All the Way Home

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Rory sits straight up in bed with a gasp and looks frantically around the room, disoriented, searching for Carleen.

  There’s nothing but darkness.

  Trembling, she slowly comes back to reality.

  It was nothing but a dream.

  A dream in which her sister was hiding in the shadows, taunting her, calling, “Here I am, Rory . . . here I am. See?”

  But Rory didn’t see. She kept looking desperately toward the disembodied voice, searching for Carleen, but there was nobody there. Nothing but Carleen’s laughter, as though she’d played a wonderfully dirty trick on her kid sister once again.

  “Just a dream,” Rory says again, leaning slowly back against the pillow.

  But it was so damn realistic.

  Probably because she’s once again sleeping in her girlhood bedroom, right across the hall from Carleen’s old room.

  She came home from the cafe to find an unfamiliar but unmistakable black car in the driveway, and realized Sister Theodosia had arrived. Sure enough, she found the woman busily making up the bed in the guest room, and greeting Rory with a terse, “Please keep your voice down; your mother just went to sleep. I moved your things upstairs so that I could be in here. I always am, when I come to stay.”

  “That’s fine,” Rory had answered, though it was far from fine.

  She doesn’t want to be here, in the room that holds so many memories of the past.

  Like Carleen’s room, everything is pretty much the way she’d left it. Bookcase filled with childhood paperbacks, bureau stuffed with outdated clothes, old snapshots taped to the mirror, bloody crucifix hanging above the bed.

  Rory’s room, however, hasn’t remained the same as a shrine to her memory.

  It’s simply that nobody has bothered to clean it or sort through her things in the years since she left. There was a thick layer of dust on every surface when she first came up here earlier, and it took her nearly an hour to get rid of it. As she worked her way through the room with a damp dustcloth, she came across one memento after another, and found herself repeatedly transported back over time. Some things, like the miniature plastic compass her father had given her, triggered fond, if wistful, recollections—­others, like the Barbie dolls she had shared with Carleen, filled her with remorse.

  And the whole time, she was conscious of Sister Theodosia in the guest room downstairs, wondering what the nun had told her mother when she arrived. They must have spoken to each other. Rory had found two still-­wet mugs in the drying rack beside the kitchen sink.

  She tried to imagine her mother and Sister Theodosia sitting at the table, chatting over a cup of tea. What on earth would they talk about? Had Sister told her mother that Rory had summoned her because she thought she was losing her mind?

  And where in the hell was Molly? Rory had checked her sister’s room upon returning home and found it empty.

  What if she was so upset about what I told her last night that she ran away?

  There was no way to tell, and, Rory reminded herself, nothing she could do about it until morning, except call the police. And she didn’t want to do anything that extreme. Not yet. For all she knew, Molly was staying out late again with her friends, to prove a point.

  Let her! she thought stubbornly. She’ll have no one to blame but herself when she gets into trouble. I just can’t let myself care what she does.

  But as Rory got the third-­floor bedroom into livable condition, she kept her ears strained in vain for the sound of a slamming door below, or footsteps on the stairs.

  Finally, exhausted, she had climbed into bed. But sleep wouldn’t come.

  Instead, she had noticed a cloying scent in the air. It was barely there, so faint she had, when she first noticed it as she walked up the stairs earlier, assumed it was her imagination.

  But as she lay awake into the wee hours, listening to the thunderstorm raging outside her window, waiting for Molly to come home, she became certain it was really there.

  The scent of Carleen’s perfume.

  Poison.

  Was Carleen’s ghost there in the room, haunting her?

  Rory didn’t want to believe in ghosts. And she didn’t want to think about Carleen.

  Still, she was tormented by images that persisted in drifting back over the years . . .

  Carleen suggesting that they do crayon murals inside Rory’s closet, saying their parents would never notice . . .

  Carleen laughing as Rory was punished for that, and for so many other pranks she dreamed up and blamed on her kid sister.

