Two Sisters: A Novel (29 page)

T
HE
N
INETY-SIXTH
S
TREET
subway station arched into the gray sky like a
Star Wars
storm-trooper helmet. Muriel knew the route by heart. She swiped her MetroCard at the turnstile and descended the stairs to the downtown express, getting off at Fourteenth Street. There, she transferred to the L, followed the herd down the stairs and around the corner to the M. She knew everything there was to know about this transital umbilical cord attaching Manhattan to Queens, from the way the train felt like a clothes dryer on the west side of the river, a washing machine on the east, to the acrid smell of the
New York Times
versus the inky aroma of the
Post
. On cold rainy days, the city trains smelled like wet wool. Borough trains smelled of dripping leather. Even the seats were different. Manhattan’s orange row of seating was shaped into the curves of individual asses, a single overspilling passenger disrupted the whole row. Across the river, the long side seating was gray-blue and smooth, always warm from a recent exit.

With Pia’s shopping bag in her hand, Muriel sat on the train in stupefied silence, her lips parted, as if a stranger had walked up and yanked her hair. The neural connection between knowing Pia was gone and actually
feeling
it was clogged with a to-do list: get to Queens, tell Lidia, get back on the train to Grand Central, take the Metro-North to Connecticut, deliver Pia’s gray satin dress. Without resistance, she let the train jostle her from side to side, flopping far over at each stop. The bag made crinkle sounds as it swayed in the grip of her closed fist. It was still early—more people on their way into the city than out—so the eastbound M was nearly deserted. By the time she reached the end of the line, Metropolitan Avenue, the only other person on her subway car was a scruffy post-teen in an oversize sweatshirt, asleep, soon to be on his way back west.

“You can do this,” Muriel muttered to herself for the hundredth time that morning. Her stomach was a tight knot. Her ears buzzed from deep within. It took muscle memory to exit the train and climb the stairs to the street. How, exactly, do you tell a mother that her favorite daughter has died in the night? Do you suggest sitting down first? Have a tissue ready? Would Lidia faint? Bury her weeping face in Muriel’s shoulder? Was it
her
job to be brave?

Muriel’s breath hitched as she walked along the avenue. In the suddenly cooling pre-fall air, some of the leaves in the cemetery to her right were already the color of blood oranges. The sidewalk felt hard beneath Muriel’s thin-soled shoes. Lidia didn’t know she was on her way. She hadn’t called ahead. There were some things you had to do face-to-face, before other walls went up.

Putting one foot in front of the other, Muriel crossed Metropolitan Avenue at the light and made her way to her parents’ row house two blocks away. Lidia would be starting her busy day. Dressed, no doubt, in slacks with a
DRY CLEAN ONLY
tag. Owen would already be gone, his coffee cup rinsed in the sink.

“Mama?”

The front door was unlocked, a carryover from their Rhode Island neighborhood days. Muriel stepped into the silent foyer. In a rush of feelings, her youth surged forward: the ache of not belonging, of being the fifth in a family of four. The third child to parents who wanted only two. She shut her eyes for a moment and pictured herself coming home from school, praying no one would be home so she could slide across the marble tile in her socks, eat peanut butter with a spoon, unsuck her stomach, turn on the TV as loud as she wanted, and watch daytime dramas that were more intense than her own. She could hide in plain sight.

Strong coffee scented the air. Muriel set the shopping bag down beside the door. At the back of the house, Lidia appeared in the arched passageway to the kitchen, drying her hands on a dish towel.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I—” Muriel stopped. Stunningly, she hadn’t planned this far ahead. It had taken all the energy she could amass to get her body this far. Her brain went completely blank. “I’ve come for a visit.”

Lidia said, “Didn’t I just see you?”

“Yes! And wasn’t it fun?” Muriel clamped down her back teeth in embarrassment. Lidia groaned. “You know I hate surprises,” she said flatly.

