Sister of Mine

by Laurie Petrou

  The mourning went on for days. I forgot that people would swarm us with their good intentions. And we didn’t have enough vases, not by a long shot, so I brought up all the mason jars from the cellar. Flowers all over the house, on tables and sideboards, the mantel, and counters. They kept coming. Every time I turned around, the doorbell rang and the same flower delivery guy was standing there looking like he wasn’t just sorry that Buddy had died, but sorry he had to keep coming over. I wanted to throw them out, but then I didn’t, but I didn’t refresh their water either. I let them die, and their sweetness turned to rot.

  I hadn’t thought of anything other than starting over. I forgot that most of the work would come after. That there would be grief-stricken parents, and people dropping off food and bags of clothes, cards clogging up the mailbox like hair in the drain, half of them from people we’d never heard of, the other half from people who had abandoned us in earlier days. Each card written in a spidery hand, Mrs. Collerfield, sticking me to him all over again.

  * * *

  Later, I reclaimed my old room. I polished my childhood bed until its black iron was shining. There were figures of fairies sculpted into the frame; spindles and knobs surrounded the mattress and crafted the safety net for dreams. Hattie returned from errands to see me putting the few old belongings I’d had from the basement into the room, trying to make it mine. She fussed about, trying to help bring items from elsewhere in the house, but already I was distancing myself from her. A small part of me saw her love and hated her for it. I wordlessly asked her to leave me in peace. She stood for a moment looking at me, tripped up by the sameness of the scene all these years later, the light coming through the large windows and shining on her hair. She walked through the door and pulled it shut.

  7

  “Iain Moore came by again,” Hattie told me a few days after the funeral when I’d come in from shopping. I’d been making excuses not to be at the house, which smelled like death to me with all the flowers.

  “What? Why?”

  “I dunno. He said he just wanted to check in and see how we were doing.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “Well, he’s a decent guy. Do you remember him now? From before?” Her neck reddened.

  “Yeah … kind of.”

  “I used to talk to him after you went away to school. He helped Mum doing jobs around the house. Sometimes he let me up on the ladder while he cleaned out the eaves.” She paused. “He even came by to help after she died, a few times. It was nice, at the time, having someone to talk to.” She picked at her sweater wistfully.

  I tried to get her back on track. “Did he say he’s coming back, or anything else? Did he say anything about Buddy?”

  “No. He just brought some banana bread and said he was offering his condolences again. He wasn’t even wearing his uniform.”

  She followed me upstairs to my room. “Do you think it means anything?”

  “I have no idea.” I thought about his kind face. “But he’s the police, Hattie. Don’t forget it.”

  * * *

  I have a memory of my mother at the kitchen counter, cutting an apple in her palm, the knife curving towards her, telling me that it’s challenging to have an impulsive personality.

  “I know you do rash things sometimes, Penny. You make choices quickly. Try being thoughtful. Think like someone building a house. Measure twice, cut once. You can’t turn back the clock.” I had watched her, mesmerized by her hands, her short red nails, and the knife. “There.” She dumped the apple slices into a bowl and handed them to me with a wink.

  When I made the plan, the terrible plan, I pictured Hattie waiting for me. Distracting herself, folding laundry, her hands shaking. Tucking sleeves behind backs, bending socks into pairs. And maybe she looked a little excited, a little pleased with herself. And yet. Please understand. I needed her, Mum. I needed her, and she was there. The sun was low in the sky, and Mum, I know you could see what I couldn’t.

  A fire and a plan, a match struck and a change coming.

  After it was done, we cuddled like in a storm under an old quilt. Both of us shivering. Hattie put her arm around me, and I winced at her kindness. Wrapped around us was smoke and dirt and clean sheets and a whiff of regret. She touched the black baby hairs at the back of my neck and she loved me like only a sister can. We were bound now, twisted together in a braid of badness, neither side so different from the other anymore. I fell, almost immediately, into the dreamless, safe sleep of the almost, nearly, just-escaped dead. And when the knock came, when Officer Moore came for the very first time, my sister was ready.

