The Wrong Sister (3 page)

He released her and she pummeled his chest, and nearly clawed his face. Blood was dried on his shirt and still trickling from his nose. He finally restrained her before she went totally out of control. Fearing she would lose her mind, she could just not believe he would do that. He put her under him and lay on top of her, trying to soothe her. He crooned into her ear as she sobbed uncontrollably.

Her legs parted when he shifted, and he lifted his head as her crying slowed. They stared at each other. Time seemed suspended. Sadness nearly dripped from their shared gazes. He touched her cheek. “I’m sorry.” It was a whisper. A prayer. A reverent plea.

He lifted his hips and rested gently against her. She moaned. He watched her face as his hand slid from clutching her waist and trying to soothe her, to gently touching the waistband of her pants, which he put between his thumb and forefinger without doing anything more. She nodded while closing her eyes and letting his lips touch hers. She forgot her grief in his lovemaking, but only temporarily.

Lying together, quiet, half dressed on the floor of their living room, she finally lifted her head. She was so exhausted, it hurt to gasp the air into her lungs. Her eyes were dry and swollen. “How do we tell our children?”

He shook his head. Clearly, he had no answers for the impossible situation he was putting her through. He swallowed and said softly, “That’s why I was staring at the gun. It’s why—”

“NO!” she interrupted him. “No. Stop it. Promise me. No matter what, you will never talk about that or threaten to do that again.”

He nodded slowly. “All right. I promise you, Tracy.”

“We need to tell them soon.” Soon, he would be gone. In prison, or in custody, or incarcerated or whatever the hell you called it. How should she know? She never committed a crime. She didn’t even knew anyone who had done time in prison.

Now she was married to a potentially convicted felon.

The ramifications were only just starting to unfold, and no doubt, would continue to increase as the days crept by. There was the family to tell and friends, who would be shocked, appalled and dismayed. There were the parents of friends and the children’s teachers to tell. And their children. They had to immediately get their affairs perfectly in order. Whatever was left of them.

His mouth yet again touched the top of her head. She could feel his warm breath as he pressed a kiss on her. “I’m sorry. Forever, Tracy, I’m sorry. I love you so much. Never, in the worst days to come, never doubt that. I never wanted to hurt you.”

They were pretty words, but not capable of helping her in the ensuing months.

****

Donny nudged at Vickie’s arm. She was lying face down on their unmade bed. It was so destroyed, half the covers were undone from the mattress, and bare where she lay with her face turned to the side, a puddle of spittle pooling under her chin.

“Vickie.” He nudged her harder. She groaned before her eyes finally started to flutter open. He grew impatient and grabbed the glass she left on the nightstand. Water? Vodka? Who the hell cared? He dumped it over her head.

She shrieked and sat up, blinking furiously. Her eyes didn’t focus on him because she was still drunk. Her head lolled back and forth while he stared at her. His heart froze in anger so deep, he had to flex and unflex his fingers to keep from making fists. Fists that he wanted to do bad things with.

How? How could he, Donny Lindstrom, a nice, funny, well-liked guy, get stressed to the point of almost wishing ill for his own wife?

He stared at Vickie Moore tonight. She wore plum-colored lingerie. She always wore sexy bras and seductive get-ups to bed. It was now crooked with half of her left breast falling out. She had large breasts with big, pink nipples. The drink he poured on her splashed her face, upper chest and one boob. A year ago, he might have leaned over and licked it off. Now, he wanted nothing more than to shower. The lacy part of her get-up was stuck in the backside of her thong. Her mouth was smeared with lipstick. But it was her eyes he detested most: bloodshot and black-rimmed with slept-in makeup. It was her glazed, drunken eyes that stopped her from being the wife he desired any longer. That was ironic, since there was no one more beautiful than Vickie. And no one could deny it. She had a fun, flighty, flirty personality. She sucked him off on their second date in a way he never experienced before. It was all sex, all the time for the first few weeks, quite literally, rock-your-world sex. He’d never gotten off so often or so intensely as he did with Vickie. He fell quick and hard into what he thought was love and lust and adoration. Her smile made him feel like he stood taller. There was something almost reverent in how she could make a man feel.

He was well aware of her rocky, tumultuous history. At twenty-eight, she’d been married and divorced three times. She borrowed money and wasted much more, soon falling into debt that dipped well into the thousands. She was, quite simply, a train wreck.

But she wanted to be
his
train wreck and he’d never felt happier. Never had a relationship consumed him like theirs did. He dated lots of women and had a few short-term relationships, but nothing like what he felt for Vickie. He fell completely head over heels in love with her.

