The Sister Season (14 page)

No way.

Bradley would never have the upper hand again.

She’d scooted away from the table and had stood in the doorway to the den for a few moments, sickly admiring the way the lights on the blue spruce were twinkling off of the tinsel, making shimmery reflections on the walls.

It would get better, right? It had to. She had two children who wanted good lives, and damn it, they deserved good lives. Not a life where their mom was forever sobbing over their father’s affairs. Not a life where their mom mattered that little. She had to live so that she could get them out of there. They didn’t know it, but their lives were counting on it.

Sniffling, she’d left the den and made her way toward the bedroom, but was surprised when movement from her father’s recliner had caught her peripheral vision. Her heart leapt a little, the irrational side of her sure that the spirit of her father had come back to add insult to injury just like some damned Dickens novel. Maybe to tell her that her husband was unfaithful because she was ugly. Because her hair was greasy and her face pimply and she was too short. Because she had a fat little stomach and spindly little legs. All the things he used to say to her growing up.

But it was her nephew, Eli, sitting in the chair. He looked startled . . . and somehow guilty.

“Eli? What are you doing in here?” she’d asked.

He’d paused, his eyes darting around nervously. “Waiting for Santa Claus,” he’d said.

She’d doubted him, of course. Something about that kid wasn’t right. He seemed so sullen and nervous all the time, like he was forever waiting for someone to jump out from behind the curtains and slash him to bits, and like he wouldn’t be surprised when it happened because that was the way his life always ended up.

Come to think of it, her sister Julia looked much the same way. Something was going on there, and Maya realized with a start that she’d never bothered to ask what it was.

“Me too, buddy,” she’d said, “but just between you and me . . . I don’t think he’s gonna come.”

Eli had sat stock-still in the chair, his deep brown eyes that so resembled Julia’s peering out at her through the darkness. He looked like he wanted to say something but was afraid. A gust of wind whistled outside and blew against the front door on the other side of the room. Both Maya and Eli looked at it as it strained and creaked against the force of the wind.

Finally Eli spoke, his words fast and tumbling into one another. “They’ve been doing that every night,” he said.

Maya’s confusion was only brief. She knew exactly who he was talking about and what they’d been doing every night. She tried to smile knowingly, but she was embarrassed, and the corners of her mouth felt so very, very heavy.

“I saw them. Out by the pond,” he added.

Maya physically recoiled. Out by the pond. Of course out by the pond. Where else? For a moment she felt as if she’d been transported back in time, traipsing through the burrs and ticks of the woods, brambles tearing at her ankles, and bursting out on the other side only to find Claire in Bradley’s arms, his mouth brushing her lips. She willed away the images that flowed right behind it, the accusations and the tears and the way she’d collapsed on their apartment floor, devastated.

“Oh,” she said, because she felt like she should say something, but her blood was running so cold through her veins that “Oh” was the only word that she could think of. The tears were threatening to start anew, and her impulse was to burst out the back door and run. Run past the chicken coop, the tractor shed. Run through the old garden where spiders and sweat bees had frightened her as a child. Run through the impossibly long soy field, past the beehives. Run into the tree line, in and through. Through and through and burst out the other side and catch them. Finally. Catch them finishing what she’d caught them starting ten years ago.

Catch her husband making love to her sister. See it and get it over with. Lose him in one fell swoop, which would have to feel better than losing him a little at a time like this.

But she wouldn’t do it. Because she didn’t really want to see, did she?

“You should get to bed,” she finally choked out, and then left before her nephew could say anything else. Before he could see her life crumble.

•   •   •

For the first few hours of Christmas morning, Elise’s home looked for all the world like a proper Christmas. The tree was lit, gifts billowing beneath, reaching in an arc across the floor. The poinsettias were blooming in the kitchen and on the sunporch. Stockings were bulging, laid out on the hearth, which still glowed from the embers of the evening’s fire. Outside, the world was white and gleaming, silent, majestic. A pot of mulled wine still sat on the stove, cooling, fragrant. Cookies were arranged on a plate on the kitchen table, and a separate plate, which once held cookies and milk for Santa, sat next to it, empty save for a few crumbs to lend authenticity.

