The Sister Season (19 page)

She bit her lip. “Because the answer will be no. It’s over, Michael,” she said, and she had to rely on her ears to hear herself say it because her lips were too numb to fit around the words correctly and she couldn’t feel them leave her mouth. It seemed surreal to her, this scene—gold lamé and the clinking of silverware against china and a Thai waiter rushing between the tables with pitchers of iced tea and Michael, the first man she’d ever allowed herself to love, holding a blue velvet box in one hand, his face a big question mark. She was not doing this. She was not breaking up with him.

Except she was.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and picked up her purse and rushed out of the restaurant, bolted down the sidewalk before he could follow her, ducked through an alley to the next street over, and hailed a cab, which took her home.

And then flung herself facedown on her bed and sobbed for what seemed like a lifetime. She turned off her cell phone. Refused to check e-mail. Set the chain lock on her door. Slept.

She slept for what must have been three days, off and on. She would get up only to force a few crackers in her mouth, down a glass of milk or a bottle of vitamin water. She didn’t shower, she didn’t turn on the TV, she called in sick to work.

Her heart was broken, and she’d broken it herself. She loved him. God, how much she loved him. And it was for that reason that she couldn’t marry him. If she had to choose one of them to hurt, she chose herself. That’s how much she loved him.

On the fourth day, she got up and showered, put her hair into a ponytail and went to work, waiting tables at a pizza restaurant a couple of blocks away. Her mind wasn’t on her job and she was continually getting ripped by Billy, the manager with the pornstache who she hated more than life itself. Her tips sucked, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was that she wanted to hear Michael’s voice, wanted to feel his soft fingers brush her legs, wanted to look into his eyes, kiss him, love him, make love to him. But she couldn’t. She’d blown it. She’d blown it on purpose. She would have to live with the pain.

When her shift was over, she went straight back to her apartment, her eyes already drooping for want of sleep again. She knew it wasn’t healthy to be doing this—that she should be going to the beach and swimming away the sadness—but she didn’t care. Really, what in life was there to care about anymore? If there was something, she didn’t know it.

She opened her apartment door and right off she could smell him. She lifted her nose like a dog, catching the scent of Michael’s cologne on the air. The scent made her gut squeeze and cramp with loneliness. But also with curiosity. He’d been in the apartment.

“Hello?” she called out. “Michael?”

But there was no answer. She shut the door and moved into the room slowly, warily, looking for evidence of him.

She found it on the kitchen table. A vase with a single red rose in it, next to it a note, next to that the blue velvet box he’d been holding at the Thai restaurant four days earlier.

With shaking hands, she opened the note. It said:
Please at least look at it.

She did. She looked at it and looked at it, touching the diamond, holding it under the light. Imagining it on her finger as Mrs. Michael Bowman. Or was it Mrs. Dr. Michael Bowman? She’d heard of some women doing that.

She never pulled it out of the box. She never tried it on. She only stared at it, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Hours later, the phone rang. It was her mom. Her father had died. She needed to come home right away for the funeral. Was she free?

Tearfully, she admitted that yes, she was free. Unfortunately, she was free as a fucking bird. Free to do whatever the hell she wanted. Not even a goddamn dog to board or cat to find a sitter for. She was nothing if not free.

And free felt like shit.

J
ulia had gone outside, saying something about wanting to get fresh air, but Claire could hear the crinkle of a cigarette pack working under Julia’s kneading hand in her coat pocket. She stifled a smile—Julia had always been the avoidant sister, the one to cut and run when the dirt got deep. Maya had always stuck around and wallowed in the pain; Claire had always fought back. But it was Julia who would find respite.

Bradley had left and Maya had been stomping around in the back of the house ever since. Claire sat in the living room alone, thinking about Michael, wanting him, while at the same time wanting to not want him. Maybe she would call him again later. Just to tell him she was okay. Just to apologize for hanging up so quickly earlier.

“Hello?” Elise came in from the sunroom, stomping slush from her boots. It had warmed up considerably outside. Pockets of slush were dotting the yard, snowmelt dripped in the gutter, and birds chirped along the top of the sheds and the barn. Elise had called out earlier that she was going outside to put out some more seed for the birds. She’d left humming “O Come All Ye Faithful,” and it had occurred to Claire that they’d played no Christmas music all week.

“In here,” Claire called from the piano bench. It was like she was riveted to that spot. It was an old relic of the McClure clan, that piano. One of her uncles or maybe great-uncles or God knew who used to play boogie-woogie like nobody’s business. And church hymns. But that uncle or great-uncle or God knew who had long since left the farm, and had left his piano behind. Nobody in the Yancey family had ever played, although there was a time when Claire sorely wanted to. Robert would have never tolerated the noise, would have never tolerated the redundancy of practice, would never have tolerated a teacher’s bill, so she never even asked. Still, the piano stayed, just like the ancient, dusty butter churn in the back of the pantry and the falling-down chicken coop and the rusted farm tools in the toolshed. They were as much a part of the family as Claire, Julia, and Maya were. Maybe, in some ways, more a part of the family, because those things had happy memories attached to them, and Claire wasn’t sure she and her sisters did.

