Julia's Daughters (3 page)

He gets up and goes to the laundry hamper near the bathroom door. He begins to pull dirty clothes out and drop them on the floor, dividing them between lights and darks the way I taught him when we were first married. His mother had always done his laundry for him, even when he was in college, before I introduced him to the washing machine. If I'd let her, she'd still be doing his laundry.

“Maybe getting out of here, out of this house, out of the state would be good for her. New friends. A fresh start.”

“Out of sight, out of mind?” I ask.

He doesn't refute the accusation. We both know that's one of his best coping mechanisms. Sweeping things out the door or at least under the rug. Always has been. His whole family deals with problems that way.

We're both quiet for a minute. I feel so alone. So isolated. So sad and lost. I know at least part of this is of my own making. I've allowed our marriage to fall apart, but that doesn't make it any less painful. I think about the fact that if Caitlin were here, she'd have an opinion on what we should do about Haley. She was always better at handling her sister than we were.
If Caitlin were here. If Haley hadn't—

I feel myself teetering on the edge of the precipice I've become too familiar with in the last forty-seven days. I know I shouldn't be angry with Haley. It was an accident. Just an accident. A terrible mistake. She had not been drinking alcohol that night, not taking Percocet or even smoking a joint. Her tox screen had come back negative for any illegal substances. She really just made a mistake and didn't see the stop sign. Didn't see the big pickup truck coming from her right.

Ben picks up an armful of dark clothes and heads for the door.

I guess our talk is over.

Chapter 4

Izzy

 

I close my eyes. Open them. Close them. Open them again. Fast. It's so dark under my bed that it doesn't make a difference.

The box springs feel closer to my nose tonight. I wonder if I'm having another growth spurt. No boobs yet. I slide my hand across my chest to make sure they haven't popped out since I checked this morning. I don't feel anything. Flat as a board, that's what She Who Shall Not Be Named says. She says I'll never grow boobs. She says I'll be a freak and she can sell me to a freak show.

Amanda Durum, in my class, is getting boobs even though she's the same age as the rest of us in the fifth grade. Her mom bought her some real bras at Target, like the kind you hook in the back. Not the stretchy sports bras my friends and I wear.

My mom has medium boobs, but my sister Caitlin, hers were big. Like Nana's. If I grow big ones like Caitlin's, and I really do think they will grow because She Who Shall Not Be Named is a liar, I wonder if I'll be able to fit under my bed still. If Caitlin were here, would she be able to fit under here? It's an interesting thought. One I should
contemplate
. (One of my vocabulary words this week at school.)

I'm getting sleepy. I should probably crawl out from under my bed and get in it. Mom will worry about me if she finds me under here. She'll ask if I'm okay, even though she knows what the answer is. Of course I'm not
okay.
Caitlin kicked the bucket.

I close my eyes and think about the white coffin we put Caitlin in. Is this what it feels like to be in a coffin? The lid has to come pretty close to your nose. Did she need a tall one to fit her boobs? Did we pay extra for it?

I hear someone in the hall and I wonder if it's my mom coming to check on me. Sometimes she checks on me. She used to come all the time
before;
now not as often. Mostly she just lies on her bed in the dark and cries. A lot. If it's Dad and not Mom who comes into my room, he'll pretend I'm not under here. He'll stand in the doorway and say “sweet dreams” or something dumb like that. Who says that to their eleven-year-old daughter? (Well, I will be eleven soon. In a few months. Six.) I mean, aren't there books out there that teach parents what you're supposed to say to your kids after their favorite daughter, the best sister in the whole world, dies? Or at least what the H
not
to say? Because “sweet dreams” has got to be one of the dumbest things he could say. I don't have “sweet dreams.” I dream about a big, black truck slamming into our Kia Soul. I dream about Caitlin splattered all over the road. Sometimes I dream about me splattered all over the road.

I hear Mr. Cat meow and I stick my hand out from under my bed and wiggle my fingers. “Kitty, kitty, kitty,” I call. I have to say it kind of loud because the vet says he's losing his hearing.

