Sister of Mine

by Laurie Petrou

  “Enough, Hattie.” Jameson raised his voice loudly and pointed at her, surprising me. “I have had it with you dangling that around like you’re jealous. Like the whole thing wasn’t your idea to begin with.” Louder and louder, his arm outstretched. This shy man, reaching his limit. “That is the truth, Hattie. That is the real truth. Penny and me? That was your idea. You forced me into it.”

  I felt these words like a hammer.

  “What?” I heard myself saying, the words out of my mouth before I realized. “What do you mean? You—you told him to sleep with me?” I staggered, this knowledge hitting me to the core. “What the fuck, Hattie. That is diabolical, even for you.”

  She and Jameson froze. Shock in her eyes. He closed his own in defeat.

  “You slept with him?” She whispered.

  My mouth opened and closed. “I—”

  “Jesus, Penny,” Jameson murmured, shaking his head. Hattie gasped, and I heard a small sob escape her mouth.

  “Hattie, look. It was—”

  “Oh my God,” she whispered.

  “Like you didn’t push him to me, serve him up on a platter!” I panicked, saying something I hardly meant, but hoped to be true. I was sweating, horror creeping into my thoughts. I felt hot despite the darkening sky, the summer storm coming in.

  “Oh my God,” she repeated, staring first at Jameson and then at me. She stood, and her chair tottered, then tipped, clattering to the ground. She was breathing quickly. She stared at Jameson. “You fucked her.” Then to me, “Penny, you did that to me? You did. You fucking did. Elliot wasn’t premature; he was right on time. Because you were already pregnant when—my God.”

  Jameson had been staring, mouth open, and he walked quickly towards her, but she shoved him away and wheeled on me.

  “And you thought I asked him to?” She exhaled, hard. “Only you, Penny. Only you are capable of being that kind of monster.”

  “Hattie, I’m so sorry,” I breathed, my voice cracking.

  Jameson turned sharply over the fence to the driveway, his eyes widening in shock.

  “Elliot!” he shouted, and I looked in time to see my son, his eyes on mine, his hands on the handlebars of his bike. He turned and sped away, those untangling truths chasing after him.

  30

  I ran to the driveway after him, pulled my own bike out of the shed, and rode out to find my son, leaving the wreckage of my life behind me, Jameson and Hattie calling after us.

  I circled the neighborhood, calling out his name. I was rusty, not having ridden in a long time, pumping my legs hard to get speed and balance. Soon I was taking turns boldly like a kid, zipping through shortcuts between streets, enjoying the feel of it in spite of myself. These were my streets. How often as a child had I careened around these corners, grinning, cool air on my teeth, wind making my eyes water? I had peddled faster and faster, out-riding Hattie in an instant, leaving her spinning her wheels in my dust, heedless of my mum’s plea to keep her in my sights when all I wanted was to be out of sight. Gum popping in my back teeth, knuckles cold around the handlebars. Life seemed hard but it was a breeze then, wasn’t it. The world turns and now we were barely hanging on.

  Elliot, Elliot, Elliot. With each burst of calling his name, I felt I loosened my grip on him, on myself.

  Past the school, where Hattie and I had grown up and where Jameson worked, where I had taken Elliot by the hand. Schoolyards look so desolate in the evening; perfect for melancholy teenagers, but none were there. I rode down the main drag, where there were two pubs, neither of them good, but always full to the hilt with those people who, like me and Hattie, had never gotten out of here. There were a couple of men walking away from Dusty’s, towards a parked car, towards me, and as I got closer, I locked eyes with Mac Williams, twirling his keys around a finger. He looked surprised, then called out angrily, “Dirty Penny! Hey, you fucking bitch,” and I heard in the echo of that boozy bellow how our fates had crossed. I had underestimated St. Margaret’s, its players, how they could trip me up. This is the school, this is the pub, this is the church, this is the steeple and then there, at the end—the Grayson house. Home is where your secrets are. That huge brick vault, keeper of lies, witness to death, protector of the guilty, and home, home, home. I veered dangerously close to them, to Mac and his friends, and screeched to a halt.

  “Have you seen Elliot pass this way?” I asked, gasping for breath.

