The Sister-in-Law

by Pamela Crane

  ‘He’s already given me so much. I hate to even admit this, but things with my real estate work have been slow. And as you found out during my interrogation, Ben scammed me out of every dime of my retirement money.’

  ‘I still can’t believe Ben would take his own family’s money.’ Incoherent words tore through my throat. ‘Detective Meltzer told me he had a secret bank account set up in another name. I’m assuming it was for Medea. How did I not see this side of Ben?’

  ‘As sure as he’s dead, the man was pure evil. The lies he spilled came so naturally, too. He offered me this great business opportunity to double my investment return. Why wouldn’t I trust my own son-in-law? So, of course, I invested. I lost everything, Harp. Every. Last. Penny. For the past six months I’ve been working two jobs, fourteen-hour days, and I still can’t make ends meet. No one wants to hire an elderly real estate agent when all these fresh faces around here offer the moon and the stars.’

  She took a shaky breath, wiping the wet corners of her eyes.

  ‘This is embarrassing for me, but I’m burned out, honey. I need a break. I really thought your insurance money would come through, or at least that you’d have access to your bank accounts by now.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mom. I had no idea you were struggling for that long. Why didn’t you say something sooner?’

  ‘Oh, honey, I didn’t want to start trouble with you and Ben after he screwed me over. The lies … That man ruined me. And to be honest, I wanted him dead. But I couldn’t go saying that to you, now could I? And since then it’s all been pretense, my dear. I didn’t want to worry you and Lane, but I can’t hide it anymore. I’m looking at foreclosure if I don’t catch up on my payments.’

  ‘I know Lane’s got extra money. And I’ll be employed soon and can help out. We’ll be happy to help get your bills caught up.’ I couldn’t speak for Candace on the matter … well, I actually could. I knew she’d put her foot down, but I hoped Lane still had enough of his balls intact to stand up to her for the sake of our mother, who had sacrificed so much for us when we were growing up. ‘And as soon as I have access to my bank account again, I’ll pay him back and get you on your feet.’

  ‘No, I can’t ask your brother again. I already mentioned it to him, and Candace shut it down. She said they need the money for the doctor bills and baby stuff. I’m not going to push it. I’ll figure something out.’

  ‘I’ll take care of it. Don’t you worry.’

  And I would. Even if I had to drag Candace down kicking and screaming, I was not going to let my mother suffer any longer. Hadn’t she suffered enough? I just hoped she hadn’t done something to deserve it. Our sins did have a way of coming back to bite us.

  ‘Mom, I have to ask you something. And I need you to be honest with me.’

  Her brown eyes flicked upward, earnest but guilty. The look lasted so long it rattled me, forcing me to glance away.

  ‘Did you kill Ben because you found out he lost all of your money?’ I searched her face for any sign of truth.

  Her gaze hardened. ‘Did you kill Ben because you found out he was cheating on you?’

  Though we both swore our innocence, every cell in my body lit on fire with a knowing that my mother was capable of a lot more than she would ever admit to. Like mother, like daughter, after all.

  Chapter 30

  Harper

  My newborn baby was warm and light in my arms, her chubby flesh so real. Resting in the crook of my elbow was her head, so perfect and kissable and pink. Frantic arms pumped the air, and squishy legs wriggled like she would take off running if I let go. I stood with her in her nursery; I recognized the scene. It was the day I had given birth. The ghost pains between my legs lingered from pushing her out, delivering her at home in the shower while Ben held me upright and the midwife caught the baby as she fell.

  Double-checking the nursery, everything was as it should be. Crisp white crib in the corner. Clean linen scent in the air from the freshly washed bedding. Bold, uppercase letters with pastel polka dots painted across the wall: KIRA.

  The down of her red hair – just like mine – tickled my forearm in wispy strands, like a ghost’s fingers playing with it. She was here, so very tangible … and yet not. My arms felt light. No, something was wrong.

