“Why not?”
“There aren’t any windows. If the water keeps rising, we’ll drown in there.”
“Okay then. I’ll just grab my motorboat out of my pocket, and we’ll be off. Where the fuck else do you plan to go?”
Turning away, Doris settled her gaze out the window over the sink. There were options, just not many for her. Thea could run, she could swim, she could float away. Doris could go into the fucking attic or sit on the counter and pray the rain to stop.
“Do you want to die?” Thea asked, toeing the line between sympathy and annoyance.
“Nobody is going to die.” Doris said it matter-of-factly, like she said everything.
It was enough to get Thea to her feet, colliding with the floor in an angry splash. “Where is it?”
Doris pointed. The house was nothing more than a few small rooms connected by decorative archways. Through the arch from the living room was the kitchen, and beyond that a hallway that contained a laundry closet truncated by an add-on den. Thea spotted the swinging chain of a pull-down entrance to the attic dangling from the ceiling just inside the hallway.
It didn’t budge as she yanked at it.
Stuck. She pulled again, harder. It groaned and somewhere above her, wood snapped and splintered, but still she couldn’t force it free. Her hands were wet and kept slipping.
This only made her fight harder until—pop—the door shot down like a loaded cork. The collapsible stairs were slick on their rails and careened at her face. Slamming into the water, they stopped short of completely unfolding, buoyed by the water.
Thea turned to Doris. “Your Majesty.”
Doris glanced at her, then at the wobbly stairs, then back at Thea. A distinct trickle of water flowed down the stairs.
“I think the roof has a leak,” she said.
Thea fingered the liquid running down as if it might be anything but water. Then she gripped the slide rails and let the trickle of water glide over her hands. “Yup, it’s more water.”
“Just go check the roof.”
Thea did, slipping out of sight only a moment. Doris couldn’t help the flex of her chest as her sister disappeared. Part of her didn’t believe she’d come back.
“How bad is it?” Doris said.
“Like someone dropped a bowling ball through the ceiling.”
“I guess we have a way out, if we need it.” Little fuses lit with each word she spoke. She had to get out. They had to get out. They had to go up. God help them if they needed to get any higher than that.
“Well, let’s go, then,” Thea said, leaping into the flood and waiting.
Thea hated the way her sister looked at her, sizing up everything. Sizing up her. Eyelids lowered, mouth pulled into a knot, Thea assumed that all had been found wanting, as usual.
“Fuck, Doris. At least up there the water is running down.” Thea didn’t even know why she was trying so hard. It’s not like Doris cared. It’s not like they were really sisters. More like two strangers that happened upon the same biological parents. Why did Thea care when no one else ever seemed to? It spoke little to her hedonistic, narcissistic nature; there wasn’t an altruistic bone in her body. Everything she did, she did for her. So why was she doing this?
“I swear to God, Doris. I’ll drag you if I must. I will not just sit here and watch you drown.”
At this, Doris scoffed. She looked at the water the same way their old family tabby, Cid, used to stare at the fish tank. Finding whatever it was she was looking for, Doris dropped herself into the water more inelegantly than she’d probably have hoped.
Thea knew better than to wade into the water to retrieve her, and she waited at the stairs while Doris waded indelicately through the carnage. Pain distorted her features into an expression Thea knew and understood with alarming clarity. She’d also been around enough druggies and tweakers to know to stay the fuck away from a person making that face.
It was a short distance to cover, fifteen feet maybe, but the first leap and subsequent crash left Doris gasping. Thea outstretched an arm, palming the door leading to the garage, and sucked in a sudden bout of nausea threatening to explode. Clutching her body together in a ball, she waited from above. The ketamine in her pocket burned a hole in her ass. Pop a couple of those suckers under her tongue and she’d be just fine. But first, she had to get her stubborn mule of a sister to a place where she wouldn’t drown unattended.
Seconds passed. Minutes. Thea stared at her feet to keep from hurling. She didn’t know what Doris was doing, but she wasn’t moving.
