by Zoe Carter
Something breaks inside me as I tell him he can have what he wants. I won’t fight him anymore.
“Well, you should have thought of that before, Sarah. Now I’m thinking you’re a little too old. I’ve sort of gotten excited thinking about what your sister can do for me. She’s much more agreeable than you are. She won’t speak to me with such disrespect, that I can guarantee.”
“No, please. Please, Peter. I’ll do anything you want. Just leave Maisey alone, please.”
As he throws me down on the bed, I realize it was nothing more than a game to him. The most important game of my life, and I’ve lost.
Maisey
I stood there, swaying, as though buffeted by blows as my sister spewed this dreadful, horrible tale. No. I shook my head, mute with apprehension, with horror. Please, no.
“I slept with Peter, not because I wanted to, but to stop him from doing it to you.”
I dropped to my knees, unable to bear the weight of my sister’s pain, her humiliation and contempt. Tears burned tracks down my cheeks as the wind hurled the rain against me.
Sarah sagged to the ground in front of me, her face haggard as she continued with her vile story. I wanted to scream at her to shut up; I wanted to hit her, to knock her into another place, another time, away from me. But somewhere, buried beneath that shocking memoir, a seed of raw truth struck a chord. How could she say this? How could she tell me about such atrocious and monstrous deeds? Did this honestly come out of her imagination? A warped kind of fantasy? I didn’t think so. Not from the Sarah I knew. And if I didn’t think she could make this up and claim it as the truth, then I had to respect her enough to listen to her story, as much as it sickened me. Because as much as I hated hearing it, I couldn’t imagine the hell of her living it.
Sarah stared at the wet sand between us, her hands fisting into the sludgy grains. I stared at her fingers. Flexing. Curling. Flexing. Agitated.
“Caleb was the one who told me you were having an affair,” I told her quietly. “That he saw you and Peter together.”
She shook her head. “He can’t think that.”
“He does.”
“Then why would he—” Sarah bit her lip.
I frowned. More secrets? “What? Why would he what? Don’t hold back now.”
“Why would he ask me to leave with him? Why would he want me to go away with him, if he honestly believed that?” My sister shook her head. “There was no affair,” she said bitterly. “There was rape.” She swallowed. “I can’t believe you and Caleb would think that.”
Her words caught at me. He what?
Oh, that dog. He’s playing all of us, Lucy exclaimed.
No. He wants me to go home with him, remember?
And he’s been telling your sister the same thing. He’s playing you both.
I didn’t want to accept that, didn’t want to think Caleb was capable of duplicity. No. Not my friend. Not the guy I’d loved pretty much all of my life. I turned my attention back to the horror story my sister had shared with me.
“I get why you didn’t tell Alice, but why didn’t you say anything to me at the time?” I whispered.
“I couldn’t do that,” she said. “I couldn’t do that to you. I’m your big sister. I’m supposed to protect you. I promised Dad, before he died, that I’d look out for you.”
Now my shoulders were shaking as I wept with my sister. I felt terrible for thinking such awful things about Sarah, blaming her. She’d sacrificed so much for me. I thought I’d felt alone, growing up, but at least I’d had Lucy. Sarah’d had nobody looking out for her. Nobody to protect her. She’d endured so much pain, more pain than any soul should ever encounter. And what had I done with that sacrifice? What great and noble deeds, what pure and happy life had I lived?
Despair enveloped me, its pressure crushing me.
“I couldn’t say anything to anybody,” Sarah said, her voice rough. “It went on forever. And then you came running in that afternoon, with Frankie all blue and limp.”
The change in conversation sobered me up like nothing else could. I stared at the sand, watched the rivulets of rain running downhill toward the sea.
“Do you know, I forgot how Frankie died?” I said in a hushed voice, confessing my shame.
Sarah frowned. “What?”
I shrugged. “I remember the neighbor pulling him out of the pool. I forgot what I’d done. What we had done...”
Sarah gaped at me for a moment. “What?” she repeated.
