The Sister Season (20 page)

Maya began folding again, only this time more angrily. “So what have you been doing sneaking around outside at night with my husband, then?”

“We haven’t been sneaking out together. I’ve been going out to”—
cry, regret, wish I’d never said good-bye to Michael
—“clear my head. I have some things on my mind, believe it or not, that have nothing to do with you. And Bradley kept following me out there. I didn’t ask him to. And nothing ever happened between us.”

“Bullshit.”

“Bullshit!” Claire was getting angry now. Until this point she’d ridden Maya’s anger like it was something she’d somehow deserved, maybe because she hadn’t pushed away the kiss faster, maybe because she’d initially had a crush on him, maybe because she knew that he liked watching her and she let her vanity get in the way and ate it up rather than telling her sister about it. But that was so damn long ago and she was a kid then and by God, she deserved forgiveness for poor choices, even if none of those choices really had anything to do with the betrayal Maya had been feeling for the past ten years. “You have spent so many years being pissed at me for something he was doing with other people. Have you forgotten the condom you found? It wasn’t mine, and a part of you has always known that. He was sleeping with someone else. Someone from work. He has slept with dozens of women since you married him, Maya. And he’s sleeping with Molly’s dance teacher. But none of those people are
me
. You should be angry at
them
, Maya, not at me.”

Maya slammed the shirt she was holding into the suitcase, then turned and walked right up to Claire. Claire was a full three inches taller than her sister, and Maya had kicked off her heels, a fact Claire noticed with a feeling something akin to shock when the top of Maya’s head barely reached the bridge of Claire’s nose. Maya never took off her heels.

“Then what have you been doing outside with him all week?”

“Talking to him. Listening to him talk, actually.”

“About what?”

“About . . . you.” Maya’s mouth snapped shut and Claire could have sworn she saw something flit across her sister’s face. Surprise? Fear? Triumph? She wasn’t sure. Her voice felt tiny and unsure, all of the anger seeping out of it as if she were a balloon pricked by a pin and drifting around the room, getting smaller, smaller. “About the cancer.”

“Wonderful,” Maya said sarcastically, one hand on her hip. But her eyes looked wet and wide, as if she was frightened as she moved back toward the suitcase and reached in to straighten the shirts she’d placed in there.

Claire followed her toward the bed, sat down next to the open suitcase. “He’s scared,” she said. “He’s scared of losing you.”

Maya laughed. “Well, it’s a bit late for that, now, isn’t it? He’s lost me.”

Claire nodded. “He’s scared for the kids to lose you. He says you’re the most amazing mom he’s ever seen. And I agree. I could never be as good a mom as you are.” Maya said nothing. Just kept folding. “And he said he was scared that he would lose you before he ever got the chance to be a good husband to you.”

Maya tossed the shirt into the suitcase and picked up a pair of socks, folded them together, tossed them in on top of the clothes. “He had the chance. He had ten years of chances. He blew it.”

“I agree,” Claire said. “But I just wanted you to know that. That we weren’t talking about me. We were talking about you.” She paused. “Are you going to have to do chemo?”

Maya shook her head. “Just radiation.”

Claire breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good news, then.”

“Really?” Maya shot her a death glare. “Good news?” She went back to her folding. “Well, I hope you never get the good news that you have cancer, little sister.”

“I just meant that it was good that you wouldn’t have to have chemo. Why haven’t you told anyone? Why haven’t you at least told Mom?”

“Because . . .” Maya paused, let her arms go slack. “Because telling people would make it more real. And because I didn’t want Bradley to see me as, I don’t know, flawed and broken. I didn’t want to give him an excuse to leave me.”

Claire was quiet for a moment. How sad it must be to be Maya, to forever be afraid of being less than perfect. To hide herself away so nobody could see her human side. All this to hang on to a man who was never hers to hang on to. Not totally.

“I’m scared, too, Maya,” Claire said. “I’m scared that you’ll never believe me. That you’ll never forgive me.”

“This is probably the wrong day to ask me for that.”

“When will there ever be a right day? I’ve been trying to get forgiveness for a decade.”

