The Other Sister, page 9
No pride, Dad always said. No sense of where he’s from.
“Stacey!” Uncle Pete shouted, like he couldn’t just walk into the store. Or maybe the CLOSED sign was already up. “Stacey!”
Out beyond the green curtain of maple leaves, a screen door creaked and then slammed.
“Jesus H. Christ, Pete! What is your problem?”
“Uh-oh,” whispered Geraldine, and Marie clutched the branch tightly.
Down below, Mom stormed into view, a cloud of cigarette smoke swirling behind her. She wore her work clothes—jeans and blue tennis shoes and a white apron over her T-shirt with the faded sunflower right across the front.
“This is my problem, Stacey!” Uncle Pete flapped the piece of paper in front of her. “This is from your goddamn husband!”
“Are you going to tell me what it is, or are you just going to keep waving it in my face?” She swatted at the paper like it was a moth.
“It’s from a lawyer. Your husband is kicking me out of my house!”
“What the fuck!” Mom snatched the cigarette from her mouth and tossed it to the ground. It bounced off the pop can. Ting.
Geraldine held her breath. Marie did, too. Picking up the litter in the yard was their job. If Mom shouted for them now to come and get this G-D can, she’d see them climb down. They’d be busted. Worse. Their best-ever hiding place would be ruined.
“He bought the property. He’s evicting me!” Pete shoved the paper at her, and this time Mom grabbed it and stared at it. Geraldine inched closer to Marie, slowly, so she wouldn’t shake the branch.
“He wouldn’t. You’re his brother.”
“You think he cares? After what he made you do to Trish, you really think…?”
“Shut up, Pete. This is not about Trish.”
There was a long, grim pause between the two adults. Geraldine nudged Marie’s shoulder, and Marie knew they were both wondering the same thing.
Who’s Trish?
“He knows,” Uncle Pete said. “He figured it out.”
“Of course he didn’t!”
“You sure?” Pete flapped the paper at her again.
A jay screamed in the woods. A crow cawed back. Marie bit her lip. Geraldine leaned against her. Marie wanted to wrap her arm around her sister, but she wasn’t sure of her balance anymore. She didn’t dare let go with even one hand.
Underneath them, Uncle Pete turned his back and marched away, stuffing the paper back in his shirt pocket as he did. Mom hesitated for a split second, and then ran after him.
“Pete, wait.” Squinting through the leaves, Marie could just make out how they stood so close together. Mom had her hand on Uncle Pete’s sleeve.
“Wait for what?” he asked.
“Take me with you,” Mom said. “Let’s do it. Let’s just go.”
Go where? Cold crept into the pit of Marie’s stomach. Understanding threatened, but she forced it away. Geraldine nudged her.
“I can’t,” said Pete.
“Do you want me to say I was wrong? I made a mistake and picked the wrong brother? Okay. I did. I’m sorry.” She walked toward him, hands in her pockets, elbows pointed backward, until she was so close, she had to tilt her chin up to look into his eyes. “Please, Pete. I was a kid. I was confused, about my parents, and Martin said…he said a lot of things.”
“Yeah, you were a kid,” said Pete slowly. “And now we’ve both got kids.”
“We’ll grab them. We’ll leave, right now. Stop at Kmart and get what we need on the way out. He’s in the house messing around with that computer. He won’t even notice we’re gone.”
“Marie…” breathed Geraldine.
Marie squeezed her eyes shut.
“He’d destroy Florence. And he’d find us. You know he would.”
“He’s not God, Pete.”
“Don’t tell him that. Anyway, what about Trish?”
“What about her?”
Pete shook his head. “That’s some kind of answer about your own sister.”
Sister?
“Please, Pete.”
“Mom has a sister?” whispered Geraldine. “Did you know Mom has a sister?”
She can’t have a sister. She never said. Dad never said.
“If you want to leave, Stacey, why don’t you just go? There’s gas in the car. Go on.”
For a second, Marie was sure Mom was going to say something back, but she didn’t.
