The Girl Who Stopped Swimming

by Joshilyn Jackson

  Each car passed right by the house, continuing on its business without even slowing. The afternoon shadows lengthened outside as she worked, and still Thalia was not home. Laurel attached the final rosebud and stood back to look at the completed quilt. She couldn’t tell if she liked it or not. She left it out on the worktable and went back to the kitchen.

  She opened a cold bottle of Chablis and poured herself a generous measure, then sat on the sofa and sipped it, too sick to be hungry. She finished the glass and poured herself another. She drank some of that, too, until she realized it was making her dizzy. She hadn’t gotten lunch. Now here it was, almost time to start dinner. She took the glass back to the kitchen and set it by the sink.

  She heard another car coming and stood up straighter, her ears straining. This one slowed, pulling in to her driveway. She went into the dining room and peered out of the sheers. It was her Volvo, at long last. She hurried to the front door and undid the locks, swinging the door wide.

  Thalia was coming up the walk, but she wasn’t alone. She had one long arm draped over Bunny Dufresne’s shoulder. They were tilted in, leaning on each other. A wave of spiced rum and coconut rolled onto the porch before they did, and as they got close, Laurel could see that Barb’s lipstick was askew.

  “Buy a girl a drink?” said Thalia, and lurched inside, carting Bunny with her.

  CHAPTER 13

  Barbara Dufresne was a barb in the morning, sharp and pricking. Her husband always called her Bunny, but Laurel thought of her as Bunny only in the afternoon. By three P.M. each day, she would be blurred to fuzziness, her eyes as pink-rimmed as any rabbit’s. Bunny was crafty and she functioned, but DeLop was full to bursting with every shade of alcoholic, so Laurel had recognized her colors by the second time they met.

  Since their daughters had become fused at the hip, Laurel was familiar with both of Bunny’s incarnations, but the woman Thalia was half carrying over the threshold was a stranger. Laurel had never seen Barb blatantly intoxicated. Barb and Thalia swayed past Laurel like dance partners, sweeping through the foyer and into the keeping room.

  Thalia called back over her shoulder, “Barb says she’s ready for some coffee.” She slurred a merry path through all the S’s.

  Laurel got her mouth to work and said, “Dear God, what have you been doing?”

  Thalia paused and rotated her head as far as it would go, peering close to backward at Laurel like a sloppy-drunk owl. “Just make the coffee, Buglet.” Thalia pulled Bunny onward. Laurel followed them into the keeping room. They navigated around the coffee table and plopped onto the sofa, Thalia first and then Bunny, like an echo. “Coffee,” Thalia demanded.

  Laurel stalked toward the kitchen, and Bunny blinked at her as she passed, slow, like sleepy babies blink.

  “Let’s have it Irish-style,” Bunny said. “You got whiskey and Cool Whip?”

  “No,” Laurel said, vehement. “I don’t have anything like that.”

  Thalia swallowed a burp and said, “You make that rum cake with the nuts every Christmas. That cake is soaking in it.”

  Bunny lifted one wise finger. “Palmolive,” she intoned.

  Thalia said, “We can put milk and rum and sugar in.”

  “Rummish coffee,” said Bunny.

  Laurel glared at Thalia. This was worse than useless. It was downright awful. They needed Stan Webelow here, drunk and helpless, sprawled out on the sofa while Laurel and Thalia worked a version of good cop/drunk cop on him. Not poor Bunny. Laurel grabbed the coffeepot and started running water into it.

  “Where’s Shelby?” Bunny said, peering around.

  “She’s at my parents’,” Laurel said, thanking God for small favors.

  “Oh,” said Barb, and she released a mournful exhale. “She’s a sweet girl.”

  “Finest kind,” said Thalia.

  “We could put the rum in fruit juice and not wait. Be easier,” Bunny said. “Or we could just put the rum in some rum.”

  “It’s perking,” Laurel said, pressing the button. “I think the coffee is a great idea.”

  “I could sure use a drink,” Bunny said, and drifted her eyelids down into another of those painfully slow blinks. “Chuck went back to work today. Can you fathom? Sent the boys to camp and then to their soccer. Like normal. And me all by my own self. Doing not so well.”

