The Murderer's Daughters (4 page)

“Mama is under the grass?” Merry whispered.

“Her body is,” I said.

“She’s probably scared,” Merry said. “It must be so dark.”

“It’s like she’s sleeping.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

Mimi Rubee shrieked as the dour-looking rabbi pulled the white cloth off the headstone. Merry and I jumped back. Aunt Cilla clutched Mimi Rubee’s elbow. “It’s okay, Mom. She’s in a better place.”

Mimi Rubee’s mouth got that pursed-lips look that made my stomach clench. “Better place? She’s not in any better place.” She pointed a bony finger at the grave. “She’s in the black hole where that bastard sent her.”

Merry twined her sticky arm all around mine and I let her, even though it was so hot that when I rubbed my arm little balls of dirt came off with the sweat. I craved something cool. I itched all over but didn’t dare scratch.

I wanted to lay my head against the cool granite of Mama’s headstone and trace the flowers twined around her name:
CELESTE ANASTASIA SILVER. BELOVED MOTHER. DEVOTED DAUGHTER. LOVING SISTER
. They’d erased my father and his last name, Zachariah, our name, from my mother’s life.

Everything in the world hurt.

Back home, I leaned in the doorway, watching Merry snuggle into Mimi Rubee. They were on the new sleeper sofa. Mimi Rubee had looked stricken the day the movers carried it in, her face puckered as she stared at the bulky tweed couch hulking against the wall, waiting as they took away her beloved Danish Modern—the one that tortured Merry and me. The thin Danish mattress barely covered the metal rods threaded below. Before Mimi Rubee had gotten rid of it, Merry and I had learned which sleep positions avoided the pinching steel, training ourselves to tuck our arms under our stomachs and curve into unnatural shapes to adjust to the bed.

The crowd of people at Mimi Rubee’s house overheated the already warm room. Aunt Cilla’s husband, Hal, squeezed against her. She held my cousin Arnie in her lap. Cousin Arnie disgusted me. Nine years old and sitting in his mother’s lap like a little baby.

People slobbered kisses on Merry, practically begging her to hug them. Then they’d grasp my elbow and squeeze it, look into my eyes, and ask,
“How are you doing, darling?” as though we were the closest of friends, when in fact I’d bet they wouldn’t recognize me if they saw me again on the street.

No one was anywhere near my age except Cousin Arnie, and I’d rather hang out with a leper. Gaggy old-lady-perfume smells mixed with the food odors coming from Mimi Rubee’s kitchen. Everyone had brought too much of something, like food was the cure for sadness. Mimi Rubee’s sister, our aunt Vivvy, brought a platter with lox, cream cheese, bagels, sliced cold cuts, and chopped liver.

I edged into the living room and picked up a thick chocolate chip cookie from a pile heaped on a gold-rimmed plate. Trying to be invisible, I sat on a hassock, working my cookie like a puzzle, trying to have a chip come out in the final bite.

“So, how’s school, Lulu?” Uncle Hal asked.

“Okay.”

Mama always said that Aunt Cilla had Uncle Hal so squashed down we might as well call him Uncle Aunt Cilla, though he was always nice to me. Of the two of them, I liked him better.

“Still getting all A’s?”

“Uh-huh.” The only thing in this world I could count on was getting good grades and having teachers like me. All I had to do was be smart, do my homework, and keep my mouth shut. Now I’d begun worrying if junior high would be as easy.

“Lulu never has to work hard for her marks.” Only Aunt Cilla would make getting good grades sound evil.

“She’s a smart girl,” Uncle Hal said. “I wish Arnie did half as well as Lulu.” For Uncle Hal, who always hugged the middle road, this was like cursing in Aunt Cilla’s face.

“That won’t be a problem.” Aunt Cilla tightened her arms around my cousin. Bug-eyes Arnie felt like chicken bones when you hugged him. If she squeezed much harder, Cousin Arnie’s guts would come out his mouth.

“Cilla, did you check on the food?” my grandmother asked.

