Maeve's Girls

by Christine Gael

  Their older sister's bedroom was down the opposite corridor so there was no reason to whisper, but she couldn't face her right now.

  Not yet.

  "No. I checked on her a little while ago and she was resting. I'm hoping maybe she took something to help her sleep. How are you holding up?" Kate sat on the edge of her bed and peered down at her.

  Last time Sasha had gone to the bathroom for toilet paper after running out of tissues, she'd caught sight of herself in the mirror and knew she looked like she'd been hit by a bus.

  And she might as well have been.

  "Not great, to be honest, Kate," Sasha admitted, surprised to find her eyes tearing up again. Surely, the well had to be empty by now? "I just can't wrap my head around it all, still."

  She'd read Maeve's note to Lena a hundred times by now. It was still clenched and damp in her hand and she couldn't seem to put it down. When she'd first read it, she'd nearly collapsed. It was like the floor disappeared from beneath her, and she was left floating in the atmosphere, adrift.

  Maggie had taken it from her unresisting hands and read it for herself. Then there was chatter, lots of whispered words and explanations, most of which she didn't retain. Because at the end of the day, all that mattered was that nothing was the way she thought it was.

  "I still don't understand why Mama didn't tell us...or, me, I guess," she said, trying not to sound accusing. There was no question Kate had known the truth for a long time...maybe from the beginning.

  "Honey, Maeve came from a time where saying something out loud made it real. If you held your chin up and kept it moving, you could make that your reality."

  "Suck it up, buttercup," Sasha murmured through numb lips.

  "Exactly. Not to mention, the more people who knew the truth, the more likely it was that Lena would be caught. So it was just the four of us. Maeve, Harry, Lena, and me. And she knew Lena's secret would be safe forever. But she also didn't want you to feel guilty, either. There's so much unnecessary shame on victims of sexual abuse like that. As you got older, she feared you would blame yourself for what Lena did and any of the guilt she suffered because of it. There was already enough tension between the two of you."

  A sob worked its way from her chest, coming out ugly and raw. "So, instead, I blamed her for running away and leaving me behind with that monster. That wasn't Mama's call to make. Someone should've told me."

  "By the time you were old enough to suspect that Clyde's death wasn't some random act of violence, you had very definitely decided you didn't want to discuss that time in your life. It wasn't for us to force that on you," Kate said, reaching out and stroking the hair away from her face like she was a child. "You'd already suffered so much, Sash. Maybe we made a mistake by not telling you, but we did the best we knew how."

  "Tell me again. Tell me how it happened," Sasha said, struggling into a sitting position as she stared at Kate in the dim moonlight streaming through the window. "I tried to listen when you were explaining, but I couldn't think straight, then, and I need to know."

  Kate nodded and blew out a sigh. "Okay. Um, so Maeve had gone away on a trip for a few days...a work thing. I don't know why he chose then to start...I don't know why he chose you. I've thought about it a million times, and all I can figure is that Serina had stopped coming to visit that summer, and Lena had been gone more than a year. Plus, Mama had gone away for a night or two in the past, but never for that long. Maybe it was the combination of all those things that made him finally feel safe enough to do it? I don't know," Kate said, shaking her head and clearly fighting tears. "The first two days were normal. He was distant but kind enough. Then he started acting weird. Looking at you in a way that made my stomach hurt. I went to school the next morning, and when I came back, I knew something bad had happened. You wouldn't tell me what, but you peed the bed that night and there was bl--" Kate broke off and pushed out a breath before continuing through tears. "There was blood. I didn't know what to do, and I couldn't get in touch with Maeve on the boat..."

  "So you called Lena," Sasha finished softly. "You told her what you thought had happened."

  Kate inclined her head. "She told me, whatever I did, not to tell Mama. That she was coming home and she'd fix it. I tried not to, but when Mama got home, she knew something was wrong. She asked me and asked me, and I couldn't break my promise to Lena, but I also couldn't lie convincingly."

  "Why didn't she want you to tell Mama?" Sasha asked the question, deep down, though, she already knew the answer.

