Stay With Me (5 page)

I notice that no one has asked Clare since William talked to my parents. She's been over a few times. She and Da sit in the living room, combing through the details of Rebecca's plan. The drugs, the friends she saw, the hope to expand the store, what to do with the store. They go over everything except the
why.
For them, the
why
needs no discussion. They seem to feel that the way Rebecca died was as much a part of her as her height and her collection of silk scarves.

Clare's lost weight since returning from Budapest, something she hardly needs to do. When my mother asked if she was eating, my sister shrugged, saying, "Oh, you know. At work, they say I treat grief like a diet."

"Clare will agree," I say to my mother now. "She'll want to do this for Da."

"Assuming she does," Mom repeats. "It's going to be very hard for you. Harder than you're thinking."

"I
am
thinking it'll be hard," I say. "But not impossible."

"It's not being with Clare that will be hard," my mother says. "Clare is a remarkable person."

I think that's probably right even if she's a remarkable person I hardly know.

"It's more, that eventually you're going to feel as though I chose your father over you," Mom says. "That I thought of him more."

"I'm not," I say. "I'm not going to think that."

And so what if I do? I don't have to be a genius to know she can't be in two places at once. I'll get over it.

"You might, Leila, and it's normal. All I want to say is that when it happens, please know I'm sorry. You'll be right to be angry, but never think this was an easy choice."

For as much as I like my mother (and I love her too, of course, but everyone loves their mother, that's no accomplishment), her insistence on not only telling me what I will think but also trying to shape the outcome of those thoughts makes me very uncomfortable.

"Okay," I say. "I won't."

I still have to put my hair up and pick out a sweater. My mother and I consider each other. She is not as easy to lie to as Da is. But if I tell her I think Clare is a stranger and that I'm worried about Da's dying, I will only make this next year that much more difficult for her.

"People will judge him," Mom says. "I guess I want you to know it's okay if you blame us too."

"Judge him for what?" I ask, wondering if that's what William meant when he said there would be pressure on my parents to stay.

"People think they know what they would do if their—if their child died," Mom says. "They think they wouldn't go off."

I wonder if she has anyone in mind. How dare anyone think badly of my father. Let them come live here for a day and then tell me what he
should
do. That's ridiculous.

"This is thé right choice," I tell her, wanting to say that she of all people is beyond being judged. "It really is."

Da needs a new way to keep busy while he gets used to this sudden gaping hole.

"Yes," Mom says. "Okay. Well."

It's still preying on her, I can tell. The idea that whatever she does will be the wrong thing. Mom was almost forty-one when she had me. She didn't grow up wanting to become a mother so much as an interesting person. As a result, she's never tried to treat me the way she thinks a mother
should.
She treats me, instead, like one of the most important people in her life.

I think it's one of the reasons we get along so well. It's always been my plan to someday repay her for letting me know how much I matter. If I could convince her that I understand why she and Da are leaving, I could get a start on that repayment.

I've imagined a variety of ways of how I'm going to wind up. How things conclude. The end of my particular story. They involve at least one great love—some perfect blend of William and Gyula Racz. A career in the theater, the details of which are still murky except for my neither acting in plays or writing them. But however things settle, one thing is completely clear to me.

I'm not going to blame my parents for doing what was necessary.

My mother's still here, so while I am making a French braid, I tell her a little about my plans. I leave out the perfect love stuff and don't make the theater sound like a done deal because that's not what they want for me. But I spell out the not blaming them part and I guess I do it well, because by the time I'm ready to put on earrings, she kisses the top of my head, says,
Thank you, Leila,
and goes out, shutting the door softly behind her.

I'm late to meet Ben and we barely make it to the theater. Da got the tickets for this ages ago, when it opened. It's about a man and a woman trying to find their drug-addict father. Even though I don't like the play as much as the acting, it's nice to be doing something normal with Ben. I just wish I knew how to tell him that we're not having sex again anytime soon. Maybe I'll figure it out by the time my parents go to Poland. When I know where I'll be living.

