What Happened to My Sister: A Novel (18 page)

“Okay okay okay,” I say. After all this time I know which battles to fight and this is a losing one if I’ve ever seen it. “Fine. But no more of that now, all right? You need every red cent that comes in to you and then some. I’ve just got to think about the
then some
part of the equation.”

Ticking down an invisible list of ways to make fast money isn’t much help. Short of winning
American Idol
or becoming a prostitute, I’ve got exactly zero prospects. Then again, hookers make a lot of money. The high-end ones, I mean. Those escorts make a
killing I bet. I would never in a million years become an escort, but it’s something. A Plan B. A Doomsday Plan.

I may be a mess, but at least I didn’t bleed my mother dry when Eddie and I were facing
our
financial crisis a couple of years ago.
We
dealt with it like adults, unlike
some
people. Yes, it was a terrible blow to have to sell the house, but what else were we going to do to get out from under the suffocating mountain of unpaid medical bills we were left with after Caroline died? And yes, it was depressing to realize that every last cent we made off the sale went toward erasing our debt, but in life you’ve got to make sacrifices, not that Hunter would know anything about
those
. Cricket and I first moved into a tiny, cheap two-bedroom condo in a development so new the saplings were still sitting in their burlaped root-balls, unplanted and already wilting the day we got there. It was a short-term lease affordable only because the developer was an old friend of Ed’s from grade school. He gave us a “friends and family” discount until we could figure out our next move. I’ll say this for him, Ed wouldn’t even hear about taking the deal for himself. Instead he bunked at the station house for a while and finally ended up renting a halfway decent one-bedroom apartment in a soot-colored building not far from the “sad” section of town that was his beat. Once our lease ran out Cricket and I moved in with Mother, which, again, wouldn’t have been my first choice in life but I can look myself in the mirror at night knowing I took care of my responsibilities without putting my mother in the poorhouse. Hunter? The only mirror
he’s
looking into has white powdered lines on it. So, once again,
I’ve
got to be the responsible one. I’ve got to take care of business. Just like Elvis. TCB. He had that painted on one of the walls in Graceland:
TCB
for “taking care of business.”

“Where’s that yellow legal pad I had over by the phone? Oh, there it is.” I clear a space on the table to make my lists. “Okay. Let’s figure out where we stand. I’ve got practically nothing left in my checking account. Well. I have a little over three thousand, but
that has to cover this month’s health insurance and food and clothing—Cricket’s growing like a weed. Where’s the calculator?”

“Honor …” Mother tries to interrupt me.

“My unemployment ran out and now they say I’m
able-bodied
so it should be easy for me to find a job. Like I haven’t been applying for jobs all along! Like they didn’t get the memo that the country’s in an economic crisis. Can you believe that? I told you about that, right? The woman said it
should be easy
for me to get a job. Through her bulletproof window. Without even looking up. She sat there sifting through a stack of unrelated paperwork with her stupid desk fan blowing streamers right and left like she had everything else important to do but talk to me. Unbelievable.”

“Honey, wait just a second,” Mother says.

“I will say this, though: the glass at the unemployment window is bulletproof for reasons I now understand.”

“Shhhh. Now hush up and listen for a minute. You’re being just like your daughter with the flood of words words words. I’ll figure something out, Honor. I will. This is not your concern.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I say, “you
want
to be thrown out on the street. I didn’t realize that.”

Okay, I do regret saying this but before I can say so, Mother tries to leap to her feet, only she’s forgotten (a) she is too huge to do any sort of leaping, and (b) she is sitting at the kitchen table so her knees hit the table and the Big Chair scrapes away and Mother yelps and grabs the edge … 
just
in the nick of time. She rights herself, pulls the chair closer, and settles back down (humbled but not wanting to show it), exhaling from the exertion before starting in on me.

“If you keep condescending to me with that tone like I’m a
baby
, I swear to Charles Chaplin in Heaven I’ll march out of here right this minute,” Mom hisses and waggles her finger at me.

“Okay okay okay,” I say, surrendering. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be mean, it’s just that I can’t wrap my head around this.”