  "Lena knew she'd lose her mind and do something crazy. Impulsive. And then what? She'd wind up in jail with three kids to care for and no one to care for them."

  Sasha couldn't even argue with any of that. She'd come by her quick temper and volatile nature honestly, and Maeve would've been more likely to chop off Clyde’s privates in a rage and wear them around as a necklace than she would've been to plan his murder in a way that would keep her out of jail.

  "Annalise was getting worse every year, and Harry could've taken us, but it would've been a real struggle for him to manage it all. And Harry would've killed Clyde himself...Mama later told me he'd wanted to, but Annalise couldn't survive without him if he got caught."

  "So in came Lena..."

  Sasha cast her memory back, trying to remember that time in her life, but there was a gaping hole with just snippets that came through in little flashes. Her brain had deleted a lot of those files as a protective measure, which she appreciated most days, but not today.

  "Did she stay for a while? I don't remember seeing her after she left until I was twelve or thirteen."

  Kate shook her head. "She took a flight in that afternoon and went back the next night. She didn't even stay at the house. She stayed at the Rockaway Motel over in Thorndale. She came back maybe five years later for Christmas one year, and then rarely."

  "The thing I don't get...why didn't she just give the letter to Joe right out of the gate? She's had it since Harry gave it to her right after the rock came through the window. Surely, she realized opening this can of worms could be disastrous for her. I don't know how thorough she was covering her tracks back when she was seventeen or eighteen or whatever, but I'm guessing not so great."

  "At first, she was hoping it was all a bluff and none of it would come out. That would leave your secret safe, and the estate free of liability. Then, once it became clear it was more serious than that, she didn't want us to lose our inheritance because of something she did. If she handed over the confession stating Maeve killed Clyde, it would give Serina claim to his life insurance money. If Lena takes the rap for it, it has no bearing on the estate or the house, beyond Lena's quarter of the money."

  It took a minute for the words to sink in, but when they did, it was like she'd been hit between the eyes with a bat.

  "Are you telling me Lena plans to confess?" she hissed, bile rising to burn her throat. She grabbed Kate's arm and gripped it tight. "Is that what you're trying to say?"

  Kate looked away and covered her mouth with one hand as she nodded.

  "No. No way that can happen. Not under any circumstance." Sasha scooted down the mattress and leapt off the foot of the bed. "We have to give Joe the confession letter."

  "I can't do that, Sash."

  "Why not?" she demanded, anger warring with confusion. What the hell was the matter with this family?

  "Because I swore to Lena I would never do that without her permission. I made a vow, and I won't break it. Not even for you."

  Sasha nodded slowly and lifted the crinkled letter in her hand. She stared at it one last time then she tore it into tiny pieces and let it sprinkle to the floor like confetti.

  "Good thing I didn't make any vows, then."

  She thrust her bare feet into a pair of tennis shoes and headed for the hallway.

  "What are you doing?" Kate called after her.

  "I'm doing what Lena should've done when this whole thing started."

  She jogged down the stairs and sn
atched her keys off the table along with the sealed envelope that sat beside them. Maggie had been sitting on the couch and looked up.

  "Where are you going?"

  "To see Sheriff Fletcher and end this nightmare. I won't be long."

  And it wasn't. Ninety minutes later, she was walking back into the dark house. The rush of fear and adrenaline had finally abated and she was left like a broken doll that had been glued back together.

  Barely.

  She closed the door behind her and made her way into the kitchen for a drink. If ever she needed one, it was now. She was about to flick on the light when she stopped short, catching sight of a figure silhouetted in the darkness, seated at the kitchen table.

  She hit the light switch and found herself face to face with Lena, her face ravaged with tears.

  “What have you done, Sasha?”

  Sasha felt something break loose inside her as she looked at her oldest sister, usually so reserved, face ravaged by grief and wet with tears. She rushed toward her, dropped to her knees, and buried her face in her lap.

  "I'm so sorry, Lena," she wept as she rocked forward and back. "Please forgive me."

