Sister of Mine

by Laurie Petrou

  “Yeah. Well, it wasn’t creepy to me. Never was.” I thought about whether I had been tempting fate to stay there alone and I suppose I had been. I had no protection, no stashed weapons or defense plans; knowing as I did that if someone wanted to hurt you, they would find a way. Buddy had always found numerous, unrelenting ways to torment me, so it surprised me that he had never thought to ruin my barn. But I usually crept there after he’d stormed out, or passed out. I don’t think he ever knew I’d spent any time there.

  I shuddered and thought of Mac Williams returning to haunt the scene of so many crimes. He was like Buddy all over again: one rising up where the other had died. I emptied the rest of my glass and immediately felt the room move. I lay my head back and closed my eyes, half-listening to Sally’s story about an abandoned house and a ghost. My mind hummed. I thought of my barn, gathering snow in its rafters. I heard Hattie’s laughter somewhere nearby, Jameson mumbling, stumbling, a door closing.

  * * *

  It was the middle of the night. I woke with a sore neck, my arms flopped out beside me, my mouth dry and sour. Sally was gone. I couldn’t hear anyone else, the music was off, the house was dark. I scrambled to my feet, swayed, catching sight of myself in the mirror, wheeling about like a rickety automaton, that drunken robot version of myself. I winded my way to the bathroom, and splashed water on my face, gargled out the foulness of the long-gone drinks, almost gagged, my face hot, righted myself again, and wandered into the hallway. I walked down the stairs, considered getting something to eat but turned and walked towards the den, where I heard faint music playing. It was a small room with large, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a wall of bookcases. Against the windows was a settee bed, perfect for reading.

  Jameson was there, stretched out across it, one leg crossed over the other, a foot bobbing to the music.

  “Hi,” I said, smiling and self-consciously wiping a finger under my eye. He turned to me and offered a lopsided smile. “Everything okay?”

  Jameson lifted his arm, let it fall on his lap, and laughed. He was drunk also.

  “Yes. Yep. I guess …” He laughed again, slurring his words. “I actually don’t know why I’m here.”

  “Okay,” I said, sitting beside him on the edge of the bed. He shifted slightly, trying to sit up. The room spun.

  He threw himself backwards and exhaled happily. “I don’t think I’d be much good at—to talk to—for talking right now.” He giggled. “Great party. Hey, did you know there is a sock hanging from the light up there?”

  I carefully lay down beside him and looked up. He scooched over to make room for both of us.

  “Uh huh. That’s one of the guys from the salon. His sock.”

  He turned to look at me, his face inches from mine, his breath boozy. “You looked really good tonight, you know. Did you have fun?”

  I watched him and felt my face flush. “You, too. And yeah, I did.”

  He laughed and lifted his head up. “Penny?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nothing.” He laughed and touched my face.

  I reached out, putting my hand on his arm. I rubbed his skin gently.

  “You are so …” He touched my lips. “So nice, Penny.”

  I watched him. I moved my hand to his chest, put my hand over his heart. He sat up. “I should go. I’m drunk.”

  “It’s okay. Please don’t go. I love—I like you here.”

  “I like it, too.”

  I pulled on his shirt, pulling him back. He looked at me, then leaned towards me. I felt the room tip, wanted to crawl into his skin. He put his hand around my neck gently, moving his fingers through my hair, and then I knew what Hattie must know. Every nerve responded. I wanted Jameson terribly. Who could blame me, then? I would do it all over again, I swear I would.

  We tumbled backwards together.

  “Who’s idea is this,” I slurred.

  “I’m not an ideas man,” he whispered, and bit my ear softly.

  All over again, I would rush into that kiss. I would put my fingers into his shirt and feel across to where his arm ended, and know it, once and for all. His hand on my back, lifting my damp, wrinkly shirt over my head, his mouth on my breasts. The unclasping, unbuckling, unzipping, the licking and sucking and pushing. Who could blame me? I have no regrets.

  The ceiling swirled around us, the plaster circles of a long-ago artisan, echoing the waves of our bodies below.

  It was a new year.

