“It wasn’t the same without you. I kept looking for you in the corner, anytime a girl with black hair walked by. I saw someone I thought to be you. She resembled you.”
“I miss you,” I gush, comforted and absurdly touched by this recognition of my absence.
“You are missing me,” he answers in a favorite play with French grammar. I smile at the old game.
“Tu me manques. Is it hot there?”
“Not too much. But I am inside the most of the day.” Nico works in finance, at the Bourse, not far from my apartment. He wears stiff, clean suits that always smell very faintly of cigarettes, and he carries a leather bag filled with important papers. I love this about him, how thoroughly sanctioned he is. He has stuck to the guidelines of capitalism, and he’s winning at it.
“And what are you going to do now?” I ask.
“I’m going home to your apartment,” he answers promptly. “Just around the corner. I want to sleep in a bed that smells of you.”
“I miss you,” I say again, in English this time.
“I miss you too.”
“I’ll let you go to bed. I was just about to go check on my mother.”
“Good luck, Ava. I think of you.”
“Me too.”
“Will you call me tomorrow?” he asks with a hint of hesitation.
“Of course I will. Bonne nuit,” I say and end the conversation. I stare out the window for a moment before sliding the phone back into my bag. I go into the kitchen and open the fridge. In the right-hand crisper I’ve hidden some nicer whites: wines we didn’t make ourselves. I pull one of them out. I reach up into the too-tall wooden cabinets that my mother insisted on and get down two wineglasses. I hope Mom will see this as a treat or, maybe, a bribe for her cooperation. She’s not usually allowed real wineglasses in her room, not since the tremors started intensifying. One of Zelda’s emails detailed a harrowing experience wherein Mom managed to slice open her fingers with a broken wineglass, and Zelda was convinced that Nadine had tried to off herself. Though I can’t say there wasn’t a longish moment, as I stood in the doorway, dear sister, when I thought: Damn, if I’d just come upstairs a little later, Zelda had written. But it had apparently been accidental, and Zelda had patched Nadine up quite nicely.
I rummage in the drawer for a corkscrew but can’t seem to find one.
I climb the stairs slowly, wineglasses dangling downward from one hand, clinking together like wind chimes, the cold bottle sweating moisture into my other hand. I’m dwelling on my conversation with Nico, wondering why it hadn’t once crossed my mind to call him to see how he’s doing. The conversation has left me with a ripe, too-creamy taste festering away at the back of my tongue, like a wine that’s gone through too much malolactic fermentation. Like bad dairy. Hearing Nico’s voice was comforting, but it has left me feeling hollow. I wonder if I didn’t call him because I liked the idea of him going about his business in Paris, missing me, more than I wanted the reality of hearing him say it. Nico is incredible, and aside from Zelda and Wyatt, I’ve never been so close with anyone. But. But. Removed from all the magic and distraction and performance of Paris, I feel as though Nico is flattened out somehow, rendered just a cookie cutout of someone I’m supposed to love. I shake my head in frustration. This place is bad for me.
My mother’s door is closed, of course, and I pause in front of it, childlike in my sudden timidity. But I’m not eight years old anymore, and Nadine can just try to terrorize me out of the room. I have what she wants in my hand. I tuck the bottle of wine under my armpit and turn the handle of her door.
Mom is sitting in her chair, looking out the window that faces onto the lake. It’s a hot, hazy summer evening, a few hours before sunset. Everything is glowing with the filtered light, and the temperature is starting to drop. She doesn’t turn around when I come in.
“Hi, Mom.” She still doesn’t turn. There’s an extra chair in the corner of her room, and I set down the glasses to grab it with one arm and carry it awkwardly, pressed painfully against my hip. I set it down next to hers, looking out at the vineyard and the lake. I’m strangely reluctant to let go of the wine bottle; it’s a talisman against her viciousness. I want her to see me holding it before she opens her mouth. “Happy hour?” I say cheerfully.
“Among my favorite words in the English language,” she answers, and I can’t help smiling. I go back to where the glasses are perched on the table and realize that I never managed to find the corkscrew.
“Fuck,” I say in irritation.
