The Sister Season (5 page)

And the keys had been in her laptop bag the whole time.

“Well, thank God you found them,” Claire said. “The pills, I mean, not the keys. Has he . . . ?”

Julia shook her head again. “No, he hasn’t tried anything else. But now that I know about it, he . . . you know, I realize he says it a lot. And has been for a long time. ‘I hate my life. I’d be better off dead. I should be dead right now. Tomorrow I won’t be here anymore.’ That kind of thing.”

“Jesus, why isn’t he in a hospital right now? I mean, he’s seeing a shrink, right? You’ve got him on antidepressants? You’ve got to take that shit seriously, Queenie.” Claire tossed her untouched cigarette out near the first one, where it smoldered in the wind until the tiny pellets of icy snow tamped it out.

“I do take it seriously,” Julia snapped, taking one last, long, shaky drag off her cigarette and snuffing it out on the bottom of her shoe like the first. “But . . . how was I supposed to know what to do? I have my students, and Tai and . . . and then Dad died, and I . . . I don’t know, I thought this might be my chance to reach him. Get us alone, just the two of us. Talk a little. Show him what my life was like growing up. Get him away from the pressures of school and . . .” She rubbed her face with her palms. “God, I don’t know! It’s just not as easy as that. Kids aren’t as easy as that. You can’t just put a bandage on this and wait for it to go away.”

Claire was silent for a minute, then put up her hood as if in thought. “Is he going to be okay?”

“I think so. I hope so. I don’t know.”

“You want me to talk to him?”

Julia looked horror-stricken. “No. Absolutely not. I don’t need him thinking I’m telling the whole world about this. He doesn’t even know you.” She let out a breathy laugh toward the sky. “I don’t even know why I told you.”

“Because I’m your sister?”

“Maybe. Or maybe because I figured you might know something about suicide.”

Claire let out a dry, humorless laugh. “Can’t say I do, Queenie. I’m fucked up in a lot of ways. But I like life. I’m all about the breathing.”

Julia couldn’t pinpoint why, but for some reason this surprised her. She’d always assumed Claire’s life was miserable. That Claire was lonely and barely hanging on. Maybe that was what she’d needed to believe. “And please don’t tell anyone else. I’m going to deal with this. I am.”

Claire nodded slowly. “Okay. You got it. But if he starts eyeballing Dad’s shotgun cabinet or something, I can’t make any guarantees.”

Julia’s eyes widened. “Oh, God,” she moaned. She leaned over and put her hands on her knees, hanging her head miserably.

Tentatively, Claire reached out and rested a hand on her sister’s back. Distantly, Julia realized this was the first time her sister had touched her in . . . a decade, at least. After a second of thought, Claire started rubbing between Julia’s shoulder blades, nervously, almost apologetically, and Julia leaned into it, surprised by how comforting it felt. “Hey. Queenie. Julia. He’ll be okay.”

The wind roared through again, and both of them stiffened against it, Claire squinching her eyes shut and Julia hunching her shoulders. Claire’s curly hair seemed to stick straight out to the side. Finally, Julia straightened up and swiped her coat sleeve across her eyes. She took a deep, snotty breath. “I hope you’re right, Claire.”

“Can we go in now?” Claire asked, blinking against the sleet, which had begun to pelt them anew.

Julia felt her coat pocket again, considered another cigarette, knowing that if smoking was bad for her, smoking outside in a blizzard probably somehow made it even worse.

It was just . . . she didn’t feel ready to face everyone inside again. Didn’t want to wonder if anyone had overheard her conversation with Dusty. If anyone had picked up that something was off with Eli. Didn’t want to turn her guilty face to them, dare them to figure out that something was going on.

Not to mention the Maya/Claire/Bradley drama. That had gotten old eight years ago. And after her conversation with Claire, Julia wasn’t sure where her allegiance should lie. Claire had always maintained her innocence. But Maya was nothing if not resolute in her decisions. The girl could hold a damn grudge, that was for sure. Even if she was the one in the wrong.

Over the course of their sisterhood, Julia had always sided with Maya over Claire. Mostly because that was how it had always been: Maya and Julia versus Claire. Maya was smart, sharp, driven, just like Julia. They played the same games when they were little. They had similar aspirations. They protected each other from their father. They both wanted that protection.

But Claire. Artistic Claire. Head-in-the-clouds Claire, who couldn’t care less if her jeans were ripped and who preferred her clothes to come from a thrift store. Claire, who jumped off the barn roof because she wanted to prove that girls could, who swam in the pond all alone at night, who always did exactly the opposite of what their mom told them to do. Claire, who never needed protection, because she always protected herself.