“Doris?”
She didn’t respond.
Shit, Doris. God, please don’t make me open my mouth again. She had enough of a time keeping her nonsense from falling out on a good day. So she peeked, catching sight of her sister at the top of her vision.
Doris had gone stiff.
“What’s wrong?” Thea asked, risking it.
But then she heard splashing, and Doris let her know she’d arrived by grabbing Thea’s shoe, probably more by accident than intention, as she let go as if scorched once she saw what she’d done.
“Move,” she said.
Thea moved, slinking up a few more steps.
Water mushed the pressboard planks, and the steps began to peel around the edges. Doris worked her way up five of the nine steps before pausing to rest and gape at the hole in the roof. It looked like it’d been pierced by a cannonball. The storm raged from above, leering at the sisters through the hole like Sauron’s eye.
Thea wanted to shout at Doris to hurry the fuck up. It was all she could do to not tear into the case right now, but she had to show some sort of restraint—at least enough to get Doris up a few more steps.
But she’d stopped moving again, her feet still dangling in the water. Thea wasn’t sure whether her sister was exhausted or just pissed off or both, but her patience was waning. Maybe she should say something.
“Come on,” she said. “You can do it. Almost there.”
Doris snapped her gaze toward Thea with withering intensity. “Don’t talk to me like I’m a dog.”
She should not have said something. But Thea was as well versed in this game of insult ping-pong as Doris. She stuck out her hand. “Then hurry the fuck up.”
Thankfully, Doris accepted.
The attic was small, and Thea curled into herself just under the hole, relentlessly pounded with rain. There wasn’t anyplace to go that wasn’t being pounded with rain, but Doris managed to flop herself along a row of boxes that provided a small reprieve.
The sisters breathed and listened, listened and breathed. All Thea heard was the roar of the sky cracking in two. When she finally tore her eyes away from the sight of it, she saw the water below creeping and creeping. Fourth step now. It’d only been ten minutes, maybe. Or not. There wasn’t any way to tell.
“Do you have a phone?” Doris asked.
Thea didn’t respond. Her body shivered violently, trying and failing to buck off the throes of withdrawal. Freeing the case from her pocket, she held it out for Doris to see.
“If you’re going to do it, at least turn around. I don’t want to watch you.”
But Thea sidled closer, careful to keep the case just out of Doris’s reach. “We’re both going to do it.”
“Fuck off, Thea.”
“No, you listen for once.” She seized her by the shoulder, unsure if the resulting grimace was due to pain or simply because of Thea’s presence. “You’re fucked, Doris. We’re fucked. You can’t move and I’m moments away from something you do not want to fucking see. I can feel the shivering already. Hate it, hate me, whatever you want, but this at least gives us a chance.”
“That’s not mine.” It was a question more than an answer.
“I didn’t get it for him, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Thea said.
“Would you have, if he’d asked?”
Thea considered lying, but why bother? “Yeah, probably.”
Christ, she was infuriating. “But you need to take it with me. You’re barely holding on as it is.”
For a moment, Thea thought Doris was considering it. “The physical therapist mentioned it. You can go get infusions or whatever, through an IV, but I said no. These things, troches or whatever they’re called, were just approved. Not as effective, lower dose. I said no again. James conveniently must not have heard me.”
“That’s a great story. Open wide.” Perhaps it was because her brain was full of holes from all the drugs or because she was tired and desperate, but Thea thought she would just be able to slip a piece right into her sister’s mouth, like a junkie mama bird. This is not what happened.
Doris slapped it away—pink ketamine flying out of reach and down the stairs where it disappeared into the slush.
“What the fuck, Doris!”
“We aren’t doing that shit, Thea. You can try and moralize it all you want.”
Thea clutched the remaining ketamine in a tight fist, probably crushing it a little. “Do what you want, then. Die down here with your morals if that’s what keeps you warm and fuzzy and comfortable. I don’t have time for this shit.”
