The Language of Sisters (14 page)

“The kind who thinks his daughter needs to be in an institution!” he said loudly. “I’ve told you a hundred times, Joyce, we can’t handle her here.” The defensive note in my father’s voice twisted my stomach into a thick knot. He knew what he had done. He knew what kind of man he was. I hugged Jenny tighter to me. I wanted to envelop her, to cover her tiny body with my own and never let anyone hurt her again. And yet I knew that no matter how hard I tried, I’d fail. My inability to protect her left an atrocious taste in my mouth, as though I’d been chewing tinfoil.

Scared.

“Me, too,” I whispered in her ear.

“You mean
you
can’t handle her,” my mother hissed. “If anyone has the right to lose it with her it’s me, Mark.
I’m
the one who spends every waking minute with her. I dress her and feed her and wash the shit from her body every day. I deal with her screaming and you just run away. You haven’t earned the
right
to be at the end of your rope.”

And yet when the next screaming fit came, and the next and the next, so did my father’s frustration. It flew from his fists to my sister’s body with terrifying ease and intensity. Our mother reached out to protect her each time, but did nothing to prevent him from doing it again. “Get us out of here!” I longed to scream. “Get us away from him! Don’t you know what he’s doing?” Each night after he lost control of his fists, I heard my father slip into Jenny’s room, the low murmur of his voice mixing in dark harmony with the aching squeak of her bed. I tried to work up the courage to tell, to make it all stop, but I could not. My voice was a tangled fishing net in my throat, silencing me. I punished my cowardice by forcing myself to peek out the door as he went into Jenny’s room, to bear witness to what I did not have the strength to end.

One night when I was fifteen, after a particularly bad screaming episode, I slowly opened my door to see him move into her room. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a different shadow flash in the doorway that led to the kitchen. It was the slight form of my mother hiding behind the corner, the ruffled edge of her white nightgown giving her presence away. In the reflection of the light of the full moon, I saw her eyes shiny with tears, watching her husband sneak into her helpless daughter’s room. She
knew.

How could she know and do nothing to stop it? My own fury rose up in me then, stronger and fiercer than anything I had ever felt. It oozed into the space around my heart like wet cement, hardening with each breath, forming walls that anesthetized me, completely paralyzing my ability to feel. Walls that two years later allowed me to walk out the doors of Wellman, leaving my sister at the mercy of strangers; walls that had kept me from her for a decade; walls that I knew would have to crumble if I was ever going to find the strength to forgive.

•  •  •

After our conversation the morning of Jenny’s first appointment with Dr. Fisher, I had left Shane several bright-sounding messages on our machine in San Francisco, all of which he had ignored. The morning he finally called, I had just settled Jenny in front of a videotape of baby animals and was trying to straighten up the house and get lunch ready for us both. Nova was expecting us that afternoon; she had rummaged through her maternity wardrobe and wanted to see if anything she had might fit Jenny. I thought the call would probably be from her.

“Hey, babe,” Shane said when I answered the phone in the hallway by my bedroom. Instead of waiting for me to respond, he immediately continued. “I’m really sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you, but I’ve been waiting to hear from the lawyers I called up there. A guy named Jack Waterson is going to get ahold of you, okay? I talked to quite a few lawyers, and if I were you, I’d go with him.”

“What did he say when you told him about it?” I inquired, keeping my tone tight so he’d know I was angry. I couldn’t believe he was being so casual with me. He hadn’t called me once since I’d been in Seattle. I could see him in his office, standing by
his perfectly organized filing cabinet, tapping his shiny Kenneth Cole loafer against the hardwood floor. His hair would be slicked back, his face freshly shaven, and his suit pressed as smooth as butter. It struck me how easily his life moved forward without me there, how little my absence affected him. Did I mean anything to him at all?

“He said it sounded like a pretty straightforward case,” Shane answered. “Wellman will probably settle to avoid the publicity.”

I poked at the already chipping baseboard with the tip of my shoe; a few flecks of paint fell to the rug. “What about an investigation of their hiring policies?”

