“I had to tell him. He’s your dad.”
“I’m not going to live with him. I’ll kill myself first,” Eli shot back, and Julia felt as if she’d been punched in the chest. This was the first time he’d made the threat so directly, and they were some of the most frightening and hopeless words a mother could hear.
She knew she needed to do something, to say something, to call someone. This was it. He was making outward threats. It was time for intervention.
But she was home. On this godforsaken farm. She was burying her father in five days. It was Christmas, for God’s sake.
And, she had to admit to herself, she was weak. She’d spent so much of her identity in the professor half of herself, she had no idea how to be the mom half. She didn’t think she could live through it. She didn’t want to have a son with problems. She wasn’t equipped.
“Don’t worry,” she told Eli, because soothing was the only thing she could think of that she had left. Was the only thing she’d been good at. “I’ll talk to Dusty again. I’ll calm him down.”
She gazed into her son’s deep brown eyes, mostly buried under all that hair, and for the briefest second she thought she saw her baby in those eyes. The smiling, jolly little boy who loved to kick soccer balls at the park and who thought stars were the coolest thing ever. But then she noticed the crease between his eyebrows, the unhappy droop to the outer corners of his eyes, and the baby vanished. This was her son. Her hurting child. And she couldn’t fix him. Couldn’t reassure him with a clucking tone.
He glared at her for what felt like forever, parted his lips as if to say something, then seemed to think it pointless and simply walked out of the kitchen, his threat lingering, ugly, beating in the room like a living thing.
She was only vaguely aware of Bradley at the table, tapping on his BlackBerry. And then of him leaving the room without a single word. Probably to check on Maya. She’d said she wasn’t feeling well, after all.
It wasn’t until much later, when her heart stopped banging so painfully against her ribs, that she realized.
Bradley had not gone to check on his wife as she’d thought. He had not even gone upstairs.
He had followed Claire to the sunporch.
Six
Evening approached in slow motion. Behind the closed door to Maya’s room, it remained dark and quiet. The kids bustled around the kitchen with Elise, who had come away from the front door holding a casserole and saying something about the whole lot of them joining a slew of neighbors at Sharp’s for a dinner in Robert’s honor.
“What a thoughtful invitation,” she’d said. “I’d never known he had such friends.”
Julia had been shocked, quite honestly, to hear that her father had any friends at all. How could the same man who once yanked her pigtail so hard he came away with a fistful of hair be someone others thought of as decent? Not for the first time, Julia found herself wondering what kind of double life the man had lived—the abusive and ugly man at home, and the presentable one away. Surely he had lived that double life. Surely her mom had not been seduced by the man they’d all lived with. He must have shown her a different side of himself as well, at least in the beginning. To think otherwise was just . . . depressing.
Claire had come inside only long enough to grab Elise’s coat again, and had disappeared out the front door, her tan legs gleaming against the whiteness outside. She said nothing about where she was going—just left with a determined stride, and it was obvious that Bradley was not with her. Later, Julia would peer out the back door to find him sitting on the steps of the sunporch, all but camouflaged by that blasted jungle of poinsettia plants, a bottle of booze she’d not seen him procure squeezed between his thighs.
The house ticked and creaked as dusk raced toward them, the children’s voices floating, the silence of dysfunction enveloping them all. Eli, stretched out across his cot in Julia’s bedroom like a mummy. Maya, silent and brooding behind a darkened door. Claire, outside in the whipping wind. Bradley, getting drunk alone in a cloud of humid plant stench.
It all made Julia feel so bleak, so empty, that she suddenly felt that if she didn’t speak to someone soon, she might break.
Sitting on the hearth in the den, staring at the Christmas tree, which was all but bowled over by handfuls of garish tinsel—what on earth had possessed her mother to pile all that tinsel on there?—Julia pulled out her cell phone and dialed home.
“You’re there.” Tai.
A sigh, heavy with relief, shuddered through Julia’s body. Just hearing her husband’s voice made her feel better, feel grounded.
“I’m here.”
“And the others?”
“They’re here too. Everyone. Maya brought the whole gang.”
“Aw, Doc, I should’ve come.”
Julia smiled at Tai’s use of their shared nickname. They’d begun calling each other “Doc” years ago, when they graduated within one week of each other, both with their doctorates. For a while, just the word doc would spawn luxurious afternoons of excited sex between them—they were so turned on by themselves. But eventually it became just a nickname, something private and intimate between the two of them. He hadn’t called her Doc in ages.
“I do wish you were here with us.”
“But the project.”
She nodded, even though she knew he couldn’t see her. She was well aware of how important his research project was to him. He’d been working on it for years, and it was nearing completion. To ask a scientist to step away from a project this close to the finish line would have been almost cruel. He’d have come for Robert’s funeral if that was what she’d wanted, but he’d have been little consolation anyway. His mind would have been with his students, his research.
But, still. To hold his hand. To lean back against him and feel him stroke her hair.
“It’s okay, Tai. It’s not a big deal. But there’s been a change. I’ve got to stay until the twenty-seventh.”
There was a pause. “Through Christmas?”
