The Good Sister (21 page)

Victoria ran in from outside screaming, “Baby Libia’s all red. And there’s bees on her.”

Merell had never realized how rapidly the sun traveled across the sky. It had moved out from behind the avocado tree and was
shining directly on the base of the trunk where she had resettled the laundry basket. Olivia’s bottle had fallen to the side
in the basket and dripped on the pile of sheets and pillowcases. Where milk had seeped beneath her head, her fine, dark hair
was gluey and stuck to the laundry. Striped yellow jacket wasps, drawn by the sweetness of the formula, crowded on her sticky
cheeks and swarmed around her hair and ears. Her cheeks and forehead and the top of her head were sunburned a bright pink,
and her eyes were glassy slits between her swollen eyelids. She tried to cry, managing only a dry, cracked sound like a frog
learning to croak.

Fear exploded through Merell’s body. She waved her hands right into the buzzing midst of the yellow jackets,
ignoring the vibrations of their angry bodies against her fingers, grabbed Olivia’s wrists, and dragged her up into her arms.
The baby’s head fell to one side and the wasps swarmed and landed again, some of them on Merell. Feeling their tiny feet on
her skin, she screamed and staggered across the terrace to a wicker chaise shaded by an awning.

“Where’s Franny?” Valli whined.

“Shut up, I have to think.”

Wearing only a white bra and bikini briefs, Merell’s mother lay on her back, snoring gently. Awake, she would be no help,
but Merell had come to her anyway, not knowing what else to do. Gramma Ellen had driven somewhere without saying good-bye,
and she wasn’t answering her cell phone. Celia wouldn’t be back until she’d spent a lot of money and had coffee with her sister.
Daddy was in Las Vegas. Merell tried calling Franny’s cell phone but it rang and rang and there was no voice telling her to
leave a message at the tone. At the lake Aunt Roxanne had written down her cell phone number and given it to Merell. She had
been afraid of losing the paper so she had memorized the numbers on it. Merell left a message telling her to come soon because
something terrible had happened and she wasn’t kidding. She repeated this twice.

She thought about calling 911 again. The police would come, and this time no one would be able to save Mommy from trouble.
The secret Merell held grew enormous inside
her. The police would make her confess it and she would be punished, banished to a foster home. But whatever happened to her,
it would be much worse for her mother.

On Simone’s bedside table Merell saw an amber-colored pill bottle lying open on its side. She replaced the lid and read the
label. It was the only word Merell had ever seen that began and ended with X.

Simone sighed and threw her left arm up. Merell stared at her underarm, at the prickles of black hair spiking there. She inhaled
the sour scent of her mother’s body, repelled and attracted at the same time. Of all her mother’s identities—mother, wife,
woman—it was woman that fascinated her and filled her mind with questions. She knew—though she could not quite believe—that
one day she too would be a woman with breasts and hair in hidden places. But how was she to know the right way to be a woman
if no one told her? She loved her mother at the same time she pitied her, understanding that she did not know how to be a
woman or a mother any better than Merell. The pity shamed her. She had read many books about girls growing up, and not one
of the heroines had ever felt sorry for her own mother.

Her mother did not know how to act like a mother, but her body knew how to have babies anyway. Merell had gone online and
seen a photo of a baby’s head emerging from a red and bloody wound. She hated to think of this, hated knowing that she had
once been part of her mother’s body and had entered the world through the
secret place between her legs and caused her an unspeakable pain. She laid her hand on her mother’s stomach, felt it rise
and fall with each inhalation.

Be a boy. Mommy will love you if you’re a boy.

Downstairs, the twins stood guard over Olivia on the chaise.

“Libia needs a bath,” Valli said.

For once her little sister made sense and Merell wished she’d had the idea herself. With one arm under the baby’s bottom and
the other around her back, she carried her sister into the house and down the back hall. The house was cold but Olivia radiated
a damp, sticky heat. In the bathroom two inches of water stood in the tub and there was more pooled all over the floor where
the twins had played earlier. Merell slipped out of her sandals and sat in the tub.

“Mommy’s gonna be mad,” Valli said. “You can’t wear clothes in the bathtub.”

“Yeah, Mommy’s gonna be mad.” Victoria held her hands on her hips.