“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Jack about that. He’s checking out what’s going on with the criminal prosecution, too. Has anyone from the Seattle PD contacted you?”

“I called them a few days ago, but the detective working on the case didn’t have much to say. They’re still looking for the guy.”

“He’s probably long gone.”

“Gee, honey, you think so?” I stopped picking at the wall and stood straight. I heard Jenny giggle in the living room as “Old MacDonald” began to play on her video; I wished I were with her instead of having this conversation.

Shane’s breath was heavy in my ear before he spoke. “Have I done something wrong, Nicole? Where’s this attitude coming from?”

“My attitude? What about yours? You haven’t returned any of my calls. It’s been two weeks.”

“I was waiting until I had something to tell you about a lawyer.”

“You can’t just call to see how I’m doing?”

“I’m busy, Nic.” He was obviously annoyed. Too bad. I wasn’t going to let him off the hook.

“Busy with what?” I demanded.

He sighed. “I’ve got like ten cases going on at once down here. The D.A. is riding my ass like you wouldn’t believe. It’s an election year. I’m sorry, okay? I know you’re going through a rough time.” His voice softened a bit with those last words, and I felt a small twinge of compassion rise up in my chest.

After a moment’s pause I returned the apology. “I’m sorry, too.” I fought the tears that thickened the muscles in my neck and twisted the springing, beige phone cord around my index finger. “I just miss you. I miss Moochie and Sunday mornings in bed with the paper. I never thought … I guess I thought I knew what it took to take care of my sister by watching my mother do it, but actually doing it—”

“Exactly why we don’t want kids,” he interrupted.

In protest, the memory of Layla in my arms the other evening immediately filled my mind, but I didn’t say anything, trying to maintain the fragile reconnection Shane and I had made.

He spoke again, apparently finishing his last thought. “Especially if your sister’s problems are hereditary. There is no way in hell I’d be up for that.”

I tried to digest this statement without choking on it. My voice cracked and I cleared my throat. “I’ve got to go, Shane. Jenny needs to eat. Thanks for your help on this.”

“Sure. Sorry it took me so long. I’ll try to be better about calling.”

I hung up and went back into the living room. Jenny rocked in time with the video’s music while I paced back and forth in front of the fireplace, unsure why I was so angry. I agreed with Shane, or at least I thought I did.

One of the reasons I figured I wouldn’t have children was my fear of ending up with a handicapped baby. A baby like Jenny. I
was terrified of it. Terrified of landing in the life I had watched my mother live, giving up my freedom, growing so completely enmeshed with another human being that my own identity became a hazy memory.

It suddenly struck me that perhaps
this
was why Mom hadn’t wanted Jenny to come home. Maybe, after ten years of being away from it, the fear of landing back in that life was enough to keep her from being the mother she used to be. She was terrified of losing herself again.

I stopped my pacing, unsure what my mother might be feeling and even less sure what was going on with me. I dropped to the couch, clutching a pillow to my chest, one question stacked precariously on top of another. Was I changing my mind? Did I want to be a mother? What was I now? What had I been in San Francisco? A failed therapist? A pastry chef? A pet owner? The girlfriend of a man who seemed to love his career more than he loved me? Was this the valuable identity I’d lose?

I pulled the pillow over my face and screamed my frustration into it. Feeling a little better after the outburst, I tossed the pillow to the end of the couch and looked over to the recliner at Jenny’s swelling, pregnant body. Oblivious to my emotional turmoil, she was happily gnawing on her fingers, her dark hair pulled back from her face with a silver barrette, her bright eyes glued to the frolicking farm animals on the screen.

Not for the first time, I considered why I had been avoiding calling Social Services to ask about placement for her baby. I knew I’d have to eventually, but something was keeping me from it. I suspected it was the same something that made me want to strangle Shane for not being desperate to have a baby with me. God, I was confused.

I stood up and walked over to my sister, kneeling down in front of her in order to see her eyes. I took her hands from her
mouth and held them in mine. “Am I going crazy, Jen?” I asked her, afraid she might just answer me.

“Arhemmm,” she murmured, leaning to one side so she could see around me to the television.