“I know. But we were going low-key this year anyway.” He didn’t comment. “It’s just a date on the calendar. There’s been a hiccup in the funeral plans.”
A burst of air into the phone. “Okay. You’re right. It’s just a date. We’ll have Christmas on the twenty-eighth.”
“I’m sorry. You can come down here for Christmas.”
“No, no, it’s okay. I’ll just work. How’s Eli? Loving the rural life?”
Julia took a deep breath, peering toward the bedroom where she knew her son was still lying down. Chewed the side of her thumb, which smelled like smoke, filling her with a wave of guilt. She’d promised them both that she would quit smoking. As far as either of them knew, she had. Tai claimed that a scientist such as herself had no business partaking in any activity that had already been proven to shorten the human life span, unless said scientist was studying cures for said life-span shortening. Eli, on the other hand, just claimed it stank.
“About that,” she said. “Listen, Tai, I had to call Dusty.”
“Lovely. And what did the ex have to say today?”
“I told him about . . . about something I caught Eli with a couple of months ago.”
“Caught him with? You caught him with something?”
Julia massaged her forehead, realizing she was too close to tears to ward them off. “Pills,” she said, feeling her mouth move around the word, as revolting as vomit. “He was . . . he was threatening suicide.”
She heard another burst of air from the other end of the phone, and she knew her husband well enough to know that he’d just made the noise that said he didn’t believe it for a second. A pshaw noise. It was all a jest. She wished she could be as sure as he was.
“That kid,” he said. “And so Dusty is making a big deal of this.”
Annoyance tinged the edges of Julia’s brain. It w
as a big deal, wasn’t it? “Yes, of course he is. He’s threatening court.”
A chuckle. “Let him threaten.”
“It’s not that simple, Tai.”
“Of course it is. Dusty is no more the superior parent now than he was when you won custody of Eli twelve years ago. Under our roof, Eli has two educated, employed parents, a new home in a gated community, friends, every educational resource at his disposal. . . .”
So why does he want to die? Julia had to keep herself from asking. If his life’s so great, why does he want to leave it? And why can’t I ask him? And would he even tell me? And if he won’t, is that the answer in itself?
“I suppose you’re right,” she said instead, because to articulate all the confusion looping through her mind would just exhaust her. Even thinking it exhausted her.
“I know I’m right. Don’t let that asshole get into your head, Julia. He’s been doing it since you were sixteen years old.”
“I know.” The fire crackled; her back felt as if it were glowing with heat.
“Listen, we can talk about this later if you want. I’m going to the school today,” he said. “Got some paperwork I might as well catch up on.”
“Of course.”
“You going to be okay? I can come down.”
“No, I’ll be fine.”
“Good, because I really do think I’m about at the finish line with this project. A few days alone might do it for me.”
“That’s wonderful, Tai.”
A pause, a metal lid clanging in the kitchen, a screen door creaking open and then clapping shut. “Tai?”
“Yeah?”
“You really think he’s not going to do it?”
“Not when he figures out how expensive taking you to court will be. Besides, even if he does do it, you’ll win. Dusty is no threat.”
“No, I mean . . .” Julia swallowed, craned her neck to see if anyone was in the den, listening. She swiveled on the hearth, the bricks catching the corners of her denim pockets and making scraping noises, until she faced the fire. She gazed into the flames, feeling fluid and boneless. Like she’d been holding herself erect for decades and all she needed was to curl up for a good, long rest. “Do you really think Eli was bluffing? About the suicide?”
“Doc. He’s fine. He’s a teenager. They all say that kind of shit. You can’t take every little threat seriously. You know that. You work with teenagers every day. We both do. We know how they are.”
But we’re not their parents, Julia didn’t say to him. The stakes aren’t as high for us when it’s them. Even the students you really love are someone else’s child.
He went on. “Remember that freshman in your physics class last year? The one who said if she didn’t get an A she would jump off the Paseo Bridge? Bluff. And that weirdo in one of your first classes who threatened to find our house and burn it down? Bluff. See? They all say stuff like that. We probably did too, and we just can’t remember it.”
She didn’t want to, but at the moment what choice did she have but to let her husband’s words soothe her? That was why she’d called him, after all, wasn’t it? A part of her had known he would undersell the story, and after her phone call with Dusty and her conversation with Claire, that was exactly what she needed—someone to tell her that everything would be okay. That it wasn’t a big deal. That Eli’s threat was normal behavior and she could relax.
So she closed her eyes and leaned into the phone, into Tai’s words. Let the fire lick her cheeks and hold her up.
“You want me to talk to him?” Tai said, though she could hear weariness in his voice and papers rattling in the background.
“No. He’s taking a nap. We’ve got some sort of dinner thing to go to this evening, so I’m letting him rest.”
“How does he seem to you?”
She gnawed at her thumb again. “He’s . . . you know, we’re here for a funeral . . . and Dusty called him, which he didn’t like.”
“So, petulant as always.”
“I suppose so.”
“See? Nothing to worry about. He’s acting like himself.”
“I suppose so.”
