“I want to be honest with you,” I said, my voice muffled by his shoulder. “But I’m worried how you’ll react.”
His body stiffened; his hand stilled. “React to what?”
With an inhalation of firm resolve, I sat up to look him in the eye. I hated the misgivings I saw there, hated that I had given him reason to doubt me. I tamped down the fiery pain in my heart and began to speak. “Poppy Parnell released a special episode this morning. None of the episodes have been easy to listen to, as you can probably guess—she’s taken the single most horrible thing that’s ever happened to me and repackaged it as entertainment—but this episode was the hardest by far.”
Caleb reached out and squeezed my hand. Heartened by his support, I continued.
“It was all about my mom: her childhood, her mental health, that cult she joined. There were so many things she could have said about my mother, and she focused entirely on making her look insane. It was such a transparent attempt at dodging responsibility for her role in Mom’s suicide. Poppy thinks she can get herself off the hook if she can prove Mom was crazy all along.”
Caleb winced. “Oh, Jo. I’m sorry you had to hear that.”
“But that’s not what made it so hard. The hard part is that she’s right. Kind of, at least. Mom . . . had troubles. It’s one of the reasons I never told you about her. Talking about it was too painful.”
Caleb rubbed slow, encouraging circles on my hand with his thumb. “Do you want to talk about it now?”
I gulped and nodded. “I do. If you want to listen.”
“Of course I want to listen,” he said quietly.
So I told Caleb everything I could think of about my mother, from the fantastical games she would play with us on her good days and about her ethereal, woodland-nymph brand of beauty, to her dark moods, the times she would lock herself in her bedroom or our playhouse out back. I told him about our thirteenth birthday party, when Mom baked a perfect three-tiered cake and decorated it with small marzipan characters; I told him about the time Mom smashed all the drinking glasses in the cabinet.
I concluded with a ragged breath. “What if it’s hereditary?”
“You’re not going to turn into your mother, love,” Caleb said gently.
“But what if I do? Will you leave me?”
“Of course not,” he said, taken aback.
“You can’t promise that,” I said, shaking my head.
“Listen, love, I’m not laboring under the belief you’re perfect. You’re not. You kick me in your sleep, kill all my houseplants, and are a shit housekeeper.”
“And you’re a slob, selfish with the remote control, and have embarrassing taste in reading material,” I countered quickly. “Oh, and I know about the cigarettes you hide in your sock drawer.”
“You do, eh?” He frowned. “The point I was winding toward before you interrupted me was that I love you, flaws and all. Sane, not sane, it doesn’t matter to me because I’ll love you always, no matter what.” He paused to smile crookedly. “And I hope that you can still love me, even though I’ve been outed as a slovenly, selfish, illiterate smoker.”
“Of course I do,” I said, tears starting to drip down my cheeks. “But those minor shortcomings you listed just proves you have no idea what I’m talking about. I’m talking about real darkness, Caleb. You can’t promise that you’ll still love me. You have no idea.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, I just learned that you lied to me for years. And I’m still here professing my love. I think it’s safe to say that I’m in this for the long haul. No matter what. Anything that happens, we’ll face it together. I love you heaps, Jo.”
Something cracked open inside, and I flung my arms around his neck, sobbing. “I love you, too. I don’t know what I ever did to deserve you, but I promise I’m going to spend the rest of my life making this up to you.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” he said quietly into my neck. “Just be honest with me from now on. That’s all I ask.”
• • •
By that afternoon, I had yet to hear from my sister, and I was beginning to wonder if our tentative reconciliation had been nothing more than a by-product of grief. Perhaps nothing had changed. The latest Reconsidered episode had me longing to talk about my mother with someone who remembered her, but I was reluctant to call my sister, afraid not only of her legendary temper but of the questions the podcast had raised. I had nearly convinced myself that our entire reconciliation was a fluke when Lanie called to invite Caleb and me over for dinner.
