The Winter Sister

by Megan Collins

  “It’s just one,” she continued, “so Mom won’t get suspicious, and he said he got it in white because—okay, this is a little corny, but I swear he was so sincere—because the color is as pure as the way we love each other.” She laughed quietly, careful even in her giddiness not to wake Mom. “I don’t know, he said it a lot better than that. I wish sometimes we could just stop and record moments, you know? I mean, he always says we—ouch!”

  She sucked in her breath as she stared at her finger. A bright bead of blood blossomed on her skin. We stood together in the space between our beds, neither of us moving to grab a napkin or tissue, and I was stunned by how beautiful it looked, how the tiny wound reminded me of the first drop of paint on a canvas.

  “Wow,” she said, and then she lifted her finger and swept it across the petals.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, watching as she twirled the rose in her hand, leaving smudges of red among the luminous white.

  “I don’t know,” she said, and she dropped her finger, smiling faintly at the flower. “It just makes sense like this, I think.” Then, pulling down the collar of her shirt, she revealed a dime-sized bruise just below her clavicle. “Take care of this for me?”

  • • •

  Still holding the bouquet at Persephone’s grave, I realized that my grip had crinkled the plastic wrapping. I dropped the roses into the snow and took a few steps backward, any peace I might have found now lost. My eyes darted around the cemetery, my body tense as the strings of a tightly tuned guitar. Was everything Ben did now—becoming a nurse, leaving flowers—just a calculated effort to try to soothe his guilt? Or, I wondered, the thought sliding through me like a stiff, paralyzing drug, was he sending me a message, telling me that he wasn’t just going to disappear, that even though Persephone was dead, he wouldn’t leave her or my family alone?

  • • •

  “Why are you driving so fast?” Mom asked an hour later as I barely braked at stop signs on our way to the hospital.

  “I’m not,” I said, pressing my foot more firmly on the gas. “I’m just trying to get you there on time.”

  “On time?” Mom smoothed down the hair of her wig before leaning back against the headrest. “At this rate, we’ll be twenty minutes early.”

  “That’s fine. Maybe they’ll take us early.”

  “They won’t,” she insisted. “Everything’s on a schedule there. And I hate waiting. It’s bad enough having to sit in that chair for a couple hours—just waiting, waiting, waiting while I get the damn treatment. Now we’re going to be waiting beforehand, too.” Crossing her arms, she turned her head to stare out the passenger window like a sulky teenager.

  “Well, listen,” I said. “About that.” I reached into the back seat and felt around until my fingers closed around the handle of a plastic bag. Pulling it forward, I plopped it gently into her lap. “I got you something.”

  “What is it?” she asked, staring down at it apprehensively, like it was a dog that might bite her.

  “It’s something I picked up yesterday,” I said. “Just open it.”

  Up the road, a green light switched to yellow and then red. As I slowed to a stop behind a line of cars, Mom reached into the bag and pulled out a copy of Wuthering Heights, which I’d bought while running errands the day before. It had a dark blue hardcover and its pages looked as if they’d been dipped in gold.

  “Is this because you feel bad about the other day?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  The light switched back to green, and I eased my foot back onto the accelerator.

  “Being late with the pills,” Mom said. “Making me throw up.”

  “No, Mom, I told you—there was a line at the pharmacy and I saw someone I knew from high school. I’ve already apologized a hundred times about that.”

  I’d had to lie to her, of course—just another item on the growing list of ways I’d failed her since I’d been home. But I couldn’t tell her where I’d been without explaining why, and I wasn’t about to let her know how dangerously close she was to Ben each time she got her treatment. That was my problem and mine alone—even more so now that I’d seen the roses—and I was going to handle it.

  “I know that,” Mom said. “Which is why you don’t have to be giving me books. You’ve been attentive enough as it is the last two days. Annoyingly attentive, I’d say. If you’re not careful, you’re going to end up as bad as Jill.”

  I wasn’t sure how heating up soup, getting her crackers, and periodically asking her if she needed anything qualified as “annoyingly attentive,” but I brushed past the comment anyway. Turning a corner, the hospital came into view ahead of us, and I accelerated toward the entrance to the parking garage.

  “Well, I didn’t get you the book because of that,” I said. “I got it because you wanted to read it on Monday and they didn’t have it. I just thought you might like to have your own copy.”

  Mom turned the book over in her hands, as if looking for the latch to a secret compartment along its edges. “I don’t really like hardcovers,” she said, putting it back into the bag.

  I took a left turn, driving faster than I should have down a ramp into the garage. As I pulled sharply into a space, the book slid off Mom’s lap and onto the floor. She glared at it, its pages thrust open against the dusty mat, but she made no movement to pick it up. When we got out of the car, I watched as she closed the door behind her, leaving the book locked inside.

  • • •

  It didn’t take me long to find Ben. Once Mom was settled into her chair in the treatment room, her IV taped to her arm, I told her I had some questions for the woman at the front desk. She stared out the window and lifted her hand in a slight, listless wave as if to dismiss me.