“See?” said Uncle Pete. “We’re all trapped.”
Uncle Pete climbed back into his truck. The engine started on the third try and he pulled out. Mom stood there for maybe one second longer. Then she reached down and grabbed the pop can and threw it hard after the truck. The girls heard the can hit the blacktop and rattle away. Mom stalked out of sight. The door creaked. The door slammed.
“Okay. Now,” whispered Geraldine. She eased herself down so she could balance her feet on the next branch.
“No, wait,” said Marie.
Creee-ahh-k went the shop door. Slam!
Geraldine froze, stomach braced against the branch, elbows bent into an M.
Below, Mom reappeared. She plopped down into the rusting, white chair with its seashell back and dropped a whole blue and white case of beer beside her.
Oh, no.
Mom yanked out a can of beer, popped the top and put it on the grass so it was ready for her. She dug her pill bottle out of her apron, shook two out onto her palm, paused, and added a third.
Oh, no.
She tossed all three pills into her mouth all at once and tilted her head back for the beer.
Marie edged right up next to Geraldine. Below them, Mom tossed the beer can away and reached for the next.
“Stop her,” breathed Marie right in her sister’s ear.
“I can’t…”
“Stop her! She’ll listen to you. Please, Geraldine. I just make her mad.”
Geraldine swallowed, and nodded. Bending and twisting and shimmying, she worked her way down, keeping to the back of the tree. Marie watched and tried not to feel like a coward.
Mom threw away the second can and reached for a third.
Marie clung to her branch. Down below, Geraldine walked out from behind their tree, easy and natural, like she’d been there the whole time.
“Where’d you come from?” Mom’s voice was already thickening from the pills and the beer.
Geraldine didn’t answer. She just stood there, letting Mom’s foggy attention focus all the way on her.
Marie slid one branch lower.
“Cat got your tongue?” asked Mom.
Geraldine shifted from foot to foot. Marie reached down with one toe to find the fork in the trunks.
“Well, we’ll have to see what we can do about that. How about a story?”
Geraldine nodded. Marie bit her lip and wriggled her sneaker into the fork.
Mom drained the beer and tossed the can away. “Come on, climb up.” She slapped both thighs. “I’ll tell you a good one.”
Geraldine settled down as easily in her mother’s lap as she did in the tree’s crooked branches. Mom must stink from sweat and beer mixed with cigarettes. But the smell was never as bad as the blotchy, greasy anger that seemed to ooze out of her skin.
“Once upon a time,” Mom began slowly. “There was a queen, and she lived in a castle called the Rose House. Its walls were made out of trees and the windows had roses growing on them, and there were fairies living right inside who took care of her and did whatever she said.”
Marie reached the ground. Mom reached for another beer.
“Why did they?” asked Geraldine.
“Why did who what?” snapped Mom.
“The fairies? Why did they do what the queen said?”
“Well, she made them.” Mom paused and took a long drink of beer. “The queen was not a nice lady. She threw all kinds of parties, and that made some people think she was nice. But really, she was mean and selfish and she wouldn’t share what she had, not even with her two daughters. So people hated her, and that included the fairies. And since she went around telling all kinds of lies about people, they hated her even worse.”
“Was there a king?”
Mom sighed, a long, gusty rush of breath that ended in a belch. “Yeah, there was. And he tried, you know? Argued with the queen all the time, but, he just couldn’t get her to be nice. Nobody could. She was too strong. So, they all just had to sit there and hate her and wait for her to make some kind of mistake.”
“Did she?”
“You bet she did. See, she had two daughters.”
Marie slipped down the tree. Her sneaker touched the ground. Geraldine’s eyes flicked left. Marie froze.
“The oldest daughter was just like her mother, only worse,” said Mom. “She was mean and selfish, and wanted everything her own way. The youngest one…she was so beautiful that all the princes wanted to marry her. But that daughter, she had her eye on one prince in particular. He was from a rich kingdom, but they’d lost all their money and they were poor now.”
