The Good Sister (14 page)

“Hi, Marie,” someone—Bob Witkowski, the locksmith—calls, beckoning her over to where he’s standing with a group of neighborhood pals.

“I’m going to go say a quick hello to Bob,” she tells Jen and Mike. “His daughters are my pupils. I’ll be right back.”

Jen wants to grab on to her and make her stay, or slip away along with her, but instead she’s left alone with Mike Morino.

“She great, isn’t she?”

“Marie?” Jen nods vigorously. Of course Marie is great. Everyone knows that. Everyone has always known that. Everyone thinks Marie is great, so . . .

I have to go
, she thinks, but somehow, she can’t verbalize the sentence.

“She teaches piano to Taylor.”

“Oh . . . that’s nice.” For someone who’s always been an expert conversationalist, she’s having a hell of a time today.

“She’s been taking lessons with Marie for about five years now, since middle school.”

Oh. So either he’s a cradle robber in addition to being an arrogant jerk, or Taylor is his daughter, not his wife.

“That’s nice,” Jen says again.

“She’s pretty good.”

Don’t you dare say that’s nice
, Jen warns herself and instead asks, “How old is she?”

“Probably late sixties, maybe early seventies, but she doesn’t look a day over forty-five, does she?”

Jen blinks. “What?”

“Oh . . . I thought you meant Marie.” He grins. “No, I didn’t think that, actually. I was just trying to break the ice with a joke.”

She forces her mouth to quirk in vague semblance of a smile. “Good one.”

“Taylor is seventeen going on eighteen. And she doesn’t look a day over twenty-five,” he adds wryly. “It’s not easy being the father of a teenage girl when you were once a teenage boy yourself and you remember exactly what they have on their mind at all times.”

Well, it’s not easy being the grown woman who was once the teenage girl on Mike Morino’s mind, either.

I have to go. I have to go.

Just say it.

Mike reaches into his pocket and holds something out to her. His wallet?

Oh. There’s a section of vinyl inserts; he’s showing her a photo of his daughter.

“That’s Taylor.”

Jen nods at the headshot of a drop-dead gorgeous brunette who does appear considerably older than seventeen. “She looks like you.”

“Everyone says that. She looks like me, but she acts like her mother. In other words, she’s high maintenance.” He puts his wallet away. “At least she’s at an all-girls high school.”

“Which one?” She guesses Griffin.

“Sisters. Your alma mater. She’s a senior.”

Sisters?

It probably shouldn’t surprise her. After all, Mike attended Cardinal Ruffini in the same little corner of the world—a world that suddenly feels
too
small.

Don’t
, Jen warns herself.
Don’t mention Carley, that she goes there.

But then he asks, “So you have a daughter, too?”

“Did Debbie tell you that?”

“Marie just did, remember?”

Jen thinks back over the conversation, her mind clouded by grief and exhaustion. Now is not the ideal time to be getting reacquainted with her ex-boyfriend.

“She said your daughter was a friend of Nicki’s,” Mike clarifies, “but actually, Debbie has mentioned it before, too.”

“You and Debbie . . . so you’re in touch these days? Is that . . . through Marie?”

It makes sense, now that she thinks about it. Maybe they’ve run into each other at their daughters’ piano recitals.

“Actually, I’ve been in touch with Marie all along. I mentioned her to Debbie when she got the baby grand for her daughter—you know she got her a baby grand, right? Last year, for graduation?”

Of course I know that. But why do you?

At Jen’s nod, Mike goes on, “Deb said she’d always wanted Nicki to take lessons . . .”

Deb. As if they’re so close.

Are
they?

“ . . . but she thought it was too late for her to start. I told her it’s never too late.”

The words, given the circumstances, fall flat and hard between them. Mike’s dark eyes cloud over and flick in the direction of the casket, then back at Jen.

“This is bad,” he says, puffing his cheeks and exhaling loudly. “Really, really bad.”

Yeah. Understatement of the year.

“Poor Deb. With something like this, for anyone who’s left behind, there’s never going to be closure.”

Closure. He’s talking about closure. The irony doesn’t escape Jen.

“I wonder,” she says without thinking, “whether she left a note.”

Mike jerks his gaze away from hers abruptly. “No.”

“No . . . what?”

“I don’t think she did.”

“Leave a note? How do you know that?”

“I just . . . I heard.” Before she can ask him to elaborate, he goes on, “How is your daughter taking it?”

“Not well.” Worried anew about Carley, she adds, “I’d better go find her.”

“It was good seeing you again.”

“You too,” she lies.

“You look great, Jen,” he lies.

No, you look great, Mike.

Not a lie.

But she curbs the impulse to say it, or anything other than “Thanks,” before hurrying away to find Carley.

