But it was the torment of never understanding the catalyst for her transformation that plagued me the most. Without that, I would continue to obsess over what I might have done to save her. That missing piece of information prevented me from accepting her death. It left both our relationship and my soul incomplete.
By the time I got home, I had fallen into a frenzy of sadness and guilt.
Miss Scarlett, however, was having none of it. It was impossible to focus on my misery when my four-legged companion was frantic with delight.
I shut the garage door before releasing her. She ran wildly around the vehicle three times. Leaping and barking, she followed me until I opened the patio doors and let her bound into the backyard. I watched from inside as she sniffed and peed and rolled in the stiff, frozen grass. Finally, she returned and jumped up to lick my face.
“It is good to be home, isn’t it?”
It was almost midnight, and I couldn’t remember the last time I ate. I whipped up a can of tomato soup for me and a bowl of kibble for her. My phone rang shortly after we finished.
“Hey. I hope I didn’t wake you. I wasn’t expecting you to answer. I was planning to leave a message.” It was Justin.
“I wasn’t sleeping. Scarlett and I were enjoying a late dinner.” I gave him a summary of my visit with Mom. I spared him the details about our mutual epiphany, concerning the different ways people love one another.
He explained he had work to catch up on the next day but wanted to come by tomorrow evening if that was okay. It was way more than okay, but I played it cool and said seeing him would be nice.
I’m not sure who was happier to be back in our bed, me or Scarlett. Before turning off the lights, I stared at the ceiling, considering how to approach the subject of Uncle Roy with my mother. Thoughts of whether Eva would ever call and worries about Adelmo crossed my mind, but I was too spent to concentrate on them. I fell asleep and didn’t wake until after nine.
After rolling out of bed, I unpacked my suitcase and checked in with a few clients. I answered a message from Cara Frazier and set up a meeting to help her with some promotional material. Around one o’clock, Lesroy dropped by with sandwiches from our favorite deli. He insisted it was because he missed me so much, but the way he and Scarlett fawned over each other, I was certain it was the dog he came to see.
We talked about Stella, and I shared my misgivings about leaving Ecuador with so many unanswered questions. I asked him if the two of them ever discussed the night his daddy disappeared.
“What made you think of that?” He hid behind his giant corned beef on rye.
I told him that while the lightning itself failed to score a direct hit, it jostled puzzling memories. I was careful not to say too much. Since Stella remembered the details of our uncle’s disappearance before they returned to me, I suspected she had brought up the subject to Lesroy. But if I was wrong, I didn’t want to be the one who delivered the news my mother killed his father.
“Finally.” He set down his sandwich and took a swig of soda. “We always wondered why you didn’t remember. I said we should get it over with and tell you, but she worried it might do something to your delicate psyche.”
“So, she told you about it?”
“About how Gran and Aunt Marilyn pushed Daddy’s truck into the lake with him in it? No, Grace, Stella didn’t tell me.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Mother did.”
I sat speechless, trying to piece it all together. Rita’s break-down, her avoidance of our family—it made sense now. Lesroy said she grew suspicious after a few months with no word from his father. She noticed them acting strange whenever she brought up the subject of her missing husband but never suspected they had done anything drastic. Until our grandmother slipped up and mentioned something about my uncle’s pickup being a worthless piece of shit just like Roy and how neither would be missed.
As soon as the words left Gran’s mouth, Rita’s bullshit detector went off. She kept on and on at them. But the women didn’t break, not until the cops fished the truck, with her missing husband in it, out of the lake. That was when she confronted them, and they copped to the crime.
Instead of going to the police, Rita flipped out. Screaming and sobbing, she shared the story with her young son. If she expected him to be angry or vengeful or even sad, she’d been disappointed.
“I told her she shouldn’t be mad at Gran and Aunt Marilyn. They’d been taking care of us the best way they could.” He took another bite of sandwich. “And we never talked about it again.”
“Holy shit, Lesroy! I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
“Thought you knew.” He shrugged. “Stella did. But when we figured out you didn’t remember, we let it go. You know, Grace, if your mother hadn’t helped Gran get rid of my daddy, he would most likely have killed us both.”
He gave Scarlett the last bite of his sandwich.
“But, hey, I didn’t come by to dredge up old memories. Mike asked me if we would help plan the memorial. Are you up for it?”
I wasn’t, but I agreed to go anyway.
When we arrived, Mom and Mike were already hard at work selecting scripture and hymns and floral arrangements. The service would be in the church my mother began attending shortly after the death of my grandmother. I assumed her newfound religion assuaged her grief over losing Gran. Now it seemed more likely she was getting a little nervous about hellfire waiting for her since she violated one of the biggies: Thou shalt not kill.
Mom assigned me and Lesroy the task of writing my sister’s obituary. Reducing Stella’s life to her death notice was more depressing than I imagined. The list of survivors was pitifully short. It was as if she left no real legacy at all. When I voiced this gloomy sentiment to him, he shook his head.
