A Long Thaw (21 page)

Following Abby’s example, Juliet kneels in front of Bernadette’s casket and crosses herself. She hasn’t been in a church since she was thirteen, but it all comes back, the thoughtless rituals of her childhood. She clasps her hands and mumbles the Lord’s Prayer. She has never seen a dead body before and it makes her think of Abby lying on the floor in their apartment, so still and pale. Juliet shivers, crosses herself again, and goes to join the others.

The room is split up by gender. Uncle Henry is the only one who appears to be welcome in both groups and he wanders back and forth like an ambassador. The main topic of conversation seems to be how good Bernadette looks. Juliet nods along, unable to look Abby in the eye for fear they’ll start laughing. As far as Juliet’s concerned, Great-aunt Bernadette does not look like she just fell asleep there at the front of the room. She looks dead.

Dorothy and Patricia have booked a hotel.

‘That’s silly,’ Nana says. ‘I have two empty rooms.’

‘We wouldn’t want to put you out.’

‘Dotty, please. It would be nice to have the company. We never see each other anymore.’

Juliet remembers the two women vaguely. They seem confused as to which great-niece is which. Juliet doesn’t know whether to attribute this to age or lack of contact. They’re all in their eighties but Nana’s still sharp and Aunt Bernadette was a spitfire to the end.

They seem to have settled the disagreement about the hotel and they sit in some folding metal chairs by the window. Aunt Rachel sits with them. Abby and Juliet hover, unwilling to make a commitment. Standing, they can leave at any moment. They’re neither included nor excluded from the conversation.

‘It must have happened quickly,’ Aunt Dorothy offers.

‘That
is
a comfort,’ Nana agrees.

‘She does look so peaceful.’

Juliet presses her lips together as her eyes dart, against her will and better judgement, towards Abby. But Abby doesn’t return her gaze: she’s looking past Juliet, over her shoulder. She’s frowning.

Juliet turns and her heart sinks. Her father walks towards them, wearing a charcoal grey suit and a shiny tie.

‘It’s good to see you,’ he says to Juliet.

‘Is it?’ Juliet’s angry that she has let herself be caught off guard.

He moves past her to hug each of the older women in turn, holding his mother longer and whispering into her ear. He goes to the casket and kneels in front of it, repeating the old ritual, and Juliet wonders if it holds any more meaning for him than it had for her.

When she’d seen him at the hospital, Juliet was momentarily transported into the past. The echo of the girl she used to be had reverberated inside her chest.
Daddy
. He walked towards her with his arms open, like in her old dreams. She remembers thinking that he would fix everything now, an idea that shattered into pieces as her face made contact with the hospital floor.

Not that it would have been different if he’d caught her. The impact simply brought her back to reality. He wasn’t anybody’s hero. They’d sat in the waiting room together without speaking. From opposite corners of the room, they watched Abby’s parents huddled in a silent embrace. She didn’t know what to say to them, but could think of nowhere else to go. She hadn’t known if Allen was staying for his sister or for her. Finally, she went to the restroom, and when she returned, he was gone.

Juliet bends in front of her grandmother. ‘I’m going to go.’

Nana nods. ‘Thank you so much for coming.’

Juliet kisses her cheek. Abby gives her a sympathetic smile as she walks by.

In the entryway of the funeral home, Juliet searches a rack for her coat. Nearly all of them are black or navy and it slows her down. She considers leaving it, but even for April it’s cold. Besides, leaving it would be stupid, more of a win for Allen. It’s bad enough that she’s letting him chase her off. She looks through the coats with a stubborn determination.

‘You don’t have to go,’ he says, standing a few feet away.

‘I do.’ She doesn’t look up. Flustered, she starts back at the beginning of the rack. It has to be in here.

‘Let me help you.’ He steps closer.

‘You don’t even know what my coat looks like,’ she says, annoyed, as if it’s symbolic of the larger issue.

For a moment there’s just the metal on metal of the hangers sliding along the rack.

‘Can we go somewhere and talk?’ he asks.

