The Good Sister (8 page)

Unsettled, she wonders who keeps calling at this hour, and why.

Maybe she should go downstairs and see what’s up.

She will—just as soon as she finishes this chat with Angel. She looks back at the screen.

Angel 770: u there?

QT-Pi: yeah sorry i—

Again, she pauses, hearing footsteps creaking up the stairs. Two sets of footsteps; her parents are coming up together, which is as unusual as the fact that the phone keeps ringing.

So, come to think of it, is the fact that Mom and Dad’s bedroom door was already open when Carley got up and went down the hall to the bathroom earlier. They usually sleep much later than seven on Saturday mornings, and whoever gets up last always makes the bed and opens the shades before leaving the room.

Today, Carley could see that the bed was unmade and the shades were still drawn, but it didn’t faze her—until now.

The footsteps approach, and there’s a knock on her door.

“Sweetie?” Mom calls. “Can we come in?”

We?

It’s never a good sign when both parents want to talk to her. In fact, that’s the kind of thing that usually happens only to Emma, who lately manages to get herself into trouble at home or at school every other day. But Carley follows the rules, does her homework, and gets good grades—except in math, but she’s working on it.

What can this possibly be about?

Maybe they just want to rehash the whole bullying situation again, try to talk her into switching schools. If that’s the case . . .

The only person I want to talk about it with is Angel.

Carley quickly types
brb
in the instant message window, shorthand for
be right back.

Angel 770: kk wuzup?

QT-Pi: prnts

Parents.

“Carley?” Dad calls through the door. “Are you awake?”

She hurriedly takes off her glasses, then closes the laptop and stashes it beneath the bed, knocking Bubblegum the stuffed flamingo off in the process.

The door opens just as she’s settling back against her pillows, still clutching Bubblegum.

Pretending to stir as if she’s just waking up, she rubs her eyes and looks up at her parents.

Mom is in her pajamas and bare feet, Dad in boxer shorts and a T-shirt, as though they just rolled out of bed. Mom’s obviously been crying.

Maybe Dad, too, Carley realizes, looking from one to the other.

Her heart starts pounding and she sits up quickly. “What? What is it?”

Her parents look at each other.

Mom opens her mouth as if she’s going to say something, but only a strange, choking sound comes out.

“Mom? You’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”

Dad takes over. “Carley,” he says gently, and sits down on her bed, reaching for her hand, “we have some bad news.”

I
t’s been half an hour, at least, since QT-Pi informed Angel that her parents had interrupted their instant messaging.

I bet I know why.

Now that this cold, sunny Saturday morning has dawned, the shocking news is undoubtedly spreading from house to suburban house in Woodsbridge.

All night, Angel had been wondering how long it would take before Nicki’s parents found their only child’s body.

They were both out last evening when it happened.

Angel had watched them leave, all dressed up, probably headed out to dinner or something—but not together. No, never together. Not those two.

Debbie Olivera left in her Lexus and her husband in his BMW, an hour apart, headed in opposite directions.

Having watched them for months now—and well aware of their secret lives—Angel wasn’t surprised that the two so obviously had separate plans on a Friday night.

Which of them came home first?

It would be nice to think that it was Debbie herself. How satisfying it is, just picturing how Nicki’s mother might have reacted to the horrific scene . . .

Imagine if I could have been there to witness that moment in person?

That would have been tricky to pull off, but well worth shooting for.

Maybe next time.

Or the time after that . . .

Angel checks the computer screen again to see if QT-Pi has returned. No, not yet.

At this very moment, she’s probably distraught over her best friend’s violent suicide.

Ex
-best friend.

Angel found it almost as delightful to hear Carley’s version of Nicki’s betrayal as it had been last summer to plan—and then instigate—the rift in their friendship.

Just think—that was only the beginning.

With a happy shiver, Angel reaches for the keyboard.

Angel 770: hope evrything is ok qp gtg cya l8r

Before hitting enter, Angel thinks better of that last phrase, deletes it, and replaces it with
ttyl.

There. Much more authentic.
L8r
seems to have fallen out of favor recently.

Angel has spent months lurking on the Internet, studying the way kids communicate with each other online, learning the ridiculous text message shorthand and paying close attention to the nuances in their interaction. Now it’s almost second nature to type run-on sentences heavy with abbreviation and slang and nearly devoid of punctuation or capitalization—unless, of course, one wishes to express excitement, in which case one must type in all caps and sometimes hold down a key to repeat the final letter in a word many times.

None of it makes much sense, and yet it’s paid off.

You sound just like one of them.

Carley honestly believes she’s chatting with a teenage girl who lives in California.

She has no idea that Angel is right under her nose.

But she will. Soon enough, she’ll find out exactly who Angel really is.

Just like Nicki did.

