As Close as Sisters (16 page)

After it first happened, I had bouts of guilt. I actually considered going to my parents and telling them what really happened. The pangs faded over time. Now, I couldn’t say for sure if it had been the right thing to do or not. Buddy had been a violent man. Had Aurora just walked into Janine’s room that night, I don’t know what would have happened, if not then, then the next time he had Janine alone. Or Aurora for that matter. One thing I was sure of, Buddy had been capable of murder.

Lilly’s eyes filled with tears, and she reached for Aurora’s hand.

Aurora tried to pull away, but Lilly wouldn’t let her. Our gentle, sweet Lilly fought to hold on. “You came to Janine’s defense. You saved her from Buddy,” she said with a fierceness we didn’t often hear in her voice. “You made sure Buddy would never do that to her again.”

Aurora sat there dry-eyed.

I glanced at Janine. She was staring at the beer in her hand. I reached over and took her free hand. Squeezed it and let it go. She turned her head and half smiled, but didn’t make eye contact.

I pressed my hands to the table, ignoring my cards, still lying facedown. “So why didn’t the girls tell
me
they knew?” I asked. “When I came down to the beach after I talked to Jared, someone should have said something to me right then.” I looked around the table. “One of you should have said something to me.”

Lilly opened her water bottle. “We should have. We were going to. But the fireworks started and then the girls left right after.”

“You were tired,” Janine explained. “You went right to bed.”

“And this morning?” I asked.

“We were all having a nice day and you seemed . . . like you were having a good day,” Lilly said.

I picked up my cards, annoyed, but understanding. In their position, I’d probably have done the same thing. “Let’s play.”

“Don’t be angry.” Janine drew her thumb across the label of the beer bottle, smoothing it. “Maura and Mia needed to be told. They’re old enough to know. They’ve
been
old enough for a while.”

I didn’t know if Janine meant to criticize me, but I made the conscious decision not to take it that way. “Who won the last trick?”

One by one, they picked up their cards. I waited for Lilly to put down the lead card. “What should I do?” I asked. “Call them to talk about it? Wait for them to call me?”

“Call them tomorrow,” Lilly suggested.

Janine waited for her turn, then tossed out a card. “Call them and tell them you’re ready to talk about it when they are. Give them some space.”

I looked across the table at Aurora. She was going to say, “Let it go.” She was going to say that if Mia and Maura wanted to talk about it with me, they would. And if they didn’t, I needed to mind my own business. She was going to say that seventeen-year-old girls have the right to some privacy. That they didn’t have to discuss every thought that went through their silly little heads.

I waited, watching her.

She picked up her glass, trying to get another drop of gin from it. “I think you should call them and make a lunch date. Tell them you want to talk to them about what happened that night. Have lunch with them and explain to them why you kept it from them. Tell them they can talk to you about it now or later. They can talk to any of us, anytime about it.”

I was totally astonished by Aurora’s reaction. I think Lilly and Janine were, too. “You think you and I should both go?”

“Nope. Aha! We won another one.” Aurora scooped up the cards. She looked at me across the table. “I think you’ve got to do this one on your own.”

Aurora had just thrown down her lead card when Janine’s phone began to vibrate. And continued to vibrate. A call, not a text.

She glanced down at the phone at the same time that I did. A name hadn’t come up, just a number. I was surprised when she picked it up. None of us picked up calls without a caller ID. She must have known the number.

“Hello?” She paused. Then, “No, no. It’s fine. It’s cool.” Janine got up and walked toward the doors to the deck. Fritz was sitting in the doorway. He raised his head and looked at her.

“Okay. Um, sure,” Janine said into the phone. She paused to listen again, glancing back at us. “No. I totally agree. You’re absolutely right.” She looked at us again. Lilly and I looked at her.

“Chris?” Lilly whispered to me.

I made an
I have no idea
face.

“If no one’s going to get me a drink, guess I’ll get it myself.” Aurora rose from her chair. “Tell your girlfriend we said hi,” she called to Janine.

Janine was giving the address of the house. It had to be her girlfriend.

I smiled at Lilly. We were both thinking the same thing.
We’re going to meet her!

Of course, I couldn’t believe that Janine would date someone as long as she’d been dating Chris (which of course we didn’t know because she wouldn’t tell us, but it had to be for some length of time, didn’t it? I mean, Janine clearly liked this girl) and not bring her here. Or at least show her where the beach house was. Janine rarely came here to stay without one of us.