And then she got pregnant. He got careless with her. Something he’d never done before. But she came on to him so much, and so often, that he didn’t always realize it was going to happen again, or so soon, so he wasn’t always ready with protection. So of course, she got knocked up. The crazy part was how okay he felt with it. He thought he could change her, and hoped to stabilize her. He knew he loved her, and thought he could handle her.

What he failed to realize was that only two years later, he couldn’t even stand her. He grabbed her arm and jerked her forward, dragging her behind him like a limp rag doll. He flipped on the shower with only cold water and threw her in the tub. She shuddered and sputtered when her eyes finally opened as she tried to stand up, but she slipped twice in her drunken stupor. She screamed, “You stupid asshole,” in a slurred, almost incomprehensible garble of words.

What no one knew then, and not one single person understood, was that she was an alcoholic. It was quite shocking for Donny, and the opposite of what he expected after marrying her. He walked around in a deranged trance for weeks after finally arriving at the proper conclusion. During their few months of dating, they partied hard. Frequenting bars and clubs, they got drunk a lot and had endless sex and fun. He didn’t notice her problem at first. Right after she got pregnant, she managed to control it enough to have a healthy pregnancy and a safe birth. But three weeks later, he came home to find her… like this. She was fully passed out, leaving his newborn baby lying helpless, screaming and crying, on the corner of the bed. He was shit-in-your-pants shocked at the scene. He never expected to come home from work and find her like that, or his baby in so much distress. He didn’t realize that although Vickie didn’t drink every day, when she did, she drank herself stupid. She didn’t stop until she physically passed out.

All three of her failed marriages weren’t because of her flighty, careless personality, or her husbands’ boredom. No, the problem was her drinking; and that finally came to light for each of her husbands although none of them could stop it, or stand her. So of course, they divorced her. She pretended it was all her doing, when, in fact, it was theirs. As far as Donny could gather, none of them exposed her secret, perhaps out of some misplaced guilt.

He was cautious before leaving her in charge of their infant. Much to his deep disappointment, he knew he couldn’t really trust her. For all her fun and merry-making, she was also selfish, careless, rash, and completely unreliable. He took several weeks off to be with their new baby in order to teach her the basics of caring for an infant. She tried. Even more than usual. He saw moments where she actually cooed, or played, and seemed to be bonding with Julia. Others, however, found her not so involved. She never got up at night, and refused to pick her up when she cried. She didn’t do the normal things most new mothers would do.

Donny did all the baby chores. The problem was: he needed to work. He patiently spent days preparing her for her first day alone with Julia. Eight hours. That’s all she had to handle. Instead, he found her dead to the world while his child screamed, neglected, and uncared for, beside her.

He scooped Julia up, fear crushing his heart over Vickie. Only as he leaned closer to her could he smell the booze nearly evaporating in fumes from her skin. Her benders would eventually poison her system and kill her one day. Of that he was sure. He’d never seen anyone drink as much as she did when she lost control.

But at that moment, he sat back on his haunches, feeling completely blindsided. What the hell was this? He left her to care for his infant and discovered her passed out on the bed after only hours.

Days later, he confronted her again and she finally told him the truth. She did that often.

That was what was wrong with her. That was why she couldn’t sustain a job or relationship, or even a bank account. She did that and missed workdays on benders that eventually got her fired. Every relationship also got ruined. And of course, no job means no money.

She promised to stop, and they fought long and hard for days. He railed at her after he found his daughter so neglected. He made it clear that it could never happen again. Not to his daughter. He was set to divorce Vickie right then and there, but she begged him to stay. She cried and carried on, making every promise possible until he eventually relented. She could be so earnest. And so upset. And so heartbroken and horrified at what she’d done to their baby.

But she was liar, and it happened again. And again. Not immediately. Not even very often. But it kept happening. She again tried to stop. They emptied the house of all the liquor. They never ordered any when they went out, and he stayed glued to her side if they went anyplace where it was served. She attended Alcoholic Anonymous meetings and swore that she had a grip on it.

Donny was new to everything. He’d never been around an alcoholic. He didn’t know how well they lied, or said what everyone wanted to hear in order protect their opportunities to drink. Sometimes, she didn’t even realize she was lying to him, and even worse, to herself.

At that point, he didn’t understand what a terrible disease it was. A nasty, take-no-prisoners, ruin-your-life-as-surely-as-cancer-could disease.

He assumed she understood how awful, devastating and truly wrong her behavior was. No parent was allowed to do that with a baby in the house. It was unheard of, at least, to him. She’d surely get that. He eventually believed she was truly traumatized enough to understand the gravity of what she’d done.

