by Megan Hart
“I think we all will. It’s been a stressful summer.”
“Tell me about it.” Patricia made a rueful chuckle. “I think the only one who hasn’t had disaster strike’s been you.”
“Lucky me.”
“I don’t know what Claire’s going to do,” she continued, moving away from the scrapbook and party plans into the far juicier realm of sisterly gossip. “She’s not ready to have a kid. But she says she’s going to keep it, and she does seem on the ball. I would never have expected it of her, Anne, but she’s doing all the right things.”
“She is.”
“But Mary…I’m not sure what’s up with her, that whole moving in with Betts thing. What if that doesn’t work out? I mean, I know she’s trying to save money and everything, but…what if it doesn’t work out?”
“Patricia, I’m sure she and Betts have talked about all of it.”
Patricia’s sigh sounded loud, even through the phone. “It’s just craziness, that’s what it is.”
“Oh, Pats. C’mon.”
“Well, at least we know she won’t get pregnant.”
Her dry comment hit me right between the eyes. It took me a second to laugh, but once I started the guffaws ripped out of me, one after another. On the other side of the phone, she started, too. We laughed together, and it felt so good I didn’t notice I’d started to cry until the distinctive sound of the call waiting tone beeped.
“Hold on,” I said, my voice hoarse. “Got another call.”
“Anne. You need to come over here right away.”
I didn’t recognize Mary’s voice at first. She sounded like she was whispering into the phone while standing in a closet. Maybe she was.
“Mare?”
“You have to come over here,” she repeated. “I don’t know what else to do, and you’re the one who deals with him when he’s like this.”
My guts churned. “Wait a minute, what’s going on?”
“It’s Dad,” she said, and I didn’t ask any more questions, just hung up with her and switched back to my other sister.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” Patricia said at once. “The kids are spending the night with Sean’s parents. He’s at a meeting. I’ll be there in twenty.”
We hung up without even saying goodbye.
We pulled into my parents’ driveway at the same time, even though she lived farther away. Mary’s car was parked by the garage, along with my dad’s. The one my mom usually drove was gone. Patricia and I got out, both of us pausing to listen for voices inside the house. I didn’t hear anything, but that didn’t mean anything wasn’t going on.
Claire opened the door as soon as we got on the front porch. She’d pulled her hair back from her face in a high ponytail and wore no makeup. Her eyes were red, but if she’d been weeping she wasn’t now.
“It’s Dad,” she said. “He’s gone fucking nutso. You have to talk to him, Anne, you’re the only one he’ll listen to. He just went ballistic.”
Patricia and I shot glances at each other, then followed Claire into the house. Most of the lights were off, making each room dim. Back through the dark hall we saw a golden square of light falling from the kitchen doorway. That’s where Claire took us.
In the kitchen my father sat at the kitchen table. A bottle, mostly empty, of his favorite whiskey sat in front of him. So did a glass, also mostly empty. His eyes were red-rimmed, his hair askew. He looked up at us as we came in.
“There she is,” he said with a nod at Claire. “Did she tell you? What she’s done?”
“Yes, Dad,” Patricia said. “We know.”
My father gave a harsh, nasty laugh. “Goddamned whore’s what she is! Shows up here, flaunting her belly like she’s got something to be proud of….”
He filled his glass. He drank. We all watched him. Mary leaned against the counter, arms folded tight over her stomach. Claire filled a glass of water from the sink and drank it almost defiantly. Patricia and I moved to opposite sides of the doorway. Our father put his glass down with a sharp crack of glass on wood.
“I oughta throw your ass right out on the street!”
“You won’t have to,” Claire said. “I told you, I’m getting my own place.” She looked at me. “I told him I was getting my own place, and he asked me why.”
“Because she thinks I was too stupid to notice before,” he said with a scowl. “Everyone else in the world knows, but not me. Not your dad.”
“Because I knew you’d act like this,” Claire cried and tossed up her hands. She was the only one who’d ever talked back to him this way.
“And now she tells me she’s planning to keep the bastard!”
“Dad, for God’s sakes,” Claire snapped. “Nobody calls them bastards anymore!”
He turned on her. “Shut your mouth, you little tramp!”
The insult had to sting, but she put on a show of rolling her eyes and making a whirling motion with her finger on the side of her head. Our father got up from his chair so fast it fell back with a crash against the linoleum. He picked up his glass and threw it at Claire’s head. It missed but hit and broke against the wall next to Patricia, who yelped and jumped aside.
Our father pointed a trembling finger at Claire. “You goddamned little slut! Just like your mother!”
“Don’t you talk about Mom that way!” Claire screamed. “Don’t you dare, you asshole!”
My father, when drunk, had often been melancholy or temperamental. He’d been careless, suicidal, morose or sometimes vicious with his mouth, but he’d never hit any of us. When he advanced on Claire I really thought he meant to strike her.
“Little bastard bitch.” The alcohol had made him slow, and he stumbled. Mary put herself between him and Claire. Patricia and I flanked him. “Little goddamned whore.”
We stayed like that, a tableau of family dysfunction, until he turned. His arms swung, catching me and Patricia with unintentional blows. He went back to the table and drank directly from the bottle, finishing it.
