Sister Pact (17 page)

Then I hear her. “Allie,” she whispers, “I miss you.”

This time I know she's not really here, but I don't care. Because accepting Leah as ghost or illusion feels like a gift, even if it's a lie.

The ride home from the hospital is uncomfortably quiet. Dad tries to fill the empty space. He thumps the steering wheel, turns on the radio, and hums along. It's all I can do to not shriek at him. I watch the geography flash by—highway, then exit, then trees and medians. Then neighborhood, then driveway. My stomach feels as if I've swallowed a giant rock. I don't want to be here.

“Here we are,” Dad says. “Why don't you take her in, and I'll bring her stuff?”

We walk in the house. Mom flips on the lights. Sophie runs to me. I pick her up.

“Hi, sweetie,” I whisper into her furry face. “I missed you.”

Mom starts sniffling. I feel bad. “You hungry?” she asks.

“No.”

“You've got to eat,” Dad says, setting down the small suitcase they packed with my things. He talked about cleaning things up for me. What did he mean? My flesh crawls. With Dad it could be anything. None of it good.

I turn from him and walk up the stairs.

“Leave her,” Mom says.

My feet slow as I approach Leah's bedroom. Did Dad do anything to her room? I turn the knob, holding my breath and hoping he left things as they were.

The first thing I notice is that her bed is made. I walk to it and pull the covers back. I sit on it. The space in her closet where her tall black boots should be waits expectantly, making me feel guilty for wearing them and messing up her things.

“Allie,” Dad calls as he climbs the stairs. His footsteps are deliberate and strong, like always. Dad is dependable that way. His movements don't change, no matter what the circumstance. “You okay?”

I don't answer. I climb under the covers. I hear him open my door. He didn't even knock. Just walked in. God, I hate him.

“Allie?” he calls, now sounding frantic. And that makes me glad.

“Allie?” Mom's steps are worried like her voice. I feel bad—but not bad enough to answer.

Leah's door bursts open. “Allie, for God's sake. Didn't you hear us calling you?” Dad yells.

“Leave her alone,” Mom says. “She's just gotten home.”

“Yes, just gotten home and look where we've found her!” He points to me in my perch under Leah's covers.

Sophie runs in the room and starts barking, which snaps me out of it. I crawl out of Leah's bed and sit on the floor. Sophie gets in my lap and puts her paws on my shoulder. She kisses my face.

“I told you we should have—” Dad's go-to emotion: anger.

“That's enough. Let's leave her alone for a little.”

“Allie,” Dad ignores Mom. “I don't want you hanging around in here.”

I look up from Sophie's face to stare daggers at him.

“I know you think I'm being mean, but it's for your own good.”

I wonder what else he's done for my own good. I stay silent. It's my best play.

Thankfully, he leaves.

“I'll be downstairs if you need me.” Mom retreats too.

I'm frozen. I can't breathe. It's too hard. The front door opens and closes. Something about Dad leaving makes me feel like I can move. Mom's steps hit the ground floor. I stand.

I get up and rifle through Leah's desk drawer. Her last tube of Chap rattles around, and without thinking, I shove it in my pocket.

I almost don't want to walk in my room. It has its own horrible memories waiting for me. The last time Max climbed in my window. Leah. The pills. Going to my studio and facing the paintings. I open the door and slip in, trying not to disturb the air around me. It's like I can hear Leah's ghost calling to me. I trace the lines of the flower I painted on the wall and window. The one she called graffiti.

From my window I can see my studio. Something tells me I should go there and look. The thought comes like Leah used to, like a little voice advising me. And the little voice is right. I need to see where my breakdown happened. I need to be where I meant to finish this.

My steps are stealthy as I make my way to the kitchen, where the key hangs on the hook. It's back in its place on the pink Converse key chain, hanging next to a random key that's been there forever, its ancestry stamped with Dad's old bank logo on it. I do the math. After they called the ambulance, after they cleaned up, someone actually put the key back. I get chills. Dad's work, definitely. He's all about order. Then I realize, when he was talking about cleaning up the house, he must have meant my studio.
My paintings.

I slip out the back door, Sophie following. In the studio, my breath catches. It's worse than I thought. My paintings are gone. All of them. I bend over and clutch my stomach. My breath is gone.