My lips turned down at the corners. “I guess I convinced myself that was what happened.” I shrugged. “But then I had to treat this little baby boy, just before I left to come here. He reminded me so much of Frankie...that’s when the nightmares came back.”
“Nightmares?”
“Jumbled images that made no sense, playing over and over in my head. Please tell me exactly what happened with Frankie.”
Sarah sighed. “I felt his pulse. I knew you thought he’d died, but...he hadn’t.” Sarah took in a deep breath that seemed to catch before she could fill her lungs, so she took another. She brushed at her cheeks, then met my gaze. “I knew he was still living. I only pretended to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Then, when you left the room, I took my pillow and covered his face.”
Sarah’s expression crumpled, and she sobbed, as though finally confessing it released a lock inside her, like a dam bursting. Her tears were like acid, eating away at my fury. Lucy tried to stop my wilting, but she couldn’t. I cried with my sister, knowing we’d both had a hand in our baby brother’s death. I had left the gate open. I had stood at that sink. But I had also raced over and pulled him out. She had done the rest. We both had to shoulder that blame. Still, I felt that constraint around my heart loosen, just a little. Felt the burden of the guilt lift, just a little.
“Why?” I asked past what felt like barbed wire in my throat, so painful was it to talk after our mourning.
My sister hesitated, then brushed at her cheeks and tucked her tangled hair behind her ears, as though baring herself to the most intense scrutiny. “I thought, in that moment, that the only reason Mom was staying with Peter was because of Frankie. By getting rid of Frankie, I was getting rid of the last tie to Peter, and then we could leave. We could be free.” Sarah’s eyes met mine, and my breath caught at the heat and the pain. So much torment.
“If you knew how Frankie had actually died, you would tell.” Sarah shrugged. “It was just in your nature. You were so brutally honest sometimes. You would say something and not pause to think about the consequences. I got used to thinking through the consequences for both of us.”
Just like the “consequences” of her not sleeping with our stepfather. My sister took on the responsibility for both of us. I could see it, in my mind’s eye. All those times my sister had stepped in to protect me, held my hand. She always thought ahead, while I always thought of the now.
“That kind of secret, it would weigh on you, and I knew you, Maisey. You would have cracked. I realized, though,” Sarah said so quietly I had to lean closer to hear her, “that if you were somehow involved, that if you knew you would get in trouble, too, that you would keep your mouth shut. You were always good at that, knowing when to shut your mouth to avoid punishment.” She shook her head. “You did even better than I thought you could. I was surprised,” my sister admitted, “at just how convincing you were, how determined you were to save your own skin.” My sister lifted her chin. “So I used that. If you had killed Frankie, you would take that secret to your grave.” Sarah chewed her lip, her ravaged face so torn with sadness and shame. She’d aged ten years since tracking me down on the beach.
“I had to do it, Maisey. To protect us both, to make sure we stayed together, safe. I knew that if it came out that I’d killed Frankie, I would go to jail instead of Mom.” Sarah wiped
the back of her arm across her nose. “And if that happened, if Mom started drinking, and I wasn’t there to protect you... Peter would be raping you at night, instead of me. I never thought Mom would go to jail. I thought everyone would say it was an accident.” Sarah laughed, a sad, hollow sound. “But that’s not what happened. Everything got worse after that. Peter was so angry, so bitter, after Frankie died that he became quite vicious. He blamed you and me just as much as he blamed Mom, because we were all home.”
She was right. Peter had gotten worse after Frankie died and Alice went to prison. I’d just chalked it up to our miserable lives, and hadn’t really thought about it more than that. I had a lot of blackouts back then. I’d come to, find myself hiding underneath my bed, when things were safe. But that was normal, for us. I hadn’t really attributed it to anything else.
Lucy sighed. That’s not normal. You know that, right?
I shook my head. You’re talking to me about normal? I’d just accepted that was our lot in life. Peter was a prick, and he was in control. I couldn’t begin to imagine how he could have been worse than what I saw, but apparently Sarah had lived the reality of it.
