by Ruthie Knox
Ben sighed. Looked at his watch. “That’s family. I’ve got twenty-seven minutes.”
“She doesn’t want to be my family anymore.”
“If you keep being this dense, I’m not going to be able to stop myself from cracking you over the head with a plate.”
He looked like he might mean it, too. Allie wiped her face and tried to sit up straighter. “I’m not trying to be dense.”
“You are, though. She wants the same thing you want. I’m sitting here on the fucking floor, two hours late to be in the kitchen of my restaurant where everything’s probably completely gone to shit in my absence, giving you this pep talk because it’s important.”
“This is not a pep talk.”
“This is the best I can do at pep talk.”
“You’re supposed to say something nice.”
Ben rolled his eyes and huffed out a breath. “Fine. Give me a second…all right, look, you know what? We do this thing before bed.”
“I don’t want to know what you do before bed.”
“Shut up. We do this thing, if I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep, I ask her to talk to me. Tell me stuff. I don’t care what she tells me, it’s not the point, the point is to hear her voice, okay, and keep me distracted, but what she talks about most of the time is you.”
Allie started to cry again. Epically stupid.
“You’re her best friend. Not me. You are. Everything good, just about, that’s ever happened to her, you were right there. It’s always me and Allie this, and Allie and me that, and you know that fucking children’s book she’s trying to sell to her agent is about you, don’t you?”
“What book?”
“Her book that’s in its twelfth or thirteenth draft, what she does all day long, her book. You ask her to show it to you, see if you don’t recognize that skinny big-haired knobbly little kid in the tiara and dress-up outfits trailing some dog around.”
Allie’s throat hurt too much. The hurt extended up to the roof of her mouth. Her stomach ached. “You know what I’m really afraid of? It’s like…I know she loves me. She’s my sister, so she kind of has to. But that doesn’t mean my family’s going to be a family anymore. There’s no reason for us to, exactly. She lives here, and my mom’s on her way out, maybe, and my dad’s back home doing…whatever it is he does when Mom leaves, and May doesn’t want to talk to me, and the thing is, she doesn’t have to. I could see you guys once a year at Christmas, maybe every other Thanksgiving, hug her hello and goodbye, send a birthday present, and that could be what we are now. Lots of people go on like that. And I can’t—”
She couldn’t figure out the words for it. There weren’t words for the way she’d always just wanted May, wanted her and wanted her, her attention and her love and her company, her clothes and her friends, the greedy details of her life.
There wasn’t a way to explain that when she found out about Justin—when she snooped through her mom’s life and figured out where she was going and who she had to be meeting—that it had ripped out something enormous and important from the middle of her life, and part of what it ripped out was her right to May, her right to her sister.
There was no way to tell Ben how incredibly heavy it was to worry about everything, all the time, her family being her family, her sister being her sister, Matt being okay and not hating her, her parents being happy even though her dad wasn’t really her dad and her mom was somebody she didn’t really know, not truly. How heavy, and how impossible, because she didn’t have the keys to unlock the solutions she needed to make any of it better.
“I don’t feel like I can make demands anymore. Like I can be the one to try to keep our family from turning into this other kind of family.”
Ben stood up. He took her plate, then held out his hand. “Come with me.”
He took her to the kitchen, where he handed her the other half of the apple she’d devoured. “Eat it.”
Allie took a bite with Ben glaring at her. Still delicious.
He crossed his arms and sighed. “I don’t know why you think it’s your job.”
“Why I think what’s my job?”
“Fixing shit. Rescuing everyone. It’s not a job anybody ever gave you, it’s a job you assigned yourself, and it’s bullshit.” He opened a cabinet and pulled out a jar of honey. Showed it to her. “This came from a hive in the wall of a bank.”
“Like a display?” She imagined glass walls, bees buzzing behind them, how cool it would be to wait in line to deposit the day’s cash receipts if you could watch bees.
“No, like a bank with rotten sills on the windows and a wall completely infested, where the morons blocked the hive entrance so they had bees coming out the ducts, stinging customers all to fuck. Don’t interrupt me, this is important.” Ben brandished the jar at her. “These bees didn’t belong where they were at. They messed up, made a hive where they shouldn’t, and none of them were happy. The bees weren’t so happy, either. I get the phone call, come in and find the queen, and the bees swarm. You ever seen a swarm?”
She shook her head.
“It’s like a ball of angry bees. Fucking tornado. It’s kind of cool. So my point is, I moved the queen somewhere else, the bees came with her. Everything fell apart. Then it came back together. That’s how it works.”
He was staring at her, fist wrapped around a canning jar of honey, intense and expectant because she was supposed to be getting something.
“Okay.”
He set the jar down on the counter too hard. “Families are the same way. Everybody’s got some job to do, and sometimes something fucks that up. Maybe something good fucks it up, like one person figuring out they could be happier and moving to New York with their boyfriend. Or maybe something bad fucks it up, like their mom turns out to have been running around on their dad for a few decades, but the thing is, either way, they fall apart. Nobody’s happy—not a hundred percent. Nobody’s doing what they’re supposed to, and everybody’s confused and angry and hurt.”