I hear Mom approach, small steps that remind me how weak she is. She's stupid to come out here now. She should know better. This is not a good time to go on the offensive with me. All the emotions I've bottled up are now coursing through my veins, making me ready to explode. She should run for cover. But she's never been good at war games. Always playing the corpse. Except when Leah was. Or I am.

“How could you?” I fire.

She looks around the room. Her face is greenish gray. She knows it was wrong. Her silence makes it worse somehow. She could have stopped him. Did she even try? Or did she stay silent and stupid, like she is right now.

“Say something!” I scream.

“Allie…” Her voice is calm and quiet, making me shake even more.

“They were mine!”

“Don't get upset… Your father…”

“Don't. Don't bring him into this.” I start pacing, then turn to face her.

She looks at her hands. She knows. But her refusal to speak is so controlling, like Dad in the hospital with the doctor. Like Leah when I pissed her off. I'm over all the controlling people in my life. I'm not doing it anymore.

I throw an easel over.
Crash.
“You had no right.” I pick up a chair and launch it across the room.
Bang.

She comes toward me, her arms outstretched. “He was scared, Allie. It's what he does when he gets scared.”

Tears pour down my face. My throat feels like it's closing. This would be easier with a few pills. A bottle of something. I push my nails into my palms and sit, my back pushed against the wall, using it as support.

“I did those before…” It's no use explaining.

“I know.”

“I miss her, Mom. I miss Leah. Every day.”

“Of course you do.” She comes closer. Does she think I want her near me? After what she did? After what they did? “Your father was worried about you.”

“You promised you wouldn't let him take my paintings. Don't you remember? You promised.”

“I didn't know.”

“You didn't know what?”

“I didn't know he took them.” She looks around the graveyard Dad left behind. “Must have been when I was getting your phone. I didn't know.” I look at Mom. She looks completely defeated.

“How come he still has a key to our house? If he left us, how come you still let him come and go like he has a right?”

“I didn't think… I wanted…”

“You never think with Dad. You let him run all over you. And us. I'm done with it. It's not right.”

“I'll get your paintings back, I swear.”

“Bottom line, Mom. I am not like you. I am not like Leah either. Because I'm not giving up on my life. Like you did. I'm not giving up on myself like she did.”

“You were always stronger than she was. Always.”

And just like that, her words take the wind out of my argument. It shouldn't matter what Mom thinks of me after all this. But it does.

“Your father and I knew that. We worried about her all the time.”

“You worried about Leah?”

“Yes. Because she wasn't solid like you.”

I slide to the floor and put my head on my knees. Mom tries to close the distance.

“How do you know he didn't throw them out? How do you know he didn't destroy them?”

She sits next to me. “I just do. I know where they are. I'll bring them back. Give me a few days. A week, tops.”

“Let's get them now then!”

“I can't.”

“You won't.”

“I'll bring them back. I promise.”

I put my head back down. I have nothing more to say to her. My voice has been stolen. Lost. Like my paintings. I wish I could believe her. But she's not strong like Dad. It's like playing the house. He'll win. He always does.

“I'm going to make the arrangements,” she says as she gets up to go.

When I'm sure she's really gone, I pull it out of my pocket, Leah's cherry ChapStick. I bring it to my nose and call to my sister. Can I make her come to me? I close my eyes and smell the cherry, then coconut, then mango. The scents fill my head. I cover my nose so I can trap them there. So she can't escape.

I push my hands against my eyelids and will her image to appear. A starburst of white erupts inside my mind's eye. Miraculously, Leah steps out of it, all outline and movement. But just inside my mind this time. I know if I open my eyes, she'll be gone.

When I look toward the door, I see a silhouette. At first I think it might be Leah. But as she steps forward, I see who it is: Emery. Her olive skin is sallow looking. Her curls are a mess around her head. “Thought you might be here.” Actress tears run down her face, perfect trails of pretend pain. She walks halfway across the room and stops. “I know you don't want to see me.”

“You're right. I don't.” I don't try to get up because my legs are too shaky to hold me.

“I'm so glad you're okay, Allie. You have no idea.”

I look down.

“I know you're probably never going to forgive me. I don't blame you.” She starts to cry harder now and messier.

