The Wrong Sister (5 page)

For him, any real mother would have looked like that today because of what she did to their daughter yesterday. His head wanted to believe she realized what an awful thing she did. He really wanted to believe her. And he hoped that she finally understood there really was something wrong with her.

But his heart wasn’t convinced. He’d seen her do that before. He’d seen her just as convincing, and only a week later, replay all the same bad behavior again.

Her sobs started to lesson when he didn’t make a move towards her. Her head finally lifted and her eyes peeked at him. She swallowed. “Donny? Don’t you believe me?”

He held her gaze. Her dark eyes were so sincere, he almost caved. He almost leaned over and held her. Her eyes were Julia’s. She drew in a breath. She crawled forward to him and leaned her elbows on both sides of his lap. “Donny, please. Please, believe me. I’ll get help this time. Just don’t leave me.”

He remained stoic and shook his head. “I can’t keep doing this. You’re a rollercoaster I can’t ride. And I will not allow you to do that to our child.”

Her eyes were focused on his lap, and he knew what her next move would be. “No, Vickie. Sex can’t fix it anymore.”

Her eyes grew round in shock, and her shoulders sagged. When she spoke, her voice lost the kind of breathless baby sound to it. Now, it just sounded weary and serious. “Okay. I get it. What do I have to do? What do you want from me?”

“Is it me you want? Or because you just don’t want to be alone?”

“You,” she said automatically.

He let out a deep, exhausted breath. “Lose the act. Do you want me? Or do you want the lifestyle you’ve lived for a decade? If you do, we’ll make sure you have it. If you pick to be with me, everything will change for you. I can’t make you do it. You have to want it. We’re talking rehab and sobriety, budgeting, and a job, Vickie. We’re talking about you growing up and acting like an adult.”

Her eyebrows lowered in puzzlement. “Like taking care of Julia?”

“No. That’s not on the table. Not anytime soon.”

“Okay. Okay. I’ll do it. This time, for real.”

“This means we have to tell Tracy and your parents.”

That and only that caused the real Vickie to come out. Her face lost the sad, pathetic, tragic, victimized look. Her eyebrows shot up as her eyes glared with fire in them. “No. Absolutely not. I will not tell them. And I will never forgive you if you do.”

That was Vickie’s Achilles’ heel. She desperately hid her drinking from her sisters and parents, and played off her troubled life as simply being a flighty mess. Ha. Ha. Only, it wasn’t. Vickie was sick and needed serious help. The kind he couldn’t give her.

He sighed. “We have to tell them either way. I want Tracy to watch Julia. You know she doesn’t really want to. We have to give her a compelling reason for why she needs to.”

She shook her head. “I can’t bear having them know.”

“But why? They don’t like how you go through men, money and jobs. Why not explain why those things happen? That makes you more sympathetic than just being a mess for no reason.”

She pushed back from him and rose to her feet. “Because right now, they don’t know what a complete failure I am. I don’t want them to know. Gretchen and Tracy, they are good people. I am not. But they don’t know I’m that bad.”

“How did we get here?” He looked around, feeling at a loss as to how his life could have gotten where it was.

She finally flopped down in a chair, and all seduction and sadness vanished from her posture, face and tone. This was the real Vickie now. He didn’t often deal with her. She was nothing like she presented herself.

“I started drinking in high school. You know, to be cool. Fun. Life of the party. It worked too. I was. My early twenties were just an extension of that. So I drank the weekends away. It didn’t seem like a big deal. All kids do it, right? Only mine never stopped. The parties stopped eventually, but my drinking didn’t. I just drank alone. Or with different groups so no one person caught on to how frequently I drank.”

“Why me? Why did you marry me? Other than for Julia? What was in it for you? I’m not rich. I never even pretended I was. What did you think I could do for you? I can’t support your shopping or reputation, and you knew from the start I wasn’t a drinker. Not for real. So why me, Vickie? Be honest this time.”

