The Big Sister - Part One (9 page)

“You got me there,” I admitted. “I don’t like talking about it. But that’s another thing you have to understand about families. We do things we don’t like to do for each other all the time because we love each other. You think I like washing your stinky clothes? You can bet your butt I don’t.”

A smile ghosted across his lips. “Well, I don’t like washing your disgusting dishes, either.”

“But we do it,” I said, ruffling his hair. “That’s what family does. The dirty work. That’s who you can trust. Me. And I can trust you.”

“You can trust me,” he said, nodding.

“So tell me about the knife,” I said, even though I knew what I was going to hear. I always knew what it was. I just wished we could move past it. That was all I wanted. To shove that stupid knife into the past, where it belonged.

Unfortunately, my brother’s past wasn’t exactly the best place to be. Even his memories of it were always trying to flee, finding themselves in his present in their effort to get away from the terror and heartbreak.

It seemed that even though I’d done what I thought was my best to bully our social workers into finding Luke the best home possible, I’d gotten the better living situation — by far.

From what I’d been able to glean from my brother’s hesitant retellings, his mother — not our deceased mother, his other mother — had been the one who’d wanted to adopt my brother. She’d been going through a divorce, one that had contributed even more to her empty nest syndrome. Her only son had recently left home, fed up with the fighting and carrying on that she and her soon-to-be ex were engaging in.

So Luke’s new mother had an empty nest to fill, and she did it with an adoption of my baby brother, shortly after marrying a man she barely knew.

My brother was too young to realize all of this, of course. I pieced the full picture — the fullest picture I could achieve, of course — from what he thought he knew, what he’d overheard, what he’d experienced.

His new mother had loved him. That much was clear. She’d wanted him, had cared for him, but, like me, she hadn’t wanted his past to weigh him down. She’d never told him about his real parents dying in that wreck, about his real sister struggling through life  with the sole goal of winning him back into her family. She’d wanted him all to herself.

Maybe, in some realm of reality, everything would’ve turned out all right. Maybe Luke would’ve grown up knowing that his family loved him, and maybe it wouldn’t have mattered that it wasn’t his real family. I’d learned, growing up, that it didn’t take blood ties to make a real family. Jennet and Nick were as close a thing to family as I’d ever known.

But things had gone wrong. Things had gone very wrong.

When Luke’s new mother had married the veritable stranger, she hadn’t banked on the idea that the man didn’t want kids. Didn’t want anything to do with them, in fact. That he’d only married her because her one child was grown up and gone and she was too old to have any more. He’d been terribly surprised when she brought Luke home from the orphanage. They’d talked about it, but he thought she was joking. Or delusional. Or just making conversation.

But my brother was no joke. He was a real, live human being, one that cried at night and woke his new parents up and gradually but persistently grated on the man’s nerves. The older Luke got, the worse the man apparently hated him.

Luke started to learn that he wasn’t safe when his new mother left him alone in the house with the man. My brother was just a child, and he needed things like food and attention. But the man was unwilling to provide them. When my brother would cry out of hunger, the man would give him a spanking for whining.

When Luke learned not to cry in front of the man, the man would still ferret out punishable offenses. Sullenness. Attitude. Sneakiness.

And when spankings stopped satisfying the man’s hatred of Luke, he tried for other forms of cruelty. Spankings became beatings, though the man was always careful to leave no marks — or at least leave them in places on my brother’s body that wouldn’t show.

The situation was despicable. But the one bright spot came when the man assessed the weapons in his arsenal and tried for a little psychological warfare.

“You know,” he said conversationally to Luke one night, poking his head inside of Luke’s bedroom after his wife had gone to bed. The voice had startled Luke out of a doze. “You’re not her real child. She has a real child, but he’s grown up and gone. You’re just a little weasel of a thing she took from an orphanage that no one else wanted. No one else wanted you.”

Luke’s new mother had never told him he was adopted, but now he knew. He knew, with no small degree of hope, that he didn’t belong here, that he used to be in some other place — a place that was probably safer than here.

The first chance he got — the next morning, after the man had gone to work and he was getting ready for school — Luke cornered his new mother with the knowledge he had gained in the most unexpected place.

“I wish he wouldn’t have told you,” she said, sitting heavily on the edge of the bed she shared with the man who hated Luke. “I really wish he wouldn’t have done that. I didn’t want you burdened with that information. Not at such a young age.”

Burdened? Luke felt unburdened, free, hopeful for the first time in a long time. Adoption was good news. That meant he had a place somewhere else, somewhere away from that terrible man.

“Would you tell me about my real — my other parents?” he asked. “Who are they? Why did they put me up for adoption?”

“This isn’t something I want to just unload on you before you go to school,” the woman said, shaking her head. “I want you to get a good education. I want you to be someone wonderful. Maybe we’ll talk tonight over dinner, when we’re all together.”

