The Good Sister

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  The principal, a stocky, no-nonsense man whom Jen had previously only seen from her auditorium seat during last fall’s school orientation, got right down to business. As he explained that her daughter had copied algebra equations off another student’s paper, Carley sat quietly crying beside Jen, who kept an arm tightly around her rigid shoulders.

  She scarcely believed it. Not then, and not when they got into the car to drive home and she asked Carley, once again, what really happened.

  Her daughter stuck to her story, miserably explaining that she’d been feeling desperate because the clock was running down and she didn’t know the answers.

  “But you studied.”

  “Not hard enough, I guess.”

  When they got home, Carley went straight to her room and Jen called Thad. He asked all the questions Jen had asked of the principal and of Carley herself, and he kept asking, “But are you sure?”

  “All I can think,” Jen tells him now, “is that she was so shell-shocked by Nicki’s death that she wasn’t in her right mind.”

  “Even so . . .”

  “I know.”

  What Carley had done was so completely out of character—and so serious—that Jen can’t help but wonder if there isn’t more to the story.

  Just like I wonder if there’s more to Debbie’s story about Nicki’s suicide note . . .

  Or lack thereof.

  In the twelve hours or so since she left the Oliveras’ house, she’s given that situation little thought, too wrapped up in her own troubles with Carley.

  Now, however, the misgivings come rushing back and she finds herself starting to tell Thad about it, but quickly thinks better of getting into too much detail. She doesn’t want to mention Mike to him right now, if only because she’s suddenly exhausted—emotionally and physically. She can save the rest of the story to tell him later—or not at all.

  But now that she’s brought it up, Thad is curious. “So you’re saying you think there really was a note, and Debbie lied about it?”

  It wasn’t just Debbie. And it isn’t just about the note. I think she was having an affair.

  “I don’t know—maybe it was just my imagination,” she tells him. “I just thought she seemed a little evasive when I asked her about it.”

  And I thought Mike Morino did the same thing when I asked him about it.

  “Maybe she didn’t want to discuss it. Maybe it’s too painful.”

  “I’m sure it is. Leave it to me to ask too many questions.”

  Thad reaches over and finds her hand, giving it a warm squeeze. “You were being a good friend.”

  “I was trying.”

  Just like she’s been trying to be a good mom.

  But Carley has completely withdrawn from her, and from Thad as well. She wouldn’t tell them anything more about what had happened in math class and she wouldn’t come out of her room, even to eat. Jen isn’t sure whether to be furious with her or feel sorry for her.

  I’ll figure it out tomorrow, she decides, and yawns deeply, inhaling the earthy fresh air as she rolls onto her side.

  She can feel herself drifting off and welcomes the promised reprieve from the latest round of troubles . . .

  She’s at the funeral home again. Nicki’s wake. There are bouquets of bright pink Stargazer lilies everywhere, a whole wall of them obliterating her view of the casket.

  Their overpowering fragrance clogs her nostrils, making it difficult to breathe, bringing back a dim memory she tries to push back.

  No, don’t think about that. It was a long time ago.

  Think about what’s happening right now. Think about the wake. About Nicki, lying there in the casket.

  As she works her way closer, she turns to ask Carley if she’s all right, but somehow Carley isn’t there.

  Where did she go?

  She was with Jen just a moment ago. They came in here together, after she picked up Carley from school.

  Panic starts to sweep through her as she looks around, scanning the room filled with black-clad mourners. There are flowers, so many flowers, lilies, again their sickening sweet perfume reminding her . . .

  No!

  No, don’t think about it. It was so mean . . .

  There’s Debbie, wearing her Sacred Sisters uniform beneath Nicki’s hot pink sweatshirt, standing by the casket, arm in arm with Andrew . . .

  Then Jen realizes that it isn’t Andrew at all.

  It’s Mike.

  “What’s going on between you two?” she asks, and they start to laugh heartily, Mike and Debbie, a terrible sound that echoes through the room.

