The Color of Joy (10 page)

“I think you should definitely talk to Sylvie about it,” Mom said. “You can’t just let her get away with something like that. We all understand that she’s hurting, but she needs to deal with it like an adult.”

“Jake thinks she needs therapy,” I said flatly.

My mother grew quiet. “Well…she didn’t want me to tell you this either, but I think you should know. She started seeing someone shortly after she moved in with you, and she’s trying out some medications.”

Incredibly surprised to hear this, I shook my head as if to clear it. “You’re kidding me. Why wouldn’t she want me to know?”

“You know Sylvie. She’s proud, and she’s embarrassed because you’re her baby sister, yet you’ve surpassed her in every way. Sometimes Jenn… I know you don’t mean to, but you make her feel like a failure.”

“What!?” I turned the stove burner to high. “All I ever do is tell her she’s great and I do everything I can to help her. Besides, what’s that old saying? ‘No one can make you feel inferior without your permission?’ She can’t blame me for her own shortcomings.”

Angrily, I reached for the box of tea in the cupboard and slammed it down on the counter.

“And your pregnancy…” Mom added. “Well, maybe that’s the straw that’s finally breaking the camel’s back. You know how badly she’s always wanted a child of her own.”

“Too bad she didn’t feel that way when she was sixteen.” Feeling suddenly guilty for my lack of sympathy, I closed my eyes and counted to ten. “I don’t want to break her back,” I replied soberly. “I don’t want to cause her pain, but if my pregnancy is what is making her get help, then maybe that’s a good thing.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling myself,” Mom said. “Let’s just hope she can stay strong over the next few months, because she’s going to have to get through this. We all have to support her, Jenn. We have to make sure she’s all right.”

When I hung up the phone, I couldn’t help but feel a wave of resentment toward my sister. We all had to support
Sylvie
? What about
me
? I was pregnant and sick with a husband half way around the world fighting a war in Afghanistan. Didn’t they watch the news at night? Didn’t they know what was going on over there and how dangerous it was? I was constantly terrified he would never come home.

Maybe for once it would have been nice if Sylvie had stepped out of the “pity me” limelight and propped
me
up for a change. Apparently that wasn’t in the cards.

The situation with Sylvie and my perpetual morning sickness left me feeling distinctly fatigued all day. I was at least glad I’d taken the day off work because I could barely get up off the couch.

When at last my sister walked in the door at 4:00 p.m., I was impatient and irritable. It was partly my own fault because I’d worked myself into a tizzy all day, feeling angry about a lot of things and knowing I had to confront her about the broken photo frame in my trash can. I couldn’t keep walking on egg shells around her.

“Hey,” she said, dropping her backpack on the floor in the front entryway and heading straight for the bathroom.

I waited for the sound of the toilet flushing and the water running before I rose to my feet and made my way to the kitchen, where she was sure to go next.

A moment later, I stood in the doorway watching her bend over for something inside the refrigerator. “What do you want for supper?” she called out, thinking I was still lying on the sofa.

“I’m not really hungry at the moment,” I replied.

Her head popped into view over the open door. “Geez, you scared me. I thought you were in the living room.”

“I was, but now I’m not.”

She stared at me and frowned. “You look terrible. Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine,” I replied, “except for the fact that I had to dispose of some broken glass this morning. To be more specific, my honeymoon picture was smashed.” I folded my arms at my chest and raised my eyebrows. “Do you have anything to say about that?”

A slow wave of antagonism darkened her expression. She glared at me and shut the refrigerator door. “No.”

“You don’t know anything about that? Nothing at all?”

She merely shrugged.

Her cavalier response grated up and down my spine and I found myself wishing I’d never tried to help her. I should have left her in that sleazy bar to keep making stupid choices and continue screwing up her life. She was a grown woman. She wasn’t my responsibility. I had my own problems to deal with.

She, too, folded her arms at her chest. “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No? I think you do.”

She scoffed and walked out of the kitchen, stormed down the hall to her room and slammed the door, hard.

There was a sudden pounding sensation in my ears and my vision grew cloudy. Normally, with Sylvie, I always found a way to be gentle and patient. When she was in a state like this, I would do everything in my power not to upset her further—but rather I’d try to calm her down, no matter how long it took, by making her feel safe and loved. She always opened up to me, eventually.

But something was different today. Maybe it was pregnancy hormones. Or maybe I was just sick and tired of enabling her emotional outbursts and irrational behaviors. Unable to stem my anger, I followed and banged on her door.

“I talked to Mom today!” I shouted through the door. “She told me you were seeing a therapist! It’s a good thing, too, because you
definitely need help
!”

I had never in my life spoken to my sister that way.

I heard the sound of floorboards creaking from inside, then the door whipped open. “Listen to you. Little Miss Perfect.” She shook her head bitterly and spoke in a taunting, sing-song voice. “Because you’re so strong and I’m so jealous of you and your perfect marriage that I
hate
myself.
Go to hell, Jenn
!”

The door slammed in my face, and I squeezed my eyes shut to withstand the throbbing exasperation that was spinning around like a tornado inside my brain.

I returned to the sofa and sank onto it.

A few minutes later, Sylvie’s bedroom door opened. She stormed out, grabbed her backpack off the floor and said, “I’m going out. Don’t expect me home until late.”

“Fine,” I replied, and went to grab my laptop to call Jake.

I was fighting tears by the time my husband’s image appeared on the screen, which was disturbing on its own because I was not the crying type.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, looking shaken. “Is the baby okay?”

Waving my hands in front of my face, I dismissed that notion as quickly as possible. “It’s not that,” I replied. “The baby’s fine. I just had a fight with Sylvie.”