I shouldn't let her get to me, but she does. The pain leaks out of my heart and onto my face. Emery. Why do I have to lose everyone? First Leah, then Max, then her.

“I'm so sorry, Allie. I'd do anything to take it back.”

“You can't.”

She sits on the ground. Her shoulders shake with her crying. She wipes her eyes with her hands, then wipes her hands on her jeans. She's left black smears on her favorite jeans.

“Look, Allie, I know we're never going to be the same…” She stops to get her breathing under control. “But I know where your dad put your paintings. I can help you get them back. I know that won't make up for anything…”—she sobs some more—“but at least it will make me feel like I've done something. Will you let me do that?”

I want my paintings back. Like I want Leah and Max and Emery back. I know I can't have everything, but I want some of it. I put Leah's Chap in my pocket and stand. “Yes.”

“We need the key,” Emery says. “It's a storage unit, and I saw them lock it.”

I'm pretty sure I know where it is. Dad's compulsiveness isn't exactly helping him these days. He's telegraphing his moves.

We walk together into the house like we have a million times before. Mom greets us in the kitchen. She smiles at Emery, small and hopeful. Sophie jumps on Em. She wipes her eyes and picks Sophie up, but it's cool because Mom would expect Em to be upset at a time like this.

“Oh, Emery. So good to see you.” Mom gives her a hug.

“We're going out,” I say.

“Okay. Not too late?” she asks, as if I have to give her permission.

My hand goes to the key rack. I put my studio key back on the hook and swipe Dad's key.

Mom rifles through her purse. “Here, you two can go out for dinner if you want.” She pulls out her wallet and hands me sixty dollars. “You have your cell, right?”

I pull my phone out of my pocket and wave it at her as we head out.

“Okay. Allie?”

I slow.

“Be careful. Okay?”

I turn but don't want to see her shaking hands or her twitching eyes. I don't want to see the signs of her relief at not having to deal with me anymore tonight. This is what we do. This is one of our lies. She pretends I don't know, and I pretend I don't care. It's stupid and pointless, but we're stuck, looping. I just nod.

The cold air smacks me as Em and I walk to her car, the silence enveloping us. Emery turns the radio to my favorite station. It's a concession, definitely. She likes hip-hop and techno. I like alternative. We used to fight about it all the time. Her giving in is sort of sweet but also sad, because it just spotlights that we are tip-toeing around one another.

Green Day's “Good Riddance” starts playing. My eyes slide to take Emery in. She's sitting, straight backed. Sunglasses cover her eyes despite the gray day. Her nose is red. She drapes her hand across her mouth.

I remember the last time we heard this song together. It was the last day of school. The colors were so different then. Summer colors, all reds and blues and crisp whites. Anything was possible. We were going to be juniors.

I got in the car and flipped the station just as the song came on. Clearly I'd won the last round of station choices. She made a face and went to change it, but I put my hand over hers. “Please?” I asked. “It's perfect.”

She laughed. “Okay, Allie. It kind of is.”

“Hey, you got any mints?” I reached for the glove compartment door.

“No, wait!” she called out.

But it was too late. I opened the door and a small white bag fell by my feet.

“I was going to tell you,” Emery said. “I swear.”

I opened the bag and pulled out three packs of birth control pills. I held them up for her to see. “Tell me what? Or who? Or when?” I asked.

Emery reached for them. “It's no big deal.”

I should have pushed her, but I was upset. She didn't trust me. She didn't tell me.

Looking back, that's when there started to be space between us. We became two different people—those who have and those who haven't. I was squarely in the haven't circle. She'd moved on.

The space grew after the party and her hookup with Max, no question. But it started with that first secret taking up space, like a cancer, strangling all the life around it. Dr. Ziggler was right about lies killing you.

I make myself focus on the present. “How do you know where my paintings are?”

“I watched the movers take them.” She turns the wheel, navigates traffic, pointing her car in the direction of the industrial park. “I came to see if… I wanted to talk to your parents. I saw someone taking them.”

My head feels like it's in a vice. “Just you?” I ask.

“No.”

“Oh.”

“Allie, when we heard, we both came. It wasn't planned.”

The two of them together. Again.

