Slide

by Jill Hathaway

  Stooping down, I look through the eyepiece. Despite the light pollution in our neighborhood, I’m able to make out Polaris, the North Star, and from that I’m able to identify Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Mama bear and baby bear. There’s something so comforting to me about the constellations, the mother and baby, cradled in the sky for all eternity. I stare until the stars go blurry and my breath goes soft.

  Something in my pocket pokes me. I pull it out and smooth it against my jeans. It’s the page from the calendar that Sophie taped to our door earlier. I start to feel woozy, like I might slide. Oh no. Not again. My vision pulses, and my knees go out, and I fall deep, deep down, into a hole.

  I’m sitting at a white desk, a pad of fancy stationery angled before me. Words crawl like spiders across the page, flowing from the pen in my gloved hand.

  Who am I?

  And why am I wearing gloves?

  The words I’m writing say: I don’t deserve this.

  As I stand, I notice the pink walls and the pictures of ballerinas. Sophie’s room.

  There is no sound.

  I turn away from the desk, and I see the bed. It’s definitely Sophie’s bed, but it’s a different color now. Earlier, the bed was covered with a pristine white comforter. Now, the bed is dark maroon. And wet. So wet. There’s something on the bed. It is Sophie. Her inky-black hair frames her white face. Her arms lie helpless at her sides, a long slash in each wrist.

  No.

  No.

  This isn’t happening.

  That’s when I see what I’m carrying in my gloved hands. A long, silver blade.

  Oh. Shit. Oh. No.

  Who did this to her? Who did I slide into?

  But, before I can figure it out, I am gone.

  My eyes fly open, and I sit up, grabbing at my legs, my head, my face, to make sure I’m really back. The light from the streetlamp shines in my eyes, blinding me for a moment until I dodge out of the way. I pull myself to my feet and look around. Telescope, rocking chair, heap of dirty clothes. I’m back in my room.

  What happened?

  My eyes fall on the small piece of paper on the floor— the one I thought Sophie had taped to our door earlier. If she’d been the one to put it there, I would have slid into Sophie just now.

  But I didn’t.

  I slid into someone else. Someone bad. Someone with a knife.

  The memory of Sophie and her open wrists spurs me into action. I have to call, make sure she’s okay. The only problem is that I don’t have her number.

  Mattie and Amber do.

  I dash out the door and down the dark hallway to my sister’s room. But there’s no one there. Her bed is empty, the wrinkled sheets nestled around no one. Mattie and Amber are still out.

  I look at the clock. It’s nearly midnight.

  They should have been home by now if they were just going to a movie. As I return to my room to find my phone, I wonder what happened to them. Most likely they just crashed at Samantha’s house for the night.

  They’re fine, I reassure myself. Mattie is fine.

  I dial Mattie’s number and wait. No answer. I dial again. No answer.

  I make myself sit down and breathe. Just breathe.

  For a moment, I think about calling my father. It’s odd that he’s not home by now. The only reason he’d still be at the hospital is if the conjoined twins are having problems, in which case I can’t really call him up and bother him.

  What do I do?

  If I look up Sophie’s home phone number, I can call her parents. The number on my clock says 12:03. It’s so late. They’ll be angry.

  Shaking my head, I realize that of course I have to call them. If what I saw was real, someone has to help Sophie. Now.

  I fire up my laptop and type in Sophie’s last name. Jacobs. There are six listings under that name in our area. I have no idea what her parents’ names are. I’m going to have to try each of them.

  I call the first number. No one picks up.

  On my second try, a groggy-sounding woman answers.

  “Is Sophie there?”

  “You must have the wrong number,” the woman says angrily, and hangs up.

  Please let the third time be the charm. Please.

  The phone rings.

  “Hello?” a man asks cautiously.

  “Is Sophie there?”

  “She’s asleep, like I was just a moment ago.”

  “Please, sir. Please go check on her.”

  “What is this about—”

  “Please, I don’t have time to explain. Please go check on her.”