“Well, you don’t
need
to wrap your head around it because it is not your business,” Mother says. “I am the head of this household and I said I’d take care of it and I will. That’s that.”

“But you
haven’t
taken care of it! Sorry, I’m not being nasty I’m just saying. Let me talk with Eddie. Maybe he can think of a way to help buy us some more time here.”

“You leave Edsil out of this, please,” she says, rushing to his defense because of my agitated sigh, which she thinks I’m making because of Eddie.

“I wasn’t saying anything bad about him! But while we’re on the subject, Mother, why are you always taking his side? That’s what I’d like to know. You’re always pleading his case.”

“Shhhhh! Keep your voice down,” she says.

“Fine,” I say, barely at a whisper, “but will you please tell me why you’re always sticking up for him? I’m your flesh and blood. You should be taking
my
side.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, put a sock in it and come over here and help me out of this chair,” she says. “I am so sick and tired of this nonsense.”

“Wow,” I say, positioning myself behind her as she heaves herself to standing then waddles over to the counter by the sink.

I would have bet a million dollars that
put a sock in it
would be something my mother would never say even if her life depended on it. The surprises just keep on coming today.

“You can look as startled as you want but you really do need to
put a sock in it
. You’re drawing battle lines that are unnecessary and just plain silly,” she says. “There. I said it. I have kept my mouth shut this whole time but I can’t stand it any longer, Honor. That man is the father of your child—he loves her just as much as you do—”

“I know, I know!” I say, holding up my hand to shush her. “I told you I didn’t say anything bad. I just asked why you’re always protecting him, that’s all.”

“You talk about ‘taking sides’ and I’m sick of it,” she says. “You have a problem with the way he grieved for Caroline? That’s on
you
, not him. Men don’t mourn the way women do and that’s just a fact. So you’re going to have to get over it and move on, you hear me? Let’s change the subject. What’s the story with that child—Cricket’s new friend. What’s her family name? Do we know them?”

The fact of the matter is, she’s right. Intellectually I know she’s right: men and women
do
grieve differently. But
she
wasn’t the one crying in the face of Eddie’s stony silence the day he announced he was cutting short his bereavement leave and going back to work.
She
wasn’t reduced to begging—
begging
her husband to open up, to go with her to the Grief Group, to show some kind,
any
kind of emotion. She didn’t lie in bed next to her husband in the dark feeling for his hand to hold under the sheets only to have it recoil and readjust, along with the rest of his body, further away to the outer edge of the bed. Yes, men and women grieve differently. But not because they want to. The chasm between Ed and me became a gulf by the time the second notices on the medical bills started coming in. By the third and final notices, we were mere objects moving around under the same roof. The soul-crushing pain of losing Caroline coupled with Ed’s emotional shutdown might have been surmountable if the financial strain hadn’t completely worn us down. We went from shards to sea glass. But lately. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about Eddie. A lot.

“Hel-lo?” Mother is waving her hand in front of my face.

“What?” I shake off a memory of Eddie laughing, speeding Caroline up and down the hospital corridor in a wheelchair, the blur of them whooshing by, ignoring my halfhearted attempt to get them to stop horsing around.
Faster, Dad, faster
, Caroline would squeal in delight.

“Cricket’s friend? Upstairs? Your daughter’s playing with her right now? Where is she from? Who’s her family?”

“Oh, my goodness, that’s right,” I say, remembering the
other
problem facing us today. When will this damn day end?

“You’ve got to help me figure out what to do about this child,” I say. “I think we’ve got a big problem on our hands.”

“Why? What’s the story?” she asks.

“You’ll see,” I tell her.

I go to the base of the kitchen stairs and holler up for the girls, and just like that, just hearing myself call out the word
girls
again, makes everything else—the looming foreclosure, my marital mess, Cricket’s loneliness—all of it melts away when I call for the girls to come down. God, I miss Caroline.

One more time, Dad! Faster!

I miss her so much my heart hurts.

“Cricket? Girls? Y’all come down here!” I holler again, just because it feels good.

Thunder of footsteps overhead and Cricket bounds into the kitchen breathless with an excitement I haven’t seen in her face in a long time.