  13

  I was alone and with a terrible hangover. The kind of desperate, dried-out, after-drink sadness that lingers in the corners of your eyes, the folds of your armpits, and behind your knees, that yields to nothing but sleeping the whole day away. I felt it immediately: the memory, the embarrassment, and the pleasure. I knew he wasn’t there but turned my head sideways to look. I closed my eyes and slept until the sun took the hint and moved elsewhere.

  Much later, I stood in the kitchen, my ragged robe knotted tightly around my waist, my secret running in an imaginary stream down my inner thigh. I shakily poured tea into my favorite mug, trying to protect myself with familiar comforts while ducking from the shadow of my betrayal. I slunk around the house. Put my fingers to picture frames, along window ledges. Slowly and silently like a ghost.

  I was waiting it out, waiting them out, Hattie and Jameson.

  Always three. Even while I tried to start again, away from this house, in my new home with Buddy, Hattie was there in our lives. Buddy brought up Hattie whenever he could. Reminded me of how different we were.

  “Have you gone frigid or something? You used to love this.” Mauling at me with the hands I had once thought of as so big and sexy. “You’ve changed, Penny, you know? You’re so uptight.” He shoved me away. “Why can’t you loosen up? Be more like Hattie, hey?” He got up to leave. “I chose the wrong sister.”

  When Hattie came to visit, she was wary of Buddy. She had an idea of what he was capable of.

  “I popped by the other day,” he said to her once. “You didn’t answer this time.”

  I stared at her.

  “I—I must not have been home, Bud,” she said.

  “You go over there?” I asked him, quietly, and I reached up, tugging my earlobe, a nervous tic.

  Buddy took a swig of his beer and shrugged. “Sure. Once in a while. Just checking in.”

  Later, on the phone, Hattie told me, in pleading tones, that she never thought anything of it. That she thought he was just being nice, that he’d never done anything wrong.

  “He never ‘did anything wrong’?”

  “To me, I mean.”

  I hung up on her. My frightened heart hardening.

  Always the two of us, always a third, secrets winding around us.

  * * *

  I had tried to leave Buddy one night. My timing was off. In these things, timing is everything. He returned home from the pub earlier than I’d expected but he’d made great progress while there. I heard him stumbling, crashing about.

  “Penny! Dirty Penny!” He called me over and over again, coming up the stairs.

  I had a knapsack over my shoulder when he came into our bedroom. He took up the doorway, cocked his head, his jaw sticking out.

  “Where you going?”

  I stood tall. “I can’t do this, Buddy. I need—we need to … this isn’t going to work.”

  “You’re leaving.”

  “Yes. It’s not your fault. I just—”

  He laughed softly. “Nope.”

  “Buddy, please.”

  “Let me put it this way: Nope. No. No way. Because,” he burped, and shook his head, like there was a buzzing, “’cause I’ll kill ya, Penny. I will kill you, I swear. And then who will take care of little Hattie? She’ll be all alone, like that.” Drunken snap.

  I tried to calm myself, and by doing this, him. I nodded, held out my hands.

  “Okay. Okay, Buddy. I won’t go.” I put my knapsack on the bed. “Forget it. It was a dumb idea.” Diffuse, diffuse. There wa
s a humming in my ears, and it was the sound of fear.

  “That’s a hard thing to forget, Penny.” He held the doorframe to support himself. “But just so you know. Just so we’re clear. If you think you can sneak out. If you think you can leave one day while I’m at work. Go ahead. But I’ll kill you, Pen.” He had started to cry. “I swear. I will. I will. Don’t leave me, Penny.” He was sobbing.

  My mouth dry, tears streaming down my face. He shuffled towards me, then fell on the bed, and rolled over.

  “I love you, Pen,” he mumbled, crying into his pillow.

  “I love you, too, Bud.”

  Soon he was snoring like a sick child. The next day he remembered nothing, and I never left.

  * * *

  Our house had been quiet all day, but in the late afternoon, while I was reading in a corner of the living room, my teeth gnawing on my lip, Hattie and Jameson returned home after a brisk, New Year’s Day walk. They were laughing, smiling, sharing the tail end of a tease or a joke that blew in with them. It stung seeing Jameson, back to playing house with Hattie, after being with me. I saw at once that Hattie didn’t know; there was too much sincerity there for a graceful cover-up. Jameson avoided my eye, following Hattie into the kitchen as she called out to me over her shoulder, chastising me for wasting the day away. I sat silently, the fool.

