The Wrong Sister

by Leanne Davis

  “Sometimes, it kind of feels like it might.”

  He raised a hand to her shoulder and squeezed. “Hang in there, Trace. You can do this. You are doing it already. Look at that, you even brushed your hair.” He tugged on an errant strand of hair near where he rested his hand. She batted his hand and rolled her eyes.

  “Ha-ha, Donald Lindstrom. I brush my hair every day. And I have makeup on. You’re just too used to my sister’s heavy-handed, starlet makeup. Some of us wear it only to enhance our features, and not to completely paint a new face. I’ve seen her without hers, and she looks like a different woman.”

  “You know, insulting her right now isn’t insulting me, right? And don’t call me Donald. I hate that name.”

  “’Cause Donny sounds so much more responsible? I have often wondered, why don’t you go by Don? Or Donald?”

  “I hate my full name. I was always Donny. It just stuck, I guess. Why? Not mature enough for you?”

  She smiled. “No, I just wondered.”

  He lifted his eyes from hers. “It’s weird how much we don’t know about each other. I was just noticing that.”

  “I guess, we were just so generic as in-laws, we never bothered to really get to know each other.”

  “I always thought you were nice, but didn’t realize how little I really knew about you.”

  “Meaning, I’m not really nice?”

  He grinned. “Yeah, kind of. I had you pegged in my head as a goody two-shoes, and kind of prudish.”

  “Wow. How flattering.”

  He shrugged. “Well, you are nice. And you do kind of present that girl-next-door, always happy façade.”

  “Not so happy anymore.”

  He smiled a gentle, kind smile. “No, not so anymore. But you were good with the girls today. Everything comes down to him being gone, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, it does. No matter what I do, or how well I do it, the one thing that dominates everything else is that he’s gone. He left us. Although I haven’t been doing all that much. But thank you. I mean, for today. It meant a lot to the girls.”

  “Well, I know I’m not their father, nor am I trying to be, but I had to do something.”

  “This was more than something.”

  “Yeah, like you do more than something for my daughter.”

  She sighed, knowing she did. He did too. How had they gotten here? They were barely more than passing acquaintances before, always polite and nice to each other, with little kidding around or any real connection. He’d see her at birthdays or Christmas, and she always served him with good manners and a banter of idle conversation. At her parents’ house, or on vacations with the family, that was fine. She had no opinion if he was even there or not. Now? Now, he was someone she saw daily. All the time. He knew what her life was really like. More so than even her parents.

  She tapped her keys against her leg and stepped back. He was suddenly different to her. More interesting. More than just a polite acquaintance she called her brother-in-law. From the start, he was nice to her kids and fully accepted being their uncle without a moment’s hesitation or restraint. He kidded around and pretended to mess with them just to bug them until they were shrieking while he fake-wrestled with them or pretended to mess up their hair. It was his running joke: how long teenaged girls spent fixing their hair, and how quickly he could mess it up.

  Now? His kidding around, teasing, and acting like a dad were all they had left.

  ****

  Ally came home with two Fs in a row on her science and math test. She was missing three assignments in as many classes. Tracy explained the situation to her teachers, and their only solution was to give Ally a little extra time to do the work without incurring a penalty. Time she didn’t use wisely. Twice, Tracy grounded her from attending sleepovers with her friends. Twice more for not getting her homework done.

  She was rude and viciously moody. She finally skipped school one day and went downtown with some eighth graders. Three different people spotted her and called Tracy at home. Tracy packed up Julia and went to collect her wayward daughter, still fielding calls from people who knew Ally. Drawbacks of a small town. Anyone who knew Micah and her would have known they didn’t allow Ally downtown during a school day. But Tracy sensed that Ally’s teenage angst had a point: she was in pain and looking for attention. The problem? It wasn’t Tracy’s attention that she wanted. Ally got plenty of that. All her acting out was for her absentee father. But what could Tracy as the mother do? She couldn’t be Micah. But neither could she allow Ally to skip school and risk falling behind, or continue to yell and scream and swear. She had to put her foot down. She talked to the school guidance counselor and set up meetings for Ally twice a week on top of the private counseling. She tried to talk to her every night and help her with her homework. On three separate occasions, that merely ended with Ally throwing down her pencil, book, calculator, you name it, in disgust and stomping away while shrieking as if in a fit because Tracy couldn’t “help” with her assignments. When it happened again with math, Tracy simply lay her head down on the table and hit it three times in frustration with her forehead. Why? Because she couldn’t do sixth grade math. Holy crap. She had no idea how stupid she was.