“Where is your mother, anyway? Run off again?” His muttered words were directed at the bottle, not at any of us, but he turned in a shambling half circle to confront us all. “Well? Where is she?”
“She went to the grocery store,” said Mary.
His laughter made the hair rise along the back of my neck. “Did she? Annie, c’mere.”
I didn’t want to, but my feet moved by themselves.
“Give your dad a hand upstairs. I need to lie down.”
“You need to sober up,” snapped Claire.
He whirled on her, reaching out for my shoulder to keep from falling. I staggered under the sudden weight. We both might have fallen but he caught himself at the last minute.
“What did you say?” he demanded with all the righteous indignation of a falsely accused man.
Claire turned away. “Nothing.”
He looked around at all of us. “Any of the rest of you have anything smart to say?”
Nobody said anything. He snorted, derisive. “I thought so.”
What is it about our parents that can send us back to childhood with a few words or a look? We’d stood this way before, in this same room, with my father leaning on my shoulder to help him upstairs. With Mary and Patricia cowering in opposite corners of the kitchen. For an instant my vision blurred and wavered, showing me them as they’d been that summer. Little girls with wide eyes, ready to but afraid to cry.
Claire hadn’t been there, and it was seeing her that reminded me more than anything that we weren’t children anymore. We didn’t have to be afraid to show our feelings. I didn’t.
“C’mon, Dad, let’s get you upstairs.”
I’d made this journey many times before, though it was easier now that I was taller. In the bedroom I led him to the bed, where he flopped with a boozy sigh and swung his legs up on the bed. I untied his shoes and slipped them off, and put them away neatly in the closet.
He wasn’t snoring, but his breath came in wheezing sighs. I
drew the shade to keep out the light. I turned on the air conditioning unit to cool the room. I was ten again, and eight, and five. I was waiting for my mother to come home and make it all better. I was waiting for him to fall asleep so we could be sure he was finished for the night.
“You always were a good girl, Annie.” His whiskey-thick voice floated in the darkness.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“I’m sorry I yelled at Claire. You’ll tell her, won’t you?”
“You should tell her yourself.”
More silence.
“Where’s your mother?”
“She went to the store.”
“When’s she coming back?”
“I don’t know.”
Cold air pushed the warm eddies across my face. It swirled over me like water in the lake. Like currents that could sweep me away.
“She left me once, you know. You remember that? That summer?”
“I do. Do you want a blanket?”
He wasn’t listening. He was lost somewhere. “I loved that woman so much I wanted to die from it, you know that? Did you know that, Annie? Loved her like it was burning me up from the inside.”
I hadn’t known, but how could I? Why would I? “No. I didn’t know that.”
He sighed and was silent. I thought he’d passed out. I pulled a blanket from the closet anyway, in case he did need one.
“She ran off and left me, and I wanted to die.”
The wool of the blanket scratched my palms as I put it on the bed by his feet. He reached out faster than I’d have thought he could, finding my wrist with unerring ease despite the dark. He pulled me closer, until I sat on the edge of the bed.
“You remember that summer, don’t you?”
“I do, Dad. I told you that.”
“You were always a good girl. Took care of your sisters. Little Mary, sweet Mary. And Patricia. You were such a good girl. She went away and left us all, remember that?”
I sighed and patted his hand. “Yes, Dad.”
“But she took Claire. Baby Claire.” He laughed, and the bed rocked. “Who’s going to have a baby of her own, sweet Jesus.”
“Do you need anything else? Because I’m going to leave now.”
“You’ll tell Claire I’m sorry, won’t you? I didn’t mean what I said.”
The circular conversation wasn’t new. Instead of feeling annoyed, I felt only sad. This man, for better or worse, was my father.
“Sure. I’ll tell her.”
“I don’t think she’s a whore.”
“I know you don’t.”
“You’re a good girl, Anne.”
“I know, Dad. I’ve always been a good girl.” The words sounded bitter, but he was beyond noticing. “I’m going, now.”
“That summer, I took you out on the boat.”
My stomach did a slow, sick somersault. “Yes.”
“That was a good day, wasn’t it? Just you and me, out there on that boat. Riding the boat. Out on the water. Out on the waves. That was a good day.”
I hadn’t thought so. Not then. Not now.
“Maybe the last good day.”
My mother had left with toddler Claire two days after the boat ride. It had been a bad summer, but for me it hadn’t started when she left. It had started the day we almost drowned.
“There have been other good days,” I said.
“I should just do it,” he said. “Just finish myself off.”
I said nothing. He wasn’t talking to me, not really. Or maybe he was, but it was ten-year-old Annie Byrne he meant to tell, not Anne Kinney.
“Just put the pistol in my mouth and pull the trigger. Just be done…with…all of it.” His words got more slurred. “Be better off for everyone. If I just did it.”
I’d heard this before, more than once. Sometimes like this in the dark. Sometimes through the closed door while my mother begged him not to.
“I should just do it,” he said again, and I answered the way I always had.
“No, Daddy. No, you shouldn’t.”
“Why not?” he asked, voice deep and slow and far away.
Tears pricked my eyes and stung my throat. “Because we love you.”