  He laughed bawdily. “You lookin’ for your boy?” He looked at his friends, elbowing the one closest to him. “You can’t seem to keep a hold of the men in your life, there, can ya?”

  “Fuck you,” I spat, my fear glad to have found a target. “Fuck you and your sad fucking life.”

  His laugh turned to a snarl. “You’d better watch yourself, Dirty Penny. People will start to talk. Your kid and all these fires … People are going to come after you, like they came after me.”

  “They went after you because you’re a criminal.” Done with him, I lifted my head, looking, looking. And suddenly I knew where Elliot was.

  Mac started towards me, his chest puffed out. “Oh, is that right? You know, maybe Buddy just didn’t hit you hard enough. Maybe you need a couple more knocks.” One of his buddies pulled at his arm, as if sensing danger, but Mac snatched it away. I put a foot on my pedal, just as he grasped my wrist, hard. I tried to yank it away, but he held firm. Wrists are delicate—I remember this. There are things that you will always know after, and one of them is how fragile your bones are. So much was the same, but now so much was different. I felt my body tense in fury. His friends hung back, their bravado stripped away, calling lightly for him to come on. He ignored everything but me.

  “You know,” he said, tightening his hold on me, “maybe the police’ve been barkin’ up the wrong tree all along. You’re a hothead, and you’ve got a crazy family.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “God almighty, you probably had something to do with Buddy. I mean, hell, you act like you don’t even care he died.”

  I leaned over my handlebars. It was worth it, even if it took me from Elliot for this glorious minute. I hissed like a wild cat.

  “I didn’t care, Mac. You’re right. I was glad. And do you know what? You haven’t got a clue about what really happened.”

  His eyes widened. Something Mac couldn’t bear was being taunted. He bared his teeth, I reeled back, and I spat in his face. He loosened his grip long enough for me to snatch my hand back, and I launched away, furiously pedalling, fear galloping in my chest.

  Mac screamed after me—“I knew it! I knew it, you bitch!”—and soon I heard his car screech away from the curb, coming up behind me quickly. I hopped onto the sidewalk, peeling away. I took a route that a car could never take.

  I raced towards the property. Elliot. Elliot.

  Then, over the trees, a tiny orange spark flew on the wind, and suddenly I was there, through the trees, and it was, too, all around me: a blaze. A barn burner. My barn, my sanctuary, Elliot’s hideout, up in enormous flames. I stood, my legs straddling my bike like a teenager, stunned at the furious beauty of it, at the power and momentum of this thing. This thing, all over again.

  It came back to me in an instant: that one terrible, wonderful day.

  * * *

  I had prepared.

  I had roasted a chicken for dinner. Carefully, expertly, I had washed the cavity, pricking a lemon with a fork and pushing it inside with a handful of thyme and rosemary, resting it on carrots and potatoes in a large roasting pan. I had sliced some onions in quarters, pulled two garlic cloves from a bulb I kept in a small ceramic cup with a broken handle that I liked. The smell of it, as it cooked, wafted through the house.

  * * *

  I was momentarily transfixed. It was a behemoth of fire: a dazzling, dizzying force. And then, I began to scream for my son. I threw my bike down, shielding my eyes, and ran towards it.

  I heard something. Muffled yelling. I turned all around, unsure where it was coming from, and I saw Mac’s car parke
d at a crazy angle halfway up an overgrown path. He had come a different way, taking the old road that led to the back of the barn, the one he and Buddy had always used. I ran around the barn, calling out against the smoke that was filling my lungs. Calling Elliot. Elliot. Screaming his name until I was choking on it, on the smoke, my eyes streaming. And on top of it all, above the crackling and smashing of wood coming down, that sound that has haunted me for years, that sound that brings me to a standstill no matter where I am: sirens.

  * * *

  I heard him coming up the stairs. I heard the door opening and tried not to think of all the things in the house that I loved. Insignificant things, really, when it comes down to it, but the things we surround ourselves with: soap dishes and favorite sweaters, a fork with a pretty handle, juice glasses etched with snowflakes, paintings and framed pictures of family, soft leather Mary Janes, a flowered scarf, a hairbrush. There were so many more things: things that I had forgotten about but would discover later in the smouldering ash. The roasting pan itself would be found essentially intact, sitting on top of the stove, with an uneaten chicken in it, looking almost untouched while the house around it had curled into brown lace.