  I hear the man set the phone down. A second passes, stretching out into forever. Another second. Another.

  And then the screaming begins.

  I sit up, groggy and confused. After swiping my hand over my eyes, it comes away smeared with black eye makeup.

  My alarm clock says it’s noon.

  All at once, the night before rushes back to me like a bad dream. Blood on white sheets. Sophie’s blood. The screams. The terrible screams.

  The phone had gone dead after only about a minute, but I know the sounds of terror will live in me forever. I tried to call back several times, but the phone line was busy. Sophie’s father must have hung up and called 911.

  I’d sat up in bed for the longest time, chewing caffeine pills and waiting for Mattie and Amber to get home. I was determined not to close my eyes until I knew my sister was safe. But that’s the thing about sleep—you can’t avoid it forever. It waited until my defenses were down and sucked me under.

  I trip over my blankets, racing to my sister’s room. It’s still empty. Where could she be?

  I hear something down the hall—someone in the bathroom, retching into the toilet. I run to the door, try the knob, but it’s locked. I bang on the door.

  “Mattie!”

  The noise stops long enough for the person in the bathroom to croak out a response. It’s Amber. “Stop. Yelling. Mattie’s in the kitchen.”

  My bare feet slap against the wooden steps as I run down to the kitchen. I have to find Mattie, have to tell her before she finds out on her own.

  When I reach the kitchen, though, I see that I’m too late. Mattie is sitting on the floor, her back to the cabinets. Her skin is deathly pale. The mascara that’s migrated to her cheeks looks like Japanese characters. She clutches her cell phone in a colorless hand.

  “Mattie?” I say softly.

  She shows no sign of hearing or understanding.

  “Mattie.” I sink down next to her on the yellow tile and wrap my warms around her. My touch seems to bring her to life, and she turns her head toward me.

  “It’s Sophie,” she says. “She’s dead.”

  Mattie shakes under my hug.

  “She killed herself.”

  The night before washes over me, and I’m pulled back into the nightmare. I can see Sophie’s wide, dead eyes. I remember the way the knife felt in my hand.

  Sophie didn’t kill herself.

  She was murdered.

  And I was there.

  By the time I scrape Mattie off the kitchen floor and help her to her bedroom, Amber is gone, leaving behind only a small puddle of puke in the bathroom.

  I tuck Mattie into bed, pull the covers up to her chin like I would for a child. She is a child, I have to remind myself. No matter how much rum she drinks or how short her skirts are or how she tells me to mind my own effing business, she is only a child. The evidence is everywhere— the unicorn collection on her shelf, the ballerina jewelry box on her bureau, the way she holds my hand and asks me not to leave. I tell her I’ll only be gone a second, just long enough to call Dad and let him know what’s going on, but she shakes until I give in and stay.

  Around one, I hear the front door open. A breathy voice drifts down the hall, singing a pop song. Vanessa, our cleaning lady. She comes every Saturday to do the vacuuming and the scrubbing and the dusting.

  “Knock, knock,” she calls out, swinging open Mattie’s door.
She wears super-tight jeans and a low-cut black shirt, more appropriate for dancing at a club than cleaning a house. Her eyes widen in alarm when she spots Mattie in bed, looking positively terminal. “What happened?”

  I rise and block Vanessa’s view, mouthing, Hangover. Vanessa, still in college, nods in sympathy. She ducks back out of the room and shuts the door so softly I can barely hear the click.

  When Mattie is finally snoring, I tiptoe out of the room and dial my father’s number.

  That night, Mattie and I sit on the stairs, waiting for the front door to open. Dad said he’d be home in an hour, but it’s nearing dinnertime. Something must have gone wrong with the twins. Something big must have happened, to keep him away when something this major is going on.