“There’s one in the drawer next to my bed,” Mom says uncannily. “You never did come prepared. Always a little…spacey. That’s what your first-grade teacher said, at least.” I clench my teeth, already on edge. Which of us does she think she’s talking to? I find the opener and deftly uncork the wine, slopping it into the expensive, thin wineglasses. It’s a soothing noise. “I’m afraid I don’t have an ice bucket,” Mom adds. “I’m sure you forgot to bring that up as well.”
“Knowing you,” I snap, “I assumed the wine would be long gone before we had to worry about it getting warm.”
Nadine says nothing, but she looks at me balefully when I hand her the glass.
“My, my, real glass today. I must have been a good girl.” Her hands shake as she accepts the delicate stemware, but I don’t know if it’s a symptom of her illness or if it’s the DTs.
“Has Dad brought up dinner yet?” I realize, with a frisson of accomplishment, how long it’s been since I’ve eaten.
“I haven’t seen your father in years,” she says airily, with a wave of her hand. “Good riddance. I can go a few more without seeing him too.”
“You had wine with him last night and lunch earlier today,” I say sharply, unfairly.
“Oh.” She looks perplexed, scared. “Other than that, of course,” she continues, attempting a casual tone. “I meant, of course, that it’s been years since we’ve had a proper dinner together.”
“Right.” I drink a healthy swallow of the crisp wine. I’m thirsty after my sweaty nap in Zelda’s trailer. I wonder just what Zelda wants to accomplish by suggesting this tête-à-tête, what further information I’m supposed to glean by trying to spend time alone with Nadine. What could Zelda be plotting? And what information could my mother possibly have?
“And how is Paris, Ava? I should hope that you’re at least enjoying your childish escapade.”
“Delightful, Mom.” I pause. “How has it been here?” I say tentatively.
“How do you think? I’m fucking losing my mind in little bits and pieces every day, and your sister has managed to single-handedly destroy the vineyard.”
“I hardly think it was single-handed,” I say.
“Well, she’s done an appalling job of managing even day-to-day operations. You were the one with any knowledge of how this works. It was supposed to be you taking care of things.”
“Well, I’m sorry I didn’t drop everything to pursue your half-cocked dream,” I snipe in annoyance. “And sorry that Zelda was singularly unprepared for it. We can’t all have your resources, Mom. Oh, yeah, what did you eat for breakfast?” I can see her flinch slightly. “What, can’t remember?” I know this is unfair. But I sit in silence for a long moment. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to be nasty with you.”
“You were never much good at it, anyway. Too thin-skinned,” Nadine says.
“Listen, this is all sort of rough on me. I’m jet-lagged, hungover, and…grieving,” I say.
“Grieving?” Nadine snorts. “For Zelda? The sister you abandoned?”
“The sister who died,” I say.
She snorts again. “You think so?” she says lightly.
I turn my head to look at her alertly. Does she know?
“What do you mean, Mom?”
“Come now, Ava. I know you’re naïve and occasionally blind to reality, but you knew Zelda almost as well as I did.”
“Almost as well? We’re twins,” I hiss in annoyance, unsure why th
is challenge to my ultimate knowledge of Zelda wounds me like it does. Why should I care if Mom knew her better? Is it a bloody competition? But of course it is.
“Yes, but I grew both of you inside me. I gave you life,” she explains, draining her glass and imperiously gesturing for more. I fetch the bottle from the table and bring it to sit between us, refilling both of our empty glasses.
“Either way. What did you mean?”
“She’s not really dead, Ava. Gullible as you are, you must surely know that.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Come, now. It’s all a little too neat and perfect, isn’t it. Like one of Zelda’s games.”
I look at her in surprise. “You know, Mom,” I say, “for someone slowly falling apart from dementia, you’re surprisingly lucid.”
She laughs. “I’m not entirely gone yet. I know it comes and goes, but I still have good moments. Good days.” I nod, but I remember her reaction just a few minutes ago, her scared, vacant expression. “Anyway, I’ll have to be really out of it before I fail to recognize one of your sister’s schemes. She’s up to something.” Mom glances toward the cinders that sit where the barn once did.
“Yeah, I know,” I say softly. “Fuck knows what, though.”