Maya tossed a few more socks on top of the shirts and then zipped the bag closed. “Actually, you’ve been hiding out in California for a decade. I don’t recall any phone calls or e-mails or anything. You know, asking for forgiveness.”

I shouldn’t have to ask for it,
Claire thought.
Because I didn’t do anything to deserve the blame in the first place.
But instead she said, “I was hiding out from Dad and you know it.”

“Partly. You were also sending a message: ‘Claire doesn’t need anyone.’”

Claire had never thought about that before, but she knew Maya was right. She had been trying to prove she didn’t need anyone, hadn’t she? She’d been trying to prove that ever since she was a little girl toddling along after her big sisters just hoping for some attention, only to be yelled at to stop being a pest and go away. She’d been trying to prove that since the first time her father left a mark on her skin. She needed nobody. She was independent and they could all go fuck themselves for all she cared.

She was still trying to prove it, wasn’t she? With Michael. By turning down the only man—the only person—who’d ever had a shot at really making her happy.

“I was hurt. And angry.”

“And spoiled and selfish too.”

“That’s not fair, Maya. He never left you with black eyes.”

Maya hefted the suitcase off the bed and set it on the floor, then picked up a child’s suitcase and zipped it open. “He never left you with a sprained wrist. He never pulled out your hair.”

“Yes, actually, he did pull out my hair. More than once.”

“Okay, well, this isn’t a contest, you know,” Maya said, her voice rising. “He beat us. All of us. So the hell what? Why does that matter now? We’re still alive and he’s dead and who gives a shit?”

“I give a shit!” Claire shouted. “I give a shit because I can’t marry the man that I love. It matters a whole hell of a lot to me. Right now.”

Maya’s eyes grew wide. “Well, that’s not my problem,” she said after a few minutes, but her voice was soft, sad.

Claire’s heart sank. “Of course it isn’t,” she said. “And it isn’t your problem that your nephew is suicidal or that our mom is totally freaking losing it, either. Because poor Maya, her husband slept with someone else so the whole world is about your problem. Boo-hoo.”

Maya scooped out a handful of clothes from the suitcase and laid them on the bed. She started to say something, then stopped. “What do you mean my nephew is suicidal? Eli?”

“Never mind,” Claire said. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Yes, you should have. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. And please don’t tell Julia I told. I swore I’d keep it to myself.”
Secrets,
she thought as she said it.
We’re
all so full of secrets.

At first, Maya looked like she might be inclined to argue, but she simply took a breath, closed her mouth, nodded, and went back to work. Silence stretched around them for several minutes.

Finally, “What about you? Are you scared?” Claire asked.

Maya continued working. Her movements were still angry, but her voice had softened somewhat. “Sometimes. When I think about the kids, I get a little sad. When I see how bad my friend Carla has gotten, I worry. Sometimes I wake up feeling like I’m being invaded, like I’m under attack, and I’m so helpless. That’s the worst part, I think. Being helpless.”

“Is the prognosis good?”

“As good as it can be, I guess.”

“So the doctor thinks you’ll live.”

“He would never say that. Lawsuit city.”

There was more silence, only this time, Claire noticed, it was not entirely uncomfortable. This felt like one of those rare times when she was invited into one of her sisters’ bedrooms to listen to music and gossip about people from school, most of whom Claire didn’t even know, but it never mattered because she was getting entrance into a very special place. A sisterhood in the truest sense of the word.

“Well, you look really good for—,” Claire began, but Maya shushed her when she heard a noise, something like a siren coming from outside.

“That’s Molly,” she said, and both women rushed to the window, which looked out over the backyard and soy field and to the tree line and pond behind it. There, running across the snowy field, shrieking for her mother, Molly ran toward the house, stumbling every few steps as her boots slipped out from under her.

Claire and Maya looked at each other, and Claire could instantly see the worry on her sister’s face. The screams ripping across the field weren’t normal. The kid sounded absolutely frantic. Something was definitely wrong. Without speaking a word, both women bolted from the window, raced down the stairs, and out the back door toward the crying child.

“Molly?” Maya was calling as Claire sprinted past her toward the little girl. “Honey? What’s wrong?”

