Burning September (30 page)

“It’s good to see you,” she offered, as I sat beside her. 

I sucked in my bottom lip and sighed.  “I don’t really want to beat around the bush, so I’m just going to be blunt about this, okay?”

“Ohhhkay...?”

“Did you push our dad down the stairs?”

Her eyes bulged so wide they looked a second away from popping out of her skull.  “What?  Why the fuck would you ask me that?”

“I need an answer, not an improv skit.  Table the theatrics for a minute, okay?”

“Well,
I
need some goddamned context, Kat.”  Her mouth hung loose, she looked about as innocent as a thief.  “Where is this coming from?”

“It’s coming from the fact that you told me it was a heart attack, but it wasn’t.  He fell down the stairs hard enough to break fourteen bones, hard enough to crack his skull wide open.  Why did you tell me it was a heart attack?”

She ran her fingers through her hair and tossed a sheet of it over her shoulder.  “Why do you think?  It seemed like a kinder explanation.  You were just a little girl.”

“Yes, but then I stopped being a little girl.  You’ve never censored your thoughts on him since.  Why didn’t you just tell me the truth one day?  You could have. You could have said,
hey, remember when I told you he died of a heart attack?  Well, actually, he had a blood alcohol of two point three and took a swan dive off the top of a staircase
. 
Sorry I lied, but I thought you should know
.” 

“It didn’t seem relevant.  He’s dead, what did it matter how it happened?  I didn’t want to stun you by suddenly changing the facts one day.”

“You still haven’t denied doing it, Caroline.”

She rolled her eyes, leaning back on both hands, consulting the ceiling for a long moment.  “I’m officially denying it.  Happy?”

“No.”  She couldn’t even look at me during her lackluster denial; what would Dr. Phil have to say about that?

An aide passed her open bedroom door, pushing a patient in a wheelchair whose head lolled lazily with each bump over the grout.  Caroline and I watched them pass in silence until they’d gone, then she turned her hard amber gaze back on me.

“I suppose Kyle told you I did this, hmm?  Some pillow talk.  God.”  She shook her head, honey blonde hair swaying around her shoulders.  “I should get a new attorney.  I’m sure the fact that you’re sleeping with him is a huge conflict of interest.”

“Most would argue that fact only helps you out.”

“Maybe the prosecution needs an anonymous note, then.”

I looked down at my hands, then up at her, the sister slash mother I’d seen my whole life but never really saw, and she scared the hell out of me.  I didn’t know this thing she’d turned into, or maybe she’d always been that way.  Maybe I hadn’t known what to look for until now. 

She was bluffing about the anonymous note, we both knew it, that was one risk she wouldn’t take, but the fact she’d had the nerve to threaten it at all was infuriating.  What kind of spineless jellyfish did she take me for?  I’d cut her off once before, I could do it again, all that and then some.  She didn’t have the upper hand, she’d lost that the second they slapped the handcuffs on.  She needed me, no matter all her claims to the contrary.

“Maybe I can tell them what really happened to Brian, then.”  I lowered my voice to a hair above a whisper, leaning so close to her our noses almost touched. “I’m sure they’d love to hear it.  You don’t have any cards to play here, Caroline.  I can send you to jail for the rest of your life.  If you were smart, you wouldn’t tempt me.  I can burn this sad little empty town of yours to the ground.” 

“But you’re afraid of fire,” she said with an unhappy smile.  “You’ve always been afraid of it.”

“I’m more afraid of you.  I know what you’re capable of.”

A worker in scrubs stuck his head in the room, swept a quick look from corner to corner, and carried on down the hallway. 

“I feel like I don’t even know you anymore.”  Her thin nostrils flared as she clasped her hands in her lap.  “You’re like ground zero, a disaster zone all cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape.  It’s fucking scary.  What happened to you?”

“You happened.  You started all this.” 

“Everyone does like to blame their mothers.”  She rolled her eyes.  “That’s such an old line.  So passé.  I thought you’d come up with something more original than that.”

