What She Left Us (24 page)

Jenna
threw money at the taxi driver and rushed into the front door of her mother’s
house. Mitch was in the family room, half asleep in the dark with his eyes
closed, a book in his lap.

“Where
is she, what happened? Where’s Courtney?” The plane ride had Jenna all in a
jumble, she was a frenzied tornado of nerves, couldn’t control her emotions and
finally, the tears erupted. “What’s happening?!”

“Hey,
hey,” Mitch stood up, shook off the sleep that had taken over, and grabbed
Jenna by the shoulders. “She’s upstairs sleeping finally.”

“She’s
asleep?” It was like Jenna couldn’t grasp the concept. Was her sister dying?
How could her sister sleep when something horrible was happening to her? What
was
going on? She needed to know.

“I
need to see her now!” Jenna shook herself away from Mitch and made her way
toward the stairs, but Mitch reached for her.

“Wait,
Jenna! I think you should let her sleep for a while. I don’t think she’s slept
since Wednesday. I came right after I had Thanksgiving dinner with my family… I
brought her some sleeping pills of my mom’s and she’s finally getting some
rest.”

“What
the fuck Mitch! You left her alone! She was alone for Thanksgiving?! Why wasn't
she with you!? You pull me away from… you call me with an
emergency,
tell me something horrible has happened, and I rush here. I left everything
behind, everything! Darren was going to propose tonight! I’m here! And now
you’re telling me she needs to sleep! That’s bullshit!”

Mitch
was silent for a second, trying to figure out what he should do; he knew Courtney
needed to sleep, but he also knew Jenna needed to know what was going on, yet
he didn’t feel he was the one to tell her.

“Jenna,
you’re tired, why don’t we all try to get some sleep and talk in the morning.”

“No
Mitch. Look, I don’t even know what you’re doing here if she was already alone!
Why are you even here?”

“You
may not care, and I don't know why you don't like me very much, but I love
Courtney, and she wants me here now, so that’s why I’m here.” He paused a
moment, then continued. “On Wednesday, she told me to go to be with my family.
I didn't want to leave her, but she had to do some things on her own. But I'm
back now and I'm not going anywhere.”

Jenna
stared at Mitch for a long time; she felt her heart racing and her hands
shaking.

“Tell
me then, why am I here and not in Florida getting engaged? Why am I here Mitch?
What’s wrong with my sister? She doesn’t have hemochromatosis but I do? So
that’s just great! Just great! Why am I here Mitch? Tell me!”

“You
really want to know? You don’t want to hear it from Courtney?”

“Really,
Mitch.
Really
.”

“Put
two and two together Jenna. You’re a smart girl. You’ve got hemochromatosis and
she doesn’t.”

Jenna
stared blankly at Mitch.

“Jenna.
It’s a hereditary disease.
Hereditary
.”

Jenna’s
face slackened as the realization of Mitch’s words sunk in.

My
sister.

Courtney
pulled herself out of the dream she was soaking in. In it, she was flying. She
was flying above the puffiest of clouds and carrying a baby, and she’d never
felt warmer or so alive, and the baby was giggling and smiling, the brightest
smile ever. The sun was warming her and the baby, and as they were flying, they
were racing colorful birds and swooping circles around them.

Then,
her sister was there, but she wasn’t flying, she was pulling her out from the
clouds, making her come down, telling her to wake up, to “wake up Courtney, wake
up Courtney” but she didn’t want to wake up because she loved the little baby
she was flying with and she hadn’t felt this good and warm and worry-free in such
a long time, that she nudged Jenna away. She wanted to fly with the baby and
the colorful birds a while longer. She thought it would be fun to play in some
fluffy clouds and make the baby giggle some more.

“Court,
honey, baby, wake up, it’s me, Jenna.”

Then
she woke up and remembered.

And
she began to cry. Heavy sobs at the memory of what she’d discovered. That she
wasn’t who she was, that she didn’t know who she was, that her sister –
was
this her sister? –
was here, her beautiful sister who she’d loved forever,
was right here but now she didn’t even know who she was.

“Oh
baby, Court, it’s okay, it’s okay, everything is going to be all right,” Jenna
crooned and stroked her head.

“Jenna,
what’s happening? Did you know? You’re not my sister?”

“Oh
my gosh, no. Don’t say that, no matter what, we are sisters. Nothing that
happened will take that away from us. Ever.”

“Mom
didn’t have me. She’s not my mom. She wasn’t my mommy,” Courtney wept harder.
“There are pictures of her pregnant with you, but not with me. I was adopted. I
must have been. But why? None of this makes sense.”

“Court,
honey, we’ll figure this out. There has to be an explanation. But remember
this. You and I have always been sisters.
Always.
From the day you came
into my life. I remember the first time I ever held you. I loved you the minute
I saw you. You’ve always been my sister, and Mommy was always our Mom. Okay?
You cannot ever forget that.”

Jenna
pulled the crocheted blanket they used to make forts with up close over their
bodies, and they huddled together under it.

Was
it true, did it really not matter where Courtney came from, and why she was
adopted?
Of course not
, Jenna thought. She was her sister, had been her
whole life, but she wondered how Courtney felt, and what they would discover.

Courtney
sniffled and Jenna pulled her sister closer to her. Mitch appeared in the
doorway and asked if they needed anything.

“We’re
okay,” Jenna said.

Courtney,
held close to her sister, craned her neck and said, “Thanks for being here
Mitch.”

“Of
course, baby,” he said. “I’ll let you two get some sleep.”

Jenna
said, “Mitch, I’m sorry, thank you for taking care of my sister. I know you
love her.”

“I
do, I truly do,” he said, and then closed the door behind him.

