Rush (32 page)

For that, Mi would always feel guilty. Between her mother and Ethan, she had no more room to take care of a ten year-old boy. She’d let him down just as surely as his parents had. Maybe even more so since she was all he had left.

“I caught Jason in Ethan’s room once,” she said softly as the memory came stealing back, bringing with it more blame, more shame.

“And?”

“I was doing some housework before bed. Ethan started crying, then stopped before I could get to him. Jason met me in the hall, holding Ethan. He was sleepwalking.” She paused, this next part was hard to tell. “I asked him what he was doing. He said… he said the baby had been bad and he was throwing him away. I don’t know if he would have done it or not, if my running into him in the hall had prevented Jason from doing that or something more. I just don’t know.”

She looked at him bleakly, all the color leached from her face. Lucas ached to reach out to her, but every time he started to rise she’d turn away from him, shutting him out. Maybe she just needed the space to unload years and years worth of heartache and pain. The fear her fifteen year-old self must have felt was unimaginable. The degeneration of her youth could be pin-pointed to the birth of her youngest brother yet, when she talked of him it was only sadness he heard. Sadness and regret.

He’d seen the progression of it in the photos from her house, the stealing of her life, her family, and security. Secrets had replaced the usual teenage trappings of dances and friends, homework and dreams of the future.

“The next morning Jason didn’t remember any of it. Nothing,” she continued. “I tried to keep watch over Ethan, but my mom got by me that night. Jason could have, too. I just don’t know.”

“So you didn’t say anything when the police came.” He was beginning to understand her mindset, why she’d kept these secrets locked away for so long.

“No. I never talked about it with anyone until right now. I know you think I’m wrong for what I did, not reporting my suspicions. What choice did I have? Tell them my mom killed Ethan? They’d throw both Jason and me in foster care while my mom went to jail. Jason was all I had left. I had to protect him. The last time he left us he got hurt.”

“Is that why you didn’t tell them your suspicions about Jason?”

“Jason had no memory of what he did when he walked in his sleep. How could I tell the police my suspicions? He was only ten. They would have taken him to jail. What if I was wrong and it was really my mother? What would have become of him then? Who should I have chosen, my mom or Jason? What should I have done? If it was my mom, Jason and I would go to foster care and maybe never see each other again. If it was Jason, he would have gone to jail.”

“But they ruled Ethan’s death as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.”

“How do you know that?”

“Malcolm.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “I should have known you’d have me investigated. Well, if you know so much then tell me the rest.”

“That’s all I know.”

“Right.”

“What did you do?”

“What did I do? The only thing I could. I put Ethan’s cold little body back in his crib. I gave my mom a sleeping pill, and put Jason’s bear back in his bed with him. I laid down next to my mom on the pull out couch in the living room. I didn’t cry. I didn’t pray. I just stared at the ceiling, wondering which one of my family members killed Ethan. In the morning I picked up the phone and called the police. I gave them a story they believed. And then I did what I could to keep what was left of my family together the only way I knew how.”

She seemed to run out of steam, dropping into the chair by the window, her arms and legs loose, looking at nothing in particular.

“What about now?”

“Now?”

“The police believed Ethan’s death was by natural causes. Why keep the secret?”

“Why? Because there’s no statute of limitations on murder. The threat of foster care is gone, but not jail. If I was sure my mother killed him then yes, I might take the chance of what she’d say or do in therapy. I just can’t do that with Jason’s life.”

“So you’d rather he be angry with you and your mother than know the truth?”

“I’d rather not give him more to deal with than what was forced on him as a child. What good would it do to tell him I think he killed his brother? How would that help him?”

“Letting him shirk his responsibilities to you and your mom is helping him? Letting him keep the resentment he’s built against you and your mom helps him deal with what happened when he was a kid? He’s a man. He needs to start acting like one. You’re preventing him from doing that.”

She sat up in her chair. “Don’t you think I know that?”

“Do you?”

