Authors: Mary Beth Lee
Anna laughed, thankful for the lighthearted moment. “Yeah.”
“’Cause you can never have too many talents if you’re a dinosaur.”
Anna watched her sister, surprised. Cass was really getting into this. Lord knows what she’d do if she stuck around long enough to actually see the show. If. Now there was a word Anna was well acquainted with.
“You planning on staying awhile?”
All the lightness in the room fell right back to dark, cold, tinderbox emotions just waiting to explode.
“Can’t we just make jokes about a dinosaur, Anna?”
Anna didn’t have time for jokes. She wasn’t willing to pretend she had any idea how long Cass would stay. “No. I need to know, Cass. Are you staying?”
Cass looked back down at her expensive shoes and slid them across the floor. The sink drip, drip, dripped in the background like a backup singer for the forever flighty sister. The good one. Perfection even now in all that big blue-eyed sadness she couldn’t hide.
What did she even have to be sad about anyway?
Anna wasn’t going to ask because if she said those words she’d scream them, and they might just be so loud the astronauts on the space station would hear them. Mr. and Mrs. Nelson next door definitely would. They’d just love an excuse to call the cops on her. She could see the headlines now.
Convicted child abuser’s ex-wife screams at perfect sister and makes her cry.
At least she didn’t have a job to get fired from this time.
She tamped down the anger. The fear.
And re-asked the question she could instead of the one she didn’t dare.
“Well, are you?”
*****
Cass closed her eyes. She should’ve just kept on reading her e-mail. Why was her sister so mad at her? She could understand hurt. But it wasn’t like they never saw each other. It wasn’t like she didn’t send money and presents and letters. It wasn’t like she hadn’t offered Anna a place to stay on more than one occasion. Shoot, on every occasion she’d needed over the last ten years.
She’d even tried to pay for her sister’s college, but no. No way would hardheaded Anna even think about allowing that.
Instead, she’d spent her time partying, playing, flitting from one guy to the next. From one husband to the next. From one disaster to the next.
Goodness. Delia asked if John was in jail as easily as asking if he was sick or working.
Cass dragged her shoe across the floor taking comfort in the old worn pattern she’d loved to create as a kid.
Right two grooves, left two grooves. Right two. Left two.
Eighty-three vertical slabs of wood made up this section of the floor. She’d counted them time and again over the years. Counting them now helped her calm down. She couldn’t go home. Not yet. Not when home was such a minefield. She almost laughed at that. It was something else when home was a bigger emotional mess than this place with a sister who what…despised? No. Hated? Not right. Distrusted…that was it. A sister who distrusted her and a mother who wouldn’t get out of bed and three little girls thrown into the mix.
A faint memory of John’s safe arms wrapping her tight played in her mind, and if she closed her eyes, she could barely, just barely, smell the spicy scent of his aftershave. And if she focused on that, she could forget the yearning deep in her belly, the tiny fissure in her chest when first Delia and then the baby, the sweet, sweet baby Dani, threw herself into her arms.
Why? Why was life so unfair? God why? And why was she so ridiculously angry with a man who was so giving? It wasn’t his fault.
“Well, are you?” Anna’s voice anchored her in the present, and Cass grabbed onto its anger and its force with all she had, pushing those other thoughts, those empty thoughts, away.
“Yes. Of course I’m staying. Why would I leave when I just got here?”
Anna wasn’t going to let it drop. “Oh, I don’t know. Eighteen years kind of makes you wonder. Besides you’ve got your life in Kansas. I’d understand if you left.”
Her life. She almost laughed. Instead she turned her remorse onto her sister.
“Do you want me to go, Anna? Is that what this is? You call me, demanding I drop everything and come here right away. And now you invite me to pack my bags right up and go on back to Kansas?”
“So much for we’re a great big family.”
“This isn’t a TV show, Anna.”
Anna rolled her eyes the same way Justine had at supper. Cass figured she’d probably stomp back to her room if they weren’t too old for that nonsense.
“I know it’s not a TV show, Cass. I just needed to know if you were staying or going. I needed to figure out…”
Like Anna ever figured out anything first? “Figure out what exactly?”