All together meant with the man, and that wasn’t what Luke wanted. He was afraid that his face would betray him, that the man would recognize Luke’s weak hope for what it was and crush it. No. He needed to know now, when he had his new mother to himself.

“Please tell me,” Luke said. “I promise — I promise I won’t tell anyone. I just want to know. I just need to know. Now.”

Surprised by his intensity, or maybe just relieved that she didn’t have to bear this secret any longer, she told him. His parents were dead. He had lived for a time at an orphanage with his older sister — me. And she had adopted him shortly after marrying the man who was the main source material for Luke’s nightmares.

“My older sister,” Luke said, trying the words out. A link. A tenuous link to a past he was no longer a part of, a place he used to be. An escape.  “She didn’t die.”

“No,” his new mother confirmed. “Well, as far as I know. She was adopted, same as you, but to another family. Now, scoot. I hear the bus at the corner.”

There were hundreds more questions that Luke wanted to know the answers to, but he had to exercise patience. This was going to be a chess game. He would have to choose his questions wisely, have to make sure he got his new mother alone, be content with learning everything eventually, methodically.

He only felt marginally guilty at school that day that he could hardly sit still in his desk, let alone pay attention. The latest bruise from the man, on his ribcage, hardly even hurt anymore.

A different place. A sister he never knew he had. A chance at liberation.

“Faith?”

I blinked a couple of times, my brother’s wan face coming into focus.

“Yeah?”

“You kind of zoned out for a few minutes,” Luke said, his face pinching with worry.

“I was lost in the past, I guess,” I said, unclenching my hands that had become inexplicably sweaty in the pleasant day. My fingernails had made little half moons in my palm, indentations that I knew would fade in a few minutes. “Were you saying something?”

My brother shrugged, and I frowned. We were still new to each other. I had to keep reminding myself of that. He had no reason to trust me — though I often wished that the fact that he was hear with me, now, would be reason enough to confide in me.

“I was asking you about the knife,” I said, finally regaining my train of thought. It was too easy to get derailed with Luke. I had so many regrets.

“I just drew it,” he said.

“And why did you scribble it out?”

“Because I knew it would upset you,” he said. “Everything upsets you.”

I knew I wasn’t that transparent. “Not everything upsets me,” I lied. “I’m just worried about you. You’re going to be starting at a new school this fall, and —”

“Wait, a new school?” Luke interrupted. “What do you mean?”

I smiled and dropped my pursuit of an explanation for the knife — for now.

“What, did you think this was just some random trip to the zoo?” I asked him. “No, sir. This is a celebration. You’re going to St. Anthony’s this fall, not that horrible public school.”

Seeing my brother’s face light up — and being the one behind the joyful transformation — was enough to banish my worry to the dark corners of my brain. I lived for these moments, for these fleeting seconds when my brother was actually excited about something and not all balled up inside of himself, afraid to come out.

“Really?” he asked. “I’m really going to St. Anthony’s?”

We’d made a campus visit early in the summer, touring the beautiful grounds and meeting with some of the teachers there. While Luke had explored playground equipment, I’d spoken with the principal, who’d assured me that a tentative boy like Luke would flourish under the right circumstances — the very same circumstances that St. Anthony boasted.

“You’re really going,” I said. “You’re enrolled and everything. We’re going school shopping tomorrow. We have to get you that cute uniform — tucked-in shirts and ties. Think you can survive?”

My brother beamed and nodded emphatically. He didn’t care about ties. He just wanted out of that cesspool of a public school he’d been in during the past year. He’d been bullied by his peers and ignored by his superiors, the teachers just wanting to shoo the students from grade to grade with as few hiccups as possible.

“That crocodile better be museum quality art by now,” Jennet warned, approaching us with her hands on her hips. “Seriously! What is taking so long?”

“You’ve got to see these gorillas, Luke,” Nick added. “I don’t know how you’re going to draw them, though. They won’t stop moving around.”

“Go on, then.” I prodded my brother, noticing belatedly that he’d been sketching this entire time. The crocodile in his sketchpad really did look like it should be hanging on the wall of some museum or gallery. How long had I zoned out, thinking about all the horrors he had grown up with?

I pushed myself away from the lurking reptile’s tank, repressing a shudder as I walked toward my friends. This was going to be a good day. I was going to make it a good day — for my brother.

School started, and we settled into a tried and true routine. I rolled myself out of bed to cook breakfast for both Jennet and Luke — when I could manage it, of course. Marcus had enabled the first tuition payment, but there would be another for the second semester — and many more after that, if St. Anthony’s turned out to be as good for Luke as I hoped it would be. I was looking to work as hard as I could to try to secure the tuition money, and taking on escorting more often than usual.

After breakfast, I saw Jennet and Luke out and collapsed back into my bed to sleep for a few more hours before the club opened for the day. I was so thankful that Jennet’s schedule at the snack shop allowed her to get Luke to school just in time to open up at her work.

