“All right,” my father says. “Everyone has what they need? Drinks? Phones? Canapés?”
“Yes,” Cora says. “We’re fine. Other than the fact that I don’t know why I’m here.”
“You’re here,” he says, “because you’re a problem. And we need to figure out what to do with you.”
There is no easing into this conversation. No soft opening jabs.
I take a sip of my drink, let the vodka settle on my tongue, and then it all begins.
Fifty-Six
“I’m the problem? Oh, I don’t think so. Not at all.”
“You are,” my father says. “The way you’ve reacted to…all this is unacceptable.”
Cora’s perched to launch a verbal assault but instead stops herself, sips her wine, and leans back into her chair. I see the change wash over her. She’s shifting away from her petulant-child persona and slipping into the coolness she wore at the trailhead. Calm and chilling.
“Funny,” she says. “And here I thought I was trying to save all of us from Rose’s terrible decisions.”
“By slitting a dog’s throat?” I say.
She shifts her gaze to mine. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“Yes,” I say, “you do. You know what you did. You’re trying to set me up for what’s happened.”
“Oh? And what has happened, Rose? I want to hear you say it. Because all I know is the police were out here talking to you about your dear departed Riley.”
I think about what’s being recorded on my phone. It’s not like it’s only selectively capturing what Cora says.
“I didn’t kill him,” I say. “And I’m through talking about it. That’s my problem, and I’m dealing with it.”
“Oh, and how are you doing that?”
“I’m leaving Bury. Going back to Milwaukee.”
My father snaps his attention to me. “Why would you want to do something like that? You’ve got everything you need here.”
“All I’m doing here is hiding from my life. I’m not happy. Max isn’t happy. I don’t want to raise him here.”
Cora crosses her legs. “You mean in a good private school and in a house rather than a hovel? Yeah, that sounds like a great idea.”
“When are you leaving?” my father asks.
“Soon as I can. Hopefully within a week.”
“I’m trying to help you, Rosie. How am I supposed to protect you when you’re not here?”
“Dad, you have this idea we need to hide behind that huge front door. That we’re only safe inside this house. Yet the worst thing that’s ever happened to me happened right here.” I nod toward the foyer. “Right over there.”
He takes a drink. “Yes, it did. And I took care of the problem. You girls did what I told you to do, and I took care of the rest.”
“Until now,” Cora says to me. “Until you wrote that fucking book.”
“Exactly what I wanted to talk about.” My father sips with conviction, and he’s nearly finished with his drink. “Why I called this family meeting. So let’s stay focused. Back then, we worked together, and we’ve made it this far. Now we need to do it again. Renew our vows, as it were.”
Cora jabs a finger at me. “She broke our vows. We were doing fine. I hadn’t told anyone. And now she decides to tell the world about all the horrible things she’s done in her books. First, her husband and now…now what happened in this house. She’s the problem, not me.”
As calm and reasoned as I want to be, my brain has other plans. It tells me to stand and tower over Cora, assume a threatening stance. So I do.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” My hands are shaking, fury, not nerves.
“Sit down,” my father says.
“I don’t?” she says. “You think you’re innocent? Oh, I don’t think so.”
I want to smash my fist right into her cheekbone, batter that perfect face.
“You can pretend you didn’t kill Riley, but how about The Child of the Steps?” Cora continues. “I suppose that’s also a coincidence?”
“Rose, sit,” my father commands.
I do not sit. “I’m human, Cora. A human with a conscience. With guilt and regrets. But neither of you know what that’s like because you don’t seem bothered by it at all.” I place my hands on each arm of her chair and lean closer to her face. “We never talked about it. After that night, we all pretended like it never happened. So let me ask you.” I can smell her, CK One mixed with a feral musk. “Caleb was never trying to rape you, was he? You lured him here. You wanted to hurt him all along.”
Her expression doesn’t change. “I think you don’t know what my thoughts have ever been, Little Sister.”
I’m not going to let her talk in ambiguities. “I know what I saw that night, and we’re going to talk about it. Caleb Benner was begging for help, and you didn’t have an ounce of fear or concern on your face. He was bleeding. You were smiling.”
“Fuck off,” she says.
“If he was trying to rape you and you fought back, we’d have gone to the police. Self-defense. The only reason not to do that is if you attacked him first.” I rise up, point to my father. “He even knew it. Dad made the call right there, decided no one was going to know about it. Why would he have done that and jeopardized our family by covering everything up?”
“He was protecting us.”
“No, it was because he knew your story was bullshit. Knew what you were capable of all along. He even said it that night. Something like, ‘I’ve known it for years.’ What was it, Cora? What had he known for years about you?”
“You don’t understand anything,” she says. “You write your little detective stories with no clue what really goes on in the minds of the people in your stories. You think you know, but you don’t.”
I pause, take a breath. “Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me what it’s like to be you. Tell me what happened to you. Tell me…” I try to get her to make eye contact, and when she does, it lasts only a second. Just like Max, I think. “Tell me who you are.”
