Colleen
The household lay in silent slumber. After pointing her in the
direction of the powder room and showing her where to find extra bedding in
case she needed it, her sister had gone up to bed, but Colleen couldn’t settle
down. She was antsy, edgy, her insides churning. Standing at the window, absently
rubbing her wrist, she stared out at the moonlit winter night and wondered what
the hell she was doing here, thrusting herself uninvited into the life of the
sister she didn’t even know anymore. They lived in separate universes, had
never seen the world in the same light, had been strangers for the last two
decades. There was no reason to believe anything had changed, just because they
were in their thirties now and fate had them sleeping under the same roof.
Besides, this was a short-term arrangement. She was here only
because, with Dad gallivanting around the globe, there was no other place to go.
She’d stay only as long as necessary. Find a job, sock away some money, and
then blow this town without bothering to look in her rear-view mirror. Hell
would freeze rock solid before she’d let herself get sucked back into any family
bullshit.
Damn you, Irv. How could you do this to me?
It wasn’t the money. The money, the house—let the kids have it. The
hard thing, the thing that killed her, was being without him. He’d been such a
strong, vital presence, larger than life. And the nights, those long and empty
nights when sleep eluded her, were brutal. After dark, without Irv, she had no
idea what to do with herself.
She needed a drink, needed it so much she ached from it. Needed
its comfort, needed that glass to hold in her hand. But she’d spent far too
many nights like this one with glass in hand, self-medicating. That liquid had
been comforter, confidant, confessor. And, ultimately, destroyer of lives. Those
days were over, and no matter how low she sank into the muck, she wasn't going
back down that road.
But there was Coke in the fridge. It might be a lousy substitute,
but that bottle was something smooth and familiar to hold in her hand,
something cold and wet to trickle down her throat. Colleen stepped away from
the window, quietly closed the door of the guest room, and tiptoed down the
long center hallway toward the kitchen.
Faint strains of music floated on the air, Bob Seger crooning
about loneliness and missed chances down on Mainstreet. She paused at the
threshold. There, in the darkened kitchen, barefoot and illuminated only by the
moonlight that spilled through the French doors, Casey and her husband were slow
dancing.
Their body language was eloquent, the two of them clearly so lost
in each other that the ground could have opened up beneath them and neither
would have noticed. Fingers threaded through the curls at the nape of his neck,
her sister gazed up at her husband with unabashed adoration. He lowered his
head, brushed his cheek against hers, and she let out a soft, breathy laugh. It
was silly, and it was romantic, and, watching them, Colleen felt a tightness in
her throat. The vibrations they radiated spoke of a completeness that couldn’t
be breached. Yet there was something else, something faint and transient, a
wistfulness that bordered on melancholy. Maybe it was her imagination, or maybe
it was the dark blue quality of the music, but she felt it clearly, from twelve
feet away. Rob reached out a finger, brushed a single dark lock away from his
wife’s face, and the hair on the back of Colleen’s neck stood up. She’d clearly
stumbled into a moment so intimate that she had no business being here.
She took a step back, must have made some kind of noise, for Rob
glanced up and saw her. “Hey,” he said.
Casey turned to look at her. Instead of the expression of censure
she expected, her sister beamed. “Colleen,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” she said stiffly. “I didn’t mean to—you were—”
“It’s fine,” Casey said. “We were just getting ice cream.”
“Is that what they call it these days? Really, I’ll leave you two
alone.”
“Please stay,” her sister said. “Have a bowl of ice cream with
us.”
Rob said, “You haven’t lived until you’ve experienced a genuine
MacKenzie fudge ripple extravaganza.” He released his wife, lightly brushed his
fingertips against her arm as they separated, strode barefoot across the room and
flipped on the overhead light.
“I’m sorry,” Colleen said. “You two were having a moment, and with
my usual grace and refinement, I blundered right into the middle of it.”
“Don’t be silly,” Casey said, taking a trio of ceramic bowls from
the cupboard. “We have plenty of moments. We sleep in the same bed every night.
