The Sister Season (10 page)

“Come on, Queenie. You were all about Claire being the worst sister on earth for sleeping with Bradley, and now you’re buddy-buddy with her. What’s changed?”

“Maya, I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. Claire is my sister, and our father just died. It’s been a long time.”

Maya squinted her eyes. “You used to be on my side,” she said.

Julia threw her hands in the air. “There is no side! Whatever happened or didn’t happen . . . it was years ago, Maya! Don’t you think it’s time you let it go?”

Maya’s eyes darkened. “I will never let it go.”

“Well, that’s probably not very wise. You think smoking will kill you? Try holding grudges. Try stress. Try isolation. It’s time to let it go.” She turned off the water and tossed the soaked butt into the trash, then walked back over to the window and shut it. “Look at what stress and isolation has done to Mom,” she said, lowering her voice. She sat in her chair again and took a drink of the orange juice, her serious gaze never leaving Maya. “She’s cracked up. Loopy. And she seems . . . secretive. Like she’s hiding something and it’s eating her up inside.”

“She’s fine. She’s grieving.”

“Haven’t you noticed she’s not said one word about him?” Julia asked. “Not a single thing. And she hasn’t shed a tear. Hasn’t even acted all that sad.”

“Well, who has? Who would?” Maya said, and then felt her face flush with the ugliness of those words. But it was true. Nobody in the house seemed to really be what could be called grieving. Everyone seemed to be there mainly out of duty. Everyone seemed to be bumping around in their own little bubble, occasionally merging with another bubble and then separating again. Everyone seemed to be looking forward to getting this burial over with. It wasn’t the way she’d wanted her family to turn out, but it wasn’t entirely her fault that they had turned out that way. In fact, it wasn’t her fault at all. If anyone wanted to lay blame, they could begin with the man in the casket and work their way to the slut with the curly blond hair.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence between them. The coffeemaker finished brewing with one final growl and the oven ticked as it puffed heat around the rising cake inside. Finally, Julia leaned forward, her voice so low Maya had to lean forward too, just to hear her. “Are you sad about him being gone?” she asked.

And despite herself, despite her desire to maintain her poise throughout this whole nasty nightmare, Maya couldn’t help but shake her head. “Not at all.” She pressed her lips together nervously, feeling the nude lip gloss she’d smeared on after her shower slip against itself. “When I told my therapist that my father had died, she was surprised to hear that he’d still been alive. I never ever talked about him. Isn’t that weird? You’d think he’d have come up in therapy of all places. God, you’d think he’d have come up a lot. I think I wanted to forget that he still existed. It’s been a lot of years since I’ve felt comfortable here.”

“Only the good die young,” Julia said.

“Maybe Mom isn’t loopy or secretive or whatever. Maybe she’s relieved. And who would blame her, you know?”

“Not me.”

“Me either.”

“And not Claire.”

“God, do we have to keep bringing her up?” Maya angrily took a sip of her juice, feeling tense, wiry, as if she wanted to go lie down again, though she’d been awake for only a little over an hour. Normally she’d hit the treadmill at a time like this, do some sit-ups. But it had been weeks since she’d been up to her morning workout, and would be more weeks until she was up to it again. If ever. She shook the thought away. She would get back to the treadmill. She would return to sit-ups. She had to believe that.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Julia shot back. “Lighten up, would you? Jeez.”

“You don’t understand.”

Julia sat back and crossed her legs. “Well, you’re right about that.”

The two sisters glared at each other, and Maya was struck with an overwhelming sensation of being all alone in the world. Her father gone, her mom—yes, Julia was right—possibly barely hanging on to reality, one sister her betrayer and the other her betrayer’s champion, her husband . . . just . . . ugh. She didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to think about any of it. She wanted to sleep.

But before either of them could speak again, Will burst into the room, the way he burst into every room, with energy to spare.

“Mom! I dreamed I eated a dinosaur and I waked up really hungried,” he said, and something about the sound of his voice calmed Maya. Maybe she wasn’t alone in the world at all. Maybe these two children she and Bradley had created would be her champions. Even if it was wrong to want your children to be your champions, the thought soothed her.

“Was it a French Toastasaurus?” she said, opening her arms wide, inviting him, playing along with their script. This was the way they started every morning, coming up with dinosaur names derived from breakfast foods—French Toastasaurus, Pancakagon, Muffineratops. He scrambled up into her lap, giggling, his neck still damp from sleep, and snuggled his whole body up against her. How much longer would she have this with him? How long until little boys decided that mommies were uncool or embarrassing? How many days until French Toastasaurus would get an eye roll and a frustrated grunt? She nestled her nose in his hair and took a deep breath. She was sure she could be blindfolded and would be able to pick her son out of a crowd by the smell of his scalp. “Well, you’re in luck, then,” she said against his head. “We’re eating cake for breakfast this morning, and it’s almost done cooking.”