I hear him purring. Then I feel him bat at my fingers with his paw. I tease him with my finger. I don't hear anyone out in the hall now. Maybe it was just my imagination. I have a pretty good imagination. Once I thought I really heard Santa's reindeer on the roof. I mean, I
really
thought I heard the prancing and pawing of each tiny hoof. That was when I believed Santa was real and that life was good and bad things happened to bad people and stupid stuff like that. And right after Caitlin bought it, I woke up in my bed thinking I could smell her in my room. She always smelled good even when she didn't use spray stuff from Victoria's Secret. She had a special smell.
Her
smell.

I pet Mr. Cat on the head and he meows. He's been hiding tonight. Like me. She Who Shall Not Be Named got in some kind of big trouble today. She was already home when I got home from school. In her room.

I wanted to ask Dad what happened, but I didn't. Nobody tells me anything around here anymore. Then my friend Ann texted me and asked what she did to get expelled. Her sister goes to Smythe, too. Instead of texting her name, which is not permitted in my presence, she made a line of asterisks and pound signs and stuff so it looked like a curse word. Which was funny. If I ever have to write her name, which I never intend to do, I'll have to remember that. I just told Ann I didn't know what she did. So now I know why she was home early and I'll know why when she doesn't go to school tomorrow, and I didn't have to ask anyone. I don't know why she got expelled, but I'm sure I'll know in a day or two. Ann's sister will tell her and Ann will tell me.

Mr. Cat jumps up on my bed. It springs down a little bit and I can feel his weight over me. He meows again. He wants me to come up and lie down with him. “All right, all right,” I tell him, and I slide out from under the bed. “I just have to pee.” I pet his head. “I'll be right back.”

He meows like he understands me, which is interesting because how can he understand me if he can't hear me? I wonder if the vet lied. People lie to me all the time. Adults, mostly. What I can't figure out is why would she lie to me about something dumb like a cat's hearing?

I slip out of my bedroom into the dark hall. I can see shadows dancing from the living room and hear the muffled sound of gunfire. My dad's asleep out there. The TV is on; he was probably watching something about World War II. He likes Nazis. Well, he doesn't
like
them. Who likes Nazis? He just likes to watch stuff about Nazis and Hitler. A few days ago he and I watched a show about German concentration camps and I got to see pictures of the ovens they put people in. I think I'd like to go see those ovens someday.

I walk down the hall in the dark to the bathroom. The door's open. I don't turn on the light. I'm not afraid of the dark. I think people are afraid of the dark because they're afraid of what bad things might happen in the dark. I don't worry about it. Bad things happen with the lights on, too.

I pee, but I don't wash my hands. I only do that when I'm with my friends because everyone washes their hands after they use the bathroom when they're with other people. I don't really know why people expect you to wash your hands. I don't pee on my hand.

Instead of going back to my room I hang a left and head for the kitchen to get a drink. On my way back to my room, I'll shut the TV off. But I won't wake my dad and tell him to go to bed like I used to before Caitlin checked out. I don't think my dad sleeps with my mom anymore. I don't think she cares where he sleeps.

It's not until I grab the orange juice container from the fridge that I realize someone is in the kitchen, sitting at the breakfast table under the window. I turn around as I unscrew the cap. She Who Shall Not Be Named is sitting in the dark, eating cereal dry out of a box. Apple Jacks. I don't say anything. I can feel her watching me.

I don't talk to her anymore. She killed Caitlin and I loved Caitlin. She's been trying to be nice to me since she ran through that stop sign and let Caitlin splatter all over the road. I don't want her to be nice to me. I don't want her to talk to me or look at me. I wish she'd bought the farm instead of Caitlin. I know I'm not supposed to feel that way, but I do. And if Caitlin did have to croak because of some crazy thing in the cosmos, I wish She Who Shall Not Be Named were pushing up daisies, too.

“Hey, pipsqueak.”

I act like I don't see her. Don't hear her. I tip the juice bottle and chug. It's the wrong kind of juice. I like the kind without pulp. But Dad's been doing the grocery shopping since Caitlin died so I'm lucky he remembered juice at all.

“You can't ignore me forever,” she says, crunching the cereal. The kitchen smells like pizza, Apple Jacks, and cigarette smoke. She smokes sometimes, which I think is disgusting. Last year, in fourth grade, I wrote a report about the dangers of smoking, about all the kinds of gross cancers you can get like lip cancer and throat cancer where you have to talk out of a box. (With color photos and everything.) I got an A. I gave it to She Who Shall Not Be Named. That was when I still called her Haley and still talked to her, or at least tried. I don't know if she ever read it. Probably not.

