The Big Sister - Part One (11 page)

“That’s not true,” I corrected, smoothing out the foundation as Sol began attacking my face with a brush dusted with powder. “I lean on all kinds of people for support. I wouldn’t be able to do it without them. My roommate and our neighbor are helping me raise my brother, Sol. That’s the kind of help I never wanted to need, but reality dictates that I need it.”

Sol heaved a despondent sigh before laying out my costume for me as I swept on eye shadow and mascara.

“I wish I had family like that,” she said sadly. “Family I could trust.”

“I built that family,” I told her. “I had to go out on a limb to trust them, but they’re good people. Whether you want to or not, sweetie, you need to learn how to trust people. You can’t go it alone all the time. Sometimes, we really do need help — whether we think we can trust people or not.”

“Thank you for all this free advice,” she said, trying on a timid smile. “I feel I should pay your or something.”

“Yeah, right,” I said. “That’s what we’re all here for. If we had to pay each other every time we vented or aired a problem or asked for advice, none of us would have money anymore.”

Sol finally gave a short laugh before running a brush through my short hair. “Want me to braid it while you finish your makeup?”

I glanced up at the clock. The DJ would announce my name any second. “No, but thank you. I don’t think I have any time. I’ll just slick it back.” It was my experience that the customers liked girls with long, flowing locks the best, but I’d make due. Maybe there’d be one in the crowd tonight with a fetish for a sleek style.

“That’s my fault,” Sol said, hanging her head. “I’m —”

“Don’t you dare say sorry again,” I scolded her. “And no more tears, either. You go on after me, remember? You should be getting ready, too. You’ve got mascara everywhere.”

Sol gasped and ran for her bottle of makeup remover. “You’re right! I’m a mess.”

I wriggled into my costume — a spangled bra and panty set — and was just stepping into my sky-high shoes as I heard my name over the loud speaker.

“Next up is Faith. You gotta have Faith, everybody, she is such a treat.”

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes a little bit. Somebody needed to give the DJ a list of new clichés for my name. That one was getting a little old — probably because I heard it four or five times a night. I added it to the list of things to look up on the Internet — right after I figured out some new recipes for Luke.

I strutted out onto the stage, banishing my brother, a weeping Sol, and the stress of rushing to get ready from my mind. My only focus was the pole, and the beat of the music, and manipulating my joints, limbs, and hips to maximize my performance.

It was time for me to shine, and I couldn’t let anything distract me from that.

All in a day’s work.

Maybe I should’ve known better. Things were going well — about as well as they could go, anyway. And life can’t be good forever. I’d learned that the hard way. Your parents leave you with a babysitter, for example, telling you that they’ll wake you up so they can tuck you in to bed the right way, and instead you wake up the next morning in the presence of strangers, telling you that your parents are dead, killed in a car crash.

Or at least that was my experience.

I’d learned to suspect the worst when life was getting to be good, and I’d been uneasy for a while. It had all started when I found that knife my brother had drawn in his sketchbook, and my hope had rapidly deteriorated when he and I had the tiff over his language arts theme.

I’d tried to earn as much money as I could, unsure of where the crisis was going to come from. Maybe we’d get evicted for whatever reason. Maybe one of us would get sick, or injured. I’d frightened myself with turning my ankle in my platform heels enough times to worry about that. Maybe we’d lose what little financial aid St. Anthony’s had to offer, and I wouldn’t be able to continue to afford to pay tuition without some kind of a pay hike.

I was so concerned that I mulled over asking Parker for a bump on my hourly rate — Parker, who’d taken a chance on me. Would she think I was worth the money?

When the problem finally did manifest itself, I was almost surprised that it didn’t have a thing to do with money.

It was way worse than that.

I could tell that something was wrong as soon as Jennet got home with Luke. I’d stolen away from the club a little earlier than usual to surprise them with homemade nachos — healthier than the fare Jennet peddled at the snack shop, but still guiltily delicious and smothered in melted cheese.

“Surprise!” I shouted over my shoulder from the kitchen as soon as the door opened, but neither of them said so much as hello. I turned around with my lips pursed, about to make a sarcastic comment about their hearing, when I stopped. Luke looked somewhere between defiant and ashen, and Jennet looked like she was about to vomit down the front of her corncob.

