The other sister, p.1
The Other Sister, page 1
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Sarah Zettel
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LCCN: 2018937750
ISBNs: 978-1-5387-6090-1 (hardcover), 978-1-5387-6089-5 (ebook)
E3-20180719-DANF
Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
MARIE, PRESENT DAY
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
STACY BURNOVICH, SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD
MARIE, PRESENT DAY
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
MARIE, EIGHT YEARS OLD
MARIE, PRESENT DAY
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
GERALDINE, NINE YEARS OLD
MARIE, PRESENT DAY
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
GERALDINE, THIRTEEN YEARS OLD
MARIE, PRESENT DAY
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
GERALDINE, FIFTEEN YEARS OLD
MARIE, PRESENT DAY
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
GERALDINE, FIFTEEN YEARS OLD
MARIE, PRESENT DAY
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
MARIE, PRESENT DAY
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
MARIE, PRESENT DAY
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
MARIE, PRESENT DAY
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
MARIE, PRESENT DAY
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
MARIE, SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
MARIE, PRESENT DAY
MARIE, NINETEEN YEARS OLD
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
GERALDINE, SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
GERALDINE, SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
MARIE, NINETEEN YEARS OLD
MARIE, PRESENT DAY
MARIE, SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD
MARIE, PRESENT DAY
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
MARIE, PRESENT DAY
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Newsletters
To the memory of my great-grandfather,
who bought the fairy tale book to give to my grandfather, to give to my father, to give to me.
“Snowy White, and Rosy Red. Will you beat your lover dead?”
—“Snow-White and Rose-Red” from Kinder und Hausmärchen Vol. 2, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, 1812
GERALDINE, PRESENT DAY
MICHIGAN, HEADING NORTH
1.
Twenty-five years ago, I killed my mother.
I tried to kill myself immediately afterward. Probably that was from remorse, but I have to admit, I’ve never been sure. My suicide attempt, though, didn’t actually work out. You can tell.
I’ve been back before for a couple of weddings, a few births, and the big anniversaries. This time, it’s my nephew Robbie’s high school graduation. I promised my sister, Marie, that I would not miss it.
Marie has never been above playing the Robbie card to get what she needs from me. She knows I love her son without reservation, and that’s not a feeling I have about many people. So, if she wants something, she’ll say, “Robbie was asking about you.” Or “Robbie’s hoping you’ll be here.” Or she’ll bring out the big guns, like she did this time, when she called to tell me to keep an eye out for the invitation card and the ticket. “You have to promise, Geraldine. Robbie’s counting on you.”
A tight smile forms and pulls at my old scar. Robbie. Prince Charming of the Monroe family’s fairy tale.
I’m one of the world’s experts on the stories of the Brothers Grimm and their influence on pop culture. Therefore, I’m qualified to lecture you about the structure of the basic fairy tale arc. Including the fact that in most stories, somebody comes back during the big transitions: weddings, or christenings, or executions. Sometimes it’s that should-be-dead princess returning to claim her castle. Sometimes, it’s the witch or the bad fairy appearing to drop the curse.
I wonder which one I am? My smile broadens. It’s an old, sharp, nasty smile, and the pull deepens. Guess we’ll find out when I get there.
Assuming I don’t lose my nerve.
It’s a tiring drive. Whitestone Harbor, Michigan, is three days away from Alowana, New York, and Lillywell College, where I lecture. You go down through the Allegheny Mountains and across to Buffalo. Over the Peace Bridge. All the way across the flat expanse of Ontario, where you struggle to stay awake and thank God for satellite radio. Over the Ambassador Bridge and through grim, battered Detroit. Then it’s point the wheels north, until the world turns green and the hills roll out in front and bunch up behind.
No matter how many times I do this drive, I need all three days to decide if I’m going through with it. Sometimes the shakes come, and memory blots out the road in front of me. Sometimes, I can’t stop myself from seeing Mom standing in the ruined driveway—her arms thrown wide, so she’s crucified in the headlights. Then, I have to turn around. I have to call Marie and make some lame excuse about a department emergency, or the flu, or the car breaking down.
When this happens, Marie always acts like she believes me. “Are you okay, Geraldine?” she asks. “Do you need help? Do you have enough money?”
“I’m fine,” I tell her, every time.
“Okay then, call if you need anything, all right? Don’t just text. I need to hear you’re okay.”
“I promise, Marie,” I say, and we hang up and I do call, but it’s always to tell her that I went back home and I’m fine, whether it’s the truth or not.
Obviously, I haven’t been caught, or tried, or punished, for my murder. If I was ever even seriously suspected, those suspicions were quickly tidied away. In Whitestone, the Monroe family name is good for that sort of thing. I got asked a few questions in the hospital, and that was that. It was decided that my mother, Stacey Jean Burnovich Monroe, killed herself. Everybody in Whitestone breathed a great sigh of relief. Especially my father’s family.