  “Come get the rum down for me,” Laurel said to Thalia, her voice tight. “It’s up in that little cabinet over the china hutch in the dining room. I’m not tall enough.”

  Thalia boosted herself carefully off the sofa and came around the counter that separated the kitchen from the keeping room. They walked single file, leaving Bunny in a sodden heap on the sofa. Laurel held her tongue until they were through the dining room’s swinging door, but the second they were out of Bunny’s sight, she wheeled on Thalia and hissed, “I can’t believe you drove in this state.”

  “Oh, please,” said Thalia. She twitched her shoulders, and all that drunk went slithering down off her to puddle at her feet. “As soon as Bunny went to break the seal, I got the bartender to stop putting any gin in my G and T’s. I’ve had so much tonic, I bet my next pee comes out carbonated. I snatched the tab so Bunny wouldn’t see I’d pulled that old dance-hall-girl trick on her and paid it—or rather, you did. When I got the Amex out of your purse for Mother, I may have nicked your Visa, too.” Thalia pulled Laurel’s credit card out of her pocket and handed it over along with a receipt. Laurel’s eyes widened at the total. “Blame Bunny. She was drinking nine-dollar tropi-tinis. For a scrawny lady, she sure can pack it in.”

  “You’ve got to get her home,” Laurel said, still angry.

  “Not yet,” said Thalia. “There was this window between mighty-drunk and oops-too-drunk when she was talking. Did you know Chuck moved into a guest room? He’s threatening divorce. Because of the drinking, I suspect, though she didn’t pony up to that. I was right, Bug, there was some kind of fresh hell starting at the Dufresne house. We’ve got to sober Bunny back up to lucid.” Thalia opened up the high cabinet and felt around until she found the rum bottle. “We can pretend to put this in and try and get as much coffee down her gullet as possible in the next hour. You need to make her a damn sandwich.” She pulled down the bottle and then turned back to Laurel. “Why are you still glaring at me?”

  “Take Barb home,” Laurel said. “You’re playing in her life now, for no reason. We need to focus on Stan Webelow, like I told you and told you. I saw him, Thalia. I confronted him, and he ran at me. He was there that night. He admitted it.”

  Thalia, for once in her life, looked surprised, her mouth pursing into a small O. “Bug, when exactly did you grow a pair? I didn’t get the memo.”

  Laurel said, “We need to get Bunny out of here and safe home. Now. Before David comes home.”

  “David’s not here? I thought after we so flagrantly interrupted his delicto, he—”

  “We interrupted lunch, Thalia,” Laurel said, her voice gone icy.

  “Oh, are we still pretending to believe that?” Thalia asked, quirking an eyebrow. “His car is here, I thought—”

  “He gave me his car because you stole mine,” Laurel said.

  “Right. So he got a ride on Kaitlyn?” Thalia said.

  “Stop it,” Laurel said, her voice kept low but so fierce it rasped in her throat. She grabbed Thalia’s upper arm, hard. “I’m not discussing David with you. Ever. Stan was there that night. It’s him. We have to take poor Barb Dufresne home and put her to bed. I don’t want David to see what you did here. What I let you do.”

  Thalia said, “Did you not hear me? She’s feeling guilty as all hell, and right now she’s in a state to tell us anything.”

  “It’s Stan,” Laurel insisted. “God help me, I am not going to let you dig at that poor woman.”

  Thalia’s mouth bloomed into its widest, most hateful grin, and she said, “I think God knows you never could stand Bunny.”

  “Take her home,” Laurel said. “Now.”

/>   Thalia lifted one shoulder and then turned away, rum bottle in hand. Laurel couldn’t tell if her sister was capitulating or ignoring her. Meanwhile, Thalia went from sober to dead drunk in the single step it took her to get through the door back into Barb Dufresne’s line of sight.

  The drunk dropped back off her in the next heartbeat, and she said, “Dammit. Now look.”

  Bunny had melted down into the sofa, head resting on the back, faint snores coming from her throat.

  Thalia thumped the rum bottle down on the kitchen counter. “Barb? Barb?” she called, but there was no response.

  “We’re going to hell,” Laurel whispered, staring at Barb’s slack face.

  Thalia waved hell away with one hand and said, “She’s not going to remember this in the morning, Bug. Help me get her up.”

