The Good Sister Read online

  After a moment Simone said, “The guys liked me, Rox. I knew that from the time I was twelve or thirteen.” Coming and going from the house at night, she had made sure Ellen and BJ never knew. “I was pretty and they didn’t care if I was a whiz kid or not. Even the smart ones. And I always made them work for it but in the end… I was willing.”

  And I was good at it, she thought. It was like Johnny said. Her body was made for sex. And babies. Always babies.

  Roxanne faced her, looking almost stern. “This doesn’t make sense, Simone. You hate water. You hated water when you were a baby.”

  “Salt water was different. I loved the taste of it, and it feels different on the skin, kind of thick and silky. And I always wore a life jacket. Mr. Hutton wouldn’t let me off the dock without one.”

  “Where was I when all this was going on?”

  “You had your apartment then. Do you remember when I broke my collarbone?”

  “Vaguely.”

  You couldn’t be bothered with me. You and your best friend were having too much fun.

  “We’d been out to the Coronado Islands. Mom and BJ let me go overnight because Shawn’s folks were there and some other people.” Simone shook her head. “Mom was so naïve. Anyway, we were coming back and I was up toward the bow, standing up….”

  She stopped, remembering moments of distilled joy on the Oriole. The pinprick of spray striking her face, her stinging eyes, the taste of salt on her chapped lips and the hot, sticky feel of her skin.

  “I know exactly what I was thinking when the accident happened. The night before Shawn and I had had this conversation, sitting up on deck under the stars. We decided that after high school we’d hire on as crew on a sailboat. We didn’t care where we went but we needed the practice so that someday we could buy our own boat and go live in the South Pacific. I knew there would never be anything I liked better than flying over water, like at any minute I could take off and soar.”

  “Sailing and sex and a broken collarbone.” Roxanne’s expression had gone from amazed to puzzled to almost upset.

  With herself, Simone thought. She doesn’t like to think there’s anything about me that gets past her.

  “I was standing there, thinking how happy I was, and then someone yelled my name and the next thing I knew the boom slammed into me and I was in the water. And it was cold, really cold.” The Oriole flew by, her sails fat. “I couldn’t breathe or see anything. I suppose I would have drowned if it weren’t for Mr. Hutton and that life jacket.”

  “You were rescued.”

  “Well, obviously.”

  Looking back, Simone knew that she should have gone out again immediately, the next weekend. Even with a broken collarbone she could have worked in the galley or polished the brightwork. Instead she had stayed home, nursing her pain, feeling sorry for herself and thinking about icy water and sharks and the Oriole flying past. If she closed her eyes now she could see the way the name of the boat was written across the stern.

  After her shoulder healed she wanted to sail again but by then it was too late.

  “Mom went berserk when I mentioned it. She said I was almost killed. BJ went along with her, of course.”

  And I didn’t fight for it. I didn’t rebel. They were afraid for me and pretty soon I was afraid too.

  Time went by and after she and Johnny were married they leased a condo right on Mission Beach. The beach was gray and empty and beautiful in the winter after the tourists retreated and the broad strand belonged to the seagulls and pelicans and people bundled in parkas. Sometimes as she walked along the water’s edge, long walks from the estuary almost to Bird Rock, schools of dolphins arced through the surf running parallel to shore as if they wanted to keep her company. In the beginning she had watched the sailboats on the horizon but they made her sad so she stopped looking out to sea and focused instead on the million-trillion grains of sand at her feet, feeling small and insignificant and safe.

  Simone became pregnant and Johnny was ecstatic, even more so when the obstetrician and his nurse technician read the ultrasound images and assured them that a boy was on the way. Merell’s birth shocked Simone into the deepest depression of her life. Watching television one afternoon she saw something that convinced her a mistake had been made in the hospital nursery: a distracted nurse had exchanged her baby boy for someone’s girl. Johnny, her mother, and Roxanne dismissed her concern and blamed her mood on the blues, promising her she would feel more like herself in a week or two. Her obstetrician, Dr. Wayne, told her it wasn’t unusual to have such thoughts. He called it postpartum depression.

