The Sullivan Sisters

by Kathryn Ormsbee

  Murphy had asked all those questions over the years—questions Claire had found annoying. Claire had kept saying no to them, again and again. And at some point Murphy had stopped asking. She’d given up.

  Now, here was a simple offer of Christmas chocolate.

  Was Claire really going to say no again?

  She knew what she had to do. Before Murphy could pull the dish away, Claire plunged her hand into the candies, took a fistful, and crammed the chocolate into her mouth. It was the most un-Claire thing she’d done in over two years. It was the most un-Harper thing. And what Claire did next was even worse: She chewed for a moment, then opened her mouth wide, producing a chocolate-stained smile.

  Murphy looked at her, stunned. “Nice. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  “Me neither,” said Claire, licking her teeth free of sugar coating.

  She felt alive, untethered from a weight that had been keeping her no more than an inch off the ground.

  “What, there’s a party in here and I wasn’t invited?”

  Eileen had come into the room with eyes similar to Mom’s: damp and pinked. She didn’t ask her question in anger, though. Claire knew Eileen’s voices. This was the one she used when she was sorry but couldn’t say it out loud.

  Claire scooted over, motioning for Eileen to join them on the couch, and when she did, Claire made the move: She rested her head on Eileen’s shoulder. Which was how Claire said she was sorry, but not out loud. Sorry for being a Harper Everly asshole. For deciding Eileen was a Settler and cutting her out of her life. For focusing on Ivy Leagues and mythical Ainsley St. John for so long, she’d forgotten about her real-life sisters in very real Oregon.

  She and Eileen had been close once—bound together by blood and love.

  Two years ago they’d broken apart.

  Now, on Christmas Day … maybe they could begin to mend.

  As the Sullivan sisters silently watched TV, Claire felt an emptying sensation, as though the blood and viscous fluids in her had been poured out and her organs had been swept clean. That nagging sensation she had to say sorry again was gone. She felt new, like a clear blue sky.

  DECEMBER TWENTY-SIXTH

  THIRTY-THREE Murphy

  Home looked smaller than Murphy remembered. There was green mold on the vinyl siding, and paint was peeling from the shutters. The driveway was cracked in a hundred places, and the spruce in the front lawn looked malnourished. Murphy had known these things about her house; she’d seen them every day. Only now, in the hard light of December twenty-sixth, they were depressing.

  Had 2270 Laramie ruined her forever? A badly built starter home in Emmet couldn’t aspire to be a seaside Victorian mansion. Definitely not. But … it was home, and it was the only home Murphy had known. Before the closed bedroom doors, and in spite of the fights and silences, the sickness and death it had witnessed, this home had also seen good times.

  Like the days of Cayenne Castle.

  Mom pulled the Subaru into the carport, glancing in the rearview mirror for the umpteenth time to be sure Eileen’s Caravan was behind them. That morning Kerry had driven them to the towing lot where the van had been deposited. Eileen had asked what she’d owed for the fee, and Kerry had given her a lengthy once-over before saying, “What I want is for you to take a minute to think how lucky you are.” She’d pointed at Claire and Murphy. “The three of you. Merry Christmas.”

  And that had been that. Eileen had gotten the Caravan back, and the four Sullivans, rested from a night at Kerry and Bonnie’s, had nothing left to do save drive home.

  Kerry and Mom had hugged good-bye for a long time, and they’d told each other they’d keep in touch; Kerry and Bonnie were going to come down for a visit soon. Murphy was cool with that idea: Bonnie’s cooking was killer, and Kerry had been a pretty chill sheriff about this whole mess.

  As they’d driven away from Rockport, Murphy had done the best mental penance she could muster. She did think of how lucky she was to not be arrested and locked in a jail cell for Christmas. She was lucky, too, that Mark Enright hadn’t returned to Rockport for vengeance, and that he hadn’t been the one to find her dead asleep on the beach. As it turned out, there hadn’t been a real Mark Enright. Not a murdering, malevolent one, anyway. Mark had been her dad.