‘No.’ She finds her coat then, finally. She yanks it loose and starts to shove her arms inside.

He reaches out, as if to help her.

‘Back off,’ she says, through her teeth, locking eyes with him for the first time. Her grandmother is in the other room with her sisters – alive and dead – just past an open doorway. She refuses to make a scene.

She pushes out of the door and feels a rush of freedom in the bitter cold. She gets to her car before he comes out after her, wearing his coat.

‘Juliet. Please wait.’

She scoffs at this as she shoves her key into the lock. She pulls the car door open and turns to him. ‘Why?’

‘To talk. Let’s just go get some coffee.’

‘You want to buy me a coffee,
Daddy
?’ She smiles cruelly. ‘While I buy your bullshit?’

He sighs and casts his eyes to the pavement. ‘I know there’s nothing I can say to excuse it.’

‘No. There isn’t.’ She turns to get into the car, then turns back. ‘Remember the night you came to say goodbye?’

Allen looks up. ‘Of course I do.’

‘Do you remember what you said?’ Juliet doesn’t wait for him to answer. ‘You sat on my bed and promised I’d see you soon. You
promised
.’

‘Deirdre told me to stay away. She had custody. She had the power.’

‘And how do you explain the last five years, then? I’m twenty-three, or did you lose track?’

‘Juliet.’

‘What? You left us. With
her.
A drunk without a job. You walked away from us then. What’s different? What do you want from me now?’

‘I want you to know how sorry I am. I want to try to make things right somehow.’

‘You can’t.’ Juliet sets her jaw and pauses. ‘You have two other daughters, though. And they may still want a father. And even if they don’t, you owe them a better life than they have, whether my mother tells you to stay away or whether she doesn’t.’

Allen stands with his hands in his pockets, watching as Juliet gets into her car and drives away.

Abby wipes the fog from the bathroom mirror. She stands over the sink, naked and dripping, her dark hair slicked back. She presses her fingers into the flesh of her shoulder. It’s a different texture from the rest of her skin. It’s smooth, like candle wax. She closes her eyes against the reflection and traces the outline.

Months have passed and it’s still so foreign to her. She tells herself to get used to it, that it’s certainly better than the alternative. Still, she has trouble with gratitude. This scar is a permanent part of her now. It’s a reminder of him, a way for him to lay claim to her body. He has changed her for ever. Even if she can come to see it as a positive change, it gives him power over her.

‘Hey, I look like a bad ass now.’ She jokes about it, but the reality is that Abby hates it. She dreads the warm weather of summer, the tank tops and swimsuits. But Juliet doesn’t need to hear that. She’s got enough on her plate.

Allen’s trying to make amends. Juliet will have none of it, but Deirdre is proving to be a different story. Maybe the years have softened her, or maybe her need for money is stronger than her desire to punish him. She had told Juliet a story about Allen and an underage girl. It might have been a lie but Abby doesn’t think anything would surprise her any more.

She pulls a T-shirt over her head.

Juliet moves out at the end of May. She’ll start her position at Dartmouth in the fall; for the summer, she and her sisters will be staying with Nana. The night before she leaves, she and Abby sit up in the living room.

‘Just like old times,’ Abby says, filling their wine glasses as Juliet wraps breakables in bubble wrap.

Juliet looks up and her face falls. ‘I’m going to miss it.’

‘You won’t be so far away.’ Abby holds out Juliet’s glass and sits on the couch.

‘I know.’ Juliet nods. ‘This is going to be such a weird summer.’

‘Because of Allen?’

She takes a long sip, nodding. ‘I talked to Lilly last night and she sounded so excited about meeting him. I have to struggle with the part of me that wants her to be mad.’

‘And Hannah?’

‘She’s holding back more. Probably out of loyalty to me, which is so—’ She puts her face into her hands and groans. ‘It makes me feel awful.’

‘They’ll figure it out. They’re smart girls and they know their relationship with you isn’t conditional.’

