The Almost Sisters

by Joshilyn Jackson

  I breathed through it. Rachel and I were two broken halves that had been glued into a family. The difference was, my dad had died; I’d never once thought he might come back if I were perfect. Rachel lived her whole life like she was mother bait, shining for a woman who never even sent a birthday card. Jake’s decision to opt out had hit Rachel in her oldest open wound, and if patronizing me let her feel better, even for a second, she could have it.

  “Okay, what then?” I asked. “What can I do?”

  She looked around the room again, from the love seats to the lamps to the tidily filled bookshelves. “It’s so nice here. Do you think that we could stay with you? For a little?”

  I hesitated. Rachel was an alpha female, marching into a house that already held both Birchie and Miss Wattie. “Are you sure you would want to? After we found the . . . after what we found?”

  “It isn’t what I thought. Not at all,” she said. She spread her hands. “I don’t want to go back to Norfolk. I have no idea where Jake is, and I can’t stand being home while Barb-the-perky-real-estate-agent drags families through my house. I can just imagine her leaning in, telling some yuppie bitch and her manscaped husband that they should make an offer, any offer, because we’re desperate not to end up in foreclosure.”

  I needed Rachel here like I needed a good old-fashioned zombie apocalypse, but she was asking me for help. She never had before. A window had opened in the smooth wall she kept around herself, and I was being allowed to peek through it. Of course, inside that wall was a moat full of monsters and another, bigger wall and probably some dragons, but it was a start.

  “Of course you can,” I said. “If that’s really what you want.” She smiled, a true bright sunshine smile, even as I added, “You’ll have to bunk with me, though. We are flat out of empty bedrooms.”

  “That’s fine. That’s great. It will be like when we were kids on family vacations,” she said, as if this were a good thing.

  Mom and Keith had planned one every spring break. They’d pile us into the van and drive across the country to aquariums or canyons or theme parks. None of us were really camping types, so we’d bunk at inexpensive family-style hotels that featured two queen beds per room and swimming pools and free continental breakfast. Rachel and I always shared the bed by the bathroom. Keith had to be by the door, as if he thought pirate brigands or hostile aliens might burst through and he’d need to protect his womenfolk.

  “You hated sleeping with me when we were kids,” I reminded her.

  “Only because you always kicked me!” she said. “Anyway, I didn’t have Ambien back then.”

  I tried to derail her truly bad idea one more time, but without making that window seal itself shut. “Well, if I do bug you, you can always borrow my house in Norfolk. It’s standing empty.”

  “Thank you, but Lavender’s made some friends here. She’s been texting me in an endless stream, begging to stay, and I would like her to have a little fun this summer. I can’t really afford Disney right now,” she said, and then some plastic came back into her smile. “Unless you would rather we didn’t?”

  “No, no,” I said. “Stay. It will make Lav happy, you’re right about that.” And with Rachel here, boy shenanigans were both less likely and no longer my sole responsibility. “What can I do for you right now? Are you hungry? Want some hot tea?”

  “A nap. If I could lie down for a minute . . .” She sounded so pitiful, and she had been driving all night.

  I led her up the stairs to my room. I carried the smaller case, in deference to Digby, and it still felt like she’d thrown half her walk-in closet in there.

  “Lav’s right through here,” I said, setting the suitcase down near the adjoining door.

  She came to look, cracking the door and peering in. I saw a measure of peace settle on her face at the sight of her daughter, sleeping in a coil under a heap of covers. Lav’s bright hair spilled across the pillow, catching the light from the open doorway.

  “Oh, she’s so lovely,” Rachel whispered. “What is he thinking? How could he leave us? Leave her?”

  I shook my head. My own father owned the only answer with no blame attached. Jake had dipped because he was selfish or scared or too broken to do better. Then I realized that Batman had an answer that left him blameless, too: He had no idea his kid existed.