The twins prattled but Merell ignored the irritation, facing the faucet with Olivia between her legs. She turned on the cold
water and gently dribbled handfuls over the baby’s head and body, soaking her. Olivia flinched at the touch of the cold water,
her eyes popped open, and her arms jerked out, pinwheeling. She began to scream and Merell hoped this was a good sign.

“You’re in trouble, Merell. You made Libia cry.”

A red plastic cup sat on the corner edge of the bathtub. Merell filled it with water and held it to Olivia’s lips.

“She can’t use a cup yet,” Valli said. “She likes a bottle.”

“Go get one.”

Merell filled the plastic bottle from the tap and screwed the nipple top tight. She held it against Olivia’s chapped mouth,
but she seemed to have forgotten how to suck.

Merell’s heart sank.

The children turned at the sound of a door slamming and footsteps. Aunt Roxanne called, “Merell, where are you?”

Victoria ran into the family room calling, “Merell did something bad.”

Merell cried with relief when she saw her aunt standing in the bathroom door.

“I came as soon as I could.”

Immediately, she knew what to do. She knelt beside the tub and the twins hung on her shoulders and pulled on her arms, chattering
excited versions of the day’s events and blaming Merell for every bad thing that had ever happened. Normally Merell would
have defended herself, but she was too relieved and grateful to care how they went on.

“Twins, be quiet. Merell, you tell me.”

She stumbled over her words but her aunt seemed to understand.

“Well, the first thing we have to do is cool this pumpkin down.”

Celia came home with bags of groceries in the trunk of the Mercedes, and Aunt Roxanne stormed at her for leaving Merell and
her sisters alone when Simone was napping. Celia tried to make excuses and Roxanne said she didn’t have time to listen.

“I want you to stay here and watch the twins and if my sister wakes up, tell her we’ve gone to urgent care.”

At the hospital the nurses and doctors made a fuss over Olivia, and finally Merell realized that everything would be all right
and her knotted stomach relaxed and her hands stopped making fists.

Olivia was given fluids and the sunburn was treated. She had one yellow jacket sting on the back of her thigh. On the examination
table in the emergency room she looked pink and peaceful in her tipped-back car seat. Merell thought they would leave the
hospital then, but a nurse said they had to wait to see another doctor. This doctor had a clipboard and at first Merell wasn’t
sure he was a real doctor because his white coat was so perfectly clean and ironed, but his name tag said he was Jerry Hamid,
M.D. He asked Aunt Roxanne some questions and watched her face intently when she answered. Sometimes he made notes.

“I’m going to have to write this up,” he said, motioning with his clipboard. “This baby was neglected to the point—”

Aunt Roxanne interrupted him, but in a polite way. “Dr. Hamid, I’m not minimizing this, I know a sunburn’s serious. But my
sister’s pregnant and not well. She has four young children, and normally she has help, but today she didn’t. She put Olivia
outside in what seemed to be a safe place and then… She has three other children. It was just more than she could handle.
Today.”

Dr. Hamid chewed on the end of his pencil the way Merell’s teachers said was bad. He had chocolate-syrup eyes with thick lids,
and he didn’t blink as he looked back and forth between Merell and her aunt. “How did you get involved, Mrs. Callahan?”

“My sister called me at work.”

The lie astonished Merell.

“And where is the mother now?” he asked. “Why isn’t she here with her baby?”

“She’s home,” Roxanne said. “She was in no condition to drive so I left her with the other children….”

“What do you mean, ‘no condition’?”

“Well, she’s upset, of course. Who wouldn’t be?”

“She’s alone with the children.”

“The housekeeper’s with her.”

“You just told me she didn’t have help.”

“She didn’t. Not earlier in the day.”

Dr. Hamid wrote something on his clipboard.

“Look, it was a judgment call on my part.” Aunt Roxanne made her voice sound everyday friendly. “I just thought she’d be better
off at home with her kids.”

She didn’t sound like herself when she lied. It was lucky Dr. Hamid was a stranger or he would have known she wasn’t telling
the truth exactly.

Merell said, “My daddy’s in Las Vegas.”

“On business,” Roxanne said.