“Okay. Sounds good,” Janine was saying. “Should I come get you?” She had a weird look on her face. She snapped her fingers. Fritz was on his feet in an instant. Janine walked out onto the deck with the German shepherd. Fritz bounded down the steps into the dark.

Janine remained on the phone out on the deck, but she was talking quietly. She didn’t seem excited. I wondered if Chris was insisting it was time she meet us, and Janine was only going along with it because she knew she was going to have to let us all meet her at some point.

Janine ended the call and walked back into the room at the same time as Aurora.

“Chris coming over?” Lilly asked, bubbly with excitement.

Janine slid into her seat. “Would there be any way of avoiding it?”

19

Aurora

I
stood outside her bedroom door for a long time. The light was on, the door open just a little. The whole house was quiet. The doors and windows were closed; the heat pump was humming, blowing cool air through the ductwork.

Janine and Lilly had gone to bed. We managed to finish the game of cards, but everyone had seemed pretty tired. Subdued.

I rested my forehead on the doorjamb. I feel so sad and I don’t know why. It would have been easy to make the assumption that I felt bad because I’d had to tell Mia and Maura what a horrific fuck Buddy had been. Because of the horrendous thing that had happened to Janine. Or I could chalk up the heaviness in my heart to the fact that McKenzie is dying.

But I know that isn’t why I’m sad. I mean I
am,
but the reality is that I’m sad because I’m a terrible person and I don’t want to be. I’m a liar. I’ve lied to the people who love me the most. I’ve lied to them over and over again. To the only people who have ever loved me.
Will
ever love me. They think I’m some kind of hero, but I’m not. I’m a selfish, self-centered bitch. I’m exactly what I seem to be.

I knocked on the door and pushed in.

McKenzie was lying in the bed, looking small and pale. And sick. She’d washed her face, so her eyebrows were gone. Her computer was on her lap, but I suspected she’d been dozing. She was wearing a fleece beanie on her head, one more appropriate for the ski slopes than the beach in July.

“Cold?” I asked.

She looked at me quizzically.

I tapped the top of my head.

She chuckled and patted the bed beside her.

I stretched out beside her, propping my head up with my hand.

“I wish you wouldn’t swim at night,” she said. I was in my swimsuit. My cap and towel were on the deck.

“I know,” I said.

“It’s dangerous. Half the time, we don’t even know you’re gone.”

“What’s the worst thing that could happen?” I teased. “I could drown? A shark could eat me?”

“There are no sharks big enough to do anything beyond nip at your toes in this water,” she argued.

“Okay, so maybe a boat runs over me and cuts me up with the propeller.”

“Eww.” She gave me a nudge.

I went on. “What good would it do you, knowing I was out there? It’s not like you could do anything if I
did
get into trouble.”

She looked at me, smiling but looking sad at the same time. “I worry about you.”

“Which is why you don’t need to know when I go at night.”

She dropped her head back on her pillow and closed her eyes for a minute.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

She kept her eyes shut. “What have you done now?”

I thought about my sadness. About the big lie. The lie I had allowed them to believe all these years. “About Maura and Mia. I didn’t mean to usurp your authority.”

She laughed and opened her eyes, turning her head on her pillow to look at me.
“Usurp my authority?”

“They’re your kids,” I said. “I totally respect that.”

“I know you do.”

“And you’re a good mom. Janine and I didn’t mean to be critical, saying you should have told them before. What do we know? We’re not parents. And we all know why.”

McKenzie raised her hand over her head and stared at the ceiling fan above the bed. I noticed that her cheeks were red, but not a flushed red. More like a rash.

“Do you think so?” she asked me, sounding lost in her thoughts. “I mean . . . really?”

“Do I think what?”

“That I’m a good mom?” She hesitated, then turned her head to look at me again. “I have so many regrets, Aurora.”

“Please. I’ve sobered up. You can’t do this to me. I’m not going to listen to you.”

She smiled. Still sad.

“I am serious,” I said. And I was. “You’ve been a good mom. A great mom. What did you do? You loved them. And that’s hard. I know how hard it is to love people. To do it right.” Emotion crept into my voice. I was going to have to cut this visit short if I couldn’t get ahold of myself. “You were selfless.” I took her hand. Her nails were short and neat. She’s always had nice hands. Feminine hands. “Not many parents can say that.”

“I tried to do what was best for them,” McKenzie said. “I hope they realize that. After I’m gone.”

“Oh, God,” I groaned. “Are we really going there? I just came to say good night.”

“So you could sneak out of the house and go swimming.”

“Something like that,” I agreed.

“Fine, go get eaten by a shark.” She glanced at her laptop, balanced on her bony hips. “But you have to see this before Jaws gets you. I’ve been working on our video diary. I’m having so much fun.”