Had Elise been awake to see it, she would have been very happy. She would have felt like she’d finally gotten her beautiful Christmas.

Unfortunately, she, along with everyone else—finally!—had drifted into a dark and dreamless sleep, unable to shrug off the weight that she carried. Her unhappiness and her secrets were constant companions that took no day off, not even the most sacred day of the year.

Yes, had she been awake to see those few short predawn hours of Christmas, she might have felt as if she’d pulled this one off. But she wasn’t awake. And all that awaited her under her tree when she did wake up was more of the same ugly tension, wrapped up in bright paper and tied with a bow.

M
olly and Will bounded out of bed before dawn had really even been fully realized. Half of the windows were covered with drifted snow and stuck ice, which made it seem even darker and earlier than it was.

“Mom! Presents! Mom! Presents!” was screeched over and over again, as the kids tore through Maya’s careful work under the tree, scavenging boxes and putting them into piles ready for opening. Maya opened her eyes at the first sound of bare feet running down the hardwood floor of the hallway, only to find herself face-to-face with Bradley, who was—no surprise here—still slumbering away as if he hadn’t heard a thing. Bradley never woke with the kids. Not once had he ever.

Maya had one of those hazy morning moments where everything was all right and this was just any other Christmas. Her kids were happy, her husband was cozy and breathing softly against her, she had no worries, no adultery, no cancer, no dead father to bury. In that brief moment of confusion, she almost reached out and stroked the side of Bradley’s face, the way she would have done when they were first married and the kids were babies. Back when it was only his transgression with Claire she had to forgive.
Merry Christmas,
she would have whispered in a flirty voice, running her fingertips softly down his jawline to wake him.

But before her fingers made it out of the blankets, she was slammed into reality. This was not their bedroom back home, and even if it had been, Maya would be thinking only about how he’d probably slept with Amberlee right in the very spot where she was lying and she would feel such loathing for him that she would have to use every reserve of strength and self-control she had to keep from waking him up with a punch to the throat.

She decided not to wake him at all. Let him miss opening gifts with the kids. Not like he was all that much into the family anyway. Not unless he was screwing one of the kids’ teachers. Then he had a sudden interest in their extracurricular activities. Such as dance. God, she was an idiot to think he’d suddenly started volunteering to take Molly to dance just so she could rest after radiation treatments.

She pushed back the covers and sat on the edge of the bed, her feet searching for her slippers tucked under the bedskirt.

“Merry Christmas,” she heard at her back, gruff, half-awake.

She glanced over her shoulder. Bradley was turning onto his back, flinging an arm over his eyes, sweat staining the armpit of his T-shirt.

“The kids are already up,” she said by way of response.

“So I hear.”

Maya stood and padded to the closet, where her terry-cloth robe was hanging on the same hook on which she’d hung her robes throughout her entire childhood.

“Come here,” Bradley said, his voice soft, sleepy.

She glanced over her shoulder as she pulled the robe off the hook. “What?”

He looked warm under the sheets, his chest comfortable and inviting. “I want to wish you a Merry Christmas,” he said. He sounded sincere.

“The kids,” she repeated.

“The kids are thrilled out there. They can wait. Come here.” He held his arms out. In the old days, the days when Maya was working so hard to be everything to him, to be the only thing for him, she would have crawled back into bed and shrugged her way into those arms. She would have snuggled up against his side, resting her face on his chest, slinging one arm and one leg over him. If she worked it just right, moved her calf up and down one too many times, she could talk his morning erection into something workable and they would end up having sweaty, slow morning sex, which was always Maya’s favorite. It always felt like she was laying claim to him for the whole day when that happened.

She knew that was what he was expecting. But then she remembered him being out with Claire last night, remembered Eli telling her that they’d been out together at night all week. How could he just expect to seduce her when he was out with her sister all night doing God-knew-what?

He is the real cancer . . . he is the real cancer . . .

Maya pursed her lips and cinched the belt of her robe tight. “I don’t think so,” she said, her voice clipped and as icy as the window behind him. She began heading for the door.

“Why not? Come on, Maya, what has gotten into you? It’s Christmas.”