Following her mother into the family kitchen—a room so familiar she could draw every inch of it with her eyes closed—Muriel noted the white Roman shade covering the window, the stainless-steel side-by-side refrigerator, the glass-topped table, the gleaming KitchenAid mixer in metallic pearl. Lidia had just cleaned up the breakfast dishes; the countertop was still wet from her sponge. Her pressed cream-colored slacks brushed lightly against the tips of her insignia-embossed velvet loafers.

“Is Dad home?” Muriel asked.

“If you’ve come to see him, you wasted a trip. He’s already at work.”

“I came to see you.”

Lidia’s impatient look was unmistakable. “Have a cup of coffee then.”

Sipping her coffee, Muriel sat and stared at her mother as she busied herself shining her kitchen. She sprayed Windex on the glass-fronted cabinets, used her fingernail to scrape a fleck of food off the chrome toaster, then buffed the residue fingerprint with her damp paper towel. “Well?” she said, finally. “Are you going to make me beg you?”

Though it had only been a week earlier, their dinner at Uvarara seemed ages ago. Lidia’s hard edges were back. With her heart thrumming, Muriel set her mug down on the table. She rested her hands flat on her lap and softly said, “I’m afraid I have bad news.”

“You’ve lost your job.”

Lidia’s response was so swift it startled Muriel into asking, “Why would you say that?”

“I knew it was only a matter of time. That’s no job for a maturing woman. Your lesbian boss was sure to hire someone more age appropriate eventually. A teenage intern, perhaps.”

Muriel stared at her mother and blinked.

“No, I haven’t lost my job.”

“You will. Mark my words. Matter of time.”

Lidia leaned her back against the kitchen counter, one hand on her slim hip. “What is it then?” she asked, begrudgingly, as if Muriel’s bad news was an annoying waste of her time. As if she’d be required to muster motherly empathy for which she was in no mood. Not today when she had so many other things to do. Their mother/daughter night out had been a nice change of pace, but that was then. Today, she would have to reschedule her manicure if Muriel didn’t speed things up and get back on the train. The laundry wasn’t going to wash itself.

“I don’t know how to say it, Mama.”

Lidia sighed. “Just say it, Muriel.”

“It’s . . . it’s . . . it’s
Pia
.”

“What about Pia?” Lidia now stood erect. Muriel’s tongue seemed to swell like a waterlogged loaf of bread. She opened her mouth, but words couldn’t make their way around the squishy mass of flesh and taste buds.

“Tell me.” Lidia’s face had turned to stone. “This instant.”

She took a step forward. Muriel’s lips felt slimy. “Will called me this morning,” she sputtered. “Pia has been sick for a while, Mama. She didn’t want anyone to know. She made me promise. I noticed how pale she was, and thin, when I saw her. But I didn’t really
see
it. Know what I mean? I didn’t understand how bad it was.”

Tight lipped, Lidia said, “You told me she was fine. I asked you if you’d seen her.”

“I did see her in Connecticut the same day I saw you. She said her treatments had worked. She was sure the worst was over. Will said it happens that way sometimes. One final rally. But last night, in her slee—”

Without warning, Lidia reached her hand back, swung it around, and slapped Muriel hard across the face. “Liar!” she shouted. A shocked Muriel held her burning cheek.

“How dare you.” Lidia’s voice was a carving knife.

“I know you’re upset.”

“This is low even for you.”

“Mama, did you hear what I said? Pia passed away last night.”

“Shut up! You’ve always been jealous of your sister. Did you think I didn’t see that? What, you thought I was blind?”

Her mouth hanging open, Muriel didn’t know what to say. Her cheek was hot, her chest burned. Hatred flared red in her mother’s eyes. Lidia declared, “I might have expected something like this from you. You’ve always been a liar.”

Muriel sucked in a breath. She closed her mouth, lowered her hand to her lap. “I’m not lying.”

“Even as a child you couldn’t be trusted. Lies. Always lies. Trying to make me believe you saw things that you didn’t see. Trying to ruin my life with your lies. Who do you think you are? Special? You’re no one special, believe me.
Pia
is special. You’re as common as dirt. Look at you. Your fingernails, your hair. Or, I have a better idea. Look at your
self
in a mirror, Muriel. Know what you’ll see? A
liar
.”