  I blinked, and I couldn’t feel the weight of her anymore, only the mirage. I pawed at the fading image, wondering, How did I conjure my baby here? How do I get her back? But my questions disappeared along with her form into empty space.

  ‘No!’ I cried, my arms cradling nothingness.

  ‘Kira!’ I screamed, but my voice only echoed back at me.

  Another blink. The nursery was gone. Instead I stood in my backyard, the place I had called home. The pool was calm like ice, unmoved by the breeze. Carefully I stepped toward it, watching my reflection in the water follow me. A splash across the pool broke my image. I ran to the other edge, searching the water for the source. My reflection swirled beneath the water’s chaos.

  My face in the water morphed into something else. Someone else.

  ‘Kira?’ I called out.

  But it wasn’t her creating the churning. It was Jackson, with two-year-old Kira lying limply in his arms. He handed me her still body, then looked up at me, blood seeping from black eyes tainted with darkness.

  ‘What did you do, Jackson?’ I screamed and begged for an answer, but he replied with silence. Then he walked away, his body dripping wet, leaving tiny footprints across the patio, as I held my dead child in my arms and wept.

  ***

  Morning was the exhale after a night-long held breath. As the streetlamps died and the horizon came to life, another nightmare ended as dawn chased it away. Covered in sweat and tears, I bolted upright from under the bedding, overwhelmed with relief and fear. I didn’t know where one emotion began and the other ended. It wasn’t real … and yet it was. I had held her – Kira, the child I had lost. The toddler I still mourned a year after her death. She was a part of me that I would forever mourn, a broken part that could never be fixed.

  The damp covers twisted around my legs and I kicked myself free. My pillow smelled rancid with perspiration. I sniffed my armpits, grimacing at the oniony odor. Another night terror, another load of sweaty sheets. I wondered if the dreams would ever stop, or at least fade. But if they did, would Kira’s face fade with them?

  The worst part about losing Kira wasn’t the gaping void in my life since her drowning. It wasn’t the haunting memories following me like specters. It wasn’t even the endless daily grief I felt waking each morning missing her, or the dread of another exhausting night dreaming of her. Such things were the nature of death. They were to be expected, balanced by the hope of seeing her in heaven. I believed in our future reunion, I truly did with every part of my devastated soul, and that faith was my saving grace. Without that promise of eternity together, I had nothing. Her death cut me deep, but that wasn’t the worst of it.

  No, the worst part wasn’t being left behind. The worst part was that losing Kira cost me my love for my son. Missing her, crying for her, hating the void of her turned my love for Jackson sour. My love for my daughter caused my hate for my son. What mother says or feels such a thing? A monster! It was unnatural and grotesque. But it was true, no matter how horrific the reality was. I could never forgive my son for what had happened that day. For what he had done, even in his innocence.

  I had never told Jackson he couldn’t take his baby sister swimming. I never imagined he would pick up his two-year-old sister in his tiny arms, carry her into the pool, then drop her. He didn’t know better; he was so young. In my head I blamed myself for not anticipating it, for not watching them that day, for not putting up a fence before it was too late, for not protecting my children. But my heart, well, it resented Jackson deeply.

  That inability to forgive – that cost me everything. My marriage. My relationship with my kids. My ability to feel or heal. The only thing it hadn’t cost me was my capacity to function. Tha
t knack to compartmentalize I got from my mother.

  Forcing myself out of bed, I grabbed the bedding and balled it up, then tossed it in the laundry basket. I opened the window blinds and was greeted with happy sunshine flowing into the room. Bake me with your happiness, oh sun! I wanted it, but I couldn’t have it.

  With robotic routine, I peeked in Elise and Jackson’s room to find them still asleep, then collected their dirty clothes, adding them to the pile. It was amazing how much we could accomplish with the weight of the world on our shoulders. Heck, three days after Kira’s death I was already grocery shopping, as if a trip to the store could reset my life. I hadn’t thought to avoid the diaper aisle, and it took two employees to lift me up off the floor when I broke down crying, clutching a package of wipes, unable to see through my tears to find my cart. After that episode, I isolated myself at home for a couple more weeks, until the isolation drove me mad. That was when all the pent-up feelings poured out into my everyday interactions. It leaked out in my reactions … or overreactions, as the case may be.