She paused in the doorway, her fists clenched at her sides. As if he didn’t know! Was he seriously that ignorant? Her nose still felt plugged up from all the crying she had done last night. Her eyelids were still fat and heavy. Her throat was raw and the side of her chest ached and her children—her poor children!—were out in the den hoping to unwrap a bunch of cheap plastic crap and were excited about it because they didn’t know any goddamn better, but she did. She knew better and she had to bite her bottom lip to keep from telling him, right then and there, that this was over. That he was a cancer and she was going to fight him just as hard as she was fighting the breast cancer. That Carla had told her to concentrate on the cancer that she could make go away and, bad news, Bradley, that cancer is you. And that she was going to pull Molly out of dance like yesterday, but first she was going to make a public scene about it. First she was going to stand up in the waiting area of Move ’N Shake and tell all the moms to hold on to their husbands because apparently Amberlee wasn’t satisfied with just getting her hands on your money. She was going to tell Amberlee that she knew everything, and that if she ever caught her blond, spindly ass near her house again, she would shoot her dead.

“The kids are waiting,” was all she said, and she left the room.

E
lise and Julia were already in the den by the time Maya got there. Elise sat on the hearth, a smile pasted so hard on her face it looked as if it might actually hurt. Her pink robe was pulled tight around her knees and she held a coffee cup between both hands.

Julia sat on the floor, shaking gifts and playing with the kids.

“Oh, this one sounds like it has a lot of parts,” she cooed to Will, shaking a gift wrapped in Santa paper. His eyes grew wide as he heard the rustle of the pieces inside. “Maybe it’s a robot.”

He shook his head, laughed. “No, Aunt Dooleeuh. A robot would be really big.”

“Not if you have to put it together yourself,” she said. “Are you a good robot-builder?”

“He’s better at destroying things,” Molly said from within the tree branches. She grunted as she stretched for a just-out-of-reach box.

“Nuh-uh, I am so a good builder,” Will protested. He scurried under the tree with his sister, then backed out, dragging another box with him. He studied the tag, his forehead crinkling in concentration. “For you, Molly!” he said and pushed it in her direction, though she was still reaching for the elusive box up in the branches. To Julia, he said, “I know! It’s a bunch of baby robots!”

“Awww,” Julia said, cradling the box in her arms. “Aren’t they cute?”

Will laughed again, a little maniacally, and Julia winced, remembering the days when Eli’s laugh sounded similar. It seemed like so long ago. “Mom!” Will exclaimed when he saw Maya enter the room, and Julia turned to see her sister, who seemed to be making an effort to look cheerful but was failing. “We got presents! Santa came! Santa came!” He was jumping up and down on his knees. “Can we start opening them?”

“You want to wait for your daddy, honey,” Elise said from her perch on the hearth.

Maya frowned. “No, it’s okay,” she said. “Sure. Open them.”

She eased herself down onto the floor next to Julia. “What about Eli?”

Julia looked over her shoulder, as if she could see down the hall and into their bedroom from where she was sitting. She shrugged. “You know teenagers. They’ll sleep forever if you let them,” she said, but she chewed on her lip nervously after saying it, her eyes glazing over just a little bit. Hopefully that was the only reason Eli hadn’t joined them yet, but she doubted it.

As Will tore into his gifts, flinging wrapping paper carelessly over his shoulders, Julia slowly got up and moved down the hallway, where she pressed open the bedroom door just a crack, and peered in at her son, sleeping on his cot in the center of the room.

He looked so peaceful, his mop of hair fallen back off his forehead, his eyelids, fragile and veiny, jumping as he dreamed. His face was pale—the pimples wouldn’t burst to the surface, angry and crimson, until he got up and began his day. It was as if you could see his disgust with life boiling through his very skin.

Why? she asked herself once again. Where had she gone wrong? And what would she do now? She tried hard to hang on to Tai’s encouragement, but without him here to remind her, she felt so helpless and alone. How she wished she’d asked him to come after all. And how she wished even harder that she wouldn’t have had to ask, that he’d just been there because it was where he wanted to be. She had often felt as if she had no business raising a child with her schedule and her lack of attention. Now, with the troubles Eli was having, the feeling was only stronger. Maybe Eli would be better off with Dusty and Shurn after all.