  I walked around the cancer center, glancing into every open door for a glimpse of Ben. I wanted to seem strong when I saw him, fierce and invulnerable, but my pulse was already betraying me. When I finally found him, coming out of a closed room, a pen clamped between his teeth as he stuffed a paper into a folder, my knees buckled a little, and I forced myself to remember the roses in the snow, how intrusive they were, how thorned and threatening.

  “Ben.” I called his name before my throat had the chance to tighten up like a fist.

  Ben’s eyes latched onto mine and his mouth opened just enough for his pen to clatter to the floor.

  “Hi,” he said. “I thought you didn’t—”

  “I don’t.” We were standing only a few feet apart. “Did you put roses on Persephone’s grave?”

  Ben tilted his head, his brows furrowing. “Yeah,” he said. “I always do.”

  Stiffening my jaw, I was afraid that if I didn’t keep speaking, it would set like concrete. “What do you mean you always do?”

  He shifted his weight, looking around the large space, its couches and windows, its doors to rooms where people suffered and survived. “I’ve been leaving her roses for years,” he said. “Ever since . . .” He cleared his throat as I narrowed my eyes. “But when I saw you on Monday, I realized that I hadn’t done it in a couple months, so I brought some over yesterday.”

  A nurse squeezed between us then, glancing up at Ben as she passed, and a wave of nausea rose within me. “And it’s always white roses,” I said.

  Ben nodded. “Yeah, because—”

  “Because they’re as pure as your love for each other?”

  Again, his brows furrowed, a crafted look of confusion distorting his features. “What?”

  “That’s what you told her the first time you gave her a white rose. Persephone said you chose that color because it was as pure as the way you loved each other. I know this, because she told me things.”

  I wanted that last sentence to make him nervous, make him wonder how much else I knew about their relationship, but he surprised me by chuckling, lifting a hand to cover his face. “Oh God,” he said. “Did I really say that? Okay, that’s embarrassing, but, uh, no. That’s not why I keep getting white roses.
I just remember she liked them.”

  “Well, you need to stop,” I snapped. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough? Do you think that when we visit her grave, we want to see any evidence that you’ve been there? You got what you wanted—you’re free, the police have nothing against you—so just leave us alone, okay? And for God’s sake—leave Persephone alone, too.”

  I started to spin around, but Ben’s fingers latched onto my wrist, tugging me back toward him. “You think I killed her?” he whispered. His dark eyes were shining like the ocean at night.

  I looked down at my wrist, how his fingers dug into my skin, and as I did, he looked, too, then immediately let go. “Sorry,” he said. “Sorry. But, seriously, you think I’m the one who killed her?”

  I couldn’t read his expression. It seemed to flicker between bewilderment and anger, caution and aggression. His nostrils flared as he breathed, but whether it was out of nervousness or fury, I couldn’t tell.

  “Of course I know you killed her,” I whispered back, rubbing at my wrist. It was red where he’d grabbed it, but it didn’t look like it would bruise. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

  For some reason, I wasn’t afraid of him right then. Even though he’d grabbed my arm, I felt something like empowerment. For the first time, I was able to speak the truth to his face, to tell him how disgusting and cowardly I knew him to be, and it felt good—exhilarating, even. It felt like I was finally protecting Persephone the way I should have done all along.

  “It wasn’t me,” he said, shaking his head vigorously. “In fact . . .” He tucked his folder under his chin and patted at the pockets of his scrubs. “Shit, I think I left it in my locker. Um, do you think we could go somewhere for a few minutes?”

  He looked toward the reception desk, where a couple nurses stood together, one staring at us with interest, the other stern, resting her fist on her cocked hip.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said.

  “No, it’s just—that’s my supervisor over there.” He gestured toward the women. “I can take my break a little early, and we could go down to the cafeteria—it’s public, so we wouldn’t be alone or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. I have something I want to show you. I found it a few weeks ago, and I brought it today, on the off chance I got to talk to you again. I was wondering if you could help me understand it.”

  “Ben,” I said sharply. “I don’t want to help you do anything.”

  “No, I know, I get it,” he said. “But what I’m trying to say is that I realized something—or, at least, I think I did—and I think it will help you understand what happened that night.” His eyes flicked toward the nurses again. “Please?”

  I didn’t want to admit it, but part of me was curious to know what he was talking about. He had a fumbling desperation that made me think it might be useful to let him keep rambling. He wanted to show me something—after my meeting with Parker, the word evidence flashed in large letters in my mind—and maybe, while trying to convince me of his innocence, he would slip up, mention a detail that only Persephone’s killer would know.

  “Fine,” I said after a moment.

  “Really?” His face instantly relaxed. “Oh man, thank you. I’ll meet you in the cafeteria in a few minutes. It’s on the third floor.”

  He was walking backward as he said this, his eyes fixed on mine, but just before he turned around, I could have sworn I saw him smile.

  12

  I chose a table by the window. The cafeteria wasn’t very full—only a few families and a couple doctors—but I still felt more comfortable knowing that, if anything happened, there would be witnesses.

  Ben waved as he walked in and slid into the seat across from me.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said.

  I stared at him, suddenly unwilling to speak unless I absolutely had to.

