The Murderer's Daughters (35 page)

What? Nothing to say now?

“What do you think I see at night when I close my eyes?” I asked. “You and Daddy bleeding out on Mama’s bed. For my entire life, ever since then, I’ve had to be responsible for everyone and everything, including you.”

Merry shook her head slowly, as though I were a stranger. “This isn’t about us, not like that. We have to take care of Cassandra now.”

I threw the pillow I’d been clutching to the floor and stood. My arm trembled as I pointed a finger toward Merry. “I care for my daughter. I make the rules. This is my family, and if you don’t like my mothering, then maybe it’s time for you to go. Get your own husband. Get your own children. Stop sucking on my life.”

I marched out of the room and into the bedroom, slamming the door behind me. I kicked the dresser and etched deep lines up and down my arm, wondering what I was supposed to do. After dropping to the floor, I placed my head on my knees. I wrapped my arms around my legs and prayed for one person, one grown-up, somewhere in the world who I could call.

Sickened by my weak posture, I tore off my clothes, dropped them in a heap on the corner chair, pulled on a soft, billowy nightgown, and collapsed on the bed.

The door creaked open. I waited for Drew to come and kiss away my tears.

“Mommy? Are you okay? Are you mad at me?” Cassandra walked in on little tiptoes, as though the sound of her footsteps might anger me.

I wiped my face dry and patted the bed next to me. “I’m not mad at you, honey.”

The bed barely registered her weight as she fell on it, spilling into my arms, folding her long, thin body as small as possible, so I could wrap her up into a package I could hold. “I’m in trouble, right?” She pressed her lips together.

“You’re not in trouble. You’re feeling troubled. That’s a world of difference.”

“But Daddy had to go and talk to my teacher.” Cassandra pushed her face deep into my shoulder, muffling her voice, hiding her face.

“Because she wants us to know that you’re scared.”

Cassandra didn’t move. I felt her stiffen.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked. “The kidnapping? Being adopted?”

I felt her shake her head.

“You know that you’re not adopted, right?” She shook her head again. “When I was a little girl, right around your age, I thought maybe I was adopted. I think every ten-year-old girl in the world wonders that at some point.”

“But you had to be. Fostered. After.”

“After my parents”—I hesitated—“died. Right. But I had thought about
it before, honey.” I held her tighter. “Maybe you think about it because you’re afraid you’ll lose me and Daddy like I lost my parents.”

“What if I do?”

I leaned my cheek on top of her head. “You won’t.”

“You can’t be sure.” She backed away from me, crossing her legs. “You and Daddy drive together all the time. You could die like they did.”

As I started to reassure her that she’d always have Aunt Merry, I imagined my sister introducing them to our father. Fatigue pressed down, pulling me toward the unconscious world. “Don’t worry, honey. It could never happen twice to the same family.”

Cassandra’s eyes thinned with mistrust. “You don’t know.”

“I do know. Because of statistics. Something you learn in college. It’s a kind of math.”

“Math?” She clasped her hands, lacing her fingers into a steeple, with which she covered her mouth. “How does it tell you that?” she asked, her words muffled.

“Statistics are about chances, the likeliness something is going to occur. When you get older, you learn this formula sort of math for figuring out chances of things happening. And statistically, chances of you losing me are infinitesimal.” I smiled. “Which means it won’t happen.”

Her body relaxed, slumping toward me. “You’re sure?”

I nodded. “I’m sure.” I pulled the covers back, kicking my way in. “Let’s both go to sleep.”

Cassandra pressed in close until we matched up like notched dolls. Slowly her body relaxed, her breathing became even, and she slept.

I loved this child. She was my breath and my body. More than anything, I needed to keep her safe. Nothing else mattered.

Silent tears slipped from under my closed lids, tears of fear, fear I’d never be able to comfort anyone so easily again.

The next morning I woke before the alarm, grateful to be free from my shallow and unsatisfying sleep. I stared out the window with gritty eyes, drinking coffee, watching and waiting until I saw Drew walk to the car with Cassandra and Ruby. My nieces held his hands as they made their way through the drizzling rain.

Ruby’s determined little steps kept up. Cassandra strode wearing the crown of the elder, then and always, the powerful child. Both walked under Drew’s protection. How did that feel?

The moment Drew’s car pulled away, I went to Lulu’s door. “Did you mean it?” I blurted the moment she answered my frantic knocking.

“Did I mean what?” Her truthful eyes belied her question.

“Any of it; did you mean any of it?” I asked.

Lulu reluctantly opened the door wider and let me in. “Let’s not do drama this early, okay? I have to leave for work by nine.” She headed down the hall with me trotting behind her.

We entered the kitchen, and I grabbed a mug. Lulu sat on a stool at the
counter and resumed spooning up bran flakes from a bowl I’d bought her, white with cornflowers.

“I have to get to work, too.” I poured cream in my coffee. “I just want to talk for a minute.”

Lulu gave a much too obvious look at the wall clock, then her watch. Did my oh-so-important sister need to synchronize? I clenched the warm mug to keep my hands from shaking. My right foot pumped like a metronome.

“We both went overboard last night,” Lulu said. “Let it go.”

How exactly had I gone overboard? I twined my leg around the chair. “I just wanted to help. Aren’t you worried about Cassandra?”

Lulu slammed her spoon into the bowl. “What exactly did you not understand about let it go?”

