The Good Sister (10 page)

Huntington Lake, August 2009

O
n the flight up to the lake house Merell was so excited, she couldn’t stop talking even though she knew she sounded like an
encyclopedia. As the plane flew above the road that wound up from the San Joaquin Valley through the foothills and into the
gray stone coolness of the rocks and pines, she told Aunt Roxanne that Huntington was the oldest of the Edison Power lakes,
a man-made oblong of icy cobalt-blue water built in the 1930s to capture the runoff from the snows in the Sierras. She was
explaining how the water was piped from Lake Edison to Huntington to Shaver Lake when Daddy told her to give it a rest, put
a plug in it. But not in a mean way. Merell knew that he loved the lake too.

Chowder was first out of the plane when it landed, making clear his preference for solid ground. He eyed with suspicion the
white Range Rover driven by Aldo, the lake
house caretaker, and was reluctant to get in until Aunt Roxanne told him he could ride on her lap, all eighty pounds of him.

Besides the mountains and the lake and the house, Merell liked the road around the lake. That’s all there was, just that one
road and a lot of private driveways—most of them not even paved. Through the woods she pointed out the stilted mountain cabins
built hard against the steep mountainsides, many of them already boarded up as if expecting an early winter.

The road seemed old-fashioned—she liked that too—narrow and twisty with mostly deep forest on either side. There were a few
hotels but Mommy said she’d rather sleep outside than in one of them. No fast food anywhere. Daddy said that to find a Jack
in the Box they would have to drive all the way to Fresno, over a hundred miles away. There wasn’t any downtown at the lake,
no Costco or drugstore or supermarket; but near the airstrip there was a marina with a hundred boats and a place to buy sailing,
fishing, and camping gear. Aldo told Daddy that the gas station across from the marina got rich off motorists who didn’t have
the sense to fill up down in the valley. In one hotel a ranger gave wildlife talks in the evening for the people who put up
their tents in the campground that was only half-full even though Labor Day was the last big weekend of the summer.

“It hardly ever gets full,” she told Aunt Roxanne, “ ’cuz
big boats don’t work really good up here. They can’t go fast because it’s too high.”

“Keeps development down,” Johnny said. “Kinda quiet.”

“We like it that way,” Merell said.

*       *       *

Johnny called the lake house a cottage and Roxanne had expected something rustic with a porch where mice danced across the
backs of shrouded furniture in the off-season. In fact it was a graceful two-story residence shingled in dark brown with a
steep roof and rows of windows with Mediterranean-blue shutters.

“Johnny never should have spent so much money,” Simone said as they drove through the gated entrance. “But I’m so glad we
have it. Nobody ever sells their property up here, especially not a big spread like this. Johnny says it’s more valuable than
gold.”

Leaving the men to unload the car, the sisters and children walked around the side of the house toward the water. They could
hear Baby Olivia behind them, crying.

“Franny’ll take care of her,” Simone said, and grabbed her sister’s hand. “I’m on vacation, I don’t want to talk about Olivia.”

Ahead of them Valli and Victoria tried to imitate Merell’s perfect cartwheels in the grass. In their red and blue shorts and
bright T-shirts they looked like three flowers tossed about in a hurly-burly wind.

“Sometimes I think it would be nice to live here all the time. Everyone seems happier, you know? But the road gets closed
in wintertime. We couldn’t even hire a plow.” Simone watched her daughters, smiling. “He thinks the kids’ll want to bring
their friends here in the summertime, have dances and sailboat races. He’s even got plans for a couple of tennis courts off
to the side. He calls tennis and sailing ‘elite’ sports.” She giggled, hugged Roxanne, and whispered, “You know those Ralph
Lauren ads? That’s how Johnny wants to live.”

Arm in arm they swung down the lawn to a shoulder-high stone wall that bordered the cliff thirty feet above the lake. Leaning
on the wall, they looked over. Below, at the foot of steps cut into the granite, there was a floating dock with a small sailboat
and dinghy tied to it.

“You have a boat, Simone. Why don’t you sail here?”

“I don’t like it.”

“Why not? Sailing’s just sailing, isn’t it? Wind, water. What’s missing?”