Will turned his head to look up at Maya, his mouth open in a huge smile that made her grin no matter what else was going on in the house and her world. Such a precious boy. She never wanted to leave him. She hoped she wouldn’t have to. “Chocolate?”

She shook her head. “No. Apple.”

“But I’ll bet Santa will leave you some chocolate tonight,” Julia said.

Will turned back around in his mom’s lap and laid his head against her chest. “Molly said Santa won’t come because we don’t live here,” he said sadly.

Maya manipulated her arms to turn him around again. “Well,” she said, “Molly doesn’t know everything, and I’ll bet she’s wrong about this.”

“You think?”

“I think.”

“Can I have chocolate milk with my cake?”

“Yep.”

“Can I build a fort under the Christmas tree?”

“Don’t knock it down.” Maya kissed him on his forehead and watched as he slithered out of her lap and scampered off into the den. “I’ll call you when the cake is done,” she said.

After he left, the kitchen felt empty, as if Julia wasn’t even sitting there. As if maybe Maya wasn’t even sitting there herself. Something about Will’s absence made his presence seem all the more real, and all the more fleeting, and it was all Maya could do to keep from crying. She wanted so badly to capture her children and keep them at this age forever. She wanted to watch them grow, but if her fears came true and she couldn’t do that, she wanted them to stay forever this way so that she wouldn’t miss a thing.

“Santa?” Julia whispered across the table. “How are you going to manage that?”

“I’m going shopping later. Bradley will just have to stay with the kids for a few minutes whether he likes it or not. You want to come?”

“Yeah, sure,” Julia said. “After the cake. It smells amazing.”

Maya grinned. “I told you so,” she singsonged, and she and her sister both giggled as they listened to the lilting voice of Molly, who had apparently joined her brother under the Christmas tree. “The secret is in the heels.”

Apples and cinnamon once again wafted through the house. One of the kids had turned on the Christmas tree lights, which blinked against the walls between the two rooms. Outside, the sky had turned white and begun to shed fat, wet flakes onto the ground. The poinsettias were gay and colorful in every corner, and if Maya closed her eyes and concentrated really hard . . . it felt like Christmas. A real Christmas.

A happy one.

Please, God,
she silently prayed.
Let it last
.

And, despite herself, she hoped the prayer would be answered.

B
y the time they left the house, it had turned into a family affair. Elise had jumped at the chance to run into town, going on and on about having forgotten the candy canes in a way that made Maya uncomfortable once again. Death of a husband or not, the woman was such a far cry from the stoic, stern mother who had forced them to so delicately toe the line that she was almost like a different person.

And then Julia went and invited Claire, proving to Maya once and for all that she was no longer on her side, and Maya didn’t care one whit what Julia said about there not being sides—Julia just didn’t understand. She didn’t know how it hurt to even catch the tiniest glimpse of that stupid blond hair. She didn’t understand the full force of what she was expecting Maya to forget. And at what a bad time.

But it was Christmas Eve. And she needed pajamas. And the kids needed gifts. And she wasn’t going to screw up what could end up being her last Christmas just because of one lousy person. She gritted her teeth and dug her French-tipped nails into her palms. It would not be her last Christmas. She had to stop thinking that way.

The four of them climbed into Julia’s SUV and headed toward town, to the big-box store, the only sounds inside the car their blowing and gasping breath against the cold and the squeak of the windshield wipers fighting the snow, which was coming down hard.

Maya remembered when she was a child and always prayed for a white Christmas. She liked the way the world seemed muted beneath the blanket of white. She loved the way it felt insulated and small and as if she could hide in plain sight. Hide from her dad, who always seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders, and who always seemed to be looking for someone to dump it on. The feeling was liberating and empowering and it was during those moments, and those moments alone, that Maya felt like she could do anything. Like she could be somebody.

She never felt that way at any other time of her life. She mostly wandered and waded through her days feeling ugly and stupid and insecure and as if she had to grasp onto things with a grip that might break her knuckles in order to keep them. She often raged against the unfairness of it all, how everything seemed to come so easily for everyone else.

She hoped Bradley would be a decent father for once and take the children outside. Let them play in the snow. Let them hide in plain sight. Let them feel big. Maybe instead of buying a carload of junk for them, she should have stayed home and taken them out instead. Maybe that would have been the best gift she could have given them: the gift of confidence.

The drive was slow and uncomfortable. Maya could feel Claire’s presence behind her, could feel the unspoken accusations from her mom and Julia, a noxious cloud floating above her. She knew they wanted her to speak, to make nice.
It’s Christmas Eve,
she could practically hear them thinking.
It’s a time for peace.