I was sure he’d passed out, then. The wheeze of his breath had settled into a steady in and out, and his hand fell limp from mine. I let it go and got up to leave. His voice stopped me at the door.
“Annie, did you ever learn to sail?”
“No, Daddy. I didn’t.”
“You should,” he muttered. “Then you wouldn’t be so afraid next time.”
Then all I heard was snoring, and I left him there to sleep it off.
Chapter 16
The day of my parents’ party threatened rain, and Patricia called me to moan before the sun had fully risen. James answered the phone and passed it off to me after a mumbled hello. I took it, and he got out of bed to shuffle to the bathroom, where I heard him peeing for a very long time.
“It will be fine, Pats. That’s why we got the tent.”
“The tent will only cover the food,” my sister said. “What about all the guests? They can’t fit in your house!”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and most of them won’t show up.”
“Very funny, Anne.”
I wasn’t laughing. I wasn’t really even joking. I yawned and looked at the clock, which showed an hour far too early for my taste. “Pats. Calm down. It will be fine, I promise you.”
She sighed. “You’re so good at this, you know that?”
“Good at what?”
“Being in charge of things. Making it all better. Fixing it.”
Through the half-open bathroom door, I could see my husband scratching himself in places I didn’t need to see scratched. I turned on my side. “No, Pats. I’m really not.”
She sighed again, and was silent for half a second. “It’s only a chance of thunderstorms, right?”
“Only a chance.”
“And…we just have to get through this one day, and we’re fine. We’ll be done.”
“All done.”
She laughed. “I’m sorry I’m such a pain in the butt. I know it. I just…I’m just…”
“I know.” I did. There was a lot going on, not just this party. There’d been a lot going on for a long time. “It will be great. Mom and Dad will have a good time. Their friends will be here. We’ll be held up as bright and shining examples of what good daughters do, and we’ll be done for the next thirty years.”
I wasn’t sure exactly what she was doing, but the noise didn’t sound quite like laughter. Maybe a snort. “Sure. Right.”
James came back to bed, his eyes still half-closed. He slid between the covers and reached to pull me back against him. I allowed the embrace because it would have been too difficult to disentangle myself from him while I was on the phone. When he nuzzled into my hair and his hand came up to cup my breast, I let out a low, annoyed noise. He didn’t get it.
“Everything will be fine,” I said for what felt like the millionth time. “The sun will come out. The rain will hold off. The people will come and eat and leave, and tomorrow this will all be a pleasant memory. Go back to sleep for a while, Patricia. God knows I’m going to.”
“How can you sleep?” she protested. “What time do you want me to come over? Is there anything I can bring? What about—”
“Noon, like we agreed. And no. Goodbye,” I said, and hung up even though she protested.
“Patricia?” James asked.
“Yes.” I didn’t move out of his arms, but I didn’t exactly nestle, either.
“She’s freaking out?”
“Yeah.” There’d be no going back to sleep for me. I had over a hundred people arriving at my house a few hours from now, and though I’d told Patricia it would all be all right I wasn’t as assured.
The barometer hanging on the wall in my kitchen didn’t make me feel any better. The blue water in the tube had risen nearly all the way to the top, portending storms. I looked outside.
Blue skies didn’t necessarily mean anything. A storm could fly up at any time.
Despite the concerns about the weather, the tent arrived on time and was set up without problem. The caterer came with his portable pit beef spit and all the other gear. James had already set up the outdoor speakers to play a mix of songs from our iPod. “Build Me up, Buttercup” wafted over air steamy and humid and smelling of cooked cow. It was two hours to party time, and though Patricia and Mary had shown up, Claire was nowhere to be found.
“She said she had to meet the asswad,” Mary told me as she helped me set out paper plates and plastic utensils on the long trestle tables set up in my teeny tiny yard. “Something about getting some money, or something?”
“I think you mean the fucktard.” I surveyed the yard. Everything looked okay.
“Yeah, him.” Mary laughed, her eyes scanning the driveway. “And she’s going to drive Mom and Dad. You know, so…”
“So he doesn’t have to drive. Yes.” I watched her. She fumbled with the stack of plates, picking it up and setting it down, and arranging the spoons so they tucked neatly inside one another.
James appeared on the deck, moving chairs. He was a very good husband, I thought, shading my eyes to watch him move. He’d been helping all morning without complaining. He’d even run out twice to pick up things we’d forgotten. He was cheerful about it, too. I loved him. So why did looking at him make my stomach drop like I was falling?
“Are you okay?” Mary waved a hand in front of my eyes to capture my attention. “Earth to Anne. Hello?”
I shook it off and gave her a smile. “Fine. You?”
“Fine.”
We looked at each other, both aware we were lying, but only Mary confessed. “I invited Betts to come. I hope that’s okay.”
“Of course.” I thought I should say more.
“Thanks.” She fussed some more with the plates and spoons before she crossed her hands tightly over her stomach. “Anne…”
I’d been watching James again, my hand raised in a small half wave in return to the one he’d given me. “Hmm?”
“How’d you know you wanted to spend the rest of your life with James?”
I was still looking at him when I answered. “I didn’t.”