Perhaps I should say, especially my father.
The two-lane ribbon of blacktop unspools up and down the achingly familiar hills. Every so often there’s a gravel drive with a little white shack or flatbed trailer and a hand-painted sign:
STRAWBERRIES
ASPARAGUS
LAST CHANCE
Last chance. The words hover in front of my eyes like a heat mirage. I don’t have to do this. I could turn around. I could break down. Let my phone run out of juice.
I could run away for good this time. All the bridges to the world I thought I’d created for myself outside Whitestone Harbor and Rose House are well and truly burnt. I’ve got my whole life packed up with me. My rusting yellow Subaru is crammed with suitcases of clothes and dishes, and boxes upon boxes of files and academic journals. The parts of my ancient desktop computer ride shotgun on the passenger seat. My sleeping bag and backpack are crammed behind the driver’s seat.
I can go anywhere. Marie and I can just keep pretending we don’t know what we know, just like we’ve been doing all our lives.
But then there’s Robbie. And there’s Dad. If I turn around this time, what will I do about Dad?
“I have gained great wealth through you. I shall take care of you in splendor as long as you live.”
—“The Girl without Hands” from Kinder und Hausmärchen Vol. 1, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, 1812
MARIE, PRESENT DAY
THE ROSE HOUSE
1.
“Geraldine? Are you sure you’re okay?”
“…Marie! It’s the battery,” Geraldine is saying in my ear. I press my free ear closed with two fingers and lean in to the receiver, like that’s going to help me hear over all the family we have in the great room. “Swear to God, Marie, I had the thing checked before I left, but the garage says it’ll only be maybe another twenty, thirty minutes. So, I’ll be there in an hour, tops. I promise.”
“You’re already in Whitestone?”
“Petoskey. Almost made it this time.”
This is a test, I think. We are
I take a deep, cleansing breath, so I can answer as cheerfully as I should. “Do you want someone to come get you?”
“No, no. Don’t bother. It’ll be finished by the time you got here.”
“Okay. We’ll see you soon then. Robbie’s really looking forward to having you here.” I glance over my shoulder, reflexively looking for my son. I see my father instead.
He’s poised on the threshold between the great room and the terrace, framed by the exquisite stained-glass wall that gives the Rose House its name. Behind him, Monroes cluster around the grills and the buffet table. Dad raises his martini glass and I smile in answer. My father is a handsome man, tall and tan with thick gray hair. His yellow Oxford shirt is crisp despite the unseasonable June heat. He looks like an aging Robert Redford, only with brown eyes. He has an easy smile, an infinite store of patience, and a limitless attention for detail. He might appear relaxed, but I know he is alert to the dynamic of our crowd. Including me. Including this unexpected phone call. It’s only natural. This is a family gathering, and family is the focus of my father’s whole life.
“Do you have enough money, Geraldine?” I say into the phone.
“Hey, Marie!” someone calls. Carla comes out of the pass-through to the dining room, a knife in one hand and celery stalk in the other. I hold up one finger at her. “Oh, sorry!”
“Yes, Marie, I have enough money. I’m fine!” Geraldine shouts in my other ear, while Carla shouts over the voices. “Didn’t see you were on the phone!”
Dad sips his drink. His gaze drifts casually from Carla to the rest of the gathering, before returning to me.
Does he see something’s wrong? I squint between my relatives’ heads, all tinted gold, green, and red from the stained glass. Grandma Millicent seems all right. She’s seated by the hearth, talking with Amber. Amber’s mother, my aunt June, is perched on the sofa, ready in case Millicent needs anything. So that’s all right.
Out on the terrace, the plates of hors d’oeuvres have been completely disarranged and the buffet table cloths are covered in crumbs. I’ll need to fix that, but it’s not so urgent. What’s important is that people are talking and laughing, circulating smoothly.
Down on the lawn at the bottom of the concrete stairs, boys slap and shove and dance around each other in the teenage male ritual of bluster and negotiation. I pick Robbie out from the crowd. He’s shouting and punching shoulders and tearing around with the ball under one arm. They’ve switched from playing football to playing keep-away.
Just like Geraldine. My sister has been playing keep-away for twenty-five years.
But that’s over now. This time, Geraldine is coming home for good. No one knows this yet, of course. I’m not even sure Geraldine knows it. But I do. This time she is staying, and we’re going to be real sisters again.
I smile into the phone. “Okay! I’ll let everyone know. Drive safe, Geraldine.”
“I will. Tell Robbie I’m on my way, all right?”