  Meanwhile, Kylie withdrew more and more. The more frequently Ally fought with Tracy, while she tried to reason with her, the more Kylie retreated into silence. She was so quiet, and so withdrawn, Tracy became desperate to get her to simply interact with others. Kylie gave up completely on her friends. People started to make fun of her at school. She took to wandering around by herself at lunch, and didn’t seem to care anymore. Tracy couldn’t get her to talk about anything, especially her feelings, which she kept bottled up no matter how hard Tracy tried to intervene. Tracy couldn’t get any response, and she did try. Sitting on Kylie’s bed every night while begging her to talk, Tracy asked twenty questions at a time. She got no response. No new words beyond “fine” or “okay.” There were no smiles or tears. Micah’s desertion had ultimately reduced Ally to a screaming, irrational tyrant and Kylie to a mute, blank robot.

  As her girls worsened, Tracy’s own mood plummeted. She resented Julia’s presence in a way she could not get under control. She didn’t have the mental stamina for her. But every day, Donny came. And every day, the door shut after the girls left for school, and she was alone with Julia, a gurgling, smiling, cooing, shrieking, ready to play and be loved, bundle of happy energy. The few errands she ran were strictly for food and necessities.

  Thanks to her felon husband stealing money and paying off all of her bills, he turned out to be right: she was better off financially than if he’d simply gone to jail. No doubt, he’d be found guilty and all the money he stole would have been frozen and repaid. Strangely, he set her up before walking away from her forever.

  Julia began to walk one afternoon when it was just the two of them. She took her first wobbly step away from the coffee table, and then another, and another before falling on her tush. Tracy rushed to grab her phone and record it for Donny, finally emerging from her apathy long enough to record her niece’s first steps. That meant Julia could really get around now. She was a lot of work and needed constant surveillance. There were times when all Tracy wanted to do after another loud screaming match with Ally, or a silent stand-off with Kylie, just to get them to school, was fall on her bed and sleep all day long. She did not want to spend seven hours dealing with Julia. The diaper changes, meals, playtimes, and supervision were fully lacking in enthusiasm.

  Donny was often late. Tracy gathered that his business must’ve taken a hit, like many others of late. He was trying to cover all his bills and loans, but had nothing left of his own to rely on if he failed. He was often distracted, and usually had deep circles under his eyes. He was as exhausted as Tracy. Hers was mental exhaustion; and his was physical stress from working way too much. She felt guilty she did not have a financial burden. She should have been glad, but sometimes, she wished she had such a responsibility. At least, it
provided motivation, a reason to freaking do something. It might have made her want to get out of bed, instead of longing and dreaming of staying there.

  One night, Donny was late. He walked in without knocking to find Ally and her having another shouting match about Ally’s poor grades. He stopped dead at the kitchen counter and his head swiveled between them. Ally had the good grace to snap her mouth shut and allow silence to reign.

  “What is going on?” he finally asked, addressing Tracy.

  “Her failing grades. Her missing assignments. Her attitude. Now, she’s skipping school. Take your pick. I’m sure there’s more I don’t know about,” Tracy said recklessly. She was almost beyond caring about Ally’s hurt feelings.

  Donny turned to Ally. “Is all that true?”

  Ally shrugged, averting her gaze. She stiffened her back and flung her hair over her shoulder. “Yeah. Most of it. So what? Mom is even too stupid to help me with my homework. If she can’t do it, then obviously, I don’t need it.”