“I don’t like fresh water,” Simone said. “Salt water kind of lifts you up and it slips on your skin, feels kind of thicker.
I feel safe around salt water.”

“So why have a sailboat up here?”

“Merell’s going to sailing camp next summer and whatever she does, the twins’ll copy.”

“That’s your opportunity, isn’t it? The two of you could go together.”

“Yeah, but the camp’s up here.”

“It doesn’t have to be. You could do it together down at Shelter Island.”

“Stop organizing me, Rox!” Simone punched her sister in the shoulder hard enough to hurt. “What I told you about sailing?
I never would have mentioned it if I knew you’d harp on it. That time is past for me now.”

“Simone, you’re not even thirty years old. You can do anything you want.” Roxanne rubbed her shoulder. “You should take kickboxing.”

“It’s not just the water. It’s what’s down there. Underneath.”

The lake was too choppy to see anything below the surface.

“You know what Merell was telling you, about how the lake got built? Well, before the engineers came, there used to be a steep
valley here with a river at the bottom and a little town and when they made the dam the water just covered it all over but
it’s still down there.” She shuddered. “Creeps me out.”

Valli ran up to them. She had thrown off her shoes. Grabbing Simone’s hand, she cried, “Twirl, Mommy, twirl.”

Simone stepped out of her sandals. “Remember how we used to do this? Come on, Rox, it’s fun.”

On hot days after Roxanne picked Simone up from the babysitter after school, they walked up the hill to the neighborhood park
to play in the sprinklers, wearing shorts and rubber thong sandals that kids in Roxanne’s
school called
go-aheads.
As they did now, they had held hands and turned in circles, leaning out with their heads tilted back so all they could see
was the spinning sky. Now the ground tipped and turned beneath them, and overhead the clouds and sun circled in dizzy pursuit.
They twirled until they fell on their backs, groaning. Overhead the clouds chased across the enamel-blue sky, plump as gilded
dumplings. Under the sun’s yellow eye the earth rose to meet the sky and the sky filled the lake with blue and gold.

Lying on the grass, Roxanne felt ill but happy, laughing, thinking,
This is why I have a sister, with a sister I never have to stop being a kid.

Valli sat up. “Let’s do it again.”

Simone moaned. “I forgot I’m pregnant. I never should have… I think I’m going to barf.” She lay back again, laughing. “Did
you make a wish? You gotta close your eyes when you fall and make a wish before you open them.”

“You always make up new rules,” Roxanne said.

Simone sat up and pulled a twin into her lap. “What did you wish for, Victoria?”

“Ice cream for dinner.”

“Me too,” cried Valli. “I wished first.”

“And I wished the same thing!” Simone cried and got to her feet. She pulled Victoria up after her and pointed her in the direction
of the house. “I declare this the Ice Cream Vacation. We’ll have ice cream with every meal.”

“And snacks!” Valli cried.

Simone yelled, “Ice cream vitamins!” and shoved Victoria up the lawn. “Tell Nanny Franny I said we’re having ice cream before
dinner. Two scoops each.”

Victoria ran up the grass with Valli after her.

The wind rose, playing the pines like oboes; and the dumpling clouds became pillows and featherbeds bolstered by the mountaintops.
Sun and wind chopped the water into a million bits and pieces of gold. Below the cliff, the dinghy banged the hull of the
sailboat.

Merell had disappeared.

“She’s got all these hiding places. Everywhere we go, she finds a hideout, but especially up here. She’s never satisfied unless
someone’s looking for her.”

*       *       *

Merell had decided that having an aunt was one of the best things ever. Especially an aunt with a big rompy dog who liked
to chase after balls and sniff around the wildest parts of the compound. After several hours outside he came into the cottage
and flopped down in front of the fireplace. Two minutes later he was snoring and twitching in his dreams.

Aunt Roxanne played Monopoly and really tried to win, and she listened and asked questions when Merell talked about all the
stuff she was going to do when she grew up. Like go to China and sail a boat to Hawaii by herself. Aunt Roxanne’s questions
made Merell think about details, like
why
did she want to go to China and
when
was she going to learn how to sail.

Her mother was livelier when Aunt Roxanne was around. She talked more and laughed, and there wasn’t a meany-man anywhere.