She sat up, shifting the computer on her lap, and tapped on the keyboard. “I found this app. Downloaded it myself, without Maura’s or Mia’s help, thank you very much. I’m taking the videos I’ve been recording on my phone and downloading them to the computer, then editing them with this app. This is just a little piece, but you have to watch this.”

I watched the screen as she hit play. It was a clip of Lilly holding up her finger, then hustling down the hall to disappear into the bathroom, followed by Lilly walking into the bathroom again, in a different outfit. Then Lilly holding up her finger saying, “Wait, I have to pee.” And practically running to the bathroom.

“Wait, this is the best part,” McKenzie said, cracking up.

I was laughing with her as I watched Lilly run into the bathroom, back up, and run in and back up twice more. McKenzie had rewound the same clip and played it multiple times, but it didn’t matter that it had obviously been manipulated. Dubbed over the top was Lilly saying, “Have to pee, have to pee, have to pee.”

“Oh, Christ, that’s too funny. Play it again,” I said.

She played it again, then we played it a third time, laughing so hard, I was afraid we were going to wake them upstairs.

“That’s terrible,” I said, laughing so hard I was snorting. “Awful. Don’t show her. She’ll make you delete it. She’ll make you delete the whole video diary and possibly destroy your phone.”

“I know.” McKenzie had to catch her breath. “Isn’t it hilarious? I think you guys should play it at my funeral. Anyone who knows her will be rolling in the aisle, laughing.”

“She would kill you,” I said. Then, realizing what I’d just said, I looked at McKenzie. “Okay, that came out—”

We both burst out laughing.

“Go on,” she told me, reaching for a tissue from a box on the other side of the bed. “Go swimming. And let me know when you’re back.”

I climbed out of bed. “That’s really not how I roll.”

“Well, that’s how you’re going to roll tonight,” she told me, tapping on the keyboard, not bothering to even look up at me.

“Back in an hour,” I whispered, slipping out of her room, into the darkness, and back into my cowardice.

20

Lilly

“I
brought some iced tea,” I said to Janine, walking onto the front deck, carrying a tray with a pitcher of freshly brewed tea and four glasses. “Where’s everybody else?”

I was just making conversation. I knew McKenzie was taking a shower, getting ready for lunch with her girls, and I had seen Aurora leave a few minutes ago, headed out on one of her walks. She might be gone twenty minutes . . . or twenty days.

Aurora had once left here and called us a week later to tell us she was with a guy named Nandi in New Delhi. We had no idea who she was talking about or how she got there. Janine had been pretty pissed. She had screamed at Aurora on the phone saying she’d put out an APB in the area on her. Which wasn’t true, of course, but there had been a lot of drama for a couple of days.

“Mack’s inside.” Janine set her book on the arm of her chair and took a glass from the tray. “Aurora’s gone on a walkabout. Said she’d see me later, but—” She shrugged. “I told her she needed to be home by Monday.”

“Monday? Something special happening on Monday? Maybe a special guest coming?”

“I promised I wouldn’t say anything.”

“You promised Chris?” I asked.

“If I told you, I wouldn’t be keeping my promise, now would I?”

“Fair enough. I just want you to know how happy we are that you’re ready to have us meet her. We know this is outside your comfort zone.” I poured tea into her glass. From the look on her face, I knew it would be a good idea if I changed the subject. Otherwise, it was pretty likely I’d be sitting on the porch alone. “What are you reading?”

She glanced at the paperback open on the arm of her chair. “The usual.”

I glanced at the cover as I lowered myself into my chair. Janine’s book covers all looked the same to me: outer space, planets, sometimes a star exploding or a stormtrooper running across an unfamiliar planet. Janine is a fan of science fiction, something I didn’t care for. McKenzie and I both read Oprah picks,
New York Times
women’s fiction, book club kind of stuff. (We were all about women’s angst.) Aurora, to my knowledge, doesn’t read at all.

I suspected Janine liked getting lost in the worlds inside the books she read. There was usually lots of action and shooting, too, which
did
sound like her. She read mysteries once in a while, too, but she had always been a voracious reader of science fiction back when we were middle schoolers.

I sat down in my chair and moved my cell phone from the tray to the arm. I’d called Matt, but he hadn’t answered. He was probably still out mowing the lawn. He mowed on Saturdays after he went to the gym and stopped at the grocery store.