Entry from the marble notebook

Tuesday, January 7, 1986

Today is Adrian’s birthday.

I took the long way home from school to stop at Sgaglio’s and get a package of Hostess cupcakes. This time they didn’t have orange—Adrian likes the orange—so I got chocolate. The price has gone up since last year, and I didn’t have the extra nickel, but Mr. Sgaglio told me not to worry about it. He’s always nice to me, and it makes me wonder why his daughter turned out so nasty. Lynnette Sgaglio is the one who told me someone had spit in my lunch a few years ago after I had eaten it, and it made me throw up right there in the cafeteria, and they all laughed like it was the most hilarious thing they’d ever seen.

Adrian seemed a little disappointed when he saw that the cupcake wasn’t orange, but he hugged me anyway. I had saved the birthday candle from last year, and I stuck it into the cupcake and lit it. I sang to him and he made a wish—the same wish as last year, he said. And then he told me that sometimes, he pretends I really am his mother, and he wanted to know if maybe that was really the truth.

I told him that Mother is really his mother. I told him all about when he was born—how no one ever told me she had a baby in her belly, and I just thought she was getting really fat. And then one day, I came home from school and I thought the house was empty and I found blood in the bathroom—not a lot, but it was smeared by the bathtub and I got really scared.

I didn’t tell Adrian that part.

I just told him how I ran through the house looking for her, and I found her in her bed, with this tiny little baby. And how surprised and thrilled I was when she told me it was my new baby brother. And how I called him my little angel right from that moment on.

I didn’t tell him how at the time, I didn’t think anything of the fact that she delivered him right here at home, all alone in the house, while I was at school and Father was at work—but now I know that babies are supposed to be born in hospitals, and kids are supposed to be told that they’re on the way so that they can prepare to be big sisters.

It doesn’t really matter, does it?

All that matters is that Adrian was born. He’s the only good thing in my life.

Chapter 8

O
n Thursday afternoon, chin resting morosely in her hand, Carley watches Mr. Sterne walk up and down the aisles handing back test papers.

The classroom windows are open for the first time since October, but at this time of year, that’s more unsettling than pleasant. The weather is oddly warm for March; the sky has taken on the ugly yellowish-purple tint of an angry bruise, and there’s a strong wind blowing from the southwest, gusting every so often to drown out the rhythmic dripping of melting snow.

Carley’s thoughts are on Nicki.

That’s all she’s been able to think about the past few days: Nicki taking a knife and slicing open her veins.

Did she feel anything when it happened?

Was there excruciating pain?

A split second of regret?

How long did it take her to die?

Is her spirit still alive somewhere?

Carley hasn’t slept well ever since she found out. She lies in bed at night with every muscle clenched, afraid that if she allows herself to drift off, she’ll have nightmares about Nicki. Being awake is just as frightening, though, when she considers the prospect of being visited by Nicki’s ghost.

Yeah, that seems like a preposterous thought in broad daylight in the middle of math class . . .

But in the dead of night, alone in her room—

“All right, ladies.” Mr. Sterne is back at his desk. “Please put your tests away and open your textbooks to page 223.”

With a rustling of papers and pages, the others do as they’re told.

Carley, realizing he didn’t return her test, starts to raise her hand—then quickly lowers it as Mr. Sterne’s gaze locks on hers.

“Miss Archer. See me after class.”

He knows.

Her stomach gives a sickening lurch.

Somehow, he knows that she cheated.

A couple of the girls dart glances at her, and then each other. Realizing they’re smirking, Carley quickly grasps the reason: they know, too.

They know, because they’re behind it.

They didn’t see her struggling that afternoon, overcome with grief, and take pity on her. No, they totally set her up.

How could she have let herself believe that it might be a sympathetic friend who tossed the folded note containing the answers? Of course it was the enemy. The enemy is all around her now, wherever she goes. She doesn’t dare trust a soul, ever again.

Panic and nausea sweep over Carley. She’s certain she’s going to throw up, or pass out, or cry . . . or . . . or
die
.

I wish I could
, she thinks.
I wish I could just lie down right here, right now, and close my eyes and make it all go away forever.

Y
esterday morning, the day after the funeral, Jen called Debbie to see if she needed anything.

“I don’t think so.” Debbie’s voice was small and faraway.

“Are you sure? I can go to the store for you if you’re out of milk or bread, or I can run errands if you need me to, or just come and sit with you . . .”

“I don’t think so,” she repeated. “Not today.”

This morning, Jen called again. This time, she didn’t ask whether she could come over, just told Debbie she’d be dropping by with a jar of homemade soup and a basket of biscuits.

“I won’t stay,” she said, “unless you want me to.”

Debbie wanted her to.

