t believe you’re graduating sixth grade. How’d that happen so fast?”

“And Daddy can bring the movie camera. ’Member when you were in the hospital and he was filming the school chorus? And he forgot to take the lens cap off the camera and everything was black?”

Eve’s strangled laugh sounded more like a bray. She gasped for breath and Gillian patted her chest. “And then all of a sudden you hear him whisper
Shit
and suddenly there we are. Maybe it would be better to do a webcam thing instead; Jason has one he uses to talk to his dad in Colorado, and that way if anything happens and you can’t see everything, you could call Daddy’s cell and tell him.”

Eve squeezed her eyes shut. “You are so smart,” she said.

“I’ll ask Jason.” She clapped her hands. “I’ll call him now, okay? I’m sure he’ll let us.” She got up from the bed.

“Gillian, honey, hold on a minute. ’Cause I’m real tired now, and there’s something I have to say to you before I go to sleep.”

Immediately, Gillian stopped talking. Her breath was nearly as heavy as Eve’s.

“Actually there’s lots I want to say, but mostly that I’m sorry I’ve been such a lousy mom lately.”

“It’s okay, Mom, you’re not lousy.”

“Well, thanks for saying so anyway. But I want to make sure you know that through all of it I’ve loved you so much, more than anything. And I’m so proud of who you are. Sometimes I can hardly believe you came out of me.”

Gillian sniffled and curled back on the bed, started fiddling with one of Eve’s buttons. “I know that.”

“Don’t be embarrassed. I’m honestly proud of everything about you. There’s so many times that you’ve just blown me away. Like back when you were five or six and you stepped on this anthill by mistake, and you were so upset about wrecking their home you built the hill back up again. And then you scattered bread crumbs around it every day for two weeks because you were scared you’d wrecked their kitchen.”

Gillian made a face. “Now I’m embarrassed.”

“Okay, maybe that was a bad example. But there’s so many things I remember that make me feel proud.” Eve brushed Gillian’s hair off her face, then held her hands at Gillian’s temples, spoke slowly. “So tell me something. When you grow up, when you’re a big powerful lady in a big powerful job, what do you think you’ll remember most about being a kid? Like say if your husband and your kids ask about your mom and how it was growing up with me, what do you think you’d say?”

Gillian didn’t speak for a long while, still fiddling with Eve’s button. Finally she said, “Remember last winter when you and me saw
Harry Potter
? And you found this tangle in my hair so you started combing at it, and then the movie was over and we kept sitting there and you kept combing even after everybody left. We were there for like an hour sitting without saying anything. I wish we could go back to that.”

“Yeah,” Eve whispered, and then she shook her head. “Your hair was a mess. You could’ve been hiding something important in there, and nobody would’ve known.” She buried her hands under the covers and looked up at the ceiling. “
That’s
what you remember most?”

“Also I remember that day a couple years ago when we were on the beach watching those spiral things, what’s that called?”

“Sea smoke; sure, I remember that. It was freezing cold, and we started throwing rocks in to see if we could get a ringer. Anybody who saw us would’ve thought we were crazy.”

Gillian shrugged. “Sure, but it was fun. And you said how those are spirits who watch over the island. And then you pointed and you said, ‘See that biggest spiral there, that’s your grandpa and he’s been watching you and making sure you’re safe, and cheering when you ace your spelling tests.’” She was quiet a moment, then lifted her head to look into Eve’s face. “Do you really think that, or were you just saying?”

“I really think it, Gillian. I mean, I know it.” She smiled weakly and said, “That’s a good memory.”

“There’s lots of stuff I remember.”

“Well, good,” Eve said softly. “That’s good.” She cradled Gillian’s head in both her hands and looked intently into her face. They stayed there for a long while watching each other, as if holding a silent conversation, and then finally Eve smiled and whispered, “Okay, then. Sweetheart, could you get your aunt Kerry for me please?”

“’Kay.” Gillian jumped up. She startled when she saw me. “Mom probably can’t eat that,” she said, nodding at the ice cream.

“Actually she asked for it,” I said. She’d called it her last wish.

