Once Two Sisters

by Sarah Warburton

  Luckily I’m in a library, the most logical place in the world to do a search on an author.

  I look up “Ava Hallett.” There’s a full list of her novels, the movies and television adaptations, the awards and speaking engagements. She’s available to video chat with book clubs and appreciates all her fans. Her personal biography is brief: “Ava Hallett lives in Northern Virginia with her husband.” A micro-biography.

  Its brevity reminds me of the way Ava used to answer questions from our parents. They’d ask, “How was your day?” and I’d unleash a flood of words, trying to tell them all the things that happened, all the feelings I had. And every single time, I met the stabbing pain of their disinterest. Even if I got angry, they never rose to the bait. The more I spoke, the less I got back.

  Ava never made my mistake. “Fine.” That was the answer she always gave, and it was all they ever wanted. Her biography on this author page is the professional equivalent of “Fine.” But that doesn’t mean things didn’t happen and she didn’t have feelings. I was so busy expressing my own, I never asked about hers.

  I switch to an image search, but it’s one glossy professional photo after another. Ava at a podium, Ava in a head shot for a book jacket. None of them has the spontaneity of the picture I saw in Glenn’s study, where her hair was blowing and her eyes were smiling.

  The things I want to know about my sister can’t be found on the internet, but I’m still scrolling through pictures. I stop on a close-up of her face. She’s staring down the camera, her deep-blue eyes confident. At this remove I can meet her gaze without flinching, even though it’s so much like my mother’s. Ava doesn’t look at people, she appraises them. Her ash-blonde hair hangs perfectly sleek. Nothing fussy or mussed, everything under control. She could navigate online without any trouble. In the time it’s taken me to pull up an unnecessary picture of my sister, Ava would have found every answer.

  Defiantly I type it all in—“Hallett, Spiegler, SERE, Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape”—and I get a hit.

  More than one. The names leap out at me from academic papers by N. Hallett, W. Hallett, and J. Spiegler. And the titles all include elements of SERE. I click on “Coordinating the Effects of Psychological Fragility: The Legacy and Implications of Psychiatric Counter-Espionage” and find a summary of the article with the authors’ full names. Nancy and Walter Hallett and their coauthor, James Spiegler.

  The paper is on some kind of academic database, and I have to log in with my email and confirm my new free subscription. I use my “home” email address, the one I share with Andrew, praying it isn’t being monitored by anyone else. Just because he’s taken Emma and left doesn’t mean he’d turn me in, I have to believe that. And I have to keep moving forward.

  When the article comes up, it’s a mess of technological jargon, but I think it’s an evaluation of the effectiveness of torture in obtaining information. My parents seem to argue that while physical torture doesn’t make people tell the truth, psychological torture does. They use a bunch of historical cases to make their point. This is only a paper, based on other people’s research. But still. Psychological torture.

  There’s a case study referenced, one where the subject was questioned while a family member was threatened with torture. It sounds like something out of a spy film. This study was conducted at a university in the sixties, and no actual torture was carried out and no pain was caused. There’s a note in the paper suggesting that the controlled environment actually made the questioning less effective.

  That sounds like my mother. Cold. Detached. Speculating about the theoretical setting and effects of an experiment without any concern for the human person, terrified into telling secrets, racked with guilt while their loved one screams.

  My mind is spinning. My parents study torture. They’ve studied ways to break people down. This report—dry and detached—is about those techniques. Ava knew it. And now I do too.

  I grip the edge of the computer table and close my eyes, as if I can block out what I’ve read. The most chilling thing is how right, how absolutely in character it seems.

  But what do I do with this information?

  “Excuse me.” Someone touches my shoulder.

  I jump, knocking the keyboard aside.

  A teenager with frizzy hair and a scowl is standing next to me. “Are you done?” she asks. “Because your eyes were shut, and all the other computers are taken.”

  Normally I might have snapped back, but I’m too shaken, unsure what to do or where to go next. Without speaking, I push away from the desk and stand up, pausing only to close the browser.