There was more rattling of papers, and what Julia recognized as the scraping of Tai’s desk drawer sliding open and then shut again. She heard a jingle of car keys. “You sure you don’t want me to come down?”
For one maddening minute, Julia wanted more than anything to say yes. Her mouth even opened, her lips ready to form the word. But she knew she couldn’t bring Tai into this already heated situation. Tai’s aloofness would only bring more awkwardness to the dinner table. And he had his work. He needed to do his work. If she stood between him and his work, his mood would be more than aloof. It would be agitated and snippy too. And, really, what could he do here?
“I’m positive. Stay there. Get lots done. We’ll be okay. We’ve got a few days. Maybe I’ll teach him to skate down at the creek or take some hikes with him or something.”
“See? That’s the winning spirit. Show him you’ve got things under control. Let him know these kinds of threats won’t work, that life goes on.” The jangling car keys got louder. “I’ve got to get, then, before Art leaves for the night. As you know, willing grad student helpers are only willing until the parties start.”
“Yeah, of course.” Julia said, purposely lightening her voice. Making herself sound bright and cheery. So stupid. Why was it never okay for her to lose face? Was she that much like Maya? “Love you.”
“Yeah, love you too, Doc.”
And he was gone.
Julia stood and twisted her back one way and then the other, feeling her skin stretch tight with heat. In some ways, she felt, she had it all. More than either of her sisters. Why was she wallowing like a spoiled child?
She gazed at the tree for a long moment, taking in her elongated reflection on a blue ornament. She saw no misery there. She only saw . . . herself.
“And a shitload of tinsel,” she said aloud, and pulled down two big handfuls before heading to the bedroom, where she could lie down for a few minutes alongside her son before dinner.
Seven
Sharp’s had been around forever. Julia remembered it from her childhood, back when the city was more of an energetic town and there were precious few restaurants to be had. Not that her family frequented restaurants anyway. This deep in the country, you ate the food from your own land. Vegetables, grown and canned, pickled, boiled into preserves, frozen. Cattle, butchered and stored in town in a smelly meat locker. Fish pulled from the pond behind the tree line. Even honey harvested from the white beehive boxes that lined the perimeter of the soy field.
Julia was married before she’d tasted her first commercially canned green bean, her first jar of store-bought jelly, her first carton of ice cream bought from a supermarket. It had taken a long time to get used to the texture of preserved foods, the taste of the can.
But on the few occasions that the family had gone out, it was almost always to Sharp’s. Robert had liked the fried okra there, and it was one vegetable they didn’t grow in their own garden, so he felt justified buying it. Of course, Robert felt justified doing most anything he wanted to do. It was only Elise and the girls whose wants he denied.
Stepping in through the front door, Julia noticed that little had changed since her childhood. The same dirty black-and-white tile held the same scuff marks, and the same jukebox sat dusty and mute in the corner. The place still smelled of old frying oil, and the chairs were still sticky against the backs of her arms.
She half expected to see her father, flannel sleeves rolled to the elbows, frowning and chewing methodically, holding a fork in one fist and a knife in the other, at one end of the table. Silent to everyone, and everyone wanting it that way, because when he spoke at the dinner table it was only because someone had tested his last nerve, and it was frightening and appetite-killin
g. She would never have thought it, but Sharp’s really did make her think of her father. In some ways, she may have felt his absence there even more than she did his absence at home.
She tried to drum up a feeling of mourning, but nothing would come, other than a remote sort of grief, a loss that she couldn’t quite feel because she’d spent so many years of her life pounding it away, pounding him away from her heart. You couldn’t miss something you never had. She supposed she had grieved him little by little, year by year, many years ago, and now, where he should have existed in her heart, there was simply a void.
Julia couldn’t be sure, but she was almost positive that she could remember a time, way back before her sisters were born, when Robert had occasionally smiled. When he hadn’t worn that angry vein in his forehead all the time. When her parents seemed flirty, happy. Could it have been the pressures of the family and the farm that made him who he was? Julia hated to think so, and she hated to have those fond memories, even foggily, because it was just so much easier to feel nothing but distance.
They trailed into the restaurant, one by one, and Julia pretended not to notice that the dinner crowd had seemed to stop and clam up, as if witnessing something spectacular. She wondered if the small-town gossip train still rolled through this area, if she and her sisters were speculated about, reviled. She wondered if her father ever came into Sharp’s alone and told stories of ungrateful children over sweaty glasses of stale beer. She wondered if what had happened at the Chuck Wagon was still legend to some folks. She didn’t know why, but she thought it likely.
The waitress led them to a room in the back. This, Julia didn’t remember, and the slightly modern decor of the add-on room was a physical reminder that time had apparently marched on, even at Sharp’s, while she’d been away.
“This work?” the waitress asked, and Julia nodded, appraising the long table, already set. The waitress methodically placed a menu at every place setting while the rest of the family filed in and began claiming seats. “Real sorry about your dad,” the waitress said on the way out, and again Julia just nodded. What was to be said? She was certain that the man the waitress was sorry to hear about couldn’t have been the man who’d bellowed in the barn, his fists of rage frightening and painful against the sides of her skull.
The Sister Season Page 7