Secret Sister (5 page)

“No one thinks that, Roxanne.”

“Except the police?”

“Don’t obsess about what the police might think. I’m sure their need to talk to you is routine.”

I sighed. I wished Patel hadn’t brought up the cops at all. Until he had, I had cast myself as the complete victim in this situation. The thought that I might be viewed as the culprit was horrifying. “Michael seems intent on being in my life again. But I’m not ready.”

“Anyone else been in touch?”

“Ruth. Betty’s mom. And a nice lady named Althea Cornell. She’s principal where . . .”

Patel waited.

I was going to say, ‘where
we
taught school,’ but when the words formed inside my head they felt alarming. So, I stopped. I wasn’t sure, but the ‘we’ seemed loosely linked to something familiar, almost like the beginning of a thought, or even a memory. Of me and someone else.

“May I have some water?”

“Yes, of course.” Dr. Patel reached around to his desk for a plastic bottle and handed it to me.

I drank half of it. The ticking of the clock seemed louder. “So, when can I leave the hospital?”

Dr. Patel leaned back in his chair. “Do you think you’re ready to leave?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll move in with your mother?”

“No. I told Betty I want to go to Roxanne’s apartment and live.”

“You mean y
our
apartment?”

“Right.” I exhaled. “Sorry. It’s easier for me to refer to ‘Roxanne’ in the third person. Right now I’m like an invisible woman, trying to get to know Roxanne a little before I take her on completely.”

“Sounds like a good coping mechanism.”

“Thank you. So, I can go? Dr. Badu says Saturday morning, if you agree.”

Dr. Patel stared as if he could see straight through my flesh to my spinal cord. “Do you have a plan for how you’re going to integrate the amnesia into your life?”

“No. Is there a handbook?”

Dr. Patel frowned. I reached across the small desk and touched his arm. “Sorry. I am acting like a smart ass. I’m freaked out by what you said about the police.”

“Don’t worry about the police, Roxanne. I only brought it up so you wouldn’t feel ambushed when they called. I’ve seen detectives go off on tangents when they hear someone was on medication and has an accident. I wanted you to have backup to handle the technical questions, if you need it. But don’t worry.”

“Okay. I won’t worry.” I smiled at him, wondering if he knew I was lying. I hoped he didn’t. I wanted him to like me. I felt alone, and incompetent. “Sorry again for being difficult. I’ve been told I make sarcastic comments when I’m nervous. I have thought about what I am going to do when I leave the hospital. I’m going to look at everything in the apartment, get people to talk to me about the past. Go see Cathy Chance’s family. I’m sure they can tell me about her, and I’ll hopefully remember something soon.”

“Do you think they’ll be willing to help you?”

“I don’t know. I hope so. Everyone says Cathy and Roxanne were best friends. Really, really close. I hope they don’t blame me. I don’t mean blame me, like I crashed on purpose. But their person is still dead.”

He pulled out an appointment card and started writing. “I’ll need to meet with you at least once a week here at my office, possibly twice a week, for a couple of months.”

I got up and dropped the water bottle, which rolled under Dr. Patel’s desk. “Sorry. Sure. Whatever you think.”

The psychiatrist swiveled his chair, grabbed the bottle and handed it back to me.

I was breathing too fast, as if I were about to take part in a jailbreak. “Thank you, Dr. Patel. For everything.”

“You are welcome, Roxanne.” He squeezed my arm, his fingers lingering for what felt like a moment too long. “I’ll see you next Monday. Make sure you rest. And call me if you have any pain, blurred vision, nausea or dizziness.” He stood and opened the door for me.

I sprinted back to the hospital elevator. I wanted to go to bed and then to sleep so it would be tomorrow.

Like a child at Christmas. Wanting to sleep so Santa would come.

I pressed the button on the elevator pad, the door slid open and I stepped inside. I needed to find my past. To have a future, you had to have a past.

