The Good Sister (8 page)

“I don’t know what that means. Build a marriage?”

“Sure you do. It means going to Chicago or wherever. If you had a great job offer in Fargo, he’d go with you. That’s right,
isn’t it?”

Now she was cross with Elizabeth. At this rate she’d end up with no friends and no family except Simone.

“I love my sister.”

Elizabeth groaned. “I am so sick of hearing you say that, Roxanne. The loving thing to do would be to let that girl go.”

Roxanne saw Simone overboard, the
Oriole
flying past. Even Elizabeth could not understand how she was her sister’s life jacket.

“You’re on his side.”

“Side, shmide. Listen to me, Roxanne. It’s time for you to take care of yourself.”

Conversations going on in other booths were a low, congenial hum occasionally syncopated by laughter. It seemed that only
Roxanne had brought her troubles to breakfast.

“Angels are real,” Elizabeth was saying. “I’m convinced of it, only they don’t have wings and halos and all. They take the
form of the people who come into our lives. Like I was an angel for you when we first met because if that hadn’t happened,
you’d probably still be living at home.”

They had talked about this before. Roxanne liked the idea of Elizabeth as a pretty blond angel flying into her life, tucking
her wings and robe away, putting on jeans and a glittery T-shirt.

“And then Ty came and he was the angel who told you it was okay to get married and have a family of your own.” She laughed.
“An angel named Tyrone. But I think you’ve had your share of heavenly assistance. Now it’s up to you, Roxanne. You have to
be your own angel.”

D
uring the rest of July and most of August Roxanne often paused to be thankful that Merell’s 911 call and Ty’s Chicago trip
had occurred in the same week, forcing a crisis that, however difficult, seemed to have given new and stronger life to her
marriage. When Simone whined that Roxanne hadn’t been to see her, when she nagged Roxanne to shop for her, read to her, play
rummy, or wash her hair, Roxanne could say aloud that breaking free of Simone was the most difficult thing she’d ever done,
but it was happening.

There were times that August when Roxanne was aware of the slow unfolding, untwisting of herself. She slept late and read
on the deck while she drank her morning coffee and worked in the garden, up to her elbows in compost and mulch. She’d read
somewhere that gardeners were by nature optimistic because they believed in the future. That described Roxanne that summer.
On weekends she and Ty hiked all their favorite trails in
the Cuayamaca and Laguna Mountains, explored shops and restaurants in beachfront towns from San Diego to Dana Point. They
laughed, made love, and were happier together than they had ever been. They talked about having a baby. No longer yoked to
Simone, no longer the always-responsible sister-caretaker, Roxanne would be a wife and mother, as ordinary and wonderful as
that.

They did not say much about Chicago as they waited for the formal job offer they were sure would come. But as days became
weeks and no word arrived, the subject became a tender spot, a pinched nerve they favored by avoidance. When the call finally
came from a biologist who would have been Ty’s colleague and who had been particularly supportive of his candidacy, it took
less than three minutes to lift up their life and drop it down in a new direction.

Ty put down the phone, went into the kitchen, and poured himself a tall glass of ice water from the refrigerator. Roxanne
stayed where she was in the living room, folding laundry, biting the inside of her lip.

“They gave it to a guy from Harvard.” He stood in the arch between the two rooms, his expression unreadable. “Edgar Lessing.”

“Ty, I’m so sorry.” She had never wanted to go to Chicago, but equally as much she wanted Ty to be valued by the world as
he deserved to be.

“I know him. He’s a good man. Probably a smart choice.”

“They should have given it to you.” She threw a T-shirt into the basket unfolded. “Were there any reasons?”

“They didn’t think my heart was in it.”

“Your heart?”

“Yeah.”

“What does that mean?”

“I think it’s a way of saying something and nothing at the same time.”

A look of puzzled disappointment flickered across his expression and was gone, like the shadow of a moth by candlelight. Then,
as she watched, his expression reshaped itself into a mask of neutrality. She understood and didn’t blame him for not wanting
to deconstruct his time in Chicago, for not wanting to analyze the interviews or parse the conversations. Roxanne knew the
kind of thing that might have been said in public twenty years ago:
If a man’s heart was in the job, where was the wife? Why wasn’t she there to support him?
Probably the same thing was said now in private and unofficially.

