by Ann Leary
Sally and I spent hours fantasizing about Aunt Nan and Winslow Hobbs, the one black man she had apparently ever known. And we suspected that she had known him a lot better than she let on. We had seen photographs of Nan when she was a teen and we knew she hadn’t always been plump and short of breath. Her hair hadn’t always been white. She was once a raven-haired beauty. Aunt Nan was entirely different in the photos, almost the exact opposite of what she was now, so we imagined that her personality might also have been in stark contrast to the one she now possessed. In our minds, young Auntie Nan had once been a voluptuous, sex-crazed nymphomaniac.
Around the time we were in middle school, Sally and I discovered a treasure. It was a cardboard box filled with dirty paperback books—a thrilling collection of trashy, pornographic stories that we found in the woods behind old Mr. Finch’s house. He was creepy, old Mr. Finch, from then on. We read the books over and over again, and for quite some time we imagined that all the grown-ups in our world, especially the women who appeared to be the most polite and wholesome, were constantly throwing themselves, lusty-eyed, shuddering, and heaving of bosom, at their Peeping Tom neighbors, traveling salesmen, or, in the case of Aunt Nan, bandleaders. We loved devising stories about young Auntie Nan sneaking out, late at night, when old Mr. and Mrs. Whitman were fast asleep. We imagined her running barefoot along the lakeshore in a sheer nightdress, her long hair streaming behind her, her eyes darting this way and that.
“He would be waiting for her,” Sally would say.
“And her panties would be moist,” I would chime in, giggling.
“GROSS,” Sally would say. Then: “His cock was so hard that it ached. He would tear off her nightgown, even though she begged him not to.”
“What? Why would she beg him not to?” I’d ask. I always got bogged down in the logistics, which annoyed Sally.
“The woman always begs the man to stop whatever he’s doing, stupid. It’s in all the books.”
“I guess it would have been hard to explain all the shredded nighties to her parents. Okay, she begged him not to, but he ripped it off her body anyway.”
“With his teeth. Then he’d turn her over so he could see her ripe buttocks,” Sally would offer, and we’d both carry on, constantly interrupting each other, crying with laughter as we spoke.
“He would enter her, he would ram her,” Sally said.
“From behind, he entered her from behind, and that’s when Aunt Nan started bucking like a wild bronco—”
“She was screaming with pleasure and he had to put his hand over her mouth so the people at the inn couldn’t hear them.”
“So she bit him, and then he gave her pert ass a spanking.”
“NO! Aunt Nan’s breasts were pert. Her ass wasn’t pert, it was—” Sally could barely say the words, she was breathless with laughter.
“It was ripe,” I would say.
You can see how it was impossible, some days, for us to look at Auntie Nan without collapsing in helpless giggles. But we adored her. Sally cried so hard at her funeral that our mother felt her forehead to see if she was coming down with a fever.
“Good Lord, dear,” Joan had whispered to her in the church pew. “People can hear you.”
Sally had wiped away her tears and took a few deep breaths to control her sobbing.
In the car, on the way home, Joan said, “Sally, you’re so sensitive. Nan was old. She had a good life.”
Sally and I remained silent in the backseat.
“She’s so emotional,” Joan said to Whit, who was driving. “I really worry about her.”
EIGHT
Riley’s barking woke me up from a very deep sleep. He was racing around the hall, broadcasting a sound that was somewhere between a canine bark and a human scream—a woof, woof WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOF, woof woof WOOOOOOOOOF. I had never heard him go off like that. My heart was racing. I jumped from my bed and peered out into the hall.
Joan came running from her room and grabbed my arm.
“There’s somebody outside,” she whispered.
“No, it’s probably just a raccoon or something.”
“I’m telling you, there’s somebody out there! I heard a car on the driveway. Wait. Shhhh. Listen. Somebody’s on the porch.” She was squeezing my arm hard.
“I can’t hear anything above the dog.”
“If it were a raccoon, Riley would be outside. Listen to the way he’s barking; he’s terrified.”