  One month after Kira’s death it started to become noticeable. And very public. I had been living in a trance, but when the trance wore off, fury took over. Everything was a great personal offense. Especially the woman at the supermarket yelling at her two-year-old daughter to calm down and behave. Two, the same age Kira was when she drowned. Two, too little to know how to behave in a supermarket. Two, an age far too young to be yelled at like the mother was doing. Something buried inside me – grief, anger, injustice, pain – snapped, and I unleashed it on that mother that afternoon.

  Remembering it now, it happened in fast-forward. But that day, those minutes felt like slow-motion. It was the cereal aisle, as I vividly recalled. I was in the middle of a discussion with Elise on the health merits of Cheerios over Cap’n Crunch. Down near the Cocoa Puffs a mother had been screaming, red-faced, gripping her child’s cheeks between her talons screaming, ‘You behave right now or you’ll be getting a spanking you won’t forget!’ Strung between this was a handful of curse words.

  I didn’t think twice – heck, I didn’t even think once – before I walked straight up to her, removed her hand from the girl’s face, and shoved my finger an inch from her eyeball.

  ‘Don’t you dare treat that child like that. You’re going to hurt her!’

  The woman knocked my finger away, then leaned forward. ‘Excuse me? Don’t you tell me how to parent my child.’

  Except in my mind that wasn’t her child. In my grief-stricken delusion, it was Kira who needed protection. So I raised my hand and slapped that woman so hard it left a red handprint on her face. Elise’s mouth dropped open at the scene, while Jackson hid his eyes beneath his hands. The woman cowered, then called, ‘Help me! This woman is attacking me!’

  Attacking implied repeated hitting. I only slapped her once.

  Two weeks later, a judge slapped me with a sentence for grief counseling. I was lucky it wasn’t worse, but when the judge found out I had just lost my daughter, he figured I needed therapy more than a night in the slammer.

  If you’ve never lost a part of yourself, you wouldn’t understand this. But there is no cure for it. No amount of anti-depressants or anti-anxiety drugs can make you anti-human. When a piece of you breaks off, it can’t be glued back on. No matter how many drugs a therapist thinks will help. All the medicine did was inflame stomach issues and blunt my personality as it coated my mind in gluey syrup. It didn’t remove the vision of finding my dead daughter in my son’s arms, and that visual controlled the whole vicious cycle.

  I knew I shouldn’t blame Jackson. I told myself this every day. He was a five-year-old boy when he led Kira outside the back door. He only wanted to play with her when he held her hand, their two tiny palms cupped together, and guided her toward the pool. He didn’t realize that his two-year-old baby sister couldn’t swim when he lifted her up, cheeks puffed out as he strained to carry her, and stepped into the water. He didn’t understand the gurgling was a cry for help as she sunk under the surface.

  I shouldn’t blame him, a child, for killing his sister. And yet I did. Every day I blamed him, because I didn’t want to blame myself. I should have been watching. I should have insisted Ben put up the pool fence, no matter how many times he told me he’d ‘get to it.’ By the time he ‘got to it,’ my baby girl had already been gone and buried. I should have known something was wrong when the house went too quiet. When the chatter between Jackson and Kira paused. I should have, I should have, I should have.

  And yet I didn’t. Until it was too late.

  From Elise and Jackson’s bedroom doorway I watched them slumber, appreciating the preciousness of it. Elise stirred at the creak of the door; Jackson curled up into a tiny lap-sized ball. I wanted to forgive my son for leading Kira to her death. I wanted to forgive the ghost of my husband for not putting up the fence sooner. I wanted to forgive myself for not being omniscient.

  But the truth of the matter is this: a heart that is broken doesn’t work anymore, and so it can’t forgive. All it can do is ache.