“Here,” Aunt Cilla said, turning Cousin Arnie toward Uncle Hal. “Watch him.”

What did Aunt Cilla think could happen to Arnie, except maybe my cousin might kill himself from boredom? The only toys we had were those Merry had brought home from the hospital a year ago. I missed the collection of books I’d built up at home. Daddy used to buy new ones for me on his payday. Daddy liked to read. Mama only read magazines.

Sometimes, just for a minute or two, I couldn’t help wondering things about Daddy in jail. Did he get to read? Did he have to eat soup with nothing but scraps of potato peels floating in it? Then I’d look at Mimi Rubee staring at Mama’s picture and I’d remember him shaking, shaking, shaking the door, and I’d feel like throwing up.

I didn’t care about Daddy one bit, not for one red cent minute.

Merry kept asking to see him, which drove Mimi Rubee crazy. According to Mimi Rubee, we’d see him over her dead body, and when Hell froze over. I traced a silent THANK YOU, GOD on my arm every time she said that. I never wanted to see him again. As long as my bloody-killing-knife-shaking-door father stayed in jail, I was safe. I wouldn’t have to see him or smell him or touch him, and he could never touch me.

“Are we still going to Grandma Zelda’s house tomorrow?” Merry asked.

“You’re going, you’re going. Stop asking,” Mimi Rubee said.

Aunt Cilla returned, still holding the cup of coffee I’d earlier spied her lacing with Crown Royal whiskey. “I can’t believe you let them go to that woman’s house week after week,” she said.

Merry curled into a ball on the floor by me, leaning on my knees.

“How was kindergarten?” Uncle Hal asked my sister.

“Okay.” Merry frowned, probably because school had become torture for my sister. Ever since she’d had two wetting accidents, the kids called her Pee-pee Pants. At recess, they teased her for not being able to throw a ball, which was because of the scars on her chest. Even though we’d changed schools, everyone knew about us, the girls whose father had murdered their mother. Plus, poor Merry also held the title of the girl whose father had stabbed her.

Neither of us had any friends since we’d moved in with Mimi Rubee.

“I bet you were the prettiest one in the class,” Uncle Hal told Merry.

“Pretty is as pretty does,” Aunt Cilla said. “Look at Joey, so gorgeous when Celeste met him. Handsome as a movie star. And where is he now?”

“Celeste was the real beauty. Joey looked cheap compared to her.” Aunt Vivvy shook her head. “She never should have married him. You should have stopped it,” she told Mimi Rubee.

“You think we didn’t try?” Mimi Rubee said. “I think he got her pregnant on purpose just to make sure he had her. She could have been the movie star if she hadn’t married him. He knew that.”

“He’s a monster. An animal,” Aunt Cilla said.

Did she think Merry and I were deaf? Stupid?

“Stop, Cilla,” Mimi Rubee said. “Little pitchers.”

“We can’t close our eyes, Mama,” Aunt Cilla said. “Do you want them to stay blind? You think it’s smart, sending them to his mother’s house? Sorry, but I have to say it.”

Everyone’s peering, peeking eyes made me want to run out of the house and do something amazing, like throw a ball far enough to reach Coney Island or memorize the encyclopedia.

Nothing made sense. Grandma Zelda had said, “Don’t forget why your father didn’t go to trial, girls. He wanted to preserve your mother’s name, that’s the reason he pled guilty.” Hearing those words made me silently scream,
Nothing will make what Daddy did any better.
Yet when Mimi Rubee called him a monster, my heart curled in on itself, and I didn’t know why.

“After all,” Aunt Cilla continued, her voice becoming slow motion, “who knows? Maybe the poison came from Zelda. And who knows where it’ll go next?”

My aunt’s mouth looked wet and ugly. Her orange lipstick reminded me of a slab of Velveeta cheese. “They should have given him the death penalty. He should burn for what he did.”

Merry’s shoulder blades dug into my knees as she backed away from Aunt Cilla.

“The children,” Uncle Hal cautioned.