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back on the sofa. “I started out with you like I do everyone. A good time. Sex. New things. Yes, I like the things guys buy me. I like the attention. But I fell in love with you, Donny. It was real with you.”

“You know I don’t fully believe you.”

She nodded. “I know. You see through it all. No one else ever did. Not my friends, or even my parents. They let me be like this and never encouraged me to do anything different. Gretchen was the smart one. She was their star daughter who had to always be successful. Tracy was the good one. The kind one. Everyone’s little sister kind of nice. She and Micah played the role as the perfect couple. She was always the perfect mother and wife. Me? I don’t know. Mom or Dad never even once suggested I try a little harder at school, or get a job after school. Nothing. They raved about my looks to their friends and other parents. Until I was older and then, they bragged about it to boys and later, men. They liked me dating. They practically shoved me out the door with guys. My popularity was something they liked. So I embraced it, and used it.”

She never opened up so much to him about her family. He knew she genuinely loved them, and he couldn’t say she felt such real feelings for anyone else. “Did you use me? Just be honest.”

She held his gaze. “Yes. I used you. I fell in love with you. I knew you’d never stay with me. I was a bright, shiny toy for a guy like you. You were substance, class, and care. You would want more than my body and looks after enough time went by. Unlike some men, I knew you’d want more in a companion than I could ever really be. I didn’t know how.”

“So you got pregnant?”

“Yes. I knew it was the only way a guy like you would stay with me. It’s still the reason why you’re here.”

His mouth simply dropped open and stayed that way. She’d never been so brutally honest with him before. Her eyes were hard and cold as she stared at him. The act was fully gone. His face started to fill with heat. Was she right? Did he use her too? He practically lost his mind over her. Would he have tired of her after the sex haze disappeared? Maybe. Probably. Yes.

He shook his head. “I’m not much of a catch for girl like you. I don’t see why you bothered. Not for me.”

She smirked with a sad gleam to her eyes. “It wasn’t about money with you. It was about how you made me feel. I never loved anyone. But I do love you.”

“You didn’t have to trick me.”

“I did. I did have to. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. You’d be married to a nice woman like Tracy, or an impressive one like Gretchen. If I had not been pregnant, you would have soon gotten your head out of your ass about me and dumped me. Or kept me around for some side sex. But the real stuff? Wife? Companion? Life-partner? Someone like you wouldn’t have settled with me.”

He didn’t know whether to be embarrassed, furious, flattered, heartbroken, or betrayed. He felt all of those emotions. He hurt for her because she thought so little of herself. Because her parents never taught her more about her internal worth. And ashamed because he would have done exactly as she just laid out. But then again, he was betrayed and should not have gotten stuck with her and her shit. But didn’t he deserve that for using her?

However, nothing could make him regret Julia. It didn’t matter how things went with Vickie. Nothing could have invalidated her presence in his life.

“I drink because it fills some void that nothing else can fill in me. New things. Shopping. Clothes. Alcohol. I use it all. I don’t know exactly why, Donny. I just do,” she said finally with a deep shrug.

The thick silence sat heavily on his heart. Finally, he leaned forward. “Will you go to a real rehab? I’m talking about going away and getting serious help. Would you do that?”

“Is that the only way you’ll stay with me?”

He snorted. They’d already been over this argument. “You can’t do it for that. I’m not guaranteeing anything. You’d have to do this for yourself. For your daughter. And your life.”

She turned her head and sighed. “I don’t know if I can stop. I’m not like you. Or my sisters. I’ve always taken the easiest route with everything, even when I knew it was wrong or unethical. I did it anyway.”

“Will you try? I am asking you to try.”

She finally, slowly nodded. “Okay. I’ll try. But I refuse to tell my sisters or parents.”

“Fine. Don’t. I will. I have to.”

“Why do you have to? Can’t it remain between us? I want it only between us.”

“Mostly because of Julia. I thought I made that clear. See right there? You’re putting your own desires over the welfare of your daughter. That is the kind of thing that makes people say you’re selfish.”

