Sister Mine (9 page)

“I don't think so.”

“The baby's not your responsibility either.”

“It will be my niece or nephew.”

“It will be her son or daughter. She's the mother.”

He tosses the butt of his cigarette onto the parking lot blacktop and stubs it out with the toe of his steel-toed boot. He'll wear the same boots—only an older, more broken-in pair—into the mines tomorrow. I'm suddenly seized by a spasm of terror. I want to grab him by his arm and cling to him and beg him not to go back inside.

Instead I watch his hand reach out and grab my arm. He shakes me gently as he speaks.

“You believed your dad killed her. You believed your own father killed your sister. Do you understand what a fucked-up thing that is to have to carry around inside yourself all these years?”

“Do you realize how fucked up things were to begin with in order for me to be able to believe that?”

“Yeah, I do.”

I meet his eyes. In the dark they look silver, not blue, like a pair of liquid nickels.

In all our years of friendship, we never discussed details. I never described my home life to him. I blamed my injuries on my clumsiness like I did at school, but this explanation was destined to fail eventually with E.J. because he knew me better than my teachers and he also didn't have any reason to want to believe the lies.

He spent a lot of time with me. He knew I was athletic and coordinated. He knew I couldn't possibly fall down stairs and run into walls as much as I claimed to when he wasn't around.

I don't know exactly when I began to realize that he knew I was lying and that it wasn't necessary for me to do it anymore. This didn't mean I was going to start telling him what was really going on. Somehow I knew he couldn't stand hearing it any more than I could stand saying it. It was simply enough for me to know that there was someone who knew the truth about me and didn't find me repulsive.

We used to talk about running away together without ever stating the reason why. We talked about taking Shannon with us. We made lists of supplies and grand plans for living off the land. But in the end I couldn't let him do it. He had a great mom and dad. We each had to accept that we were prisoners of our own lives: his a good one, mine a bad one. He was powerless to save me from mine, and I was unwilling to lead him away from his.

I never stopped to think what it must have been like for him to accept that there was nothing he could do to help me.

My cell phone rings. I'm tempted not to answer it, but it's my business number and I'm also a mom so I always have to answer.

“Jolly Mount Cab,” I say.

“Hello. I'm trying to get in touch with a Shae-Lynn Penrose.”

“That's me.”

“Hello, Shae-Lynn. This is Pamela Jameson. We met earlier today.”

We met—that's a nice way to put it. Sounds like we attended the same tea party.

“I remember,” I say. “I changed your tire.”

“Yes, you did. We also talked a little bit about why I'm here. Do you remember that?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I have a proposition for you. I'm meeting Jamie Ruddock tomorrow at ten
A.M.
at a place called Eatn'Park.”

I smile to myself despite the fact that I've just received further proof that Shannon is continuing to lie to me. She used to love Eatn'Park pies. Especially the coconut cream. I can picture her as a little kid sitting across from me in a booth with dabs of toasted meringue glistening on the end of her nose and the bottom of her chin.

“You said you were going to trap her.”

“Yes, something like that. It occurred to me that I might need protection.”

“Protection?”

“Yes. I thought since you have a law enforcement background, and you're obviously a woman who can handle herself in unorthodox situations…”

I hardly consider changing a tire to be an unorthodox situation, but I don't point this out to her.

“…I thought maybe you could help me. I'll pay you, of course.”

“Okay,” I tell her without even thinking about it. “I'll meet you at your hotel about nine-thirty so we can discuss details before you meet with her.”

“That sounds fine. Good night.”

I put my phone back in my pocket. E.J. has wandered away from his truck toward the street.

I follow him. He's walking aimlessly, breathing heavily through his nose, his fists and jaw clenched, his eyes open but not seeing.

He's having one of his panic attacks.

He described to me what they feel like once. He begins to doubt where he is, then he stops doubting and he's certain that he's having a dream. The sky, the space, the fresh air, the freedom: it isn't real; it's one more cruel illusion his failing brain is playing on him before he suffocates.