  Jen covers her ears to block it out and again walks toward the casket.

  In horror, she sees that it’s wide open.

  “My son Connor is the best in the business,” Glenn Cicero is saying. “Go ahead. Look at her. Didn’t he do a beautiful job?”

  “He’s just a little boy. How could he—”

  “Connor’s the best in the business,” Glenn repeats, and pushes her forward. “Go on. Look.”

  No . . . no, it’s going to be gruesome. She turns to tell Carley to stay back; again, she realizes Carley isn’t there.

  Where is she?

  “Carley?” Jen calls, but Debbie and Mike are still laughing and the sound drowns out her voice.

  Glenn gives her a hard shove toward the open casket.

  She sees that something is poking out from the satin lining.

  Pink synthetic fur, clutched in a waxy-looking hand . . .

  “That’s Bubblegum,” Debbie whispers into her ear, suddenly beside her. “She sleeps with him every night, so she wanted to be buried with him.”

  Yes, of course.

  Wait—no! No, that doesn’t make sense.

  Bubblegum doesn’t belong to Nicki; Nicki gave him to Carley, and Carley’s the one who . . .

  “Go on,” Glenn croons. “Look at her. She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

  Taking one final step toward the open casket, Jen lets out a bloodcurdling scream as the corpse’s mangled head, with a worm squirming out of the eye socket, comes into view.

  It isn’t Nicki.

  It’s Carley.

  Entry from the marble notebook

  Sunday, February 2, 1986

  This morning, when we got into the car to go to church, it wouldn’t start. It turned out the battery was dead. Father said he needed to get it jumped, and he wanted to ask our next-door neighbor who was out there snow-blowing his driveway, but Mother wouldn’t let him do that. She never wants us to have anything to do with any of the neighbors, or anyone, really. She told Father to call the service station and have them send someone over to jump the battery.

  They didn’t come for a couple of hours, and we ended up not getting to church until eleven-thirty Mass. That was way more crowded than seven o’clock Mass. We had to sit way in the back, instead of in the front row, and Mother was not happy about that.

  I was happy about it, though, because guess who was sitting in the pew right in front of us?

  The boy from Cardinal Ruffini, the one who was in the backseat with me the day his friend drove me home without a license after Father had his heart attack.

  I stared at the back of his head through the whole Mass and I didn’t even listen to a word of the sermon. Mother would have been furious, but she couldn’t tell, because I’m sure she thought I was looking at the priest.

  I passed him in the line as I was going up to get Communion and he was coming back. He looked right at me, but I don’t think he remembers me.

  I wish I knew his name.

  And I wish we could go to eleven-thirty Mass every week.

  Chapter 10

  On Friday afternoon, the ground is still muddy from Monday’s snow when Jen pokes her trowel into it and sees a fat, pinkish-brown earthworm
wriggling out of harm’s way.

  At least she didn’t bisect this one with the sharp metal edge the way she did another a few minutes ago, while trying to dig out yet another dandelion taproot. She read somewhere once that only half of the worm will die when that happens, but that didn’t make her any less squeamish.

  Dirt . . . worms . . .

  She can’t stop thinking of the cemetery on Tuesday; the heap of mud beside the yawning grave; her own nightmare.

  Frustrated, she sits back on her heels and tosses the trowel aside, closing her eyes and tilting her face to the warm sun that feels more suited to May than March. The last few dirt-speckled patches of slush have melted away. The oak and elm branches have yet to bud and there’s still no sign of a crocus or robin, but soon . . .

  Soon this dark season will draw to a close. Not soon enough, but at least a hint of hope floats on the earthy breeze today and Jen will take it. She’ll take whatever she can get; anything to absorb some positive energy.

  It’s useless to waste precious daylight trying to get rid of weeds this early in the season—a job that seems futile at any time of year. No, she’s ready to move on and start planting.