  Donny stepped around the counter, and right into Ally’s space. He glared down at her. “Alissa McKinely! Do not call your mother stupid, or any other name. You think you don’t have to do all this stuff? Why? Because your father left? You think it gives you free rein to do whatever you want, however you want? Well, it doesn’t. Nothing does. I’m sorry he left you, Ally. I really am. Everyone around you is sorry for you. Including your own mother. She has gotten you counseling and help at school, and she’s always here for you. I know that, and I don’t even live here. She was left too, young lady. She’s in as much pain as you. So quit attacking and blaming her.”

  “Donny, stop.” Tracy stood up and stepped closer. “She needs a place to express herself.”

  “She can do all the expressing she wants. But not by blaming you. Not like that. She knows the difference of talking about her feelings and attacking you, or calling you stupid. Your dad was stupid, Ally. He’s the goddamned idiot that left all he has here. Not your mother. She’s here every day for you. You know that. So stop punishing her for what you both have to endure.”

  Tears started to fall down Ally’s face. “You don’t understand!”

  Tracy stepped closer and wrapped her in her arms. She glared at Donny. Where did he get off? “Stop it. You can’t begin to imagine what this is like for a young girl.”

  “You get all the understanding anyone could need from your mother. The same mother you use and abuse. No more, young lady. Calling your mother names at any age, for any reason, is not okay. Tracy just temporarily forgot that in all her guilt.”

  Her mouth dropped open, but Donny ignored her and continued. “So, first off, you start doing all your homework and get your grades back up. Until you do, you don’t play fast pitch. And if I ever hear you speak to your mother that way again, I swear to God, you don’t want to know what I’ll do. Losing a few privileges will be the least of it. Do you get me?”

  Ally pushed back from Tracy and raised her head. “You’re not my father. You’re not my parent! You can’t tell me what to do. You can’t take away my fast pitch. Tell him, Mom! Tell him he can’t do that!”

  Tracy, meanwhile, stepped back and listened to Ally screaming her protest. Donny raised one eyebrow as he met her gaze as if waiting to see whose side she’d take. She swallowed and stared down at her hands, then back up at him.

  “He can do that. We are going to do that. He’s right. You can’t call me names because you’re in pain. There are other ways to deal with it, and that isn’t it. If I could take your pain away, I would. I hope you know that. But I cannot allow you to channel it in negative and unhealthy ways. So starting today, you concentrate on your homework. You have two weeks to get caught up and at least start pulling up your grades. If you don’t, in two weeks time, you’ll stop playing fast pitch.”

  “Oh my GOD! You can’t do that. I’m first base! The team relies on me. You can’t simply make me stop. I won’t do it.”

  Tracy stepped closer this time and pushed her finger into Ally’s chest. “I can and I will. I pay for it, Ally. Not you. You think you can afford all the fees for uniforms and travel costs? Yeah, right. I totally can and will do that. It’s on you now. So I suggest you go upstairs and hit the books.”

  Donny nodded his head at her. His expression was still stern, but his mouth twitched from a grim line of disapproval toward Ally, to a slight smile at Tracy, as if to say, “good job.” “Actually, if you’ll calm down, I could probably help you with the math you were having trouble with. I took a lot of it in college. But only if you apologize first to your mother.”

  Ally’s tears dried while she listened to Tracy. Her chest rose and fell in short, fast breaths. She was angry when she was crying, but she was pissed off to a whole new level now. Tracy waited for the next explosion. Ally had a staring contest with both of them.

  “Which is it, Ally? Fast pitch and homework? Or more trouble and being miserable with a whole lot more time spent here?”

  She turned around with a dramatic flip of her hair and stomped her feet. “Fine. I’ll get my grades up. I can’t believe you would do this to me after what Dad did.”

  “And?” Donny persisted, both eyebrows raised.

  Ally stopped dead, turned back around, and rolled her eyes. “Fine. I apologize, Mom. I shouldn’t have called you stupid.”