The terror grows inside him. He's sure he's back inside Jojo. He's sure he's going to wake up soon inside that horrible backward new world where only sleep brings scenes of life and waking brings nothing but fathomless black. Reality is darkness until death arrives with eternal darkness. Sight is not reality. Sight is insanity.

I put my hand on his arm and talk to him softly, hoping the sound of my voice will cut through his mounting hysteria.

He takes his cap off. Beads of sweat have gathered along his hairline.

He turns his head in my direction. The frantic glitter begins to fade from his eyes and he unclenches the jaw that was holding back the useless screams of a trapped man.

Chapter Eight

I
N MY DREAM,
I come downstairs after hearing my dad's truck drive away and see his dinner pail still sitting on the kitchen counter. The sight fills me with horror, and I blink my eyes hard several times to make sure I'm really seeing what I think I'm seeing.

It's true. He's forgotten his dinner pail.

I quickly recount the morning's events, looking for any way the disaster can be blamed on me. I remember packing his lunch while his coffee was brewing like I do every morning. I left the pail sitting in the exact spot on the counter where I leave it every morning. His breakfast was ready on time. He wasn't in a hurry because he was running late. We didn't have any type of conversation that distracted him. Our only interaction was the kiss I planted on his coarse cheek. It always tickles my lips like they've brushed across sandpaper.

It's not my fault. This knowledge should make me relax but instead my stomach heaves with fear. It's his fault. This is worse. Because my dad doesn't believe anything is ever his fault. If he can't find a way to blame a problem on me or someone else, he blames it on Fate or as he prefers to call it, his “shitty luck,” and the rage that grows out of this idea is incredible.

I know he won't notice he's forgotten his lunch until he gets to work. Beverly is only a few miles away, but he won't drive back. To drive back will be finding a solution to the problem, which will be admitting it's his fault and he has control. By going into the mines and working a grueling eight-hour shift with no food, he will be accepting that he is the eternal victim of Fate's cruel whims. He will suffer in silence and when he unleashes his anger later, in his mind it will be justified.

I'm still standing in the kitchen when I hear Shannon at her toddler gate at the top of the stairs.

“Shae,” she calls. “Shae. Come get me.”

I look back and forth between the silver bucket and my baby sister, back and forth between the fear of what might happen to me if I don't go and the fear of what might happen to her if I do go, back and forth between my duty to him and my duty to her.

I decide I have to take Dad's lunch to him. He needs it. He can't work all day without a meal, but I'm going to have to ride my bike and Shannon can't come with me.

I grab a box of Cheerios so she won't be hungry and I run upstairs with it. I explain to her that I have to take Daddy his lunch and if she stays in our bedroom like a good girl until I get back, we'll do something fun when I get home from school.

I make sure the windows are firmly latched. I make sure she has her blanket and some toys and the Cheerios, and I tell her she has to stay in the room no matter what.

She sits in the middle of Mom's rug and looks up at me with her coppery eyes and nods.

I leave and lock the door behind me. Our house is very old and the two upstairs bedrooms have doors that can be latched from the outside but not from inside. This has always given me the creeps.

I'm halfway down the stairs when she starts to cry and scream for me. I put on my coat, hat, and gloves, grab Dad's dinner pail, and run for my bike.

I'm a strong kid. Tough as wire. A real tomboy. Even with the weight of Dad's dinner pail slipped over my handlebar banging against my knee and the cold burning my lungs and making my eyes tear and turning my fingers to ice inside my thin gloves, I make good time.

When I come over the last hill approaching the complex and see the knot of miners still waiting for the mantrip, I begin to sob with relief.

I drop my bike and start running toward them. My legs and arms instantly turn to jelly once my adrenaline stops pumping, and I can barely carry the heavy pail. I have to use both hands. I take my gloves off to gain more traction. I watch my legs move beneath me, but I don't seem to be making any forward progress.

Beverly is one of J&P's smaller concerns and much younger than Jojo: a simple slope mine that was made by blasting a couple entries into the hillside, laying down some track for the mantrip, and installing a conveyor belt and some cast-off cutting and loading machinery brought in from one of their larger, more lucrative mines in the southern part of the county.