  Hattie had been lying there, waiting, and when she heard it, she sat up and threw the covers off, bolting out of the bed before I knew what was happening. It was still dark out, the middle of the night, or at least a far cry from morning. She shook my foot.

  “Penny! Penny!” a frightened whisper, a hand smacking my clammy skin. And then I was awake; eyes snapped open, hands rushing to my mouth like a cage. “The door, Penny!” she said, the thin edge of panic sneaking up and out in her voice. And she flew down the hall, bumping down the stairs to meet our fate. Right to the tips of my fingers, I felt it, my mouth hot with acid.

  I heard her open the old front door, a sound like a suction as it pulled in the cold spring morning. I climbed out of bed and listened. Walked to the hallway, looked down the stairs. He was standing there, just like I thought he’d be, the police officer. He was a little different than what I’d expected. So young, his cheeks red. He was handsome, in a baby-faced way. Around our age, and sort of familiar, and so it felt pretend, kids in a play, unreal.

  “Yes?” Hattie said, her voice shaking.

  “Hattie?”

  “Yes. Iain, is that you? What’s the matter? Has something happened?”

  “H—Hattie, it’s Officer Moore now. I’m here because … uh, may I come in?”

  “Why, what’s going on? Just tell me.” She put her arm out and held the door, and from where I was standing, I felt the breeze up my sleeve. He looked past Hattie and saw me standing on the stairs.

  “Officer?”

  “Penny—I mean, Mrs. Collerfield.”

  I came down the stairs, nodding.

  Did I imagine it, or did he breathe in deeply? Sniff the air, almost imperceptibly? I was suddenly conscious of the smell of fire all around us. We hadn’t even thought of showering, so relieved it was done. I felt my body begin to sweat.

  “May I come in, please?” He scratched his cheek, which looked razor burned. He looked over his shoulder nervously. I wondered if this was the first time he’d done this kind of thing. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-two. Hattie stood aside as he walked past her. There was something on his shoulder. Ash. My knees shook. He held his hat in his hands like sad police officers are meant to do. I gestured to the living room, where we all sat down. Hattie and I beside each other on wingback chairs. She was pale. A flicker of a realization of how young she was: just eighteen to my twenty-one. A marriage of only two years, but a world of pain. Oh God, to think of it now.

  Here it comes. I watched him swallow.

  “There was a fire, Mrs. Collerfield. At your house.”

  No screaming out or crying right away, no questions. My mouth fell open and I reached for Hattie’s hand. She gripped mine, stuttering through words of shock, when and what do you mean and how?

  “Your husband, Penny.” The officer held my eyes, ignoring Hattie. “Buddy. Mr. Collerfield. He perished in the fire.”

  It worked. He died. He was dead. In my thick-tongued shock, there was a pulse, a heartbeat of relief. Dead. It was over. It had just begun.

  There was more. He had details, but he kept them tight, letting them slowly trickle out. And even though this was all coming to me as sure as anything, even though I knew the story better than this officer did, I was crying for real. I gagged and sagged and held my face, sobbing like the widow of a kind man. Grief and guilt do tricky things. I was sick abou
t it all, and so filled with relief, and self-disgust, and more, and maybe that’s why I was crying so. The completeness of it. Done. Hattie looked at the police officer, his hands turning his hat in his lap.

  “Are you sure?” she asked. “Are you sure it was him?”

  “Quite sure. Although we would really appreciate if Penny would identify him. When she’s ready.” She squeezed my hand. I didn’t respond. I was shutting her out, turning inward, even in those early moments. Regret, retreat, repeat.

  “Your neighbor, Mrs.…” And here the officer read from a notepad, “Neufeldt, told us that you were planning on spending the night, here at your sister’s.” A nod at Hattie.

  “What is your name, Officer?” I asked him.

  His face went red. “Moore. Officer Iain Moore.” He looked down. “I’m sorry I didn’t say so, I thought you knew.” He fumbled around for his badge.

  I regained my composure, shakily at first. “Yes,” I lied. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. This is a terrible shock. Would you like some tea, Officer Moore? We’re not coffee drinkers, I’m afraid.”