There again, his naïveté. It was a brutal, but quick learning curve.

Vickie did it again. She couldn’t stop. He couldn’t leave Julia there, so he put her in daycare. They pretended Vickie had taken a part-time job in retail with crazy hours. As if. But it worked well enough and no one had caught on to their lie yet. Donny dropped Julia off at Tracy’s house as often as he could get away with it. He stopped worrying that he was totally destroying his beloved child when she was with Tracy. He couldn’t stand daycare. What if anyone hurt her? Or ignored her? What if he stumbled onto one of those horrible ones the news reported every six months or so? She was so small, and could talk only in a few words. She definitely could not have a conversation. She was completely helpless, and an easy victim. He couldn’t stand it, so he often relied on Tracy.

Tracy didn’t really want to accommodate his babysitting needs, and he knew that. But she didn’t refuse him, at least, not yet.

That was up until the last three days. She said outright no to his requests and hung the phone up on him. Now, he knew exactly why.

Vickie stumbled from the shower, wet and shaking. She did a face plant into their bed, still all wet, and Donny pulled the covers over her before she passed out once again. He slowly lowered his ass to the edge of the bed and bent forward to rest his forehead on his knees.

So this was how his life would be.

The depression of it, the sickness of it, and the sadness over what it had become was enough for Donny to
almost
understand Micah’s reason for staring at an unloaded gun.

TRACY GROANED WHEN THE front door swung open and she found Donny standing there with Julia in his arms. She glared at him. “You’ve got to be freaking kidding me.”

Her tone was low and quiet. She so rarely swore. She never said “fucking.” She usually inserted “freaking,” or said the “f-word” or “f-bomb”. She was always PG, even when the kids weren’t around. The kids must have been close by now, however. He was counting on it. “Please, Tracy.”

Glancing back as she stepped forward, she forced him to retreat further so she could join him on the porch as she shut the front door. Then, she took her hand and pushed at his shoulder. “Were you not here? Can you really come here and expect me to babysit your kid now? Today? Two days before my husband goes to prison? No. No way. I won’t do it. Go get your lazy, incompetent wife to do her damn job for once. Just get out of here, Donny.

His mouth tightened as his gaze swept over her. She hadn’t showered in days. Her hair looked greasy and hung down to her shoulder blades. It was drawn back in a snarled ponytail. She hadn’t worn makeup in that long either. Her face was pale and her eyes were puffy and red from crying so much. She resembled what a grieving widow
must
surely look like.

She seemed ten years older than her thirty-two years. She seemed haggard. How did her kids not realize something drastic was going on? Well, thank God, they hadn’t yet.

Her clothes were the same sweats and t-shirt Donny saw her wearing yesterday. She must’ve slept in them. Micah’s dried blood was spattered in spots on her shirt.

Donny sighed and closed his eyes. “I know. I just really need you to do this today. I’ll make other arrangements tomorrow.
Please?
I can’t miss work. You know why. Your husband is the reason why. And why I can no longer afford daycare. And Vickie’s working too. We need every dime we can scrounge, since I’m now on the brink of losing everything. I have the unique opportunity to meet with your loser husband this afternoon and go over in detail what he did to me. So yeah, I get it, Tracy.”

They stared at each other hard, two sets of eyes narrowing in anger and possibly, hatred.

“Vickie isn’t working.”

“How do you know what Vickie is doing? When have you ever given two shits about her? Other than laughing at her and gossiping about her with Gretchen?”

Tracy’s mouth fell open. “Are you kidding me? My sister only had me and Gretchen until you came around.”

“You know nothing about her. She can’t watch Julia today. Just… please do this for me. You owe me.”

Her mouth opened. “How do you figure I owe you?”

He sighed and shook his head. “Because soon, I’ll be taking care of Vickie, you, Julia, Ally and Kylie. Didn’t you listen to him? Soon, he’ll be gone. I know you love your father and mother, but why do you think Vickie is lacking in the most basic common sense and life skills? They don’t deal well with reality. It’ll be me.”

“And me,” she grumbled at him. “I’m not her mother, Donny. You need to figure it out with Vickie.”

“Please. Today. I just can’t deal with it now. I have a really important potential client and I’m going to be late. I can’t lose him. You know why.”

She pursed her lips in contempt. How dare he do this to her today? He knew that was what she was thinking. She had her own children to deal with, and her own life, which was falling apart. She had no interest in changing his child’s diapers and wiping her spittle up.

She relented only when Julia glanced up at her and started gurgling with happy smiles and baby-spit bubbles. Julia always wanted Tracy. Tracy put her hands out and took the chubby bundle, now just over a year old. She grimaced. “She needs a bath. My God, Donny,” she nearly screeched with disdain.