She scowled and crossed her arms under her chest. “Why my parents?”

He literally flopped onto the couch next to her. “Because I’m broke. Tracy and Micah are broke. We’re all going to need financial assistance from your parents. Our insurance doesn’t cover even half of what rehab costs. I simply can’t afford it.”

“What?” she screeched loud enough to break glass.

“Yeah. Your perfect couple? Micah and Tracy? Not so perfect as it turns out. They’re as fucked up as the rest of us.”

“What are you talking about?”

He wearily sighed. “The start of hell.” Then he began to tell her the rest of the story.

“IT’S TOO MUCH. I can’t remember it all.” Tracy pushed away the pile of papers that represented the details of their life. From bills and financial statements to homeowner manuals and insurance premiums.

Micah glanced up at her from across the dining room table. He inched his hand over to hers and held it. “Yes, you can. You can do this.”

“No, I have to do this,” she said in a scathing tone.

“Yes. You do,” he stated simply. The girls had gone to school. And again, she already had a crying jag and screaming match at Micah. After ignoring Julia, she felt so guilty about it, she got down on the floor and played with her for an hour. Now, finally, Julia napped. Micah and Tracy were trying to go over everything. Every last detail of their lives. Did she know the bills were electronically paid? No. She had no idea Micah paid them like that. She didn’t know that the furnace filter had to be changed once a year either. She had no concept of anything, much less, the magnitude of what was to come.

“The house?” She finally dared to ask the question she feared most.

He nodded. “I haven’t paid the mortgage in a few months.”

“So you just quit paying the mortgage?”

“Yes.” Her cheeks flushed in stressed out heat. What a moron she was. How could she not have known that?

She leveled a glare at him. “I don’t know you at all, do I?”

He closed his eyes. No doubt, he was becoming weary of her psychotic switching from evil tongue-lashing to almost desperate clinging and needy tears. She just could not comprehend their new situation. “Maybe not. But you can do this, Tracy. I need to know you can handle this.”

“And if I can’t? What are you going to do about it? You will be in jail. There is no changing that.”

“I think we’ll have to borrow money from your parents or Gretchen. We have to tell them.”

“Have you told your family?”

He hesitated, then answered, “No. I haven’t.”

“I can’t ask my parents for money,” she finally said after a stifling silence.

“We might have to.”

She shuddered at the thought. Her parents would help her, of course, but she was the daughter who never asked for anything. She never needed anything from them. How could she come to them for a chunk of money now, of all things? Micah had taken good care of her since she was twenty years old. How could she suddenly be desperate for money?

She glared at her husband, snapping her hand out from under his. “You know what is most shocking about all this? How embarrassed I am for you. To be married to you. That is what feels most foreign to me.”

He nodded. “You’re right.”

“I hate you.” She nearly hissed at him.

He didn’t respond, but finally rose to his feet. “I think this is enough for now. I have to meet with Donny at my office and I have a few more things to clean up at work. Will you be okay for a little while?”

“Does your company know?”

“Not yet. You think they’d let me near their clients or business if they did? I’d be locked in an office, waiting on the cops in five minutes.”

She snorted. “Like you deserve. Why did this client give you a week? Why the hell would anyone do that?”

He sighed and stared out the window. “Because he’s my dad.”

Her mouth fell open. More. There was always more. It just kept getting worse. “Your dad? Did you make that up?”

“No. I was stealing money from him too. He crapped on me my entire life, but still entrusted me with his damn fortune. It’s a lot more than you could ever guess, Tracy. More than I ever comprehended. He was on the ground floor of a company that manufactures science and research tools. It exploded in the late nineties. He is a wealthy man, but he never shared a penny with me.”

“Oh? So you decided to steal it from him?”