I take a breath and then one more drink of OJ. She munches on her cereal.

I screw the cap on slowly and take my time putting the bottle back in the almost empty refrigerator, even though I want to run back into my room and get under my bed with Mr. Cat.

I close the refrigerator and I can't see her anymore without the light. It's like she just disappears, which is what I want to happen. I want her to just vanish.

Chapter 5

Julia

 

I lie on my bed staring at the ceiling, watching the fan spin. My favorite pastime. My only pastime. Light spills from the bathroom into the bedroom. It's gotten dark out. Ben texted me to say he was going out for a beer with his brothers so it's just the girls and me. Earlier, I had Izzy order pizza delivery. She brought me two breadsticks and marinara sauce, which I ate, not because I was hungry, but because I could tell she really wanted me to eat it.

I can hear the TV out in the living room. Izzy. She loves the Discovery Channel and the History Channel. Parents aren't supposed to rank their children and I try not to, but Izzy is probably the smartest of my three girls. Caitlin and Haley are bright, but Izzy, she's scary smart.

Caitlin
was
bright . . . I can't get the hang of speaking of her . . .
thinking
of her in the past tense. It's just too much to wrap my head around.

I wonder what Haley's doing. I haven't seen her since I picked her up from school yesterday. I know she's in the house. I heard the toilet in the girls' bathroom down the hall flush today while Izzy was at school. I saw an empty Coke can in the trash, which I moved to the recycling; Izzy doesn't drink Coke. She watched something on TV about corn syrup and is boycotting any food or drink that contains corn syrup. She and Caitlin were doing it together. It took forever at the market with the two of them because they insisted on reading every label.

I hear the sounds of an explosion coming from the TV in the living room. I wonder what Izzy's watching. I should go see. See how she is. I can't remember when we last talked about anything other than takeout or lunch money for school. She hasn't even asked me to sign anything for school; I guess Ben signs her homework now.

I roll onto my side. It takes a lot of energy to get out of bed. But I know I should. I know I need to. Ben is right. Laney's right. Even my mother-in-law is right. It's just that my heart is so broken that I—

I stop that thought right there because I know that if I don't . . . I know that if I let that thought unravel, I'll just lie here and cry some more.

I exhale and sit up. I perch on the edge of the bed until the dizziness passes. I probably need to eat something more than two breadsticks. Drink something. Maybe some peppermint tea. Caitlin was my tea drinker. Sometimes, on Saturday mornings, before anyone else got up, she and I would sit at the breakfast table in our PJs and drink tea and have rye toast.

I close my eyes as tears trickle down my cheeks. I'll never have tea with Caitlin again. We'll never fight over the heel from the loaf of rye bread from the German bakery we both like. Not ever again.

There are more explosions coming from the living room, followed by the sound of Izzy's voice. I wonder whom she's talking to. I didn't hear Ben come in. Maybe she's decided to speak to Haley again. To my knowledge, she hasn't spoken to her in . . . well, forty-eight days.

I make myself stand up. I wipe my face with the sleeve of my T-shirt, slip my feet into my flip-flops, and shuffle out into the hall. The house is mostly dark, though I see light coming out from under Haley's door at the end of the hall. Caitlin's door is closed and the light is out.
Forever extinguished
. I turn the other direction and follow the sounds coming from the TV.

I find Izzy sitting on the couch, an open book beside her. There's no one else there.

“Who were you talking to?” I ask, sitting down beside her.

She stares straight ahead and bites down on her lower lip. It's her guilty look. “No one.”

“Oh. I thought I heard you talking.” I lean over. “Isobel,” I murmur. I kiss the top of her head, taking notice that she could use a shower.

“Mom.” She rests her cheek on my arm.

I take a shuddering breath and put my arm around her. You would think it would be comforting at a time like this to feel your child in your arms. When you'll never wrap your arms around another child again. But it's the complete opposite. Izzy's warmth, her touch, only makes me ache for Caitlin more. I hang on to her anyway.

“What are you watching?” I ask, staring at the TV.