  Mattie leans her head against the wall. A family photo in a silver frame hangs a foot above her head; in it, she and I are frozen in time—she is nine, and I am eleven. Between us, Mickey Mouse grins, but we cannot bring ourselves to smile. Our mother had died a month before. When my dad was going through the thickest stretch of his forest of grief, he sent us to Disney World with his parents. Why anyone wanted to document that trip, why he chose to hang this picture on the wall when we were so clearly a broken family, is anyone’s guess. Maybe he needed to prove to himself that life does indeed go on, even after your wife dies, even after your children’s mother is gone.

  My left hand hovers over my sister’s shoulder. I feel like I should rub her back the way Sophie’s mother rubbed hers when she was upset, but I can’t quite bring myself to do it. Something in the gesture would be false. I can’t offer her the comfort she needs right now. In order to give something, you need to have it inside of you to give. And right now there’s not anything inside me at all.

  Nothing but the image of Sophie’s dead body. It’s all I can see. It’s all I am.

  All day, I’ve been picking up my cell phone, imagining myself dialing the number for the police station. But then I get stuck. I can’t think of what I’d say. I can’t think of how to explain.

  I’m just about to get up and go into the kitchen to look for something to microwave for dinner when the door swings open. My dad stands in the doorway, a duffel bag slung over his trench coat and bags under his eyes.

  “Daddy!” Mattie runs to him and wraps her arms around his thin frame. He circles his arms around her, but there’s a stiffness to his movement.

  His eyes drift up to me. “I’m so sorry, girls. It was touch and go at the hospital. We thought one of the babies might have a blood clot. It was life or death.”

  “I’m going to see what’s in the freezer,” I announce, standing. I’m ashamed of the way I feel—resentful that those babies should take priority over us, his own flesh and blood.

  “No, Vee. We need real food. I’ll make something.” He pulls back from Mattie gently.

  “That’s ridiculous, Dad. You’re exhausted. I’ll just make a frozen pizza.”

  He waves away my concern and grabs Mattie’s hand, pulling her into the yellow light of the kitchen. “I’m fine.”

  I follow them, if only to make sure my father doesn’t pass out standing up. Mattie takes one of the stools behind the counter, and I take the other. Together, we watch my father spin the knob on the oven and pull items out of the refrigerator: eggs, butter, an eggplant.

  Watching him cook soothes me more than anything he could say. He guides a knife through the purple bulb with expert precision, cutting thin, even slices. Each egg makes a satisfying crack when he taps it against the sink. Each strip of eggplant is dipped in the egg mixture and then in bread crumbs and then laid carefully in a pan. Finally, he sprinkles flakes of cheese on top and then slides the pan carefully into the oven.

  Though my father has a recipe for my mother’s famous eggplant parmesan in a bright-orange recipe book on the shelf above the sink, he’s made it so many times he doesn’t even need to look.

  The recipe book, printed in my mother’s own handwriting, has been a guide for him throughout the years. A recipe for every scrape, every disappointment, every heartbreak. It’s his way of channeling my mother when he doesn’t know what to do, what to say.

  He turns and looks at us, his two girls, and only then do I see his tears.

  My dad sits at the head of the table, like he always does when he’s home for dinner. Mattie lowers her head, hands folded, as he recites the prayer. I fiddle with my napkin.

  “Bless us, O Lord . . .”

  I notice Mattie fingering my mother’s gold cross necklace, which she’s only once ever taken off, to put on a longer chain when she outgrew the old one. She mouths the words to the prayer but does not make a sound. How can she believe in a Lord that would take our mother away, would allow a girl as young as Sophie to be butchered?

  “. . . and these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ our Lord, amen.”

  “Amen,” Mattie mutters.

  I sigh loudly.

  “So.” My father clears his throat, reaching for a bowl of green beans. “I spoke with Sophie’s parents. They’re thinking the funeral will be on Tuesday.” He runs his hand through his thick black hair, the way he does when he’s nervous.

  He tries to pass the bowl to Mattie, who makes no effort to take it from him. I reach across the table to snatch it and spoon some beans onto my plate, even though I have no appetite.

  “Squeegee? Are you all right?”

  Mattie is staring at nothing.