Joan was right. The dog often took off at night when he heard animals outside, but now he was racing from the door to the front windows and back to the door again, not daring to go out. His barking was shrill and hysterical.
“Should we call nine one one?” I asked, my heart pounding.
“Wait, wait right there,” Joan said. She tiptoed back into her room and then, when she returned, she clutched me by the wrist and said, “Stay behind me. I have the hornet spray.”
“WHAT?”
“SHHHHHH! Just do what I say. When we get downstairs, run into the kitchen and get the phone. I’ll guard the door.”
But I was behind Joan, clutching her nightgown. “Joan, no, no, come with me,” I said. “Come in the kitchen with me.”
Together we descended the stairs until we stood at the very bottom, in the foyer. The dog was whining and circling our feet. I was clutching Joan’s wrist.
“Riley is such a coward,” Joan whispered. “Why won’t he go out and attack?”
“He’s stupid,” I said. “Come on, let’s go in the kitchen.”
“Wait, I don’t hear anything now,” Joan said.
We both stopped breathing.
“It was nothing,” Joan whispered after a moment. “A raccoon, nothing.”
We started toward the kitchen, when suddenly the dog resumed his maniacal barking. The front door remained closed, but a cold gust of air burst from it. The dog door! Whatever it was had just pushed open the flap of the dog door.
“Stop!” Joan cried. “Stop, or my dog will attack!”
We heard the thwap of the dog door and then a thud as somebody tumbled onto the floor. Joan wrenched her arm from my grip. Then she stood, legs planted square like a navy SEAL, turned her face to the side and, yelling, “CLOSE YOUR EYES, LOTTIE!” sent a long jet stream of hornet spray in the general direction of the intruder.
After a brief silence came the scream.
“I’ve called the police!” Joan said. “Get out! Get out!” And she sprayed again, this time holding the nozzle down until she heard the words “MOM! MOMMY.”
It was Sally. It was my sister, Sally.
There followed then a minor hysteria. I switched on the hall light and we saw Sally kneeling, with both hands over her face. She was coughing and crying. “WHY? Why?” she cried. “Why the fuck did you do this to me, Joan?”
“Oh, honey, oh my God, sweetie, I thought you were a killer. I thought you were breaking in.”
“I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe!” Sally was rolling around on the floor now. She wore a black skirt and a white blouse—she must have come straight from a concert—and she was tugging the blouse from where it was tucked into the waistband of her skirt. She rubbed frantically at her eyes with the hem of her blouse.
“Oh God, oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry. I’m calling the ambulance,” said Joan.
“NO!” Sally appeared to be hyperventilating. She was panting. “I can’t breathe.” I was kneeling next to her, trying to pull her hair back from her face, but she pushed me away.
“Honey, I think you’re breathing too much,” Joan said.
“WHAT? You want me … to stop … breathing?” Sally barked. She was coughing between words.
“No, you just need to slow down your breathing. You’re going to hyperventilate.”
“She’s suffocating, Joan, not hyperventilating.” I was crying now, too. “She can’t breathe!”
“I’m calling an ambulance,” Joan said, starting for the kitchen.
“JOAN! NO!” Sally staggered t
o her feet.
“Honey, what if you suffocate?”
“No, Joan, I’m not going to the hospital. Don’t call.”
“Sweetie—”
Sally took a few shaky steps. She was holding my hand. “I just need water.”
“Let me call Everett,” Joan said.
“What? No! I just need to rinse out my eyes. OH, THEY’RE BURNING,” Sally cried.
“Okay, okay,” Joan said, “let’s go rinse out your eyes.”
I led Sally to the kitchen sink. I tried to help her splash water on her eyes, but she pushed me away and stuck her entire face under the running water.
Joan was tapping out a number on the phone.
“Sally,” I said, but she wasn’t listening.
“Sorry to wake you. Can you come over?” Joan was saying.
Sally pulled her face from under the water. “JOAN! Who is that? I told you not to call the hospital!”