  Chapter 31

  Lane

  ‘Not a soul on earth will convict me when I murder your sister, Lane!’ After a long day taking blood pressure, administering medicine, and monitoring patients, I had barely made it through the front door before Candace’s verbal assault began. ‘Because the jury will feel so bad for me – a pregnant, newlywed wife who simply wants a little space – that they’ll applaud me for doing right by my husband.’

  Not this again. It was the sixth time – yes, I’d counted – in two days that Candace asked me when Harper and the kids were moving out. I didn’t have an answer because my sister didn’t have answers. We were in the middle of a double-murder investigation and Candace was more concerned about painting the nursery than catching a killer.

  I couldn’t blame my wife for feeling this way. Every day her patience was tried in new and creative ways. Yesterday, she found the pool skimmer clogged with Barbie doll heads, which led to a $500 filter repair. The day before that, Jackson had dropped a gallon of milk on the floor and left it for Candace to clean up. And don’t even ask me how or why Jackson’s underwear ended up clogged in the toilet.

  All the spills, the toys everywhere, the noise … it was a normal life with kids, but not a life we were ready for. And the moment Candace reprimanded them, Harper got defensive. The last straw happened this morning on Candace’s way down the stairs when she stepped on a toy that sent her tumbling onto her stomach. She had finally calmed after an emergency visit to Urgent Care to ensure the baby was okay. It was a lot for her to deal with, and I knew I was asking too much of a new marriage, letting my sister and her kids live with us for this long.

  ‘I know I promised you they’d be gone by now, and I’m working on it,’ I said as I set my keys on the entryway table and headed upstairs to change clothes.

  Candace followed me up the stairs to our bedroom where I changed out of my scrubs into joggers and a tank top that Harper would make fun of. My whole hipster wardrobe had been customized to Candace’s taste, and my sister had something to say about all of it. Between the two of them, I couldn’t win. Where one was approving, the other was critical.

  ‘You keep saying that, but they’re still here. It’s a simple conversation. Why are you making this so difficult? All you have to say is, Harper, it’s time for you to get your own place. See? Easy,’ Candace ranted on.

  ‘Honey, this is my sister. I can’t just kick her out like that. It takes a little … finesse.’ It was the same answer I had given to her yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. ‘Besides, I don’t want her alone right now. She’s still mourning her husband, and no one has hired her yet, so she has no money to pay for a place to live.’

  ‘Yeah, about that job search, what the hell is taking her so long? And why hasn’t she already found something? Her kids are both in school – she should have already been working during the day.’

  ‘She’s on
ly been here two weeks, babe. Besides, you don’t understand all the stress she’s under.’ She didn’t. She couldn’t. She wasn’t in Harper’s shoes.

  Candace would never understand just how much Harper had suffered after Kira died. How she had gotten a job to distract herself, but the medicine she’d been prescribed numbed her to the point where she couldn’t focus, which led to her getting fired from the plant nursery. The monthly anniversary of Kira’s death had led to breakdowns in front of clients, which led to her being fired from her secretarial job. Firings number three and four were inevitable because some mornings she couldn’t get out of bed. She wasn’t ready for the workforce, and I wasn’t going to push her.

  ‘So help me understand, Lane.’ Candace sounded sincere.

  ‘Harper has had … a rough year, to say the least. Last year she lost a child, her two-year-old daughter. She drowned. And it wasn’t Harper’s fault, if that’s what you’re thinking. Her husband blamed her, and she took it upon herself, but the reality was that it just happened.’

  Candace’s face softened. ‘Oh, I didn’t know all the details about what happened with Kira. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘And even if she did make a deadly mistake, does she deserve to suffer for the rest of her life over that? You can’t judge it unless you’ve been through it. Anyway, after that happened, Harper changed. She was never quite the same. I don’t know if she can even hold a job with how messed up she is right now. Grief does that to you. It changes everything and until she’s had time to heal, I don’t think shoving her into a hostile, lonely work world will help.’

  Candace touched my arm, sorrow in her gentleness. Sympathy.