  “Mattie?” My father’s voice is stern. If I didn’t know him so well, I’d think he was angry, not worried out of his skull. He communicates better through his kitchen creations than he does verbally.

  Mattie shakes her head slightly, and her eyes focus on me, then my father.

  “I’m just not very hungry. I’m going to go lie down, if that’s okay?”

  My father nods, and she pushes back her chair and pads softly out of the dining room.

  He shifts his stare to me. I make sure my hair is hanging over the bump on my forehead so he can’t see it. I don’t want to explain. I don’t want to talk.

  After a moment, he says, “Vee, you need to eat something. You’re skin and bones.”

  Aren’t we all? Isn’t that all we are? I saw evidence of it myself. The gory scene from the night before keeps looping through my mind. I force myself to spear some beans and stuff them into my mouth, even though I don’t feel like eating.

  “So how are you doing? Did you have any episodes this week? You’ve been taking your pills, haven’t you?”

  I make a noncommittal noise. I have been taking pills, but not the Provigil. Caffeine is the only thing I can count on right now—to keep me awake, to keep me from sliding back into that nightmare world. I’ve been popping them ever since I found Mattie on the kitchen floor.

  “I’m fine,” I say, choking down another forkful of green beans. “Just worry about Mattie.”

  He’s quiet for a moment. His eyes are on his plate, his glass of water. He looks everywhere but at my face.

  “You don’t think she’ll try anything like . . .” He can’t bring himself to finish the sentence, but I know he’s worrying Mattie will do what Sophie did—well, what everyone thinks she did.

  I’ve been worrying about this myself. Mattie isn’t as strong as she tries to make everyone at school think. She cried when the class hamster died—in the eighth grade. Who knows how she’ll handle the death of her best friend? Right now she’s in shock, but what will happen when it wears off?

  I shake my head. I don’t think she’d do that.

  My father’s gaze rests on Mattie’s chair.

  “I’m going to talk to the hospital about taking a few days off. But, Vee, if there’s an emergency, I’ll need you to step up and help with your sister.”

  I tear my eyes away from my plate and look at him. Really look at him. I long to tell him what I saw last night, how Sophie didn’t really kill herself like everyone thinks she did. I want to pull him into the kitchen and fo
rce the phone into his hands and make him call the police.

  But then what?

  I’ve been down that road. I know what will happen.

  No one will believe me. I’ll have to start going to the shrink again. They’ll probably heap some new meds on me, ones that make me into a robot, ones that make me dead inside.

  No. I have to figure this out myself.

  “Can I be excused?”

  He studies my face, then nods. “Sure, hon.”

  For just a moment, I glimpse the father I used to know—the one who killed the spiders and checked for monsters under my bed and made everything better with just a Band-Aid and a kiss. He looks like his old self. As I grab my plate and head for the kitchen, I try to remember the last time he looked like that. If I had to give an exact date, I would say it was before the day I tried to tell him what happens when I slide.

  The day he didn’t believe me.

  The fluorescent light in the bathroom shines on my crime. I slide the mirror to the left, reach past an almost-full bottle of Provigil, and grab a small plastic bottle. My dad hides the Ambien way in the back of the cabinet, for when his mind is full of broken babies and he can’t sleep. I mean, I get it. If it were only me standing between a six-day-old and death, the stress would get to me, too.

  I shake two of the little white pills into my hand, pretty little saviors, and stick them in my pocket before filling a paper cup with water and heading toward my sister’s room.

  The only parts of her I can see are her fuchsia toenails. She’s a lump in the bed, a mountain of blankets.

  “Mattie?”

  I can tell she’s awake from the way the comforter wiggles. A muffled “Mmmmmph?” emerges from beneath the blanket.

  “I brought you something.”

  She pushes down the covers and stares at me blankly. I’ve never seen her this way. All our lives, she was the one who cared if her hair was brushed, if her shoes and purse matched. Now, her hair is matted in clumps. She still hasn’t washed the dried mascara from her cheeks.