Sybil at Sixteen

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

  “Of course,” Clark said. “We’ll be back shortly.”

  “Thank you,” Evvie said. “And thank you for a beautiful eulogy. It was better than he deserved.”

  “Evvie!” Thea said.

  “Sorry,” Evvie said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  The girls drove back to Aunt Grace’s house in Evvie’s car. Sybil sat in the back. It hadn’t been easy, but she’d hardly limped walking out of the funeral home. Maybe she was getting stronger. Maybe Nick had willed that strength to her when he died.

  Evvie parked the car, and the girls walked into the house. It seemed terribly quiet there, especially after the last few days of phone calls and planning. Sybil went immediately to the medicine cabinet and took some painkiller. Claire busied herself in the kitchen. Evvie stood there, looking at both of them, but before she said anything, the phone rang.

  Evvie took the call, then excused herself, and went to Nick’s office to talk there. It was a few minutes before she came back to the kitchen.

  “That was Sam,” she said. “Calling from San Diego.”

  “How are things?” Claire asked.

  “His mother died this morning,” Evvie said. “Sam and his grandmother were there with her. They’re hoping the government doesn’t give them a lot of grief about bringing her back East for a funeral. If there’s too much red tape, they’ll stay on in San Diego and bury her there.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sybil said.

  Evvie shrugged. “Now that Linda’s dead, they’ll have to start grieving for Sam’s grandfather,” she declared. “That’s when the real pain will set in.”

  “Do you intend to grieve for Nicky?” Claire asked.

  “How can I?” Evvie asked. “After what he did.”

  “He loved you,” Sybil said. “He told me so that morning. He told me how much he admired your strength.”

  “Sure he did,” Evvie said. “He was the weakest man I know.”

  “That’s not fair,” Sybil said. “Nicky was very strong.”

  “Give me a break,” Evvie said. “Nicky always looked for the easy way. He wouldn’t even take a simple job. He preferred to wait for the big kill, even if there wasn’t one. That’s how he lived, and that’s exactly how he died. Just another big kill.”

  “What are you saying?” Claire asked. “That it was suicide?”

  “No,” Sybil said. “It wasn’t. It couldn’t have been. It was an accident.”

  Evvie shook her head. “You don’t really believe that,” she said. “I’m not saying we should tell the insurance company. I think it’s great he had all that insurance. It was the one decent thing he ever did for Megs, for all of us. At least now we won’t have to worry about where the money’s coming from for Thea’s and Sybil’s educations.”

  “I would have paid for it, if I’d had to,” Claire said.

  Evvie shot Claire a look of pure loathing. “Of course,” she said. “How could I have doubted that. Nicky’s soul lives on all right, inside of you.”

  “I wish you’d say what’s on your mind,” Claire said. “You’ve hardly spoken to me since Nicky died.”

  “It disgusts me to be in the same room with you,” Evvie said. “I came here for Megs and Thea and Sybil. Not for Nicky, and certainly not for you.”

  “Claire didn’t do anything,” Sybil said.

  Evvie laughed. “You’re the only one who still has illusions,” Evvie said. “About precious Nicky and precious Claire. Even Thea sees through Claire.”

  “What have I done this time?” Claire asked.

  “You’re the one who told Nicky where Linda was,” Evvie said. “You think I didn’t know? I went back to my apartment that Monday, and I could tell someone had been there. At first I thought it was the FBI, and I didn’t say anything about it because I didn’t want to get Megs even more worried. But then I remembered there was a reward involved, and wherever there was easy money, Nicky was bound to show up. And you know, I might almost have forgiven him. I forgave him a lot of things over the years, and frankly, I wanted Linda caught and out of Sam’s life. But I knew he wouldn’t have gone looking himself. That wasn’t his style. Sneaking around is your specialty, Claire. You’re the one who’s always digging out little secrets. You’re the eavesdropper, the spy. It had to be you who broke into my apartment, who found some little private shred and turned it into twenty-five thousand. I told Nicky off that night, and I don’t regret a word I said. And now I’m telling you off. You’re not my sister anymore. After today, I don’t ever want to see you again, or speak to you. If you show up at my wedding, I will physically throw you out. Do you hear me, Claire?”