“How am I supposed to let go of the things you said?
Get your own life, Merry; get your own husband, Merry; get your own children, Merry.
Is that what you really want?” Ancient cigarette cravings overwhelmed me. I grabbed the family-size Cheerios box and began stuffing my mouth with handfuls of dry cereal.

Lulu closed her eyes. “This is why I didn’t want to start.”

I finished chewing a mound of mush and asked, “Don’t you think I’d like to have a Drew of my own?”

“You’ve certainly auditioned enough candidates.”

Lulu smiled, and I decided she was trying to be funny, not mean, at least not deliberately. “I haven’t exactly had a terrific pot from which to draw,” I said.

“Bars aren’t the best places for finding husbands.”

“You were drunk when you met Drew,” I pointed out, reaching in for another handful of cereal.

“But we weren’t at a bar. And he wasn’t drunk.” Saint Lulu rinsed her bowl before putting it in the dishwasher. “What about Michael? Didn’t he like you?”

“I blew that one.” I hadn’t told her what a bitch I’d been to Michael during our weekend in New York. He must have had some self-respect, because he never called again.

“Maybe you should call him. Apologize for whatever you did.”

“It’s too complicated.” What possible reason could I give him for my Jekyll-Hyde routine? Besides, Michael was too nice for me.

Lulu sprayed organic cleanser over the countertop. She hated dirt in the house. She hated having chemicals near the children. She’d wrap her girls in plastic if she could. No, she’d have Drew do the wrapping. Lulu worried me. Not being able to control everything around the kids’ environment could drive her crazy someday.

“You have to let the Dad thing go.” Lulu had her back to me when she said this. Then she wiped her hands on a blue checked towel and turned around. “He’s going to tear us apart. And I don’t want to hear it from Drew either, so do me a favor and stop talking to him about it.”

“Do you think I should call Michael?” I asked Valerie at lunch. She and I rotated our lunches out between the least horrible courthouse-accessible restaurants. Today was Dumpy’s Sandwich Shoppe. A slight sheen of grease coated the plastic tables; nevertheless, the place represented the best of bad choices.

“Do you
want
to call him?” she asked, picking at the crust on her uneaten roll. Valerie was in overdrive. I’d have bet anything a diet pill rattled around her empty stomach. She’d blown her hair straight despite the October rain ready to frizz it back up again. Yesterday she’d worn a pilled sweater and crumpled khakis; today she’d ironed knife-sharp pleats into her skirt.

“Who are you, my shrink?”

“Do you need a shrink?”

“Very funny.” I picked up my egg salad sandwich and took a huge bite. Overmayonnaised egg spilled on my chin.

I wiped my mouth with a scratchy brown napkin and watched Valerie make little fork roads though her bright orange macaroni and cheese.

“Do you like him? Want him?” Valerie asked.

I held my palms up, indicating my total lack of opinion.

“How can you not know what you want?”

“I think I usually want whoever wants me.”

“Jesus, how pitiful. No wonder you work with losers.”

“You work with the same losers.”

“Uh-uh.” She shook her hair, obviously enjoying feeling it fly around. “Only juveniles for me. They still have a chance.”

“Right. You’re the goddamned Mother Teresa of the courthouse, and I’m neurotic. So, do you think I should call him?”

“I think you should call him.”

Before I could ask why, my client Jesse walked in. I’d be seeing him after lunch, but now he only raised two fingers in greeting, cool, barely acknowledging me.

“Who’s that?” Valerie asked.

“Jesse. The one who got his GED. Now he’s enrolled in Bunker Hill Community College.” I lifted my chin as a hello to Jesse. “So I guess it’s not only the juveniles who can change.”

“We’ll see.” She crumpled her napkin and threw it on her plate, despite having taken perhaps two bites. I shoved the last of my rapidly eaten sandwich in my mouth.

“Call Michael,” Valerie ordered as we left Dumpy’s.

Jesse was waiting for me when we got back to the courthouse, following me from the lobby to my office, shuffling his sneakers as a coming attraction to his nasty scowl.

“Listen, Ms. Zachariah, I have other things on my mind than studying shit like the history of Ronald Reagan.” Jesse caught my glare from where he slumped in the chair. “Stuff, I mean.”

We weren’t having our best meeting. He was irritable and in a make-fun-of-the-white-lady mood. Reading him was easy, but out of kindness, I let him think he was getting something over on me.

“Jesse, the thing about school is you don’t get to pick and choose what you study. College is not a Chinese restaurant.”

“Bunker Hill is a place for retards to go to college.”

“That can’t be true because you’re enrolled, and you’re pretty darn smart when you’re not being an idiot.”

“Says you.” Jesse scowled at his feet. His sneakers gleamed white. I didn’t want to think where he had gotten the money to buy them.

“Says me, and I’m your PO. It’s not like I’m your mother.”

Jesse sank down farther and gave a mean little chuckle. “I guess not, since you ain’t drunk or offering to blow every guy who walks by.”

“Sit up straight,” I said, sick of his self-pity. “Grow up. No one’s going to give you a break because your mother drinks or your father’s dead. Just because someone hands you a ration of garbage doesn’t mean you have to keep hold. You have to be the one to let go, Jesse. No one else will do it for you.”

I’m not sure if my little tough-luck speech did any good; Jesse shuffled out as nasty-faced as he’d walked in.