“You’re wrong, Grace. We’re all the legacy anybody would need. I mean, it’s not like we’re finished creating our stories, and Stella’s always going to be a part of them because she’s a part of us.”
We reviewed the plans for the memorial service we scheduled for the day after tomorrow. I pretended to be interested in the details, but I couldn’t get it out of my head how amused Stella would have been at our choices.
About an hour later, after debating whether to have the organist play “Amazing Grace”—I was violently opposed, but lost the argument—Lesroy and I gathered up our coats and the extra frozen casseroles, and he drove me home
Justin called to say he would come by after seven with dinner. I said there was no need for him to bring anything, that I would whip something up. Then I checked the freezer for one of the church-lady meals. Since my mother hadn’t bothered to label them, I took out what looked like chicken with cheese sauce and stuck it in the oven
Scarlett barked and twirled in circles at the sound of the doorbell. “Don’t make a fool of yourself, you little hussy.” I held her by the collar and opened the door. She slipped from my grasp and nuzzled Justin’s crotch in canine ecstasy.
He laughed and knelt on one knee. “I’m glad to see you, too. But let’s take things slow.” Scarlet ignored him and covered his face with slobbery kisses.
“Enough!” I commanded and was shocked when she stopped her affectionate assault and moved away from the door.
“Something smells great,” he announced on the way to the kitchen. He took off his coat and draped it over a chair. “What are you cooking?”
“You’ll just have to wait and see,” I answered, hoping it wasn’t tofu and soy curds prepared by Mom’s vegan friend.
Luckily, it turned out to be chicken divan. Justin raved about what a good cook I was throughout dinner. I would have kept up the ruse, but later, when we were sitting on the sofa, he questioned me about whether I used c
umin or curry, and I confessed I couldn’t tell the difference.
“You mean you lied to me, Grace Burnette?” he asked, as he rubbed my neck. He pulled me closer, his breath warm on my skin. “That’s very disappointing. What should happen to girls who lie?”
“I’m not sure,” I whispered.
“Well, there are many ways you can make it up to me.” He led me to the bedroom.
In Montañita, sex with Justin was hot because it was unexpected and new. We were both in an unfamiliar place with relative strangers. Here it was different. The need was still urgent, but now we could take our time, explore each other’s bodies, tease and touch as long as we could stand it. And when we did surrender, it was with the understanding we were only beginning.
. . . . .
Mom called early to ask if I could double-check the arrangements. When I got there, Rita’s car was parked in the driveway.
To me, my aunt had always been ditsy and irresponsible. As a child I hadn’t understood the helplessness she must have felt living in constant fear of both pain and humiliation. Her timing as a victim of spousal abuse was terrible. Well before people officially recognized battered women as a syndrome, it was a time when it was still okay to ask what the woman had done to deserve her harsh treatment.
I could tell even Gran and Mom blamed Rita. Their attitude—both spoken and unspoken—was that it was one thing if she didn’t have the self-respect to leave her miserable husband. It was quite another if she didn’t protect her son.
Today the world was more compassionate, but I hadn’t been. I blamed her for letting my uncle belittle and bully my sweet cousin. To me, all the wailing and crying over Roy’s death showed how weak she was.
Now I understood a lot more about my aunt. She was the softer sister. Unlike Mom, she couldn’t find it in her to kick her husband to the curb even though she would be better off without him. Rita didn’t have enough strength to raise a child on her own. And when she discovered the two most important women in her life stepped up for her, she couldn’t handle it.
Mom opened the door before I rang the bell. She looked somewhat better. Her hair was clean, and her make-up was mostly in the right places. More important, she looked less vacant. She greeted me with a fierce hug and led me to the den where Rita sat drinking coffee. I eased into the recliner across from them.
“How are you doing, sweetie?” Rita set her cup down. “And don’t say ‘fine’ like you always do. I want the real scoop.”
Another flood of emotion came over me. I looked away, unsuccessfully trying to swallow it down.
“It’s all right, honey. You don’t have to talk,” Rita said as my mother sat down beside her.
The two of them sitting there so close to one another filled me with an additional source of anguish. I ached at their sisterly complacency. Stella and I would never grow older together, never hurt or comfort one another the way only sisters can. I couldn’t suppress the urgent need to hear their story. For whatever reason, I hoped it might provide a blueprint for my healing process.
“There is something I want to talk about.” I began.
Mom shifted in her seat, and Rita stared at her lap.
I took the direct approach. “I remember what happened the night Uncle Roy disappeared.”
“Right. We wondered when it would come back to you.”
I couldn’t say what I expected from my aunt, but it wasn’t this calm acceptance.
She set down her cup and continued. “A few months before your sister ran off, she came to see me. She put some things together about Roy going missing.” Rita gave Mom a look. “She was positive about the events of that night. But when she mentioned it to you, you seemed clueless.” She took a sip of coffee.
Mom picked up the story. “That’s when we realized you girls had been on the porch.”