  “I hear you,” Claire said.

  “Evvie!” Sybil said.

  Claire raised her hand to silence Sybil. “It’s fine with me,” she said. “I never liked the way Evvie stands in judgment of me. If she doesn’t want to have anything more to do with me, well, frankly, I can live without her.”

  “Fine,” Evvie said. “Just as long as we’re both clear on the issue.”

  “Clear on what?” Meg asked, walking in the back door. Thea followed her.

  “Where’s Clark?” Claire asked. “It’s a shame for him to miss this little scene.”

  “He’ll be here in a few minutes,” Meg said. “He thought we might need some time alone. What little scene?”

  “It’s nothing,” Evvie said. “I just wanted to make it clear to Claire that she’s the same kind of scum her father was. That’s all. I made my point. Everything’s taken care of.”

  “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Evvie,” Meg said. “I would think on the day of your father’s funeral at least, you would pretend to still love your family.”

  “I love what remains of it,” Evvie said. “I love you, and Thea and Sybil. And I always will love you. But not Nicky and not Claire. If you can’t deal with that, I’m sorry. But I’m not about to change just to make things easier for you.”

  “Sam’s mother died,” Claire said. “That may have brought this on.”

  “You go to hell,” Evvie said. “You don’t deserve to even say Sam’s name.”

  “Evvie, please,” Sybil said.

  “I’m getting out of here,” Evvie said. “Megs, I’m sorry, but I just can’t be hypocritical anymore about this. Nicky killed Sam’s grandfather for twenty-five thousand, and Claire was right there to give him a hand. I sat there through that funeral for you, and I’ll be here again when you need me, but right now I have to leave.” She grabbed her pocketbook, and rushed out of the house.

  Sybil stared in horror, and then she chased after Evvie. She ran as best she could through the front hallway, and opened the door, to see Evvie rushing down the stairs.

  “Evvie, wait!” she cried, and reached out to grab her, but Evvie moved too fast.

  Sybil lost her balance then, and felt herself falling down the stairs. She supposed she must have screamed, but she couldn’t be sure because within seconds everything was dark and agonizing and she was filled with terror.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Oh, well,” Claire said, after the doctor had left. “Never a dull moment in this family.”

  “Thank you again, Clark,” Meg said. “You must be the only man in Boston who could arrange for a house call.”

  “I simply explained the situation,” Clark replied. “How are you feeling, Sybil?”

  “I feel fine,” Sybil said, and sat up in bed to show them. The doctor had given her a shot of something that made the pain seem distant and terribly unimportant. She closed her eyes for a moment, and tried to remember what it was that did matter. Evvie. That was it. “I need to see Evvie.”

  “Evvie needs to see us,” Meg said. “Clark, may I impose on you again?”

  “Always,” he said.

  “Drive to Cambridge, and bring Evvie back here,” Meg said. “Tie her up if you have to, but make her come back.”

  “Don’t bother on my account,” Claire said.

  “This isn’t for you, Cl
aire,” Meg said. “It’s for Evvie.”

  “I’ll get her here,” Clark said. “Are you sure you’ll be all right without me?”

  Meg smiled at him. “It won’t be easy,” she said. “But we’ll get through.”

  Clark smiled back. He gave Meg a quick kiss on her cheek and left the room.

  Meg looked at her daughters. “This has been a terrible day,” she said. “And it isn’t over yet. If you’ll excuse me for a few minutes, I need to change, and to collect myself.”

  “Do you want some company?” Thea asked.

  “Company is exactly what I don’t want,” Meg replied. “Just give me a little time by myself, all right?”

  Thea nodded. Meg managed another smile, and then she left, too. “I could kill Evvie,” Thea said.

  “It isn’t her fault,” Claire said.

  “Will you stop being so noble,” Thea said. “It doesn’t become you.”

  “Everything becomes me,” Claire replied. “Grief, nobility, silent rage. They all look good on me.”

  “I have to talk to Evvie,” Sybil said. She was starting to feel more alert, more in control. The pain was still distant, but at least her brain cells were reactivating.