“It’s not some crazy out of the blue question, Cass. You stayed gone for eighteen years. And yes, we’ve seen you, but you haven’t been here. Here with us. I just needed to know. My kids need to know. Momma needs to know. I’m not going to apologize for asking.”
And with that Anna was done.
Cass could see the words so there or the end tacked on for good measure, and she knew Anna had every right in the world to ask the question.
“I don’t want you to apologize,” Cass said, looking away, awash with guilt for not being here sooner.
Anna sat back in the corner of the couch and crossed her arms over her chest, her bleach blonde hair just as harsh as the rest of her. “Good. I wasn’t going to.”
This could last all night if she let it, so Cass purposefully changed the subject. “I’m glad Momma got up.”
Anna nodded, sinking deeper into the arm of the couch. “Yeah. She just needs something… I guess she just needed you.”
Cass thought about saying faith or God or peace. But the hypocrisy of those words taunted her, so she settled for a different word altogether. “Family,” she said. “She just needs her family. She’ll be okay.”
She always had been before. It was just a spell. The excuse from ages past echoed in Cass’s mind.
Anna clicked the volume on the television up, obviously done with the conversation. “Yeah. She’ll be fine now.”
But she didn’t sound all that convinced. There was nothing they could do about it, so Cass didn’t figure they needed to talk about it.
At least the anger that struck out of nowhere and everywhere all at the same time had sucked back up into whatever black hole it stayed hidden in.
Cass wanted to go back to the computer. To lose herself in mindless e-mails and message boards.
But she needed to talk to her sister. No, she needed her sister completely. Not just words. She needed some of Anna’s determination. Her stubbornness. Her refusal to back down.
On the television a get rich quick infomercial actor told her to call this number now to start on a life of dreams come true.
She wished life were as easy as calling an 800 number.
“You going to call John?”
Cass blinked at how astute her sister was.
“Hmm?” She pretended not to have heard.
“Your husband. The good reverend. You going to call him? It’s getting late.”
As if to accentuate her sister’s words the grandfather clock chimed. Boom. Boom. Boom.
She’d always hated that clock and its dark chimes sounding like the old radio mysteries’ foreshadowing of evil yet to come. All it needed was the high-pitched scream at the end. Maybe some organ chords.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
I can guarantee you’ll see results.
Yachts. Planes. BMWs. Life summed up in one big wad of cash.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
“Hel-lo. Cass.”
Money back if you’re not satisfied.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Cass blinked as the clock finished its midnight serenade and looked at her sister who was giving her the crazy eye. “It’s an infomercial, Cass.”
It was easier to let Anna really think she was actually paying attention to the TV.
“You’re right. It’s late. I better go call.”
Cass practically ran from the room before Anna asked something else. Before she saw too much.
Grabbing her cell, she punched in the number. She should’ve called earlier. But she’d put it off. Cass, the runner. Avoidance was a mainstay in her life. After three rings John finally picked up.
“Hey there, sweet lady.”
He’d been asleep. She could hear it in the sexy rumble of his deep voice. She closed her eyes and wished for everything—even though it was impossible.
“I just wanted you to know I made it. Sorry I woke you up.”
He laughed, and she envisioned his voice smoothing over all her hurts, all her inadequacies. “You don’t have to be sorry, Cass. How’s Anna?”
Cass ran her hand over the pink and white stripes of the quilt that covered her bed. It matched the wallpaper in her room.
Eighteen years and Momma hadn’t changed it a bit.
“She’s good. A little hard. Still stubborn. The girls are beautiful. Delia’s something else. I don’t think Justine likes me much.” Her voice broke as her throat tightened, and she was surprised by how bad she wanted to cry.
“Justine’s been through tough stuff for a little girl. Give her time, Cass. She’ll see you love her.”
This man was so perfect. So gentle. But she was so tired of sharing him. Or sharing herself. Of pretending. What was wrong with her? She swallowed the grief of question screaming through her mind. She couldn’t compete anymore. Not with the church and the parishioners and his life and, worst of all, his God.
She didn’t say any of that, though. She couldn’t. “The baby’s not so much a baby now.”
“They grow up fast,” he said gently, and she knew what he was thinking. Knew he was hurting, too.