  She rolls her eyes at my assumption that she’d care about my internet activity, and her hands are flying over the keyboard before I even turn away.

  I’m raw and exposed under the library’s fluorescent lights, and a glance at the clock over the checkout desk tells me it’s not even noon yet. Although only a few hours have passed, Andrew and Emma seem as far away as if I’d been flying through a dozen time zones.

  Now I need a moment to regroup.

  I find the bathrooms. Mercifully, the family one is available, and I can have the entire room. There’s a strong possibility I’m going to start sobbing, so privacy is crucial. Standing at the sink, I study my face in the mirror. Red-rimmed eyes, unkempt hair. I run my hands under the faucet and slick my hair down, tucking it behind my ears.

  My hand shakes as I pass it under the soap dispenser, and it takes me a few tries to get enough foam. Once it’s rinsed off, I splash my face, as if I can wash away all the crappy things I’ve done and the self-loathing too. I need someone to talk to, someone with good, clear-headed advice. Someone I can trust.

  I wipe my hands on my jeans and dig into my bag for my phone.

  There’s only one person I want to call.

  Before I can think about all the reasons not to, I rapidly dial the area code, then hesitate. I’m solid on the last four digits, but the ones in the middle are just a blur. I take a guess, but the number I dial is “not in service.”

  I feel so stupid, and so alone.

  Almost a year ago I locked myself out of the house … with Emma inside. I was too scared to think, rattling the knobs, ringing the doorbell, checking under the mat, although I knew there wasn’t a key there. Why did we have the stupid child-safety locks on the inside knobs of the doors? I might have broken a window if Felicia hadn’t called at just that moment. And before I could think, I was telling her everything, in a rushed jumble of words.

  “Take a breath,” she told me. “What’s Emma doing now?”

  Squinting through the beveled glass in the front door, I could see Emma, still sitting on the sofa watching Dora.

  Calmly and without making me feel bad, Felicia told me to call a locksmith and gave me a number. And she didn’t bring it up or tease me about it later. I was dumbstruck, not just by the relief of being back in the house with Emma in my arms, but because someone else had actually helped me.

  Now I shiver, my hands resting on the cool porcelain of the sink. The gentle murmur of library patrons outside the door makes me feel even more alone. I want to talk to Felicia. I know the area code; I’m almost sure of the last four digits. How hard can this be? I try again, and get a stranger’s voice mail. Everything in me wants to panic, punch numbers wildly, hurl this stupid phone at the wall.

  What did Felicia say? “Just breathe.”

  How many times have I written her number down as Emma’s alternate emergency contact or as my own? Somewhere in my mind those numbers exist; they have to. I close my eyes, slow my breathing, visualize those emergency-contact lines on a form. First Andrew’s work and cell numbers, and then below, Felicia’s. Before I can second-guess myself, I dial a number.

  Someone picks up, and my heart leaps. Then I remember caller ID can’t rat me out, not with this anonymous burner phone. Maybe the only reason she didn’t screen me is because she doesn’t know it is me.

  “Hello?” I ask. But there’s onl
y silence. This is a mistake. “Felicia?”

  Only heavy breathing, but not the creepy kind. The kind that happens when a four-year-old picks up the phone.

  “Sam.” I speak firmly. “Sam, go get your mom.”

  “I want Emma to come play.” He recognizes me. He knows I’m Emma’s mom. I picture his serious little round face and soft spiky brown hair and wish I could scoop him up and hug him. Even though I hate it when kids answer the phone, I can’t hate Sam, not even a little bit. Not ever.

  “I know, buddy. We’ll work it out soon.”

  He breathes wetly into the phone again until I hear quick footsteps, followed by Felicia’s voice. “Hello? Who is this?”

  I don’t want to have to choose between Lizzie the lie and Zoe the liar. “It’s me.”

  “Shit.” Behind her I hear his little cry of indignation at the expletive. “Sam, you can watch Thomas. Just turn it on.”