  Merell left the Frisbee-throwing, and after grabbing two cookies and shoving them in the pocket of her shirt, she swung herself up onto the first branch of the pepper tree, about five feet off the ground. She grabbed the branch above and hauled herself higher.

  Watching Merell climb, Simone’s breath caught in her throat. “Be careful,” she cried.

  “Daddy says this is the best climbing tree in San Diego.”

  “But if you break, I can’t put you back together.”

  “I won’t break, Mommy. Promise.”

  Merell was the kind of child who could do whatever she wanted. Climb trees, swim, ride a bike: it was all easy for her. Simone tried to believe that she had given birth to such a strong and competent child, but in nine years she’d never been convinced.

  She watched her daughter make her way up into the heart of the tree and thought of all the things she’d never done because she was afraid of the risk or couldn’t figure them out or had no aptitude at all.

  “D’you know, I’ve never even climbed a tree?”

  Roxanne jumped to her feet. “Come on, then, there’s no time like the present.”

  “Now? I’m pregnant.”

  “Listen, if you could sail a boat, you can climb a tree. There’s nothing to be scared of. You’ll do great.” She held out her hand. “I won’t let you fall. Never, Simone.”

  “You promise?”

  “I’ll hoist you up to the first branch. You can stay there, or go higher. Whatever you want.”

  The branch was between five and six feet off the ground. Merell had been able to jump and swing herself onto it but Simone could never manage that, so to give her a boost Roxanne made a stirrup of her laced fingers and, as Merell clapped and cheered and the twins and Franny came running, Simone put her foot into her sister’s hands.

  “Up you go!” Roxanne said. “Now swing your leg over…. That’s my girl.”

  And there she was, astride the branch, stunned and shaking, looking down on the tops of the twins’ heads.

  Merell called down from her perch eight feet above. “Grab hold and stand up. It’s easy, Mommy.”

  Easy.

  As much as she wanted to try, she wanted to be back on the ground; and while she thought about how it would feel to grab the branch and stand, she was thinking at the same time of what it would be like to fall, no water to soften the landing. She reached overhead. The rough pepper bark scratched her palms.

  Just take a breath and pull yourself. Just do it, don’t think and whatever happens—

  Valli clapped her hands.

  “Higher and higher and higher,” Victoria demanded.

  Merell cried, “Come up to me, Mommy.”

  “Mommy can’t talk,” Valli said.

  “Mommy’s crying.”

  Chapter 5

  When Roxanne got home Ty was on the deck staring out over the canyon. Down in Mission Valley there was gridlock on Interstate 8, an emergency vehicle and two cop cars on the shoulder, their lights flashing. The air was still and hot and smelled of eucalyptus.

  “I’d about given up on you.”

  “We have to talk.”

  He looked at his watch. “We can talk on the plane.”

  “There’s time.”

  “Not if you want to get a hamburger.”

  “I’m not hungry, Ty. Can we sit down?”

  He paused for a long moment, not
taking his eyes off her; and though she wanted to hold his gaze, she couldn’t. Across the canyon someone was playing a complicated set of piano scales, the pattern of notes repeating again and again in endless variation. She looked down at the litter of bougainvillea bracts scattered across the deck like faded gold coins.

  “I should sweep these up before we go,” she said.

  “Just tell me what happened at Simone’s. That’s why you went over there. What did she say?”

  “Same as the radio but I don’t believe her.”

  She thought of Shawn Hutton and the other boys in Simone’s life and remembered what Simone had said about Johnny. It’s not that hard to fool a man who wants to be fooled. The same could be said of an older sister.

  She forced herself to look at Ty, owing him that much at least. “I can’t just fly away as if it doesn’t matter.”

  She saw his expression harden like a flexed muscle.

  “I want you there with me, Roxanne.”