Right now I was
tabula rasa,
at least as far as I was concerned. Everyone else might have a history with the woman whose features they saw when they looked at me, but for me, life was a book I hadn’t yet read, and all things were possible.

Including the fact I might have tried to kill myself?

No. Not that. I might not know much, but I knew in my bones that was not possible. I loved life. This thought buoyed me as I hurried into my hospital room and collapsed into bed.

“Roxanne, are you asleep?”

I fought my way out of sleep and lifted my head off the hospital pillow to meet Michael Cimino’s stare. He was standing at the end of my bed. I wondered for how long.

“What do you want?”

“Hey, there she is. How goes the memory? Remember anything yet?” He sat beside me. “Remember
me
yet?”

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

This probably wasn’t the reception he had expected. He folded his arms as his eyes roamed over my body. I was wearing a soft gray sweat suit Betty had brought me, but I felt unclothed under Michael’s stare.

“I wanted to see how my lady was doing.” His grin widened. “It’s nice, being alone with you. It’s been too long.”

I scooted into a sitting position. “I wish I could remember, but I don’t.”

“I know this has all been hard for you, Rox, but I want you to know I’m here for you.” He leaned closer. “I don’t know what Betty told you about me, about us, but all I have to say is we’re good together, babe. Real good.”

“But we weren’t together, before the accident?”

“No. We weren’t. That’s a fact. But I told you when we broke up that we’d be back together eventually. And I meant it. Just like I mean it now.”

I swallowed. “Look, I’m in no position to make any kind of plans.”

“Hey, I know. I’m not pressuring you. You’re banged up and having a tough time with stuff. But when you’re feeling yourself again, I want you to know I’m going to be here for you.” Michael put his fingers on his lips and then brushed them against mine. “So that’s all I’m doing here, okay? Letting you know what I’ve been thinking, without your mom or granny or the doctors watching and putting their two cents in. Okay?” He stood and shoved his hands in his pockets.

I looked into his green eyes and felt a hum of lust creep up the center of my body. I smelled the spicy fragrance of his aftershave. Michael Cimino was one hot guy, though my body was reacting to him separately from my brain. Because, despite my physical yearning, a voice inside my head whispered one small word while he talked.

Liar.

“Thanks, Michael. For coming by. I hope in the next few days we can meet and talk over some things. Maybe you’d be willing to help me fill in some of the blank spots, help me to remember myself. My life.”

“Sure thing. You call, I’m there.” He took my chin in his hand and kissed me. His lips were gentle but demanding. “Get some sleep, beautiful. As soon as you’re back in the apartment, you call me. We’ve got some catching up to do.”

He winked and sauntered out the door. He seemed much happier than I’d seen him the past few days, as if some burden had been lifted from his shoulders.

I lay back and closed my eyes.

Who can you trust? When you don’t know the facts, the past, and the cold, hard history of shared experience with someone, you have to go on instinct. Was mine any good?

Exhausted, I willed myself to sleep, wondering right before I dropped off if Michael would tell me things about myself I might not want to hear.

Chapter 5

Friday, July 25, 8 a.m.

Nick’s House

“Zoë, get up, it’s time for work and you’re late.”

“Go away, Nick,” my sister mumbled without moving.

“Zoë, now. You’re going to get fired if you’re late again.”

Nothing. She didn’t even twitch. I walked out of her bedroom and down the hallway into the kitchen. Outside it was raining, strange for Sierra Monte in mid-summer. Like most of Southern California, we got about three inches of rain in our “rainy season.” Which wasn’t July.

I looked at the calendar. July 25th.

Cathy had been dead for two weeks and two days. I wondered if I would ever stop measuring time by the date she died. I collapsed onto the hard bench beside the kitchen table and poured my second cup of coffee. It was already eight. When Cathy was here, I was at work early, usually by seven.

Not anymore. Since Zoë had come to stay here with me three days after the memorial service, convinced I needed to have someone around because she didn’t think I was doing well, I’d been late to work every day.