“Thanks,” I said wryly. “That was very helpful.” I glanced at the clock and went back through the kitchen and into the hallway. I dialed the bakery, hoping Barry hadn’t gone home yet. Our brief conversation reminded me that there were happy aspects of my life over the past ten years, and I experienced a brief stab of homesickness. An ache for the ease of my routine, the comfort I found in my relationship with Shane, even if we didn’t share a terribly deep, emotional connection. I missed the deliberately nurtured lack of complication in my life. I realized that in San Francisco, my life had been held together by the powerful adhesive of denial. Here, with my sister and mother in the house where the hardest part of my life had occurred, the illusion of contentment I had created was fading fast, leaving nothing but the raw nerves of reality in my path.

•  •  •

After a quick lunch, Jenny and I headed over to Nova’s for the afternoon. As her kids napped and she and I worked in concert in her living room trying different maternity outfits on Jenny, I told her about Shane’s apparent lack of concern for what was going on in my life.

“He’s only called you once?” she said, obviously trying to hold back a look of shock from her face. “That sucks.” She squatted down in front of Jenny to roll up the legs on a pair of too-long maternity jeans. Most of Nova’s outfits were way too big for my sister, but as long as the legs and sleeves were rolled up, a few of the knit ensembles seemed to be working well enough on Jenny’s smaller-boned frame. The month away from Wellman’s starchy
menu had served her well; though she hadn’t lost any weight, her flesh had relinquished the puffy look of an unhealthy diet. The shadow of the angel I knew in childhood had become more apparent.

I dropped to Nova’s couch, flinging my head back and looking up at the textured ceiling, arms flopped dejectedly at my sides. “It does suck, doesn’t it?” I concurred.

“I’d kill Ryan if he didn’t call me at least twice a week from the fishing boat.” Nova looked at me, her hands on Jenny’s feet, her glance at me slightly hesitant. “If you don’t mind my asking, what exactly drew you to Shane in the first place?”

“His looks,” I confessed a bit guiltily as I closed my eyes, imagining Shane’s handsome, angled face. I told Nova about the day he bumped into me in line at the Starbucks near my then-office. We had chatted about the odd cold snap, our respective occupations, then ended up sharing a table in the crowded café. I couldn’t believe he was flirting with me; he looked like he belonged on the cover of
GQ.
On my better days I felt cheerleader-cute at best, but his attention made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. Two months later, I sublet my studio apartment and moved into his Pacific Heights town house. I’d never had a man like Shane interested in me; he was not only gorgeous but a well-established professional. He had a retirement plan. He was a homeowner. Everything in his life was efficient and organized in a manner mine never had been. “I guess in a way, being with him calms me,” I said. “He’s very predictable.”

“What did he think of your career switch?” Nova asked as she gently pulled a swing-cut purple top over Jenny’s dark head. “That couldn’t have been very predictable.”

I snorted, setting my heels on the edge of the coffee table. “He thought I was nuts. He still thinks it’s just a phase.”

Nova tilted her blond head at me and sat down in the rocking chair on the other side of the room, glancing at the baby monitor on the coffee table. Layla was sleeping in her room. “Is it?” she inquired. I appreciated how she didn’t seem to pass judgment on me for the apparently rash decisions I’d made regarding Shane and my career. I passed enough judgment on myself for the both of us.

“I don’t know. Sometimes I miss the whole therapy process. Other times I can’t believe I wasted six years of my life going to school when I could have just as easily been happy working at the bakery.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call getting a master’s degree a
waste,
” Nova countered. “I wish I’d finished college. How am I ever going to convince my kids they should?” Nova had been working toward a degree in early-childhood education when she realized she was making more money waiting tables than she ever would in a public school system. Then she met Ryan, got married, and decided that at least while they were young, her children would be her career.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. I looked at Jenny, whose head was lolling back against the couch. She was almost asleep. I considered telling Nova more of what I’d been feeling, the reservations I had about putting Jenny’s baby up for placement, but couldn’t quite find the words. Instead, I told her more about Shane. “Shane doesn’t want any kids, so I guess I won’t have to worry about getting them to go to college.”