  She picks up the trowel again. Time to transform this bare—other than the weeds, anyway—patch bordering the low front shrubbery into a collage of splashy purple and yellow blooms. Flowers can’t fix everything—oh hell, they can’t fix anything—but she can’t allow herself to sit around dwelling on the drama.

  Carley shouldn’t, either.

  It’s perfect gardening weather—or so she tried to convince her daughter earlier. But Carley refused to tag along to the nursery to buy flowering plants; refused the offer of lunch at the Cheesecake Factory; refused to even come out of her room.

  “I’m not sure you should be encouraging that anyway,” Thad said when Jen talked to him at noon. “She’s home from school because she’s been suspended. Shopping and lunching aren’t exactly punishment.”

  Of course not. But Jen can’t help but want to coax Carley out anyway. What happened in math class was such a deviation from her ordinary behavior that there must be a logical explanation—something other than the one she gave her parents yesterday:

  “I panicked, and I was afraid I was going to fail, so I took the easy way out.”

  Maybe that’s part of it. But it’s not the whole story.

  Jen e-mailed Sister Linda this morning, asking to set up a meeting to discuss the situation. Then she went to the nursery herself, and stopped off at church on the way home to pray a novena to Saint Anne, the patron saint of mothers.

  Kneeling in the deserted sanctuary, praying for special graces in the strength and wisdom to ease her daughter’s troubles, she felt a sense of peace she hasn’t experienced in weeks.

  I can see her through this, she thought as she stepped back out into the beautiful spring day, rejuvenated by her plan to repeat the devotion for nine consecutive days, as she was taught back at Sacred Sisters.

  She stopped at a café to buy Carley’s favorite chicken parm sandwich. Only when she noticed all the fish on the specials board did she remember it was a Lenten Friday, and got the eggplant parm instead.

  Carley didn’t turn down the food—she must have been famished by then—but insisted on eating it in her room, alone. Her laptop was open, and she was studying.

  “I have to do all my assignments,” she said, “or I’ll be way behind when I go back.”

  How could Jen argue with that? But it bothers her, seeing Carley cooped up all day in front of a screen.

  After throwing on an old Buffalo Bills T-shirt and tattered jeans, she knocked once again on her daughter’s door. “It’s a beautiful day. If you want to take a break and get outside, I’ll be in the front yard planting pansies.”

  “Okay.”

  “So you’ll come out?”

  “Maybe later.”

  She didn’t really expect Carley to join her, but she can’t help but be disappointed that she hasn’t. Fresh air would do her good.

  Oh well. At least it’s doing me good.

  Feeling the sun on her shoulders and inhaling the pungent scent of wet soil, Jen works the first plant out of the plastic cell pack, careful not to damage the roots.

  Her mind wanders back to when the girls were little.

  Pigtails, bandaged knees, molded plastic watering cans and toy trowels . . .

  In those days, they both wanted to “help” Mommy with the garden, and it was a challenge to get anything done. Once, she planted an entire bed of bulbs only to have toddler Emma dig them all up again. Another time, tiny Carley surprised her with a bouquet of handpicked roses and handed them to her crying, her hands stung and bloody from the thorns.

  I cried, too, that day, Jen remembers as she carefully tucks the tender little pansy into the waiting hole. I was so touched that she’d gone through all that agony just for me.

  Her tears land in the dirt as she pats it around the plant, remembering that sweet little girl, longing for simpler times. If only she could soothe away this new pain with kisses and drugstore balm.

  She rubs her wet cheekbones against one shoulder and then the other, and her streaming nose, too. She can hear a car coming up the street and hopes it’s not a neighbor who will want to stop and chat. It’s been quiet out here all afternoon, but now the kids will be coming home from school and their moms will be shuttling them off to dance lessons and hockey leagues and countless other activities that encompass the lives of overscheduled offspring here in postmillennial suburbia.

  The car is slowing as it passes the house, tires crunching the gravelly salt left behind by the road crews in the storm.