  You were such a brat, Rory thinks now, staring into the empty darkness as rain beats relentlessly against the roof above her head. But, God, I loved you. Why did I love you?

  Who knows?

  I just did.

  She realizes a tear is trickling down her cheek. Then another.

  She doesn’t bother to wipe them away.

  She just lies there in her old room, still smelling a hint of that familiar perfume, crying softly, desperately missing her lost big sister as the rain pours down outside.

  “What time did you get home last night?” Michelle asks Lou when he steps out of the shower.

  He grabs a towel and buries his face in it, drying himself vigorously and making a muffled reply to her question.

  “What?” she asks, watching him carefully.

  “Read, Mommy,” Ozzie commands from his perch on the cushioned plastic ring positioned over the toilet.

  “I said, it had to be after midnight.” Lou wraps the towel around his waist. “You were sound asleep.”

  No, I wasn’t, Michelle thinks, remembering how she’d lain awake for hours last night, listening to the deafening storm and waiting for Lou. When he’d finally come home and crawled into bed, she remained absolutely still on her side of the bed, her enormous stomach and swollen legs propped in a nest of pillows. She wanted to confront him, to ask if he was really at the office, but by the time she finally worked up her nerve, he was snoring peacefully beside her.

  She watches him now, noticing the way the water droplets glisten on his lean torso, remembering how, when they made love, she used to drive him crazy by nuzzling the hollow above his belly button. It’s been a long time since they’ve made love. She wonders now whether that’s just because of her pregnancy and his stress at the office. She wonders, with a sickening feeling, if some other woman has been nuzzling her husband’s bare skin.

  “Read, Mommy.” Ozzie points to the Once Upon A Potty book she’s holding open in front of him.

  “Just a second, Ozzie. Did you eat supper?” Michelle asks Lou.

  “If you can call a slice of pizza supper, then, yeah, I guess I did.” He ruffles Ozzie’s hair. “How’s it going, sport?”

  “I go potty,” Ozzie says proudly, swinging his little legs back and forth.

  “I can see that.” He turns to Michelle. “I thought you said when I called yesterday that you weren’t going to start training him until after the baby comes.”

  “I changed my mind,” Michelle says, surprised. She hadn’t thought Lou was listening to that part of the conversation. He’d seemed so distracted. “I figured I might as well get him used to the potty seat as soon as possible.”

  “That makes sense. That was some storm last night, wasn’t it?” He looks out the window. “Looks like some branches came down in the yard. I’ll have to get out there later and clean up.”

  “Don’t forget, we have that childbirth class.”

  “How could I forget? I can hardly wait to hold your head and shoulders in my lap and practice yelling, ‘Breathe!’ ‘Breathe!’—­what fun.”

  “Stay, Daddy,” Ozzie protests as Lou starts out of the bathroom.

  “I’m just going into the bedroom to get dressed, Ozzie. Then you and I will go downstairs and have breakf
ast together, okay? How does that sound?”

  “Mommy, too?”

  “Mommy, too,” Lou agrees, before walking down the hall, whistling.

  Michelle wants to run after him, to ask whether everything’s as all right as it suddenly seems. Whether he still loves her.

  Of course he does. You’re just pregnant, and hormonal, and insecure.

  Lou’s the same as he’s always been. Wrapped up in his work, and distracted. He’s never been particularly affectionate, and he’s always had that biting streak of sarcasm. None of that has ever particularly bothered her until lately.

  And that’s because you’re an emotional wreck lately. You’re imagining all sorts of things, from food-­stealing thieves to a cheating husband.

  “Read, Mommy! Read now!”

  She sighs and turns back to Once Upon A Potty, then thinks better of it. “Listen, Ozzie, you don’t give Mommy orders. That’s not polite. How do you ask Mommy nicely if you need something done?”

  Her son appears to be pondering that, his elbow resting on his bare knees, his chin in his small hand.