How was Julia to relate to that?

And why did she suddenly, now that she had a son she didn’t understand, feel like Claire could understand him?

She took a deep breath, smiled, steeled herself. “Yeah, let’s. It’s cold out here.”

“Mom’s got more wine on the stove,” Claire said, leading the way to the steps. She turned. “She seem okay to you?”

Julia blinked. “Mom? I guess. Her husband just died.”

“I know,” Claire said. “But this Christmas thing . . . seems like she’s trying really hard, you know? All the wine, the cookies, the tree. Did you get a load of how many poinsettias are on the sunporch? The woman’s gone Christmas crazy.”

Julia shrugged. Her own house didn’t look all that different from Elise’s right now. Well, except that Tai would probably be working well into the night, like always, and wouldn’t bother to look up out of his research notes and syllabi long enough to turn on the timer. Nothing uglier than unlit Christmas lights, in Julia’s opinion, but Tai was oblivious to things like beauty.

“It’s because of the grandkids,” she said. “She probably didn’t want them to spend the days before Christmas with the place all funeral-depressing. You know how proper Mom can be. Even in a tragedy.”

Claire chewed her bottom lip. “I guess,” she said. And she turned and led the way up the steps toward the sunporch, which enveloped them both with its sticky warmth, the heavy scent of poinsettias pounding into the backs of their throats like exclamation marks.

E
veryone was gathered in the kitchen by the time Julia and Claire ducked inside. Maya and Bradley were seated at the table, flanked by the kids, who had small piles of snack crackers scattered in front of them. Will was pushing crackers into his mouth, singing and chewing at the same time. Molly ate them daintily, swinging her legs under the table, every now and then pausing to glance up at the adults.

Elise was standing at the stove, stirring a pot of something Julia couldn’t see from her vantage point, her back to the table. Eli was standing in the doorway, his arms crossed, his hair flopped over his forehead. Nobody was talking.

“Wow, so serious in here. Who died?” Claire joked, and when Maya rolled her eyes and sighed, she blushed deeply. “Joke. Just a joke,” she said, but her voice was small, as if even she realized she’d crossed a line into poor form. She walked up behind Elise and draped an arm over her mom’s shoulder. “Sorry, Mom. It was a bad joke.”

Elise looked up, a forced smile on her face. “It’s okay, Claire,” she said, and continued stirring whatever was steaming in the pot.

Julia shrugged out of her coat, careful not to spill the cigarette pack onto the floor, and hung it on the hook next to the back door. She rubbed her dry, reddened hands together and looked from face to face. Something was clearly up.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Bradley leaned to one side and pulled his BlackBerry out of his pocket, began tapping on it. Maya simply stared at the table, spinning a glass of water between her fingers and shaking her head disgustedly, a sardonic grin on her face as if her whole shitty life was one big poorly told joke and she’d just discovered the punch line.

Julia moved to the stove and ladled herself a cup of wine, peering into the saucepan that her mom was stirring. Apples in butter and sugar and cinnamon. Her grandmother’s dumpling batter on the counter next to her. She was going to make Granny’s version of apple dumplings, just as she’d done for them when they were children. The smell took Julia back.

Mom, that smells like Christmas,
she heard her tiny self saying.
I could eat it every day
.

But if I made apple dumplings every day, they wouldn’t be special on Christmas,
she remembered her mom saying.

She also remembered her mom flicking worried glances over her shoulder at the front door. Elise had always waited until their father was at the lodge Christmas party to make the dumplings.
Our little secret,
she’d told the girls every year.
A girls-only secret
.

But somewhere along the line Julia had figured out the real secret: that her father didn’t like anything that might “spoil those girls,” that apple dumplings fell into the category of unacceptable indulgence, that Elise would have to deal with the repercussions of an unfair and unkind man if she dared to serve them some, even at Christmas. It didn’t matter what her mother wanted for them—if he disagreed, they’d better comply. Or deal with the consequences.

“Done,” Bradley said, jolting her out of her memory. He held up his BlackBerry and waved it in Maya’s direction. “Not a problem.” He offered her a sickly smile, but she only pulled a gooey chunk of snack cracker out of Molly’s hair and went back to glaring at the table.

Julia took a sip of wine. “What’s done?” she asked. She turned to Elise again. “Mom? What’s going on? Why’s everyone so quiet?”

Elise tapped the wooden spoon against the side of the saucepan and laid it carefully on the spoon rest on the counter next to the stove.

“It’s the funeral,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron.

“What about it?” Claire asked. She was still in her coat, the hood still up and framing her face, tufts of her wild hair sticking out.