In the end, my parents don't ask Clare anything and I get another lesson in how information flies around Julian Abranel's first family.

William, who knows Clare can't stand him, calls Raphael to get help in brokering a truce. William tells Raphael he wants it to be easy for Clare to be in touch with him during the year my parents are in Poland. Raphael, who has always loved Clare in one way or another, calls her to see what he can do to help.

"Help with what?" she asked, hoping he wasn't going to offer, once again, to close and sell Rebecca's store.

"Well, you know," he said. "When Julian and Elsa leave Leila with you and William."

I try to picture Clare, on the phone, absorbing the news. The phone has not been good to her recently. After Da called her in Budapest, I'm surprised she still picks up anything that rings.

Clare and Raphael have dinner at his house. They do not discuss the store, although Clare does, I will learn later, tell him that she can't stop wishing Rebecca had left instructions for it instead of
that stupid, useless note.
For the most part, my sister and her cousin avoid the recent death in the family and work out a plan where I will live with Clare, but stay with Raphael when Clare is traveling.

Raphael calls William. Who calls Da. Who tells me.

"Raphael is devoted to your sisters," Da says. "He's turned out quite well when you consider how God-awful his father was."

"I like Raphael," I say.

I know William better, but whatever. The year ahead of me will be Rebecca's doing, and she would pick Raphael over William. So.

"Clare can be very hard," Da says. "She'll never forgive William, and this does make everything easier."

"Forgive him for what?" I ask. "What did William do?"

Normally, when asked, Da isn't a good source of information about the girls. He doesn't know, can't recall, or won't say. Caught off-guard, however, he'll cough up a lot.

"He wanted Rebecca to have a baby," my father says, and something in his eyes makes me vow never again to point him in the direction of this memory.

This can't possibly be why Clare can't stand William. Everyone knew Rebecca didn't want children. From way before marrying William. There's got to be more than one missing detail in the he-wanted-a-baby account.

"I was at Raphael's a couple of years ago," I say. "He had a housewarming party when he moved to Brooklyn."

Rebecca took me because Clare wouldn't go. Raphael lives in a brownstone he's renovated that's about a block from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. The Promenade, with its black iron fence, pretty buildings on one side, huge view on the other, and cobbled walkway in between, used to be one of my favorite places to visit. But now it's just a place from which it's possible to see (with a sick clarity) exactly how the city was attacked. I won't be going to the Promenade when at Raphael's.

At school, there are two types of people. People like Ben, who know everything about the attacks, down to the names of all nineteen hijackers. And people like me, who simply can't think about it. I went down there, of course. You had to look and whisper that you were sorry even if only your heart heard it. And I made myself stand on Fifth Avenue by Washington Square Park and stare at how nothing rose through the park's archway.

Everything about that day is bigger than I can hold on to. People say that knowledge is power. (This is actually something teachers say. And certain posters at the library.) Normally, I agree, but not about that day. I'm almost grateful to the dyslexia because I don't think I could get on a plane to Poland. Even to help Da.

I look at my father and think about Raphael and his house. I can learn to like him as much as I do William.

"Clare's invited us over," Da says. "For New Year's. Raphael, too. She thinks you should have the chance to spend time with them. Before you have to."

Da always makes a big fuss over New Year's Day because of our having no other end-of-the-year holiday. Clare would often come over with presents and a good mood (and sometimes with a boyfriend, but mostly not). Rebecca never came, saying she couldn't possibly make plans so far in advance.

"Decide at the last minute," Da might say.

It's not like we did much—just wore nice clothes and had a fancy meal with cheese and sorbet courses. Lots of different forks and linen napkins.

"I can't," she said. "If I came even once, it would feel like I was obliged for every year."

At the time, I thought this made Rebecca extra dazzling. Now that she will never come to anything again, I guess I think she should have erred on the side of obligation.