Gillian grinned. “She’s feeling better today.”

“That’s true, she’s feeling better today.” I bent to kiss the silky top of Gillian’s head.

Gillian smiled up at me, then walked away, her gait springy. Eve followed with her eyes even after Gillian disappeared behind me, then turned her gaze to the ice cream. “Okay,” she said. “It soft yet?”

“Probably,” I said, then shook my head. “Not yet, okay?”

“Okay, we’ll wait.” Again this morning Eve had spent an hour writhing in impossible agony, laboring to pull breath through her failing lungs. But since I’d spoken to her, her breath had become even and calm, like her body knew there was no reason left to fight. “I can’t believe I forgot her graduation,” she said softly. “Or I guess I knew next week’s her last week in sixth grade, but I didn’t think she’d consider it such a big deal.”

I cupped the ice cream container, watching her.

“Don’t give me that look, Kerry. Please. I want to wait; hell I want to wait another year, but nothing’s going to change, except that maybe you’ll have second thoughts or I’ll have second thoughts and then where’ll we be? Would it really make it any easier for her?”

I nodded slowly. “No. I know.”

“Make sure she goes, okay? To her graduation, make sure this doesn’t stop her.”

I nodded again, knowing she probably wouldn’t go, that making her would be more of a cruelty than a diversion.

“And could you give her something from me? As a graduation gift? I wanted to give her my birthday bracelet, and Mom’s locket.”

“That’ll be great, a great idea.” I smiled. “And I’ll tell her what they mean, that things continue.”

“Yeah.” Eve reached her hand towards me. I sat on the bed beside her. “So what happened, Ker? What made you change your mind about this?”

“I don’t know. Lots of things. I guess because I remember how it feels when life is more of a punishment than death.”

Eve watched me for a minute, then smoothed her palms over the sheets. “Look,” she said, “I know how hard this all is for you. But you know it’s the best thing you can do for me, the most absolutely selfless thing.”

“Don’t worry about me,” I said hoarsely.

“But I do.” Her voice trailed to a choke. She gasped for breath, then closed her eyes and spoke in a hoarse whisper. “Of course I do. I know what’s going through your head, Kerry, the things you’re remembering.”

The container was frosting under my fingers. I set it on the night table and pressed my hands between my knees.

“But the thing is, the thing you don’t realize is even back then, after what I did, you wouldn’t have been able to hurt me. I was thinking about it for a long while after you left, and the realization I had is you wouldn’t have done it. When it came right down to it you wouldn’t have been able to poison me.”

“Eve, please. Please just stop.”

“Look where you put that stuff, in my alcohol, right? I was pregnant, I was keeping the baby.” She glanced at me and shrugged. “I stopped drinking.”

I shook my head blankly.

“Maybe you didn’t think it all through enough to realize what you were doing, but deep inside you knew exactly. Deep inside you knew I’d be safe.”

She lifted her arms to me. When I didn’t move, she pulled at my shoulders, pulled my head to her chest. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s over, and it has nothing to do with this.”

I listened to the beat of her heart, her collarbone sharp against my cheek. I didn’t feel my tears until they wet the cotton of her gown. I fiddled with her buttons as Gillian had done, and after a minute Eve stroked back my hair and began to plait it in a lopsided braid. “Stunning,” she said when she was finished. “Had your hair done for the occasion?” She broke into grating laughter, harsh wheezing which made her start to choke. I lifted her head and she angled it back, her neck facing the ceiling, her face reddish blue.

“You’ll be okay,” I said, my voice almost pleading.

Eve squeezed her eyes shut, struggling for air. “Okay but dead,” she whispered.

“Eve—”

“I’ll be okay and so will you.” She lowered her head back to the pillow as her breathing slowed, then looked at me with glazed eyes. “It’s funny, you know, because I thought…I don’t know what I thought. I thought this would be different somehow, like it would feel different. This sounds dumb, but when I imagined it I pictured peace and warmth or this hand reaching out to guide me, some sense of destiny. I wanted it to feel like going home.” Her voice trailed off and she smiled. “How stupid, right? But really I’m just so scared.”