A squeal pealed out from the den, and Eli stirred. Quickly, Julia backed away from the doorway, pulling the door shut as she went. The last thing she needed was for him to wake up to find her staring at him. He so considered her the enemy as it was. He so felt like she was always up in his business. To find her gazing at him in his sleep would send him over the edge.

Instead, she moved back toward the ruckus, as Will went on and on about a gift he’d gotten, his voice excited and rambling. She remembered the days when Eli was like that. She’d often gotten annoyed by it. He had seemed so hyper. So ridiculously immature. He was a child. She should have let him be one.

Instead of going back to the den, she veered into the kitchen. Elise had already started some cinnamon rolls, and Julia could see a thick slab of bacon and two dozen eggs on the counter by the stove. Her mother would soon be cooking a huge Christmas Day breakfast, just as she’d always done. Only this year Robert wouldn’t be stomping around, grumbling about this “fucking Christmas shit” putting him in the poorhouse. He wouldn’t be sitting at the head of the table, taking away brand-new toys as punishment for the smallest of crimes. Julia remembered the year he’d taken away her Holly Hobby doll just moments after she’d gotten it, simply because she’d left one elbow on the table a fraction of a second too long. She never saw that doll again. She’d been heartbroken.

All of a sudden, Julia was so very tired. She wanted a cup of coffee, but there was a line. Bradley, pink-cheeked and stubbly, had just poured himself a cup and was turning to fill one for Claire, who was fresh out of the shower, her ringlets dripping onto her shoulders.

“Merry Christmas,” Julia mumbled, pulling a mug out of the cabinet.

“Same to you,” Bradley said. He held up the pot as a question.

“Please,” Julia said, offering her mug so he could fill it. There was another squeal as Will opened another gift.

“Merry Christmas,” Claire said, blowing over the top of her cup and taking a sip. She winced, took another. “Eli still in bed?”

Julia nodded, rubbed her forehead.

Claire looked at her, concerned. “Everything okay?”

Julia wanted to smile, say yes, act as if everything was fine. But she was so tired. She wanted to get this week over with and go home. As if everything would be fine there. She knew better. She shrugged instead.

“Claire? Julia? Come on in,” their mom called, and all three of them, even though she hadn’t said Bradley’s name at all, moved toward the den, all clutching their coffee mugs as if they were limping in on crutches. Elise was stooped, picking up an armful of gifts that were tucked between the tree and the desk.

Maya took one look at the group coming into the den and rolled her eyes. “Of course. Joined at the hip,” she muttered. Julia’s eyebrows shot up, but Claire and Bradley looked as if they hadn’t heard.

The kids were just about done unwrapping their gifts, and had already dumped out their stockings into small piles in front of them. Hershey’s Kisses rolled around on the floor and a giant chocolate Santa peeked halfway in, halfway out of its box, a bite taken from the hat. Molly was undressing a baby doll, singing to it sweetly, and Will was looking at the back of a box of little cars, sucking on a candy cane, finally silent.

As Bradley, Claire, and Julia searched for a place to settle, Elise passed around the gifts she’d been gathering.

“They’re not much,” she said apologetically. “I’m sorry, but there wasn’t much time this year, with your father’s death and . . .” She trailed off, her neck getting splotchy, then shook her head. “Open your gifts. It’s Christmas. Not the time to talk about that kind of thing.”

Candles. They had all gotten candles. Julia smiled, thanked her mom, but wondered how it had come to pass that her own mom didn’t know her well enough to give her a personal gift. Candles. Something she got half a dozen of from her students. Something you got a sister-in-law or the Sunday school teacher. Her candle, which smelled like pomegranates and citrus, depressed her. No wonder she felt so alone all the time. While her friends had a mom to go to when intimate shit hit the fan, she had a mom who bought her . . . a candle.

The sisters smiled and thanked their mom, one by one, and at some point Bradley got up and left the room, then came back with a trash bag and the four of them crawled around on their hands and knees, throwing away ripped gift wrap, careful not to accidentally toss a new toy. They drank their coffees and listened to the children play and pulled things out of boxes for the kids and helped install batteries, and for a few moments it might have begun to feel cozy, but then Claire spoke.