Allie let out a long exhale. “And then…you move the hive?”
He shook his head. “You don’t move the hive. You’re just a fucking bee, in this scenario. The hive gets moved. It falls apart. It comes back together. It falls apart, and it comes back together. That’s the way of everything, except when people tell themselves it can’t be, or block up the hive entrance, or are too stupid to call the fucking beekeeper and ask for help.” He looked at his watch. “I’m leaving in twenty minutes, and before I do you’re going to come back out here from talking to your sister, and everything’s going to be fine. It’s ordinary. You’re just falling apart so you can come back together. Stop thinking you have to prove something and just be Allie, who’s May’s sister, who May loves for reasons that are never going to change and you don’t have to fix.”
Allie looked down the hall toward May’s closed door and set the last few bites of the apple down on her plate. When she breathed in, her chest felt bigger and her body felt lighter.
Things fell apart. Then they came back together again.
She could work with that.
Allie walked down the hall to claim her sister.
—
May hadn’t budged since Allie left the room. She looked up when Allie came in, and this time Allie wasn’t afraid of what she might be feeling or what she might say. May was her sister—her sister by blood, and more important, through a lifetime of shared experiences.
They belonged to each other, and right now Allie needed to belong to her sister more than she needed to feel sad or sorry about the mistakes she’d made.
Feeling sorry wouldn’t fix it. She actually, maybe, if Ben was right, wasn’t in fact in charge of fixing it.
She could just be Allie.
“This isn’t what I want,” she said. “Is this what you want?”
For a long moment May didn’t move. Then she shook her head.
“I didn’t think so. Come on, help me make the bed.” She started at the far end, snugg
ing the fitted sheet more tightly beneath its corner, then moving to the head to do the same. May stood and started doing the same on her end.
This had been one of their chores as kids. Every Saturday they’d stripped and remade the beds with clean linens from the cabinet, washed and dried the dirty sheets, and returned them to their places. Saturdays were for towels, too, and then for whatever outdoor chores Dad assigned them. Saturday nights were for ice cream after dinner, renting family movies, and popcorn.
They straightened the comforter together and tucked the pillows into pockets underneath. “When’s the last time you took a shower?”
“I don’t remember.”
Allie crossed to the dresser, rummaged around for underwear, shorts, and a T-shirt, and handed them to her sister. “You’re taking one now.”
“Don’t boss me.”
“Make it fast, because we only have twenty minutes.”
May sighed.
Allie shoved her toward the bathroom and followed her in, locking the door behind them. She turned on the shower and found the lukewarm temperature May liked. Then she put both hands on her sister’s shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “I’m going to sit on the toilet, and you’re going to shower while we talk. We have a lot to get done and not a lot of time to do it, because I don’t know where or exactly what’s going down on Saturday, but you need to be there with me when it happens.”
May’s lower lip wobbled the way it did when she got scared and wanted to cry. Allie watched her bite it and knew she could list a dozen times when she’d seen her sister bite down on her hurt in that exact way. Softball games, bad dates, Mom taking her shopping and making her feel fat.
She put her cheek against May’s cheek and said, “I love you, May. I love you, and I know I fucked up, but you’re my family and we’re going to do better. Now get in the shower.”
May undressed and got in.
Allie sat on the toilet seat. “I missed you.”
The water ran, the bathroom filling with steam.
“I missed you, too.”
“It’s been kind of an epic year. I think I felt like, after Matt, and with you gone, I had to handle it all by myself. Like you were always the one who kept the family together but now I had to be you, only I didn’t know how to do that.”
“I never kept the family together.”
“Yeah, I’m starting to see that. Like, you had your family, and I had my family, and Mom has her family, and Dad has his, and none of them are exactly the same family. Ben told me this thing about bees—”
“The thing about bees and the bank?”
“Yeah, he’s said that to you?”
“He tells me some version of that story every few weeks.”
“So you know about everything coming apart, and coming back together again. I think I felt like after you left, things were maybe coming apart, and I had to keep them from coming apart. But now I feel like we’ve come all the way apart, or most of the way. Which is a relief, actually.”
The water hit the floor of the shower in loud splashes. May washing her hair. “I knew things weren’t right with Matt,” she said. “But you only ever wanted to tell me how great he is. And, dude, he is not that great.”
“Yeah. I had a big throw-down with him last night.”
“Yeah?”
“I called him and told him he needed boundaries, and to quit acting like he was part of my family and part of my life, because he’s not anymore.”
“Da-a-ng. I wish you had recorded that. When I am finished being mad at you, I would really like some kind of reenactment. I’m pretty sure no one has told Matt no since preschool. Maybe not even then.”
A soft thud and more splashing. May was always dropping the soap.
“I told him I want the dogs back.”
“Good for you.”
“I’m going to start telling you what’s going on with me.”
“I’d like that.”
“And you have to tell me what’s going on with you, too. Like, seriously tell me, including how much money you need, because that’s the one thing I could actually do for you, easy, and you know it. I mean, how many days has Ben got left at that restaurant before he’s going to have to close? The wait staff is a skeleton crew. He’s got a four-star rating on Yelp, and everybody says the same thing—‘Fantastic food, but the service is slow.’ That tells me it’s only a matter of time before he cuts breakfast service completely. He’s probably already dropping things off the menu.”