“You think I like how he treats me? You think I like how he lives his life? You’ve seen his apartment, he doesn’t even care enough about himself to keep it clean. He barely holds down a job. If he’s ever had a girlfriend I’ve never met her. I don’t even know if he has any friends. He moved out when he was nineteen and has hardly spoken to me since. I know it’s not because he doesn’t need anything. He doesn’t want anything to do with mom or me. He’d rather starve than spend time with us or owe us for anything.”

Her voice caught on the last sentence and he could see how much her brother’s estrangement hurt and angered her. He had to press his point here, even knowing how much she’d balk. The thought of her living one more day with what she’s had to deal with was more than he could stand.

“You need to tell him. He has a right to know. None of you have moved on from that night and none of you will unless you tell them everything.”

“Haven’t you been listening? I can’t.”

“You have to.”

“And what if he hates me more for telling him?”

“That’s what you’re really afraid of, isn’t it? That he’ll hate you instead of just pitying and resenting you.”

“Shut up,” she said, her whole body crying defeat.

“You know I’m right.”

“You don’t know anything!”

“I know that you and your brother will never have a chance at a real relationship until you face your past, work through it and eventually get past it. Your secret has put a wedge between you and your brother and now it’s putting one between you and me. You need to decide what you want more: your secrets or your relationships. Until you figure that out no one will be able to get close to you.”

“They pass out psychology degrees with discharge papers in the Navy?”

“Think about it. I’m taking a shower.” He knew it was a risk, leaving her right then. He expected her to run. She wasn’t tied to him anymore now that Gann was dead. With every step he took away from her, the feeling she’d leave him grew and grew until he closed the door behind him and it sunk into certainty.

What was that stupid saying? The one about loving someone enough to let them go and if they come back they’re yours, but if not they never were?

That guy was a fucking idiot.

*****

Mi put the cat carrier down on the floor inside her entryway. She’d taken his cat. How pathetic was she? She’d stood there in the hotel room, staring at the closed door of the bathroom, wanting to rip it off the hinges and pound her fists into his chest. Instead she threw her stuff into the bag, grabbed his cat, and split. Real mature. Of all the ways she’d pictured their break up, cat-napping had never figured in.

His furniture was still here, all fragile glass and sharpened steel. The house should have been musty from being closed up for so long, but it had a fresh, clean smell. That, too, was his doing. She wanted to be mad at him for it, add it to the pile of all the other things she was angry with him for, but she couldn’t muster the energy.

She was just so tired, having barely enough energy to set up a make shift cat box with some newspaper and the lid from a cardboard box she’d used to keep back taxes and receipts. Once that was done, she set out some food and water, then let the cat out of the carrier.

“Well, Gooch, this is it… your new home.”

The cat sniffed his way out, crouching down low. She picked him up and showed him the cat box and food, then locked the front door. Her bedroom was basically the same, all of her furniture was there, but most of her closet and drawers had been emptied and unpacked at Lucas’s. She stripped down to her underwear and climbed into bed. Although it was only noon, the emotional void of unleashing her secret had weakened her, leaving her bone-deep tired.

Staring at the familiar ceiling, she tried for sleep. The mid-day light coming through the blinds zebra-striped up the wall and ceiling, a mocking reminder of how out of kilter her life had become. She rolled over first one way then the other. Her bed—so comfortable before—now seemed lumpy and lonely. She felt itchy as though her skin didn’t quite fit anymore. Everything was wrong.

Her conversation with Lucas played in a loop through her mind, highlighting over and over how right and yet how wrong he’d been. She couldn’t tell Jason. Yes, he was a man now, but when she looked at him all she saw was that ten year-old boy who still slept with a bear and was so falsely over confidant and wild-eyed with fear he held himself apart. He’d never brought a friend over to play or asked to go the park or the movies, none of the ordinary things boys did at that age. He did his work, then went to his room.

She never knew what he did in there, respecting his privacy and space. Maybe she should have knocked on the door, checked on him. Every time she thought to do it, her mother or Ethan would need something and all thought of the quiet boy behind the closed door was replaced by infant care and catastrophe avoidance. It wasn’t fair. None of it. Not to Mi, or to Jason or especially to Ethan, who never lived to see a single birthday.