“A show about works of art that were lost during World War II.” She looks at me. “Did you know that Hitler stole all this artwork from Jewish people? Real art like van Goghs and Degases and Klimts.”

“Klimt?” I ask. I had no idea Izzy knew who Degas and van Gogh were.

We watch the screen. There are men in a World War II army jeep careening along a mountain pass.

“He was an Austrian painter. He painted portraits and stuff,” she explains. “This guy named Bloch-Bauer hired Klimt to do a portrait of his wife. It had gold in the paint. Real gold. Then, during the war, the Nazis took the painting. Then it ended up in a museum somewhere. The guy's family didn't get it back until 2006. Can you believe that?”

I look at her and almost smile. Almost. “How do you know all this, Miss Smarty Pants?”

She points at the TV. “History Channel. And I think there was a movie about it.”

An advertisement comes on for antacid and both of us sit there and watch it. The next commercial is for cat food.

I feel like I should say something, start a conversation with my daughter, but I weirdly don't know what to say. Too much time alone with the ceiling fan maybe. “How's Mr. Cat?” I ask, grasping. The orange cat on the screen looks nothing like Mr. Cat.

“Pretty good. Not puking too much.” She's still nestled against me.

“That's good.” We're quiet for a minute. Two more commercials: deodorant and fast food. “Have you seen your sister?” I ask.

“You mean like her ghost?”

When I realize she's making a joke about her dead sister, I'm so totally taken aback that it takes me a moment to answer. This would be the perfect opportunity to talk to Izzy about Caitlin's death. We haven't really talked about it beyond the barest facts. But I can't do it right now. I just can't. Not yet. “Have you seen Haley?”

She looks at me, then the TV again. I can feel her shoulders droop. “In her room, I guess.”

I look down at my sweet daughter. I know she's angry with Haley. I understand why. She blames Haley for Caitlin's death. Of course she does. She's at that age where she just can't accept an accident as an accident. She has to hold someone responsible. I need to talk about it with her. Soon.

We watch a segment of the episode about finding the stolen paintings at the end of the war. Izzy provides additional narrative to accompany the voice-over. I'm not really listening to either of them. I was thinking that Izzy needed a shower, but now I suspect it might be myself I smell. I can't remember what day I last showered. Tuesday? Monday?

They go to commercial again. Izzy is telling me about a salt mine in Austria where paintings were found. I hear a door open and I glance in the direction of the hall. I wonder if it's Haley or Caitlin, but then I know. I remember.

I'm surprised that I could have forgotten for a whole split second that my light, my sunshine is gone.

Darkness comes to stand at the end of the couch. We all watch a preview for a show that promises to reveal the secrets of the real Jesus.

“Jeezus,”
Haley swears under her breath.

I look up at her. Izzy picks up her book and starts to read. Or pretends to be reading. I notice that Haley is wearing her usual uniform: black jeans, long-sleeve black shirt under her black leather jacket. I feel the lines on my forehead crease. “Where do you think you're going?”

“Out.” She's got enough eyeliner rimming her eyes to make her look like an exotic half-girl, half-raccoon Japanese anime character.

“No you're not.” I keep my voice even. I don't shout. If Ben were here, he'd bellow. I was never a yeller like him, although I've certainly been known to raise my voice with my daughters. Mostly out of frustration more so than anger. I haven't, however, raised my voice to Haley since Caitlin died. What kind of mother would I be if I did, after what she's been through?

“You can't go out because you're grounded,” I point out, calmly.

“You never told me I was grounded.” Her words are vicious.

I glance at Izzy, who's still reading, even though her show is back on. I rub my forehead. “Of course you're grounded. You were expelled from school for drug possession.”

“Not
drugs
. It was weed, and a couple of Percs,” she scoffs. She doesn't make eye contact with me. She stares off into space.

I glance at Izzy again. I didn't tell her why Haley had been expelled. She hasn't asked. I don't want her to think her sister is a druggy. Izzy doesn't understand how hard things are for Haley right now. She can't see Haley's pain for her own.