“Tell me,” I said immediately, my grip on the ladle tightening so I didn’t let it drop to the floor. Something terrible had happened, and it was now up to me to fix it. I didn’t feel despair. I was all out of despair. All I had was a steely resolve. Whatever my brother had gotten himself into, I would get him out of. I had certainly done it before, and I’d do it again.

“Tell your sister what you told me,” Jennet said quietly, prodding Luke’s shoulder gently.

He swallowed visibly and unzipped his backpack. For the briefest of moments, I hoped that they were both playing a prank on me, that Luke had actually gotten some kind of good news at school — a good grade, or a positive note from one of his teachers. I shook myself free from my delusion. Neither of them was this good at acting.

“Luke,” I said, making an extra effort to keep my voice calm. “What happened?”

“My language arts teacher wanted to make sure I gave you this note about my theme,” he said, locating what he’d been looking for in his backpack and holding out a sealed envelope to me. “He said he had some concerns that he wanted to address to my parents, and I said I didn’t have any. That I lived with you and Jennet.”

My mouth became instantly dry, all traces of saliva vanishing at once. This was it. This was how everything I’d taken such care to arrange would come crumbling down. With a stab of irritation at myself, I realized I hadn’t read Luke’s theme. He hadn’t put it on the table like I’d asked, and I’d worked so late that night that it had been all I could do not to fall asleep at the wheel on the way back to the apartment from the club. I hadn’t remembered what I’d told him to do, and it hadn’t registered that there might be a problem with the assignment he’d completed.

I thought I’d been clear with my brother about what was going to be acceptable and what wasn’t going to be acceptable. He was so smart. I thought he’d understand.

I held my hand out for the envelope, telling and retelling myself that Luke was just a child, that he didn’t truly understand the danger, that I couldn’t completely blame him for all of this. I didn’t want to be mad at him, but my fury was building. Where would we go after this? Miami had been becoming a home to us. It had been as far away from Albuquerque as I could fathom, and now we’d have to find somewhere else. Maine? Alaska? Hawaii? Maybe I’d put all the cash I’d earned for St. Anthony tuition toward passports and take us out of the country. Fiji. Kenya. The most remote places I could think of.

My fingers closed around the envelope, and I weighed it in my palm. How much paper was in there? How bad was it going to be? I wished I could go back in time, way, way back — beyond the night I’d forgotten to read the theme, beyond fleeing from Albuquerque, beyond allowing the social workers to arrange my brother’s adoption. I wanted to go all the way back to my parents leaving us with that babysitter and forbid them from going out on that date. I couldn’t do this anymore. I wasn’t my brother’s parent. I was his sister, and sometimes I needed support from someone who had it figured out a little better than I did. That was what parents were for.

“Go to your room,” I told Luke quietly. I was beyond rage. I was neck deep in despair. This was his failing, but it was obviously mine, too. I wasn’t doing a good job at protecting him — even though it was becoming apparent that the person he needed protection from the most was himself.

Luke slipped away without a complaint. It was probably a relief for him to get away from me. That was fine. I’d deal with this.

“Just keep everything in perspective, Faith,” Jennet told me, but I just shook my head.

“I’m going to be in my room,” I said. “Dinner’s practically ready. The cheese is melting in the oven. Don’t let it burn, please.”

She said something to my back as I turned away, but I couldn’t process the words. All I could think about was the envelope in my hand and what could’ve been done to avoid it.

I wished to God that, somehow, I could’ve been the one who’d landed with the family my brother had lived with all those years. I would’ve gladly taken his place, if it had come down to that. I thought I had been protecting him, angrily demanding that the social workers help him find the better home. Instead, I was the one who benefited, and he was the one who suffered.

I understood, on some level, that it would’ve been impossible for the social workers to know the extent of the horrible situation my brother was in. The man who’d abused him for so many years was careful, and my brother was equally discreet — though he suffered for it. The woman he called mother for all those years was his only ally, and she had been weak, misinformed, blind to what kind of monster she’d married.

A monster who had turned my brother into a monster.