“Will fell in!” Molly cried, panting, tears streaking her face. “Will and Eli together!”

“Fell in what?” Maya asked, finally catching up with her daughter and putting her hand on Molly’s shoulder, trying to shush her. But the little girl wouldn’t calm down, wouldn’t stop screaming long enough to tell her.

But Claire knew without the little girl saying a thing. She’d seen the extra set of footprints pressed into the snow after the first night here.

“The pond,” she said, breathless, and bolted through the soy field, her feet unable to take her there fast enough.

T
oday had to be the day. There was no way around it.

The funeral would be tomorrow, and his mom had already told him that she would be packing their things tonight so they could leave straight from the cemetery. She wanted to get home. To Tai, to Christmas, to her students. And he couldn’t blame her. If he’d had anything waiting for him at home, he’d be ready to get back to it too. The farm was really depressing. Which he found highly ironic, by the way.

So it had to happen today. He couldn’t keep playing around with it. Couldn’t keep getting interrupted. Couldn’t take that chance. If he were to wake up in a hospital room somewhere, alive, he’d be pissed off. Or worse—alive and damaged, unable to try again.

He decided that his problem was that he was trying to be sneaky about it. Slipping out in the night and all that clandestine shit was action-movie-exciting but not very practical, especially around this place, where pretty much nobody stayed in bed, apparently. He looked too suspicious when he snuck around. Things would go off much easier if he just did it. Right in the middle of the day. Right in the middle of everything and everyone, just like he’d originally planned back home.

Pills would have been much easier. But the pond was a great second choice. It would take him quickly, painlessly, peacefully. He wanted to die, but all that suffering he could do without.

He’d spent most of the day making peace with his plan. He’d talked to his mom about shit that he wanted to do when they got back home, and even though he knew that their talk lulled her into this doe-eyed confidence that he was getting all better and oops, Mom, false alarm and I didn’t really mean it and all that stuff, he still felt good about it. He wasn’t terribly attached to his mom, but he liked the idea of their last conversation being a positive one. At least she would have that good memory. Even if she would figure out it was a lie.

He’d even gone outside and played with the little cousins for a while. He wanted to roll around in the snow one last time before he died. He had other things he’d like to have done one more time before he died too. Go to a water park. Eat a steak. Jerk off with one of the magazines his dad hid behind the toilet. But he guessed those things didn’t matter anymore. Not really. Not when he was about to experience the bliss of being gone from it all.

The kids were cute. Followed him around like a couple of puppies. Will, especially. The kid couldn’t say his words right and sometimes did some things that seriously made him look like a ’tard, but it was cool the way he mimicked every move Eli made, repeated everything he said. Molly was more of a bossy type. A know-it-all. A girl. But she was sweet, and she even kissed him on his cheek once when they were playing Snow City Avalanche (Will’s idea).

But the cousins had gotten cold, had gone onto the sunporch to warm up. And he’d lain in the middle of the yard on his back, feeling the chill leak up through his coat. He’d stared at the sky, wishing it would just let loose on him and snow right then. Cover his eyeballs and gather in his nostrils, make him an abominable snowman. That would be the shit.

But after a while his thoughts went where they always went—to the place where he was miserable. Where he was relentlessly made fun of. Where he was a loser. Where he was lonely.

Where he wanted to die.

Slowly, slowly, he pulled himself up to sitting, and then to standing, and then he was walking, walking, walking, faster and faster, propelled by purpose, and soon he was punching through the tree line where the melting snow made a mud mess out of the banks around the pond.

He could see fading footsteps where Aunt Claire and Uncle Bradley had hung out last night. He wasn’t sure what was up with them, but he was positive that it wasn’t good, and that it had something to do with the root of why he ached so hard for a family that wasn’t there. In some ways he couldn’t blame his mom for being such a distant mom. How could she have possibly learned any better growing up in a family like this one? In that moment, he forgave her. He wished he would have left her a note telling her so.

His fingers started tingling, a sensation that traveled down the length of his whole body. Soon he felt both numb and hypersensitive, like every nerve ending was being jabbed by a sharp stick.