“Then we won’t do this. Not today, okay? We can wait until you’re ready.”

“And then an hour from now I’d hate myself. I’m sick of hating myself.” She gazed across the bed, her eyes distant. “The thing is, I thought I knew death. It’s been standing around the corner for how long, but somehow it looks different when it’s slapping you in the face. I should’ve realized that.”

I took her hands. “Just tell me what to do.”

“Well, first of all take that braid out of your hair. It’ll be hard to swallow if I’m cracking up.”

I sat a minute, not wanting to release her hands, then finally smiled. I pulled at the knots, wincing. “God, Eve, what did you do to it?”

“Remember how Daddy fixed our hair in the beginning, before he learned what he was doing? He gave us sailor knots instead of braids, so we spent hours untangling. It felt so damned lonely, realizing he didn’t know how to take care of us.”

I watched Eve carefully. “Listen,” I said. “If there is a heaven? If there’s some way to see people again, tell Daddy I love him.”

“If he’s up there, I’ll give him hell for leaving. I’ve wanted to punch him out for years, so I can’t wait to have the chance.” She was quiet a minute, then nodded. “And then I’ll tell him we love him and he did okay. With everything that was put on him to do, he did okay.” She smiled crookedly and glanced at me. “It’d be amazing to see him, wouldn’t it? I mean weird, but amazing.”

“Totally,” I said. “You think he still loves the Stooges? Or d’you think he’s looking back and saying ‘What was I thinking?’”

“I’d hope he still loves them. Can’t imagine they’d let him play slapstick in heaven, though.” She nodded at the ice cream. “It’s turning into soup.”

I reached for the carton, stirred at the brownish glop and somehow managed to laugh. “This is your last wish?”

“It was this or a Caribbean cruise, and I didn’t think we’d get tickets on such short notice.” She grinned, but when I didn’t respond the grin faded. “So I guess I’m ready now.”

How could she act so nonchalant? I shook my head. “I’m not.”

She ignored me. “Take care of them, Kerry. I couldn’t forgive myself if I thought they’d be alone with this.”

“Okay,” I said softly. “I’ll do the best I can.”

“You tell Justin I said good-bye, that I thought it was better if he didn’t know. Don’t let him get so crazy that he can’t take care of himself.”

I nodded but I couldn’t speak. This was all so very, horribly strange.

“Giving you lots of responsibilities, I know. Another thing, you have to keep telling Gillian about me, about how much I loved her. Don’t let her forget.”

“I won’t, I promise.”

“And if you ever talk to
her
again…” She smiled quickly. “To our mother, tell her I grew up to be a strong person. And tell her I had a husband who loved me and how I was a good mother. If she asks about me, you could tell her all that.”

I nodded slowly. Eve smoothed her hands over her blanket. “Even if she doesn’t ask, you could tell her. Just so she knows. And that’s it, except you.” She glanced at me and smiled. “You know how I feel.”

“I know,” I whispered.

“All of that, it never changed anything.”

“I know. I know, but could you just…”

She nodded. “End of conversation. I was thinking this morning about a song, do you remember it? About the hearse, how did it go? Did you ever think when a hearse went by—”

“Eve!”

“That you might be the next to die.” She grinned. “I don’t mean it in a morose way, I just remember how we used to love that song, sing it over and over. And I just realized where we got it. Mom used to sing it to us, you remember? She’d sit on our beds and crawl her nails like spiders up our backs. What a heck of a song for five-year-old kids.”

I smiled. “The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out.”

“The worms play pinochle on your snout! God, I love that. I hope I get worms playing pinochle.”

I stared at her, feeling a muted shock. But when she broke into sudden laughter I found myself laughing, too, remembering the two of us on the bedroom floor, playing Chutes and Ladders and singing in unison
a big red bug with big red toes crawls in your ears and out your nose…

Eve struggled to regain her breath as the laughter overcame me. She reached forward and I held her and laughed, even as she reached into my shirt pocket and my laughter became hysterical, shook my body and filled my eyes with tears.

“Sing me another one,” Eve said suddenly. “The one Daddy sang us about the desert.”