Cora softly shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is what you’ve done to destroy twenty-two years of silence.” Then she stands, and when she does, she doesn’t look like my sister. She looks like the girl who came out of the bedroom while Caleb frantically tried to distance himself from her. “And what needs to be done about it.”
She’s in my face, my father is seated behind me, and sandwiched in their presence, a new disturbing thought hits me.
What if this family meeting isn’t at all about what to do with Cora?
What if it’s about what should be done with me?
Fifty-Seven
Cora looks at me with a simple gaze, almost one of kindness. Or pity. Our noses are inches from each other. I stand my ground.
Ice clinks in my father’s glass as he sips. “Cora was always different,” he says to my back. “Quick to be cruel. Struggled with kindness. I wasn’t so worried, not at first. After all, the same thing could be said about me.” He lets out the softest of chuckles.
“No,” I say, struggling to reconcile my father’s words with distant memories. “We got along when we were little. We played all the time. You liked me, Cora. And I liked you.”
Cora tilts her head and purses her lips. “Aw, aren’t you fucking sweet?”
“You didn’t see it, Rose,” my father says. “You were too young to notice the differences between you and your sister, but you weren’t like her. Not in any way. In fact, you were so dissimilar from either of us, I sometimes wondered if you were even mine.”
I want to turn to him, to see my father’s face, but I’m scared to turn away from my sister.
“What the hell kind of thing is that to say?” I ask him.
“Just the truth.”
Several heartbeats pass. “And?” I say.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “I assume you’re my kid, but who’s to know the truth? I suppose it doesn’t really much matter, does it?”
Cora finally speaks. “Maybe Mom fucked some bartender because she was bored. Maybe that’s where you came from.”
“Watch your goddamned tongue,” my father says. “All I know is you two were never alike. I had to work harder with Cora, give her extra attention.”
My stomach lurches at the way he said that. I pull back a few inches from her face, taking her all in at once. “Cora, did he…”
“You’re so simple-minded,” she snaps. “Not everything has a reason, Rose. Some things just are.”
“Are what?” I ask. “What are you, Cora?”
I hear my father rise from his chair.
“Despite what I knew about her impulses,” he says, “I didn’t think your sister was ever capable of…” He clears his throat instead of finishing his sentence. “But I was wrong. I knew I was wrong the moment I came home that night. But what was I going to do? She was my child. My firstborn. I wasn’t just going to let the wolves take her away.”
I take a step to my side and pivot to face both of them. My father stands just to my right, my sister to my left, each only a couple feet away. The door to the hallway is behind me, painfully distant. The small table holding my phone rests between us. They each look at me with some kind of desire. A desire to control, maybe to harm.
I’m not safe here, but I can’t leave. Things are unfinished.
“What else have you done?” I ask Cora. “Who else have you hurt?”
My father answers before she can. “I knew your sister needed my help after PJ died.”
The words take me a moment to process, but suddenly I’m there, transported back to my ten-year-old self. PJ was our only pet. A black cat, long hair, shy and sweet. He’d come into my lap when I would watch TV. My lap, no one else’s. The preponderance of my PJ memories are of him being old, slow, and unfailingly sweet.
I almost ask What about PJ? But I know better. The urge to throw up hits me hard.
“You said he just died,” I say. “Old age.”
My father shakes his head.
“I wanted to see what it was like,” Cora says. “But I didn’t do a good job cleaning up the mess. Dad found the blood in the garage, made me tell him what I did.”
“You were what…twelve?”
She shrugs.
I take a step back, bumping into my chair. “You’re sick. I can’t believe I let Max go to your house. How could I have ever come back here?”
Everything I’ve ever known about Cora but wouldn’t admit to myself unleashes at me with tsunami force. Am I so stupid or just always hopeful the truth is better than my perception of the world? Just like with Riley. I’d hoped he’d come to his senses. Calm down enough to see things were over and we’d be better off apart. But no. I stayed until it was too late, until the truth revealed itself with tragedy.
And here I am, back in Bury. Back in the very house where I’ve always denied who I suspected my sister really was.
“What about…” I start, then move around my chair until it’s between us.
“Where are you going?” Cora says.
“What about any others?” I ask. “After Caleb. Where there others?”
Cora smiles, no teeth. “Are you asking if, in the last two decades, I’ve somehow managed to completely control the desire that possesses me? Well, sure, Rose. Of course I’ve controlled it. Easier than quitting smoking. Is that what you want to hear?”
That answer is enough for the vomit to finally release from my stomach. I bend over and heave vodka and bile onto the thick and undoubtedly expensive area rug.
“Oh, for chrissakes,” my father says. “You and your puking. Just like when you were a baby.”
I wipe my mouth, rise, and immediately get in his face. “Are you kidding me? Are you even listening to what she’s saying?”
“You need to calm down,” he says.