She held off on taking her break until it was time for school to let out, when I would normally be entrenched at the club, and saw Luke home. If she was working a double, Jennet would drop Luke off with Nick for a couple of hours, and I would come home from work to help with homework and cook dinner. If Jennet was able to stay with Luke for the rest of the night, I wouldn’t come home until the club closed and I’d collected money from the last escort. It was a brutal schedule for me, and I didn’t like not seeing Luke very much, but my friends understood how hard it was for me to get the tuition money together.

And Nick wouldn’t be Nick if he didn’t offer to help.

“Look, the band did really well at our last gig,” he said one night when I was yawning and waiting for Luke to pack up his school supplies from their spread across Nick’s table.

“I’m happy for you musically,” I said, leaning on the doorjamb and looking forward to just sitting on the couch for a little while and asking my brother about his day.

“What I’m saying is that you don’t have to work so hard,” Nick said. “Seriously. I’ll pool some funds together and get that semester covered.”

“You’re really, really nice, Nick,” I said, “and very musically inclined. But I really don’t think you did well enough at your last gig — judging from the gig I went to with Jennet that time — to pay for a semester at St. Anthony.” Exhaustion blunted my words. I really was touched by our neighbor’s kindness, and he was indispensible when it came to looking after Luke, but I would never want to take a cent of his money. We all worked hard for it, Nick included.

He sighed and put his hand on his hip — he’d been reaching for his pocket.

“You’ll let me know if you ever really need help, right?” he asked softly, barely over the clatter of Luke dumping his markers into his backpack.

“You do so much already, Nick,” I said. “Really. You really do. I hope you don’t think I’m being ungrateful. But the money thing is something I just have to do. I’ve always wanted to, I’ve always had to, and I can’t stop now.”

“I understand,” Nick said, looking perplexed in spite of his declaration. “Will you say hello to Jennet for me?”

“Tell her yourself,” I laughed, crushing Luke to me in a mock headlock. “You live right across the hallway from her.”

“Isn’t she dating some guy right now?” he asked, the line between his eyebrows deepening ever so slightly, as if that was even more bewildering than me not asking for money from a broke musician.

“That’d be news to me,” I said. “Still no reason why you can’t pop in every so often, though.”

“I wouldn’t want to bother her,” Nick said, shaking his head dismissively. “What would her boyfriend think?”

“That you’re a good neighbor, a wonderful friend, and an awesome musician,” I said, marching Luke through the door. “Have a good one. Thanks again.”

I smiled to myself as we walked inside our own apartment and Luke fumbled through his backpack to show me something he’d done at school. It was so obvious that Nick had feelings for Jennet, but he’d never get her attention if he didn’t act on them a little more boldly. Jennet was a girl who had to be impressed. Nick needed to improve his game.

“Drew this during art,” Luke said, handing me a piece of paper and ducking his head a little, shy.

I took the page and examined it. It was a remarkable still life, done in pencils, and featured several vases of flowers.

“Are you sure you did this in art?” I teased him, raising my eyebrows even as I couldn’t keep a smile from my face. “Are you sure it didn’t happen sometime in math? You better be paying attention, boy, and that first report card better knock my socks off.”

“You never wear socks,” he observed, eyeing my flip-flops. “And it was so during art. You think we just have a bunch of flowers sitting around during math?”

“I believe you,” I said, hugging him to my side. “It’s gorgeous, Luke. You’re so talented. I’d say we should hang it on the refrigerator, but I think we’d better go get a frame, get an agent lined up, and maybe get you to drop out of school to pursue this art thing full time. What do you say?”

“I don’t want to drop out of school,” he protested.

“That’s my brother,” I said. “Always stay in school. Excellent.”

We went over his homework for the night, me checking and double-checking his work to make sure it was perfect. It had been so long since I’d had to crack a book, but I didn’t want my brother ever giving academia up for anything.

“I don’t really know what to write for my theme,” he said, touching his language arts journal contemplatively.

“What’s the topic?” I asked, yawning a little. Writing was definitely never my thing in school. I always liked figures better. They helped me plan for my future.

“A life-defining moment,” Luke said, looking me in the eye since the first time he brought the assignment up. “And it has to be real.”

My frown was thunderous and immediate. “You have plenty to write about without writing about that,” I told him. “What are you, crazy?”

My brother’s scowl matched my own. “Don’t call me crazy.”

“I’m not,” I relented. “But use your brain, Luke. You can’t write about that. You can never write about that — not ever, not even if it’s the plot of some great fiction novel you write someday. That is something you can never even speak about. Trust me on this.”

“Well, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, then,” he said, throwing his hands up in the air.