I was glad to have Caleb by my side; it was one thing to hug my sister in the room we had once shared, but it was another to eat an entire meal in her home with her family. It would be the longest I had been in the same room as Lanie since before she moved out of Aunt A’s house at seventeen. Caleb took my hand as we mounted the pristine steps to Lanie and Adam’s mini-mansion by the country club, and I squeezed it gratefully.
My sister answered the door wearing an apron ordering me to “Kiss the Cook,” and I couldn’t help but stare. Even stranger than the notion of Lanie living in this home with its picture windows and manicured lawn was the sight of her wearing a kitschy apron with a fleck of chopped garlic clinging to her cheek. This person standing in front of me, smiling a pleasant, lipsticked smile, was not the same sister who had locked me out of our bedroom so she could get high or who had stumbled down Benny Weston’s stairs; I wasn’t even certain she was the same sister I had grown up with, the one to whom I had once whispered all my secrets in the dark.
“Thanks for coming,” Lanie said, embracing each of us in turn.
“Thanks for having us,” I said, holding out a bottle of red wine.
“Thanks,” she said, glancing quickly at it. “Come in. I’m finishing up dinner, and Adam ran to the store—we forgot the tomatoes for the salad.”
Stepping inside the living room, I noticed the decor was a near-complete rip-off of Adam’s parents’ house. Either the original Mrs. Ives had done most of the decorating, or the new Mrs. Ives had taken her cues literally from Adam’s mother. The walls were a muted taupe, the furniture matched, and accent pillows were carefully placed around the room. Ann sat in the middle of the floor, the carpet littered with small, colorful plastic blocks. She looked up as we entered and announced, “I helped Mom with the crescent rolls.”
“That’s great,” I said, nodding enthusiastically, unsure how to speak to an eight-year-old girl. “I’m sure you were a big help.”
Caleb, who had no such hang-ups about speaking with children, glanced down at her. “Quite a Lego collection you’ve got yourself there.”
“I’m working on a city,” she said. Pointing to a few small amalgamations of blocks, she narrated, “This is the town hall. This is the school. And this is going to be the skyscraper.”
“Ambitious,” Caleb said, folding his long legs beneath him on the ground. “I like it. Mind if I help?”
She nodded and pushed some blocks in his direction.
“Be nice to Uncle Caleb,” Lanie said to Ann, as she led me into the kitchen. To me, she said, “She must like him. She won’t even let me or Adam play with those blocks.”
I looked over my shoulder to see Caleb earnestly discussing building plans with Ann and smiled. “Caleb works with children a lot. They tend to gravitate to him.”
“He’s a natural,” she said, setting the wine down on the counter and reaching for a pitcher of iced tea. As she poured me a glass, she continued, “He’ll make a good father.”
“Mm,” I murmured noncommittally. I had never allowed myself to consider children—or marriage, or any other trappings of the future—because I had always believed Caleb was one breath away from leaving me. Now that he not only knew the truth about my past, but also had reaffirmed his love, I didn’t have anything standing in the way, but I didn’t yet feel comfortable enough with my sister to reveal any of my insecurities to her.
Lanie, misunderstanding my hesitation, reached over and touched
my hand. “And you’ll make a good mother.”
My skin warmed under her touch, reminding me of a time that Lanie’s body had once felt like an extension of my own. My heart twisted, tugged in opposite directions by the pain of past betrayals and the hope of a reunited future.
But I couldn’t find the words to say those things, and so instead I laughed and told her about the time that I had somehow been roped into presiding over a children’s story hour at the bookstore, and how the children had smelled my fear and run roughshod over me, how the entire situation had devolved into thrown cookies and armpit noises.
Just as I reached the conclusion, Ann came running into the kitchen, holding some sort of Lego construction in her hands. After Lanie had praised her and held the object (an ambulance, I was told) out for me to similarly laud, Ann retreated to the living room.
I noticed the tender smile on Lanie’s face as she watched her go. It was an expression unlike any I had seen on my sister before.