  Then he breaks into a smile. “Pwease, Mommy? Pwease read?”

  She smiles back. “Okay, sweetie. I’ll read.”

  Barrett Maitland hears the sirens just as he’s finishing raking the last bite of Mrs. Shilling’s cinnamon French toast through the pool of maple syrup and melted butter on his bone china plate.

  He pauses, listening to the wail outside the open dining-room window, his head tilted as the sirens seem to be coming closer.

  “I wonder what’s going on?” Mrs. Shilling emerges from the kitchen and bustles through the room, heading toward the front parlor and wiping her hands on a dish towel as she goes.

  Barrett waits, the piece of French toast poised in front of his mouth.

  “It’s the police. They’re turning onto this street!” Mrs. Shilling calls from the front room.

  The dark-­haired, middle-­aged woman seated across the table from Barrett catches his eye. Her name, he recalls, is Beth something-­or-­other, and she mentioned that she’s from Brooklyn. She raises her eyebrows, as if to say, what a busybody.

  He wants to point out that police sirens aren’t as common in a small town as they are in New York. That to the residents of a place like Lake Charlotte, police sirens mean that something bad has happened to somebody who is, most likely, an acquaintance.

  He knows all too well that on this particular day, in this particular town, wailing sirens are likely to stir memories of another day, a terrible day, a decade ago . . .

  When it all began.

  He realizes he’s been holding his breath. He lets it out slowly, still poised, listening.

  “They’re pulling up in front of the Connollys’ house,” Mrs. Shilling calls. “Oh, my goodness, I wonder what’s happened over there this time? That poor family.”

  Barrett thinks of Rory Connolly, of the stubborn expression she’d been wearing when she left him the night before.

  He sets down his fork with a clatter as Beth from Brooklyn says in a stage whisper, “She acts as if we know these ­people. As if we care.”

  Barrett doesn’t look at her.

  Mrs. Shilling says, “No, they’re not stopping at the Connollys’. They’ve gone past it. They’re at the Randalls’—­no, the Wasners’. Yes, that’s where they’re stopping. At the Wasners’ house.”

  Barrett is conscious of the woman across the table wanting him to look up, so she can catch his eye and make another disdainful comment about small-­town nosiness.

  He took an instant dislike to her when their hostess introduced them yesterday. She’s one of those know-­it-­all city types, in town for her college roommate’s second wedding and making a point of letting ­people know she’s not the least bit happy about it.

  “I should be in the Hamptons this weekend. I have a full share in a beach house. What a waste. Anyway, I don’t believe in second-­time brides going to all the fuss of a white dress and walking down the aisle. I wouldn’t be here if she didn’t beg me to be the maid of honor,” she had confided in Barrett when they bumped into each other outside the hall bathroom late last night. “What do you think?”

  “About what?” he’d asked, preoccupied.

  “Second weddings. Have you ever been married?”

  “No.”

  “Neither have I. But if I was ever going to get married, and then married again, I wouldn’t have a bridal party. Not at my age. Not for a second wedding. It’s just tacky.”

  The woman talks too much. And Barrett is hardly in the mood.

  Mrs. Shilling bustles back into the room, all aflutter, untying the old-­fashioned apron she wears over her pink polyester shorts set. “I’m going down there,” she announces to her guests. “I’ll be back shortly. I just want to make sure everything is all right. After all, I am a neighbor.”

  Barrett pushes back his chair and says, without glancing at the woman across the table, “I’ll go with you.”

  Molly pulls the pillow over her head to drown out the sound of sirens. All she wants to do is sleep.

  And go back to her dream about Ryan.

  Where was I? He was kissing me passionately . . .

  But was that the dream, or a sweet memory of what had happened between them the night before, on his parents’ chintz living room couch?

  She smiles faintly, burrowing into her thin summer quilt and waiting to drift away again.

  But the sirens are still at it. Louder than before. And they’re not going by.

