Harlem Sunset, page 12
Louise was grateful help had arrived in time. She couldn’t have been the reason she had lost another sister.
Josie looked toward her, saying nothing, a little grimace on her face. Louise could feel her father staring at her, fury on his face. She couldn’t look at him. She had been so careful not to do anything that might lead to seeing him. She changed her church times; she moved. She didn’t want to see him, and she knew he didn’t want to see her.
She always felt awkward being near her father.
But she also couldn’t stay away forever.
She avoided his gaze for a long time. She went over to Josie’s bed and kissed her sister’s forehead. She squeezed Josie’s hand gently. Josie watched as she did so, not saying anything. It was as if no one wanted to say a word. What was she supposed to say to the sister who had just tried to kill herself in front of her?
And Josie, still surly, still hungover, in insurmountable anguish, had nothing to offer.
It was something of a stalemate.
It was Minna, predictably, who broke the silence. “Josie, love, you have to be more careful. We can’t lose you too.”
Louise wondered how her family would spin this. There was the family truth and the public truth, and she knew this family truth couldn’t get out. Most of her didn’t want to know it.
She stayed near Josie’s side, making small circles on the back of her own hand. She resisted climbing into the bed with her sister to stroke her hair, like she had when they were kids. She swallowed hard.
She had the faintest inkling that she could have prevented this.
“Louise, may I please talk to you outside?”
Her father’s voice was cold. She didn’t have to do what he asked her to do, but she did, pulling herself up, dusting off her skirt, and following him out to the hallway.
She was grateful for the fact that her father would never make a scene in a public place. He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her into an empty room. She yanked her wrist away and crossed her arms, rising to her full five foot two.
“What?”
She was going to make this as quick as possible. She could tell he wanted to make it quick too. It was in the way he looked at her. His stare was full of anger seething just below the surface.
“You know that’s not how you address me.”
“If you were my father, I wouldn’t. But you disowned me and made it clear you’re not my father. I’ll address you however I want.” Louise couldn’t believe she had talked to him like that.
He grabbed her by the shoulders. She pulled herself away. He was scowling, and she saw so much of Josie in him. Louise knew that she was a dead ringer for her late mother, down to the odd muddy hazel of her eyes. She knew that was why her father resented her. He cleared his throat. She was not going to let him intimidate her.
“You need to stop seeing her. After your mother—”
Joseph never called Janie by her name. If he mentioned her at all, it was as “my late wife” or “your mother.” Louise had always thought that was odd.
“What about my mother?” Louise asked.
She was on high alert. He rarely mentioned her, and every time he did, she learned something new. Joseph swallowed and actually managed to look contrite.
“She didn’t die in childbirth.”
He didn’t look at Louise as he spoke. She felt her entire body go cold with this realization.
She had blocked out her mother’s death so long ago. Those days following the birth of Josie and Celia, the hazy summer days that turned into nights while Janie fought. She didn’t know? How could she have known? She had a sister and two infants to care for. She had been busy.
“She did it to herself.”
Louise shivered, unable to process the information she now had.
Louise cleared her throat and changed the subject back to the present. “Josie is going to get better. Then I’m going to move her in with me. She doesn’t need your brand of help.” She glared at her father, the man she had come from, with renewed anger within her. “You’ll never see either of us again.”
It would be easier said than done, but she wanted the best for her sister.
And it was something she should have done years ago.
“I’ll need her things packed up.”
“How are you going to support her?”
She didn’t have an answer for this. She inhaled. “Better than you could.”
* * *
• • •
MINNA AND LOUISE stood side by side long after their father had left. Josie was curled up in the bed. The nurse on shift had tried to convince Minna and Louise to go. Louise wanted to stay. She would stay with Josie for as long as she could.
Ultimately, the two elder Lloyd sisters decided to switch shifts. Minna had a husband and child; Louise had an investigation. But none of that mattered.
Louise turned to her sister. Minna was the prettiest Lloyd sister: she had wide brown eyes fringed with impossibly long lashes set in a heart-shaped face. Even months pregnant, Minna carried herself with a grace and poise that Louise never could muster.
“Did you know?”
“Know what?” Minna asked. She kept her voice low.
They weren’t actually sure Josie was fully asleep, but her eyes were closed and her breathing was even. Louise took Minna’s arm and pulled her from the room, closing the door so there was no chance Josie would hear.
“That Mother killed herself,” Louise said.
Of course Minna couldn’t have known. She was all but seven or so when Janie had died.
“That’s what he just told me. How could he not say anything?”
“He probably didn’t want to hurt us,” Minna said.
That was something else Louise couldn’t fathom: Minna had a good relationship with their father. It stung, knowing that Minna was the daughter Joseph always needed, whereas on the Lloyd family tree Louise was the black mark relegated to cautionary-tale status.
