The Murderer's Daughters (17 page)

How had this woman died? Had she died alone? Like Mama? I bit my tongue to chase away the stab of pain in my gut. My mother’s blood had been Crayola red. No blood ran from this body. I pushed away memories of Mama, refusing to think she might have lived if I’d run faster, gotten Teenie quicker. I refused to think of her as ashy bones.

“Take turns marching your fingers up the spine,” Dr. Haslett told us. “Don’t forget to include your thumbs.”

Henry threw his arm on the body, blocking me. His turn. I’d already drawn down the drape. He walked his thumb up and down the spine three times.

“Hey, Henry, give a brother a chance,” Ron finally said.

Henry drew back, and Ron’s long, articulated fingers replaced Henry’s chunky ones. Ron had surgeon hands. I looked down at mine. A washerwoman’s fingers. Short, blunt nails. Broad hands, like Grandma Zelda’s.

Marta’s nails were shell pink. She had a nun’s hands, a saint’s fingers. Marta gently ran her fingers up and down our woman’s spine, feeling each vertebra. Marta’s hands were those I’d want touching me if I were dead.

My mother had had delicate hands. Her rings would be too small for me.

Had Aunt Cilla taken Mama’s sliver of diamond engagement ring? Her thick, gold wedding band, the amethyst Mimi Rubee gave Mama on Mama’s sixteenth birthday—did Aunt Cilla have everything?

“Lulu?” Marta said. “Your turn again.”

My hand shook as I touched the dead skin. I flexed my fingers. If I’d
been quicker, smarter, if I’d never opened the door, Mama would be alive. I knew that much was true.

“You okay?” Henry asked.

“Fine.” I put my hand flat on her back. Had she been religious? Jewish? Christian? Buddhist? Fast, so no one could notice, I traced a tiny cross on her back, then a Star of David, wishing I knew more symbols.

Four months later, Anne Cohen died.

I was on my way to sit shivah, having missed the funeral. Observant Jews bury their dead fast, and then mourn them for seven days. Doctor Cohen insisted on following the letter of Jewish law and buried Anne the day after she died, giving me permission not to attend. He said he didn’t want me to miss any classes. That was the day we were to be dissecting human hearts. Doctor Cohen said he knew how important the heart was.

Anne had died early Monday morning. Today was Sunday, the last day the family would sit shivah. I’d get to New York City in time to catch the final hours of official mourning, and then tomorrow I’d take the bus back to Boston.

The Greyhound bus sped down the highway. December slush covered the grass at the side of the road. I’d dreaded this ride, but resigned myself to it. Bus rides I didn’t need, but sleep I could use, desperately.

Hours of brain-numbing classes followed by hours of studying, day after day, month after month, had left me exhausted. Weekends were spent in the library with my study group. Henry, Ron, Marta, and I were now close as family, if one considered
family
synonymous with
close.

Awake despite my profound fatigue, I numbly watched the passing view. We rode along a stretch of Connecticut road bordering the ocean, and I pictured myself drifting off to someplace new and free.

Mrs. Cohen had died just after Merry’s seventeenth birthday. I’d meant to go home for the celebration dinner. The Cohens had been planning to take Merry and me to Windows on the World, where Merry had always wanted to go. Apparently, our father had described it from some magazine he read.
Gourmet
?
New York
? What magazines did they carry in a prison library?

Merry wanted to watch the world light up just as our father had described. Doctor Cohen planned for us to eat at sunset, but I ended up having too much schoolwork and didn’t go. Three days after Merry’s birthday dinner, a stroke killed Anne.

I closed my eyes, trying to drag sleep to me. I wanted to be sadder. Mrs. Cohen had been good to us. She’d tried to mother me, but each time she hugged me, I became anesthetized. Hugging her back took all my willpower.

I remember Merry asking why I hated Mrs. Cohen.
They think God patted them on the head the day they took us in,
I’d said. I’d told her how phony Mrs. Cohen was, a real Lady Bountiful all puffed up with noblesse oblige. It was as though I resented Mrs. Cohen for helping us after I’d spent so much time plotting to get her help. Jesus, I’d practically pimped out poor Merry to be cute enough to engender Mrs. Cohen’s care.

Once I got us there, and Merry was taken care of, I think I took a breath for the first time since Daddy killed Mama. I off-loaded Merry to Anne. I off-loaded our father by making us orphans. And when Anne tried to be my mother, I off-loaded her.

Maybe Anne’s incredibly patient niceness brought out my meanness toward her. Maybe she made me feel safe enough to act angry, but how horrible that I chose to lash out at her. I counted headlights to calm down. I scratched out a silent apology to Anne.

Maybe I owed myself an apology also. Anne had been my last and only chance to be mothered, and I’d thrown it away.

Doctor Cohen, Saul, Amy, and Eleanor sat on wooden boxes sunk into the deep Cohen carpet. Vague memories surfaced from Mama’s unveiling.

Doctor Cohen rose and took my hands. “Lulu. Thank you for coming.”