  “No, you don’t,” Claire said. “Leave things alone, Sybil.”

  “But I’m the one who told Nicky,” Sybil said. The words were out. She wondered if her sisters would hate her for them.

  “I knew that,” Thea said.

  “You did?” Claire asked. “I assumed you’d guessed me.”

  Thea laughed. “You always underestimate me,” she said. “I knew Nicky got help from somebody. It wasn’t his style to do things by himself.”

  “I thought Nicky could do no wrong in your eyes,” Claire said.

  “I love Nicky,” Thea said. “But I’m not a fool. And I know how desperate he’s been lately. Naturally I thought of you first, Claire. But I decided Nicky wouldn’t have trusted you. Besides, you’d demand too big a cut. So that left Sybil.”

  “He asked me to do it,” Sybil said. “But I didn’t have to agree.”

  “It’s very hard to turn Nicky down,” Thea said. “We all know that.”

  “I still don’t see why Evvie has to know,” Claire said.

  “Because I want you at her wedding,” Thea replied. “You can keep me company and make fun of me and put everything in its proper perspective. Besides, believe it or not, I love you, and I don’t think it’s right for you to be blamed when, for once, you’re innocent.”

  “Evvie can hate me,” Sybil said. “I don’t mind.”

  “She won’t hate you,” Thea said. “She doesn’t hate any of us, not even Nicky. She just thinks she does, because she’s hurting so badly. I know how that is, that kind of pain. It goes away with time.”

  Sybil looked at her sisters. “I’m falling asleep,” she said.

  Claire laughed. “Do that,” she replied. “We’ll wake you when Evvie gets here, so you can make your big confession.”

  Sybil wondered for a moment why nobody was taking her seriously, but she was too sleepy to care. It was the painkiller, she knew. For a moment she loved the drug that made everything seem so unimportant. Not even Nick’s death mattered as she drifted into unconsciousness.

  She woke up on her own, to the sound of voices downstairs. Evvie was saying something, and while Sybil couldn’t make out the words, she could hear the anger in her voice.

  She decided to test her legs, and she got out of the bed gingerly. Standing was difficult, but not impossible. The next trick was walking. Her cane was in a corner of the room, alongside the crutches. She knew the crutches would be easier, but she hated walking downstairs with them. She used the furniture to pull herself across the room, and reached the cane, but by the time she got there, she was exhausted. So she hobbled to the nearest chair, the one by her desk.

  She looked down at the desk, saw her textbooks, and unfinished homework. She’d missed one day of school already, for Nick’s funeral, and she knew she’d miss the next day as well. Maybe by Wednesday her legs and her psyche would be healed enough for her to return to classes.

  Sybil took a deep breath and pictured walking down the stairs. It shouldn’t be too hard, she told herself. Her fall had caused no permanent damage. She’d landed lucky, the doctor said. Even Sybil suspected she was in more pain from the events of the past few days than from her legs.

  But she wasn’t ready to try the trip yet, so she continued to stare at her desk. Years back, Meg had found an old desk at a garage sale, and she and Sybil had spent the summer stripping it and refinishing it. That must have been the summer Evvie spent in Eastgate. Nick loved that desk, and it was one of the few things that traveled with them wherever they went. Sybil realized she wanted it for herself. She’d ask Meg for it, to replace the one in her room.

  There was a piece of paper stuck under the desk light. Sybil lifted the light up, and saw the paper was neatly folded. She couldn’t remember putting anything there, but maybe it was a note she’d written awhile back, something about a homework assignment in the days when those things seemed important to her.

  She unfolded the paper and saw there was only a single sentence written on it. It was in Nick’s handwriting. Sybil began to cry, and it was hard to read what the note said through her tears.

  You are nothing like me.

  Sybil stared at the paper. There was nothing else on it, no name or date or explanation. Just the single sentence. But it was from Nick, and he meant for her to find it, so she knew it was important.

  “Sybil? Are you awake?”

  Sybil wiped her tears away, and thrust the note back under the light. “Come in,” she said. “I’m up.”