  Tiny sugar spoon, clinking cups, a saucer, and the sun just starting to rise. I stared out the window, daring the day to begin, daring the officer on our couch to pry. Hattie stirred her tea loudly, kept repeating that she was shocked, tears running down her cheeks, sitting there in her flowered pajamas, and I wanted to hug her, push her, tell her to shut up, tell her to get out, to stay. This was mine, this grief, whatever it was, and it was mine to deal with, but I couldn’t do it without her. And there it was, here we are.

  The officer, young Iain Moore, pulled his blue pressed pants up at the knees and sat on the sofa opposite us, on the uncomfortable line between two cushions. He told us how the fire appeared to have started with a cigarette, and that it seemed that Buddy had had a number of beers, and that the fire alarm was out of batteries. That this sort of thing was unfortunately quite common, and that even in his very few years on the force, he had seen a number tragedies as a result of poor household safety and drinking.

  “Of course, we all have to unwind. I mean no disrespect, Mrs. Collerfield.”

  I looked at him and thought of how my life would have been so different if I had hooked up with a sweet-faced boy like Officer Moore instead of Buddy Collerfield. I nodded, yes of course, thank you. “Penny is fine.”

  And then he gently asked some questions: What time had I come here; was there anything unusual about the night; had Mr. Collerfield and I had a fight, for instance; how had I gotten to Hattie’s—questions I had expected. Maybe it was standard police stuff, but I knew there was also the chance it was small-town gossip. Maybe our privacy hadn’t been so private after all. But I had answers for all of them, because it was so simple, what had happened. No argument, no, I made him dinner and put it in the oven for him for later, then walked home—to my sister’s place—since it was such a nice afternoon. Of course it wasn’t simple, and that was the clincher.

  Fire catches so easily. Buddy slept so soundly. I thought of his snores, of a lock of hair looping down in front of his stubbly face. Flames go up, just like that. But cigarettes don’t normally catch the curtains first. A cigarette won’t kiss the bottoms of polyester floral like a long match will. A quietly building fire won’t wake someone who has had that many beers and something else, too, to make the snores deepen and the mouth loll. I moved a finger over my ear, an old habit from having long hair, and bit a chapped part of my lip, thinking of smoke and fire. I hadn’t looked at him, hadn’t touched him. Had frozen in that moment, looking around at that place. The wallpaper. The phone on the wall. Part of me worried that Officer Moore could see these thoughts, crazy though it was, and I dropped my eyes to the rug and studied the faded patterns under our feet. There were crumbs of Hattie’s homemade granola dotting the swirling designs.

  But Officer Moore, in his fine trousers, hardly seemed suspicious. He bashfully looked away when I studied his face. And there was Hattie, reaching out a hand to let me know she was there. I didn’t want her, but I needed her. A nod. A secret vow. Let no man put asunder. Let no man pull us under.

  * * *

  And here he was, visiting again, after the funeral.

  “Did he say he’s going to come back?”

  “No. But he left his card.” Hattie reached into her jeans pocket and withdrew a small white card with Officer Moore’s extension on it. I was right in thinking she never should have let him in. Some instinct told me that he would fall in love with her, become hypnotized the way so many did, that he would never really leave. Better to keep our doors locked. And of course, he did fall in love with her. But by the time Jameson came on the scene, she had been avoiding him for some time. He had left a few sad messages on our voicemail, but they had eventually become few and far between. I still saw him in town: at the Strawberry Festival handing out police magnets to children, or once or twice, out of uniform, reading a paperback at Tim Hortons. Sometimes I had felt someone’s eyes on me and would turn and see him there. He was always friendly, tipping his hat or lifting a hand in greeting, and I would return it, my stomach clenched in surprise.

  8

  Time had passed since those harried days after the fire and funeral. Jameson had slipped into Hattie’s life, and I felt, for the first time, that I had space to breathe. With the summer over now, I had withdrawn from our threesome somewhat. I needed my own space away from my sister, now that I didn’t feel the need to keep her so close. Still, I felt the occasional need to check in.