“Write about the day you found out you were going to be attending St. Anthony’s,” I said, brightening. “That was pretty life-defining, wouldn’t you say? Plus we had a good day at the zoo.” My frown faded, remembering the way we’d fed the giraffes at a special station and one of them had mistook Jennet’s vivid hair for an additional snack. God, how we’d laughed.

“No, that’s sucking up,” Luke said. “Plus, why would St. Anthony’s define my life? I’ve only just started going there.”

I opened my mouth to shoot off an explanation and shut it again. The reason St. Anthony’s was going to define his life was because he was being challenged, and being challenged meant being distracted from his terrible past. Luke certainly couldn’t put that in a theme. Even as I hemmed and hawed and worried, I was dazzled by how much my brother was being drawn out of his shell after such a short time at his new school. He was whip smart, but I couldn’t help but cringe at the idea that perhaps he was too smart for his own good.

“You could write about moving in with me,” I suggested. “And moving to Miami.”

“But the only reason I moved in with you was because of what happened,” Luke said, his eyes almost accusatory. “And you said I can’t write about that.”

“You’re right about that,” I said. “You can’t write about that. But sooner or later, you were going to move in with me. That was always the plan. I was going to age out, and then we were going to be together.”

“Whose plan was it?” Luke asked, sounding suspicious.

“Mine,” I said briskly. “Just put that in your theme. I aged out and asked the judge to release you into my custody, and then we moved. I don’t know what’s more life-defining than that.”

“But what do I write?” Luke demanded, sounding agonized. “I can’t write about Mom — my other mother. And I can’t write about our parents who died. And I can’t even write about the city we used to live in — Albuquerque.”

I shook my head violently. “Don’t even say the name. Don’t even think it.”

“Don’t you see how impossible this is?” he asked, throwing his hands in the air helplessly.

I did. I saw it very clearly. I had gotten very good at lying — at the very least through omission — and my brother had yet to learn. He needed to figure it out fast, or he was going to get us both in a lot of trouble.

“Here’s the thing,” I said. “Listen up, because I don’t want to have to rehash this with you. I am the only one you can talk to about Albuquerque. I know that everything happened not so long ago, and I recognize that it’s difficult for you. As time passes, it’ll be easier to forget about — especially since you’ll be making new memories at St. Anthony’s and here in Miami.”

“I will never, ever forget about it,” Luke said, crossing his arms over his chest in what I’m sure he meant to be a defiant posture. To me, it looked much more defensive, and it squeezed my heart.

“You will,” I assured him. “You definitely will.”

“Hey, guys!” Jennet chirped, shouldering her way into the apartment, still dressed in her Corn Queen costume. “What’s happening? How was everyone’s day?”

“Great!” I said brightly. “Wait till you see the latest masterpiece from our man Luke.”

I elbowed my brother, maybe a little too sharply, trying to prompt him to perk up and give Jennet his best poker face.

“It’s just of some dumb flowers,” he said glumly, grabbing his backpack and heading for his room. “I have homework to do.”

I felt like I was being unfair, even as anger and fear surged through me. Jennet knew about Luke’s past, even if I warned her never to talk with him about it. I felt like if she took us in, she had to know the truth, had to know what was in store for her. And Jennet had been great about it — super understanding in spite of everything, and swearing herself to secrecy even before I could get a chance to.

The thing was, even if it might’ve helped Luke to talk with Jennet about his past, I didn’t want him feeling comfortable going to anyone else but me about his troubles. I felt like it could’ve opened way too many doors for him. He hadn’t developed any close friends — or many friends at all — during his short time at the public school when we first moved to Miami. But what if he got a best friend at St. Anthony’s? What if they were sharing secrets and Luke was moved to talk about his past? It wouldn’t take long for the life I’d tried to build for us to be upheaved, and it would be because Luke placed his trust in the wrong person.

I was the only one he could trust. I needed to be that for him. I’d gotten him out; I’d saved him from what would’ve surely been a swift and merciless consequence. No matter how much it tormented my brother that I was so ready to put a seal on the past and never let it out, I had to be that person.

Luke’s bedroom door slammed, and Jennet plopped down on the couch beside me, her costume taking up nearly all the space.

“What was all that about?” she asked. “He’s normally in such a good mood these days after classes.”

“It was really a nice drawing,” I said wistfully. We really had been having a nice evening prior to the argument about his language arts theme. Was there any chance I could talk to the principal, get Luke exempt from all nonfiction writing assignments that pertained to his life? Not bloody likely.

“Boys will be boys,” Jennet said. “How was your day?”

“Just getting started, I’m afraid,” I said, heaving myself off the couch. I’d take a shower, get dressed, head back to the club, and see what I could add to the tuition fund before dropping back into bed in the wee hours, exhausted and out of my mind.

“I’d say you’re halfway done, at least,” Jennet said, looking comical as she tried to put her hands behind her head to prop her neck up. The costume kept her from gesturing too wildly.