  “And I want to go. But the state I’m in? I’d be no good to you.” Drops of sweat popped out across the back of her neck. “I’d be a distraction. You’re better—”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Don’t walk away from me, Ty.” She followed him into the house. “Look at this from my point of view.”

  “Oh, I have. Believe me, I’ve examined your point of view from all angles.”

  “You can’t expect me to ignore Simone. She’s vulnerable—”

  “When I get the job—if I get it—what’ll you do then? Chicago’s two thousand miles from your vulnerable little sister.”

  “Tyrone, I will move with you to Chicago.” She spoke to him as if he were a student who needed a lesson repeated one time too many. “I told you I would and I meant it.”

  “Thanks for the sacrifice, Roxanne.”

  She heard the sarcasm that was so unlike him and the vibrations of a long, minor chord echoed through her like a warning. She dropped onto the couch.

  “I love you, I love her.” Ty could take care of himself but Simone could not. “I thought you understood.”

  “Haven’t you heard, Roxy? Understanding’s the booby prize.” He sat on the hassock opposite her. “I knew when we married that this thing with Simone would be a struggle, but I underestimated how it would make me feel.” He stared down at the square of carpet defined by his athletic shoes. “And I thought, I believed, we could work it out because we felt the same about marriage and making a commitment to each other. I mean, otherwise we could have gone on as we were, just living together. Isn’t that right?” He stopped. “Why did you marry me, Roxanne?”

  “I love you.” His question, so simple, was really a trap; and she knew that however she replied, she’d never get it right. “I want to spend my life with you.”

  “What about kids?”

  “We’ve had this conversation, Ty. You know I want us to have children.”

  “And if we do, who’ll come first? Our kid or your sister?”

  “Well, our child, of course. How can you even ask?”

  He nodded as if his hypothesis had been confirmed. “That puts me third in line, doesn’t it?”

  Panic fluttered in her throat. “This is a stupid conversation. These numbers don’t mean anything.”

  “But they do, they do. Listen to me.” He took her hands in his. “All that old-fashioned stuff in the marriage ceremony? I believe it. Sickness and health, rich and poor, forsaking all others. Those words mean a lot to me. Before we got married, I read the ceremony a dozen times, Roxanne. I wanted to make sure I meant it when I promised to be faithful to you for as long as I live.”

  “And you’re saying I didn’t?”

  “I’m saying when you made that vow you were already pledged to be faithful to Simone. You just tacked me on after her.”

  “That’s so unfair.”

  He seemed not to have heard her. “Your happiness, your health and well-being and all, it comes first with me. I don’t even have to stop and think about it. If we have kids you’ll still be number one with me.”

  Did he expect her praise because his priorities were simple? Did that make him a better person or just one who’d never been tested?

  He said, “If you really, powerfully, do not want me to go to Chicago, I won’t go. I’ll call them up right now and say I’ve reconsidered and decided to stay at the Salk.”

  This was what she wanted but admitting it would be the same as saying that she couldn’t leave Simone, that she was bound heart to heart to her sister in a way that she was not to him. Even if that were true—which, of course, it wasn’t—she wouldn’t have given him the satisfaction of hearing her say it.

  “Just tell me,” he said. “Do I make the call or not?”

  “Ty, it’s just not that easy. You come from a Norman Rockwell family. No big neuroses, no hidden agendas. You and your siblings are all grown up and independent and happy.”

  She knew she was exaggerating. Among Ty’s siblings there were disagreements, private grudges were held, emotional brokering went on as it did in any family.

  “I am the only person Simone completely trusts. If I let her down, she has nothing. Forget our mother, she’ll always put her own life first. And Johnny loves an image of Simone. When she gets on his nerves or disappoints him, he leaves for the office or goes fishing with the mayor. Or he hires another babysitter or cook or whatever. I’m the one who stands beside her no matter how awful she is. I’m the one who always picks up the phone.”

  “Well, you’ve got to stop doing that.”

  Maybe. Yes. But not this weekend, not today.