  Then the background sounds become muffled, and I know she’s stepped into the laundry room and pulled the door shut behind her. I know because that’s what she did when we wanted to talk about the mean moms or the fight she had with her husband or nursery school politics. She hasn’t hung up on me yet, and I feel a cautious leap of gratitude.

  We say nothing for a few seconds, then speak at the same time. I don’t even know what words are coming out of my mouth, because I cut them off as soon as I hear her voice. But she does too.

  I wait, holding my breath, until she tells me, “You first.”

  “I fucked up.” I am surprised by my own words. They are so inadequate.

  “You think?” Felicia’s reply is fast, but there is a smile in her tone, and the enormity of all the things that have happened since I last saw her hits me.

  “So, how was book club?”

  She gasps, and we are both laughing so hard that my chest hurts and it’s tough to breath. “Get your ass back here and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  I wish fiercely I were home with my own family or bringing Emma over to Felicia’s house for a playdate with Sam, knowing Andrew would be home in time for dinner. I was building more than a family there; I was building a new me, one with friends and connections and a real life.

  “I will. I swear. Call you soon.” The words come out automatically, but I mean them. “Please don’t give up on me.”

  Felicia says, “Stay safe,” and I know she means it too. I’d give anything to have her explain how to fix all this. Of course she can’t do that. But what she has shown me, just in the tone of her voice, is that we are still friends.

  As we hang up, relief floods me. I’m not alone.

  I press my fingertips against my forehead. That warm glow of someone understanding and supporting, that’s what a sister should be. The way I felt all those years ago when Ava told me stories, when she talked me through my homework, when she was the only one awake with me in the night. Those memories are from so long ago, I forgot I used to trust Ava.

  Could I ever get those feelings back again?

  But Ava’s not the one I have to trust right now. There’s only one person in the world who wants her back more than me. Her husband. Glenn and Ava have been married three years. I know marriage now, how deep it runs. I’ve been married to Andrew barely a year, and losing him could break me. Now that Glenn’s anger isn’t in the room with me, I can see it as terror. Maybe, if I really want to find my sister, I should ask the person she loves and trusts most to help me.

  Someone rattles the handle of the bathroom door, startling my eyes open. A woman asks, “Are you okay?”

  Automatically, I answer, “Sorry, just a minute.”

  I’ll go outside to call Glenn and hope he doesn’t notify the police.

  Maybe trust is a decision you make. You reach out a hand for the other person and hope they pull you across that line.

  Until you try, you can’t know.

  CHAPTER

  26

  ZOE

  OUTSIDE THE LIBRARY, the world seems so ordinary. The quiet suburban neighborhood surrounding the parking lot is full of houses with people living normal lives. And here I am, sitting on a stone bench, completely alone, my phone in one hand, the business card I swiped from Glenn’s study in the other.

  Making this call is even harder than I thought it would be.

  After that night of shattered windows, I ran from the memory of my sister’s bloody face. I could have killed her. I know that.

  Glenn was the most awful thing I’d done, one sin for which there was no atonement. It was months before I called my parents, and my mother told me Ava and Glenn were married. She delivered the news in the same tone as a comment on the weather, but it splintered me like a lightning strike. They were married. Now it would always be the two of them on one side, me alone on the other.

  Unless I took myself out of the picture forever.

  I moved to Louisiana, where I changed my name and tried to obliterate the woman I’d been. Then I found Andrew on the Texas dating site and moved again, with a new identity and a clean slate.

  I look at the business card and rub my thumb over Glenn’s phone number.

  When our relationship ended, I couldn’t have imagined finding Andrew and Emma.

  And now I’ve lost them. Was there anything I could have said to make Andrew take me in his arms? All I want is to be back in my family again. But a deeper pain needles at my heart. He wouldn’t even hear me out. After the sweetness of our wedding, all the time I spent taking care of Emma on my own, how clean I kept the house. Even after he met my parents, when he knew I didn’t have any role models or support, he still rejected me. And I told him the truth.

  I wrap my arms around myself and hold on. Mostly. I told the truth mostly.