Cass’s heart hurt at the thought. It wasn’t fair. But she’d made her choices, and she had to live with them.
“Momma got up. She ate with us,” she said focusing on the positive. On the thing he’d understand. He’d heard the stories about her mother’s depressed jags, and he’d said on more than one occasion Cass should go to Standridge for a visit.
“You did the right thing then.”
Cass wasn’t so sure she knew what the right thing was anymore.
“It’s late, so I guess I’ll let you go back to bed. Sorry I didn’t call earlier.”
“It’s okay. I told you. I love you, Cass.”
Cass swallowed the hurt that was all balled up in her throat. “I love you, too.”
She clicked the off button on her phone and buried her head in her pillow with its threadbare pillowcase. Hot tears flowed freely. She did love him. She did love him so much. He was so perfect. So wonderful. Just. So. Everything.
And she, she was just so lost.
*****
Man. Cass was totally weirded out about something. You didn’t have to live with someone year round to know that.
Anna clicked the TV off and sat in the dark living room listening to the soft hum of the air conditioner and refrigerator. Waiting.
She didn’t know what for really. Sometimes Dani woke up with soft baby cries that would grow into big baby squalls if she didn’t get there fast enough. Or Delia would need a drink or have to go potty. Or Justine’d just want to lie on the couch and let Anna brush her hair over and over until they both forgot the hell they’d lived through.
The state appointed therapist said Justine would be okay. Kids were resilient. They bounced back from trauma.
That might be true. But Justine’s bounce had been a long way off what she’d been before. Before the hospital. Before Child Protective Services.
She’d bounced straight from five to twenty-five, and she wasn’t looking backwards.
Cass didn’t know.
Somehow they’d kept the full truth from her.
Anna laughed to herself. Somehow nothing.
It was easy. Cass stayed away. And a kid getting beat half to death wasn’t the stuff for national news. Not even when that kid was the biggest hero her mother ever knew.
So Cass was clueless for the most part, and Justine was recovered for the most part. That left her where exactly?
Limbo? On the margin? Apart? Anna didn’t know.
She picked up her worn copy of A Street Car Named Desire and smiled. Ol’ Blanche didn’t know either, did she? Sometimes Anna felt a kindred spirit to the worn out women of American literature. Sometimes she just thought they were quitters. But not ol’ Blanche. She was crazy as a loon, but she was no quitter.
Anna looked at the clock. She could spare a few minutes. And then she had to go to bed and face the nightmares.
Maybe Cass being here would chase the bad dreams away. It’d be a miracle, but then miracles seemed to happen when Cass was around. God smiling on His chosen one.
She’d just keep telling herself she didn’t mind that a bit. Not one little bit.
*****
Cass woke to bright morning sunshine pouring in through yellowed curtains and the distinct smell of coffee and fruit.
She closed her eyes and snuggled deeper into the softness of a pillow she hadn’t slept on since the night she left town so long ago.
Let the past go.
God, it was so much easier to think the words, to even say them, than it was to actually do it.
She’d been trying for years, even fooled herself into believing she’d done it a few times. She’d be happily going along about her business when wham, it’d hit her in that place between her heart and diaphragm that left her breathless and wanting and hurting and knowing. Ugh. Stupid, stupid, stupid. If she could just get back the time she’d wasted on things she couldn’t change.
That mysterious fruit smell needed investigating.
She slipped her feet into her white slippers and wrapped the monogrammed terry robe around her waist then headed down the hall to see what was up.
The hall made her smile. There on the used-to-be-white walls were the photos of her life. First through twelfth, both her and Anna. And two of Justine. Kindergarten and second grade. She wondered where on earth first was. Momma never missed a picture.
On the other side, photos through the ages of Momma, Anna and Cass. Playing. Singing. Laughing. And then photos of Anna, Justine, Delia and Dani. Same thing only years later. And then there were the photos of Cass and John. The wedding, where they looked so much in love. Of their fifth anniversary, young and hopeful. Tenth in Hawaii surrounded by water so blue it hurt to look at. Fifteenth. John’s laugh lines just starting to show. Goodness, she loved those lines.