Really? Lucy’s voice piped up in my mind. Do you believe this? How can we trust her? She’s lied to us in the past.
I rose to my feet, and looked down at my sister, hunched and pathetic, on the sand.
“Do you have any idea the hell I’ve been through?” I said through gritted teeth.
My sister looked up at me, stunned, before fury and contempt swept over her face. “You think you’ve been through hell? You just said you didn’t even remember how Frankie died. All these years, I’ve carried that, and you just went merrily along your way, without a care in the world. I’m the one who shouldered this. Not you. Don’t you dare claim you’ve been hard done by in all of this mess. You’re virtually untouched, like always.”
Rage swept through me, and Lucy launched forward, pushing me back toward the black curtain with a force I couldn’t counter.
“How dare you,” Lucy breathed. “How dare you talk to your sister like that.”
Sarah frowned, bemused. “What?”
She tossed her head back, squaring up to the woman on the sand. “Do you have any idea what she’s been through? I have had to pull her sorry ass through every damn drama just so that she can damn well function because of you.”
Sarah shook her head, her brow pulled in a slight V as she stared at me. “Maisey—”
“Oh, no, you have to deal with me now.” Lucy wagged her finger, her smile brittle. “You think you can just tell us that you let her think she killed Frankie, and that’s it?”
Sarah rose to her feet, her expression confused, but wary. “What the hell is this?”
“Your sister is so racked with guilt that she likes to hide. Did you know that?”
“Maisey—”
“Maisey’s not here right now. You can call me Lucy.”
Sarah gaped, and took a step back. “I don’t understand,” she said, shaking her head.
“I’ve sent her away. It’s quite a novel experience. Usually she’s the one who decides when to pull me out, and when to put me back in my box. But she’s a little scattered at the moment.” Lucy put her hands on her hips. “Can you blame her? She went a bit loopy when Frankie died, but did you notice that? Nope.” Lucy shook her head in amazement.
“You know, she thinks the absolute world of you. She had no idea what you were capable of. Every time I tried to show her what happened with Frankie, she’d disappear. Eventually, I stopped showing her. She was doing just fine, too, until you invited her here, stirred up all those nasty memories.”
Sarah’s head tilted as she put a hand up. “Stop it, Maisey—”
“Lucy,” Lucy corrected. “You think you protected her, Sarah? You have no idea what she’s done to try and live with Frankie’s death. The amount of times I’ve had to step in and protect her from every little mess she’s gotten herself into. When she started having those nightmares, I knew I had to do something. She had no idea I was sending those emails. Not until today.”
Sarah took a step forward, horror creeping into her expression.
Lucy lifted her chin. “See, you and I both know Maisey isn’t as strong as we are. She can’t handle too much stress. Frankie dying—well, that was stress. She hates herself for what she thinks she’s done. Hates herself so much she can’t face it, can’t live with it. So I had to step in. If you’re angry about the emails, about your son, don’t blame Maisey, blame me. This was the only way I could think to get you to talk to her.”
“Oh, my God, I had no idea,” Sarah breathed, covering her mouth with trembling hands. “Maisey, please, I’m so sorry, darling. I thought—I thought I was doing the right thing, the best thing for all of us.” Sarah’s shoulders shook as she sobbed. “Oh, honey, it wasn’t you. You tried to save him. You’re the good girl. I had no idea.”
Lucy leaned forward. “You made her think she was capable of murder,” she growled. “We would’ve been just fine, too, but you had to invite your damn mother, didn’t you?” Lucy took a step forward. “And when we saw that boy in the surf, I knew.”
Sarah stepped back. Lucy stepped closer.
“Maisey didn’t think you would ever do something so heartless, but I did. I knew, as soon as that boy was dragged from the surf, that what Maisey remembered about Frankie didn’t add up. She’s been going crazy trying to figure it out, and every single damn time she tried to talk to you about it, you pushed her away.”