  Lena

  Lena set one of the glasses of amber liquid down by her little sister’s elbow, and took her seat across from her at the kitchen table with the other. Not much had been said since she'd walked in twenty minutes before. Both of them had been far too emotional for much talking. But now the tears had dried and there was a lot that needed saying.

  "I know you're mad," Sasha mumbled, her slender shoulders shuddering as she reached for her glass. "But if you were in my shoes, you'd have done the same thing. Don't bother denying it."

  She didn't.

  Instead, she took a sip from her own glass and tried to think of what she could say to somehow make this better for her baby sister, who already had plenty enough on her mind and heart without having to worry about whether Lena was angry or not.

  "I'm not mad. I just would've preferred if you let me handle it."

  Sasha let out a snort that was so much like the Sasha of a few days ago, it actually warmed the cold pit in Lena's stomach a little. "You would prefer if we let you handle everything, so no surprise there. But in this case, the result was you going to jail. Sorry, but that's not how things get handled in this family."

  There was no point arguing. The deed was done. Sasha had taken Maeve's confession letter to Joe's house, and there was no getting it back.

  "What did you tell him when you dropped it off?" Lena asked.

  "I just said we'd come across it with some of her affects as we were cleaning the attic this afternoon. I told him that it was in a folder along with a photocopy of it so we didn't have to break the seal, and that, as soon as we saw it, we wanted to do the right thing and turn it in. I gave him a rundown of what was in the envelope, and Mama's reasons why, in case she didn't include that in the letter."

  Which meant Joe knew what Sasha had suffered.

  Which meant, once the case was reopened, so would everyone else.

  "I'm so sorry, honey. That's exactly what I didn't want to happen."

  "Don't be. At least, not for that," Sasha amended with a sad smile.

  "If we waited, maybe nothing would've come of any of it," Lena said, still struggling to understand. "Maybe Serina would've gone away and no one would have been the wiser about any of it."

  "And maybe she wouldn't have. The cops would've started poking around and you could've wound up in jail for murder. I wasn't about to roll the dice with your life, Lena. Clyde took enough from this family. I wasn't about to let him take you, too."

  Lena took another sip of her whiskey, relishing the burn as it slid down her achy throat.

  "Is it too hard for you to talk about?" Sasha's voice was almost a whisper.

  "I don't rightly know," Lena admitted. "I've never done it, but I can try if you need to hear it."

  At Sasha's nod, she continued.

  "I got back to La Pierre as fast as I could, but it was different than now. It took me a couple days to arrange for a ticket and all. Kate promised to keep you and Maggie away from him, but I was so afraid I wouldn't get back in time and something might happen again. We didn't have any cell phones or..." She trailed off and tried not to let the dark, sucking memories consume her. "I was frantic by the time I got to the motel that afternoon. I called the house from a payphone and spoke to Kate. She told me she thought Mama knew. That's when I realized I didn't have a lot of time. She told me Clyde had just gone to the racetrack and that Mama an' them were going to the grocery store. I bought a junker for eighty-five dollars from a garage across the street and drove straight into La Pierre. Parked the car over on Melhill Avenue, and cut through the path toward the old house. Kate met me there with Ma’ Mere's revolver."

  Lena paused and took a long pull from her glass before setting it back on the table.

  "I drove to the track and just prayed I hadn't missed him. His car was still in the lot when I got there. Unfortunately, when he walked out three hours later, he wasn't alone. I had to follow them until he dropped his buddy off. After that, it was easy."

  So easy, she'd thought for years something was wrong with her. The complete lack of doubt when he'd pulled over to the side of the road—due to her beeping and flashing her lights— and stepped out of the car. The easy lie that slipped from her lips as she approached him.

  "Your taillight's out. Don't want you getting into an accident!" The icy calm that settled over her when his eyes widened in confused recognition as she drew closer, momentarily banking the flames of righteous fury that had been dogging her since Kate's call.

  Her hand hadn't even shook when she pulled the trigger once. Twice. Three times for luck.