Entry from the marble notebook

Friday, December 13, 1985

I didn’t realize until I wrote down the date that today is Friday the thirteenth. I just got a chill when I noticed. I wonder if it’s a sign?

Do you remember how I prayed in church for something terrible to happen to Father?

This afternoon, he made me go out with him to practice driving after school. I was nervous, because it was snowing and the roads were slippery. Whenever I had to brake for a stop sign or light, the car would slide into the intersection. He kept yelling at me to be careful, and I was crying so hard I could hardly see. Then he got really quiet and I looked over and he had passed out. For a minute I thought he was dead.

The funny thing is, that is exactly what I had been hoping for, but in that instant, I forgot all about it. I was in the middle of practicing parallel parking in front of Cardinal Ruffini High School and a couple of guys were just coming out. I started yelling, “Help, help!” to them and they came running. They checked Father. He had a pulse. One of them ran back inside to call an ambulance while the other two stayed with us.

I don’t remember if anyone said anything while we waited for the ambulance to show up—it didn’t take very long. All I could think was that God had heard my prayer and Father was going to die, and if that happened, would it be my fault? Would I burn in hell for eternity?

The paramedics put Father on a stretcher and told me to go get my mother and meet them at the hospital. They rushed away with the sirens going and they didn’t even hear me telling them that I don’t have a driver’s license.

The Cardinal Ruffini guys heard me, though. They said they would drive me home.

They were all wearing basketball jackets, so I know they’re on the team. One of them was really good-looking. I see him sometimes at church but I don’t know his name. He sat in the backseat with me and I couldn’t stop staring at him.

Eric, the one who got behind the wheel, was a terrible driver. Twice, he drove up over the curb. The first time, he scraped the side of the car in some bushes and the next time, we were inches away from slamming into a tree. That’s how I found out his name—the cute one yelled, “Eric, you almost just got us all killed!”

I didn’t find out until we were almost back to my house that Eric didn’t even have his permit. None of them do. By that time it was too late so I just thanked them and they walked off down the street. I hope I see him again soon. The cute one, I mean. Maybe I’ll dream about him when I close my eyes. I hope so.

For the first time I can ever remember, I don’t dread climbing into bed tonight. Father is staying in the hospital at least through the weekend. He had a heart attack.

Do you think God answered my prayers and punished Father because he’s evil? Do you think He’ll listen if I ask Him to make it so that Father never comes home again?

Chapter 6

O
n a monochromatic Monday afternoon, Jen turns the car onto a wide boulevard near Delaware Park, where large houses are set against a sky the same shade as the dirty slush in the gutters. Absently noticing that the wet March snow is already starting to stick, she turns the windshield wipers a notch faster. According to AccuWeather, the temperature will have plummeted into the twenties by dusk, with well over a foot of new snow in the forecast before the thermometer boomerangs up into the sixties by midweek.

The storm started earlier than predicted, though. The meteorologists had said it would begin snowing late this afternoon, but already a coating of white dusts the rooftops, bare branches, and grass on meticulously landscaped properties.

If it weren’t for the unobtrusive wooden signpost and awnings that shade the tall windows and stretch along the front walk, the three-story white house in the middle of the block would look like any other. But it isn’t like them at all.

People live in those other homes. Some of the aging residents have been there since Jen was growing up on a nearby block lined with equally old, albeit far smaller and less dignified houses set much closer together than they are here.

But in her lifetime, no one has ever actually lived in the stately black-shuttered mansion with the signpost and the awnings. It’s been used for one purpose only, as evidenced by the signpost:

“CICERO AND SON FUNERAL HOME.”

Back in the old days, the sign read just “CICERO FUNERAL HOME.” But then Glenn Cicero grew up and followed in his father’s footsteps, and old Mr. Cicero proudly changed the name. He passed away a few years ago, but Glenn has left the sign the way it is.

When Jen last saw him, about a year ago at her great-uncle Frank’s funeral, he said, “No reason to change it. My son Connor tells me he might want to go into the family business, too.”

“How old is he now?”

“Seven.”

Jen nodded, smiling politely, wondering whether any seven-year-old truly wants to think about growing up to become a mortician, even if it is the family business.

The Ciceros have presided over many a Bonafacio family funeral, and quite a few others Jen has attended over the years. Just the sight of the stately old structure is enough to send a pall over her on an ordinary day, when she barely gives it a second glance.

Today, however, she drives past the funeral home with slow deliberation, noting that the large gravel parking lot alongside it is already full, and the street is lined with parked cars.

The wake for Nicki Olivera doesn’t even start for another fifteen minutes, but dark-clothed mourners are lined up out the door. Groups of teenagers cluster on the walkway; crying girls shivering bare-legged in dresses console each other alongside uncomfortable-looking boys in dress pants, down coats, and sneakers.

Jen takes a deep breath; exhales shakily.