“It's never going to happen again. I promise. Neither one of us wants it to.”

The words kill me, as do the visions of the two of them together. I shake my head to clear them. I'm back to not caring about what happened with Emery and the mystery man. Because I already know what happened with her and Max. And it makes me sick.

“I know it was wrong,” Emery pleads, “but we didn't mean for it to happen.”

“I can't talk about this.” I turn away.

“Okay.” Emery nods her head repeatedly.

“Tell me about the paintings,” I say to the window.

“I was waiting outside…to talk to your Mom or something, you know?”

“And…”

“I saw a moving truck pull up. Two men got out. One guy pulled a key chain out of his pocket. It had the pink Con on it.” She stops. An actress pause for effect. “I recognized your studio key, so I knew they were there for your paintings. So we…”

“You and Max.”

“Yes. We watched them load your paintings, then followed the truck to the storage place.”

I put my head against the window. What I wouldn't give to go back to June. I'd make her tell me who she got the birth control to be with. We'd still be besties. I wouldn't have gone to the party. She wouldn't have gotten with Max. To think, all this misery might never have been if I had just been more persistent. Or if she had been more open. The lies are killing us. Slow and painful.

Emery pulls into the U-Store It facility and parks out front. “It's around the side, over there.”

I get out of the car, shocked again by the cold, pulling my jacket around me. A gust of wind makes us bend forward and walk faster. I watch Emery's long legs and wish for the hundredth time that I was exotic looking like her. Even in the cold, she looks lean and strong and inviting. No wonder Max wanted her.

“You have the key?”

I reach in my pocket and hand it to Em.

She takes her gloves off to open the lock. As the lock slips open, I feel my heartbeat go crazy. I just hope they're here. That they're all here.

“Ready?”

I nod.

She lifts the bay door and stands back so I can go first. The light from outside is only enough see the sides of canvases and framed pictures stacked against the wall. They didn't throw them out. But something's wrong. There are too many. Almost double.

“Where is the…” Em says. Then a light switches on.

My eyes drift to the sides of the storage unit. Paintings are propped up against the walls, three to four deep. Oils. I kneel down. The first is a field of wildflowers. Whoever painted this used a similar palette to the one I used to use. Monet's palette: titanium white, cadmium yellow, viridian green, ultramarine, cobalt blue, crimson, and vermillion. My breath catches. I look at the tiny brushstrokes. The shadows are done in greens and purples. I could have painted these when my colors were pure.

“Who did these?” Emery lifts a picture of a vase of flowers on a table. Vermillion and dandelion and tangerine are the base for the colors in that one. “They're amazing.”

I look at the bottom of the canvas. The name is scrawled but legible: Karen Crenshaw. Mom.

“Oh,” Emery says. “Did you know?”

I lift another. “Had no idea.” First pain, then heat, then numb. How could she keep this from us? From me especially? She was a whole other person. Someone I should know. But don't. Someone who understands how violated I feel to have my paintings taken, because someone took hers. Dad? Did he do this to her? Did she surrender them willingly or fight to keep them?

“I guess you can tell where you get your talent from.”

“Well, I never thought it was from Dad.”

“You want to take your pictures out of here?” Emery asks. “I could keep them for you if you want.”

“That's okay. I guess they're safe here. I mean, with Mom's and all.”

“Yeah.”

“It's not that I don't trust you or want you to have them… It's just I'm not worried about them anymore.”

“It's cool.”

“Let's go,” I say.

“Okay.” Emery waits for me, then turns out the light. I take one last look at the paintings as Emery starts to lower the door.

“Wait!” She stops. I run back in and grab one of Mom's small paintings. A tree on a blue background. It looks almost biblical. Somehow she made the colors look translucent, like stained glass. I run my fingers over it, tracing the leaves of the tree, the canopy. I'm not sure why I want it. I just do. Something of the other Mom that mine could have been. I nod to Emery, and she lowers and locks the door.

We rush back to the car, the wind having picked up and a drizzling rain making my cheeks burn, the picture cradled under my jacket.

“Emery,” I say when she gets the car started. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“You think he made her give it up?” I ask.

“I don't know,” she says. “Guys make you do awful things sometimes.”

I think about that. It's true. But how is it true for Emery? Who made her do awful things? And what did he make her do?