After
he left, Courtney said to Jenna, “What are we going to do? I can’t not know.
I’ve gone through all Mom’s things. I can’t find anything.”

“I’m
not sure. But I think we’re going to have to call Dad.”

“I
thought that’s what you were going to say,” Courtney said.

“We’ll
call after we get back to school. And we’ll probably have to go see him over winter
break. He’ll have to tell us.”

Back
at school, Courtney's mood was solemn. While it seemed like nothing had changed
on the outside, everything had changed. Courtney fell into a silence that was
so out of character for her, even the students on the dorm floor noticed. They
were quiet and rule-abiding, not causing their usual commotion, or maybe they
were simply preparing for exams. Courtney was keeping to herself and she found
she couldn't express herself. She couldn't make sense of anything, because
nothing in her life made sense any longer. She didn’t want to talk to Jenna
about her feelings, couldn’t talk to Mitch. Because she didn’t know how she was
feeling, she didn’t know what she was feeling.

It
was inexplicable.

She
and Jenna agreed to wait until after her semester exams to call their father,
which, seemed pretty funny to Courtney because he wasn’t even really her
father?

Or
was he? Maybe she was an illegitimate love child and they had taken her in as a
sad story. Maybe she was left on their doorstep by a teenage mother late one
night and her parents felt sorry for the squawking baby laying there in a
basket of day-old newspapers so they kept her. Maybe they had tried for another
baby diligently for years, only to discover they were infertile the second time
around. After all, she and Jenna were five years apart, and maybe they couldn’t
have another child, so they’d adopted her. And maybe her mother really wanted
her, but her father hadn’t, and she caused such stress in their otherwise quiet
and calm family of three that their marriage had experienced such turmoil that
her parents had divorced over the arrival of her.

She
remembered stories of being a sickly child. Maybe she had been too much of a
troubled child for her parents to handle. Maybe she was never wanted, and she
was the cause of all that had devoured her parent’s marriage. The thought of
her ruining everything her family could have been further plummeted her into a deep
depression. She was becoming more and more withdrawn, wasn’t attending classes,
couldn’t study, was barely eating. When she would spend time with Mitch, she
would lie on his bed and sob. This was not the Courtney anyone knew. But who
was the Courtney before? Even she didn’t know.

It
was killing her. And although she and Jenna had agreed to make the phone call
to their dad together, one night, when Mitch was practicing with his newly
formed band, and Jenna was at Klippy’s working, she looked up her father’s number.
It had been almost a year since she last saw him and she hadn’t talked to him
since shortly after her mom died.

The
phone rang three times before his wife answered.

“It’s
Courtney, is my dad there please?”

Jenna
tried to get back into a normal schedule, but she didn’t know what normal was supposed
to be. After finding out Courtney was adopted, but not really knowing anything
more, she had called Darren immediately, and while he had been understanding
and confused by the news, she had feared something had been lost by her leaving
Florida when she had. But what else could she have done? It was a family
emergency, she had told him again.

“What
would you have done?” Jenna pled into the phone.

“I
guess I would have done the same thing,” Darren admitted to Jenna.

“Of
course you would have, because you love your family too,” Jenna said.

“Yeah,”
Darren agreed.

“Yes.
See, I had to leave.”

“I
understand,” Darren said. “How is Courtney dealing with all of this?”

“She’s
a mess; we both are. Will you be back in six weeks?” Jenna asked.

“Maybe,”
Darren replied.

Jenna
didn’t like how short Darren was being with her. How could he possibly be angry
at her for leaving like she did? How could he not understand that family came
first.

She
ended the call by telling him that he knew where she was when he was ready to
get his priorities in order.

“That’s
what I’ve been telling you all this time,” Darren said.

“You
can’t be serious, this is my sister. It's devastating news.”

He
sighed. Jenna imagined Darren pulling his fingers through his hair, shaking his
head. “I know. Look, this training is taking a toll on me. Maybe I’m just
exhausted. Maybe I need these next six weeks to focus. Then we’ll see.”

They
said goodbye and she clicked her phone to off.
Then we’ll see
? That’s
all she was at this point to him? A flippant
then we’ll see
. Jenna was
so tired of their back-and-forth and never getting it right with one another
that she said out loud, “We’re done!” forgetting that she was in the back room
at Klippy’s.

“More
love troubles?” Clay asked, coming up behind her with a stack of glasses.

“Ugh,
you have no idea. It’s like that boy and I are only on the same page when we’re
on the same page. In the same room. It sucks.”

“Sorry
to hear that.” Clay inched past Jenna, brushing against her. “Can you grab that
other stack of glasses back there?”

“Sure,
sorry I’ve been moping. I’ve got other stuff on my mind too.”

“Anything
I can help with?” Clay asked.

“Maybe,
but it’s not for during work discussion.”

“Beers
after?”

“Sure.”

Clay
and Jenna worked side-by-side all afternoon serving beers and burgers, and it
was the perfect distraction for Jenna. She didn’t think about Darren all that
much, and she didn’t worry about what Courtney might have been worrying about
at the moment. She concentrated on getting her orders right, and at smiling at
her customers and bringing ketchup to the tables when asked, and making sure
not to spill beers. Before she knew it, it was six o’clock and her shift was
over.

As
she was pulling her apron off and moving toward a bar stool next to Clay, she
said, “That was actually the most enjoyable time I’ve had in like forever, and
I was working. Is that pathetic or what?”

“Things
must be really sucking for you?” he smiled, and that smile brought Jenna back
to the first time she met him, how nice he had been to her, how he had made her
feel so comfortable and welcome. She remembered how he had gone out of his way
to help her get this job, and find such a great apartment. She was so thankful
to him, for if not for him, she wouldn’t be able to be so close to Courtney,
and here is where she needed to be, now more than ever.