Days passed and Ty had almost nothing to say beyond the smallest of small talk, which was somehow worse than if he had not
spoken at all. It seemed to Roxanne that either the house had shrunk around them, or they had grown large and clumsy as they
hadn’t been before. They stepped around each other carefully, were excessively polite, and apologized for things that didn’t
matter—mail left in the box out front, a single unwashed glass
abandoned on the kitchen counter. She had no idea if this was how Ty normally processed disappointment or if he was angry
with her or, as she thought more likely, a combination of the two ate at him. His thoughts had voices. She heard him accusing
and regretting her. Finally she could stand it no longer.

“You’re disappointed, Ty. I know. I feel like it’s my fault. If I had gone with you…”

“It’s over, Roxanne. Let it go.”

“Please, talk to me.”

“There’s no point, Roxanne.”

His curt responses infuriated her and she began to harden against him. Conversations were like rooms, she realized. She had
opened the door but it was up to him to walk through, and when he wouldn’t she felt as insulted as if he’d looked in, seen
nothing of interest or importance, and walked away.

Roxanne began spending more time with Simone just to get out of the house, and although she knew she was moving backward,
that the distance between her and Ty grew in relation to the hours she spent with Simone, she did it anyway.

She wasn’t going to beg.

One day at the end of August Roxanne was getting ready to go home after spending the afternoon with her sister while Nanny
Franny took the children to SeaWorld. As she was leaving she met Johnny coming into the
kitchen from the garage. He opened his arms wide, enveloping her.

“Rox, what’re you doing here?”

“I took the twins to the dentist. Nanny Franny took them to SeaWorld for a reward. No cavities.”

“That girl makes them brush morning and night.”

“I made an appointment for Simone. I don’t think she’s had her teeth cleaned in years. You can see the tartar.”

“You’re a good sister, Roxanne. I really appreciate all the stuff you do. Come on in to the study and have a drink with me.”

“I’m on my way home.”

“Gin and tonic, right?”

He was a big, handsome, smiling bulldozer with a nearly irresistible flash, an incandescence that stopped conversations when
he walked into a room. In the beginning it had been hard for Roxanne to trust a man so charming, so good-looking; but over
the years her doubts had been vanquished by his obvious devotion to Simone and his family. He had a temper, of course, a streak
of meanness that could cut; but Roxanne had learned to avoid that.

In his study the desk was littered with building plans and specifications, envelopes, files, and stuffed manila envelopes.
Roxanne hoped he never had to find anything fast. Pictures of Johnny with the governor, the mayor, and both California senators
hung on the wall beside photos of Simone and the girls, Johnny’s sisters and parents.

Roxanne let herself be guided to a comfortably worn leather chair.

“Put your feet up,” Johnny said, shoving the hassock toward her. “You’re a schoolteacher. Schoolteachers have tired feet.”

It was a very Johnny thing to say. He wanted her to feel welcome and appreciated, but Roxanne doubted if he knew when school
started or if he’d ever given teachers and tired feet a moment’s consideration before the thought came conveniently, charmingly,
to his mind.

He spoke from behind the wet bar. “How was Merell today?”

“Every time I looked for her, she had her nose in a book.”

He handed her a crystal highball glass bubbling with tonic water. “That stuff last month, I knew it’d blow over, although
I still don’t know quite what happened. You and me both know Merell’s too smart to call 911 for no reason.”

What Roxanne knew was that smart children could do crazy things in a family where there wasn’t enough grown-up attention to
go around. The best nanny in the world could not take the place of a loving parent.

She said, “I think… It’s possible that maybe she’s feeling a little lost. All the babies… and Simone. She probably wanted
attention.”

Johnny frowned and stared into his drink.

“I see it all the time, Johnny.” Roxanne wanted to take
away any hint of blame. “It’s so easy to overlook smart, capable kids. We tend to forget they’re still children.”

She told Johnny about a harried single mother she’d met at a parent-teacher conference. Though her boy had just turned thirteen,
he was already taller than six feet, pushing two hundred pounds, and shaving twice a week. But he was a good kid, academically
and socially one of the best.