His shoulders slumped with relief—or maybe it was empathy for my situation. I wasn’t sure.

“What happened?”

“She did something crazy, Jake.” I reached for a tissue, tugged it out of the box and blew my nose. “Remember, the other night, when we were talking about her mood swings and her hair color?”

“Yes.”

“She came in later because she heard everything.”

“Oh, crap.”

“I told her I was sorry, but this morning I woke up and found the picture of our honeymoon cottage smashed and stuffed in the bathroom garbage.”

Jake’s eyebrows pulled together in dismay. “You’re joking. You think she put it there?”

I nodded. “I certainly didn’t put it there myself. Mom told me she’s been seeing a therapist since she moved in here and she’s been trying out some medications, so that’s good news at least, but this is really upsetting. I don’t know what to do.”

“What does your mom say?”

“You know how she is. She’s always sympathetic toward Sylvie. Sometimes I’m tempted to fall to pieces and screw my life up royally, or throw a temper tantrum, just to get a little attention from her.”

He reached forward and adjusted the screen of his laptop. I felt as if he were reaching out to stroke my arm. “But that wouldn’t be you,” he said. “You could never be a screw up, Jenn. You’re steady as a rock. You’re stronger than any woman I’ve ever known and that’s why I love you.”

I fought to pull myself together. “I don’t feel like a rock at the moment. I feel like a giant sack of bruised, mushy pears. I don’t understand this. It must be the pregnancy. It’s making me crazy.”

He chuckled softly. “You’ll feel better soon.” Then his expression grew stern. “Where is she now?”

“I don’t know. She stormed out.”

He sat back and rubbed the back of his neck. In that snug gray T-shirt, he was an impressive figure of a man. Muscular and broad-shouldered. I couldn’t believe how badly I missed him, how desperately I wanted him with me, just to touch him and be held by him.

“It’s lucky for her that I’m in another country right now,” he said, “because I’d like to tear a strip off her. I know she’s your sister, but I won’t have her treating you like that.” He leaned forward over the desk. “I hate being so far away from you. I don’t want you to have to put up with this kind of crap. Not now.”

I nodded in agreement.

“Do you want me to talk to her?” he asked.

“No, I can handle this.”

He chewed his lower lip, pondering what I’d said. “I know you can, but you always go really easy on her. I just don’t want her to think she can get away with that stuff, especially when you’ve done so much for her.”

“I certainly wasn’t easy on her tonight,” I told him. “That’s why she left. She must have been in shock. She’s used to curling up in a fetal position while I stroke her hair, but I totally lost it.”

He leaned forward over the desk. “I wonder if it’s the new medications that are having an adverse effect. You don’t think she’d do anything worse than that, do you?”

“Worse than breaking a photo frame? Like what?”

“She did try to kill herself once,” he reminded me. “Remember…she sliced her wrists open with a steak knife. That’s kind of violent.”

I thought about that for a moment. “She’s never tried to hurt anyone other than herself, and let’s not be too hard on her. She’s finally getting her life together and getting help. She seems to really like the program she’s in.”

Jake frowned and shook his head. “Two minutes ago you were furious with her. Now you’re defending her. Are you feeling all right?”

I let out a frustrated breath. “I’m fine. It’s just…my mind feels frazzled lately. It’s so hard to focus on things.”

“Just keep your eyes open and keep in touch with your mom,” he replied. “Tell her everything that Sylvie does. Maybe you should write it all down as it happens so you have a record of it.”

“That’s a good idea,” I replied. “I’ll do that tonight.”

“Just make sure she doesn’t find it,” Jake cautioned me. “That might really push her over the edge.”

September 18

The following day I arranged to meet Sylvie at the park at lunch hour to talk about our big blow up. She hadn’t come home until after midnight the night before, which heightened my anxiety and left me tossing and turning in bed all night. I feared that without my love and support, she might slip back into her old habits of going out to bars on weeknights and becoming involved with men who weren’t good for her.

I couldn’t help myself. As much as I wanted to take a step back and let her live her own life and make her own mistakes, I continued to feel responsible and protective of her. She was my sister. I loved her and I didn’t want to see her get into trouble.

“Hi,” Sylvie said coolly as she found me on one of the park benches across from the play structure, which was crawling with preschool-aged children. She was sipping on a large green smoothie she must have purchased somewhere.

Sylvie sat down beside me. I finished my submarine sandwich, balled the plastic wrapper up and set it on the bench for the time being.

“I suppose you want to talk about what happened?” Sylvie said.

“I just want to make sure you’re okay,” I replied. “That
we’re
okay.”

For a moment she watched a young mother push her daughter on a swing, then she dropped her gaze to her lap. “I don’t know what to say, Jenn. You really threw me for a loop yesterday.”

“Why? Because I accused you of smashing my honeymoon picture?”

She shook her head. “That, among other things. You haven’t exactly been yourself lately.”

“
I
haven’t been myself? I admit, sometimes I can get a little hormonal, but I don’t think that’s the problem we’re having.” I paused a moment. “Mom told me you’ve been seeing a therapist.”

Sylvie sighed with defeat. “Mom has a big mouth.”

“Why didn’t you want me to know? I think it’s a
good
thing.”

Never taking her eyes off the young mother with her little girl, Sylvie squinted through the sunshine, saying nothing.

“I wish you’d talk to me about it,” I finally said. “I want to be helpful.”

“You are being helpful,” she replied. “You got me out of my job and helped me get into this program I’m in. I appreciate all that, I really do, but there’s another side to this.” She met my gaze directly. “You know what I’m talking about. It’s not easy for me, and I need you to accept that. Just let me deal with it in my own way.”