  “No, Thalia,” Laurel said. “I won’t be part of this.”

  Thalia looked Laurel up and down, as if appraising her. Then she gave Laurel a short, sharp nod, as though she had decided. “Fine. I’ll handle it myself, then. I always do.” She glanced at the sleeping Bunny, and then she shaped her hand into a gun. She pointed her index finger at Laurel. “Close your eyes, baby,” she said. She cocked her thumb and shot Laurel in the chest.

  All the air went whooshing out of Laurel, as if she’d been hit, as if Thalia’s hand had actually been loaded.

  Thalia was already turning away. She poured a cup of coffee and headed back into the keeping room toward Barb.

  Laurel stared after Thalia and felt herself sway and tremble, all at once undone. She’d left her half-empty wineglass sitting by the sink; she picked it up and drank deeply. The Chablis was room temperature and tasted much too sweet. Laurel swallowed with an effort, leaning on the counter.

  It’s almost always people in a family who kill each other, Thalia had said at the theater. They’d been thinking of Marty. Both of them had been, perhaps for the first time in years. Now Thalia had quoted Daddy exactly, had shot Laurel with her finger. It was more than a reminder. It was an invocation calling something up. Laurel could feel it rising. The hair at her nape prickled, and her skin felt charged, electric.

  Thalia said, “Wakey-wakey, Barb. Let’s have a little coffee.”

  Barb didn’t so much as twitch, even when Thalia sat down beside her on the sofa.

  Laurel drank the wine down to the warm dregs. Did Thalia mean only that Bunny was a deer? That Thalia was taking her down, and if it was too ugly for Laurel to watch, then now was the time to look away?

  I’ll handle it myself, then, she had said. I always do.

  “Thalia?” Laurel said, but her voice was small and seemed to come from very far away.

  Thalia was patting Barb’s hand, getting no response. Outside, Marty uncoiled from his knothole. He was coming. Thalia had awakened him, and Laurel knew if she pulled back the curtain that covered the door, she would see his pale face pressed against the glass.

  Want to see, Lady Laura-Lee?

  She didn’t. She really, truly didn’t.

  She opened the junk drawer in the kitchen, sifting through peelers and melon ballers and teaspoons and strainers until she dug out a metal jigger. The rum bottle was still out on the counter, and she grabbed it, pouring the big end of the jigger full. She drank it off in a single open-throated swallow. It smoked a molten-hot trail from her mouth to her stomach, dumping into the wine, combining and igniting. She had to stand very still and concentrate hard on not sending it right back up. She gulped air, trying to hold it, even as her unsteady hands were pouring another. She curled her hand around the refilled jigger, waiting out the burn.

  From the sofa, Thalia said, “Laurel?”

  Laurel made a shushing noise. She didn’t want Thalia’s voice coming at her from the outside. Thalia was already talking so loudly inside her head.

  Close your eyes, baby.

  Laurel felt her body cross a threshold, accepting what she’d put into it, and immediately, she lifted the jigger and downed the next shot. It was like being punched in the gut with a fist made out of blue flame. She coughed in two short barks, sounding like their old cat, Bibby, with a hairball, and then she concentrated on breathing short and slow, in through the nose and out, lips clamped shut.

  “Ka-boom!” said Thalia. She stood up off the sofa, abandoning the snoring Barb, and came toward Laurel. “What was that for?”

  Laurel poured another, her hands shaking so hard that rum splashed out of the jigger, running over her fingers and puddling on the counter.

  She waited for that threshold again, not speaking.

  Thalia leaned across the low counter toward Laurel. She had one of Daddy’s expressions on her face, that bright, foreign bird-eyed look, her head cocked sideways. “You’re doing Uncle Petey-Boy,” she said in a tone of wonderment.

  Laurel put the next shot down her throat. This time not throwing up was an act of superhuman will. She bent at the waist, coiling around her flaming center, turning her head to press her cheek against the cool, rum-wet tile.

