by Kim Karr
With a wicked grin, I raised a brow. “Long weekend. No interruptions. Do we need to have a discussion about the birds and the bees before you leave?”
Shaking her head, she got to her feet. “Tyler Holiday, I think I’m the one who first told you that story when you were eleven.”
Now I felt my own blush creeping out of the collar of my white shirt. Yeah, that was when she caught me jerking off. Shit, the embarrassment was still with me.
Tossing her head back, she laughed. “I knew that would shut you up. Now, listen, I’ve moved out of your grandfather’s bedroom and into the guest house.”
Seriousness stilled me. “Wilhelmina, I can be a bastard sometimes, but I can assure when I told you we were moving in, I hadn’t meant I was kicking you out of your own house.”
She rolled her eyes. “As if I would allow that to happen.”
The corner of my mouth lifted knowing she was right. There would most definitely be a fight to the bitter end if I wanted something she didn’t.
Something in the way she moved when she got to her feet really did make her look younger than her age. “I’m doing this because I want to,” she said, gripping the back of the chair. “Because I want you to make that house your home, and a happy one, like your grandfather would have wanted.”
Emotion clogged my throat when I started to protest.
Not that it mattered because she cut me off. “Now don’t argue with me, Tyler. Besides, it’s already done. In fact, I ran into Tabitha at the coffee shop the other morning and somehow she ended up volunteering to arrange to the redecorating of the master bedroom.”
Tabitha, I got. She was just itching for things to do now that she was a stay at home mom, but Wilhelmina? All I could do was stare at her, wondering who the hell she was.
Wicked witch turned fairy godmother.
Had hell frozen over?
Paris
I FELT LIKE I had things left undone.
Staring at the ceiling, I listened to the soft breathing of Tyler, who was fast asleep beside me in my small bed.
Smiling, I glanced over at him. I still couldn’t believe he was my husband. The sight of him was almost too much. He was all long, muscled limbs and smooth, sun-kissed skin. Just looking at him caused my pulse to race.
We’d had sex before bed, and still, I thought about waking him up for more. It was silly, I knew. It was close to midnight and we had a lot to do tomorrow.
Still, I couldn’t sleep.
Tossing.
Turning.
Thinking.
Thinking about my father who I knew I would go see again. The man who would die alone because that was how he’d lived the majority of his life.
For some crazy reason I’d never been allowed in my sister’s room. The door had remained locked for all the years I’d lived here. And then, the other day when Tyler had ransacked my father’s office, I’d found the key my father must have kept in his office.
This was my last night in this house, and I couldn’t leave without setting foot inside the mausoleum my father had sanctioned for himself only.
Quietly, I slipped out of bed and shrugged into Tyler’s button down. I crept down the hallway in my bare feet. With shaky fingers, I unlocked the door and flicked the lights on.
My eyes searched the room, scanning the walls first. The mauve color. The floral wallpaper. So prim. So proper.
Was that who she was?
On her desk was a picture, and I tip-toed over to it. The photo was one of her with my parents at her high school graduation.
They looked happy.
There was no such picture of me with my father; he wasn’t ever interested in photo snapping where I was involved. Still, I was happy for the dead sister I’d never met. Happy that at least one of us had something real.
London had been gone for a long time, and yet, her room had remained unchanged. Frozen in time, it remained the room of a nineteen-year-old.
With my heart heavy, I carefully opened her closet. All her clothes were still there. Shoes. Sneakers. Hats. And even backpacks.
Closing the sliding door, I started around her room, dragging my fingertips across the top of the dresser. The dust was thick but not overtly so. Someone had been cleaning this space over the years.
The floorboards creaked beneath my feet when I circled the bed. Pausing for a moment, I considered my actions but then just sat on the mattress. It bowed as I did and the yellowed, ruffled comforter moved along with it.
Stretching my legs out in front of me, I leaned back against the headboard.
This was London Fairchild’s space. The original daughter with snowflake skin and red hair, like mine.
London Fairchild. The daughter that was loved, unlike me.
But I was finally okay with it.
I was Paris Fairchild, the replacement, and I finally was okay with that, too.
I had to be.
That part of my life was over, now, for good. I no longer had to live in the shadow of the perfect daughter I could never come close to being anything like.
Gazing around, I took in the little nuances I hadn’t at first. The bulletin board with concert tickets and movie stubs. Hairspray and ponytail holder on her dresser. Makeup and perfume on the vanity.
It was as if he was waiting for her to come home.
With a sigh, I turned sideways and casually opened the nightstand drawer. Books. Magazines. Lip glosses. I froze when I saw a diary. Her diary. A glimpse into the sister I never knew.
I had always wondered what she was like, and my opportunity to meet her was staring me in the face.
The only thing I knew about her were the details surrounding her death that I had managed to pry from our housekeeper’s mouth when I was nine. Unfortunately, she was fired immediately following the divulgence. According to her, though, it was London’s first summer back home from college and she was somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be. She’d snuck out and was driving back home alone late at night in the rain when she drove her car off a cliff.