  I felt the last of my anger with my niece leaking away. She’d created a connection, an intangible chain. It linked me to Batman as surely as the tether inside me linked me to Digby. Of course she’d gone looking for Digby’s dad, powerless as she was to do a single damn thing about her own. The kid was terrified, and when she’d messaged the Batman, it had had zero to do with me. She’d meddled on behalf of Digby, contacting his father because she wished with all her heart that some loving meddler would brute-force contact hers. I’d missed my cue. I’d lost my temper and left her to find her comfort in the testosterone-fueled mercy of teenage boys.

  Looking at Lav, thinking of the ticking heart of Digby at my center, I knew what I had to do. For both of them.

  Rachel turned away and kicked her flats off, then climbed right into the bed in her sweatpants with her bra still on. I think she was asleep before I got out of the room. I closed the door quietly behind me.

  I went downstairs to the sewing room. This room was the last stop for furniture that would soon be retired into the attic. Two slightly sagging wing chairs and a big plush sofa with a stained cushion shared the space with Birchie’s old Singer table. The back wall was built-ins, but instead of books Birchie had filed her fabrics here. Rolls were packed into the long, glass-fronted cabinets, and the shelves were full of quilting squares sorted by color. I had hidden my laptop in the purples.

  I pulled it out, though yesterday I’d told myself I’d opened enough lids to last me, thanks. But I’d been wrong, and Lav was right.

  I plopped down on the sofa, opening the old laptop and hitting the power button. It took forever to boot up; I’d only brought it to make sure Lavender stayed off my Cintiq.

  While I waited, I fished my cell out of my pocket, scrolling through to find and punch Jake’s name. He wasn’t in my favorites.

  Five rings, and then I got his voice mail. Jake kept his thousand-dollar midlife-crisis phone, big as a tablet, clipped onto his pants. He had it in his hand every other minute, voice-to-texting, barking at Siri like she was Miss Teschmacher. No way he’d missed this call by accident.

  “You’ve reached Jake Jacoby’s voice mail. Let me know what I can do ya for,” it said, all good-ol’-boy and hearty. It was a message aimed at his own best customers—aging jocks who bought big-ass trucks out of the section I called Penile Compensation. I waited for the beep.

  “Call me, JJ. Now. Sooner than now.” I didn’t bother to say who I was. He knew damn well who I was. No one else left on this planet called him JJ. “You owe me this. You know you do.”

  I hung up. I’d keep trying until that turd picked up. Meanwhile my Wonder Woman loading screen had appeared. I put in my password. I’d snapped it closed without properly shutting down, and my oh-so-helpful machine reopened every file and put me right back where Lavender had left off. There was my browser, still open to my Facebook page.

  The minimized chat box in the corner blinked smugly to itself. Lavender had sent a call, and now there was an answer. I could read his name in the header. His first name was Selcouth. That was about as far away from Mark or Marcus as alphabetically possible, and unpronounceable to boot. I had a handle on the first syllable, I thought, but did the second sound like “cooth” or “cowth” or “coth”? For all I knew, the last letters could be silent, ending his name in a pigeon sound. His last name was Martin, so I hadn’t entirely beervented the M.

  I’d decided upstairs that I had to open this chat box, read his answer, travel to his page. It felt like the start of something dangerous. Something that I could not control. I hovered my cursor on the X that would close the window, then shifted it down to the bar that would open the chat
box. Back to the X. Calling Jake had been easier.

  Well, how does anything begin? I asked myself.

  Maybe with something as simple as hello.

  A lot could come from that small start, for good or ill: A hello in a bar had led to Digby. Violence said hello to Violet, and then they stopped the world.

  But my choice had already been made. I moved my finger down the touchpad and clicked. Open.

  10

  Rachel came downstairs looking crumpled and puffy-eyed, picking her steps all careful and hesitant, which was bizarre. It was as if my unstoppable, bold stepsister had been Freaky Friday–ed by a shy deer.

  It was still early to be up on a Saturday, but she had showered and changed into khaki capris and a flowered top, and she was carrying a couple of magazines. I smiled at her, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. She must be feeling wary of me, in this new era where I was allowed to know when she was hurting. I’d be careful with her, and hopefully the window into her life would widen. Become a door.