O
N
N
EW
Y
EAR'S
D
AY
, Da and I arrive at Clare's just as Raphael does. Early, as it turns out, since my sister is still in her pajamas. They're like men's pajamas, except the pants taper at the ankle and the buttons on her shirt are made of shells. The pattern, which I can't help staring at, is of different pieces of sushi. Like the place mats at a Japanese restaurant.

"You look like a menu," Da says.

"Thank you," Clare says, her voice at once amused and irritated. "Such charm before I've even had my coffee."

"You look beautiful," Raphael says. "I'll make the coffee—I brought a lot to cook and I can get it started."

He does have a bag of groceries, which he carries into the small kitchen I first saw when Janie lived here.

"I forgot you don't cook," Da says.

"I'm such a disappointment," Clare says, although I know Da didn't mean it like that.

It's more that Rebecca was a great cook and I can manage well enough. My father just forgot that Clare doesn't go on the
copes well in kitchen
list.

"Well, I'm sure I don't think that, and besides, Raphael's right, you do look beautiful," Da says, holding his coat and standing in the middle of the living room.

And she does, actually, although I never think of her that way. In addition to being thin, Clare is tall with wide shoulders and very long blonde hair just like Janie's. Like Mom's, actually. Like mine. It's always been interesting to me that while Clare and I are related because of Da, we look a lot alike because of our mothers. Janie, while mostly different from Mom, looked like her. Rebecca used to say that Da clearly had a type.

"How boring is blonde?" she'd ask and then shrug if Clare said,
Hey, watch it.

"Being blonde is not all it's cracked up to be," Janie once told me. "People think you're dumb and your skin goes to hell faster."

That and people always ask if it's real and then want to see your scalp before they'll believe you. That bothers me.

I don't mind the dumb part (people think what they think), but I'm still a little worried about my skin going to hell. My mother, when asked, shrugged, saying,
I guess.
Her looks are not a top concern—she gets her soap from the grocery store. Rebecca used to give me bottles of a French face cleanser she used.
In a few years, I'll turn you over to Clare,
she said.
I don't know what to do with all that pale skin.

Rebecca was the dark one, with a small, curvy body and black, black hair. She looked like one of the Abranel girl cousins in old photographs taken before the lost hotels were lost. Rebecca looked beautiful. Clare, except for this morning with her tired eyes and tangled hair, always looks prepared and deeply occupied with the task at hand.

Normally, you don't think
beautiful
when you look at Clare. Instead you wonder what she's thinking.

She takes our coats and says she's sorry she's not dressed.

"Gyula's here," she says, accepting a cup of coffee from Raphael, who also gives one to Da. "He took me out to dinner last night, late. I don't even want to think what he tipped to get us in with no reservation."

"You went out to dinner?" Da asks. "You and Gyula?"

"It was after this enormous party with every Hungarian in the city," Clare says. "Like going to Budapest without flying."

"You don't like to eat out," Da says.

This is a chronic complaint of his about Clare: that she won't sit over a meal. That she's thinking of the check as soon as she arrives. I've eaten out with Da a lot and I totally see Clare's point. He can take hours.

"I don't," Clare says. "But Gyula thought it was important to be here for me. And this is how he does things. Big and his way."

"Leila, what if I make you some hot chocolate?" Raphael asks.

"Yes," I say. "Thank you."

I should offer to help him, I know, but looking at Clare like this, all curled up in the sofa, holding her coffee cup and freely offering details of her private life, is like meeting someone again for the first time. It's impossible, but it's happening.

"I'd like to give Leila her things," Da says, and I freeze, looking to my sister to see if this moment has been ruined, but she nods.

"Okay, sure," she says. "I think they're probably in her bedroom. Feel free to look."

Rebecca left me some things in her will. In an addendum or codicil or something she had drawn up in August right around the time she got her drugs. A bracelet that had been given to her by one of Da's aunts, a cashmere shawl, and some photographs.