Oh Lord. Suddenly, Nicki’s death has gone from surreal to shockingly real.

This is going to be brutal enough for the adults who are attending. But for those poor kids  . . .

For Carley . . .

Jen fleetingly considers sparing her daughter the ordeal.

No. She has to go. She
needs
to go, in order to fully grasp the shocking reality that Nicki is gone.

On Saturday morning, Jen had faltered right before they told Carley the news, when she saw her lying there in bed. She was clutching her stuffed flamingo, Bubblegum: a long-ago birthday gift from Nicki. Childhood innocence personified.

She knew that Carley was about to lose something that she’d never get back. Not just in the literal sense—not just the monumental loss of her friend, which in itself would leave a void that would never be filled.

But Carley’s world was about to be shaken because of the way Nicki had died. An accident, or an illness . . . that’s one thing. But when someone deliberately chooses death, without explanation or warning . . .

But you don’t know that
, Jen keeps reminding herself.
You haven’t seen Nicki in a while; you don’t know, and Carley probably didn’t know, what was going on with her.

When they told their daughter the news, she went from disbelief—asking “
What?
” over and over—to hysterical tears.

They had to reveal that it was suicide. There was no point in lying.

“But . . . but that means she’s not going to go to heaven!”

Jen tried to console her, telling her that the church had changed its views on suicide, but she could tell Carley wasn’t buying it. She’d spent too many years in an old-fashioned parochial school to completely disregard what she’d been taught about the mortal sin of taking your own life.

It wasn’t until hours later, when the initial shock and grief had subsided, that Carley wanted to know exactly how Nicki had done it.

“With a knife,” Jen said reluctantly and then, seeing the look of horror on her daughter’s face, she hugged her close and consoled her as a fresh wave of tears broke.

The violence of Nicki’s death, more than anything else, is what’s been troubling Jen.

You always read that it’s the male victims who use knives or guns to kill themselves. Not women. Certainly not young girls who cower behind the couch pillows just trying to watch one of the old Scream movies at a sleepover.

“No! I can’t look!” Nicki shrieked as Carley giggled. “Are there blood and guts, Carls? You know I can’t deal with blood and guts!”

Remembering the many overnights Carley and Nicki spent together, Jen wonders, yet again, how Nicki could have changed so drastically in six or seven months.

What was going on in her life that made her decide to end it?

If Carley has any idea, she’s not talking about it.

Now Jen is grateful that the girls have drifted apart, for her own daughter’s sake. This would have been even more torturous had it happened when they were inseparable.

But then, maybe it wouldn’t have happened at all. When Jen thinks about Nicki, about how alone and desperate she must have been feeling, her heart aches for the girl.

Could a friend have saved her?

Could her mother have saved her?

Jen remembers what she was thinking just the other day when she and Thad were discussing Carley’s trouble at school.

That’s what moms do.
We fix things for our kids and we worry about them and we ask about their day when they walk in the door . . .

Was it only a few days ago that it seemed like the worst thing in the world was to have your daughter victimized by the mean girls at school?

Jen thinks about her friend Debbie, wondering how she’s coping, wondering how you can possibly go on when you’ve lost a child.

Whatever you do
, she warns herself,
don’t go and ask her that when you see her. Don’t blurt out anything stupid.

She’s had two days now to figure out exactly what she can say to Debbie at a time like this, and she’s come up with only one acceptable thing.

I’m so sorry.

It’s what she said when she called Debbie’s house on Saturday morning and got voice mail. “It’s Jen. I just heard, and I’m so sorry . . .”

Too choked up to go on, she hung up mid-message.

When she finally pulled herself together and called back, the voice mailbox was full and no longer accepting messages. She sent a carefully composed e-mail. When that went unanswered, she texted Debbie’s cell phone a few times—no reply.

Yesterday, she made a tray of ziti and took it over there, along with a dozen of the untouched peanut butter cookies and the sponge cake she’d intended for the new neighbors.

Debbie’s sister-in-law from Ohio, whom Jen had heard about but never met, answered the door. She said Debbie and Andrew were at the funeral home, “making arrangements.”

“Tell them that Jen was here, and that I’m so sorry, and—”

Again, she choked on a lump in her throat and couldn’t finish the sentence.

“What’s wrong with me?” she asked Thad later in frustration. “Why can’t I be one of those people who always says the right thing and has perfect composure, grace under pressure  . . .”

“Because you’re a Bonafacio,” he reminded her, and he was right.

How many times has Jen—or one of her sisters, or her mother—said just that, in an effort to explain why when they talk, they talk too much; when they laugh, they laugh uncontrollably; when they cry . . .

Same thing.

“It’s because we’re Bonafacios.” Her family—the women in her family, anyway—tend to be overly emotional, and they lack filters. That’s just how it is.