Marie pressed herself against the tree. She needed to get past without being seen. She could do it. It was all about picking the right minute.
“Then one day, the queen and the king got into an accident and died.”
“What kind of accident?” asked Geraldine.
“Car accident.”
“Kings and queens don’t have cars. They have carriages.”
“Well these had a car. Now shut up, I’m telling the story.”
“Sorry, Mommy.”
“’S okay, G. Anyway. They died, and the old queen left the castle to the older, selfish daughter, the one she really loved. But!” Mom waved the beer can. “The younger daughter, the pretty one, she finally got together with her prince, see? And they made a deal. The prince promised the pr-pretty princess that if they got married they’d find a way to rule both kingdoms. And the pretty…pretty princess promised the pretty, pretty prince they could live in the big castle with the roses and the fairies on account of he loved it soooo much.”
“What about the bad sister?”
“Well, see, the prince, the prince, the prince and the pretty, pretty princess…” Mom’s words slurred, growing distant and mushy. “They had a plan. After they got married…” Mom belched. “After they got married, what they did was they got a bunch of…of guards together to go after the oldest sister. They were going to prove to the guards that she wasn’t just mean, she was crazy. So they would take her away and lock her in the asylum.”
Mom set the beer can down carefully by the chair. She fumbled her apron pocket and pulled out a pack of Virginia Slims and a blue Bic lighter.
“When the bad sister was gone, did the prince and princess live happily ever after?” asked Geraldine.
Mom blew the stinking white cloud up to the sky. “Well, now see, that was the problem. The bad sister, she was smart. Bad people can be. She wrote down a whole set of spells and used them on the guards and the fairies. Then, she barricaded herself into the castle.”
“So what happened to her?”
“Nothing happened to her. She’s still up there.” Mom pointed up the highway with the cigarette held in the V of her fingers. “She just sits there, getting uglier and angrier by the minute. She won’t even talk to the good sister.”
At last, Marie moved, quick and light, smooth and sure. She didn’t break stride, she didn’t look back.
“She’s not even a princess anymore.” Mom’s voice drifted across the summer air.
“What is she?” asked Geraldine.
“Can’t you guess, G? She’s a witch.” There was a pause. Marie slipped into the house. But as the door closed behind her, she heard, “And maybe, baby, what we need is a goddamn witch.”
2.
“Dad?”
Dad’s study was a plain room. The dull white walls had metal-bracketed shelves full of paper and books and binders. There was an electric typewriter on the desk, along with the fat, stacked boxes of the new computer.
“Dad?”
Dad was staring at the glowing green print on the new computer screen and making notes on a legal pad. He didn’t turn around.
“What have I told you, Marie?”
Oh, no. She didn’t think. She messed up. Marie knew exactly what she was supposed to say, but the words had all lumped together in her throat. “Only good girls can come in here.”
Dad clicked a few more keys and made another note on the pad. “And do good girls disturb their fathers when they’re working?”
“No, sir.”
Another few clicks, more shifting and stirring of green numbers on the black screen. A period jabbed into the yellow page.
“Are good girls messy, with dirty hands and tangled hair?”
He knew. He didn’t even have to turn around. Mom said she had eyes in the back of her head, but Dad really did. “I’m sorry, Dad. I’m a bad girl.”
“And I forgive you.” He laid his pencil down and swiveled the chair around. “Because I love you, Marie.”
Marie waited for the warm and fuzzy feeling that usually filled her when he said that. But this time, her stomach stayed cold. “Dad, I’m sorry, I really am. I’ll clean up right away, but…”
“But what, Marie? You look scared. Don’t tell me I scared you?”
“No.” Good girls were never scared of their fathers. She knew that. “It’s Mom. She’s drinking. She’s got a whole case of beer and she took three of her pills.”
“Well, at least the store is closed, so no one will see.”
No one will see. Marie’s stomach turned over. He didn’t understand. Dad had to come out and stop her. If he didn’t, Mom was going to keep drinking. She was going to shout and laugh and throw things, and pass out, maybe right in the yard.