  Ty said, “I watch the struggle that goes on in you every time she calls. And when you talk about her—listen to your voice sometime, Roxy—it’s like there’s this subsonic scream under your words. It’s tearing you apart, but you’ve been caretaking Simone for so long, you don’t feel anything. You don’t know what this relationship is doing to you, but I do. And I hate it, and sometimes I hate her.”

  He dragged his hand down his face. “I know you had a weird childhood and I know you can’t get yourself untangled overnight. But it’s gotta happen, Rox, or you and I aren’t going to make it. Even if I could accept that I’ll never be the most important person in your life, I can’t see you suffer like this. I’d rather let Simone win.”

  She heard his words, the ultimatum, but they were spoken in a language she barely understood.

  “I can’t fight anymore,” she said.

  “We’re not fighting.”

  “This isn’t a fight?” She tried to laugh. “What is it then?”

  “Sorting stuff out, I guess.”

  Her brain wasn’t fit to sort out anything. It moved in slow motion like an ancient computer the size of a battleship.

  “I just know I love you.” The words weren’t enough. He wanted a pledge of some kind, a scientific proof that he could see. “And if you truly want this job then I want it too. Go to Chicago. I know my relationship with Simone isn’t good the way it is. Elizabeth has been harping on it since the day we met, but…”

  She closed her eyes, seeing constellations.

  “I’ve tried to get free of her so many times, Ty. But it never lasts. I’m like one of those game fish who’s bitten on the hook and can’t get free. It fights and fights, but eventually it just can’t struggle anymore.”

  “It’s going to work this time, Roxanne, because you don’t have to do it alone.”

  “I fear for her.”

  “I fear for you. And us.”

  “I’ll try,” she whispered. “I swear I’ll try.”

  Because our life depends on it, because I love you.

  Constellations, galaxies, universes beyond number: time and gravity and energies as yet unknown tore at them; and yet, wondrously, the stars and planets survived and the center held. Maybe love did that. Maybe love explained it all. Who knew?

  Roxanne and Chowder drove Ty to the airport, and afterward she was afraid to return to the empty
house on Little Goldfinch. She’d left her phone there; in the car she was cut off from all demands and responsibilities. She had made a promise, one she meant to keep. But how was she to begin to do what had always before been impossible?

  Go home, she told herself.

  Keep busy, she thought.

  She sat in the car at Mission Bay, watching children in bathing suits with sand stuck to their bottoms as they played in the last light, pushing and shoving and crying while the adults around them packed up blankets and towels and chairs and coolers. In the backseat of the car Chowder whimpered and squeaked, making sure that Roxanne knew Mission Bay was a great dog-walking place. She fastened his leash and they set off north in the direction of the Hilton Hotel. After half a mile she wanted to turn around, but Chowder was enjoying himself so she kept going until they reached the turnaround in front of the Visitors’ Center. Back in the car, Chowder licked her ear and lay down on the backseat, happy and contented.

  It takes so little to keep a dog happy.

  On Sunday she had breakfast with Elizabeth, waiting in line thirty minutes for bacon and eggs at a joint in North Park that served the best hash browns in the city and made creamery-style milkshakes. The long narrow space smelled of coffee and hot grease, and the fry cook—a stocky woman known in the neighborhood as the shit lady—muttered the same expletive over and over as she tended the sizzling grill.

  “Remind me why we come here,” Roxanne said, scooting into a booth, avoiding a torn strip in the leatherette.

  “The classy atmo? The irresistible lure of bad cholesterol?”

  Roxanne thought about what Ty teasingly called her addiction to fast food, and suddenly she was mad at him, resentful of his ultimatum and eager to enlist Elizabeth on her side. She told her about their fight, or conversation, whatever it was. Where details had begun to fade, she filled in the spaces with indignation, the sense of having been wronged growing in her as she recalled the way he went on about vows and forsaking and fidelity. She told Elizabeth about her promise to stop being Simone’s caretaker.

  “Good luck, huh?” She ate a bite of bacon. “I am so screwed up.”