  He stumbled in, leaning in the doorway. His voice was gravelly and already thick with afternoon beer that I had stocked in the fridge. He took his position in his chair, barely acknowledging me. A shrug when I reminded him that I would be going to Hattie’s house to catch up, that he should eat. He waved me off. I offered him a beer, everything heightened into Technicolor focus: the beads of sweat on the can, my hand, the sound of the can opening. And soon another—into which I had slipped three sleeping pills, the small orange ovals he took regularly, my heart beating in my chest as I saw them fizzing just inside the mouth of the can. I kissed the top of his head, a guilty gesture maybe, and he dodged me, irritated, turned up the baseball game. The crack of a bat, the commentator, in my ear like a megaphone. Focus, focus. I puttered in the kitchen, I tidied. I brought him another beer. Time roving in haphazard speeds: too fast, slow motion, and my own body like a robot. The sun had set; it was night. Four cans on the table beside his chair, his cigarette burning in the glass ashtray. Earlier in the day I had gone to the basement, where we kept a cookie tin of dead batteries that Buddy took to dispose of periodically. I switched two dead batteries with the ones in our fire alarm. I lit a cigarette standing on the chair beneath it, holding the match in my hand long after the cigarette was lit. The smoke curling into the yellow-white device, a silent accessory.

  * * *

  Elliot. Elliot. I ran towards the fire. And then I saw them, framed in the doorway, their skin lit up by the blaze, Mac incandescent with rage, screaming into Elliot’s face.

  “This is not your place!” he bawled. Elliot stood, frozen with fear, seemingly unaware of the size and danger of the fire growing in strength behind him. “This is his, you little shit, it’s Buddy’s place! Where is Penny? Where’s that bitch?” He was sobbing and yelling, Elliot staring in shock. I lurched forward, stumbling and running. My boy. My son.

  * * *

  He cracked another can open. I went upstairs and packed a bag. Came down and heard him snoring. A loud, wheezy, noise. His chest rising and falling. Breathing. Life. I stood still. A fly ball on the TV, players rushing, running, looking up, up, up.

  Maybe he didn’t deserve it. Maybe no one does. Maybe he always begged my forgiveness after our fights, maybe he said he’d change. But some things need to come to an end. Sometimes you need to force somebody’s hand.

  It had to look accidental, and so there was a chance it wouldn’t work: that Buddy would be woken by the fire, that our neighbors would see the smoke or flames sooner than necessary, that the capricious Fates would twist and bend and break events so that I would wake the next day with a furious and injured husband, no home, and no new life. I tried, in my planning, to prevent this. I figured if I set the fire at the far end of the room, a wall of smoke would lull Buddy into death before the flames entered the picture and took hold of his body.

  I watched him snoring. It was late now. People were sleeping all over town. I collected myself in the doorway of the living room, waiting. I had taken a long fireplace match from the box on the mantel, and I now held both the match and the box in my shaking hands.

  And then I saw myself, my reflection in the window across the room. Sometimes that image floats into my dreams; me, standing like a ghost girl, a scared face.

  * * *

  I scrambled towards them, and when he saw me, Mac grabbed Elliot, pulling him out of my reach, his eyes on me. No. No. An enormous piece of wood broke off above us and came crashing down, separating me from them. Elliot struggled against Mac, this man who he didn’t know, this terrifying person I had underestimated just like I had the rest of this town. The firetrucks were arriving around the other side. The sirens blasting above everything else. The heat was overwhelming. The smoke blinding and choking. My terror was pulsing like it had a heartbeat of its own. My head throbbed. Elliot. Elliot. I held out my hands, trying to calm Mac, to reassure Elliot.

  “Mac, please,” I said, firmly. Elliot’s eyes were locked onto mine. I took a step forward.

  Mac pulled him further from me, deeper into the barn.

  “Tell me the truth! It was all your fault, I know it!” he hissed, and I tried again to reach for my son, but Mac pulled him away, light as a doll, and my voice broke into a sob.

  “Please, Mac!”