I stretched out my bare feet. The deck felt warm beneath them. Smooth, not gritty anymore. I’d swept the deck this morning. There was at least a bucket of sand on it, even though we tried to shower outside before we came up. Or at least rinse off our feet in the tub at the bottom of the stairs that I kept filled with water for just that purpose.

I gazed out over the rail at the beach and at the ocean that stretched out in front of us and seemed to go on forever. It was another perfect day. I glanced at the porch, satisfied with my tidying. The palm tree I’d brought home from the market looked perfect in the corner of the deck against the house. When I put the chairs back, I switched their order. Now mine was next to Janine’s, in the middle, with McKenzie’s to my right and Aurora’s to Janine’s left.

Janine drank her tea unsweetened, which was why I didn’t sweeten it when I brewed it, the way I did at home. I added two heaping spoons of sugar to my glass, then stirred it with the long iced tea spoon.

Fritz got up from his sentry position at the top of the steps, walked in front of me, and pressed his head against Janine’s hand. She stroked his head for a minute, spoke quietly to him, then pointed to her feet. The dog dropped to his belly at once and closed his eyes.

“You think you could teach me a few of the techniques you use on Fritz?” I asked, stroking my big belly with my free hand. I kept stirring my iced tea. I liked the sound of the spoon against the glass. “Might come in handy with the kid.”

She looked over the rim of her glass, skeptical. “I don’t think I’m the one to give child-rearing advice.”

“So maybe you’ll be her life coach.”

“Her?” Janine asked. “I thought you didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl.”

“Or him,” I added quickly. “We don’t know.” From conception in the petri dish, I had suspected our baby was a girl, but I kept that to myself. Just my little secret between baby McKenzie and me. Or Olivia or . . . whatever we decided on.

We were both quiet for a few minutes, enjoying the warmth of the sun, the smell of the water. Even the squawk of the seagulls seemed serene today. I sneaked a glance at Janine. She seemed fine. Well, as fine as Janine ever seemed. I was worried about her. Having to sit and listen to Aurora tell Mia and Maura about Buddy. Then having to listen to Aurora tell McKenzie that she’d told them. Janine was tough. I knew that. How else would she have survived all these years? How else would she have survived nearly two years of Buddy hell? Still, I worried.

“I’m fine. Stop looking at me like that,” Janine said.

I glanced at her like I didn’t know what she was talking about. “I’m not looking at you like anything. I mean . . . I’m looking at you, but not . . . what are you talking about?”

“I can see it on your face.” She brought her finger to her temple and spun it in circles. “You’re worrying about how I am after telling Mia and Maura about Buddy. After Aurora telling McKenzie that we told them.”

“I know you’re fine,” I said a little defensively. Was I that easy to read? Guess I was.

“I am,” Janine said.

“I know.”

“Good.”

“Good,” I repeated. Then I looked at her. “Are we really fighting about whether or not you’re okay?”

“We’re not fighting, Lillian. I’m just telling you that you don’t have to worry about me.”

I was quiet for a minute. I sipped my tea. “Would you tell me?” I asked. I added another spoon of sugar. “If you weren’t okay?” My lasts words were almost whispered.

It took her what seemed like a long time to answer me. “I hope so.”

I felt a tenderness for Janine then, one I don’t know that I could describe if I wanted to. I took another drink of tea, and the baby gave me a poke. “Oh!” I brought my hand to my belly. Then I smiled.

She did it again. It was a little foot or a little hand, just below my rib cage. “She liked the sugar. Probably the caffeine, too,” I said. Matt didn’t want me drinking caffeine. I’d given up coffee for our son or daughter, but my tea was where I drew the line. “She’s getting so strong,” I mused. I looked at Janine. “You want to feel? She’s really kicking. Right here.” I showed her.

Janine looked at me, then at my belly. A little bit like she thought I had an alien inside. “Nah. I’m okay.”

I try not to let my feelings be hurt. Janine isn’t into babies. I know that. She has less maternal instinct than Aurora, if that’s possible. Which put her in the negatives. And some people are funny about feeling a woman’s pregnant belly. It isn’t a big deal. It doesn’t mean she wouldn’t love my baby when it’s born.

She must have seen the look on my face because she said, “Lilly—”

“It’s okay,” I said. There were a lot of okays between us. Too many. Was it because of the baby? Because of McKenzie? “I understand.”

She sighed. “How’s that possible when . . . when I don’t?” She took her time before choosing her words. “I’m happy for you, Lilly. I really am. I just . . .” She stopped and started again. Not making eye contact with me anymore. Looking out over the rail, at the beach. “I don’t know what to do sometimes. What to say. You know I love you.” Now she was looking at me.

And it was okay.