Elise traipsed through the kitchen and out into the front room. She was still wearing her stocking cap, her cheeks two bright red patches from being out in the wind so long.

“Where is everyone?” she asked.

“The kids are outside somewhere. So is Julia. Maya’s upstairs. And Bradley left.”

“Oh.” Elise removed her gloves and dropped them into a box full of mismatched gloves by the front door. “Where’d Bradley go?”

Claire shrugged. To the airport, she supposed. Or maybe to a motel. Who knew? That was, oddly, something they didn’t talk about during their nights down by the pond. All the things he had to tell her about Maya, and leaving her was never one of them. Claire knew it would sound unlikely to just about anyone—especially to Maya—but she believed that Bradley really did love his wife. He didn’t mean to be hurting her. In his mind, he was able to separate his actions from his love for her. He was so genuinely frightened by the cancer.

God, the cancer. Her sister had cancer. No matter how many times she repeated that in her mind, Claire just couldn’t grasp it. They were all supposed to still be children, not adults battling for their marriages, their kids, their lives.

She doubted anyone else knew. Bradley had told her that Maya was funny about spreading the word. She didn’t want Molly and Will to know. She didn’t want the babysitters to know. It seemed like the only two people carrying the burden were Bradley and Maya. Well, and some friend Maya had made. One who had cancer herself.

What a sad secret to be carrying around.

Claire quickly studied her mom, still standing in the front room trying to shake off the cold, gazing expectantly at her for answers. She didn’t even know that one of her daughters could be dying. Shouldn’t she know that? Was Maya being unfair? Was cancer the kind of secret you were allowed to keep, or were you obligated to share the news with the people who loved you so they could prepare for the day when they would have to say good-bye to you?

Probably Maya figured Elise was saying good-bye enough this week. “Maya kicked him out. I don’t know where he went.”

Elise paused. “Kicked him out? For good?”

Claire shrugged again. “I guess. He’s been cheating on her. Since day one. I think she’s finally had enough.”

“Well,” Elise said, busying herself again, “who could blame her? Poor Maya. Those poor kids.”

Claire said nothing. She wondered if she could blame her. Claire had always had a soft spot for Bradley. Had always enjoyed their talks by the pond, before he kissed her. And though she knew it was only going to start trouble this week, she’d been enjoying their talks again. Bradley listened to her. Bradley didn’t judge her. And he was easy to talk to because Claire never expected anything from him. He couldn’t let her down.

At the same time, he could never do anything right for Maya. She began their marriage so sure the other shoe would drop any second, she damn near threw it down herself. She gazed at him with disappointment in her eyes every minute of every day. She waited for his admission that he’d been the failure she’d always known he would be. She was so sure he would betray her, it really didn’t make any difference if he did or didn’t do it in reality.

He slept with those other women, in part, because in Maya’s mind he had already done so.

Still. The woman had cancer. If nothing else, he lost points in human decency for that fact alone.

“Well, I suppose Maya knows what she’s doing,” Elise said. She perched on the edge of the recliner, where Julia had been just moments before, and tilted her head, gazing at her daughter. “I suppose I should have done it myself.”

“Done what?”

Elise bit her lip, chewed for a second. “Kicked your father out.” Claire noticed her mom’s hands were shaking.

She had to work to keep herself from laughing. Did her mom even realize who she was talking to? In her mind, her mother should have kicked his sorry ass to the curb years ago. Maybe even years before Claire was born. The bastard had never done anything right for her, or for them, and to say good-bye to him would’ve made for a short while of pain and a long while of happiness, instead of the other way around. Well. Claire assumed, anyway. She guessed you could never really predict whether your actions would cause pain or pleasure down the road, could you? She would have never guessed that letting Dr. Bowman into her apartment to check on her foot would lead to her sniffling into a quilt every night by a frozen-over pond in Missouri snowstorms.

“It doesn’t really matter now, does it?” Claire said by way of avoiding saying what she really felt. “He’s gone either way.”

“I suppose,” Elise said. “But he may not have . . . well, things might have been different if I had.”

Claire shifted. “Well, sure they’d be different. That’s a given. But you shouldn’t beat yourself up over it, Mom. He’s gone. He’s never coming back. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“But you think I should have . . . let him go. You think it would have been all right to just . . . let him go.”

Claire took a breath. “Yes,” she finally said, “I do.”

Elise seemed to take it in, her hands still shaking as they rested in her lap, her teeth still working her bottom lip, which was starting to redden around the edges. “I do too,” she finally said.

Claire got up and walked over to her mom. She eased down onto the floor in front of the recliner and put both hands on her mom’s knees. “Mom,” she said softly, “nobody ever blamed you for what he did. He did those things himself. You were just as much his victim as we were.”

Elise patted Claire’s hands, tried on a smile and failed. “Thank you,” she said. “You girls were always so sweet to me. Even when I didn’t deserve it. Even now, when I don’t deserve it. I’m not as innocent as you think. And he left me that necklace. Why on earth would he do that, after all these years? I didn’t get him anything.”

Claire noticed that her mom’s knees were shaking under her hands as well. “Mom? Are you okay?”