  “I told you you’d have fun if we had a party, Penny! I knew you just needed to cut loose a little bit more.” I heard puttering in the kitchen. “Of course,” she called out, “Sally told me you passed out before midnight. You’re such a lightweight.”

  I let her prattle on. I felt sick. I had done a terrible thing, hadn’t I? The biggest betrayal to the closest person to me. But I also felt hurt, stupid, ignored by Jameson’s blatant desire to move forward. I steeled myself. It was good he hadn’t told her. She could never know. That sort of thing could drive a person mad.

  I listened as Hattie called out plans for dinner.

  * * *

  Since my barn was covered in snow, I found an apartment immediately after the party. I told Hattie that I needed a little space and that I thought they might also. Jameson continued behaving as though nothing had happened and seeing him was an aching reminder of what we’d done—and how little it had meant to him. I needed to get out.

  The apartment was over a store on the main drag of our little town. Above a key carver and general repair shop. There were often clocks in there, lying abandoned on the counters, dismantled with their guts strewn about. Joseph, the gentleman who owned the building—he was exactly the kind of person you would call a gentleman, complete with tweed vests and newsboy hats—greeted me on our first meeting with such warmth and familiarity, despite not knowing me at all, that I almost wept. He touched my hand which held the ad for the apartment, with his own liver-spotted and papery one and told me that I looked like just the sort of gal who should live in that place upstairs.

  “You’ll shake things up, I can tell. I can tell just by your short hair. Some gals don’t like short hair. Hell, pardon my French, some guys don’t either, but I think you look real sharp, Penelope. And what a name! You move in whenever you want, okay, honey? It’s ready for you any time. And if you ever need anything, just come on down or call me. I’m home most nights and I only live in the back of the store, there.”

  He studied my face, and I squirmed and looked away.

  “You’re not having any trouble, are ya, Penelope? Boyfriend or someone giving you a hard time? That why you’re here?” He smiled and I laughed in spite of myself.

  “Just a meddlesome sister,” I said.

  “Oh yeah, I know what you mean. We’re gonna get along just fine.”

  I moved in right away, three days into the new year. I took with me a number of boxes and laundry hampers full of things. Because I was officially moving out, I was herded by Hattie, who wrung her hands, vacillating between snapping at me and imploring me to change my mind. We stomped through the snow in our impractical boots, my neck bristling at the breeze while I held a box on my hip and unlocked my car door. Hattie gabbed away at my side, begging me to call when I got to the apartment, which was a mere five minutes away. Jameson had cheerily loaded most of my things for me, and he stood now in the doorway, smiling benignly, which I found infuriating. It had meant nothing, I could see. As I reversed the car, an arm around the headrest beside me, I looked apologetically at my old house, its brick face hard and stoic.

  The apartment was clean, with new curtains and two worn rugs. I sighed deeply when I had laid down the last box against the wall and went straight to the bathroom to run a hot bath. The tub was small, but as I eased my way in, and my skin contracted, pulled tight right to my scalp, covered in goose bumps. I relaxed and lifted a toe under the tap to catch the last drops on my toenails. I took a breath and submerged my head into the water, feeling a momentary panic, and then a great ripple of shivering relief when I pulled myself out again. I wondered where my heater was, packed in a box full of screwdrivers and kitchen utensils and other unrelated items. The window above me had steamed over, and I noticed how clean the windowsill was. Heard the squawk of a crow, over and over. I had once learned about how smart crows are, how resourceful. I laced my fingers together and smiled at having space of my own.

  And so when, two weeks later, I discovered that I was pregnant after making an appointment for a blood test to rule it out, I was shocked that something had still managed to slip under the rug of my privacy. My face froze, my whole body went still, while a nurse told me the results, her face a mask of solemn professionalism. My first thought was that it was a good thing I had been so careful for all these years, because obviously, I was fertile ground for bad ideas. Next, I planned on erasing it, striking this fateful diversion altogether. To hell with Hattie and Jameson, the king and queen of St. Margaret’s. It wasn’t fair, and I would take care of it, regardless of Hattie and her stupid plans to have a baby.