The water ran. Across from the toilet, Allie’s face was reflected in the bathroom mirror, but only in the bottom quarter where the mirror had a beveled border, distorting her reflection.
She recognized herself, though.
She knew who she was, and how it felt to talk to her sister in a bathroom with the water running, and what she wanted to happen next.
“You know I’ve got the restaurant in my building, right, but did you know I’m an investor? I’ve got a piece of two other restaurants. I’ve got tenants who are creatives, like you, too. I mean, I’m renting out gallery space to this woman who does the most incredible cow paintings, and I’m giving it to her for a pittance and pretending not to notice when she misses rent because her foot traffic sucks but her paintings are good, May. Your stuff is great. You should have a studio, not be sitting around here all the time working by the window in the bedroom and constantly having to chase pencils you dropped out from under the radiators. You’re going to have to tell me stuff. Let me help.”
The water cut off. Allie pushed a folded towel through the gap in the curtain, and after a minute her sister emerged, pink and wet and clean. “I can do that,” May said. “I mean, let me think about the money stuff, but I can tell you all about it. Give me another towel for my hair.”
Allie did, and May twisted it around her head. She looked so much easier now. Tired, but more like herself.
“It’s all I wanted, you know,” she said. “To tell you.”
Allie smiled. “I’m glad.” She took a deep breath. “So you know I met a guy. Winston. I should tell you I’ve been staying with him. He’s really nice.”
“Matt nice?”
“Jesus. No, not like Matt. He’s from London, and he’s divorced. He has a daughter at NYU.”
“Jeez, how old is he?” May brushed her teeth.
“You know, I never asked.”
She spit into the sink. “You wouldn’t.”
“Yeah, so I want you to meet him and Bea—that’s his daughter. Actually, you should meet all of them, Nev and Cath, too. Do you have anything planned today?”
“Just this whateverness with you.”
“You blocked out the whole day, huh? ‘Reconcile with Allie.’ ”
“Maybe it was important to me.”
“Ben says you’re writing a book about me.”
May turned, glaring, but it wasn’t her real glare, it was just the big-sister glare she used to put her in her place. “Don’t sound so pleased. It’s not really about you.”
“He says she has knobby knees and giant hair.”
“He talks too much.”
“I think I might be starting to like him.” She handed May her clothes. “Get dressed. You need to eat something, and we have a ton of shit to figure out.”
After that, it was easy.
Ben left the apartment with three minutes to spare.
Chapter 17
“Wait.” Jean tapped the steering wheel for emphasis. “Hold on just a second. You’re telling me that when you say ‘Dan,’ you mean Dan Einarsson? As in former-Jets-quarterback Dan Einarsson?”
“Yeah.” Allie found the button to roll down her window and stuck her elbow out into the New York sunshine.
They drifted over a bridge in dense traffic, making their way back to the city from May’s place in Queens to lunch with Winston. The East River snaked out beneath them, glittering and blue, and Allie wanted to make herself part of the moment—a real New York moment, on a beautiful summ
er day. “I didn’t tell you before that May’s ex was Dan Einarsson?”
“No, you did not tell me that before. I would have remembered.”
“I thought for sure I told you. Sorry. To me, he’s just Dan.”
Jean shook his head, unbelieving. “ ‘Just Dan.’ ”
“I’ve known him for years. Anyway, I didn’t know you were into football.”
“Psssh. You come to the city on a quest to find your mother and save your family, and it just so happens that your sister’s former boyfriend is the football player Thor Einarsson.”
“I know, right? We Manitowoc girls get around. Anyway, so May calls Dan—”
“Your sister is friendly with him? After she…?” Jean lifted one hand and made a stabbing motion in midair beside his head.
“She stabbed him, yeah, but it was with a shrimp fork, you don’t have to make it seem so dramatic.”
“I saw the video. It was dramatic.”
“You don’t cross my sister. But they worked out their shit amicably, so, yeah, they still talk from time to time. And Dan’s got this foundation—”
“You could get me an autograph, I think. Maybe one of those autographed team balls. My mother runs a charity auction. She’d be out of her mind if I got her an autographed football from Dan Einarsson.”
“Sure. Text me sometime, we’ll set it up, but let’s focus here, all right? Dan’s got this charity he started to help the Syrian refugees.”
Jean nodded. The traffic started to move at a faster clip as they approached the far side of the bridge. “I heard about it on the radio.”
“And my dad’s been collecting donations through my parents’ church back home, which we knew, but it turns out what we didn’t know, and Dan knew, was that my dad’s been going at it hard. He’s collected, like, four semi trucks worth of donations, and Dan is like, you know, ‘What the fuck is up with Bill Fredericks?’ And May’s like, ‘Why didn’t you call me?’ And he’s all, ‘I thought you guys knew, who am I to stick my head in where it doesn’t belong,’ you know? Roll down your window so we can get a cross-breeze.”