‘I hope so. No, I know you’re right. We’ll figure it out together.’

‘What about you and Allen?’

‘I’ve decided to try to get along with him this summer. For the girls. But I have no use for him myself. I’m done. I’m grown.’

Abby nods quietly.

‘I bet you’re thinking I’m not.’

‘No,’ Abby protests.

‘After the past year, I wouldn’t blame you. I haven’t done the best job of running my life.’

Abby scoots onto the floor and reaches for Juliet’s hand. ‘That wasn’t what I was thinking. I was just thinking about how much I love my dad and how much I wish you’d had a dad like that.’

Juliet shrugs. In the silence that follows, Abby hears her take a breath and knows something else is coming.

‘I talked to the DA today.’

Abby releases Juliet’s hands and leans back against the couch.

‘She says Jesse is pleading guilty. She didn’t have time to go into the details of sentencing, but given his priors . . .’ Juliet’s voice trails off.

‘So we won’t have to testify.’

‘They may let you speak at the sentencing. If you want. I’m sure she’ll call you.’

Abby nods slowly.

‘Would you want to do that?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, if you do, I’d go with you. If you wanted me there.’

Abby looks at her cousin. ‘I would.’

When she opens the door, Ryan is standing in the hall with his suitcases at his feet and a box in his arms.

‘This better not be because of some fleeting realization that I could have died. That’s lame.’

Ryan sets the box on the floor inside and grabs her, kissing her neck and making her giggle. He kicks his suitcases in and shuts the door without letting her go.

Before bed, they brush their teeth together, making faces at each other in the mirror. They slide their toothbrushes into the holder on the sink.

Ryan wanders into the bedroom and Abby hikes up her shirtsleeve and finds the vitamin E in the top drawer. When Ryan pops his head in, she pulls her sleeve down and he rolls his eyes at her.

‘Give me that.’ He takes the tube of ointment. He stands behind her and tugs at the hem of her shirt. Abby raises her arms above her head as he peels it off her.

He slides his hands up the sides of her body and holds them next to her breasts. They smile at each other as her nipples harden. He pulls her against him with an arm around her waist, kissing the back of her neck, across her shoulder blades, over the small peak of her left shoulder. He opens his mouth, pressing his tongue against the strange new skin there.

‘What are you doing?’ Abby murmurs.

Ryan looks up at her. ‘My mouth has healing powers.’ He turns her around so that her back is to the sink. He pushes a thigh between her legs and Abby lets out a small sound. She holds his face and kisses him. Uncapping the ointment, he concentrates on the scar now, rubbing warm circles into her flesh.

‘It’s fading,’ he tells her. ‘Pretty soon, you won’t be able to see it at all.’

‘Really?’

Ryan nods. He pulls his hand away. ‘See? I can hardly see it now.’

She presses her chin into the dip of her clavicle, looking down. ‘I think you’re right,’ she says, giving in to the fantasy.

He pulls the drawstring of her pyjama bottoms and they fall to the floor. She wriggles out of her underwear and he lifts her onto the sink. She wraps her legs around his waist as he steps out of his boxers.

‘I love you,’ he whispers.

She takes a sharp breath. ‘I love you,’ she says. They rock together. It feels so good it makes her dizzy. She kisses his face and lays her head on his shoulder.

‘Marry me,’ he says, forcing her to look into his eyes.

Abby tosses her head back and laughs at the ceiling. ‘Say it again when we’re dressed,’ she tells him.

He will.

They weren’t allowed to go swimming for a whole hour after lunch. Abby still had sand in her teeth from eating the potato salad after a breeze had passed through. Uncle Allen had volunteered to teach them how to fly the kite, purchased new that day when a trip to the store for more sunscreen had led to begging. It was beautiful, rainbow streamers blowing behind a unicorn. Their mothers were united against them but Juliet had gone to her father, batting her eyelashes and convincing him.

It was right up his alley, something technical and almost sporty. He’d purchased a special handle and wound the string around it as he explained to them about wind currents. It was a good day for kite-flying.