  Busily digging a new hole, Jen doesn’t turn around, hoping whoever it is will just drive on. She isn’t in the mood for small talk—nor is she about to tell a casual acquaintance about anything that’s gone on lately.

  Behind her, she hears the car pull to a stop at the curb.

  Dammit.

  With a sigh, she turns to see who it is. Maybe from that distance, they won’t be able to see her tearstained face and T-shirt. Or maybe they will see and take the hint to drive on.

  She instantly recognizes the white compact car—and, through the open window, the driver. Relief courses through her and she tosses the trowel aside, on her feet in an instant. “Frankie!”

  Her sister climbs out of the car and arches her lean body in a backward stretch with her hands clasped behind her head. Her shoulder-length wavy dark hair is pulled back in a simple headband and she’s dressed in her usual uniform: jeans, sneakers, and a sweater.

  Jen hurries over, about to throw her arms around her sister, then remembers—“I’m covered in dirt.”

  Frankie hugs her anyway. “It’s okay. I’m covered in orange Chee-tos dust. I ate an entire bag on the road.”

  Good old Frankie. Addicted to salty crunch since they were kids, she counterbalances the junk food habit with daily exercise—running, spinning, yoga . . .

  “You should try yoga,” she recently urged Jen, claiming there’s more to it than stretching and chanting. “It would be good for you. It quiets the mind.”

  “You mean the mouth?”

  “I don’t know if anything could quiet your mouth,” Frankie teased. “They don’t call you the Yapster for nothing.”

  “News bulletin: They don’t call me the Yapster at all. Not anymore, anyway. Not around here.”

  Well, Debbie sometimes does.

  Debbie . . . Nicki . . . Carley.

  Right and wrong.

  Black and white . . .

  Black and white. Dominoes tip over in Jen’s brain, and she remembers why she summoned Frankie for this weekend visit.

  Tears spring to her eyes.

  “You okay?” Frankie doesn’t miss a thing.

  “I’m just so glad to see you. It’s been kind
of . . . hard lately. I’ve been feeling kind of alone in all this. I really need you.”

  “Aw.” Frankie gives her another hug, and Jen sees tears on her cheeks, too.

  Yeah. It’s one of those messy Bonafacio attributes. Cry at the drop of a hat; laugh at the drop of a hat.

  Jen rubs her wrist across her eyes, telling her sister, “You must have been doing a hundred and fifty miles an hour to get here so soon. Not that I’m not thrilled to see you—and believe me, you’re about the only person in the world I’d be happy to see right now, other than Thad—but I wasn’t expecting you until tonight.”

  “I canceled my afternoon appointments and snuck out of work at lunch. You didn’t tell Ma I was coming a day early, did you? If she finds out, she’ll have us both over there deboning fish for Sunday.”

  Sunday—that’s right. The Saint Joseph’s feast at their parents’ house. They’re supposed to spend all day tomorrow helping their mother prepare the food. Jen had forgotten all about it.

  “I left you a message earlier reminding you not to mention it to Ma,” Frankie goes on. “Didn’t you get it?”

  “No, I was out and I guess I forgot to check the voice mail when I got back. Carley was home all day, but—”

  But apparently she couldn’t be bothered to answer the phone when it rang.

  “No school today?” Frankie asks. “Is it a holy day of obligation or something?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think . . . there are no holy days of obligation in March that I can recall. What’s going on?”

  Jen fills her in on the situation as quickly as she can, watching her sister’s brown eyes go from curious to concerned.

  “Where is she now?”

  “In her room.”

  Frankie opens the trunk, pulls out a duffel bag, and slings it over her shoulder. “I’m going to go throw my stuff in the guest room and have a talk with Miss Carley.”

  “She might not be willing.”

  Frankie shrugs. “I’m used to convincing tough kids to open up.”

  “Wow.”

  “What?”

  “I just never thought of Carley as a tough kid.”