Like the Archers, the Oliveras live in a two-story Colonial on a cul-de-sac in a private development. But there are differences here, some none too subtle, courtesy of the Oliveras’ higher income bracket and extravagant spending habits.

Andrew and Debbie opted for all the builders’ upgrades. Their home is Georgian-style with an extra thousand square feet, a three-car garage instead of two, and a circular driveway that sweeps past the white-pillared portico. The exterior is clad in brick rather than plain old white siding.

Inside, there are crown moldings and custom window treatments; granite countertops and rich cherrywood cabinets with glass doors that reveal backlit shelves displaying china and glassware. The modern art on the walls was bought at galleries, and the furniture is heavy and expensive, each roomful purchased as a matching set.

Today, Jen notices the latest addition: the gleaming black baby grand piano Nicki was learning to play. It reminds her that just this morning, she called Marie Bush, arranging for her to come by over the weekend to meet Carley. She isn’t sure her daughter will be interested in resuming piano lessons but it definitely won’t hurt, after this trying week, for Carley to meet warmhearted Marie.

In the past, Jen has sat here on the rich leather couch in the Oliveras’ home admiring, and sometimes even envying, all that Debbie has.

Today, facing the same framed photograph of Nicki that was displayed beside the casket, she pities her friend for what she’s lost.

A wan-looking Debbie is perched on an adjacent wingback chair, wrapped in a bright pink hoodie that belonged to Nicki.

“It still smells like her,” she tells Jen, idly coiling the knotted hood cord around her fingertip, unwrapping it, wrapping it again. “Like that lotion she’s always buying at Bath & Body Works, you know?”

Jen does know. Carley has the same lotion.

Like that lotion she’s always buying . . .

Debbie makes it sound as though Nicki is still here.

To say, “that lotion she always bought” would imply that she’s accepted that her daughter is gone forever. What would it take for her—for any mother—to make that leap to past tense?

What would it take for me?

Jen’s mind returns to the dark place where it’s been wandering for days now.

She pictures herself in Debbie’s shoes, huddled in Carley’s sweatshirt, or Emma’s, mourning her lost child.

It’s unthinkable, yet she can’t seem to stop going there. If she closes her eyes she can all too easily see herself curled up on Carley’s bed, hugging her daughter’s beloved stuffed animals, feeling the soft synthetic fur against her cheek . . .

Fragmented images of her grief-stricken self are so vivid that they frighten her, seeming more like memories of something that actually happened than nightmarish flights of imagination.

What if it were one of my girls?

But of course, it couldn’t have been. Neither Carley nor Emma would ever in a million years take her own life.

“I still can’t believe it,” Debbie says dully.

That’s the most disconcerting aspect for Jen: that Debbie never saw this coming. No one did.

“She never said anything,” Jen asks, “that made you worry that she might—”

“No. Never.”

“Did something happen that night that might have—”

This time, Debbie doesn’t interrupt her; Jen cuts herself off, sensing by the way Debbie tenses in her chair that she’s entered uncomfortable territory.

She hesitates before quietly telling Jen, “She was fine when I left for dinner that night. I stuck my head into her room to tell her I was leaving, and she was video-chatting with one of her friends, laughing, happy . . .”

Debbie trails off, staring into space, and Jen bites down on her lower lip to suppress all the other questions that spring to mind.

Had Nicki been depressed lately, even if she wasn’t at that particular moment?

Was she taking some kind of medication that might list suicidal tendencies as a side effect?

Had she ever attempted to harm herself before?

Who was the friend on her video chat?

Did Debbie ask whoever it was whether anything happened to upset Nicki after she left?

“I wish I could remember her that way,” Debbie says with a catch in her voice, “instead of what I saw when I came home and found her . . .”

Jen swallows hard, trying to hold back her own tears for her friend’s sake. Debbie hasn’t yet broken down today; she said earlier that she’s all cried out.

“I keep wondering,” she says after a moment, “what would have happened if I had stayed home that night.”

“Don’t do that to yourself.”

“I can’t help it. I keep thinking I could have saved her, and I have to live with that for the rest of my life, wondering . . .”

“Wondering why she did it,” Jen finishes the sentence for her. “And there was no note?”

Again, the slight hesitation before Debbie answers. “No. No note.”

She stares down at the pink sweatshirt cord, coiling it around her finger again.

“You were a good mom, Debbie.”

The words spill easily from Jen’s mouth. Maybe too easily.

Jen didn’t agree with all her choices, to be sure, but still . . .

“Don’t blame yourself. Please.”

Debbie says nothing.

“Have you thought about talking to someone about all this?”

“You mean a shrink?”

“A therapist, or . . . I don’t know, Father Peter?”

Now Debbie looks up at her, eyes flashing. “Father Peter? Nicki committed suicide, Jen. You know how the Catholic church views that. Or didn’t you pay attention in theology class back at Sisters?”