“No, I won’t calm down. Your daughter…my sister…just admitted she’s a killer.” I’m only vaguely aware how loud my voice is getting. With each notch of volume, I’m increasingly unsatisfied, like an itch that gets worse the more you scratch it. So I keep getting louder. “She murdered Caleb Benner. She murdered that dog. And our family cat. And she… Who knows what else she’s done. Who else she’s killed.” My father seems the craziest one here because his face is as calm as it was when we began the discussion. “Your daughter is a fucking murderer and you…you act like it doesn’t matter.”
Cora’s voice breaks my focus on my father. “I never said any of those things.”
I turn to her. “Then say it now. Admit what you’ve done.”
She narrows her eyes for a split second. “Why? Why is it so important you hear me say what you want me to say?”
We lock gazes and I break first, and consciously or not, the first place I redirect my attention is to the phone on the table.
“What is it?” Cora asks.
“What?”
I’m incapable of hiding the guilt on my face. I lean down to reach for my phone, but Cora beats me to it. She swipes it off the table and takes a step away from me.
“That’s mine!”
“I don’t care,” she says, dragging her finger across the screen. “God, not even a pass code, aren’t you just…”
She stops talking, and I know it’s now too late for me to do anything. The app I was using to record was the last thing I viewed before turning off the screen, which means it’s the first thing to display.
“You little bitch,” she says.
My father says, “What is it?”
She flashes the screen to him. “The little cunt is recording us.”
“Oh god, Rose.” My father sounds more disappointed than angry, which digs into my bones. From an early age, I was conditioned to not disappoint him, and even if I don’t truly care what he thinks, it still triggers a reaction in me I can’t avoid. “Why would you do something like that? We’re family. Families don’t break trust like that.”
It’s his voice. His tone. His simple statement of admonishment. This is what finally breaks me. Snaps my mind as easily as the most brittle and smallest of branches of a long-fallen tree. I’m not just loud anymore. I’m an explosion.
“Stop talking about family! Our family is shit, and you act like it is the only thing keeping the world together.” I jab a finger at my sister. “She’s trying to frame me for what she did to Caleb! She’s a criminal, Dad. A murderer. And apparently you knew it the whole time, so what does that make you?”
Remnants of puke in my mouth, the bite of tears in my eyes. I try to fight the heat roiling my face. And my father. He’s as cold as the snow outside.
“You could have said something for the last twenty-two years,” he says. “But you didn’t. So don’t tell me how innocent you are.”
“I was fifteen. Can you imagine what that was like for me?”
“You’re not fifteen anymore, Rosie. Haven’t been in a long time. So where’s your conscience now?”
I want to tell him he’s right and that I’ve already asked myself the same thing, and I’ve already come up with an answer. I want to tell him the reason I’m going back to Milwaukee is to stop all this hiding. That’s all Bury is, after all. A place to hide. A fortress of my past. I’m done.
I’m done.
I’m about to tell him these things when I’m jolted by a horrible noise.
I look over. Cora’s left my peripheral vision and walked ten feet over to the far side of the study, next to the unlit fireplace. She’s swinging an iron fireplace poker with both hands, smashing it against the floor. I can’t comprehend why she’s doing this until I see what it is she’s striking.
My phone.
She’s shattering my phone into a thousand pieces.
All my recordings are gone.
All my innocence erased.
All I have left is my anger. Twenty-two years of rage. A lifetime of guilt. And a sense of needing to put the universe back into place.
For the first time in my life, I am my sister.
The monster with an unquenchable desire.
The desire to kill.
I launch at her.
Fifty-Eight
She pivots too late. Cora’s unable to raise the poker again before I plow into her, crushing her into the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Tolstoy, Melville, and others scatter to the floor, spines cracked open, probably for the first time. We fall with the books, Cora landing on top of them, and I on top of her.
The poker leaves her hand and clangs against the hardwood floor. I’m dizzy and confused, scared and elated. I want to kill my sister, but I also want to hold her tight, squeeze the crazy out of her, tell her I love her. My arms are wrapped around her in a bear hug, and the battle of my emotions rages in my head, unable to make a next move.
Cora has no such problem. From beneath, she begins hitting me with tight, balled fists, alternating blows to each side of my rib cage. They aren’t desperate flails but rather measured attacks, each punch dealing swift, efficient pain.
She’s trained, I think. Why this thought overrides all others in the moment I don’t know. But my delicate sister who’s never worked hard for anything in her life knows what she’s doing.
How to fight. How to hurt.
I try to punch back but can’t get any momentum. She keeps hitting me, sapping more of my strength with each contact. I have to get off her, regroup.
I start to push up and she grabs my hair and yanks back, opening my neck to her. She bares her teeth, and for a moment, I picture them tearing into my skin, my jugular, gnashing, blood spraying.
She doesn’t bite. Instead, she grips the back of my head with both hands and crashes our skulls together.
The Dead Husband Page 24