I protested to Zoë and my mom when they showed up—unannounced—with Zoë’s things, that I didn’t need anyone moving in. The two of them glanced around the house and noted unwashed dishes and un-vacuumed floors, so I gave in, mostly because I’m worried about Zoë.

Since Cathy died, my sister has gone into a nosedive, even by teenager standards. She’s lost ten pounds and cut off her hair and dyed it blonde, like Cathy’s. Then she had her arm tattooed with Cathy’s name.

Mom said Zoë was also smoking pot every night, and that she had threatened Zoë with putting her into an in-patient program. So I told Zoë it was okay to move in as long as she got herself to school in the fall and kept her part-time job for the rest of the summer. And gave up the weed.

She was holding up her end about how I expected. So far I’d only smelled pot two or three times, but she’d been late to work every day she’d been here. The coffee shop where she worked was giving her a break because of Cathy, but it was going to catch up with her. I was lucky to get Zoë out the door by eight-thirty and then to my own desk by nine-fifteen.

But I would be lying if I said it wasn’t good, having my sister here. When I came home from work, there was someone to pretend for, someone who made it not okay to go lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling, curse the gods, cry like a baby.

She made me feel like I wasn’t alone in the world. The people I worked with had been also been great, but the pats on the back, and unguarded looks of compassion were wearing me out.

“What time is it?” Zoë’s fuzzy slippers slapped their way through the kitchen. Clumsily she slammed a ceramic cup onto the counter and sloshed coffee all over her hand, swore and repeated, “What time is it, Nick? I don’t have my contacts in.”

I glanced at the clock. “It’s ten after eight.”

More swearing. “Why didn’t you wake me up?” She ran for the bathroom, spilling coffee on the floor.

I stared at the Spanish terra cotta tile, hand cut, Cathy’s last extravagance. I wanted linoleum, sturdy and boring, but she talked me into the tile. The guy who installed it, Enrique, had a crush on Cathy, I think. One she didn’t seem aware of. One I didn’t worry over, since Enrique is about seventy. Very courtly. We also had him patch a spot on our roof while he was here. The kitchen job took about four weeks, two longer than he’d estimated.

Since I’d known her, a lot of men had crushes on Cathy. Mostly old guys who saw the sparkle, the fight, the love of life in her. Older guys who’d been around and knew what mattered, what kept a man home and warm and happy at night. It was what Cathy had in spades.

Tears fell, and I didn’t wipe them away. I walked across the cool tile floor and put my cup in the sink. The phone on the kitchen wall rang softly but I ignored it. I didn’t like talking on the phone anymore. Nothing could be as bad as the call I’d received that day. But still . . .

Down the hallway Zoë was banging things around in the bathroom. She’d be ready to leave in a few minutes. Fine with me. I’d go through the motions; what else could I do?

“Did you eat breakfast?” Zoë asked behind me.

Busy rinsing out my cup, I hadn’t heard her. She walked sneaky as a cat. I turned and nearly tripped over her. “I had coffee. Why don’t you have a granola bar or something?”

“I’m not hungry.”

Her face was all bones and shadows. “You’re too skinny. Eat something. We need to leave.”

“
You
need to eat.
You’re
too skinny.” She grabbed the belt on my pants. “Look, the incredible shrinking man.”

“I eat. And I haven’t lost a ton of weight like some people I know. Now go get your shoes and backpack.” I pointed toward her room.

She reached behind me and snagged an orange from the basket; nimbly peeled it. “Who was on the phone?”

“I don’t know.”

She pushed an orange slice into her mouth and regarded me. “You turning into a hermit, Nick?”

“I never answer the phone if it rings before eight.”

“Since when?” Zoë rolled her eyes as she walked over and looked at the caller ID. She frowned and pressed the playback.

I had the volume almost at zero so I didn’t have to hear people when they left me a message. I felt guilty not answering, but there wasn’t anyone I wanted to talk to. Except for a dead woman.