  John Sullivan had been a name and a face in photographs that Murphy had no real-life memories of. He’d been a sadness on late nights when she got to thinking too hard, and he’d been an awkwardness when she’d explained to every stranger who’d asked that she didn’t have a dad, actually, that he’d died of cancer before she was born. John Sullivan had been a blank spot in Murphy’s world. Now, he was Mark Enright, and she knew more about Mark than she ever had about John. How weird.

  Wasn’t everything weird now?

  Like the fact that Mom saw Murphy.

  Even in the driveway, hours away from the coast, Murphy could taste the sea salt on her lips and feel every grain of sand on her cheek, remembering her mother’s shakes and shouts. She saw with rainbow-bright vividness the relief that had filled Mom’s face when Murphy had opened her eyes.

  Mom had said, “Hey, hey. You’re okay. Thank God you’re okay.”

  She’d seen Murphy, and then she’d held her, carrying her up the bluff. And for the first time, Murphy hadn’t minded being treated like a kid.

  Mom cut the engine of the Subaru. Eileen had parked behind her, and she and Claire were climbing out of the van. Murphy wondered how that trip had been. Clearly, her sisters hadn’t fought too hard, because they were both alive, no signs of claw marks. A lot had changed since that fight on the porch, when Claire had stormed away and both she and Eileen had shouted Murphy down.

  Murphy, shut up.

  Murph, for the love of God, not now.

  She looked down, idly counting the knuckles of her right hand.

  One, two, three—

  “Murphy?”

  Mom was out of the car, looking in from the driver’s side.

  They hadn’t talked much on the drive down. Mom had played soft rock radio and Murphy had nodded off, head against the window. When they had spoken, Mom had asked about school, and Murphy had told her about drama club.

  She hadn’t told Mom about Siegfried. It didn’t seem right yet. Still, it had been an okay talk. Weird, but okay.

  “Murphy, is something wrong?” Sudden concern was stitched into Mom’s face.

  How did Murphy answer that? How did she explain her greatest fear, when it was something other magicians worked years to achieve, on purpose: a disappearing act. How did she express that she was afraid if she walked into this house, everything would go back to normal, and everyone—Eileen and Claire and Mom—would lose their ability to see her?

  How could you say a thing like that?

  So Murphy said, “I’m sorry you missed your cruise.”

  Mom was quiet. Then she got back in the car, shutting the door. Eileen and Claire were walking ahead, almost to the carport. Eileen peered toward the windshield with a confused expression, but a moment later Claire had opened the kitchen door, and the two of them disappeared into the house.

  “I’m not sorry I missed it,” said Mom. “I’m sorry I agreed to go in the first place.”

  “You work hard, though,” said Murphy, pressing her sneakers into the floorboard. “You were right: A sweepstakes is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. You deserved a break.”

  “Maybe,” said Mom, “but not that way.”

  At last Murphy felt she could say it.

  “Sometimes,” she said, “I think no one can see me. Does that make sense?”

  Mom gripped the edge of the console, letting out a weird cough. “Oh, Murphy. That was my life as a kid. I spent my whole damn childhood trying to be seen. Did you know I tracked down my mother?” The cough again. “No, you don’t. I never told you. That’s how I got to Rockport at seventeen: I tracked down my mother in Portland—my father was already dead—and I got her to sign the paper I needed to be emancipated.
Even at family court, she wasn’t looking at me. Could be she was so strung out she couldn’t focus on anything.”

  Mom still held on to the console, not looking at Murphy. “I rode out with an old foster sister to Astoria. That’s where we were headed, and we got car trouble in Rockport, and … God, I fell in love with the place. It was June, and it was the coast, and the weather was perfect, and I could picture myself living there forever, and that was the first time I was okay with being unseen. You know? I finally wanted to be unnoticed and live out the rest of my days in Rockport. No stand-in parents or social worker to perform for. And then I met your dad, and we both got seen. I got what I’d wanted when I was a kid, and it turned out to be hell.”

  Murphy’s heart was unsteady, beating too soft one second, too hard the next. She hadn’t ever pictured her mom as a teenager, because Mom didn’t talk about that time, and there were no photos, and why would Murphy ask about it? That was the past. Only, it turned out the past was here, in the Subaru. Mom had been Murphy’s age once, and scared and unseen too. And that teenager was part of Mom, still present, like the freckles on her hands.