Lucy shoved Sarah. “Try pushing me away, Sarah.”
Sarah stumbled back a couple of steps, her expression shocked. “Please, stop.”
Lucy shoved her again. “Come on, Sarah. I dare you. Try to push me away. Try telling me your sister is crazy, that those nightmares are just her imagination.” Lucy raised her fist. “Try—”
Lucy sank to the ground, gasping, clutching at her temples.
Oh, my God. The pain. Too much. I pressed against my temples, trying to provide counterpoints to the pressure building inside. Ease up, Lucy. Ease up. Lucy loosened her grip on me, and I sagged forward, cheek on the damp sand, until I could catch my breath. I twisted my head to look up at Sarah. My sister wore an expression that blended horror and fear. Oh, no. My chin wobbled.
“What did she do now?” I gasped. “What did Lucy do?” I was so scared. Lucy had never been that harsh with me before. That darkness, it didn’t feel safe anymore. For the first time, I felt scared inside my special space. I lifted my hand toward my sister, and she flinched.
I blanched. She was frightened. Of me.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Sarah sobbed. “I’m so sorry, Maisey. It wasn’t your fault.”
My sister cried, hugging herself, backing away, and I knelt there, horrified. Silent. Oh. My. God. What did you do, Lucy? What did you do to my sister?
Anger rose inside me, and something new, something different. A need to protect my sister.
Lucy screamed, splintering away in my mind, leaving me raw, fractured, bleeding on the inside. I cast about for her, needing her. She was always stronger than me, always there to step in when I was unsure, or scared, but now... Lucy was gone. She’d left me, alone and empty.
I knelt there on the beach, staring up at my sister. The wind whipped the rain around us, the surf roared. Sarah had torn away the security blanket that had wrapped my memories when she’d told me her story, and I stared back at that childhood, shocked and dismayed by the horror of it. Sarah had always protected me, but she’d been so strong... I saw, now, what it had cost her, that I’d never really been safe, that she had never really been safe. The problem was, Sarah didn’t have a Sarah to look out for her, as I had. Or a Lucy.
I folded my arms, hugging myself, trying to contain the devastation, the shock. I swayed, rocking myself. We’d nev
er stood a chance, Sarah and I, to lead a halfway decent, normal life. I realized that now. I had wanted to talk with my sister, hash it all out, to get to the bottom of whatever secret she’d hidden from me.
Well, she’d told me. But good. She’d shocked me to my core, and I craved the ignorance I’d blithely lived with for so many years. I thought knowing would give me some relief, and to an extent, realizing I hadn’t killed my baby brother did offer some reprieve from my guilt, but Sarah’s story had just added a new layer of it, knowing she’d endured that hell so that I wouldn’t have to.
I was the reason she’d been abused. I was the reason she’d kept her mouth shut. She didn’t tell anyone what was happening to her, because of me. She tolerated what no little girl should, so that I didn’t have to. Everything that had happened—Frankie dying, Mom going to prison, Peter doing those unspeakable things he’d done, Caleb leaving us—it all traced back to my sister protecting me. I staggered backward, the pain of it too much. I looked up at my sister, tortured by her secret. God, she must hate me.
“Maisey!” For a moment the sound of my name didn’t register, but the voice calling me became louder, more panicked. I turned.
Alice was running toward us, stumbling, soaked to the skin. I frowned as I noticed her empty arms, her bruised cheek and her frightened expression.
I took a step toward her, my own fear creeping in to collide with concern. “Mom, where’s Elliot?” She wasn’t supposed to be here; she was supposed to be with the baby. Elliot was safe with her. He was supposed to be with her.
Alice was crying, and she waved her hand back the way she’d come.
“He just took him,” she cried, her hand shaking, her eyes wide. “Just like that, pulled him right out of my arms.”
Sarah grabbed her by the shoulders. “Who took him, Mom? Where’s Elliot?”
The fear in her eyes, the stark worry and dread that stared back at me, reached inside my gut like a cold fist, twisting it.