What I need is more time with my sister.”
That was the last thing Colleen needed. More time with her sister.
She opened her mouth to protest, but what came out instead was, “All right.”
***
“It was quick,” she said, stirring sugar into her teacup. “He
wasn’t feeling well, which was so not like him. Irv was an athletic kind of guy.
He sailed, he played tennis, he ran five miles every day. He was sixty going on
thirty-five. That’s one of the reasons we got along so well, he was so young
for his age. We did everything together. Until suddenly, he wasn’t up to doing
much of anything. He was experiencing gastrointestinal pain, general malaise. When
he started losing weight for no reason, I put my foot down and insisted he go
to the doctor. It wasn’t easy to get him there. Irv could be a bit of a
jackass.” She paused, squeezed her tea bag against the side of her teacup,
felt the rip in the fabric of her heart that would probably never heal. “He was
diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Five weeks later, he was gone.”
“Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry.” Her sister reached out a hand and
took hers. Squeezed it. Colleen hesitated before allowing her fingers to curl
around Casey’s. That kind of intimacy felt so foreign.
“To tell the truth,” she said, “I’m not sure I deserve your
sympathy. I haven’t exactly been the best sister. I didn’t even call you when
Danny died.”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re here now.”
“But, you see, it does matter.” She snatched her hand away,
rubbed at her knuckles. “You don’t understand! I was so damn jealous of you,
for so many years. And then your husband died, and I knew how devastated you
had to be. You and Danny were—” She glanced at Rob, bit her lip, said, “Well,
you know. And I just couldn’t do it, because I felt like such a hypocrite.”
“Jealous,” Casey said. “Why, for God’s sake?”
“Are you serious? There you were, leading this exotic, glamorous
life. You were married to the most gorgeous guy on the face of the earth—” She
glanced again at Rob, said, “No offense intended.”
“None taken.”
“And he became a freaking rock star. And you were the one writing
his hit songs. You had money, fame, and one of the most sought-after men on the
planet. Think about it. There I am, twenty years old, still living in Dad’s
house in this one-horse town, trapped in a loveless marriage, and chasing a
two-year-old around the house. While my husband’s too busy finishing his
college degree to even notice I’m alive. I turn on the TV and what do I see? My
sister, on stage in front of the world, accepting a Grammy Award for writing her
gorgeous, talented husband’s first hit record. You had everything that I didn’t
have, and I was so damn jealous I couldn’t see straight.”
“And I was so jealous of you,” Casey said softly, “because you had
the one thing I couldn’t have.”
She let out a hard breath. “You mean Mikey.”
“I wanted a baby so much, and I couldn’t have one at that point in
my life, and there you were, with that beautiful little boy, and I wanted to
curl into a ball and die.” Casey paused for breath. “As for that glamorous
life—” She turned to her husband. “Babe? Would you like to address this one?”
Rob cleared his throat. Met his wife’s eyes and said, “
Whisper
in My Dreams
?”
“Yes. Would you like to tell my sister about the glamorous life we
were living when we wrote that song?”
“We wrote it at three o’clock in the morning, with my beat-up old
Gibson, at the kitchen table in that sleazy apartment upstairs over Freddy
Wong’s Chinese restaurant in the Village. I was working three jobs to keep us
afloat, and the middle of the night was the only time we could get together and
write. It was 97 degrees outside, and 114 inside. We were working by
candlelight, because the electric company’d just cut us off. Sticky and sweaty
and miserable, and we couldn’t even use a fan to cool off. I was wearing
cut-offs and nothing else. Hell, I would’ve been working naked if you hadn’t
been Danny’s wife. It was that hot. You weren’t wearing much more than that,
just enough for the sake of modesty. We were eating ice cream while we worked. It
was the only thing left in the refrigerator, and without electricity, it
wouldn’t have lasted long. Danny was asleep on the couch—which was where I
usually slept—because your bedroom was unlivable in that kind of heat. The
whole damn apartment was unlivable in that kind of heat. I don’t seem to
remember any roaches that night…it might’ve been one of the rare occasions when
Freddy broke down and paid for an exterminator. Or maybe even the cockroaches
were laying low because of the heat. Not that it mattered. By that time, we
were so used to ‘em that when they crawled across the kitchen table, we just
swatted the little bastards onto the floor.” He met Casey’s eyes, and
something passed between them, something Colleen didn’t understand but could
clearly see. Softly, he said, “How far are we going with this?”