She cleared her throat, her eyes getting teary before she even said a word. “Maya,” she said. Maya looked up at her sharply. She cleared her throat again. Bright red splotches appeared high up on her cheeks. “Bradley told me about—”

But before she could finish the sentence, Maya pointed a manicured finger at her. “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t you dare sit here in this room with my children on Christmas morning and tell me something that my husband told you during one of your nightly . . . trysts . . . or whatever they are.” Her finger was shaking as the rage coursed through her.

Claire held out a hand. “No, I wasn’t . . . We’re not . . . Oh, my God . . . See? I told you,” she said, turning on Bradley. Though her voice remained steady, tears slipped down both cheeks, almost in tandem.

Bradley looked startled. “Maya,” he said, “it’s not . . .” But he never got the chance to finish, as Maya swept herself up, gathered her robe around her tightly, and left the room without another word.

The den practically ticked with silence in her wake. Even the kids were staring up at Bradley expectantly, their hands hovering in midair over their toys, their mouths open, their faces dotted with curiosity.

Julia let out a sigh. Claire swiped angrily at her cheeks, her lips pressed tightly against each other. Bradley rubbed his palm up and down over his hair. “Jesus,” he muttered.

After what seemed like forever, the kids went back to playing, not asking a single question or saying a word, which left Elise wondering how often they’d witnessed similar scenes between their parents. How many times had Maya fled the room on a wave of harsh words? And what was wrong with her daughter that she seemed on such a seesaw of emotions these days? It couldn’t be because of her father’s death. She had never been a daddy’s girl. Surely she wasn’t going to start now that he was gone.

Molly had climbed back under the tree, and was worrying over the box tucked up on the branches again. Elise wondered what that gift was. At first she’d assumed it was one that Maya had left for her children last night, but she’d never said anything to them about it, and they’d been done opening gifts for a while now. Finally, Molly stretched and wrestled it out of the branches. A few strands of tinsel fell onto the floor. She pulled aside the bow and gazed at the tag under it.

“It says ‘To Elise from Robert,’” she read. She looked up at Bradley. “Who is that?”

Elise’s heart pounded. She had not gotten Robert anything. She never got him anything, and likewise, he never got her anything. Not in years. Robert didn’t believe in gifts. He didn’t believe in sentiment. Was this some sort of joke? Someone thinking it would be funny or amusing or poignant to make it look like her husband was sending her a gift from the beyond? After what had happened on the day he died? If so, it was a joke in the poorest taste.

Or had Robert really gotten her something this year, tucked it away in the back branches of the tree for a surprise? And what did that mean?

Bradley chuckled, gestured toward the hearth. “It’s your grandma Elise, goof,” he said.

“Oh.” Molly laughed breathily, knee-walking toward Elise, and once again Elise felt sorry for the girl. She felt the tension. It was obvious from her laugh.

Swallowing back the strain that was creeping up her neck, Elise reached forward and took the gift from her granddaughter. “Thank you, honey,” she said.

“Is it from Grandpa?” Molly asked, and Elise nodded. “How?”

“Well, he must have bought it and wrapped it up before he died,” Elise said, rubbing her thumb along the side of the small gift. She couldn’t for the life of her figure out why, but she felt a lump in her throat.

“Are you gonna open it?” Molly asked.

“Molly,” Bradley warned right away.

Elise took a deep breath and let it out on a smile. “Sure I am,” she said, and, knowing that all eyes were on her every move, she peeled back a corner of the paper, then more and more, and finally let the paper fall away.

It was a small white box, the type that would have jewelry in it.

She opened it, and pulled out the cotton. Inside was a necklace, gold, delicate, with a small heart pendant hanging from it. There was no note, no nothing. No explanation. Was this his attempt at an apology for the life he’d given her? Had he been planning to try to be a better husband before he’d died?

Elise swallowed and swallowed, holding up the necklace. She felt dizzy and sick to her stomach.

“Pretty,” Molly breathed, touching the heart with the tip of her finger and making it spin.

Elise couldn’t take it. She dropped the necklace back in the box and set it on the bricks of the hearth. “I’m going to make breakfast,” she choked out, and stood on shaky legs, marching out as normally as she could and praying that she wouldn’t pass out along the way.