“It’s been moved.”

“Oh,” Julia said. “Okay. What time?”

Her mom took a breath and turned to face the kitchen, pressing her hands against the counter behind her. “Same time. On the twenty-seventh.”

Julia gulped her wine in surprise, then let out a cough. “Twenty-seventh? Why?”

Elise shrugged. “Joe Dale had a family emergency up in Cameron. He can’t be here to bury anyone until the twenty-seventh. Nothing to be done about it.”

“What do you mean, ‘nothing to be done’?” Julia said. “Can’t someone else take his place? One of his sons?”

Elise knit her brow. “Robert was friends with Joe. He wouldn’t want someone else to bury him. And Joe would want to be there.”

“But, God, Mom, that’s six days after he died,” Claire said. “Won’t he be all gross and bloated and rotting and shit?”

Will laughed and Molly stared wide-eyed. “For God’s sake, Claire, a little filtering would go a long way,” Maya muttered, covering Molly’s ears with her hands. “Not to mention a little sensitivity. But I guess you never were very good at that.” For the first time since arriving, Maya met Claire’s eyes, her glare wicked.

“Maya . . . ,” Julia said, though she didn’t know what to say next. The last thing she needed was for one of her sisters to be on her case, especially given what she was already going through with Eli. Thinking of her son, she edged over next to him and put her arm around him. He ducked one of his shoulders toward the floor, causing her arm to slide off. She bit her lip, hoping nobody else saw that, trying not to take it personally. Trying not to notice that once again her son was too far away for her to reach, even when he was in the same room with her. Once again she had no idea how long it had been this way or how to even try to find him.

“It’s a valid question,” Claire said, her voice going high and squeaky just like it always did when she was maintaining her innocence. “How can they keep a body fresh for seven days before burying it? Won’t it start to . . . decompose?”

“Grandpa’s gonna be rotted? Like a zombie?” Will said around his crackers, and Maya shushed him.

“No. Aunt Claire is just being rude,” she said, and again sent a glare across the room. “As usual. Can you at least try to have some respect for the children in the room?”

“Maya.” This time it was Bradley’s voice that cut through the air, soft and unsure, gently chastising.

Time ticked by, the only sound Elise’s apple mixture bubbling in the pan, and for a moment Julia felt, actually felt, hate slither past her like a rolling fog. Were she still a child, she might have said, “Uuummm,” like they always did when someone said or did something that might get them in trouble. That was what the room felt like—one big collective
uuummm
.

Then the silence was broken as Maya’s chair scraped backward on the tile. “Of course,” she muttered through gritted teeth. “I should have expected.” She stood so abruptly that the chair knocked over another potted poinsettia behind it, the dirt spilling out onto the tile.

“Here we go,” Claire mumbled, scratching her head. She continued in a loud, bored voice. “We are not sleeping together. I’ve never seen him naked. I don’t want to have sex with your husband. I never did.”

“Claire!” Elise hissed. “The children!”

“No, please, Mom. Let her make an ass of herself, just like always. If she says it enough times, maybe it will actually be true.” Maya stormed around the table and crossed the room, her heels clacking on the floor like gavels. Even in the house, in the middle of the afternoon, Maya was dressed to the nines. Julia’s heart dropped as Maya strode straight to Claire, stopping only inches from her face. Claire’s expression looked mildly entertained, but Julia thought she could detect the slightest hint of fear behind her eyes. Surely Maya wouldn’t start a physical altercation in front of her own children. “I don’t have the energy to fight you. I will stay here until the twenty-seventh to say good-bye to my father out of respect to our mother. But make no mistake, I will not deal with you. I will go sleep in a hotel by myself if I have to.” She smirked. “And wouldn’t that make the two of you oh so happy?”

“Maya, don’t . . . ,” Elise said, holding her dripping spoon in the air above the pan. “Maybe we should all just take a deep breath.”

At the same time, Julia heard Claire say in a low, dangerous voice, “For the last time, I did not sleep with your husband. I won’t say it again.”

“How about you don’t say anything to me at all,” Maya suggested, both of them completely ignoring that Elise had ever spoken.

“Why do you think I moved all the way to California?” Claire said. “You won, that’s why! And if it weren’t for Mom, I wouldn’t be speaking to you right now. I’m certainly not here for Robert Yancey. That abusive old bastard can rot in a trash can in the back of Dale Funeral Home, for all I care.”

Julia gasped, her heart sinking, sinking, sinking. Any hope that she might have had of this being a place where she could spin Eli some happy family memories was gone. Her son never knew his grandfather, and she had never told him about Robert. About the tension he brought to the family. God, why had she brought a suicidal kid into
this
house? Dusty was right—she was a horrible mom. He and Shurn, ignorant as they both were, could certainly do better than she ever had.