  I stood in front of the mirror after another bath, holding my breasts in my hands and gauging their growing size and sensitivity. If I’m honest, I did feel smug. It was my turn to get something—there, I said it. And then, like a subconscious ghost, I saw Buddy smirking behind me in the mirror reflection, lighting a cigarette. You just can’t let her have anything, I heard him mutter. Cunt. I told you: I chose the wrong sister. I looked at myself and touched my stomach, pushed my fingers in, casting Buddy out.

  14

  Days passed. I hadn’t done anything about the pregnancy yet; I still hadn’t made up my mind. I paid attention as everything became hypersensitive: my boobs and my nose and my bladder. I had no one to talk to about it. This was my life, of course. I rarely had anyone to talk to about anything. Funny thing about murdering your husband: you can never really make friends after that. And whoever you once had, like sweet Sally, has to be left to the wayside. Jameson had been the exception, but he was Hattie’s. There was no one I could trust, no one I’d expose anything to. Even Hattie and I were tangled up with secrets.

  But now I was alone in my above-the-store apartment. So few furnishings. Everything was still in boxes, which were themselves becoming a comfort in that place. I often heard metal grinding or banging coming from downstairs. I wondered what my elderly landlord would make of my predicament. I worried about what he would think. I feared that he could read it on my face when I waved at him through the front window of the shop. I worried about that, so I wouldn’t have to worry about Hattie and Jameson.

  I thought about Jameson so often. I felt like I did at puberty: confused and disgusted, curious, and ashamed. My body wasn’t helping. In private, I was horrified by my darkening nipples but was turned on by the sight of them at the same time. And the fact that I was avoiding him and Hattie enabled me to knead my memory of him into something fresh. At times, it was easier to resent him.

  All these girls and women out there—Hattie!—who wanted what I had, to conceive. And still I didn’t do anything about it. Days were coming and going, a wash of gray a
nd snow outside my window, on my way to work, waiting for a blizzard that hovered, threatening to drop. I dodged Hattie’s phone calls and ignored her messages. Finally I had a secret to myself, and I had no desire to tell her; but I wasn’t ready yet to decide what to do with what was growing and making plans inside me. Maybe it made no difference what I thought. Maybe the Fates were tangled up in the course of events, no matter my opinion on them.

  I wanted to distract myself. I headed into Joseph’s repair shop after work. The door jingled when I entered, and I was surprised to see so many people there. Buying weird little hinges and copper parts, waiting in a small line to have their keys cut, holding them out like they were going to open doors in succession. Joseph busily moving around, chatting with everyone he saw. He smiled and hustled over, put his arm around me. Once again I felt myself sag under his warmth.

  “Penelope Grayson, you vision!”

  “Hello, Joseph.” A nervous finger over my ear. “Your store is busy.”

  “Oh, yes, yes. And what brings you here?”

  “Nothing, really. Um. Do you need any help?”

  Joseph laughed, and his face crinkled all over, and my own smile faltered.

  “But yes,” he said, “of course. Come on back behind the counter.”

  I grinned, and my lip cracked.

  Joseph gave me an apron, asked me if I knew how to operate a cash register. I did, having worked at a deli as a teen, although now it took a couple of customers before I got comfortable. I marveled at the small and large things that Joseph had repaired for people of St. Margaret’s: toasters and fans, alarm clocks, and even regular clocks. His workshop, which was a thick, wide table behind us, was littered with springs and whirring remnants of time and habits and memory and stubborn refusals to give up. Between cutting keys, Joseph chatted with friends and strangers, handing over repaired household items that had been wiped clean and given life. I fought a cynicism that asked why people didn’t just replace their broken things, and certainly in time feelings like mine would win over, and shops like Joseph’s would cease to be. But more than his craftsmanship and stick-to-it-ness, I admired Joseph’s ease with people. Something I’ve never had. I am proud and defensive, always a second behind on the smile and just not quite warm enough. I would love to have that easy way with people, that magnetism. Hattie had it. Joseph softened me, and I bonded with him so quickly that it startled me.