“I know. I know. I ran out of time this morning. Vickie and I have… well, I was trying to figure out how to tell her what happened. Anyway, I ran out of time. Would you…?”

She gritted her teeth. “You are unbelievable. Start grooming your own damn child. But fine. Like I’ll punish the baby for your bad behavior.” Tracy tugged on the diaper bag strung over Donny’s shoulder. She turned to go, but stopped and looked back at him over her shoulder. “Did you?”

“Did I what?” He frowned, pausing momentarily.

“Figure out what’s happening?”

He closed his eyes and pressed a hand between them. “No,” he said. His tone was so seriously sad and solemn, it made Tracy’s eyelids overflow with tears. “No, Tracy, I haven’t figured out how we all got here. Or what we can do now about it.”

She sagged her shoulder against the front door. “I need my sister. I want her here so much. I can’t imagine doing this without her.”

He knew she didn’t mean Vickie. He could have used his own brother as well. Tony, his brother, recently married Gretchen, Tracy and Vickie’s older sister. Weird damn coincidence.“I could use Tony too.”

Tracy finally met his gaze without the anger. “Are you calling him?”

He shook his head. “It’s not fair. They’ve just gotten somewhere decent. I simply can’t lay this on them now.” Plus, he couldn’t stand letting Tony or his parents know how low his once positive and happy life had sunk, nearing uncharted depths. Or how right Tony was about Vickie, just not for any of the reasons most people thought.

Tracy nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.”

He met her gaze and held it. “Exactly. It’s you and me, Tracy. You might as well start to accept that.”

He turned and left her staring after him in dismay with confusion shining in her eyes.

****

Tracy slammed the door after hearing Donny’s rather haunting, final statement upon his departure. It was so depressing. She jiggled Julia, who reached up and grabbed her cheek and pinched it. Tracy sighed. She did not want to deal with the one-year-old today. Still not walking, Julia often grew frustrated and screamed quite a bit. She wasn’t nearly as docile and well behaved as Tracy’s two kids were. Then again, Tracy was their mother, not Vickie. They had no reason not to be happy, well-adjusted babies. Unfortunately for Julia, she couldn’t claim such a luxury.

She gazed at the little girl, who was a stunning child. Almost ethereal in her beauty, she looked so much like Vickie did as a baby. Blond ringlets crowned her perfectly shaped head. With huge, dark eyes, and little pink lips, and round cheeks, she was the spitting image of Vickie.

“No doubt you’ll be as obnoxiously beautiful as your mother. And you’ll probably grow up and use it to catch any available loser you can find to support you, just like your mother. Not that Donny’s a loser. Just an idiot to fall for it all. Now there’s you. I really don’t want to deal with you.”

Julia listened to Tracy’s voice, her solemn gaze becoming more intent as if she took in each and every word with complete understanding. Tracy shifted her feet uncomfortably. Okay, she was being a complete bitch. It wasn’t the poor child’s fault who her mother was. Or that she was so pretty. Or that Tracy’s life was falling apart and she didn’t really feel like babysitting. Julia’s little face started to crumble.

Tracy nearly panicked and pulled Julia against her chest as she crooned to her. “I’m sorry, baby girl. Auntie’s here. I’ve got you. I’ll take good care of you. Shh, my girl. I’m here.”

Who would take care of Tracy though?

“Mom?”

Tracy jerked out of the little reverie, quickly shifting her weight from one foot to the other and dancing Julia around to make up for saying such awful things to her. She shifted Julia’s weight and let her wrap her plump legs around Tracy’s waist. “Hey, sweetie. What’s up?”

“I didn't know Julia was coming over today. I wish I could stay home with you guys.”

She smiled as she passed Kylie. Her younger daughter followed her into their kitchen. She automatically started making breakfast for her daughters and Julia. “Did you finish your study guide for math?”

Kylie sighed. As a fifth grader, she was struggling to keep up. “I did. I’ll get it. Did I tell you what Corey told me?”

Placing Julia in a safe spot in the kitchen, Tracy handed her some of the toys that were still out from her last visit. Tracy grimaced as she glanced around and finally saw what was directly in front of her. Holy Crap. It was awful. The dishes weren’t done. Mail and family paraphernalia were scattered all over the counters. It was a large kitchen, featuring a big island, and almost every square inch of it was cluttered and covered with something or other. Ally’s science notebook was still open and forgotten at the table.