Six years earlier one of those mines had been the site of the second deadliest mine explosion in the history of Pennsylvania. Up until that time the general public considered Stan Jack's mines to be about as safe as they could be, which to a miner's way of thinking was like saying some ponds aren't as wet as others, but after Gertie blew, killing half the male population of the town of Coal Run, even Stan Jack had to be more careful.

I drag the bucket toward my dad.

The sky and the hills are the same shade of pale lead. A weak sun has begun to rise behind a thick layer of dirty clouds, but it isn't giving off enough light yet for the two dozen shivering, yawning miners to be able to make out the features of one another's faces. They stare at the ground, stamping their heavy steel-toed safety shoes and blowing warm air into their cupped hands, while watching the first spits of snow float into the shafts of yellow light given off by their helmets.

One of them notices me, points, and nudges a buddy in the arm.

Soon they're all looking in my direction, all of them smiling except for my dad.

“Would you look at that?” I hear Jimmy's brogue. “Penrose is gettin' room service.”

A chorus of low, rumbling laughter floats toward me, and I feel immediately better. I love the deep tones of men's laughter much more than the cackling of women.

“You forgot your dinner, Daddy,” I say when I finally arrive in front of him.

Lib and Jimmy are standing next to him. I know they're much older than me—around the same age as my dad—but today they seem young. Even younger than me. Yet they don't look like children, and I know I'm a child.

For the first time ever I notice how smooth and unlined Jimmy's face is and how the fringe of hair sticking out from beneath his miner's helmet is the glossy auburn color of an acorn's bottom. I notice the mischievous way Lib smiles around the toothpick jutting from between his teeth. Even though it's cold, he has the sleeves of his coveralls and the long underwear beneath rolled up to his elbows and his pale, muscular forearms look like they've been carved from hairy marble.

There's another rumble among the men, this one of praise. My dad takes the dinner bucket from me and gives my head a rub.

I don't dare look up at him.

The others begin to trudge to the mantrip, and he follows along.

Lib lags behind. He finishes smoking his last cigarette for the day and tosses it on the ground, where he crushes it with the tip of his steel toe. He kneels down in front of me and takes my small clean pink hands in his big callused ones, sprinkled with blue-gray scars like bits of pencil points broken off beneath the skin. He rubs them to try and get some circulation back in them.

He's only been back from Vietnam for a year, and I still thank God in my prayers every night for keeping him safe.

“You're a good kid, Shae-Lynn,” he says.

Then why does my dad hate me? my brain screams, but I will never say those words out loud with my voice.

I breathe in the heady smell of him—tobacco and machinery grease and a hint of minty toothpaste almost masking his morning shot of whiskey—and nod.

He stands up and reaches into one of his pockets and hands me a chocolate bar.

“For the ride home,” he tells me.

Up until he says these words I've forgotten about the ride home, then I suddenly remember Shannon and I'm afraid again for a whole different reason.

I ride back to the house imagining the worst, but everything turns out to be fine. Isabel's car is parked in our driveway. She babysits Shannon while I'm in school. It never occurred to me to call her for help.

I fly into the house and find her at the kitchen table feeding Shannon her breakfast.

“Shae-Lynn,” she gasps. “I was worried. Where were you?”

“I, I…,” I gulp.

“You should have left me a note.”

“Is Shannon okay?”

“She's fine.”

Isabel gets up from the table, wipes her hands on her apron, and comes over to me to give me a hug.

While she holds me I watch Shannon staring at me from her high chair.

I know my dad will give me a good beating tonight because I embarrassed him, but at least he will be in a better mood than if he'd been hungry all day.

What bothers me more than thinking about what awaits me later tonight is the look in Shannon's eyes right now.

She hates me. There's no denying the sentiment burning in their brittle depths.

         

I WAKE UP
with a start, feeling sick and shaky. It takes me a moment to shake off the memory. It wasn't a dream. I remember everything as clearly as if it happened yesterday, except for Shannon's eyes. Was that merely my subconscious embellishing or did she really look at me that way and I didn't notice it? Or I didn't understand it? Or did I notice it and choose to ignore it? Have I been repressing it all these years?