  That’s what made the difference. I edited out anything inconvenient. Now I’m paying the price. I earned this pain. It’s exactly what I deserve.

  How much worse can one phone call make things?

  I do it. I dial. At least Glenn won’t recognize the number of this phone, and it’s local, so it won’t look like a telemarketer. By some miracle, he answers.

  Then I blow it. “Don’t hang up.”

  The phone goes dead.

  Frantically, I text: I want to find Ava. Call me.

  A slow second passes, then another. And my phone buzzes with his incoming call.

  He says, “I can’t talk long. You know they’re monitoring everything.”

  “Meet me. We’ll find Ava.”

  “Where are you?”

  I hesitate. If I tell him, will the police show up here instead of Glenn? But my choices are stark. Run and lose my family forever, or take this chance.

  “The library by the Crystal City Metro.”

  And he clicks off.

  Now all I have to do is wait. Wait, and try not to look suspicious. I turn the phone over in my hands and shift uneasily on the stone bench.

  A car pulls into the parking lot and approaches the front of the library slowly. I hunch my shoulders until it angles into a parking space. A woman about my age gets out the driver’s side and opens the back door, and then I know who she is. She’s a mom, just like Felicia and Bethany, just like I used to be. She’s unbuckling a child from a car seat and gathering a shoulder bag of books, and I wish I could trade places with her. Maybe her shoulders hurt with the weight of all those bags, maybe lifting a kid out of the car is hard on her back, maybe she’s in a hurry or sleep deprived or irritated. But there’s nothing in the world I want as much as her life.

  Holding the hand of a sturdy toddler, she comes toward me. Her hair is cut in a swingy bob, and she wears capri workout pants and a fitted T-shirt. Her son has a bowl cut and round cheeks like a kid on a soup can. He stops abruptly right next to me, staring at me until I meet his eyes. And then he grins.

  “I’m sorry. He’s such a flirt,” his mom says, with the indulgent tone of a mother who knows her child hung the moon. The way I feel about Emma.

  “It’s okay. I mean, he’s adorabl
e.”

  “He’s not bad.” She runs a hand over his little head. “Come on, bub. We’re going to be late for story time.”

  Is it my imagination, or does she give me a penetrating look as she leads him through the library doors? Maybe I should have searched on myself online. What other pictures and gossip are out there? I might be more recognizable than I ever imagined I could be.

  Now that the woman has gone and I’m alone again, my eyes follow every car that drives past the library. The longer I wait, the more certain I am that Glenn has called the police. But my body is clenched, frozen, as I force myself to wait. I won’t run anymore.

  When his black Lexus sedan turns into the parking lot, I run to it, pulling on the door handle before the car even comes to a full stop. He’s wearing Ray-Ban Predators that hide his eyes like a secret agent in a movie.

  “Where have you been?” I ask him, my seat belt not even snapped as he starts driving.

  He doesn’t look at me. “I’ve spent the day being interrogated, that’s where I’ve been. They’ve always thought it was me.”

  “Then why’d they let you go?”

  “I have a solid alibi, a great lawyer, and I opened up my finances. I didn’t do this. They’ll figure it out.”

  “Well, I didn’t either. But that picture—”

  “That fucking picture. There’s no way I can go home. Too much press. All the news sites, the Reddit feeds, it’s all speculation about us. That we did this together. What’s Ava going to think …” He doesn’t finish, but I know what he means.

  Worse than rumors online or the police thinking we’re coconspirators, worse than all of it is the look I saw on Andrew’s face. Hurt and doubt. None of the lies I told him shook his belief that I loved him—not before that picture.

  “She won’t think anything, she’ll just be glad to see you. We’re going to find her. We have to.”

  Glenn’s staring ahead at the road like I don’t even exist. And that’s what he wishes, I know it. All I am is a regret, the thing that almost cost him his wife. If we’re going to find her, he needs to see me as more than a mistake. “Glenn,” I say sharply, “I can’t go home until she’s back. Andrew won’t …” But I can’t finish the sentence.