  She forced herself back to the present, her white-knuckled grip choking the warm glass as she lifted it to her lips again, draining it.

  "Once I knew he was dead for sure, I took his wallet and his watch and I left him there on the side of the road."

  She didn't tell Sasha that, as she'd pulled away, she'd said a silent prayer that the turkey buzzards would pluck his eyes out before someone found him.

  There were some secrets better left untold.

  "And the whole back story about gambling problems and losing that day? Did Mama make that up or was it just the rumor mill?"

  "Nope, all true. I just got lucky. Gave someone else a motive. Mama was home with you all by that time of night, so you were her alibi, and that was that. People talked, saying she could've snuck out and done it while you all were sleeping, but mostly everyone was content with the story they'd heard, and Clyde wasn't missed by many."

  The silence stretched between them and Lena knew she had to fill it before it grew roots, the way it had for all these years.

  "I need you to know that I never, ever would've left y'all there with him if I knew," Lena said, leaning close and capturing her sister's gaze. "I've asked myself every day, from then to now, if there was something...some feeling I had, or some sixth sense that something was wrong with him. If maybe I'm trying to rationalize me leaving in spite of that, just to make myself feel better. But my anger and bitterness toward Maeve is all I remember from that time. It's not an excuse, but it's a reason. And the Maeve you remember is not the Maeve I grew up with. Do you know why I call her that, Sash? Me and Kate?"

  Sasha shrugged, tracing the rim of her glass with her fingertip. "I just thought cuz you were being ornery with her and Kate was monkey see, monkey do."

  Lena nodded. "That last part is right. But you got the rest wrong. I call her Maeve because she told me to. From the time I was old enough to talk, that's what she told me to call her. She didn't want anyone to think she was old enough to be my mama, so she would pretend to be my sister except, of course, in town, where everyone knew. Having a brat in tow would keep her from hooking another man, she thought. Eventually, once she and your father got together and Kate was born, she tried to switch, but it was too late. She was Maeve to me, and a
lways would be. She was so irritated when Kate started to talk and mimicked me. It was a constant reminder of her failure as a parent. And I gotta be honest, I sort of liked it in a sick way. Every time Kate said it, it was like a little shot. Once you and Maggie came along, I started to realize that my anger was consuming me, but I couldn't seem to master it. Maybe that was my downfall. If I hadn't of been so full of teenage angst, and all in my feelings about how her behavior made me feel, maybe I would've been able to see Clyde for what he was, but it blinded me. That’s something I just have to live with."

  "It's okay, Le--"

  "It's not okay, Sasha," Lena cut in sharply. "And what happened to you was not okay. But don't think for a second that I knew and left you there for him. I could bear anything but that."

  Sasha nodded slowly and reached out a hand, and Lena took it. "It's not your fault. I love you, Lena."

  She still wasn't sure whether the former was true or not, but she felt better than she'd felt in ages. Lighter, somehow, in spite of all the despair. The next few months weren't going to be pretty. Joe probably hated her, and there was nothing to do about that. Sasha would likely be put through the ringer, and the estate affairs would be in turmoil, but they'd be okay. She'd make sure of it.

  "I love you, too, Sash."

  Lena squeezed her sister’s hand, vowing to figure out where they would all go from here in the morning.

  "Can we come in?" a low voice murmured.

  Lena swung her head toward the kitchen door to find Maggie and Kate standing there dressed in their pjs. Both looked about as wrecked as she and Sasha, and Lena waved them in with her free hand.

  "Come on."

  They both rushed forward, looping their arms around Lena and Sasha in a tangled hug.

  "It's going to be okay, girls," Lena whispered into Kate's hair.

  And for the first time in a long time, she almost believed it.

  Lena

  The next morning, she did her best to stay busy while she waited for the inevitable. She and Kate managed to finish going through the pictures in the attic. The task was bittersweet now, after having imagined all this and the house itself belonging to Sasha. Now they really were emptying it out to sell, and the thought bothered her more than it should have. This was what she'd come here to do in the beginning, after all.