“I asked his mom what her secret was. She said, ‘Just because he’s big doesn’t mean he don’t need hugs.’ ”

As she spoke she thought of Ty, of the unresponsive mask he had worn since the call from Chicago. It was hard to believe in
love when it was hidden.

Johnny said, sounding miffed, “Merell knows I love her.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to remind her.”

Not for weeks had Roxanne and Ty looked at each other in the way that said
I see you, I know you, I love you.

Johnny said, “You know, I can almost tell you the exact moment when I fell in love with your sister.” His smile was neon,
melting worries about the 911 call and little girls in need. “The parking lot at Mesa was completely empty except for this
little yellow BMW convertible sitting by its lonesome under one of those sulfur-colored parking lot lights, and this incredible
girl was standing next to it looking so vulnerable. She’d locked herself out and her cell phone in. I woulda helped her no
matter who she
was, but you can’t imagine how beautiful and helpless she looked. I fell in love right then.”

Roxanne thought,
you wanted a helpless wife and that’s what you got.
Ty wanted just the opposite, an independent woman who loved her work. At least that was what he said. Now it seemed he would
prefer a wife willing to drop everything and follow him like a pet dog. Oh, it wasn’t so, he didn’t want that, and she hated
thinking this way.

Johnny didn’t notice her distraction.

“After I got the door open, I asked her to have coffee with me. I didn’t think she’d say yes. I mean I was a total stranger
to her and she was so young. Eighteen, yeah, but a young eighteen. I was what? Twenty-nine? I’d been dating a long time, and
I’d never met any woman so feminine but what got me was her innocence. It was like someone clobbered me.”

For the first time in days Roxanne wanted to laugh out loud. What would Johnny do if someone told him he’d been duped, that
Simone’s innocence was an act? Right away she knew the answer. He wouldn’t believe it. Roxanne barely did herself.

On the night Simone and Johnny met in the parking lot and after they’d spent an hour at Starbucks, Roxanne was in the apartment
she shared with Elizabeth. It was close to midnight and she hadn’t finished grading a pile of essays. Elizabeth was in her
room, surfing the Web, visiting the various reincarnation and angel visitation sites she favored.

Someone pounded on the front door, Roxanne dropped her red pencil, and Elizabeth came out of her bedroom followed by her barking
miniature schnauzer.

Roxanne looked through the peephole, opened the door, and stepped back as Simone ran into the room.

“Roxy, I’m in love. I met the most wonderful man.”

Elizabeth laughed, picked up the dog, and went back into her room.

“He’s twenty-nine years old and he has his own business and he’s the most handsome and so polite. He’s a gentleman like BJ,
you know. He opens the door and that kinda stuff. He made me feel like a doll, like I could break.” She wrapped her arms around
Roxanne, squeezing hard enough to bruise. “I’m going to marry him. He wants to take care of me.”

“He said that?”

“No. But I can tell.”

She danced around the small apartment, spinning and dipping and pirouetting, singing his name over and over. “Johnny Duran,
Johnny Duran, he’s the sexiest man, Johnny Duran.”

Somewhere in the house Celia was running the vacuum cleaner and the television was on in the family room though no one was
watching it. Roxanne started to say it was time for her to go home but Johnny interrupted her, switching back to Merell.

“After that 911 shit I talked to the chief and God
almighty we’re lucky he’s a good friend. He said if Merell was his he’d get her a shrink. You think that’s a good idea?” Before
she answered, he went on. “I don’t like the idea of psychiatrists, bringing a stranger into the family doesn’t sit right,
you know? It’s like when you’re measuring and by accident you add an extra inch. It throws everything out of whack.”

“Merell would love to spend more time with you.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’d be nice. I’d like it too, only I’m going flat out right now. We’re building a hotel in Vegas and it’s taking
all my time.” He gestured toward his untidy desk. “I’m not sure I woulda gone for the contract if I’d known how demanding
it was gonna be. These clients, these Chinese guys—fucking billionaires, let me tell you—they wanted me to work over Labor
Day weekend but I told them I was going to the lake with my family. No argument, no negotiation.” He grinned suddenly. “You
should come with us, Rox.”