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here for the funeral.”

He dismissed my concern with a wave. “This place was filled until yesterday. Be happy you’re here when it’s peaceful, just family.”

I looked around for Merry.

“Your sister’s in her room watching the children,” he said as if he’d read my mind. “She’s been a godsend.”

I nodded, kissed him perfunctorily on the cheek. Saul-the-surgeon-son rose from his seat and hugged me. Had we ever touched before? “I’m sorry about your mother. She was a good woman,” I said.

“She was an angel.” Eleanor struggled to her feet. The Cohens’ daughter looked to be in the fourth or fifth month of another pregnancy. “Who’d know that as well as you and your sister?” She shook her head. “An angel.”

Saul’s wife Amy’s tears wet my cheek as she put her face to mine. “We missed you at the funeral.”

“Lulu couldn’t leave school.” Eleanor’s tone left no doubt that I’d shown my true colors.

The apartment seemed devoid of oxygen, a vacuumlike warren of rooms overstuffed with expensive furniture. The same couches and chairs from when we’d moved in. I’d been shocked when my childish plan to get Mrs. Cohen to take us had worked. Of course, I was grateful. I’d have been insane not to want to escape the misery of the Duffy-Parkman Home for Girls. Another wave of shame, even stronger than on the bus, overcame me. I wished my gratitude had morphed into the love for which Anne Cohen had seemed so hungry. I wished I’d told her how much I loved the room she’d set up for me. I wished I’d shaken the feeling of being Project Lulu—an identity I hated as much as that of the murderer’s daughter.

Merry and I had little privacy until we took a walk the next morning. People raced down Broadway with copies of the Sunday
New York Times
tucked under their arms, rushing to get home before the arctic air froze the fresh, warm bagels they carried like edible treasures.

“You left me alone. It was horrible being at the funeral without you,” Merry said.

“Doctor Cohen said it was important I stay for classes.” I turned my head, daring Merry to challenge me. She stared back, her purple-and-black-lined eyes saying
bullshit.
She shook her hair off her face. Merry looked shockingly different from the last time I’d been home, back in August. Silky, dark waves had been replaced by blond-streaked, ironed-straight hair. A shredded satin blouse fell off her shoulder. She looked like
she’d stolen the outfit from the GoGo’s last concert. Had Mrs. Cohen let Merry out of the house like this on a regular basis? Was slutty now the look for high school seniors?

“Right,” Merry said. “You couldn’t leave school for your foster mother’s funeral.”

“You don’t know what medical school is like, Merry.”

“You don’t know what it’s like for me here.” She grabbed my arm. “What am I going to do? What will I do this summer? What about college? Where will I go on breaks?”

“Calm down, Mer. Do you think he’s going to throw you out? Not pay for your college?”

“Do you think I can live alone with him? God, how creepy can you get?”

Despite her ratty hair, Merry looked like a kid. Tears clung to her lashes, and mascara dirtied her pink cheeks.

“Why? What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Can you imagine being in that house without Anne? He never wanted us in the first place, you know that.”

“It’ll only be a few months. After that, I’ll come back for the summer. You’ll have me with you, I promise.” Even as I spoke, the world darkened.

“You need to come home every weekend,” Merry said. “Otherwise, I swear, I’ll go crazy. I could barely stand one week alone with him. At night, when people left after sitting shivah, it was like living in a monastery with vows of silence. I’ll run away. I’ll find someone to live with. I met some guys from Columbia and NYU at a party last month.”

“Hold it right there.” I held up a hand. I hurried ahead and walked into a coffee shop, Merry following. I fell hard on a stool at the counter. I grabbed Merry’s arm and pulled her down next to me.

“Stop pushing me around,” she said. Hail hit the coffee shop windows with icy pops.

“You’re not moving in with anyone.” I held her arm. “Are you seeing someone?”

“I see lots of guys.”

“You know what I mean. Are you sleeping with anyone?”

Merry picked up a sugar packet from the metal rectangle holding a neat pile. The counterman came over and wiped the area next to Merry’s
elbow with a dirty rag. “Hey, you girls ordering anything or just using this for your coffee klatch?” he asked. “This isn’t a living room.”

“Two coffees.” The place reminded me of Harry’s back in Brooklyn. Two malteds, I wanted to say, one vanilla, one chocolate.

Merry rested her head on her arms, her hair spilling on the counter. She turned toward me, looking like a sleepy five-year-old smeared with her mother’s makeup. “I’m seeing one of the guys from Columbia. I could stay in his room.”

“Right. You’re going to live in some guy’s dorm.”

Merry sat up and walked her fingers up and down her chest. My fingers itched to pull them away.

“Listen,” I said. “We’ll work this out, I promise. Leave everything to me. You only have a few months till you graduate.”

Merry shook her head. “I don’t know if I can make it that long.”

I took her hand away from her chest. “You’ll make it. When you need to, you can come up to Boston.” As I spoke, Boston’s freedom shrank away.