“You know how you get.”
“If you’re saying I’m acting irrationally, I will slap you,” Louise snapped. She regretted the threat the moment she made it.
Minna took a small step back, frowning at Louise. “I can’t remember much about then.”
“We didn’t even see her. I tried. I wanted to get into bed with her,” Louise said.
The memories hurt. She couldn’t remember her last time with her mother alive, but she remembered the gale-force screaming and heartbreakingly eerie silence that followed.
Louise tried not to think about Janie’s death. If she focused on it for too long, she would find herself resenting the woman for not wanting the life she had chosen.
But maybe it was more complicated than that.
“All I wanted to do was see if the twins would squeeze my finger. Aunt Louise wouldn’t let me get close.” Minna frowned.
“Aunt Louise wasn’t there,” Louise said. “Didn’t she come later?”
The events of the summer of 1910 were long ago and hazy in Louise’s memory. But she was never going to say that Minna was right about something. That would go against everything she stood for.
“Yes, she was,” Minna said. She inhaled as if she were about to give a ten-minute speech about why she was right, but stopped herself. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is Josie right now.” It was hard to focus on anything else. “We can’t lose Josie too.”
Louise nodded solemnly. “I know.”
This was their job as older sisters. They were protectors; they were caretakers. And Louise wished she had done a better job with Celia.
Every day, she was reminded that Celia’s death had been directly her fault. Josie’s state was her fault too, a direct result, and she knew it.
Sometimes when Louise couldn’t sleep, she thought about the woman Celia would have been. She was always charming and boisterous. She would have made the world bend toward her every whim. Josie had the same fire, although it was unused in the other twin.
Louise needed a cigarette, but the last time she had tried to smoke in the hospital, Nurse Cristina had yelled at her. It had been traumatizing enough to almost make Louise stop for good.
“I’m not letting her go back to that place, that house.”
“Do you have a plan, Louise?” Minna asked.
Stupid question. Louise never had a plan. She, in fact, prided herself on moving from impulse to impulse like some toddler who was easily distracted.
“No, but she’s not going back to him.”
This was something she should have done ages ago, but up until the past few months, she had been living in a boardinghouse with no space and not enough money to take care of both of them.
“He’s not that bad,” Minna said.
“He is killing her.” Louise’s voice dropped to a whisper. “She isn’t flourishing. She can’t go back.”
She knew that they shouldn’t be discussing Josie’s fate and future without the girl in question. Louise should have asked Josie what she wanted. But she wanted to make her own stance clear.
“I don’t care if you’re with me or against me, but I am not losing another sister.”
Minna looked taken aback. She didn’t reply for a moment, but she swallowed hard, placed her hand on her swelling stomach, and nodded.
For once, Louise was right. She fought the urge to smirk in the same condescending way Minna did. “We are going to see her through this, no matter what.”
For the first time in about a decade and a half, they were working together instead of against each other. They were united in their cause, for their sister, as they should have been.
Josie was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling when they reentered her room. “Thought you left.” Her voice cracked on the sentence.
Louise looked at her sister’s bandaged wrists.
“We’re staying here with you.” Minna moved closer to the bed, and sat on the one uncomfortable chair. “You’ll be better soon.”
Louise hoped that was true.
22
LOUISE STAYED BY Josie’s side as she recovered. The doctor wanted her to stay a little longer, until he was sure Josie wouldn’t try something like this again.
She sat by Josie’s side for hours, long after visiting hours were finished, long after her family left. She wanted to prove to her sister that she would always be there for her.
Josie didn’t say much of anything while she was in the hospital. Nurse Cristina checked in on her multiple times a day, bringing contraband sodas, makeup, and candy for Josie to entertain herself with. Louise loved watching the nurse interact with her sister; they laughed and talked as if they were old friends.
And she realized that she missed having that relationship with her sister.
At night, Louise climbed into bed with Josie, wrapping her arms around her sister’s little body. She hadn’t realized how little Josie was until she saw her in the hospital bed. Even more, she looked frail. Her hair was stringy, her skin greasy. And she had never seen Josie be this unnervingly quiet.
Two nights after the incident, Louise was still thinking about what her father had told her about her mother. The thoughts only made her want to hold her sister closer. Everything could be put on pause, the case, her relationship.
She missed her mother, and now she was angrier at Janie than she ever had been. Louise knew that it was unfair to be angry at the person who was dead, but she had needed her mother.
“Hey, Sunshine?” Louise’s voice cracked.
Josie rolled over so she was lying on her back. That was as much of a response as Louise was going to get. She did have to wonder what Josie was thinking about. Josie had always been a thinker; Celia had always been the talker. Celia talked enough for the two of them. Josie was still getting used to having to speak up.