She was about to storm an entire three feet away, but Doris stopped her with a hand, snagging the shredded hem of her jeans with thin fingers. “This isn’t about comfort. Believe me.”
And she did believe her. One look at the ragged thing that was her sister, Queen Doris, perfect Doris. The sister Thea outgrew by six inches yet always seemed so tall, the bright star the family orbited for fear of shriveling in her shadow; Thea saw what she was just then—a frail and tired wraith, clinging to the only feature of herself still whole. Her righteousness and sense of duty were all she had, and boy, if Thea didn’t relate to it. If anyone understood what it was like to watch oneself unpeel layer by layer, it was her. And yet the empathy would not come. That part of her burned and fizzled long ago.
“If being right is worth dying for, then I guess there’s nothing left to discuss.” She knelt next to Doris. “But here. If you decide not to be an ass, here’s one square. Put it under your tongue. Or throw it in the water. I don’t care what you do, but I’m done arguing about it.”
Thea popped one in her own mouth, closing the plastic case over the rest of them with an authoritative snap.
She made a point to look anywhere other than at Doris. Her gaze instead traveled through the gash in the roof. Water tumbled through it, drenching her from every direction. She couldn’t even make out the sky between the rain and the dark, as if that was all that existed now. No clouds, no earth, no trees or birds, just punishment. Trying not to think about it, she tongued the ketamine against her cheek.
God damn, it couldn’t come soon enough. Her nerves itched with anticipation, the wait almost being more unbearable than the withdrawal. She chuckled to herself and patted her pocket. Of course, that wasn’t true. There was nothing worse than withdrawal, something Doris would never understand. No amount of morals or judgment or superiority or hatred could be worse than what Thea’s own, dumb body could dish out on a bad day.
“You never answered me,” Doris said, shocking Thea out of her satisfied stupor.
“About what?”
“Do you have a phone or not?”
“I left it in my Ferrari.”
It was a stupid question. Everything of value Thea owned was inevitably shot up her arm. She wouldn’t have a phone unless she’d stolen one and hadn’t yet had a chance to sell it for drugs.
It dawned on her then, as she tried to think of some other smart-ass remark, that the outside was eerily quiet. Besides the whir and rumble of the storm, there were no helicopters. No sirens. No screams. No anything but water and more water. It was as if they were the only two people left on earth.
No one was coming for them. Not yet, anyway. Not for a while. Perhaps not before they drowned. The pair were in sorry shape. A losing bet, these two.
Lightning ripped at the seams of the black clouds, casting oily shadows across the attic floor. Thunder rocked the floorboards. Thea glared toward the sky as splashes of rain haloed her head.
“Jesus,” Doris said. “It’s almost up the stairs.”
The entire kitchen was under water, the surface threatening to spill over onto the countertops. Bulky shapes bobbed around in the brown muck. Clothes and some mail and an oven mitt flushed out the shattered back door.
“We have to get out of here,” Thea said, again turning her gaze upward. “We have to get on the roof.”
Doris didn’t answer her. She didn’t say much at all, opting instead to twist her wedding ring around her finger. Her eyes glazed over as if she was deep in thought. Thea had seen her like this before, and it usually meant she was one loud sneeze away from a meltdown. Hers never looked the way one might expect a meltdown to look, though. Doris swallowed everything, bricked herself up stone by stone. The ring twisting was the small crack in the dam that preceded collapse, and no way did Thea want to be around when those walls finally caved in.
Which was the very moment that her own began to wobble.
“Fucking shit,” Thea said.
“Look at this shit. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck!”
She kicked and thrashed, an unbearable edge creeping into her veins. It happened so suddenly, more so than she was used to. Something in her snapped and she just couldn’t take it anymore. This was too much, all of it too much. What was she supposed to do? If it was just her, she’d dive headfirst into a k-hole and let Mother Nature do its work, but it wasn’t just her. And as much as she liked to convince herself that she didn’t give a shit about anyone, she did.