His jaw tightened. “Maybe. Yeah. I did. I screwed up. I get that. But I went to him a year ago for help, and he said no. He even laughed in my face. I told him we were going to lose everything, and his granddaughters would soon be homeless. His response? Maybe I finally learned something significant. So I took whatever I needed, and he found out last week. He confronted me. I could pay him back or go to jail. I obviously can’t pay him back. So…”

“What? Why didn’t you tell me this from the start?”

“Because I already guessed what you’d think about my crime.”

She didn’t know him. “What else is there? What else don’t I know?” she whispered, dropping her head and looking very sad. Was she so depressed she couldn’t manage to even hold her head up anymore?

“He elected to send me to jail, but was kind enough to give me a week to deal with you and the girls. He thinks that’s his good deed.”

“It is. Listen to yourself. You think you’re the victim? Your dad is. You stole. You’re corrupt. It doesn’t matter whom you took it from. You shouldn’t have lost our money or Donny’s. But you could have just told everyone about it. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know. But I really thought I could get the money back before he even realized I took it. He has enough. There was no reason he couldn’t have helped us.”

“Us? There was no
us
in this. Apparently, there isn’t much of an us anymore.”

“There is. You and the girls are the only reason I did it. I just wanted to rectify some of the mistakes I made. He could have let me off. He could have let it go. He could have forgiven me. But instead, he chose to send me to prison over it. That’s fucked up.”

“No, Micah, what you did is.”

She stood up and planted her hands on the table. “I can’t even look at you. You disgust me. I can’t believe this is you. My husband.”

“I'm not supposed to tell you either. That was his condition of the week. I could not tell you or Mom or Phillip what happened. Why? My guess is he knows they would all try to stop him. But if he finds out I told you, he’ll immediately call the police. His case is strong enough that it would mean years in prison for me.”

“Are there others?”

“Yes. Big clients. I took minimal amounts. They don’t even know it. Their monthly balances go up and down so regularly, they never check the details. I thought I could ride it out. I’d replace it all. If he’d just—”

She literally stuck her hands over her ears. “I will not listen again to what everyone else should do about this. You did it. You did wrong.”

“So wrong that I should go to prison? All that does is punish you. It leaves you having to deal with everything. That seems more wrong to me. If he’d only given me some time, I might have been able to fix it.”

She felt the color draining from her face, and thought she was about to pass out. “You really don’t understand what you’ve done, do you?”

He went around the table and pulled her up to her feet before taking her face in his hands. He made her eyes meet his. “I love you. I will fix this for you. Somehow. Some way.”

“I don’t believe you for a second.”

He gently touched his lips to her forehead as she stood their stoically. “I know. I love you,” he whispered again. As he gently let her go, he looked at her again and stepped around her. She didn’t watch him leave. She leaned her hands on the back of the dining room chair and hunched her shoulders forward, feeling a sense of overwhelming defeat that had recently become her constant companion.

****

When Tracy answered the door after a loud pounding, she was nearly shoved into the wall. Donny pushed it open hard before stomping into the entryway.

“Where the hell is he?” Donny grumbled.

“Oh, nice to see you too,” Tracy sputtered out sarcastically. “And your daughter’s just fine. You’re welcome for feeding her, bathing her, and loving her when you and your wife are too busy to.”

Donny’s rude expression dropped. “I’m sorry, Trace. It’s been the shittiest day of my entire life. I know, for you, too. I just waited over an hour for Micah at his office and he never showed up.”

“Never showed up? He left here two hours ago to meet with you.”

Donny froze. Was he purposely making his face appear blank and neutral? “He hasn’t been to his office today. No one has seen him.”

Tracy’s heart started pumping faster. Her pulse raced and her mind simply couldn’t comprehend his words. “Wh-what are you saying?”

“I don’t know. I just know where he is not. Call his phone.”

She turned toward the console table in the entryway, groping for her cell, and hit the speed dial number for Micah as soon as she found it. It rang and rang until his voicemail clicked on. She called three more times. Her hand started to shake as she lowered the phone and raised her stricken gaze to Donny.