Aunt Roxanne and Nanny Franny laughed as they made lunch and Mommy did a jigsaw puzzle with the twins and for once there wasn’t
any yelling or hitting. Lunch was Merell’s favorite: tuna with mayonnaise and lettuce and French fries cooked in the oven.
And sodas, which they never had at home. While Franny got the lunch set up, Aunt Roxanne changed Baby Olivia’s diapers and
talked to her in a silly squeaky voice that made Olivia laugh and Merell’s stomach feel warm. After lunch Aunt Roxanne asked
Merell to give her a tour of the compound. The twins wanted to come along but Franny said they were too rambunctious and if
they didn’t settle down she was going to tie them to a post.

On the west side of the house there was a play yard and in it was the playhouse Merell shared with the twins. It had a pointed
roof and a chimney and a pretend fireplace. Sometimes they imagined it was a school and Merell was the teacher.

“The twins can’t even count.”

They walked beyond the playhouse to the big piece of land where Daddy was going to build the tennis courts next summer. Chowder
raced among the trees, and Merell talked and Aunt Roxanne didn’t tell her to be quiet.

Merell asked, “Do you have a best friend?”

“Sure. You know Elizabeth.”

She would have liked it if Aunt Roxanne said that she, Merell, was her best friend; but she knew this was a silly wish.

“Does she sleep over sometimes?”

“Not anymore, but we used to share an apartment.”

This sounded wonderful to Merell. “Do you tell her secrets?”

“Sometimes.”

“What kind of secrets?”

“I don’t remember any of them so they must not have been very important.”

They leaned against the wall at the edge of the cliff, their arms folded on the cold stone.

“Our house was in a magazine,” Merell said. “Daddy has a copy of it in his study.” She laughed, thinking how silly one of
the skinny models looked standing on the roof in a long purple dress. “Daddy says we’re not to call it a house. It’s a cottage
and all the land around it? That’s the compound.”

The sky was dark with clouds now and the wind blew hard. In the middle of the lake a pair of kayaks fought their way against
the wind.

“If they sink they’ll go down to Vermillion. That’s the town under the water. Daddy says there was this old man who lived
there and when the engineers came and told him he had to go or he’d be drowned, he said he didn’t care. So they just left
him. With his dog and a mule.
Their bones are all down at the bottom.” Merell stared at the water. “I don’t like to think about him. About drowning.”

Roxanne took her hand.

Merell said, “If I tell you a secret, will you promise not to tell anyone? Cross your heart?”

All day long she had been thinking about the promise she had made to Gramma Ellen, feeling it in her head like one of Mommy’s
meany-men. She had not wanted to promise in the first place, and wished that instead she’d been brave enough to walk away,
out of the room to one of her hiding places until everyone forgot about what happened at the pool, although she was afraid
that wouldn’t be for years and years. It was a weary thing to carry an important secret alone.

“Merell, the thing about a secret is, once you share it with someone, it’s not really a secret anymore.”

Merell scuffed the toe of her sneaker into the lawn so hard she dug up a divot of grass. She held her breath and wished hard
that Aunt Roxanne would change her mind and promise not to tell. But a teacher hardly ever changed her mind about anything,
even if she was an aunt.

“There are caves down by the dock. Wanna go see ’em?”

“I’m not crazy about caves, Merell. They make me nervous.” Aunt Roxanne looked up at the sky. “Besides, I think we’re going
to get some rain.”

Merell took her hand and gently squeezed it. “It’s safe.”

She explained that in the spring when the snow at higher elevations melted, the creeks overflowed and runoff dug rivulets
down the hillsides and the level of the lake rose. In the summertime it retreated as water was regularly released to irrigate
the farms in the San Joaquin Valley. By Labor Day the water line was several feet below where it had been in the spring.

“Last time we came up here the cave was almost out of the water but I still couldn’t climb in. Now I bet I can. Want to?”

“We should go inside, Merell.”

Merell knew that she would be a grown-up someday, but she understood it the same way she understood that a man had once stood
on the moon. It was both true and impossible at the same time. To be a grown-up she would have to get bigger and learn things
and that would be good, but she would also have to give things up. She never wanted to become a person who was afraid to explore.

To the southwest, needles of lightning threaded the storm clouds and the growl of thunder reverberated off the mountain peaks.