“I believe full disclosure would be appropriate.”
Uncertainty lit his face. “You sure?”
Casey nodded, and he drew in a breath. “Okay, then. This was after
Danny cheated on you, but before you found out about it.”
Softly, she said, “But you knew.”
“But I knew, and things were pretty awkward between us at that
point. You knew something was wrong, and I wasn’t telling you what it was. I’d
never kept anything from you before.”
Something had changed. It was as though all the oxygen had been
sucked from the room. Casey and her husband were gazing at each other, and
Colleen might as well have been invisible. Quietly, he said, “This was before
the separation, before the abortion that never happened, before you lost
Danny’s baby in a puddle of blood on the kitchen floor.” He stopped, reached
out a hand, touched his wife’s cheek. And said hoarsely, “Why the hell are we
dredging all this back up?”
Casey took his hand in hers, turned it, and kissed his palm. “Don’t
worry about me, MacKenzie. I’m tough as nails.”
“Are you? Well, I’m not.” He turned to Colleen, who was one part
mesmerized, one part horrified. “There’s your glamorous life,” he said. “It’s
called paying your dues. And we did it. In spades.” To his wife, he said, “I’m
tired. I’m going up to bed.”
And he turned and stalked out of the room.
“Damn,” Colleen said. “I really stepped in it, didn’t I? I’m sorry.
I didn’t meant to start anything.”
“It’s not your fault. He’ll be fine. He gets touchy about certain
subjects. He builds up a head of steam, and then he blows. That was all a long
time ago, but sometimes he forgets that. We loved each other, even then. Not
the way we do now, but even back in the early days, we would’ve walked through
fire for each other. We had this three-person dynamic going for years and
years, and then Danny died, and we both had to find our way without him. Rob
and I have talked it to death, but he still has trouble with it sometimes.”
“I honestly had no idea you were living like that. Why didn’t you
ever tell me?”
Casey studied her without blinking. “Think about it, Colleen. When
was the last time we actually felt like sisters?”
Guilt, like a dark, painful splotch of blood, blossomed inside her
chest. “Before Mama died.”
“Well, there you have it.” Casey walked to the stove, picked up
the tea kettle, and moved to the sink. “You didn’t confide in me, I didn’t
confide in you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yes. So am I.” Her sister filled the kettle, placed it back on
the burner, and switched on the stove. Turned and combed slender fingers
through her dark hair. “Tell me more about Irv.”
Colleen ran a finger along the rim of her teacup. “Irv was a
stand-up guy. He had a heart the size of Texas. I loved him.” She paused, lost
in thought. “Not in that heart-hammering, shake-you-to-your-foundations way. But
in a sweet, tender way that felt so right. I would have trusted him with my
life. He was smart, and funny, and sexy, and he cared about me in a way nobody
else ever did. Even when he was dying, he kept telling me that I was strong and
smart and I’d be fine without him. That no matter what happened, I’d manage to
land on my feet. I suppose he was right.” She swiped at an aggravating tear
that trailed down her cheek. “It’s been six months, and I’m still upright and
walking. I loved him, and I miss him. But I’m still here. Still surviving.”
The kettle whistled. Casey turned off the burner, poured hot water
into her teacup, and said, “Sister to sister: Why are you here?”
The hackles rose on the back of her neck. Glaring at Casey’s back,
she said, “What do you mean, why am I here? I grew up here, just like you did. I
have a right to come home, don’t I? It’s not my fault that Dad sold the farm
and nobody bothered to tell me. If you don’t want me in your house, just say
so. I’ll be glad to—”