“Tell me one more time that you didn’t do it.  Look at me.”  She did, burning me with a long blinkless stare, but I ignored the brooding menace broiling beneath it.  “I won’t even care if you did, I just want the truth, not this
you’re the child
bullshit, that’s crap, it’s not even a plausible line anymore.  Please.  Just tell me the truth.”

But I knew, even before she said she didn’t do it, that she had, it shone out of her eyes like guilty spotlights.  She couldn’t hide it with that blank expression she wore now, and it made something cold seize its icy fingers around my heart.  It felt a lot like disillusionment. 

I stood in a daze.  I didn’t even realize I’d made my way toward the door until Caroline’s voice penetrated the fog.  A lot like the sirens did with their singing, I thought dully, their songs slicing through ocean mist to lure some schmuck to their death.  I refused to crash and burn on those rocks.  Her tricks wouldn’t work on me anymore.

“When are you coming back?”

I paused in the threshold of her bedroom.  “I don’t know.”

“Kat—” she started, rising off the mattress, but I’d already left.

***

I made my way home on autopilot and was mildly surprised to suddenly find myself trudging up the walkway to my condo.  Nicholas’s expectant face didn’t roust me from my trance, and as if I knew what I’d planned to do all along, I made a beeline for the mantel, where both my parent’s remains sat, silent witnesses to everything that transpired in the living room, collecting dust. 

I’m not sure what I expected, after I’d lifted the lid of my father’s urn.  Maybe that he’d pop out like a genie, tell me with crystalline certainty what had happened to him and why, give me a reason why Caroline had hated him so much, one I could wrap my head around.  It took a lot to kill someone, at least as far as I was concerned, and a drinking problem didn’t seem to warrant a shove down a flight of stairs. What I didn’t expect was to find the urn not full of ashes, but a mound of something I strongly suspected was cat litter.  I knew what it smelled like now, after taking in Nicholas.  I carried it across the room and sunk onto the coffee table, staring into its moldering depths. 

How long had it been stuffed with litter?  Ages, perhaps.  It never occurred to me to lift the lid and check the contents before.  Who even bothered to peek inside urns?  Everyone knew what they’d find, and it wasn’t the prettiest sight to behold. 

Caroline could hold a grudge forever.  She cradled them against her chest, nursing every resentment as she would an infant.  She never forgot a single sin she felt had been leveled against her.  She sucked it all into her marrow, made them a part of her body.  Hatred, that was something she could rely upon, hatred had never let her down the way love did.  Love was so flighty and imprecise, one of those advance payday loans with sky-high interest.  Love came with strings attached.  It could waver, change its mind, steal everything you had when you turned your back for one second, but hatred was always there for her, ready to welcome her home, envelope her in its scaly black wings.  It was always around to nurture her bitterness, it never asked her to forget it the way love did. Caroline never forgave, never forgot.  She considered it the epitome of weakness to do otherwise. 

But what could have possibly happened to make her discard our father’s ashes so cavalierly?  I didn’t think I wanted to know.  Obviously she didn’t want me to find out.  She wouldn’t have bothered refilling it with something that may have passed for ashes if she did.  I’d always shouldered the job of resident housekeeper; she knew I’d realize the urn was empty when I made my rounds, wielding the feather duster and can of Lemon Pledge.

I’d always trusted Caroline implicitly, but apparently the feelings had never been mutual. 

***

Days slipped past, but never without at least one harping email from Caroline. 

Kat,

Why would you have so much allegiance to a man who never had any for you?  Never mind the fact that I told you I didn’t do it—this is a man who chose vodka over you—over us—every day, without fail.  I don’t know what kind of picture of him you’ve built up in your head, but I can say without a shred of doubt that it’s wrong. 

Why am I being crucified over something you don’t know the first thing about? 

C.