“I’m gonna tell you something, but it’s a secret.”
“What?” Josie asked.
“I want to tell you this because I trust you.”
“Tell me.” Josie’s voice hissed out into the quiet room around them.
Louise closed her eyes. She buried her nose in her sister’s hair. If she could tell her sister this, she could feel better.
“You know why I never got married like Minna?”
“Because men don’t like you.”
“Yes, but more important, I don’t like men.”
She thought she was being overheard as she said it. The idea was ridiculous; it was past midnight and everyone else was asleep. There were nurses on the night shift; one passed by every forty minutes to make sure Josie didn’t need anything.
Louise took a deep breath, closing her eyes and pulling Josie as close as she could. “I love women.” Saying it out loud was facing something she never had before. She knew this about herself; she had recognized it early on. “I love Rosa Maria the way women are supposed to love men.”
Josie turned to her. In the darkness of the room, her green eyes seemed electric bright. She curled into Louise’s torso. “Why are you telling me this?”
Louise rested her chin on Josie’s head. For a moment, they didn’t say or do anything; their breathing fell into sync. The moonlight spilled into the room from the little window on the wall near the bed.
“Because I want you to know that whatever you choose to do, whoever you choose to be, I will not love you any less. Ever, Sunshine. I promise.”
She could have been a better sister. She knew that. There were so many things she could have done better. But the past was the past, and she had to focus on the future.
Josie didn’t say anything to this. Louise felt as if she had ripped out her own heart and laid it on the table.
But if Josie was surprised, she hid it well. “Why are you here, then?”
“I am spending time with my baby sister. I’m gonna move you in with me, okay? You don’t need to be in that house anymore.”
Josie exhaled, a long, deep breath with which all the air left her little body. Louise had never felt closer to her sister than she did now.
“You love her?”
What a loaded question. If only Josie knew. Louise closed her eyes and tried to get herself to relax. “Yeah, I do.”
“Good.”
That was her younger sister, nonjudgmental. Louise thought about when she had moved into Miss Brown’s house, across from Rosa Maria’s room. She thought about how her heart had fluttered in her chest the moment they had met.
And now look at them.
“Louise, I don’t wanna die.” Josie’s voice was so quiet, her lips didn’t move.
It was strange, being awake when everyone else was asleep. Even the normal bustle of the city had dulled down to a small murmur of activity. Louise would usually be out at a club now, but she couldn’t think of anyplace more important to be than here with Josie.
“I know, Sunshine.”
“I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“Only a little longer.” Louise was reminded that when the twins were children, they were champions at whining to get their way.
But now Josie just seemed scared, and Louise couldn’t blame her.
This world was big and Josie was so small. There was no way Louise was going to be able to save her sister from everything horrible in the world.
Josie fell into a soft sleep, one in which she snored lightly, and her side rose up and down.
Louise was going to have to try to protect her from everything.
* * *
• • •
“WE NEED TO talk,” Rosa Maria said.
Louise was pulling late nights at the hospital. By the time she got back to the apartment the next morning, Rosa Maria was awake, smoking and drinking coffee. Louise’s dress was crinkled from sleeping in it. She could feel her breath and knew her hair was out of place. She was exhausted; the hospital bed really wasn’t made for two people. She had been awarded a couple of strange looks on the route home. But she didn’t care. We need to talk were the four words that set panic through her body. But she was too tired to defend herself. She didn’t want to spend the day screaming at Rosa Maria.
“I don’t want to fight.” Louise closed her eyes.
“I don’t want to fight either,” Rosa Maria said.
Louise sank into the chair opposite Rosa Maria, pressing her cheek to the table. It was cold and she felt as if she could fall asleep right on the table, right there. She propped her chin on her fists and looked up at Rosa Maria. All at once, she swallowed her fear and doubts down. She got up and pressed her lips to Rosa Maria’s, lingering for as long as she could.
“I love you,” Louise said when she pulled away.
This was who they were. They had functioned for years without grand declarations of love. And they didn’t need them anyway.
“You can never lie to me again.”
“I won’t.” She meant it. She really, really meant it.
“You have a telegram. Looks official.”
Louise picked it up. It was her police summons. She was due in two days at ten in the morning. She stared at the typed words. She didn’t want to face Detective Martin.
She knew what this meant. She was falling behind. The police knew something she didn’t know. She was going to be arrested. She had failed herself and Rosa Maria.
And she was convinced that someone was watching her.
She hadn’t been able to think about the case in days. She hadn’t been able to think about anything but Josie.
“You haven’t seen anyone around the apartment, have you?” Louise got up and poured herself a cup of coffee. She took a long sip, and let the caffeine do its thing.
“No.” Rosa Maria drew the word out as if she was unsure of something.