“No, sweetie, it’s Everett,” Joan said. Then into the phone: “Sally’s having trouble breathing.”
“Fuck,” Sally said, and put her face back under the cool water.
“I know, but she doesn’t want me to call the ambulance.”
“Because I’m fine,” Sally barked into the sink.
When Everett arrived a few minutes later, Joan and Sally and I were engaged in a sort of shoving match over the sink.
“Get AWAY!” Sally said.
“Let me just see your eyes,” said Joan.
“Let go of her, Joan. Just let her go,” I said.
“I just want to see if her eyes are red!”
“Hey, hey. What’s going on?” Everett asked. We stopped what we were doing and stared up at him. I saw him wince when he looked at Sally, so I looked at her, too. My sister’s eyes were swollen; her cheeks were striped with mascara. She was gasping and sobbing.
“What happened?” he asked.
Sally turned back to the sink and splashed more water on her face.
“I sprayed her with hornet spray,” Joan said.
“What? Why?” Everett asked, then added, “Did you call the ambulance?”
“No, no, no,” Sally said, turning to him now, wiping her face with her sleeve. “Don’t call them.”
“Shhhh, Sally, let me see,” Everett said. He put her face between his hands and gently tilted it up. I could see that the skin around her eyes was scarlet, making the irises—what little we could see of them—seem even more vividly blue than they usually were.
She clutched the front of Everett’s T-shirt and said, sobbing, “I’m fine. My eyes are just—burning a little. I can’t go to the hospital. I won’t go. If you call the ambulance, I’ll send them away.” She coughed, and then said, “I’m fine. It was hard to breathe at first. I don’t need to go. Everett, listen to me, now. Nobody can make me go to the hospital without my consent.”
“Okay, okay, Sal,” Everett said. “Just take it easy.”
Sally pushed her face into his chest. She was a little hysterical. Joan gave me a look, the old there goes crazy Sally look. I glared at her.
“Did you get any of the spray in your mouth, Sal?” Everett asked. “Because if your nose and throat are inflamed, you could have trouble breathing.”
“No, no, no,” Sally said into his chest. “It’s just my eyes. They already feel better.”
“But sweetie, you could have permanent damage,” Joan said.
“Well, maybe you should have thought of that before you blinded me,” Sally shot back.
“I thought she was an intruder,” Joan explained to Everett.
“I am an intruder. It’s what you think of me. You knew it was me. You knew it was me. She wants me to go to the hospital, Everett. It’s what she wants. She wants me gone.”
I stood behind Sally and put my arms around her. “We know, Sally. We know you’re fine. It was all a big misunderstanding. Right, Joan?”
“Yes, yes, sweetie. I thought you were the cleaning man. I thought you were a criminal.”
“Sally, I’ll go with you to the hospital,” Everett interjected. “They’ll just look at your eyes and your throat. You’re right, they can’t make you stay. I’ll bring you back here after, but you really should go. If you got any spray in your throat, you can swell up. You could have trouble breathing.”
“I don’t think it’s in my throat,” she whispered.
“Your voice doesn’t sound so good, Sal,” I said.
“No,” Sally said. “I know what you’re thinking, all of you. I’m fine. Everett, I’ll sleep with Lottie. If I have trouble breathing, she can call you. I’m just going to stay here with Lottie. If it gets hard for me to breathe, she’ll call you and you can take me to the hospital. It’s … I’m already fine.”
Joan said, “It was so stupid of me. I feel awful.”
“I know, Joan,” said Sally, forcing a little smile at our mother. “I know you didn’t do it on purpose.” She clutched Everett’s hand. “I’m fine. I know she didn’t try to hurt me. I know what happened. It wasn’t on purpose. Just—it was all an accident. I know what’s going on. I know it was an accident.”
Sally slept with me in Aunt Nan’s room. Joan gave her some cold cream to wipe the streaks of mascara off her face, and when she came into the bedroom, she did look much better, though her eyes were still swollen. She stood in front of the dresser, examining them in the mirror.
“My face is going to be covered in blisters,” she said.