  Birchie and Wattie were having their coffee in the living room. I wasn’t drinking mine, but I kept smelling it, hoping to huff in a steam-borne wisp of caffeine. Wattie looked as wrung out as I felt, but Birchie had woken up oddly chirpy for a woman who’d been caught hoarding human bones. Maybe because I had canceled the appointment with the estate-sale folks and all talk of moving her to Norfolk had ceased; the county prosecutor had told us through Frank she would “prefer it” if Birchie didn’t leave the state while they conducted an investigation. Birchie and Wattie were getting in a round of pre-breakfast knitting, but only Birchie hummed as she worked, as if the darker reasons for her reprieve had escaped her mind. Perhaps, for the moment, they had.

  I was trying to read Watchmen, which I loved, but I was too distracted to enjoy it. I was waiting to hear back from Batman.

  When I’d opened the blinking message window, I’d seen that Lav hadn’t sent a plain greeting. She’d picked a hypercute frog emoji, holding up a protest sign that said hello! in curly purple font. Awesome.

  It hadn’t bothered him too much, though, because his message back was friendly. Maybe even flirty: Hey you. Sure like seeing your name come up on my screen.

  Oh, yeah? I’d typed back, hoping it didn’t read skeptical or suspicious. He hadn’t responded immediately, and I couldn’t sit by my computer until he did. It made me feel like a spotty, lovelorn girl on prom night, waiting by the door in a ruffled dress for a car that wouldn’t come. I also didn’t want to Message him from my private account. If he saw my Leia Birch Briggs page, he was sure to notice, in a few months, that the feed was filling up with pictures of a baby boy with my eyes and his nose. I’d sent him my cell-phone number with another message that said, Then text me sometime. Now my phone was tucked into my back pocket, and I was just as comfortable as I would have been sitting on a bomb.

  I’d filled Birchie and Wattie in on Rachel’s situation, and they had said that of course she could stay. We stood as she came down, and even as I did the introductions, Rachel was already apologizing for showing up uninvited on their doorstep.

  “I’m having family trouble,” she added in a small and trembly voice.

  “We know,” Wattie said. “We are, too, honey.”

  Their eyes met, and Rachel nodded. I saw an understanding pass between them, and Wattie stepped forward to give Rachel a spontaneous hug. To my surprise, Rachel melted into it, boneless and grateful, making me wish I’d been bold enough to try. They might have stayed there forever, but the grandfather clock chimed seven-thirty.

  “Time to make breakfast. While the biscuits bake, I’m going to start you a pot of marrow broth in the Crock-Pot,” Birchie said, all smiling sympathy.

  “That is an excellent idea,” Wattie said, finally letting Rachel go. “I’ll come help, and, you know, I want to get those chicken livers out of the freezer. We can fry them up for supper.”

  These were their standard “building-up foods” for when “folks were lowly.” They trundled back to the kitchen to get started. The second they were gone, Rachel wheeled to face me. All traces of the little deer were gone. She pulled my sketchbook out from in between the Vogues, then dropped the magazines onto the side table. She turned the pad to show me my own pencil sketch of Violet. I’d left it on the desk upstairs.

  “Are you drawing her again?” She spoke barely above a whisper, but it had an edge.

  “Yeah,” I said, surprised. Rachel didn’t usually notice my work lying around, or framed and hung on my wall, or even me doing it right in front of her. She was consistently oblivious, and when I tried to show her panels, she grew palpably bored or dismissive. “I got a contract for a prequel.”

  She dropped it onto the coffee table with a wrist flick.

  “For God’s sake, why don’t you draw Spider-Dork or Wonderful Woman, like you’ve been doing?” she said.

  I boggled at her. Even Rachel knew the name was Wonder Woman and that she was my favorite. When I didn’t answer immediately, she turned away, as if I’d stopped existing. She plopped down on a love seat and flipped the top magazine open. She stared down at the pages with such laser eyes I worried they’d start smoking.

  “This is a chance to do my own stuff,” I said, keeping my voice low, too. “I didn’t invent Wonder Woman.”

  She actually snorted.