For the last few days, Tracy told the girls she wasn’t feeling well. It really wasn’t a lie because when had she ever felt worse? So it wasn’t a lie. She barely had enough energy to heat up a pizza for dinner the night before. The floor needed a good sweeping, and all the counters were covered in crumbs and spilled drops from last night’s milk or whatever. She shook her head. It was time to face her kids, her house, and her daily life as it was now. And would forever be. Starting with actually listening to her daughter’s anecdote.

Making eye contact with Kylie, she automatically grabbed the whole wheat bread. She hoped some toast would make up for the crappy dinners she’d been throwing together of late. Their nutrition had fled along with their money. “No. What did Corey tell you?” Corey was her semi-best friend, but only when they weren’t fighting over the other friend, Janey.

“She said Janey is going to ask her to go to summer camp with her. Do you think that’s true? I thought, well, I guess I hoped, Janey was going to ask me.”

Tracy shook her head.
Summer camp?
It was barely October. “You don’t think she will now?”

“Not if she asks Corey. She can only ask one person. I swear, she said it was going to be me.”

“Well, you haven’t talked to Janey yet. Don’t draw any conclusions or invest too much drama until you know for sure. Remember: half of what your friends or classmates tell you is usually wrong or just gossip.”

“Not all of it,” Kylie bristled. Tracy finally found a reason to smile. School had yet to change, in her experience. The social hierarchy was tough, and the gossip was never reliable. Statements like “so and so says this in so and so’s presence” were untrue or incorrect, if they were even real.

“Still. Ask Janey today.”

“What if she thinks I’m fishing for the invite?”

“Don’t you want to be invited?”

“Yes. But only if she wants to do it on her own. If I ask her, she might think I’m hinting at it. Or realize that Corey and I discussed it. Corey said I wasn’t supposed to say anything to
anyone.
It’s all a big secret.” Kylie wrinkled her brows.
Duh
. Tracy sensed she wasn’t on her usual game and couldn’t get all the teeny-bopper speak correctly today. Kylie had red hair and gray eyes, and looked almost exactly like Tracy did as a child.

Her sister, Alissa called nothing but Ally, meanwhile, looked just like Micah, with light brown hair and dark eyes. Her eyes were clones of his: deep, dark and soulful. Well… someday, soulful. At eleven years old, they were more like anti-soulful and somewhat shallow, but someday, they would be as profound as Micah’s.

Julia suddenly shrieked and started banging a wooden spoon against a metal pan. Tracy had given them to her when she wouldn’t stop crying the other day. Tracy sighed as she quickly buttered Kylie’s toast and started gathering Ally’s stuff together. The sixth grader was a mess and left a trail of homework, accessories, clothes and books in her wake. Kylie kept talking about the complicated situation she was in, and whom Janey should ask and when. All the while, Julia shrieked and Ally yelled downstairs that she wanted her red sweatshirt and couldn’t find it
anywhere.

Tracy’s head started to split with pain. The noise was becoming too much. The chatter was also too much. The growing list of chores that needed her attention was too much. The red sweatshirt was still dirty because she hadn’t washed it. Tracy felt like that symbolized her entire life at this point; she couldn’t even manage to wash the sweatshirt. The one her daughter had specifically asked to wear to school on Spirit Day. Which was today.

On and on, Julia banged.

Tears started to fill Tracy’s eyes, and she turned away.

“Mom! Where is it?” Ally yelled again.

“Mom? Did you hear me?” Kylie called, “I need fifteen dollars for the social studies projects supplies. Hey, why is Dad still home?”

And just like that, all of it stopped for Tracy.
Dad
.

She slid against the wall in the pantry where Kylie couldn’t see her.
Dad.
Dad would be gone. It would be just her. For how long? She didn’t know. She didn’t freaking know. How could she do this alone? She never had to before.

Fifteen dollars meant nothing in the past. She never thought twice about it. She simply grabbed the cash and handed it to her daughters, or donated more to cover the costs for students who could not afford “just” fifteen dollars… or five, or ten dollars. But what about the thousands they spent a year? Where was that coming from now? Not from her. Certainly.

The house. He said the house was in danger. He said—

If only he was going to be here too.
She nearly knelt down on the floor as the weight of what was to come suddenly became overbearingly heavy. She could not do this alone. She could face total financial ruin, but only if she had Micah to lean on. To help her. And tell her what to do. She wasn’t as smart as he was. She didn’t really know what to do about any of it. She dealt with all the kids’ needs and tried to meet all their demands. She cleaned the house, and kept them well stocked in sundries and comestibles. She dutifully ran errands and showed up to cheer for Kylie at soccer, and for Ally with her fast pitch. She was the team mother. The snack provider. The ever dependable ride for kids whose parents had to work.