It wasn’t fair, but it was their life. It was all they had except for each other and in the end even that hadn’t been enough. The last semblance of family unity they’d shared was at Ethan’s funeral when they’d stood—the three survivors—next to a too small coffin at the side of an open grave. Their mother cried big, copious tears, her sobbing echoing the cry of a crow perched on a nearby headstone. Jason had slipped his hand into Mi’s, staring dry-eyed into the hole where their brother would soon go. She didn’t know if his gesture was for her or for him, but it was the closest they’d ever gotten to any real show of affection between the two of them.

She had many regrets where Jason was concerned and Lucas had stirred them all up with his questions and opinions. If Lucas had thought telling her secret would free her, how wrong he was. The secret was out, but she was far from free. Letting it go had left an empty space, allowing anything that wanted inside to come in and take up residence. The sides of the hole were slowly caving in a grain at a time, back filling the gap with regret, resentment, and rage. So much rage.

For Lucas, for Jason, for her mother, and for herself most of all. She’d wasted so many wishes for a different life that she’d long ago given up the practice. But as she drifted closer to sleep, she sent out one last wish.

*****

The sharp trill of her cell phone jolted Mi awake, startling her out of a dreamless sleep that was as black as the night outside her bedroom window. Her heart tripped again when she read the caller ID. Jason.

“Hello?”

“Where are you? I’m bringing her over. I can’t handle her when she’s like this.”

She climbed out of bed and switched on the light to look for some clothes. “What’s she doing?”

“She keeps trying to leave. The last time my neighbor brought her back after she pounded on her door. It’s three-o’fucking-clock in the morning. I don’t need this shit.”

“I’m back at my house.”

“I’ll see you in ten.” He hung up.

She sifted through her closet and came up with an old pair of sweat pants and a promotional t-shirt from a condom company that read: Smile, it’s the second best thing you can do with your lips.

Jason must have run every red light because he knocked on her door five minutes later. As soon as Mi opened the door, Jason was through it, towing their mother by the wrist.

His gaze flicked to the bruises on her neck, then away as though they shamed him. “I’ve had it. I’m done with her and so are you.”

“Jason, don’t speak to your sister like that.” Faye glared at him, hands on hips. “I didn’t raise you to be disrespectful to women.”

“
Now
you’re lucid?” Jason shot back. “I’ve been up and down three times tonight chasing after you and you choose now to round up all your marbles?”

“Don’t talk to her like that,” Mi scolded. “Mom, why don’t you go lie down in the spare bedroom while Jason and I talk.”

Mi waited until their mother was out of earshot before she turned back to her brother. He was examining Lucas’s furniture as though it had come over on the space shuttle. “What the fuck is going on here?” he said with the first real smile she’d seen on his face in a long time.

“That’s Lucas’s furniture from his apartment. We, ah, kinda switched temporarily.”

“Switched?”

“It’s a long story.”

“With him, I bet. You know, I actually kinda like that guy.”

Of all the things he could have said, that was probably the last thing Mi expected. “You do?”

“Yeah.” He turned back toward her. “He’s good to you and he agrees with me. What’s not to like?”

She shook her head. “Come into the kitchen. We can talk in there.”

Jason flipped a kitchen chair backwards and sat down, propping his arms across the back. Mi started a pot of coffee, she had a feeling it was going to be a long night.

“You look like hell,” Jason said, pitching his voice low.

“Thanks.”

“I mean it, Mi. You look like shit. Even without those bruises on your neck, you don’t look good. It’s not that asshole, is it?”

“No, and stop calling him that. I thought you liked him.”

“I do as long as he continues to be good to you, we won’t have a problem.” He fidgeted in his chair a little, giving away his discomfort. This was new.

Crossing her arms over her chest, she leaned back against the counter and regarded him with open astonishment. “Who are you and what have you done with my brother?”