At this point, Jen feels as though she’s drained every last teardrop in her body. But she knows that when she sees Debbie, she’s going to start sobbing again.

She drives on past the funeral home, flipping her turn signal and braking carefully on the slick pavement at the stop sign. She makes a right and brakes at the railroad tracks, looking both ways before bumping across them.

Once, years ago, the signal failed at a crossing in the neighborhood. That was the official story. But an eyewitness claimed that the teenage driver, Jimmy Fazzoleri, was trying to beat it.

He didn’t make it.

Jen was just in elementary school then, but she remembers the horror of that accident, the tragic, violently morbid tale told and retold by her sisters and their friends until Jimmy had taken on folk hero status.

Still—it was an accident. No one ever speculated that Jimmy had taken his own life. Either he’d been the victim of malfunctioning electronics or he’d done something foolish and reckless, and he was killed. Tragic, but hardly inexplicable.

Not like this. Not like Nicki.

Jen drives on, heading toward Sacred Sisters to pick up Carley for the wake.

She had expected her daughter to jump at the chance to stay home from school today, but Carley insisted on going.

“I have an algebra test sixth period, Mom.”

“You can make it up.”

“He only gives you one chance to make up a test.”

He
is Carley’s dreaded math teacher, Mr. Sterne, one of the few laypeople on the staff. She’s convinced he doesn’t like her.

What a shame that gentle Sister Louisa, who taught algebra back in Jen’s day, has long since retired. Life would surely be more pleasant for Carley if she’d been greeted at her new school with smiles of recognition and “Isn’t one of the Bonafacio girls your mother?”

When Jen was there, it was “You must be the Bonafacio girls’ baby sister!”

Debbie once asked her if it ever bothered her, but it never did. Rather, she felt welcomed into the fold.

But today’s teachers—other than half-blind Sister Margaret—don’t know Carley from any other student, and Mr. Sterne, in particular, seems to be making things difficult for her.

“If I don’t take the test today, I’ll have to do it tomorrow,” Carley told Jen this morning, “and I can’t because I have the funeral.”

“Carley, no teacher would penalize you for missing a test for something like this. Woodsbridge High is excusing anyone who wants to go to the wake or funeral.”

“But that’s because Nicki went to Woodsbridge, and anyway, Mr. Sterne’s really strict! Those are the rules.” Carley, with her fierce sense of right and wrong, was on the verge of fresh tears.

“It’s not so black and white. Trust me, sweetie, you can—”

“He only bends the rules if you have a doctor’s note!”

“I’ll write him a note.”

“You’re not a doctor!”

“Then I’ll come in and talk to him. Just don’t worry about school rules at a time like this.”

“Mom, I’m only getting an 87 in algebra so far this quarter and it’s going to drag my average down. This test can bring my grade up if I do well, but I’ll forget everything I studied if I don’t take it now.”

To her credit, Emma, having eavesdropped on the exchange, waited until Carley left the room before announcing, “She’s crazy.”

“Emma—”

“She acts like she’s failing with an 87! I
wish
I had an 87 in math! Or in anything!”

“You
can
have an 87. You can have 100.”

“No one gets 100.”

“Sure they do.”

“I mean besides Carley. And I almost got a 90 one time last year. I got an 88, but I almost—”

“Almost doesn’t count, Emma. Almost isn’t good enough.”

“I hate when you say that.”

“Well, it’s true. You should be getting nineties. Or hundreds. You just need to work harder at it like your sister does.” As soon as she’d said that, Jen wanted to take it back.

She does try not to compare the girls, knowing it only contributes further to their resentment of each other. But she was overtired and overemotional and overprotective, in that moment, of Carley.

“Why can’t I stay home for the wake?” Emma wanted to know. “Carley’s not the only one who’s sad about Nicki around here.”

“I told you, Daddy and I think you should just go to the funeral on Tuesday.”

“Can you please stop calling him Daddy? Can’t you just say Dad?” Emma rolled her eyes.

Jaw clenched, Jen amended, “
Dad
and I think you should just go to the funeral.”

“But why?”

“Because the wake will be too upsetting for you.”

“I went to Uncle Frank’s wake.”

“That was different. He was old and sick for a long time. When it’s someone your own age, it’s much harder.”

Plus, Emma can be such a drama queen that there’s no telling how she might react at the funeral home. It would be just like her to fall apart and create an emotional scene, robbing a quietly grieving Carley of her parents’ attention at a time when she needs it most.

Reaching the next stop sign, Jen makes a left onto Dogwood Street, feeling as though she’s driving on autopilot. Good thing she knows this neighborhood as well as she does the one where she now lives with Thad and the girls. Better, really, in some ways.

There’s still constant new construction in their suburban development, and businesses on the highways surrounding it are mostly chain stores and restaurants that seem to come and go or change hands with startling regularity.