My aunt waved a hand, and my mother stopped talking. “I told Stella she should talk to her mother about what happened, but she insisted she didn’t need to. That she was aware of everything that went on. And she was. She figured it out a long time ago. She said she understood why her mother and Gran killed her uncle. What she wanted to know was if I had forgiven them.”
I did the math and calculated my sister must have been planning her exit with Ben when she visited Rita.
“Marilyn, why don’t you get us some of those sugar cookies your church lady friends dropped off?”
“You want cookies now?” Mom asked, but she scurried to the kitchen without waiting for an answer.
“So, were you able to forgive them?”
“I’ll be honest. At first, I hated them, but not for the obvious reasons. They took matters into their own hands because they thought I was too weak to act for myself. They expected I would take that miserable son of a bitch back, even after he hurt my baby boy.”
Mom returned with a plate of pastries and put it in front of my aunt. She selected one and took a dainty bite.
“Umm,” she murmured. “Church ladies make the best cookies in the world. It’s almost enough to get me back into religion. Almost.” She grinned and gulped her coffee. “As soon as I got my boy out of the hospital, I went straight to a divorce lawyer. I didn’t tell your mother or Gran because I knew they’d roll their eyes at me. But I was dead serious. Of course, it turned out Roy was plain old dead, so I never got the satisfaction of serving him with papers.”
“You mean you weren’t upset with them about, well, you know.” I was still squeamish about the whole murder concept.
“Sure, I was. It’s more than a little unsettling when you find out your sister and mother killed your husband. God help me, I still loved the man, but I hated him, too. And I loved your cousin more than life. I guess you could say I got knocked off-kilter.”
It said a lot about my aunt she remembered her stint in the mental institution as being “off-kilter.”
“But when I got back on track, I understood what they did and why they did it. I was even a little grateful. Divorcing Roy wouldn’t have gotten him out of our lives. Most likely, I would have had to kill him myself.” The frown lines on her forehead deepened as she scowled at Mom and added, “But he was mine to take care of.”
“Still, you forgave them?”
“Oh, yes. I forgave them a long time ago, and I told Stella that. I explained no matter what happens between you and family, there’s always forgiveness. And I told her that was especially true with sisters because, well, it’s not like sometimes you’re sisters and sometimes you’re not. And you always forgive each other. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not making up excuses for what Stella did. It was low down, and she knew it. Your baby sister lacked in the character department but having you in her life mattered to her. So, you see, Grace, she didn’t die without knowing you’d forgive her.”
I let my tears fall freely, and so did the sisters. They came to me, one on each side of the worn leather recliner. Together, the three of us cried for the depth of our loss and the power of our forgiveness.
We froze in that tableau of grief and hope and stayed that way until Mike came into the room.
“Oh, my, God, girls! Let me get you something. More coffee or tissues or—oh, my God!”
The sight of my mother’s big, strong soldier running his hands through his buzz cut before he threw them up in the air, ended our communal sobbing. Mom walked to where he stood and put her arms around him. Rita and I looked at each other and began laughing.
We let Mike fix us lunch and take care of us for the rest of the afternoon. My aunt gave her approval of the memorial plans, remarking once, out of my mother’s earshot, what a hoot Stella would have gotten out of all that singing and sanctimony.
I used Scarlett a
s an excuse to leave before dinner. On the drive home I considered how strange it was to know someone your entire life and continue to uncover secrets and surprises that make you reconstruct your view, not only of the person you loved but of your entire world.
Scarlett greeted me with the same enthusiasm she showed when I first returned, and I wondered if she’d forgotten her original mistress. Or was she more practical than I gave her credit for and decided she might as well love the one she was with? Either way, I was equally happy to see her.
Justin called to say he had to work but would meet me at the church before the memorial. I was exhausted, so the Doberman and I retired early, sleeping soundly until morning.
“I am not looking forward to today, Scarlett.” At the sound of her name, the dog gazed at me intently. “Of course, no one enjoys a funeral, do they?” She hopped onto the bed and snuggled close, obviously happy she wasn’t expected to attend.
I chose the same black suit I wore at Gran’s service. When I opened my jewelry box to take out the diamond earrings Mom gave me for graduation from college, I saw the gold locket. I hadn’t put it on since Stella and Ben’s elopement. Today it was the perfect choice. The necklace glowed softly against the dark fabric of my dress. A random bubble of memory struggled to pop to the surface, something I forgot and needed to remember. But it refused to show itself.
Lesroy’s car was already at Mom’s. Vincent opened the door, looking dapper in suit and tie. He gave me a one-armed hug and a kiss on the cheek.
“Heads up,” he said, “it’s bat-shit crazy in there.”
“When isn’t it?”
“Good point. Sometimes I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into, but Lesroy’s worth it,” Vincent replied, then added. “Rita’s passing out Xanax like Halloween candy; I suggest you grab one. And help me keep an eye on Lesroy, please. He’s already downed two.”
The Sometime Sister Page 23