“Geraldine’s out there too,” Marie tried. “She’ll see.”
“Well, then, Geraldine will let us know if anything’s really wrong. You just worry about getting yourself cleaned up, okay?”
Marie was shaking. She shouldn’t be bothering Dad. He was right. It was a mistake to come in here. But she needed…she needed…she didn’t even know what. She wanted to explain how Geraldine was only seven. Not that much more than a baby. How could she tell if something was really wrong?
The venetian blinds rattled and a fresh breeze brushed Marie’s sweating forehead.
The window was open.
She heard the rumble of a car tearing down the hill, and another laboring its way up. If she could hear the traffic, Dad must have heard the shouting. He must have heard the whole argument between Uncle Pete and Mom.
Except he couldn’t have, or he would have come out. He wouldn’t just sit in here, listening.
“Oh, now you look sad, Marie. How about I tell you a secret? Will that cheer you up?”
But before Marie could decide, Dad leaned forward. “I’ve gotten hold of a very valuable piece of land, and I’m going to sell it, and when I do, we’ll have lots of money.” Dad chuckled. “All kinds of other people wanted it first, including my sister, June.”
“Your sister? N-not…” Not Mom’s? Marie swallowed the question just in time. “Uncle Pete?”
“Don’t stammer, Marie. You’re too pretty for that. And I’ve told you, Uncle Pete’s a failure and a lousy manager. He could never afford anything like this.”
Marie had never met Aunt June or Grandma Millicent or any of Dad’s family, except Uncle Pete. There had been some kind of big fight before she and Geraldine were even born. But Dad told stories about Grandma Millicent, like he told them about his father, who was also named Martin and had died a long time ago.
He died, Dad said, because he was a failure. Failure was like a disease, Dad said. If you got infected with it, it would kill you. Boom. Like that.
“When I sell the property, we’ll be able to buy all kinds of things. But that’s not the important part.” Dad held up one finger. “The important part is my family will have to talk to me about the deal. They’ll have to start being nice to us. You and Geraldine are finally going to be part of a real family with a grandmother and aunts and uncles and cousins.”
Dad beamed and it was like all the sunlight in the world poured into the room. The warmth swept straight through Marie and she threw her arms around his neck to hug him. It was only then she realized what land he must mean, and who it must have belonged to.
She felt the weight of her heavy body pull her backward.
“You’re talking about Uncle Pete’s house.”
“It’s not his house,” Dad corrected her gently. “He only rented it. I bought the land it’s built on, and so I own the house, and the lease, and if he can’t pay the rent, he has to leave.”
But…that wasn’t right. Aunt Florence lived there, and Walter was in fourth grade and Ruby had just turned two. Marie had given her a box of crayons. She tried to eat them.
“Smile, baby girl.” Dad made a V with his two fingers and pressed them against Marie’s mouth to push the corners up. “Things are finally going to come together for us.”
This was all wrong. Mom and Uncle Pete. The open window. The way Dad was talking now.
“Why does it have to be that house?” Marie asked slowly. “What about the other house?”
“What other house?”
“The castle. The Rose House. What about that one? Couldn’t you take it from the witch and sell it instead?” Witches were bad. It’d be okay to take her house. At least, it’d be better than taking Uncle Pete and Aunt Florence’s.
Dad sighed. “So, your mom finally told you about that, did she?”
He hadn’t heard after all. Marie felt a rush of relief, but she didn’t know why.
Dad settled back in his chair. “Unfortunately, baby girl, this is one of those complicated grown-up things. The Rose House belongs to your mother’s older sister.”
“How come you never told us Mom has a sister?” You talk about family all the time. Why not her?
Dad sighed again. “How can I explain this, Marie? It’s a bad thing to fight with your family. But, once the fight starts, you have to make sure you win. You see, when we found out you were going to be born, your mother promised you would grow up in the Rose House, like she did. But because your mother wouldn’t fight hard enough, she couldn’t keep that promise. She just walked away and never wanted to talk about it.”