I asked for the story, Caroline, the truth and nothing but, it’s your fault I don’t know the first thing about it.  I sat right there, looked you dead in the face, and you never budged.  You can’t repaint what happened, I saw it with my own eyes, not through the dusty lens of your made-up memories.  My ears were always open.  I would have been willing to forgive you anything, so long as you told me the truth.  I never left, it wasn’t
my
hand that slipped out of your grip, you went into those dark places without me, and when you got out, I was a person you didn’t recognize.  You’ve always accused me of being too nice, and if you meant I had the capacity to feel things like regret and compassion, then fine, I’m too nice, guilty as charged.  I’d rather be too nice, walking free in the world than strong in prison, wearing orange jumpsuits.  I’m glad I don’t damage everything I touch the way you do, my conscience wouldn’t be able to stand it. 

But don’t worry, Caroline, I still have pieces of you.  Your stubbornness, for one.  I’m still angry at a guy who probably doesn’t deserve it because he’d been right about you, and he’d had the gall to open my blind eyes to all this.  I would have been happier in the dark, turning over your tarot cards, waiting for justice to fail so you could come home to me. 

Kat,

If five years ago, someone had said you’d throw me over for some man, I would have told them they were crazy, but I suppose the joke is yet again on me.  I’d laugh at the irony if I weren’t so horribly sad.  Is it because of my absence?  It hasn’t exactly been a thrill for me, either, I’d much rather be back at the condo, watching you do your homework.  Is that why you’ve decided to plaster yourself against someone as despicable as a lawyer, of all people?  You do know they make their living dealing in lies.  You think he means everything he tells you?  Think again.  It won’t be long until he breaks your heart, mark my words, and when he does, I won’t bandy around any I told you so’s; I love you too much to do that.  Men are essentially simple, stupid creatures; their motives are easy to untangle.  Once he’s gotten his fill of you, he’ll move on.  Men are like ticks in that fashion.  Filthy and single-minded.  They’ll suck you dry if you’re not careful. The whole world’s a boy’s club, after all—they feel they’re entitled.

What do you think this is, love?  I can tell you a thing or two about that.  The myth that you can find someone who loves you unconditionally is complete and utter bullshit.  Finding a person who will tolerate your flaws is a fairy tale that will never come true. 

Do you remember that fight we saw, years ago, back when you were…God, I don’t know, maybe in fifth grade?  It was between a husband and a wife.  She must have been drunk.  Or maybe all the crying was the reason she slurred, it was hard to tell.  You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?  How the sprinklers turned on when she was on the lawn, begging him not to leave her?  It didn’t work, did it?  He got in the car and drove off, and she laid there in the grass for so long I wondered if she’d died.  After we went inside, I pried the blinds apart to make sure she eventually got up, but it took quite a while for her to drag herself back through the front door.

Think about that.  It’s your future, babe, and it is nigh. 

The only thing you can do is know who you are, hold onto it tightly, because that is the only thing in the world you can count on.  Nobody can take that from you.  Someone who cares enough to know every layer is the very great exception.  Throwing them away would be lunacy.  If that wasn’t quite heavy handed enough, I should remind you that I’m that person, always have been, always will be.  I watched all those layers grow into place, Kitty, I know yours as well as I know my own.

I’ll leave the light on for you.

Love,

Caroline.  

Sure she would, she’d be my lighthouse, only she’d steer me into craggy rocks, tear my ship to shreds.  I knew what navigating her waters could do to a person. 

The hot, electric air of July crackled through the palm trees lining the condo complex as I sat on my back porch, watching Nicholas belly crawl through the overgrown grass, only the tips of his ears and tail visible.  Trying to catch some of the birds on a low-slung branch.  His ninja moves aside, a grade A hunter he was not.  After the ninth dead mouse he’d dropped on my foot, I’d added six bells to his collar.  At least the noise would be fair warning to his prey.

I glanced back down at the latest email, offended as usual by her words, but oddly impressed with her persistence.  I hoped it really was love compelling her to write me, not ownership.