“The church has modified its stance since then.”

“Really? Good for the church.”

Me and my big mouth
, Jen thinks glumly, wishing she had stuck to what she’d told herself on the drive over: that she was coming here to listen, not to talk or ask questions.

Guilt can be a dangerous burden; she can’t bear to think of Debbie blaming herself for what happened. It isn’t her fault. No matter what. She and Nicki have always been close, sometimes treating each other more like sisters or friends.

Back when she and Jen were teenagers, Debbie would swear that she’d never treat her future children the way her mother had treated her. Rosemary Quattrone could be stodgy and strict—even Jen’s mother thought so.

“You’re so lucky,” Debbie would tell Jen, “that your mom isn’t breathing down your neck every second of every day.”

“That’s because I’m the fifth kid. She’s too exhausted to breathe down anyone’s neck.”

But Debbie was an only child. As a teenager, she rebelled against her mother’s hypervigilance with reckless behavior and sneaking around. And now . . .

Had her own permissive parenting backfired on her?

Jen hasn’t seen much of Debbie since their daughters went their separate ways. She has no idea what their mother-daughter relationship was like these days; no idea what Nicki was like, whether she’d gotten into drinking and drugs or something . . .

Something, anything at all, that might explain how she could kill herself out of the blue.

Something that might set her apart from Carley and Emma, thus reassuring Jen that the tragedy that struck the Oliveras could never in a million years strike the Archers.

M
r. Sterne waits until the other girls have left the classroom, most of them tossing backward glances at Carley as they go. Some, especially Melissa Kovacs, are still smirking, a few just wear inquisitive expressions, and one—Kendra Hyde—seems to trail behind.

Carley only glimpses the sympathy in her eyes—or imagines it—for a split second before Kendra disappears into the hall, leaving her alone with Mr. Sterne.

He closes the door, snuffing the chatter and locker doors slamming out in the hall. The room is suddenly frightfully still. Carley listens to his dress shoes tapping on the tile floor as he walks over to his desk, to her own shallow breathing, and to the distinct click of the minute hand on the big black and white wall clock jumping ahead to the next number.

Mr. Sterne seems to be taking his time ruffling through papers. She’s going to be late for social studies. Though that’s the least of her worries right now.

Finally, after removing a set of stapled sheets from a folder, he walks over to her desk. Without a word, he places her math test in front of her.

An enormous zero is scrawled at the top in angry red ink.

“What do you have to say for yourself?”

She tries to swallow past the aching lump in her throat, shaking her head mutely.

Not waiting for her to find her voice, he says, “Your answers were copied verbatim from one of the students sitting in the row ahead, Miss Archer. Unfortunately, she is not one of the better students in this class, which always makes it easy for me to spot a cheater.”

No!
she wants to protest.
That isn’t how it happened! I didn’t copy off Wanda!

She knows that’s whom he’s talking about: Wanda Durphy, a lump of a girl who plods dismally through academics—and life itself.

Mr. Sterne goes on, not naming names, “Every mistake that student made was reflected on your own test. She failed miserably with a 58. You failed with a zero because you blatantly violated the academic honesty policy.”

“But . . .”

It’s true, of course. She doesn’t dare tell him that she had no intention of cheating, that she didn’t copy off anyone sitting in front of her, that the incorrect answers were fed to her as a malicious prank.

Does that somehow make what she did less wrong?

She deserves the zero.

Yet something spurs her to make a feeble attempt to defend herself. “How do you know I’m the one who copied the answers? How do you know it wasn’t Wa— the other person?”

“Because that student sits in front of you, Miss Archer. Do you think I wouldn’t have noticed someone facing in the wrong direction long enough to copy the test of the person sitting behind her?”

She shakes her head numbly.

“Do you think I didn’t notice your demeanor during the test? You weren’t focused on your work. Every time I looked in your direction, you were sitting straight up, looking around.”

Silence as he allows her to digest that.

Then he asks her again what she has to say for herself.

“Nothing,” she whispers. “Just . . . I’m sorry.”

I
n Debbie’s kitchen—easily twice the size of Jen’s large kitchen, with a restaurant-grade six-burner stove, two built-in custom wood-paneled refrigerators, and two dishwashers—Jen stirs a kettle filled with the chicken soup she brought over.

She insisted on heating up some for Debbie, who keeps shivering and probably hasn’t eaten in a week.

Staring out the window at swaying bare tree branches against a dismal sky, she finds herself thinking, once again, of Mike Morino. He wasn’t just at the wake on Monday afternoon; he was at the funeral the next day, too. He came alone, wearing a dark suit, and slipped into a pew a few rows ahead of the one where Jen was sitting with Thad and the girls.