Steve — that was the man’s name, though I preferred to think of him as a monster, not a man — seemed to think of harsher tortures, more horrible punishments for the tiniest of slights he imagined my brother to be guilty of, the older my brother got. He’d put out cigarettes on my brother’s back and chest, sucker punch him in the stomach so he couldn’t breathe, terrorize him at every turn, at every single opportunity.

But Steve made a mistake when he thought that telling Luke he was adopted would hurt him. On the contrary: Luke finally had hope of something greater, something more than a miserable home life.

My brother was learning to be wily, to be sneaky, to bide his time. He waited again until he got his new mother alone and asked her about the adoption. She cried, thinking he’d be angry or hurt or damaged somehow by this new knowledge, but he assured her he just wanted to know if he had any family left.

My name came up.

It was around this time that I was living in an apartment, testing out my new freedom away from my family, practicing at keeping house and saving money, all with the idea that I’d be able to bring Luke into my life, to renew our family ties.

The call on my cell phone one evening after work was from a number I’d never heard of, but I answered it. I never knew when I’d receive a call from a judge offering me my family back, so I always tried to be available.

“Hello?”

I almost hung up — there wasn’t any sound on the other end of the line, not even breathing — because I was bone tired and ready to drop into bed.

“Hello.” I held my phone out away from my ear to eye the display. It said I was connected to the number that had called. Was there a bad connection? Was this some kind of test?

“If you’re saying something, I can’t hear you,” I said as patiently as possible, imagining some judge miles away taking notes on how I dealt with troublesome phone calls. If I couldn’t maintain my composure with something as simple as that, how could I be trusted with raising my brother when I aged out of the system?

Finally, I detected the faintest of breaths, let out gradually, as if the person on the other end of the line had been holding it.

“Faith?”

It was just my name, just some kid saying my name. But even though it had been years since I’d heard him, I knew my brother’s voice. I knew it was him. It was finally happening. Everything I was working so hard to achieve was finally coming to fruition.

“Luke,” I whispered. “It’s you.”

“How do you know my name?” he asked, his voice so quiet I had to press my ear against the receiver, jamming my finger against the volume button again and again in vain.

“The same way you know my name,” I said. “We’re brother and sister.”

I could’ve been bitter about Luke’s family keeping him from me, but all negative feelings had been flushed out with the wonder that was hearing my brother’s voice for the first time since he left the orphanage. The moment was too special to waste on regret.

“So it’s true,” he said. “I am adopted.”

“Of course you are,” I said. “Our parents died when we were both very young. You were adopted because you were still a baby. That way, the best families would be able to take care of you and give you a home.” I hesitated for half a moment. Would this next part be awkward? After all these years, with me focusing on getting my life in order and being successful at something for the sole purpose of winning my brother’s presence back into my life, would he even want me?

“I’m going to be eighteen in a couple of months,” I said. “I was wondering … well, I’ve been working really hard to become independent once I age out. I thought maybe you might want to come live with me … if you wanted. I know you’ve been with your new family since before you can remember, that you don’t really know me, but I’m your sister and —”

“Yes.” Luke’s interruption surprised me, and my mouth dropped open before gradually stretching into a grin. “Yes, I want to come live with you. When’s the soonest that I can leave? I can be ready to go by tonight.”

His voice had risen in excitement, and I imagined that he had a smile that matched mine exactly.

“Well, it can’t be until I’m eighteen,” I said, “but that’ll be here before you know it. My birthday’s July 8, for your information, and I’m expecting like eight years of presents from you. Don’t worry — I’ve got all your presents here, too.”

“July,” my brother repeated, the volume of his voice continuing to rise. “No, I can’t wait that long. It needs to be sooner. It’s only March. Why can’t it be now?”

My grin faded a couple of degrees. My brother was excited, that was all. He had never known of my existence before today, and now he was overeager to see me.

“Well, maybe we can arrange a visit with your family,” I said. “You can’t come live with me officially yet because I’m not a legal adult. But in July, all bets are off. It would be better now, anyway, for your family to meet me so they can get used to the idea that you want to live with me. That way, everyone can sort of ease into it by July, and there won’t be any hard feelings.”

“You don’t understand,” Luke said, talking even louder. “I have to leave now. Right now. Where do you live?”

Something about his voice made me lose my grin completely. My brother sounded a little unhinged.