  So they all entered her room. She was relieved to see Clark wasn’t with them. This was family business, and Clark, in spite of how he felt, wasn’t family.

  “What are you doing up?” Meg asked. “You should be in bed.”

  “I thought I’d go downstairs,” Sybil said. “My brain was willing, but my legs weren’t too enthusiastic.”

  “Can you make it back to the bed?” Claire asked. “Do you want some help?”

  “I’m fine,” Sybil said. “I’d rather stay here. Stop treating me like a cripple.”

  “Fine,” Claire said. “In that case, I’ll sit on the bed myself.” Thea sat down next to her. Evvie continued to stand.

  “I don’t see why I was dragged back here,” Evvie said. “Or why it’s so important for Sybil to be involved in all this. Sam might be calling me.”

  “He’ll call you here if there’s no answer in Cambridge,” Meg said. “Now, sit down, Evvie, and start behaving yourself.”

  “There are no seats left,” Evvie said.

  “I’ll get one,” Thea said, and she hopped off the bed, ran to the next room, and brought a chair back. She left the chair by Evvie’s side, and gently pushed her down onto it. Nobody laughed.

  “There are some things that have to be said,” Meg declared. “Things none of us may want to hear, but we have to. We are a family—yes, we are, Evvie—and we’re going to behave like one. And that includes straightening out some misconceptions.”

  “She’s talking about me,” Sybil said. “Evvie, you were wrong. Claire didn’t find out where Linda Steinmetz was. I did.”

  “You did what?” Evvie said.

  Sybil knew what the full brunt of Evvie’s rage looked like, and she dreaded the next few moments. “I went to your apartment,” she said. “And I looked around for clues, and I found some flight numbers. I called the airline, and they said the flight was to San Diego, so I figured that must have been where Sam went. I called Nicky from your apartment and told him. Then I went to the library and found Thea, and we came back here.”

  “That’s why you behaved so strangely that day,” Thea said. “I knew something was wrong, but we were all so crazy, it was hard to figure out what.”

  “Nicky didn’t make me do it,” Sybil said. “He didn’t bribe me with lollipops. I knew
every step of the way what I was doing. I didn’t like me for doing it. But we needed the money, Evvie. Nicky was talking about our leaving Boston, moving back to Pennsylvania, and I hated the thought of leaving here. This is the first home I’ve ever really had. And I was angry at Sam for acting like we weren’t his family, and I was angry at you, too, for keeping secrets, and I know what I did was wrong, but I did it. So don’t hate Claire. She had nothing to do with it.”

  “I don’t believe this,” Evvie said. “I thought Nicky was scum, but I underestimated him. At least with Claire, she’d already been corrupted. Now I find out he was willing to corrupt Sybil.”

  “Give me a break,” Claire said. “You’re not Little Miss Innocent, Evvie. Corrupted, my foot.”

  “Claire’s right,” Thea said. “Ever since you met Sam, you’ve been different, Evvie. Something that summer changed the way you felt about Nicky. I remember talking to you about it way back. You pulled away from all of us. Maybe it was because you fell in love with Sam, and because of his situation you had to change. But you lied to us when you didn’t explain what was going on. And you weren’t really here for us after Sybil’s accident. You had your own little world and that was all you asked for. You never seemed to care what was happening to the rest of us.”

  “That’s not true,” Evvie said. “I cared. I made sacrifices.”

  “Not like the rest of us,” Thea said. “I watched you today, Evvie. Sybil fell down those stairs, and you had to have been aware something happened. We were all there, and our voices must have carried. But you just kept on walking away. I know you’re hurting badly, Evvie. I know you’re worried sick about Sam, and you hate the fact you can’t be there with him. But, dammit, you should have at least turned around to see what was happening. For four years now, you’ve been refusing to look, and I’m sick of it. Our father died last week. His funeral was today. You owe it to us to mourn.”

  “I can’t,” Evvie said. “I’m so angry at him. I keep waiting for him to walk into a room, just so I can scream at him for what he did. I know I’m being hateful, but I’m so full of hate right now. I feel like I have to take it out on everybody.”