I wondered where she’d gone?
Who was she with?
What kind of car she had?
A lot of questions that were never answered.
Invading her privacy seemed wrong. I shouldn’t have done it, but I couldn’t help myself when I reached in the drawer and grabbed the diary.
Opening it, I immediately flipped to the back. Since I knew how her story ended, I figured I’d start there and work my way back. I gasped when I saw the date of the last entry was the same day her car slid off the road and over a cliff in the rain. Hungry for information, I read it immediately.
July 3rd
Dear Diary,
I finally talked to him today. He told me he was having a party and asked me to come. I’m pretty sure he’s going to apologize and beg me to take him back.
Mommy and Daddy will be so mad when they find out I’m talking to him again. That I’ve decided to forgive him. Of course, I won’t tell him that right away. Tomorrow maybe. For now I have to run. It’s raining out and I need a new pair of rain boots to wear to his house tonight, and maybe even a new outfit.
This is it.
I can feel it.
The night he tells me he loves me.
Finally.
The door creaked open and I jumped. My heart raced with the fear of getting caught. However, then I realized there was no getting caught. My father would never be returning to this house.
I smiled when Tyler walked in the room all rumpled hair, bare-chested, and sleepy-eyed. “Hey, what are you doing up?” I asked.
That lazy grin tipped. “I think the better question is why aren’t you in bed?”
The diary felt heavy in my hands, so I laid it upon my knees. I wasn’t ashamed about what I was doing. I had always yearned to know London, and this was the only way I was ever going to meet her. Providing closure I desperately needed. Still, guilt loomed around me like I was invading her privacy.
Patting the bed beside me,
I said, “I’m doing something I probably shouldn’t do.”
His steps were slow as he strode toward me and his grin tipped a bit more. “Oh, yeah, and what might that be?”
Without hesitation, I told him how I’d never set foot in my sister’s room and felt I needed to see it before leaving this house. That I knew, once I left, I wouldn’t be returning. The house held too many reminders of the childhood I longed for but never really had. That someday, maybe, depending on what happened with Highway 128, I’d tear it down and start fresh. Or maybe we would.
He smiled at me and tilted his back against the headboard. “Read it to me?”
“You sure?” I asked.
He nodded.
After summarizing the first journal entry, I lifted my hands from the page I’d covered and read aloud.
July 1st
Dear Diary,
I hate him.
I hate him so much.
He promised he’d wait for me and then he went and messed around.
He’s such a liar.
I hate him.
I.
Hate.
Him.
June 27th
Dear Diary,
I’ve been home for days and he still hasn’t called me. I’m dying inside not seeing him.
I told Mommy and Daddy about the two of us and needless to say, they weren’t happy. They forbade me from ever seeing him again.
I can’t do that.
I won’t.
I love him.
June 25th
Dear Diary,
I’m so mad.
Daddy is making me work this summer. I have to leave so early every morning. Mommy is always sneaking in here and making sure I’m up. She wants me to make Daddy proud. That seems impossible if you ask me, but hey, on the bright side, I’m getting paid. If I save enough, maybe we can run away together.
Wouldn’t that be romantic?
I took a break and looked at Tyler. “My sister felt like a prisoner in our house just like me.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right.”
Shock was all I felt. “She’d been suffocated and smothered and ruled to death, too. Like me. I had no idea.”
Tyler twirled a stray piece of my hair around his finger. “Maybe that’s just who your father is?”
I nodded in agreement and then went back to reading.
June 15th
Dear Diary,
I go home from college in less than a week.
My parents are going to completely lose it when I tell them I’m dropping pre-med.
It’s just not for me.
I hate having to live under their roof again with all their rules but I’m going home because I get to see him.
And I can’t wait.
I haven’t seen him since Spring Break and I know he’s going to ask me to marry him.
That means we have to tell Mommy and Daddy about us. They are going to freak out.
I’ll do it, though, for love.
For Corky and me.
Soon.
I promise.
“Let me see that.” Startling me, Tyler grabbed the diary from my hands.
The blur of his body as he took the book shocked me. As soon as he had it, he hurried to the end of the bed. He sat there with his feet on the ground and opened the diary.
Still stunned by his actions, I crawled on my hands and knees across the mattress toward him. “What is it?”
He was leafing through the entries at lightning speed. “Corky,” he whispered. “Corky. Corky. Corky. It’s written everywhere.”
I shrugged. “I guess that was the name of her boyfriend.”
“Corky,” he said again, skimming the earlier entries, still finding his name page after page.
The look in Tyler’s eyes told me that name meant something to him. “Do you know him?” I asked, my voice soft.
He hesitated a moment, his shoulders hunching up a little as he read, and said, “Yeah, I know him. He was my father.”
I drew in a ragged breath. “My sister and your father?”
The noise I made got Tyler’s attention and he stopped reading to glance over at me. The moonlight illuminated his face, allowing me to see the tortured expression on his face. “According to this, they met at a party and messed around, but afterwards Corky was playing hard to get.”