“Mom! Grandma! Listen to this:
She’s never seen a computer before. Or an iPod
. For real. She didn’t even know what one was!”

“
I
didn’t know what an iPod did until you showed me,” Mother says, smiling at her then back at me. “Come give Grandma a kiss hello, sugar. How was summer school today?”

“Hey, Grandma.” Cricket breezes over to kiss my mother on the cheek. “No no—it’s not that she didn’t know what an iPod
did
, she didn’t know what an iPod was! She’s, like, from another
planet
or something!”

“Where is she now, honey?” I ask.

“In my room. Oh, and she
loves
the stars on the ceiling—she’d never seen
those
before either! It was
so cute
—she said it looked like a
magic land
when I showed her how they glow in the dark. I want her to sleep over, Mom, can Carrie sleep over please please? ’Kay, I’m going back up.”

“Wait a sec, Cricket. How’s she feeling now? Is she feeling okay? Has she said anything about her family?”

“Was she sick?” Mother asks.

“Grandma, it was so nasty—she totally barfed in the car. But she’s fine now.”

“That reminds me, I need to finish cleaning that up. Poor thing had an upset stomach in the car on the way home—I think it’s from eating as fast as she did,” I say. “Cricket, honey, go get Carrie and bring her down to introduce her to your grandma. Y’all hightailed it upstairs so fast you never brought her in here.”

“Oh, and Grandma, she doesn’t know who Charlie Chaplin was,” Cricket says, popping open a Hi-C, “so I told her you’d explain everything. Do we have any more of those Swedish Fish? I’m going back up.”

She takes the stairs two at a time. There is no slowing that girl down one bit, and for once I’m glad to see it.

I make sure I hear Cricket’s footsteps overhead before I start whispering to Mom.

“It’s the spookiest thing you have ever seen,” I say. “The universe works in mysterious ways. And before you go saying I’m getting carried away with psychic mumbo jumbo or whatever it is you accuse me of, just meet her and you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

“I have no idea what you’re telling me right now,” Mother says. “Are we still talking about Cricket’s friend?”

“Shhh,” I say. “It’ll all make sense when they come downstairs. Just please keep an open mind, will you?”

“How can I keep an open mind when I don’t even know what it is you’re talking about?”

“You will, you will. Just promise me you’ll keep an open mind and you’ll help me with this,” I say.

“Honey, I’d help you with anything, you know that. I can’t believe you’d even say that. Sheesh.”

“Do we have stuff for nachos?” I ask, opening cabinets to hunt for tortilla chips.

Cricket barrels back in, Carrie trailing close behind as if on a leash.

“There’s cheese in the drawer in the fridge.” Mother is directing me when they come into the kitchen.

“Hey,” Cricket says. “Carrie, this is my grandma.”

“Oh, good.” I’m relieved to see a better version of Carrie. “You look like you’re getting your color back, that’s good. Carrie, come on over here and meet Cricket’s grandmother Miss Chaplin.”

“Oh my good Lord in Heaven.” Mom’s voice catches when she sees little Carrie. “Look at you. If I didn’t know better I’d say someone upstairs was playing a pretty sick joke on us.”

“Ma’am?” Carrie says, looking confused.

“What did I tell you?” I turn to Mom. “Can you believe it?”

“Your name is Carrie?” Mom asks. “As in
Caroline
?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Pleased to meet you, Caroline.” Mom reaches out to shake Carrie’s fragile-looking hand. “Honor, I can’t believe y’all met
today
of all days.”

I check my watch. The tiny number in the date box says six. Damn, now it’s stuck at 11:43. I really need a new watch. I don’t know why I bother even putting this one on.

“What do you mean?” I ask her. I shake my wrist like a dummy, as if the correct date will appear like a Magic 8 Ball. “My watch says it’s the sixth.”

“You mean to tell me you don’t know what today is?” Mother asks me, looking incredulous.

I glance at Cricket, who’s silent and as sheepish as I’ve ever seen her.

“Why, it’s August eighth, honey,” Mother says, wide-eyed and somber.