“The children should know. What, are we making it a secret?” Aunt Cilla bent over and shook her finger at us. “You girls have to watch every single thing you do for the rest of your life.”

Mimi Rubee’s tears started up again. She cried so hard all her makeup wore off and she looked old and ruined, but Aunt Cilla kept harping until Uncle Hal said, “Enough.”

“I miss Celeste,” Aunt Cilla sobbed.

“I know, but still, you can’t talk like this,” he said as he rubbed her back. “You’re upsetting everyone.”

“Why are you defending him?”

Uncle Hal sighed and took away his hand. “At least he kept us from having to go through a trial.”

“For that I should be grateful? I’ll be grateful when he’s dead. I want him gassed; I want him sent to the electric chair.”

“No!
Don’t kill my father.
” Merry jumped up and turned to Mimi Rubee. “I want Grandma Zelda. I want to see Daddy.” She ran over and kicked Aunt Cilla. “Grandma will take me and you can’t make her not.”

Everyone stared at Merry as though the chair had spoken and the rug risen up and danced, but I knew this was coming. My sister’s nice-nice package fooled people into thinking that was all she was, but wasn’t it Merry who’d crept closer and closer as my parents fought their last fight? When pushed, Merry eventually always pushed back.

“
Stop that, Merry,
” Aunt Cilla yelled. “
Stop that right now.
”

Merry made two little fists and beat them against her small thighs. “You stop. You stop!
You stop!
” Her voice got louder with each word. “I want to see Daddy. I want to see him. I hate you. And I hate it here!”

“Stop her, Lulu.” Mimi Rubee held her head and rocked. “Make your sister stop.”

I shook my head and held out my palms to indicate helplessness. They had no idea. Merry didn’t go crazy like this too often, but when she did, only Daddy could reach her.
Good luck, Aunt Cilla.

Merry collapsed into a kneeling position, locking her hands in prayer. “Please, please. Take me to Daddy.”

My throat constricted. A need to comfort my sister fought with urges to kill her for doing this, for bringing Daddy into the room. Every night Merry whispered his name to me, wrapping him over us like a blanket before we went to sleep. I could make her do almost anything except stop needing Daddy.

Uncle Hal scooped Merry up, rubbing her back. She kicked out her feet and sobbed. I watched jealously as he crooned to her. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. We’ll get you to see your Daddy. I promise.”

Three months later, Merry’s hand trembled in mine as we walked up the steps to the Duffy-Parkman Home for Girls. I tried to act strong and unconcerned as we climbed the endless granite staircase, listening to our feet thudding. Uncle Hal opened a scarred wooden door, and we stepped into a large hallway surrounded by frosted-glass doors. Scuffed marble lay under our feet. The building seemed so old I thought princesses might once upon a time have roamed the halls.

“This will be okay, girls,” Uncle Hal said.

Sure thing, Uncle Hal.

Not only would it not be okay, it was going to be hideous. I expected zombie schoolgirls in long gray dresses to shuffle out from behind a door any moment, but the hall remained empty and silent. It was a Monday, and I supposed all the girls were in school. Uncle Hal had taken a day off from work, canceling all his dental patients, to bring us here. Aunt Cilla stayed in bed with a wet cloth on her head, pretending we were as dead as Mama and Mimi Rubee, who’d had a stroke and died four weeks ago. We’d lived with Aunt Cilla and Uncle Hal since then.

“Please, can’t we go to Grandma Zelda’s?” Merry whispered as Uncle Hal steered us toward a door marked
ADMINISTRATION
in thick, sinister letters.

“She can’t take care of us and you know it, so stop asking,” I whispered back when Uncle Hal didn’t answer.

“When will she take me to see Daddy again?” Merry asked.

Grandma Zelda had taken Merry to see Daddy once before Mimi Rubee died, and now it had become Merry’s mantra.
Take me to see Daddy, take me to see Daddy.
Each time she said it I hated it more, and I wanted to pinch her until I pinched the desire to see Daddy right out of her soul.