  Under the burn, she felt a faint shock of recognition: She was drinking like Petey, truly the most dedicated alcoholic in DeLop. He drank raw brush whiskey with a bored efficiency that implied putting home brew into his stomach was his job. Now Laurel felt like sending him a thank-you note, and a giggle escaped her mouth at the thought of one of her monogrammed linen cards wending its way to DeLop in a wax-sealed envelope. Inside, she’d have written in her tidy hand, Thank you so very much! Without you, I never would have known how the business end of necessary drinking should be handled.

  “It’s a pretty good Uncle Petey-Boy,” Thalia said, her voice gentle. “But I think you need to stop now.”

  “Don’t talk,” Laurel repeated. With Thalia talking, it was harder to keep picturing Petey-Boy, shirtless and pounding back shots, reading her note with his man breasts hanging down in small, sorry triangles.

  “Bug. Set the jigger down and back slowly away.”

  “I said please don’t dammit fuck fuck talk.”

  Laurel heard herself from such a distance that she could not be sure, but she thought she might be yelling. She was so loud that Barb DuFresne made a snorking noise and stirred without waking. It was too late. Thalia had spoken again, and that thing Laurel was trying so hard not to look at was coming through the glass, coming right at her, coming as if called.

  I’ll handle it myself, Thalia had said. I always do. Then her hand made itself into a gun. Point and shoot. Close your eyes, baby.

  What if it had been Thalia, all those years ago, in the deep green woods of Alabama? What if Thalia had been “handling it herself”? Had Thalia shot Marty?

  And still Thalia was talking.

  “Did you say the very bad F-word, Buglet? You? Twice? What’s happening?”

  Laurel, her face pressed into the cool counter, closed her eyes. She saw the deer step out into the road.

  Yours, breathed Uncle Marty, moving out of Daddy’s line of sight. He also moved out of Thalia’s. They could sit in the blind all day and not have a deer amble up and hand them such an easy shot. Maybe Marty meant to give the shot to the least experienced hunter, their favorite girl, the one who’d bagged her first buck only last year.

  The gun was moving in Daddy’s hands.

  Close your eyes, baby.

  Laurel’s lids dropped obediently, so she had no way of knowing if Daddy was bringing the gun down to aim, or passing it to Thalia. They kept a necessary quiet; they were upwind, where scent would not betray them, but sound could set the deer running.

  Had Daddy held his gun out to Thalia, silently asking? Her answer would have been a nod, a reaching. Laurel could imagine the gun cradled properly in her sister’s thin arms. And there was Marty. Ahead. Standing by the road.

  Laurel heard the first shot. A miss. The deer crashing away. She kept her eyes closed. Get him, Daddy said, and then Marty said something back. Was he speaking to Daddy? Or to Thalia? The gun went off again, and still Laurel waited. When at last she
looked, the gun was lying on the dirt trail, abandoned, and Daddy was bent over his brother’s body, trying to call him back.

  Laurel watched her sister fight to lift her heavy hand and stuff her thumb into her mouth: the unbreakable Thalia, wiped down to toddler level.

  “It shouldn’t matter,” Laurel said now, out loud. Daddy or Thalia, her family’s complicit silence would have been the same. Marty had the short eyes, and they’d shot him. But it did matter, and she was desperate to unsee the reason.

  “What shouldn’t?” Thalia asked.

  Keys rattled against the front door. Laurel heard David’s baritone in the foyer and then a softer voice, female. She welcomed the instant rage that filled her from her deep gut to the top of her throat, welcomed it like a lover. Her eyes met Thalia’s, and she said, “Tell me he did not just bring that whore into my house.”

  Thalia instantly went feral, her eyes slitted and as avid as a hawk’s as she breathed out. “You’re doing Uncle Petey-Boy because of David?” The worry was gone, replaced by something uglier. “Excellent. Go get him.”

  Laurel was already moving, barreling around the counter and across the keeping room toward the foyer. She felt tipped forward, overbalanced, like she couldn’t have stopped moving even if she wanted to, not without falling flat on her face. That didn’t slow her. She didn’t want to stop. She was leaving something behind in the kitchen with her sister. She wanted it left behind.

  She tore through the doorway to the middle of the foyer, and then she stopped as if she’d slammed face-first into a wall of glass bricks. She’d come ready to breathe out the fire she had stoked up in her belly, to burn Kaitlyn Reese down, but Kaitlyn wasn’t there.