It was time.

Taking a breath, he stepped out onto the ice, his foot immediately sliding on the slick, melty surface. He wheeled his arms to keep his balance, and took another, more careful, step. And then another, and another, the ice creaking and cracking around him. The sound jazzed him, made him feel energetic. Creaking and cracking was always the sound of something exciting—broken bones, the bogeyman, coffin lids closing, death, death, death.

He kept his eyes closed, focused his energy on the steps he was taking. Step, step, step toward the middle, toward the end.

Soon he felt as if he’d walked long enough and opened his eyes to find himself not too far from the middle of the pond, where the ice was visibly thinner and slightly puddled in some spots. He smiled widely, said what he could remember of the Lord’s Prayer just in case all that shit about heaven was real, and bent his knees to jump.

Thunk. Some cracking but not much to it.

Thunk! Harder this time. A crack snaking its way around the toe of his shoe. Very thin, singular.

Thunk!! He put some muscle into it. Pulled his quads up high on the takeoff, landed with his heels. A loud crack resounded and a spiderweb of cracks surrounded him. One more and he’d be through.

“Avalanche!” he heard, and snapped his head around.

The little cousins were on the ice again. Right where he’d caught them before. Will was at the top of the smaller-but-still-there drift, ready to jump, Molly on the bank right behind him.

“NO!” he boomed, but even though his voice was loud, Will had already left the mound and was in midair. He wouldn’t have been able to stop himself if he’d tried. Will landed on his butt on the ice, just hard enough to poke a small dent down into it. His eyes grew wide, startled, as the back of his pants got soaked, and he scrambled to his feet. But rather than run off the ice, in his panic Will ran straight toward the middle, arms outstretched for help.

“Eli!” Will cried.

“Stay there!” he cried back, trying to get to his cousin, but the adrenaline that had been racing through his veins moments earlier was making him shaky and he kept slipping and falling to one knee as he tried to close the gap. “Stop! The ice is breaking!” he yelled, and those were the last words he was able to get out as his left foot slipped in one direction and his right in the other. He went down, first on a knee, then onto his belly, just a few feet from Will.

The ice opened and the pond swallowed them both.

At first he was only aware of a feeling of being shocked. Had he not been holding his breath already, it would have surely been swept away from him in a gasp.

He opened his eyes and could barely see anything. The pond was murky and brown, and the ice cover and dim sky made it almost appear black. He whipped his head around wildly, searching for his cousin, but in his panic he could see nothing. He racked his brain to remember what color Will’s coat had been—red? Yes, red. Definitely red—but he saw nothing red under the water.

His lungs quickly felt as if they might burst and he clamped his lips together tighter, wanting to keep every bit of air that he could. He looked up, saw the ring of light where the hole they had fallen through was and kicked toward it, straining against the ache that was starting to set into his bones. The cold. It was so damn cold.

He broke through the water and took a deep, ragged gasp of air, coughed, took another.

Distantly, he heard Molly screaming, and hoped she was staying off the ice.
Please don’t let them both die because of me,
he thought, and the very thought of Will dying under the ice squeezed his heart with such fear that on his next breath he dove back under.

This time he felt calmer . . . or maybe he was feeling sluggish. The cold was doing it to him, he was sure. His arms and legs had begun to feel leaden, like it would take far more strength than he had to move them through the water. He struggled, felt jerky, felt like giving up, like closing his eyes and letting himself sink into the sediment at the bottom.

But then a splotch of red just below him caught his eye.

Will!

Mustering every ounce of strength that he had, he flipped his legs up behind him and kicked toward the patch of color, stretching his arms out, his fingers splayed to catch whatever he could of his cousin, to get a hold.

After what seemed like forever, his fingers finally brushed up against the collar of Will’s coat and he forced them to close. He clamped down and righted himself, then looked back up toward the ring of light, which seemed so impossibly far away, he was sure he’d never make it.

It was the cold that was doing this to him. It was what he had been counting on, after all, wasn’t it? Cold that would seep into his very bones. Would make him stop moving, make him stop fighting.

Make him die.