Her body spasmed, not even sure what the hell it wanted, and Thea spun her limbs, hoping to hurt something, someone, anything. Even herself. By the time the throb of exhaustion had caught up to her, she’d made a nice little natural disaster in the middle of the attic, consuming the storm in her fury.
Doris hadn’t said a word. Just watched and spun her ring.
By the time she finally dared a glance, Thea was pushing, throwing, heaving shit into the center of the attic, just under the hole in the roof—a Christmas wreath; old clothes; a box of childhood stuffed animals, bloated like a dead body and ripping at the seams—toppling them in a heap.
“Why do you even have all this stuff?” Thea said, scoffing while standing up, indignant despite sending another box forward with a good kick. “This isn’t going to work.” Then she grabbed another. And another and another. Pieces of an old bed frame, a garden hose, any old shit that was easy enough to move.
Thea sank her feet into the pile. The detritus of Doris’s life clung to her shoes as she squashed through the rubble for a decent foothold. After a few near falls, she finally managed to swing her elbows onto the roof and pull her head up.
One, two, three seconds, and she was down again.
What she’d seen had sucked the rage right out of her, hollowing out her insides. “You never prepared me for this, sister,” she said.
Doris let her ring drop to the floor. “I know.”
Saying nothing else, the sisters got to work.
CHAPTER FOUR
Nobody tells you about the boredom. There isn’t much to do after the terror and shock subsides. Just floating and sitting and getting dizzy from the hamster-wheel laps of the brain thinking about an entire lifetime of floating and sitting. It’d been a year of sitting around waiting to die. Rob swore it was only nine months, as if he fucking knew the difference. He spent all his time lost somewhere in his head, and Sestra couldn’t be sure of his grip on reality, let alone his basic math skills. She wasn’t so sure about herself either. It’s not like it mattered much.
Rob, however despondent, was never short of criticisms of her performance. “Get y
our hands out of the water if you ain’t even gonna try.”
Sestra draped her right arm over the boat platform. She said she was catching fish, but her arm had fallen asleep ages ago. All she’d done to pass the time was flip-flop between numbness and a painful pins-and-needles sensation. Since she passed most of her days in similar fashion, her arms from the elbows down were the only parts of her not turned to jerky from the sun and an overabundance of sea salt.
“That water’s not safe,” Rob said.
“Jesus, is it noon already?”
“Ain’t nothing saving you when a shark grabs those fingers.”
“What a pity,” she said, keeping her arm exactly where it was.
Her stomach lurched. By now she thought she’d have gotten used to being starved all the time, but it never got easier. Rob seemed to handle it better than her. He’d close his eyes and lean back as if to nap, looking so damn peaceful while Sestra’s organs tore her apart from the inside out. Before the flood, she’d heard stories of people who’d slipped into euphoric comas, their brains leaching sedating hormones as their bodies ate themselves alive. Sestra counted the hours until that moment came, but it hadn’t yet. She was miserable every second that passed, angry at everything, feeling herself ripped apart as her cells died bit by bit.
She couldn’t understand how Rob just closed his eyes. The times she tried to copy him, the agony of her insides just roared louder, as if silencing one of her senses just made the rest of them more aggressive. She’d chuck water at Rob’s face sometimes, just to shock him out of it, afraid he might never open his eyes again. Sometimes she’d just start talking and talking so that she had something to do, forming coherent sentences being its own sort of chore nowadays.
Rob threw the tarp at her. “Cover yourself, at least.” Sunburn had eroded her skin over the months. The welts were the worst—something about the excessive salt clogging the pores, at least according to Rob—but luckily, she managed to get those under control with some light rinsing with fresh water. This, of course, was a contentious use of their limited supply, as evident by Rob screaming at her to stop using all their clean water to rinse her stinkin’ vagina. Those thigh creases, though—they were the worst.
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