“She’s a great kid,” I said.
“Thanks.” Lanie smiled. “But you know who she reminds me of? You.”
“Me? No. She looks just like you.”
Lanie laughed and swatted at me. “And you know who else looks just like me. But I mean her personality. Take those Legos, for example. Do you remember when Grammy and Pops gave us that Lego set for Christmas? I was completely uninterested in it, but you constructed all these amazing structures.”
“Yeah, and then you wanted to play with it.” I smiled.
“And do you know what I caught her watching on TV yesterday? Some sort of documentary about Magellan on the History channel. You know she didn’t get that from me.”
“Or Adam,” I couldn’t help but add. “History always bored him.”
“Yeah.” Lanie nodded, quiet. “It’s nice, though, you know? Having her take after you so much. It made missing you hurt a little less.”
“Lanie—” I started, unsure what I wanted to say.
“But,” she continued quickly, determinedly upbeat, “it also makes me happy for her. Because I think it means that she’s going to turn out okay.”
“Of course she’s going to turn out okay,” I said, surprised. “Why would you even think that she wouldn’t?”
“Because of me.” She shrugged. “Because half the time I send her to school without any lunch money, I regularly forget to sign permission slips, and with the frequency with which I do laundry, I’m surprised she has anything to wear at all.”
“I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit. Being a parent is hard work.”
“It’s worth it, though,” she said, looking up suddenly, her eyes wide and shiny. “I didn’t really understand what I was getting myself into when I decided to keep her. And there was a point where I thought maybe I was making a terrible mistake. It was going to be so much responsibility, completely change my life, and then, to top it all off, she was going to be completely dependent on me for years. But then she was born, and all of a sudden it all made sense. I didn’t know that I could ever feel this strongly about anything; I didn’t even know love like this existed. She’s my whole world, Josie.”
“I’m glad,” I said, reaching out to squeeze her hand. “You’ve really changed, Lanie. I’m proud of you.”
She turned her hand over in mine and hooked her ring finger around mine, the way we had when we were kids. She smiled ruefully. “I haven’t changed, though, not really. I’m still the same mess I’ve always been. I’ve just learned how to hide it better. I have to, otherwise Adam will leave me and take Ann, and she’s all I have.”
“Adam wouldn’t—” I started to say, then realized I had no idea what Adam would or would not do.
“Yes he would. Not to be spiteful, but because he worries I’m going to turn out like Mom. Or worse.”
I looked at her sharply, suddenly wary. “What does that mean?”
Before Lanie could respond, the back door swung open and Adam entered, carrying a grocery bag. He glanced at me, and a strange expression passed over his face—something between concern and relief.
“Josie, hi,” he said, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. “Good to see you.”
I returned a distracted hello, wondering what exactly Lanie had meant by or worse. Was there something specific she was worried about?
“Got those tomatoes,” Adam said to Lanie as he pulled a box of grape tomatoes from the grocery bag and rinsed them in the sink.
“Thanks,” Lanie said, fishing out a handful and dropping them on a cutting board. As she selected a knife, she asked me, “You like tomatoes, right, Josie?”
I nodded, vaguely troubled that my own twin sister couldn’t remember whether I liked tomatoes. It might have been nearly a decade since we had shared a meal, but we had lived together for more than half our lives.
“I ran into Ted Leland at the grocery store,” Adam said. “My dad’s friend, remember? We went to a Christmas party at his house a couple of years ago.”
Lanie frowned, her hand hesitating above a tomato. I gave her a sharp look, but Adam, oblivious, continued.
“Anyway, he’s got a son who’s a couple of years older than us and is moving back to town. The Lelands are throwing a welcome party in a couple weeks and invited us.”
“Ted’s wife,” Lanie said tightly, her fingers curling and uncurling around the handle of the knife. “She teaches at the college, right?”
Adam nodded. “Yeah, I think that’s right.”
“And she’s pretty?”