Stone faced, Muriel said, “You think I
want
to be telling you this?”

Lidia turned her back. The air in the kitchen was again misted with Windex as she furiously resprayed all the shiny surfaces around her. She ripped paper towels off the vertical roll on the counter and wiped so hard they balled into a damp wad of pulp. Muriel could still feel the imprint of her mother’s hand on her cheek, the sting of the slap. With the taste of ammonia on her tongue, she said slowly and carefully, “I never was a liar and you know it.”

“That in itself is a lie.”

Muriel stood up. The chair scraped across the floor. “Turn around, Mother.”

In ever-larger circles, Lidia polished the countertops.

“I said, ‘Turn around.’ ”

Defiantly, Lidia spun around. Chin lifted, she said, “What are you going to do? Hit me?”

Muriel wanted to. She longed to feel the tug in her rotator cuff as she reached back, then swung around and smacked that smug look off her mother’s face. She hungered to see Lidia’s neat hair spill over her eyes, feel the residue of wrinkle cream on the palm of her hand. The thrill of watching Lidia bite down on her lower lip, leaving a mauve rim of lipstick on the edge of her upper teeth, excited her. She pictured a handful of paper towels falling to the spotless floor as she waited, still as a stone, for a red welt to blossom on her mother’s cheek. She would watch it flower, bit by bit, like an opening rose. Yes, that’s what she wanted to do.
Itched
to do. But she didn’t. Controlling every syllable out of her mouth, Muriel said, “I saw you. You know I saw you. And you also know I never told
anyone
about you and Father Camilo.”

“Shut up, Muriel.”

“I won’t shut up. I’m sick of shutting up. I’m
done
shutting up. I won’t lie for you anymore. I don’t care if everyone knows the truth: Dad, Will, Emma, the church.”

Lidia’s cheeks flushed hotter. “Damn you to hell.”

“Damn me?” Muriel laughed. “That’s a joke, right? It wasn’t
me
having sex with a priest.”

Lidia reached back to slap her daughter again, but this time, Muriel was ready. She caught her mother’s wrist with her hand and squeezed it, both women shaking from head to toe.

“No one will believe you,” Lidia said viciously. “I documented your past as a liar. It’s all written down.”

“Ah, yes. Your journal.” She tossed her mother’s wrist back at her. “Very clever, Mama. The way you left that out for Pia to find. It kept me quiet for a long time.
Hurt
me for a long time. But not anymore. You know what? I don’t
care
if anyone believes me. Let them question me, hook me up to a lie detector test. I have nothing to hide. You want to take a lie detector test with me, Mama? Do you? A family outing! We’ll get our nails done first!

“My days of keeping everybody’s secrets are
over
. The bats are out of the cave! Pia had cancer. You had an affair with Father Camilo. Dad was—is?—probably seeing someone, too. Your whole marriage is a joke. There’s never been any
real
love there. Did Logan find out? Is that why he escaped from our family the moment he could, and never came back? I don’t even
know
my own brother! Our family is nothing but lies. But not me. Not anymore. Hallelujah, Lord! The truth has set me free.”

Sucking in a lungful of air, Muriel blew it out hard. “Ahhh,” she said, “I feel lighter already. Imagine that, Mama. Me. Feeling
light
.” With that, Muriel wheeled around and stomped out of the spotless kitchen to the front door, grabbing the shopping bag with Pia’s burial dress. She’d made a promise to her sister. A promise she was going to keep.

Chapter 29

D
EATH IS A
part of life. What a bullshit platitude. Death is so permanently entrenched in its own nonbeingness, the word “life” shouldn’t be uttered anywhere near it. It isn’t even the
end
of life. It’s the beginning of forever being gone. A journey for the deceased . . . maybe. Desertion for the living? Absolutely. Death is an abandoned child at the mall—in Times Square—all she can do is clutch at her shirt to contain her heartbeats while she scans each silhouette, waiting, until darkness comes.