He swore under his breath.

“Where do you think he is?”

Donny’s expression softened at her voice. He grabbed her elbow and pulled her towards the couch. “I think… well, I think he might be gone, Tracy.”

“Gone?” Her head started to fill with a kind of white noise. She couldn’t make sense of Donny. Her head was muddled and his words sounded so far away.

“Tracy? Breathe. You have to breathe.” Donny shook her gently. She nearly hyperventilated as she took in a series of fast, sharp breaths. She lowered her head to her knees before raising her gaze to hold Donny’s.

“What do you mean
gone
? Like how?”

He sighed. “I don’t know exactly. Have you checked around?”

“For
what
?” she nearly screamed insanely at him.

“For a note? His suitcase? I don’t know. Anything. I didn’t take the gun that day. Do you know where it is?”

She jumped to her feet and ran into the bedroom. Donny followed her. The gun was still in its lock-box in the nightstand drawer. Her heart simply crumbled into her guts. She fell onto the side of the bed, staring at the gun. “No. Where is he? What is he doing? I yelled at him. Terrible things. Oh, God…”

Donny’s voice stopped her cold. “Tracy, there’s a note on your bed.”

Donny held it out to her. An envelope was sealed with her name on it. She took it between her thumb and forefinger and just stared at it.
Was this Micah’s suicide note?
“What do you think it is?”

Donny’s expression was bleak. When he raised his eyes to hers, she could tell he didn’t want to reply; but he thought he knew the answer, and felt nothing but pity for her. Her hand shook as she took the envelope.
What? What was it?
And why couldn’t her brain process that something very, very bad was about to be revealed to her? No, she felt a detached numbness settling in the base of her skull that soon spread to the rest of her body.

She shoved the paper at Donny. “I can’t. I can’t read it.”

He hesitated, but finally took it and tore open the letter. He lowered his gaze after a long profound glance at her. With a noticeable swallow, he shook his head, as if to fortify his emotions before he pulled out the sheet of paper. Then he started to read.

Tracy,

It became clear to me last night that I can’t go to prison. I don’t think I could handle it. I wanted to pull that fucking trigger yesterday. But I chickened out of that too. I have no words for what I’ve done to you. To our kids. To the rest of our life. But I can do this for you. I can stop this.

I’m gone. I ran. I’m in hiding. Don’t look for me. You won’t find me. I’ve created an entirely new identity and hopefully, a new life.

I’m sorry. The weakest words in the English language. But I am. I love you. I love Ally and Kylie, but I can’t face this. I can’t go to jail. Know that I never meant for it to end up like this. I never meant to hurt you or us. I will forever love you and both our daughters. Please tell them that, even if I don’t deserve it.

Nothing in my life matters now. Whether you believe it or not, this is how I think I best end this for you, the kids, and yes, myself.

He didn’t even sign his name to it. Donny slowly lowered the paper and his expression was stricken. He looked shocked, with both sympathy and horror.

Micah had simply left her.

Tracy bent over as a stabbing, sharp pain started in her stomach. She closed her eyes and tasted bile climbing up her throat.
He left her.
He was gone. For good. The sound she uttered from her throat was something between a sob and an animalistic cry of severe injury.

Donny grabbed her and pulled her next to him. His arms surrounded her as his voice whispered into her ear. “Breathe, Trace. Please. You’re going to pass out. Come on, breathe for me.”

She couldn’t. She was suffocating. She was going to die. The pain. The betrayal. The reality of his abandonment would literally kill her.

She loved him. After everything, she still loved Micah and yet… he left her. He walked out of the kitchen today, fully intending to never see her again. And he only paused momentarily. A small hesitation. That realization made her legs collapse. Donny’s arms tightened around her as he held her up. She didn’t sense his presence. Or his support. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Nothing again could ever matter.

She started to cry. What else was new? All she’d done for the last four days was cry. She was close to dehydration at some point. No human could possibly survive after losing as much water as she had with her tears.