“Emery,” I start. “What's going on?”

She turns to me. Her mouth forms shapes, but she stops, and I get sad.

“You could…tell me anything. I mean, even after…”

“I know, Allie. But done is done.”

If only it were. Sometimes done is only pushed down deep, waiting to be discovered. I could tell Emery that, but I'm not sure she'd believe me.

My cell vibrates.

R u ok?
Nick.

Yes.

“Who's that?” Emery asks.

“Nick.”

Can I see you?

Emery takes a jagged little breath. “Cool,” she says.

BLP 10 mins?

Yes

“He wants to meet me at Back Lake Park. Can you drop me there?” I lean back and close my eyes. I don't open them again until I feel Emery's car crunch on the gravel entrance to the park. I'm worried about seeing him. Will he be mad still? I remember the last time I was here with him, just a week ago. It seems so much longer than that.

“Don't you want me to wait?” Em asks.

Nick's car pulls in.

“No. I'm fine.”

“You going back to school on Monday?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“Do you want to ride with me?”

I open my door and slide out. I shake my head. “No.”

“I wish I could go back in time and change things, Al. I really do.” Tears cascade down her face. No clean actress tears, full-out ugly tears. Make-your-face-swell tears. I should be impressed.

“I know.” I shut the door and turn away. “But you can't. No one can.”

I walk to Nick's car, my feet feeling as if they're weighed down. I want to see him, but I don't want to have this conversation. He knows how much I screwed up. He tried to tell me. But I didn't listen. I wish I'd told him I wouldn't meet him. But that's ridiculous. I'll see him on Monday. May as well grow up and take my medicine.

I open the door to the passenger side, and Nick pulls me in and against him.

“Allie, I'm so glad you're okay. I was so worried.” He takes my face in his hands and looks me over. “Are you all right?”

“Mostly,” I say.

“I'm sorry about hanging up on you. I feel so bad about that—”

“It wasn't the reason…”

“I just—”

“Stop. It wasn't you. You were right.”

“I should have come over to see you. I should have tried to help.”

“You couldn't.”

Nick leans back in his seat. “So what happens next?”

“They want me to take medication. You know, to make me less depressed.”

He reaches out and holds my hand like Leah used to.

“Hey.” Nick squeezes my hand. “It's okay.”

“I'm scared to take their meds. I have no idea if it'll work.”

“You should try. If you're having that hard a time of it, you should.”

“I don't know. What if they change me?”

“Didn't the other stuff you were taking change you?”

I nod. He's right. Taking John Strickland's and Mom's meds did change me. Even the cough medicines did. “It's just that they seemed more manageable. More in my control. I knew they would wear off, and when they did, I'd still be the same underneath. I don't know if that makes sense; it's just how I felt.”

“It does make sense, but if you're in charge of your doses, then you can take too much too. I've never had anything horrible happen to me. I've never lost anyone I loved. But when you went in the hospital…”

He cups my chin and pulls me to him. He kisses me. And I let him. Until I don't. I pull away.

“I can't. I need some time.”

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have.”

He holds my hand again, and it feels good. Maybe this medicine would help me forget. Maybe it would be a way back for me?

Or maybe not.

Maybe it would dull the colors. Make me fat. Take the last of Leah from me. I hated that her ghost lorded over me. But at least she was here.

I grab my purse to pull out my lip gloss, and Mom's painting stares me in the face. I almost forgot about it. I hold it in front of me, careful with it as if it were made of glass.

“Hey, what's that?” Nick asks.

I hand it to him. And I start to get nervous. Which is weird because it's not like I painted this. But still, watching Nick assess my mother's art is scary. I want him to like it.

“This isn't yours?”

“No.”

“The colors are similar to what you do, but the technique's different.”

“It's my mom's.”

“I didn't know she was an artist.”

“Neither did I. Till earlier today.”

“Wow. She was good. Really good. She still paint?”

“I've never seen her. So, no.”

“Why would she stop?”

I try not to, but I start to cry. It's all too much. Why didn't I know about this? What made Mom stop? Suddenly all the things she lied about on a daily basis seem like nothing compared to this huge mountainous lie. How could she? Why would she? Why did she stop painting? Did the pills make her?