  “You didn’t invent her either,” she said, waving a hand at the coffee table. “You just drew me.” She flipped a page so angrily the corner tore.

  “You think this is you?” I asked. “You think Violence in Violet is about you?”

  “Didn’t say that,” Rachel retorted, but I talked over her, my temper sparking back, even though I worked to keep my tone light.

  “Shocking as you may find this from your seat at the center of the universe, I have several things in my life that are not actually about you.”

  “I didn’t say your thingy was about me! I mean, it could be about me—who could tell? It’s so weird. It could be about anything.”

  “You read it?” I said, moving from surprised to genuinely shocked. Read it and never told me? Well, apparently she’d hated it, so maybe silence was her idea of kindness.

  “I looked through it, and I’m not blind. That’s my face, that’s my hair, that’s my body.” She paused to flick an angry hand at the sketch. “She’s even in my favorite yellow sundress.”

  “What yellow sundress?” I asked. Rachel wasn’t the boho sundress type.

  Her eyes narrowed. “You know. The one I had when I was six.”

  I threw my hands up. “Everybody has a yellow sundress when they’re six.”

  “You didn’t,” Rachel told me. “Yours was blue, and mine was prettier. We wore them to the botanical gardens, and Daddy called us Sun and Sky.”

  I was utterly nonplused, and trying to remember. We’d gone to the Norfolk Botanical Garden all the time when we were kids. Mom and Rachel both loved to see what was blooming. Me, I’d always taken a book and plopped onto a bench to read about Conan or Cthulhu every time they stopped moving to ahhh at something.

  “Rach, when did I ever care about clothes?” I asked.

  “Never. It wasn’t about the dress.” Her tone was accusing. “You wanted to be Sun.”

  “I don’t remember any sundresses. I don’t remember when Keith called us Sun and Sky,” I said. “Violet isn’t meant to look like you. She’s just any pretty blonde.”

  “You think I’m any pretty blonde,” she shot back, vehement. She thrust the magazines off her lap and stood up again. Those words resonated. They sounded both so damning and so true. I did think of her that way, smooth as an egg, generic and symmetrical and beautiful. Which was awful of me, except that—was it wholly my fault? When a lovely and untroubled surface was the only thing she ever, ever showed me? But by the time I had my defense, she was already talking, her voice quiet but thick with pent-up anger. “You made me help destroy the earth! You made me be some kind of a lesbian!”

  “Violence and Vi
olet aren’t lovers,” I said, speaking to the point that mattered least. But I didn’t want her reducing V in V, the best thing I’d ever done, to me calling her gay as if it were an insult—as if in coming to Birchville we really had driven all the way back to 1987. “They’re closer than lovers. They’re like two sides of a coin.”

  In the middle of this weird and angry conversation, intense but very quiet in deference to the sleeping kid upstairs and the grandmas cooking in the kitchen, the artist in me heard me say it. The artist in me understood that these words were going to matter.

  “Kinda like sisters?” Rachel said, snide. “If it’s not me, then why did you steal my baby name and give it to her?”

  “Steal your baby name? What?” I asked. “I don’t even have a baby.”

  Digby kicked, calling me a liar, but he barely even had lung buds yet. I ignored him on the technicality.

  “Violet,” she said, holding up her left hand, as if the name were written on her palm. “Lavender.” She lifted the other hand, then bobbled them, as if she were weighing them against each other and they were coming out dead even.

  Now I was too mad to stay quiet. “Violet and Lavender are two entirely different words, and—”

  She cut me off. “It’s the same color!”

  “And anyway! Violet came first. I started drawing that character in high school. Lav wasn’t even a dreamy star in the corner of your eye. So if you really think Violet and Lavender are the same name, then you stole it from me.”

  For a second I thought she might explode, fly at me, and slap or bite, she was so enraged. But then she sucked in air and her chin came up.

  “Okay, Leia. You are letting me stay here, and I really need this right now, so if that’s how you want to remember it, fine. I guess. We’ll forget about the dollhouse baby. The one that I named Lavender when I was in preschool.”