  Mom hadn’t been seen either. That is, until she’d been seen in the worst possible way. Maybe it sucked a little to be Murphy Sullivan. But maybe it had sucked a lot more to be Leslie Clark.

  “This isn’t easy for me.” Mom’s voice bent on the words. “Maybe I’m sharing too much, or I told you girls too little. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, or if this is right. I just figured it out in Florida. I’ve been doing it wrong, you know?”

  Murphy didn’t know, exactly. Mom may have once been like Murphy, but Murphy had no idea what it was to be Mom: to get married, lose a husband, raise three children on your own. The endless work, the bills, the insurance calls …

  Murphy saw that it wasn’t that Mom cared too little.

  It was that the world was too much.

  It’s not about me, she thought, looking into her mother’s eyes. It’s about the Enrights and Rockport and a hundred things that happened before I was born. Behind the scenes. Out of sight. This show started a long time ago. I’m showing up after intermission.

  Murphy’s lungs felt elastic, swelling out and taking in truckloads of air. She was thinking about Siegfried, and about how easy it was to get distracted with the too muchness of life.

  Mom reached across the console, and Murphy took her hand.

  “What I can promise you,” said Mom, “is that I’ll try to do better, okay?”

  “Yeah,” said Murphy, letting out the air in her stretchy lungs. “We’ll all be better.”

  * * *

  That night Murphy woke to a knock on her door and a flashlight beam in her eyes.

  “Sup, Murph. Get your ass out of bed.”

  “Leenie, seriously,” whispered another voice.

  Then Claire was at Murphy’s bedside, poking gently at her shoulder. “Sorry to wake you up, but we weren’t going to leave you behind this time.”

  “W-where are you going?” Murphy’s words slurred from sleepiness as she propped herself up in bed.

  “Straight to hell,” said Eileen, matter-of-factly.

  Claire rolled her eyes. “It’s a surprise, okay? Put on your coat, and we’ll go.”

  Murphy did as Claire asked, though with confusion. She followed her sisters into the kitchen and out the carport door.

  “Does Mom know about this?” she whispered after she’d climbed into the Caravan.

  “Don’t worry,” said Claire, at a normal volume now they were safely outside the house. “It’ll be a short trip. She won’t even know we’re gone.”

  “Where have I heard that before,” Murphy groused, while her insides danced a tango. Her sisters were going someplace secretly, in the middle of the night. And this time, they’d invited her—no stowing away required.

  Eileen placed the key in the van’s ignition and turned. The Caravan started up, and Claire looked back from the passenger seat to say, “Seat belt.”

  Murphy was ahead of the game. Her seat belt was already fastened, and her hand had wandered into her puffer coat’s right pocket, taking hold of the rope trick there. She held the rope in her lap, beginning the process:

  Over, under, tug through and out.

  The van rumbled forward through winter drizzle, wipers squeaking against glass. Streetlights caught on Murphy’s face, then flitted away. Eileen was keeping the van on town streets, no highways. Claire had said it would be a short trip.

  It was. Minutes later the van stopped at the curb of a shadow-filled field. Murphy peered through the rain-speckled window, making out shapes of jutting stones that rose from the earth.

  They were at a cemetery.

  Claire got out of the van and opened the sliding door.

  “What’re we doing here?” Murphy asked, clutching the rope.

  Eileen appeared at the door. “Didn’t you say you wanted to see Dad’s grave?”

  Dad.

  John Sullivan.

  Mark Enright.

  Murphy had said that. She just hadn’t thought they’d noticed.

  Murphy got out of the van, following her sisters up a dirt path edged by overgrown grass and fronds. Mist gathered on her coat, and the earth gave way easily beneath her Uggs. Ahead, Eileen’s flashlight cut through the night. Then, sooner than Murphy had expected, Eileen turned off the path, walking into the field—the graveyard.

  Claire followed, Murphy keeping close behind.

  They walked on for a while longer, passing through the ankle-high grass until, again, Eileen stopped, shining her light on a tombstone that rose from the earth in a perfect arc, like a well-filed fingernail.