I hadn’t even taken calls from Bradley. He’d always had dinner with Cathy and me on Monday nights. He taught a tech class at Sierra Monte Community College, up the street, and Cathy had insisted he come eat with us so we could talk. She loved Bradley. And he loved her, always confided in her about his love life, his ‘latest and datest’ as he called them.

He’d stopped by to comfort me the first Monday after Cathy died, but showed up shit-faced drunk while I listened to his sobbing about Cathy and felt like killing myself. Bradley never made it to class that night; I never made it to bed. But it allowed both of us to take a little off the top of our grief, at least for one night. I hadn’t seen him since.

Zoë finally figured out the volume was off on the answering machine and played it again. A man’s voice picked up mid-sentence. “. . . we can discuss the settlement for your wife’s death. Again, please call my office at your earliest convenience. Mrs. Haverty would like to schedule this for four p.m. today, if that’s possible.” The man rattled off his name and address and phone number.

“Turn it off,” I demanded.

Zoë flicked the button. “There’s another message. Don’t you want to hear it, too?”

“No.” I looked outside at the two lemon trees next to my patio, aware Zoë was staring at me.

“I’ll go with you, if you want.”

“I’m not going.”

She laid her hand on my sleeve. “You need to settle the insurance thing, Nick. This is the third message from this guy. They’ll keep calling you back.”

“I’m not taking any money for Cathy.” My eyes ached as if they were dry sockets and my pulse pounded in my ears. “Betty Haverty and Roxanne and their goddamned insurance man can screw themselves. They don’t have enough money to compensate anyone for anything.” I stopped talking and put the table between us. I gripped the back of a chair.

Zoë sat and placed the uneaten half of orange on the table. She crossed her arms over her chest. For the first time in her life, she reminded me of our mother. “I think you need to call Roxanne.”

“What?” I nearly shouted.

Zoë nodded at the phone. “The caller ID shows she called twice yesterday afternoon. From her house.”

“I’m not calling her.”

Zoë raised her left eyebrow, just like Mom. “She was Cathy’s best friend, Nick. You’re going to have to talk to her sooner or later.”

“I’ve got nothing to say to Roxanne.”

“Cathy would be pissed off at you, bro.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, so stay out of this.”

Zoë’s eyes filled with tears and she started to rock herself. “Sorry.”

“That bitch killed her.”

“Don’t do that,” she replied. “I was mad at Roxanne, too. I wanted her to die, remember? But the cops say the accident wasn’t her fault. There was nothing she could do.” Zoë reached out for me. “The asshole truck driver was drunk. It was an accident, Nick.”

I forced myself not to pick up the chair and hurl it through the French doors. “Go get your stuff. Right now, Zoë. I can’t keep being late to work. I’m going to lose my fucking job.” I walked out the kitchen screen door.

“I thought I was going to lose
my
fucking job,” Zoë hollered behind me.

“You are! Me, too. We’re both going to be out on the street on our asses.”

I walked across to the patio door and stared again at the lemon trees. Cathy planted them when we moved here, six years ago. They were big for where she put them. The roots were too near the patio, and the fragrance of the blossoms made it impossible to enjoy sitting outside because of the bees. We’d talked about moving them a few weeks ago.

Before she died.

Aunt Pitty, Cathy’s ancient cat, jumped arthritically from the back fence and limped toward the house. I called her. She stopped at the edge of the cement and looked at me and then ran around the side of the house. She grieved for Cathy, and had refused to come inside. For two weeks and two days.

“You okay?” Zoë stepped outside. “Nick? Are you all right?”

I tossed her the keys. “I’m fine. Go warm up the car. I’ll be out in a minute.”

She caught them and disappeared.

After a moment, I went back inside and punched the replay on the answering machine, and heard Cathy’s voice. “See you,” she said. My eyes burned; it must be an old message I had not erased. I walked out of the kitchen. I’d heard enough for one day.

“And you’re wrong about Roxanne being Cathy’s best friend, Zoë!” I yelled to the empty house. “I’m her best friend.”

And she was mine. Always was. Always would be.