“She’s nice-looking, I guess,” Adam said, tossing me a confused look. He didn’t know what Lanie was getting at, but I did. Professor Leland had been a colleague of our father’s, and she was quite pretty—I remembered meeting her on campus several times. Poppy Parnell had reported a rumor that our father was involved with students . . . or possibly other professors. I had dismissed it as just gossip, but, from the expression on Lanie’s face, I could tell she felt differently. The only question was whether she had a specifc reason for suspecting Professor Leland. I waited to see if she would tip her hand.
“Her name’s Pearl, right?” Lanie asked, her voice soft.
“Yeah,” Adam said. “Good memory.”
“I wish,” Lanie said quietly, bringing the knife down through the tomato with a sharp thwack.
• • •
Lanie sent me into the dining room to collect the salad bowl, and as I stood in front of the china hutch, surveying the matching cups and saucers and cut crystal glasses, Adam entered the room.
“Come to help me find the bowl?” I asked lightly.
Adam glanced over his shoulder, and stepped so close to me that I drew back. “Lanie hasn’t slept in two days,” he hissed.
My skin prickled a warning, and I glanced toward the kitchen, mentally running through the checklist I had developed when we were teenagers. Pupils? Normal. Breath? Neutral. Demeanor? Unremarkable, even pleasant, with the brief exception of her fixation on Professor Leland, but that could easily be explained. The podcast was making us all crazy.
“Are you sure? She seemed okay enough to me.”
“I guess I’m not sure she hasn’t slept at all,” Adam amended. “But she hasn’t come up to bed in two days. And when I’ve gotten up to check on her, I found her down in her study, painting.”
Despite Adam’s obvious anxiety, I smiled. “She was always a good artist.”
Adam nodded shortly. “I know. I’ve tried to convince her to teach some classes at the community center. But that’s not the point, Josie. The point is that she’s not sleeping, and I’m worried.”
I bit my lip, remembering my father saying nearly those exact words to me about my mother. The first time I could recall him saying them, I had been about the age that Ann was now. Our mother had begun vacuuming the upstairs hallway at six in the morning, rousing Lanie and me, and we had complained to our father.
“Be kind to your mother,” he had advised. “She’s going through a bit of a phase
. She hasn’t been sleeping, and I’m a little worried about her. But I’m sure if we all just work on being extra-nice to her, she’ll be able to sleep again.”
Over the years, she had suffered from frequent bouts of insomnia, although it was a kind of insomnia where she would never even try to sleep. We would come down for breakfast and find her just where we left her, wearing yesterday’s clothing, scribbling in her journal or reading a book. It was how she had gotten through Anna Karenina so many times.
“What do you want me to do, Adam?”
“I don’t know. I just hoped you might have some insight. She does this sometimes, you know—just goes a little off for a few days—but she’s been on edge for weeks, ever since that podcast started.” He shifted and cast another nervous glance toward the kitchen. “From some of the things Lanie’s said, it sounds like your mom might’ve had some similar patterns. I was wondering—”
“She’s not our mother,” I cut him off. “Has she been to see someone?”
“Multiple someones. I’m starting to get desperate.”
The anguish in Adam’s eyes was evident, and, despite the circumstances, a small part of my heart warmed. I was glad Lanie had someone who loved her and looked after her, even if that someone was Adam.
“I don’t know what to do,” he continued. “She won’t talk to me. She says there’s nothing to talk about. But Josie, the longer the podcast goes on, the more erratic her behavior becomes.”
“It has to end soon,” I rationalized. “The podcast can’t keep going forever.”
“I don’t know how much longer we can wait. We’ve got to protect your sister. She’s unraveling, Josie.”
The niggling doubt that had formed when I listened to the podcast throbbed in my mind. Reconsidered had been hard on all of us, but if it was really affecting Lanie as severely as Adam claimed . . . was Lanie worried? Did she know that Poppy Parnell was onto something?
“Adam,” I said carefully, “when Lanie and I got in a fight the other day, it was about the podcast.”
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