Maya had let Claire’s outburst sink in, slowly nodding her head, as if to say,
See? See how right I am about her?
Finally, she spoke. “So classy. I will never understand what he saw in you.”

Claire’s only response was an elaborate eye roll. She stepped around Maya and took her cup to the table, sitting across from Will.

“I’m not feeling well. I’m going to lie down,” Maya announced to nobody, then left the kitchen without waiting for a response, her hair swishing behind her like a great silky fan.

Bradley started to stand. “You need anything, Maya?” he called. “The doctor said you should—”

“No.” Her voice, sharp, jabbing at him from the hallway, cut him off. He plopped back into his chair, looking scolded.

For the few silent, awkward moments after the slammed door upstairs punctuated Maya’s departure, Julia sagged against the doorjamb, staring at the back of her son’s head. He seemed to be standing still as a statue, the same creepy way he always had, as if his life were a video game or a reality TV show and he was just the spectator, interested and alert but not at all invested.

She longed to reach out to him, to grab his shoulders from behind and shake him.
Damn it
, she wanted to snarl,
react! If nothing else, just show that you’re living . . . that you haven’t already committed . . . mental suicide.

After a while, Elise tapped the spoon against the side of the pan and turned off the heat, which seemed to slowly bring the room back to life. Julia turned her head to see the dumpling batter bowl empty. Her mom put the lid on the pot and stepped away, letting the dumplings rise on top of the apple mixture. Distantly, she was aware of Will singing again and the murmuring between Bradley and Molly, who had finished her crackers and wanted to play outside.

Claire sat staring down into her empty mug, as motionless as Eli, and suddenly Julia was sure she’d done the right thing telling Claire about her son. In that moment, the two seemed connected on some level, even if neither of them knew it.

“Can you stay a few days longer?” Elise asked, and with a start Julia realized she was talking to her.

“Oh. Um, yeah. Shouldn’t be a problem. Semester’s finished anyway. Tai can manage on his own. It’ll be fine.”

“He can drive down for Christmas, of course.”

Julia nodded. “Yeah. Good idea. I’ll ask him.”

Elise raised her voice. “Claire? What about you?”

Julia thought she saw her sister’s red-rimmed eyes redden even more as she thought it over. She cleared her throat, then nodded. “Believe it or not, there’s even less for me in California right now than there is for me here.”

Another awkward silence filled the air, the kids finishing their snacks and scooting off into the front room, where the television blared to life. Julia wondered what Claire had meant by there being less for her in California than in Missouri, and realized too late that she’d been so intent on telling Claire all of her problems, she’d never even asked Claire about her own life. What was it like for her in California? What had she been doing all these years? Was there anyone special in her life? Claire gazed through the back door blankly, and then got up and stood in front of it instead, hands on her hips, hair sticking out in sprigs and fits.

“Mom, what kind of fern is that?” she asked, but before Elise could answer, she’d pushed the door open and stepped out onto the porch, almost dreamily.

Elise started to follow her, but was interrupted by the doorbell. She visibly jumped, then looked from the porch to the front room, as if she couldn’t quite figure out how to be in both places at once. The bell rang again, and Molly’s voice singsonged, “Someone’s at the door, Grandma! And she’s got a present!” Elise gave one more look to Claire’s back and then headed instead for the front room.

The motion made things seem more normal, more approachable, and Julia finally found the nerve to reach out to Eli’s back. She touched his shoulder lightly and leaned forward to talk directly into his ear. She couldn’t see his face; maybe it was better that way.

“Some crazy stuff, huh?”

He shrugged, wordless.

“Probably I should have warned you about Aunt Claire’s and Aunt Maya’s little feud.”

Again with the shrugging.

“Want to go for a walk? I’ll tell you all about it,” she said. “It’s a juicy story.”

The boy still didn’t move, but his voice (God, how Julia was having a hard time getting used to that man-voice of his) floated over his shoulder, icy and sharp as the sleet that had been pelting her face by the garage before. Maybe sharper, actually. “Dad called me. He’s, like, blowing up my phone.”

Julia sighed, defeated, her chin sinking to her breastbone. Of course she had expected Dusty to call Eli. He was exactly the kind of father who would. It was one of the things she would always love about Dusty, his desire to be connected to his son. But . . . she supposed she wished he would have waited until after the funeral, until after she got back to Kansas City, to make his presence known. It was just like Dusty to give her feelings, her needs, no thought whatsoever.