  “Yes, and it should be pointed out that you couldn’t do the math in question either, and you even had a lesson in school today about it, right?”

  Ally heaved a deep sigh, and kind of smiled. “You got me there, Uncle Donny.”

  Donny grinned, but behind her back, he made a face at her. Tracy finally found a reason to smile back, and she mouthed to him, “Thank you.”

  He mouthed back, “Thank you, too.”

  Tracy was glad when she realized they were literally covering each other’s backs with all the problems of parenting. She provided the TLC a young toddler needs from a mother to Julia, and Donny provided the stern, strict, discipline despite Ally’s emotions, that were traditionally the father’s role to a young, blossoming, but willful girl. At least, that was how she and Micah usually handled things. Now that it was all on her, she decided she wasn’t very good at it.

  Donny and Ally sat at the kitchen table for over two hours. He reviewed several lessons with her and explained the work with irrational integers, which Ally was currently learning. It was stuff Tracy vaguely remembered, but not well enough to explain to Ally. So she simply played longer with Julia in the living room until the little girl fell asleep on the couch.

  Donny came in finally and lowered his big body gently to sit next to Julia. He touched her leg. A soft smile curled his lips. Tracy looked away. Sometimes seeing such fatherly pride and the protective way Donny watched and cared for Julia hurt her because that was what Micah was supposed to give her children.

  “How long has she been like this?”

  “Since he left.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Say what? My teenager abuses me? I think that’s pretty typical isn’t it? I don’t know, I’ve never had one before.”

  “She is only eleven. Not a teenager quite yet. And I don’t care how others are, yours are forbidden to call you names.”

  “Because you threatened her. Not me. She’ll sense I’m not that forceful. I still can’t command her respect on my own. And I still can’t do the math. So maybe I am stupid like she says.”

  Donny leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “You’ll learn. That’s one thing my dad always taught us: no disrespecting our mother. He was quiet and unassuming most of the time, until we did anything disrespectful to my mom, then watch out. Yeah, well, all that motherly, emotional support and talking you do? Tell me, when Julia is old enough, how the hell am I going to provide that? I listened to you when you told them about Micah leaving, and I was in awe. Really. I had no idea how to go about explaining that to your kids. You were magnificent.”

  She snorted and lay back flat
on the floor. She was in the process of cleaning up Julia’s toys. “I don’t remember the last time I was magnificent. But thank you, for tonight.”

  “Thank you for everyday.” She didn’t glance up, but could almost feel his eyes on her. Silence crept into the room.

  “Donny?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I suck at this.”

  “Being a single parent? So do I. Look, if you can provide Julia a little extra love and care like you have been, I can help Ally with her homework. And Kylie too.”

  She raised her head up off the floor and swung her legs underneath to sit up. “Do you mean that? You’d do that? After a full day of working?”

  “A full day of working I can only do because of you. Of course.”

  “Thank you. That would be very much appreciated.”

  “Ditto that.”

  Chapter Nine

  “MAMA!”

  “No, honey. Auntie. Aunt Tracy. I’m not your mommy.” Tracy sighed as Julia merely grinned wider and stuffed the entire cookie she held into her wet, drooling mouth. Julia kept calling her “Mama.” That started a few days ago. Tracy didn’t think too much about it at first. Julia made lots of unrecognizable sounds, and a few words.

  She always tried to keep the toddler somewhat at arm’s length so as not to let her get too attached. But after spending hours and days with Tracy, how could the poor little thing not become attached to her? But Tracy didn’t want the baby to be so confused as to who her real mother was. Tragically, however, she was.

  Vickie was on day thirty in rehab. The treatment lasted a full ninety days. No matter how many times Tracy corrected Julia’s “Mamas,” Julia kept calling her that.

  When Donny came in that evening, he immediately called Ally downstairs and asked for her homework. As they finished and she shuffled off to her room, Donny turned to Tracy. “Do you mind watching Julia tomorrow?”

  “Why? It’s Saturday.”

  “Visitation day. I want to see Vickie.”

  “Oh? Yeah then.”