  I walked along the main street of St. Margaret’s towards the salon where Hattie worked. The bell jingled when I opened the door and Hattie looked up from her station and shouted my name like I was the prodigal sister returned. The other stylists greeted me happily, and I noticed that they all took Hattie’s cue in their boisterousness. The salon was a place full of music and energy. The clients seemed to leave with more bounce and cheer than when they’d arrived, and I knew this was almost entirely because of Hattie. I sat in the waiting chairs and chose a magazine with a good-looking and tragic celebrity on the front. Soon I got lost in the folds of Hollywood scandal and didn’t see Hattie standing in front of me. She smiled when I looked up.

  “Ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  We walked to the sinks, where she gingerly lifted my head onto a folded towel and began to wash my hair. I closed my eyes as the warm water and her fingers seduced me into relaxation. I listened as Hattie chatted with her coworkers, who clearly loved her—laughing, singing along to the music, complimenting clients—and I tried hard to relax.

  “So!” Hattie said, cheerfully, “I feel like you haven’t been around much lately.” She rubbed shampoo into my scalp with her fingertips.

  “You leading a secret life, Penny?” asked Daniel, a sharp-looking stylist who was standing with a jaunty hand on a hip nearby.

  “What? No,” I said nervously, and he laughed loudly and clicked his tongue.

  “Hmm. Playing coy,” said Hattie’s friend Jessica from her chair, where she painted highlight foils onto a teenager’s long blonde mane.

  “I’m not!”

  “Okay, guys, take it easy on her.” Hattie laughed, then paused, and said in a singsong voice, “However … Is it me, or have you been somewhere else at night? Have you got a fella?” She peered into my eyes, her hair hanging around our faces, her smile bewitching. Hattie wanted life to be a fun and romantic party, an impulse from childhood that not only hadn’t been dulled by tragedy but had emerged stronger than ever.

  “A fella!” the other stylists screeched, and I squeezed my eyes shut.

  “I haven’t got a ‘fella,’ Hattie. I’ve been—staying at the property. At the barn. You got me. I confess.” I raised my arms in surrender. “Secret life.” I saw Hattie struggle to remain chipper with the reminder of that place. Her larger-than-life work persona was thin, and I knew that a more delicate Hattie was just below the surface. She recovered quickly, for the benefit of h
er pals.

  “Ah, yes, the barn. There’s a lovely little place on Penny’s old property that survived the fire,” she explained, as they nodded interestedly. She looked at me, prompting. “You fixed it up so it would be livable, I hope? You wouldn’t be hanging out in some decrepit ramshackle building, would you?”

  “Of course not,” I said, playing along cheerfully. We both knew better. The barn was more than just a relic from the fire; it had been my refuge during my marriage. After violent nights of fighting with Buddy, knowing I would never go to the hospital or to a friend’s, I often went out there, sometimes even in the middle of the night, and found in the place a kind of solace that I sorely needed.

  “It’s her special place to get away from her sister.” Hattie laughed. I smiled thinking of the barn. The land itself perched up on high and forested ground, the properties surrounding it used as vineyards or left alone for tall trees and wildlife. I had bought a tent and a sleeping bag and spent the first of many nights on my land almost entirely awake, listening to the sounds of coyotes and birds, dreading the footsteps of a stranger or worse, and finally falling into a fragile sleep before the sun came up. But that is how beginnings start, after all. I tried again. And kept returning, sleeping inside the barn itself if the weather was temperamental. Wind swept dust, pieces of hay and sticks from the rafters, forlorn doves cooed in their nests, and I lay staring up at the high ceiling of the thing, hearing creaks and feeling swayed.

  “No, Hattie, I just like my alone time.” I kept my eyes closed while she combed my hair.

  “Okay, okay. But is it safe?”

  “It is now.”

  When Hattie finished my hair, and it was fun and light and I looked like someone I wished I could be, I asked her, “Do you and Jameson want to come to the barn tonight? We can have dinner there.”

  “Seriously?” She looked at me in the mirror and her smile faded. She lowered her voice so only I could hear. “I don’t know if I want to go back there.”