But they didn’t know. They hadn’t held a nasty used condom in their hands. They didn’t see their husband wrapped around another woman. They didn’t stand in front of the love of their life and watch him crumble away from them.

They didn’t see newly wed Bradley break down into frame-racking tears, his back hunched dejectedly.

They hadn’t been working for ten years to forget the image.

You did it, didn’t you? You screwed my sister, you asshole!
she heard herself saying, standing, shaking, in front of him in the living room of their new apartment, the memory as clear as if it had happened just yesterday, not ten years ago. Saw herself fling a book at him, saw him bring a knee up to cover himself, but the tears were not coverable. The tears had been there for her to see.
Why don’t you just admit it!

He shook his head.
Maya, please, you don’t know what you’re—

I know enough! I can see it on you! I can practically smell it on you!
Her own tears were hot and furious. She picked up another book, feeling as if she could throw it clear through a wall. Was that how her dad had felt every day? Like he wanted to throw something through a wall? Had she inherited his rage?

She winged the book at his feet this time, wanting only to see him jump, to see herself make him move, but she missed by miles, and as if she had flung all of herself with that book, she suddenly felt so weak, so tired it was as if she had no muscles left. Her fight was gone. Her anger replaced by a bone-dissolving sadness.
God, Bradley,
she’d cried into her palms as she sank to her knees and then to her butt on their dirty apartment floor.
We’ve only been married for two months. How could you?

And when he didn’t answer, only stared at his feet, she looked up at him, squinting through her burning eyes, and leveled the one accusation she wished she’d never allowed out of her mouth.
You love her, don’t you?

At first she thought he wouldn’t answer her at all, and that silence would really be all the answer she needed. All of her effort hadn’t been enough to keep the man she loved; her sister had him, and she hadn’t even ever needed to try. But eventually he did speak, shuffling miserably on the hardwood of their apartment bedroom.

Maya,
he’d said, and she could hear the reluctance in his voice. Eventually, she would take that reluctance and hold on to it like something dear. If he didn’t want to hurt her, maybe that meant that she hadn’t lost him entirely. Maybe it meant he still loved her a little.
I can’t help the way I feel. I’ve . . . I’ve tried.

He had kept talking, Maya remembered as Julia’s SUV curved around the baseball diamond and pointed toward the main drag, but what he’d said had bounced off of her like hail. Things about working it out. About being committed to the marriage. About moving away—away from the family, away from his dead-end job, away from Claire. And she had at first raged against this. Demanded better for herself than to be second fiddle to another woman. Beaten her breast and railed that she deserved a marriage where the love was effortless.

But in the end, she’d just been so tired. Too worn down to fight him. Too committed to the dream of not just a marriage, but a marriage with
this man
, having children with
this man
, too unsure of her desirability to break free. She’d stayed because it was convenient. And it was hers. She would just have to work for it. Work harder than she ever had before. Work harder than she knew she could.

Work harder than Claire.

When they’d moved to Chicago, Maya felt as though a veil was lifted from her face. And when, a year later, she’d discovered she was pregnant, she felt as though she could, for the first time ever, see her life clearly. Bradley was not a philanderer. He wasn’t out screwing every flirt in a push-up bra. He had fallen in love with one woman. He hadn’t even meant to. He’d tried not to. And that woman was very far away.

Well . . . at least that was what she had thought back then.

God, but that was a long time ago. So much had happened since then. So much had happened just recently.

And then to come back home . . . it almost felt as if God was trying to tell her something. As if God was trying to tell her to let Claire have him.

“What do the kids want this year?” Elise asked, breaking the silence, and jarring Maya out of her memory.

She shrugged. “They’re not picky. Anything that takes batteries or comes in boxes with a thousand tiny pieces.”

Julia chuckled. “I remember Eli’s building-block stage. Stepping on one of those with bare feet in the middle of the night can make a grown man cry. Believe me, I’ve seen it.”

“Molly’s into dolls. The smaller the accessories, the better. Will, on the other hand, is happy with a box. Sometimes I wish I could just skip the toys and buy him the cardboard boxes.”

“Well, I remember some other little girl who loved her dolls and all their little brushes and shoes,” Elise said from the backseat. “I guess it’s true about the apple and the tree.”

“You did love girly-girl stuff, Maya,” Julia teased. “You were forever doing those beauty salons in the bathroom, remember?”

Maya grinned. She’d forgotten about that. “Do you remember the time I used food coloring for your makeup? You looked like a clown for a solid week.”

“Oh, Lord, I remember that,” Elise interjected. “You ruined a set of towels that day.”

Julia giggled again. “And I had to go to school looking like that. I was so mad at you.”