“I will!” We both hang up before either one has to try to think up more reassurances.
Not that there’s anything really wrong, of course. Everything is happening the way it must. It is important to understand that no matter how chaotic things might seem, there is order underneath. This is one of the many important things that life with my father has taught me.
Dad takes another drink of his martini. He slips smoothly through the ripples of the gathering, pausing only to smile in a gentle conspiracy with Grandma Millicent.
“Was that Geraldine?” He comes up beside me, close enough so I can smell how his Ralph Lauren aftershave mixes with the brine and vermouth. Of course he knew I was talking to Geraldine, even from the terrace. No one can read faces like my father. “What’s gone wrong this time?”
“Just car trouble.” I’m already heading for the kitchen, like I’m not worried, and we can all believe what Geraldine tells us. “Something with the battery. She’s at a garage in Petoskey. She says she’ll be here in about an hour, maybe an hour and a half.”
“She’s in Petoskey? I thought she wasn’t coming up until next week?”
“No. I told you. The timing worked out better for her to come early.”
Dad does not trust this. I can’t really blame him. This is Geraldine, after all. Geraldine does not fit. Everyone wonders how someone like her could be Martin Monroe’s daughter. A scarred, rumpled woman who spends her life writing for obscure journals that don’t even pay money and teaching easy-A courses to slacker kids at a little college nobody ever heard of.
Not that Dad—or anyone else at our family barbecue—would ever say anything like that to Geraldine’s face. If they mention her at all, it’s to say that really, considering everything Geraldine put us all through, it’s amazing how well she’s done.
But still, they add and leave the words to dangle and twist. But still…
I stride toward the kitchen. I smile at Grandma, and Aunt June, and Amber and Walt, and all the rest as I pass.
A selfish part of me thinks, Please don’t follow me. Just give me a minute. But I dismiss that. I will not be selfish today.
Carla’s standing at the butcher-block island. She’s turned her attention from celery to watermelon, neatly sectioning the ring-shaped slices into quarters.
“Is your father on the prowl?” My cousin-in-law is a tall, substantial woman with a big bosom and no intention of engaging in diets or surgeries. All the rest of us Monroe women wear the approved barbecue-night uniform of khakis, open-toed sandals, and striped tank tops or twinsets. Carla wears jeans and a plain T-shirt. Her dark curls are bundled up in a ponytail. She looks more like one of Robbie’s friends than one of the family.
I’ve always liked Walt better because of Carla. She’s his first and only wife. All the rest of us have been divorced at least once.
“Dad’s just a little antsy,” I tell her. “You know how he stresses about these family parties.”
Carla glances at me sharply from under her sparse eyelashes. She really should have put on more makeup today. The jeans and the ponytail are bad enough. People will say she looks tired. Sloppy. I resist the urge to touch my own face. Instead, I stack watermelon pieces on the platter. Pink juice films my fingertips.
“I heard him talking to Millicent,” Carla says. “He knows you’re planning something.”
A melon wedge drops—splat!—onto my exposed toes.
“Oh, damn.” I grab a towel and wipe frantically at my white sandals. “That’s going to stain.” I scoop up the spattered melon bits and toss them quickly into the sink.
Carla leans her ample behind against the counter and picks up her coffee mug. She’s the only person over eighteen drinking coffee before dinner. “So, I’m guessing you haven’t told him that you and Geraldine want to take over the other house?”
I shake my head, a little impatiently. The “other house” is a small, battered, white building at the bottom of the hill. You can’t even see it from here.
What is that quote? Two houses, both alike in dignity…?
But our two houses were never anything alike. Down underneath the trees is where Geraldine and I grew up, and where Mom ran Stacey B’s Sandwiches and Stuff while we waited for Dad’s assorted businesses to take off. It’s also where we waited for the chance to move where we really belonged, the Rose House. This house. But first, Mom’s older sister had to die. And so did Mom.
No. Don’t think it, Marie.
But it’s too late. The skin on the back of my neck prickles and I catch the stale scent of tobacco and beer.
Mom.
My mother has been dead since I was nineteen, but dead does not mean gone. Nothing is ever truly created or destroyed. It only changes form. This house is a perfect example. It’s changed forms so many times over the years. Sometimes, I can feel the dank old layers shifting beneath the sheetrock.
“Marie?” says Carla. “Everything okay?”
“Sorry. Woolgathering.” I straighten Carla’s wedges into a tidier stack. “But you know, Carla, I’m not trying to get Geraldine to take over anything,” I say out loud. I wipe my fingers on the dishrag, hard, like I’m trying to get rid of something much more tenacious than watermelon juice. “Mom and Aunt Trish left the houses to me and Geraldine. We are equally responsible for them. Anything that happens, we have to decide on together.”