I decide not to get into an argument with my daughter right now over what constitutes drugs. I still have Linda's Percocet. In my underwear drawer, along with the marijuana. I'm not sure why. “You're not going anywhere,” I say, still sounding calm even though a part of me wants to grab her and shake her. Or hold her down and scrub the black eye makeup off with a washcloth and some old-fashioned cold cream. Haley used to be such a pretty girl. Before she started wearing black clothes and black makeup and black nail polish last year. Before she invested in half a dozen black eye pencils.

“I was going to take your car. Just for a while.” Now she's looking at her clunky black shoes. Doc Martens. I'd bought them for her last fall.

Izzy picks up the remote and turns the TV off, leaving us in semidarkness. “I'm going to bed,” she tells me. She kisses my cheek, gets up, and leaves the living room without glancing in her sister's direction.

Haley just stands there. Long enough for me to feel like I have to reiterate my point. “You're not going anywhere, Haley. Not for a while. Not until . . .” I waver because I haven't really thought about what we're going to do about her. I'm too busy thinking about my other daughter turned to ashes, sitting in an urn. I don't know how to deal with Haley's expulsion. “Your father and I . . . need to talk.”

She glances at me for the first time since she's come into the living room. The look on her face, angry, defiant, makes me wonder what I'll do if she grabs my keys from the hook by the back door and takes my car. Will I call the police? Call Ben? Or go back to my room and hope she comes back before Ben finds out she took my car?

“I just want to go out for a couple of hours.” She tugs on a lock of black hair. “I miss my friends,” she says, but without emotion.

It's on the tip of my tongue to ask her if she misses Caitlin. I feel the sudden urge to get up from the couch and throw my arms around her and hug her tight. Tell her it's okay to cry. I can't even remember seeing her cry since the hospital, the night of the accident. She's like her father. Keeps everything bottled up inside. Ben's taken Caitlin's death the same way, few tears. He doesn't talk about how he feels, about anything, something I already knew from living with him all these years. He just plods on.

I get up from the couch. “You're not leaving this house,” I say softly, a slight edge to my voice.

We both just stand there for a minute, staring at each other. It's the first good look I've gotten of her in . . . weeks. She looks terrible: too thin, skin that's patchy with breakouts, eyes that look sunken in.

Haley stands there for another second, then walks away, thankfully, in the direction of her room. I go into the kitchen and turn off the lights, leaving the laundry room light on for Ben. I get into bed without taking off my clothes and bury my face in my pillow for a good cry.

 

The sound of the vibration of my cell phone on the nightstand wakes me and I roll over, groggy, reaching for it. Did Ben not come home? Is it Ben? I squint to read the screen; I'm getting to the point where I'm soon going to need reading glasses. It's not Ben. It's Haley. Why would Haley be calling me from her bedroom?

I drop back onto my pillow, bringing the phone to my ear.

“Mom.” Her voice is so hushed that for a minute she sounds like Caitlin.

“Haley?” I say into the phone, wishing I could stay in the moment for just a couple more seconds. The moment when it's Caitlin calling me.

“Mom, I need you to come get me,” she whispers, talking fast and breathy. I can hear pounding in the background, like someone banging on a door.

“Ha—”

“I need you to not ask any questions right now,” she interrupts. “I just need you to come get me.”

I sit up, throwing my legs over the side of the bed. I brush my hair out of my face. “Are you okay?”

A man hollers something indistinguishable in the background.

“Mom, please,” my daughter begs. Then she shouts, obviously not to me, “Out in a minute! Jeeze.” Then softer again, “Please come get me.” She sounds like a little girl.

I stand up, feeling for my flip-flops with my bare feet. I'm still dressed in sweatpants and T-shirt from the day before. I slip one foot into the first flip-flop. I want to ask Haley why she isn't in her room where she was when I went to bed, but I'm now awake enough to know this isn't the time to ask. Hairs prickle on the back of my neck; my baby's in trouble. Suddenly, I'm wide awake. “Tell me where you are.”

“I'll text you the address.”

I slide my other foot into a flip-flop. “O . . . okay. You're at someone's house?” I head for the bedroom door.

Again, I hear the male voice and the pounding. I hurry through the living room. Ben's asleep on the couch, a knitted afghan thrown over him. His mouth is open; he's snoring. “Haley, what's going on?” I whisper into the phone. I don't want to wake Ben. He was asleep the night the police called about Caitlin. I can't do that to him again. Haley's okay; she just needs a ride.