  For some strange reason, Murphy thought of A Christmas Carol, and the inscription EBENEZER SCROOGE. Of course, that’s not what was written on this stone. It was her dad’s name. His not-name: John Sullivan, a life with a starting date in 1982 and an end date before Murphy’s birth.

  “You were technically here, at the funeral,” Eileen nudged Murphy. “I don’t remember much about it, but I do remember Mom being pregnant with you. She wore this long, billowy black dress.”

  “And I was here?” Claire asked in a whisper.

  “Yeah,” said Eileen. “Mom held both our hands.”

  “Oh,” Claire said vaguely. Her eyes were stuck on the tombstone.

  “So, we’re here,” Eileen announced. “We came to see you, Dad. Mark. John. Whatever you want to be called. And I wanted you to know, I get that you had a shitty life, and I hope there were good parts too. I hope Mom was one of those good parts, and me and Claire. And Murphy, even though you didn’t get to know her. And if there’s any afterlife? I hope you’re happy there, and you can see we’re getting it together on our end. Like, we’re family, and we’ll try to be better about sticking together. Because you didn’t really get that chance, huh?”

  “Leenie,” said Claire, “you’re being bleak.”

  Eileen swept the flashlight beam across the graveyard. “Uh, bleak’s the operative word here. What else do you want?”

  “I don’t know. Just, I wanted to see it. To be here. We don’t have to make a speech.”

  “Sure,” Eileen said. “No speech.”

  Murphy studied the grave, turning her thumb over the rope trick. Claire could say what she wanted; Murphy had liked Eileen’s speech. She hoped that she had been, in fact, a really good thing in her dad’s life. The promise, at least, of a good thing.

  She didn’t want to speak, but she was feeling an urge—an irresistible need to show him who she was. She walked closer to the grave, and she knelt into the wet, high grass. It felt only natural, what she did next: She set the rope on the grave, as she would a bouquet of flowers, and backed away.

  The sisters were silent for a moment, and then Claire reached for something in her own coat pocket. She took Murphy’s former place, kneeling to set her object alongside the rope. Eileen’s flashlight revealed what it was: an iPhone, its screen shattered to smithereens. />
  “Well, damn,” Eileen said grittily, and then she was also at the grave, setting down a very small something: a wrapped piece of bubble gum.

  Murphy felt like crying, and somehow Claire—Claire of all people—seemed to know, because she put a hand on Murphy’s shoulder and said, “Hey, we’re going to be fine.”

  Murphy looked up. “You don’t know that for sure.”

  “Nope,” said Eileen, slapping a hand on Murphy’s other shoulder. “We don’t know shit.”

  “Anyway,” said Murphy, “you guys will leave soon. No one needs a spare tire.”

  The air was damp, and the silence intense.

  “Wait, what?” Claire asked.

  Murphy toed the soft ground. “I’m the spare tire of the family. Everyone knows.”

  The flashlight’s beam went askance. Eileen was crouching, meeting Murphy’s eyes. “Hey. Listen the hell to me. You’re not the spare tire, Murph. You’re the goddamn engine.”

  Murphy opened her mouth to talk back, but Eileen didn’t allow it. She threw her arms around Murphy, dragging her into a hug. Then Claire was holding them, squeezing tight, and though it was impossible, Murphy was sure: She could feel their two hearts beating in time with hers.

  She knew her house was small. She knew Mom was trying her best and might still fail. She knew Dad would always be dead. She knew Eileen and Claire would leave her one day. But tonight, in a graveyard, Murphy stayed in her sisters’ arms.

  The core of their embrace. The engine.

  Even when it was over, Eileen kept a hand on Murphy’s arm.

  “Hey,” she said. “If you want to be noticed, Murph, if you need help … it’s okay to ask. Say it straight out. I mean, I can be dense. Wrapped up in my brain. Sometimes you need to give me a wake-up call. Just ask.”

  Murphy was thinking of Siegfried. She couldn’t talk, because a cry was waiting in her throat. She nodded, and Eileen nodded back, and they hugged again.

  This embrace was magic. Not the kind Murphy studied and practiced, but magic just the same. It was real-life magic, because it was made by real people, living real lives, with no illusion or sequins or sleight of hand. With seams showing and rough edges, with curses and scrapes and mess.