  “Well, okay, so . . .” He pulled a photograph out of his pocket and pushed it toward me across the table. “Do you know anything about this?”

  I recognized Will Emory right away, even though he couldn’t have been more than twenty-five years old in the picture. He was tall like Ben, with the same dark eyes, and he was standing in front of a red sports car. Clinging to his arm, staring up at him with a smiling, lovestruck expression on her face was—I shot forward, bending over the picture.

  “What the hell is this?” I asked.

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  “That’s my mother,” I said, pointing to the woman. I was almost breathless looking at her—the long blonde hair she used to braid into place, the smile that used to greet me when I came home from school.

  “I know,” Ben said. “I didn’t really recognize her at first—it’s not that great of a picture—but then I noticed how much she looks like Persephone here.”

  It was true—not just because of the length of her hair or the color of her eyes; it was her posture, too, her height, her frame—and as I stared at the picture, I ached for them both.

  Ben flipped over the photo, pressing Mom’s beautiful beaming face against the table. “Look,” he said, pointing to the bottom corner, where someone had written a date inside of a heart.

  Those bulky loops, the way the ink curved up at the end of each word—I recognized the handwriting from notes she used to leave on my pillow or in my lunchbox. “My mother wrote that,” I said. “But—what is this? She didn’t even know your dad.”

  “Apparently she did.”

  “Where did you find this?”

  Ben nodded, as if he’d been expecting me to ask that question. “In my grandfather’s house. Well—no, I guess it’s mine now. Do you know where my dad lives? The big house on the hill?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, there’s this guesthouse in the back that my grandfather lived in while I was growing up. He died when I was nineteen, and the house just sat empty for years after that. I moved in a while ago, and I’ve only recently had time to start going through some of the things that are stored there. I was actually looking for my grandfather’s stuff, but I found this box that had my dad’s name on it, and the picture was just loose in there with all these high school track and field trophies, yearbooks, graduation tassels, things like that. I don’t know if it was something my grandfather was storing for my dad, or if it was things my dad boxed up and kept there after the house became empty. Either way—there it was.”

  “There it was,” I repeated, careful to keep my voice dry and even.

  “And look,” Ben pressed on, pointing at the date on the bottom corner again. “This date—it’s about a year and a half before my parents got married.”

  “So?”

  “So . . . I don’t know. Do you think they dated—your mom and my dad? Before my parents were together? I mean, look at how she’s looking at him.”

  He flipped the picture over again, and the warmth in my mom’s eyes brought a stinging feeling to my own. She had been like that once—open, loving, her laughter like a song. She would hum while doing the laundry. She would tend to her rhododendrons in the front yard, talking to the bees that buzzed around her as she worked.

  “And this heart she drew around the date,” Ben said, turning the photo once more. “It just—it seems pretty obvious they were together once, right? And, if that’s true, well—my dad has a way of making women hate him.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  Ben looked toward the window. “My parents have been divorced since I was eighteen,” he said. “And it happened pretty suddenly.” He paused, squinting at the trees in the distance outside. “I mean, I knew they fought—a lot—but one day I came home and my mom had all these suitcases packed. I asked her what was going on and she told me she was moving to Portugal.”

  “Portugal?”

  Ben nodded. “She has a cousin there that she was close with when they were kids. I’d never even met her at the time, but . . . anyway. She said I was eighteen now, and she’d stayed longer than she should have, b
ut she’d wanted to make sure I wasn’t negatively influenced, or something like that. And so she just left. And anytime I’ve talked to her or visited her, if I so much as mention my dad, she goes crazy. She yells about how she doesn’t want to hear a word about him, how he’s a terrible human being, on and on and on like that, and I mean, she just hates him.”

  He looked at the back of the photo again, tracing the heart with his fingertip. “And it’s not just her,” he continued. “Since they got divorced, my dad has dated all kinds of women, and they all end up hating him, too. Just last month, I was in the guesthouse and I heard one of them screaming at him at the top of her lungs. Then I heard a car screeching away. So I don’t know what he does to them exactly, but like I said, he has a way of driving women crazy.”

  He rubbed at the ink where the date had been written on the photo, as if it hadn’t been dried and set for decades, as if his fingers were strong enough to erase any record of the past.

  “Maybe he was abusive,” I said. “Left marks on them.”

  Ben snapped his head up to look at me, and my heart clenched. His features hardened and his jaw tightened, the movement of the bone seeming to ripple through his scar.

  “No,” he said, his voice resolute. “No, it wasn’t like that. He didn’t hurt them. Not physically, anyway.”

  “How can you be so sure?” I asked. Then, drawing in my breath, imagining each molecule of air as a tiny source of strength collecting inside me, I added, “Like father, like s—”

  “Look,” Ben interrupted, his eyes like two dark marbles staring out at me. “I was just telling you that to try to explain how—well, I think it could be the same thing with your mom. If she dated my dad and ended up hating him, then it would make sense that she wouldn’t want Persephone to date me. Right?”

  “That had nothing to do with you,” I said. “Persephone wasn’t allowed to date anyone.”