  They’re groaning to a lower octave, as though they’re stopping right out in front.

  Molly’s heart begins to pound.

  No, please, let me get back to my dream.

  The squawk of a police radio reaches her ears.

  She squeezes her eyes closed in a futile effort to escape the sudden certainty that something has happened. Something awful.

  “What is it?” Sister Theodosia asks Rory.

  She turns away from the front door to find the nun walking down the stairs, her spine held perfectly erect, as always, beneath her somber black habit.

  “The police,” Rory says briefly, biting her lower lip as she looks out at the street again, at the three patrol cars that make up the entire local police force. They’re pulling up at the curb two doors down, on the other side of the Randalls’ house.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Several officers emerge from the cars and move swiftly across the neatly clipped lawn toward the house, disappearing from Rory’s view.

  “Your mother and I are going to morning mass,” Sister Theodosia says, effectively pulling Rory’s attention away from the scene outside.

  “Where is Mom?”

  “In her room, getting ready for church.”

  “Did you talk to her last night?”

  “We spoke, yes.”

  “Did you notice that she’s . . . having problems?”

  “We prayed together” is the nun’s cryptic answer.

  Rory studies the woman’s angular face, searching for some hint of warmth in her bottomless black eyes. There is none.

  “Are you coming to mass with us, Rory?”

  She hesitates only briefly before lying, “I went yesterday.”

  Lying to a nun about going to church?

  Jeez, Rory, how low can you go?

  She glances back at the police cars on the street, an unsettled feeling stealing over her. If Molly wasn’t safely asleep in her bed, she might have a reason to be worried. But she peeked in on her sister on the way downstairs just ten minutes ago, and was relieved to see a familiar tangle of dark hair on the pink-­and-­white checkered pillow.

  Still, the police seem to be parked in front of Molly’s friend Rebecca Wasner’s house. Rory remembe
rs Rebecca, who had always been a pudgy, serious-­faced little girl, wearing glasses even as a toddler, and following sunny Molly around like a devoted puppy.

  “I’m going to go down there and see what’s going on,” Rory decides aloud, turning back to Sister Theodosia.

  The nun has vanished.

  After a moment, Rory hears the clatter of the teakettle being set on the stove in the kitchen.

  Sister Theodosia always did have a way of coming and going in absolute silence. How many times, in Rory’s childhood, did she seem to sneak up on Rory and Carleen, startling them?

  It’s like she doesn’t walk around the way a regular person does, Carleen had once commented. She just seeps in and out, like a creepy ghost. How does she manage to not make a sound in those big clunky shoes of hers, anyway?

  It’s just too eerie. Sister Theodosia being here, the scent of Carleen’s perfume last night . . .

  Shoving those disconcerting thoughts from her mind, Rory heads quickly up the stairs to get dressed. She sees her mother just coming out of her room, clad in a dark winter dress and a heavy cardigan sweater.

  “Mom, you’re going to be too warm in those clothes,” Rory tells her wearily. “Come on, I’ll help you change.”

  Her mother frowns. “Rory, I thought I told you to go outside and play. Stop bothering me. Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  Oh, God. How many times has she heard those words in her lifetime?

  Go outside and play . . . Can’t you see I’m busy?

  Busy.

  Uh-­huh. Her mother would invariably be sitting in a chair, staring out the window when she’d say it. Just sitting and staring, as though expecting to see Daddy or Carleen lurking out there among the trees.

  “Mom, I can’t go outside and play. I’m a grown woman. Remember?”

  “Emily is out there looking for you. Go play with her.”

  “Emily?” Rory’s stomach turns over at the sound of that name. The name of her best friend in the world, who, like her sister, had simply disappeared.

  “She’s waiting in her yard. Go ahead.”

  “Mom, that was years ago. Emily’s gone. She’s been . . . gone for a long time. Remember, Mom?”

  Just like Carleen.