Elise gathered herself up tall, but the action didn’t seem to have any real conviction to it. “Of course I am, dear. The funeral is tomorrow. It will all be over after that. I can forget . . . things . . . after he’s been buried.” She stared out into space for a moment—something she’d been doing more and more often—then turned to her daughter. “We need music, don’t you think?” Claire watched as her mom pulled herself out of the recliner and sauntered into the den as if what had just happened hadn’t been about ninety shades of freaky weird. Claire stayed on the floor, on her knees, listening to the rattle and shuffle of Elise digging out a CD, then a series of clicks, followed by Bing Crosby’s voice belting out “Winter Wonderland
.
”

For a moment, Claire allowed herself to be flooded with memories. She recalled lying on the den floor as a little girl, scraps of paper spread out in front of her, listening to this song over and over again while she drew pictures and scribbled poems. Feeling like the whole world was a blanket that rested over her and like there was no time more special than Christmas. The time of miracles. The time of love and joy and hope. The time to rejoice.

She could almost smell the lard melting. Could almost feel the birdseed running through her fingers as she helped mash the cooling fat and seed into a ball around a loop of rope that they would later hang from a tree. Almost heard Julia’s proper voice and smelled Maya’s perfume. Those memories were precious to her. The real gifts of Christmas. Too bad there were so few of them.

For she could also remember her father coming in from the fields in the middle of it, angrily shutting off the music while harrumphing about them being “leisurely,” then going on to berate them until they cried and fled the kitchen.

As it had so many times since she came home, her mind wandered to Michael. What did he think about Christmas music? She’d never asked. Would he allow her to play it? Allow their children to sprawl on the floor and dream while listening to it? Would he rent a Santa suit just to put the gifts under the tree on Christmas Eve, even if she was the only one who would see him do it? Would he drink too much at a party and get flirty, make her giggle and slap at his hands in public?

For some reason she thought he would do all of those things. He would be merry, always merry. But she couldn’t guarantee that she would. She couldn’t guarantee anything about herself. She wasn’t sure she even knew who she was now, much less who she would be in the future. Who wanted to marry someone like that?

After a while, she heard clanking of pans in the kitchen and she pulled herself off the floor, her knees cracking and popping as she stood. Twenty-eight was definitely not old, but she wasn’t getting any younger, that was for sure. If she kept turning down marriage proposals, next thing she knew she’d be an old maid.

Did she really want to face a future alone?

She started toward the kitchen, her full intention to help her mom make whatever it was she was fixing. But her feet turned, practically on their own, and she found herself slowly climbing the stairs instead, and walking down the hall to Maya’s room. All was quiet behind the door, but she could hear movement behind it.

She knocked.

“What?” Maya said tiredly from the other side. “If it’s you, Bradley, you need to leave.”

Claire slowly, timidly, turned the doorknob and opened the door just a crack. “It’s me,” she said, peeking around the door with one eye.

Maya, hovering over an open suitcase and clutching a shirt in her hands, rolled her eyes and sighed. “What do you want, Claire?”

For a moment, Claire was transported back to her early teen years. Back when Maya had been a surly teenager, tiny and perky outside the house but a raging volcano inside it. Claire could think of a million times she’d stood at this very door, looking in on this very wallpaper with the little blue flowers and this very same dresser with the bottom drawer that always hung askew, getting the very same eye roll and sigh from her sister.

She opened the door and let herself in, standing awkwardly in the doorway.

“If you want him, he’s yours,” Maya said without looking up or missing a beat folding the shirt she was holding. “Congratulations.”

“I never wanted him,” Claire said, even though she knew that was, technically, a little bit of a lie. But her crush on Bradley really was ancient history. The moment he touched her lips with his, the crush was gone. Evaporated. And that was the truth. She’d wanted him as a friend far more than she’d wanted him as anything else.

Maya chuckled darkly. “Well, that makes two of us now. I hope the bitch gives him an STD.”

Claire blanched. She knew this was something that worried Bradley.

What if I bring home some sort of STD and make her sick?
he’d fretted the night before.
What if the cancer makes her more receptive to it or something? Can you still die from syphilis?

You’re not using condoms?
Claire had asked him and he’d ducked his head so low his face was in total shadows.
Dude, that’s sick,
she’d said, but honestly she’d been too caught up in her own drama—wishing too hard that he would just let her go outside to cry on her own for one stinking night—to really care. Now she worried on Maya’s behalf.

“You should get tested,” she said.

Maya dropped the folded shirt into the suitcase and picked up another, holding it still for a moment while she studied Claire with slitted eyes. “Why? Do you know something I don’t know? Who am I talking to? Of course you do.”

Claire swallowed, shook her head. “Not at this point, no. Sounds like you know everything.”

Maya studied her harder, let the shirt flop against her stomach. “You seem worried. Is it because you have an STD and you’ve been sleeping with him?”

Now it was Claire’s turn to roll her eyes and sigh. “No. I’ve told you a thousand times, I never slept with him. He kissed me, Maya. Ten years ago. That was all. I didn’t ask him to. I didn’t want him to. And nothing—not one thing—has happened since then.”