“Hard to get? It didn’t sound that way in her later entries. Something must have changed because she called him her boyfriend.”
“I don’t know what. It’s not clear in her entries. She seems to be up and down or he was hot and cold, who knows.”
Trying to keep up with what was written as he flipped through the diary pages was much too difficult, so I gave up. While he read, I thought back in time. “When I was visiting my father,” I told him, “he thought I was London and he told me to stay away from that Holiday boy. At the time I thought he was confusing London and I, but now, I don’t think so. I think he still thought I was London and was referring to your father.”
Glaring at me, Tyler drew in a deep breath and then he slammed the diary closed. “Take it,” he demanded like his hands were on fire.
I did. “It’s an old love affair, Tyler. It doesn’t mean anything.”
His gaze turned dark. “She died after going to see him. Doesn’t that seem off to you?”
“She died in a car accident.”
“Yeah, after seeing Corky, Paris. You never met my father. He was nothing but trouble. I’m sure it means something. Means everything.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, reaching for him as he stood.
Shrugging away from me, he strode toward the door. “Neither do I, but I intend to find out.”
“Don’t walk away, Tyler. Let’s talk about this,” I shouted.
He shook his head. “Done talking. I need some air,” he muttered and then left me right where I sat.
Damn him.
The mattress was old and lumpy, and yet I stayed right where I was. I couldn’t help but stare at the diary and will all of her secrets to just go away.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know her anymore.
Tyler would come back and get me.
Right?
Paris
I WAS IN shock.
Tyler hadn’t stepped foot back in London’s room and more than thirty minutes had passed.
He wasn’t coming to get me.
We.
Were.
Married.
We were supposed to work things out. Discuss them like two mature human beings. Not go off on our own to sulk and brood like high schoolers.
So what if Tyler’s father and my sister hooked up? They would have been the same age, and if you thought about it, it made sense. Private school kids always hooked up.
Then there was the off-limits thing about the family feud that only made the other person more inviting.
It was the same old Fairchilds versus Holidays for her as it was for me.
The forbidden fruit you couldn’t help but want to take a bite from. It was attractive to me, and I was sure it was to my sister, too.
After all, we’d both been warned to stay clear of a Holiday boy, so what did we do, gravitate right toward him, of course.
We were sisters, after all.
And she wasn’t perfect. Wasn’t perfect like I thought. Not by a long shot. It appeared my father just had unrealistic expectations for the both of us.
I pondered what I’d read.
London had been fooling around with a Holiday behind my parents’ back, just like me. And just like me, she’d willingly told our father.
Yet, she hadn’t been banished.
Seriously, how was she not even grounded for life after that confession?
Why was I different? Was he afraid he’d lose me like he had her? Was it love not hate?
Chaos was all I felt.
I wanted to talk to Tyler about it. See what he thought. Discuss my feelings about all of this.
But he wasn’t here.
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Tyler. Tyler. Tyler.
So, his father was a jerk. So was mine. The biggest difference, my father never laid a hand on me. I couldn’t say the same for Tyler’s.
Okay, so it was true. My sister and Tyler’s father had been involved with each other.
Ewww.
I ran through scenarios in my head where the marriage between Tyler and I might be considered incestuous, but none actually made sense.
I was being ridiculous for no reason.
It took another few minutes of trying to let everything sink in before I was able to leave London’s room and go after my temporary husband, who was becoming more and more temporary by the minute.
I found him outside sitting on the front porch.
There was a bottle of whiskey from my father’s bar in one of his hands and his phone sat beside him. An unlit joint dangled from his mouth and he had a lighter in the other hand that he was flicking over and over and over.
He looked completely lost.
Wrapping the blanket I’d grabbed from the sofa tighter around myself, I closed the door behind me.
It was cold.
Really cold.
At least he’d thrown a coat over his bare chest and slipped into unlaced boots, so he wasn’t going to freeze to death.
“You look so Rebel Without a Cause,” I offered sardonically.
Tyler didn’t say anything. No quick comeback. Not even a grunt in response.
I sat beside him on the step and tucked the wool beneath my bare feet to wrap my body entirely.
He just stared out into the darkness.
The first thing I did to change the narrative was to pluck the joint from his lips and tuck it behind his ear. Then I took the bottle from his hand to replace it with my own hand, warm whereas his was cold. “Talk to me, Tyler. What’s going on in that head of yours?”
Putting an end to the flicking of the lighter. He turned toward me and his tormented blue eyes were dim and drained and full of despair. “Your sister goes to a party at my father’s house and dies on her way home, and that sits okay with you?”
The shock I’d been feeling turned to uneasiness. “I’m not sure what you’re looking for, Tyler. He wasn’t with her. She died alone, that much we know. Accidents do happen. Who knows, maybe she was upset about something, or maybe she’d been drinking. Or maybe, just maybe, she was happy. I doubt we’ll ever really know. Regardless, it was a long time ago, and we weren’t even born. It has nothing to do with us.”