“I see.” Now Dr. Hamid tapped his pen against the side of his nose. Merell knew he was worried about Olivia. “I want to see
this baby again in a couple of days. And I want the mother with her.” He drew his phone from his pocket and moved his fingers
on the keys even faster than Daddy. “I’ve made a note to myself that if I don’t see Olivia and her mother by Monday next week,
I’ll file a report with protective services.”

In the car Merell asked, “What’s protective services?”

Roxanne adjusted her rearview mirror. “An office that looks after children.”

“Like foster children?”

“That and other things.”

“What other things?” Merell knew her aunt didn’t want to answer questions, but she asked again, “What other things?”

“I don’t know, Merell.” Aunt Roxanne started the car and backed out of the parking space. She turned out of the parking lot
onto Torrey Pines Road. To the right, between the trees, Merell could see the flat line of the ocean, a darker blue than the
sky. “Child welfare, I suppose. Abuse. Neglect.”

“Will I get in trouble?”

Roxanne took her eyes off the road for a second. “You’ve done nothing wrong, Merell.”

“What about Mommy? Is she in trouble?”

“She’ll bring Olivia back in a couple of days and everything’ll be fine.”

Merell didn’t know how this could be managed. She would be in school and with Franny gone there was no one to take care of
the twins.

“Do you think Olivia was neglected?” It was a heavy-sounding word Merell had never said before.

Aunt Roxanne turned the car off the road and onto a side street. She parked and shut off the ignition.

“What’s the matter? Why’d you park here?”

Aunt Roxanne let out a long sigh and closed her eyes for a moment.

“Yeah. I think she was neglected.”

“I should have brought her inside, huh?”

“It wasn’t you, you didn’t neglect her. You behaved responsibly, and that’s great because it shows how smart and strong you
are. But you’re a little girl and taking care of your sisters shouldn’t be your job.”

“You told the doctor that Mommy’s upset but she’s not. She’s asleep. You didn’t tell the doctor about the XX pills.”

Aunt Roxanne drummed her fist on the steering wheel.

“You lied.”

“It’s complicated, Merell.”

Complicated
wasn’t an answer.

Merell didn’t want Aunt Roxanne to be like all the other grown-ups in her life, saying things that weren’t true or making
excuses that didn’t explain anything at all. Merell wanted to know
why
Aunt Roxanne hadn’t told Dr. Hamid the whole truth and
why
children couldn’t tell lies when grown-ups did all the time. It hurt to think about these questions. She didn’t like not
knowing things and wished she could turn off her mind like a television set or press the double-arrow button and repeat the
good times, fast-forward through the bad. She wanted to be the twins’ age again, back when she did what she was told whether
the rules made sense or not. When she was as young as they were, she had thought that she understood what it meant to be honest,
and she had tried hard not to lie even if it meant she sometimes got in trouble for hitting the twins or eating their Halloween
candy. Daddy said he trusted her because he could always count on her to be truthful. Now she knew people lied all the time,
whenever they wanted to. She felt tricked.

She looked out the car window at the street she had never seen before and her thoughts drifted to wondering what it would
be like to live alone in a town where every street was as unfamiliar as this one, where the houses had no numbers, and there
were no signs, no helpful people offering directions. Inside every building something dangerous hid, holding its breath, waiting
to pounce. Life was
like such a town. No street names or numbers, no map or guidebook, nowhere absolutely and positively safe.

Aunt Roxanne held Merell’s hands and kissed the palms. It was a funny thing to do, peculiar and tickly.

“Sometimes, Merell, it’s best to leave out the details when you answer a question. Sometimes details confuse the truth.”

Merell looked out the windshield at the quiet suburban street, empty of people, not even a cat ambling along the top of a
wall. She wiped a tear from her cheek and wondered if the people living in the big houses without numbers and with blank,
staring-eye windows ever wished they lived somewhere else, far away.

Aunt Roxanne said, “If you and I had told that doctor exactly all the details of what happened today, it would have taken
a very long time; and probably he would have understood eventually. But Dr. Hamid doesn’t have time for the whole story with
every detail. And he might not listen carefully. There’s even a chance he might not understand that life is very hard for
your mother even though she does the best she can, and we’re all trying to make things better. So it was just simpler for
me to leave out the details.” She looked like she had a stomach cramp. “Simpler and safer.”