I sat up in my bed so I could see her face. “I don’t know,” I said, “I think it’s going to peel a little, but I don’t think you’ll have blisters.”
“I hope not.”
“Do you have to go back on Monday?” I asked. “I think it’ll be cleared up by Monday.”
Sally wandered over to the other bed and pulled back the covers.
“I’m not really sure if I’m going back,” she said. “Do you have any weed?”
“No,” I said. “I almost never smoke anymore, but when I do, it’s with Everett. He might still be up.” I leaned over to look out the window.
“No,” Sally said. “Don’t let him see you looking over there.”
“Honey, he can’t see me. He wouldn’t be looking up here, anyway.”
“He might be. I wish Joan hadn’t called him,” Sally said.
“It’s fine,” I said. “Don’t worry. If you want, I could run over there and see if he has a joint or something. Have you been having trouble sleeping?”
“Yeah, a little. I took a sleeping pill, but they never work anymore. I just thought smoking would help take the edge off. I haven’t been sleeping well at all, actually.”
“Sally, let me just run over to Everett’s.”
“No.”
When Sally got sick the first time, when she was at Juilliard, it started with her not being able to sleep. She didn’t sleep for days and then everything became distorted in her mind. It happened again a couple years later, and she ended up in the hospital for over a month.
“No, I’m fine,” she repeated. “Tell me some funny stories. Tell me what Joan’s been up to lately.”
She was lying on her side, facing me. She kept touching her eyes with her hands.
“I don’t think you should keep touching your face, Sal,” I said.
“I can’t help it,” she said, and I saw that her eyes kept filling with tears and that she was trying to wipe them away.
“Are your eyes tearing because they hurt, or are you sad?”
“I don’t know. Just tell me some stories.”
So I told her about poor Mildred and Mr. Clean. She smiled when I told her about Laurel’s crazy life-hack ideas. She wiped away streams of tears with her palms.
“What’s wrong, Sal?”
“I don’t know.”
“I thought you were doing better.”
“I was. I just feel like I’m about to have a sad turn again. And, well, I actually was just replaced as first violinist. I’m not working. I came up here to stay for a wh
ile.”
“That’s great. I mean, I wish I could pretend that I’m sad, about your job and everything, but I’m happy you’re staying. You’ve been wanting to do your own composing, anyway. Now you’ll have time. It’s the summer; we’ll have a great summer.”
Sally put her arm over her eyes. She didn’t want me to see her tears.
“Let’s try to go to sleep,” I said.
“Okay.”
I switched off the light and we just lay there for a few minutes in the dark.
“Lottie, I still have that thing where I’m afraid of being the only one awake,” Sally said.
“Do you really? Still?”
“Yes. Not if I’m alone. If I’m in my apartment alone, I’m fine. It’s just when I’m with somebody else, I get anxious if they go to sleep first. Will you stay awake until I’m asleep?”
“I’ll try.”
“Remember how Whit used to make us read Robinson Crusoe? Remember how he made us memorize parts whenever we said we were bored or couldn’t sleep?” Sally asked. The sleeping pill was starting to work. Her voice sounded far away.
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“I miss Whit,” Sally said.
“I know. Me, too,” I said.
“‘I learned,’” Sally whispered, “‘to look more upon the bright side of my condition, and less upon the dark side…’ What was the rest of it? Something about ‘secret comforts’?”
“I don’t remember,” I said.
“‘All our discontents’—that’s it, Lottie, remember? ‘All our discontents about what we WANT…’ Remember the way he always shouted the word want?”
I smiled in the dark.
Sally continued: “‘All our discontents about what we WANT…’”
I said the rest of the words with her, and, like her, I imitated Whit by lowering my voice and emphasizing the last word: “‘appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we HAVE.’”
“Why Robinson Crusoe?” I said. “Why didn’t he make us memorize poems or Shakespeare or something useful?”
“You know, when I was in the hospital, I had a therapist I saw every day,” Sally said. Her voice was fading.
“Yeah?” I said.