“You think you were mad? Remember when she got the roller brush stuck in my hair so bad Mom had to cut it out?” Claire called from the backseat, and everyone in the car howled with laughter, even Maya, who was lost in the memory of little Claire running through the pasture, the roller brush bobbing out from her head at an odd angle, Elise chasing after her with a pair of scissors, Julia yelling at her mom that they were not supposed to run with scissors, Maya hiding behind the back porch, trembling with fear, sure she would be whipped but good when they finally got that hairbrush loose.

“I damn near killed myself running after you that day. I was sure I was going to slip on a cow pie and end my life right then and there,” Elise was saying.

Julia sounded breathless with laughter. “And you kept yelling at me over your shoulder, ‘Shut up, Queenie! Mind your business! You want me to come after you next?’”

Suddenly the SUV hit a slick patch and slid, the back tire coming inches from catching the ledge of a ditch. All four women screamed, Maya grabbing for the handle above her window and clutching it with both hands, as Julia turned and turned the steering wheel trying to get the SUV back under control. They fishtailed, then overcompensated and fishtailed the other way, and back to the middle again before coming to a stop diagonally across both lanes of the road.

For a moment there was only breathing to be heard. Maya’s heart pounded in her chest, her fingers tingling with adrenaline and her death grip on the handle. Thank God it was Christmas Eve day in a small town in a blizzard, she thought. Back home, that little mistake would have taken out half a dozen parked cars and a few moving ones. And perhaps a pedestrian or two.

Nobody said anything, until the faraway telltale scraping of a plow came toward them.

“Shit, that was close,” Julia finally breathed. She let off the brake and straightened out the SUV, creeping along in the direction they’d been going before they fishtailed.

They went just long enough to get some distance, and Claire added in a low voice, “Good thing you weren’t carrying scissors, Mom, or we’d all been goners,” and just like that they were all giggling again.

In some ways this was the most normal Maya had felt in . . . years maybe. These were the moments she longed for—the captured bits of time where things were so normal they were magical. Only now, after all that had happened, those were the moments that ultimately felt the bleakest to her. The normal moments, the trivial ones, would be the ones that would be missed the most if things took a turn for the worse.

The thought dried up the laughter in her throat like salt on a slug, and by the time Julia had maneuvered into a parking space, Maya felt downright shitty again.

“Well, I’m sure you all remember what Dad did when he came home and found that big chunk out of Claire’s hair,” she spat bitterly.

“Maya, don’t,” Elise said.

“Yeah, this is fun. Let’s not think about that kind of stuff right now. Not with him gone and . . . C’mon, it’s Christmas,” Julia added.

But Maya couldn’t help it. How could they? She really wished she knew this trick that everyone else seemed to have mastered, the one where they could just shrug off bitterness and grief and filter their memories until all that came out in the end was shiny.

How could they recall the hilarious scene of Julia chasing Elise chasing Claire through the pasture without remembering the thunder of their dad’s voice when he came home? The way he’d thrashed all three girls like rag dolls, spanking their bottoms so hard their cries of pain came out soundless. The way he’d taken all of their hairbrushes and toothbrushes and creams and tossed them into the trash barrel and burned them. The way they’d had to go to school with ratted hair and smelly breath for a full two weeks before he relented and let Elise buy them new things. It felt like a horror movie to Maya sometimes . . . and whenever it dawned on her that the horror movie was her life, it seemed all the more horrible. And she didn’t care how funny the rest of the story was, it would never be funny enough to wash away the horrible part. Never.

“You’re right,” she said through tight lips, and tried to stretch them into what she hoped looked like a friendly smile. “We’ve got shopping to do.”

She shouldered the passenger door open and plunged out into the parking lot, which had gotten covered over with heavy flakes. Her sisters and mom followed her, the four of them trekking through the falling snow, zipping their coats up to their chins, holding their hoods over their heads, squinting against the wind.

Maya felt like she was encased in a blizzard—the one pelting her face and the one pelting her on the inside. She couldn’t help but watch Claire’s long, beautiful legs high-step across the lot, bronze against the white, like a supermodel’s. And she couldn’t help the feeling of coldness that swept through her. Perfect. Her sister was perfect. Without even trying.

And she never would be.

And a shopping trip wouldn’t make her that way.

But it was all she had, so she slipped and slid over the snowy lot in her impractical heels and skinny jeans and plunged through the automatic front doors of the store.

Good God, she thought as she shook the snow from her body onto the swampy mat in the entryway of the store. What craziness awaited her here?

After a few moments of stomping and brushing and making the necessary
brrr
noises that accompany the shedding of snow, the women turned and surveyed the store. Maya hadn’t been in one of these types of stores in years. She was actually kind of nervous about it. What if she looked stupid? To look stupid in a place like this? Hello, insult, meet injury.