  “What did you do to him? What did you do to Buddy? Tell me!” he thundered, his voice cracking. I heard more noise around us, the yelling of firefighters. I felt the space change as huge bodies crashed towards us. And then I saw that face, Detective Moore, and other officers, firefighters, and Mac turned and saw them, too. The who’s who of the people in your community: police, firefighter, murderer, criminal, son, sister, daughter, mother. What will we be? What had we become?

  “No!” Mac screamed, holding Elliot in front of him. “Not me, her!” He wailed like a spoiled child, pointing at me, Elliot crying in earnest now, limp in his arms, “I know what she did!” But they were all over us in an instant, Iain tackling Mac, and a firefighter scooping up Elliot in his arms. Someone’s arms around me, rushing me into the breathable air.

  * * *

  We were far from the fire now, at the edge of the woods, an ambulance parked nearby. Elliot was sitting some ways away, with a silver blanket around his shoulders. He was drinking water and being checked over by a paramedic. I knew he would never touch a match again for the rest of his life. We were alive. We were exhausted, in shock, but we had survived.

  Mac was gone, pulled away in handcuffs by Iain Moore, and handed off to another officer. I had watched him, spitting out pieces of my secret behind him as he coughed and ranted into the darkness. What would he say? What would anyone believe?

  Hattie and Jameson had arrived just as we’d come out of the fire, Hattie hysterically pushing past anyone who tried to stop her, her tiny arms encircling Elliot fiercely. Then she had rushed at me, crying into my neck, her relief and her pain like a tangible thing, her arms clutching me with a strength and intensity I had forgotten she had. I had watched Jameson hold his boy, tipping his face up and kissing him all over, tears running down his face. He had gripped me closely afterwards, murmuring, “You’re safe. Thank God.” Hattie had barely agreed to let Elliot go for him to be seen by the paramedic, but Jameson had led her away, reluctantly.

  We watched as the fire was taken, watched it give up. Jameson stood a little behind Hattie and me. Here we were, after all the noise, after ensuring everyone was safe, here we were, our family: silently looking on in shock, as the barn smouldered in front of us.

  And yet. This circular trick of fate had dislodged something. The fire was under control, but I could feel something else starting. A crackling, a rising tension. Hattie was pacing, energy coming off of her like sparks, her eyes darting over at Elliot and then me. She had almost lost us, and I could see that this had made h
er more volatile than anything else. And she hadn’t forgotten what she’d learned: what we’d done.

  Jameson took a step towards her. “Hattie,” he said, “Hattie, please—”

  “Shut up, Jameson,” she snapped. She shook her head in disbelief. “I cannot believe this. Look at this. Look at you both. What a disaster.” She threw out her hands to encompass the wreckage around us.

  “Hattie, enough,” I said. I was defeated, numb, but not ready to let her have full reign of her anger. “You don’t get to blame him for this. For anything.” She stared at me, her eyes furious. “You’re the one who gave up. And yes, I am sorry. About Jameson, about everything. But it was years ago now. If nothing else, tonight should teach us that we need to protect the life we have.”

  “The life we have? It’s my life, Penny! My life!” she screeched, suddenly, and I knew she’d been waiting for this. The pressure keg of her withheld anger had finally burst. “You think I gave up? Just lost interest in my son? Do you have any fucking idea what I have gone through?” Her hard eyes locked in mine; it was me she had in her sights, only me. “It’s never going away, Penny! It’s never fucking getting out of here!” She hit herself hard on the side of the head with the heel of her hand. “Every day it’s in my head, Penny. You left it all on me, then came back just in time to be the fucking hero again—”

  “Hattie, keep your voice down. It’s not like that—”

  “Oh yeah? Do you think you know what it’s like? You think you know how it feels to be me? To live with what I’ve done?”

  And then I saw Iain Moore. He was talking to Elliot. He was looking our way. It was happening too fast. Too slow.

  * * *

  Does Hattie remember? I do. When I was fifteen and she was twelve? It was summer, glorious summer. I was parched. Parked my bike against the garage and cracked open a sweating pop can I’d bought from the corner store. I lifted it to my forehead, I remember, and closed my eyes for a second. Took that first sip as I walked in the front door. That’s when I first heard her crying. Hattie. I stood, listening. It was from the kitchen.