I ran out on her. It was only briefly, but maybe it was enough to make her never fully trust me again.

I look at my alarm clock. It's almost 9:15. I never sleep this late, even on Sundays.

I sit up. My head starts pounding and my whole body aches. I curse my stupidity, like I always do the morning after a fight. During the fight I'm always convinced I'm doing the right thing and I usually thoroughly enjoy myself, then the next day when I'm tending a torn lip or a bruised rib or scraped knuckles, I begin to wonder if maybe I used poor judgment. I suppose it's similar to the way a hungover woman feels when she wakes up in bed with a fat, smelly stranger she thought looked good the night before. Except my battered self is no stranger to me. For me it's like waking up sober with a fat, smelly husband of thirty years I can't get rid of.

Bits and pieces from last night start coming back to me. E.J. continued on his way after our talk in the parking lot. I hung out with Kozlowski a little while longer at Jolly's, but he wanted to go back to his motel early. I didn't get any more useful information out of him. Shannon was asleep when I got home. I ended up watching
Bonanza
reruns with my arthritic dog.

I get out of bed and check my naked body for marks before I slip on my robe. I have a big purple bruise high on one thigh and another bruise on my forearm near my elbow. I check my face, too, in the mirror on my dresser. No marks there.

My wood floors are cold. Outside my window the sun is shining brightly, but it's about to disappear behind an ominous bank of steel-blue clouds slowly taking over the sky like cigar smoke filling up a room. I vaguely recall people talking last night at Jolly's about the possibility of snow flurries today. The warm spell is over.

I remember there's something I'm supposed to do this morning, but I can't remember what it is.

Gimp is missing from his corner. My bedroom door is open a crack. I walk out into the hallway and hear sounds coming from my kitchen.

Shannon is sitting at my table eating breakfast and looking through a book. She's already dressed in a pair of pink maternity overalls over an even pinker sweater and looks well rested and freshly scrubbed.

Gimp is sitting at attention at her feet with his tail swishing the floor. Occasionally she hands him something off her plate and his tail swishes faster.

I smell bacon. I know I don't have any bacon in the house.

I remember what I'm supposed to do this morning.

I rush back into my room and throw on a gauzy lavender miniskirt sprinkled with violets and a long-sleeved white T-shirt that covers the bruise on my arm. I yank on my Frye boots and grab a bulky, rusty orange sweater coat in case it does turn cold later.

“Hi,” Shannon greets me, smiling. “I made some breakfast and coffee. Want some?”

“I'll have some coffee. No time for anything else,” I say as I open one of my cupboards and take down my Steelers travel mug. “I'm running late. Gotta get to church.”

“You go to church?”

It's the only explanation that came to me, but I regret it instantly. Any mention of church always makes me think back to my mother's funeral. It was the last time I set foot in a church.

I used to go with her when I was very little. I loved putting on a pretty dress, even if it was the same one I'd worn the week before and the week before that. I loved the happy songs we sang in Sunday school about Jesus taking care of all the little children: red and yellow, black and white, we were all precious in his sight. I loved the Bible stories our teacher told us using colorful felt characters on a felt board with emerald green land and a turquoise sky. I loved the macaroni wise men covered in glitter and tied with pieces of red ribbon we made at Christmastime and gave to our families to hang on our trees.

A brain aneurism was the technical medical explanation for Mom's death.

“Complications of childbirth,” people whispered around and above me at our house after we buried her in the church cemetery, as they dug into the casseroles and a rainbow assortment of Jell-O salads crowded onto our dining room table.

“The angels have taken your mommy to live in Heaven with Jesus,” the ladies who had brought the box of clothes for Shannon several days earlier told me, kneeling down to my level, caressing my cheek, and playing with my curls.

“Screw the angels,” I replied, and watched as they drew back from me, stunned and repulsed.

I was always hearing my dad say “screw” this and “screw” that and lately E.J. had started saying it, too, although never around his mother, who would have washed his mouth out with soap. I didn't know the literal meaning of the expression, but I was certain of the sentiment.

Now that I had seen the reaction of the church ladies, I was doubly sure.