“It’s for you,” Mom says simply. “All of her games, all of her plans—it was always about you. Zelda always needed an audience, and she was born with the one she preferred most. This…is about you. When you were little, she would make up stories for you, would spin these long tales. You would sit for hours, listening to her.”
We both stare out at the lake, silently sucking down Sauvignon Blanc. When my glass is empty, I stand up to go. I don’t know why Zelda sent me up here, whether what Nadine just said was the information she wanted me to have. Why would it matter, anyway? I’ve already suspected that this is somehow about me, about Zelda trying to suck me back in. Why would she need our mother to confirm it? And how could she depend on Nadine to actually be present enough to express it? I shake my head in annoyance. Maybe I’ve gotten the clue wrong: Intimacy with Nadine is harder than with anyone else, sure, and my mother is the person who called me out on it, but maybe Zelda means something else entirely.
“Ava, would you bring me another bottle?” Mom sounds almost plaintive, and I flinch at the soft, pleading edge in her voice. She’s asking nicely, instead of barking orders or intimidating me. I’m a sucker for that, as she must know, and I yield. I go downstairs and fetch another bottle of wine from the fridge. I’m about to snag one from my stash in the crisper, but notice some iffy local Rieslings lined in the door, already cold. I realize belatedly that Marlon must have restocked the fridge. Of course that would be the one domestic duty he would reliably take on. I bring the bottle upstairs and uncork it, using the opener I left on the table. After I refill Nadine’s glass, I impulsively plant a kiss on her forehead.
“Night, Mom. There’s a sleeping pill next to the bed if you need it.”
“In case the bottle doesn’t finish me off?” she asks with a sharp tone.
“Just…in case,” I say with a weary sigh.
“Put the corkscrew back, Ava,” she snaps, all the soft wheedling tones gone from her voice. “Your stuff is always all over the house, and I can’t live like that. If you’d just put things back where you got them from, you’d have them when you need them. You spend half your life looking for things.”
I grit my teeth in fury. How the fuck would she know what I’m like? I’m tempted to just walk out of the room. But I am not, in fact, the messy person my mother maintains I am. I fold my clothes when I take them off; I do the dishes as soon as I’ve finished using them. I’ve always done as our mother insisted, out of a sense of rightness. Zelda is the whirlwind who leaves destruction, clutter, mayhem in her wake. I pick up my wineglass from the floor and open the drawer to put the corkscrew back where I found it. I frown as I’m returning it. In the drawer is an envelope addressed to me in my sister’s handwriting. I glance over at my mother, unsure whether she knows that this has been here. Is she in cahoots with Zelda? But she doesn’t turn around or give any recognition that she knows what I’ve just found.
“I guess I’ll just go to bed, then,” I say, wondering if she’ll come clean or give any sign that she knows more than she’s telling.
“I don’t give a shit,” she snarls, her mood snapping. I know that it’s a symptom of the dementia, but it’s hard to remember that. She’s been unstable her whole life. I wonder, not for the first time, if the dementia has been a part of our lives all along. Maybe the disease gets diagnosed only after it reaches a certain degree of severity. Maybe she was sick during all of our childhood. Maybe there’s an organic, chemical reason why she treated us the way she did. Other than the alcohol, of course.
“You and Zelda both. Just lurking around here, waiting for me to say something stupid. You love this,” she screeches, her voice growing shrill. “You couldn’t be happier. You want me to look like a damn fool. Well, Ava, are you enjoying your revenge? Are you?” she screams.
“Of course not, Mom. This is hell for all of us.”
“What do you know of hell? You don’t live like this! Get out, you miserable, gloating bitch!” Nadine hurls her wineglass at me, but it veers wildly to the left and crashes onto the floor in the hallway, where it shatters most dramatically. Nadine will be remorseful as soon as I’ve closed the door—not for having screamed at me but for having sacrificed her drinking receptacle as a prop in her tantrum. At the moment, I honestly don’t care if she slices off every one of her fingers with the broken glass before moving on to her toes.
“Night, Mom,” I say as calmly as I can. I clutch the envelope and walk out of the room, shutting and locking my mother’s door behind myself, for once feeling no guilt at all for the twist of the key.
In the hall, I step gingerly around the broken glass. Zelda would probably just leave it there, waiting for someone to come tidy it up, or for the glass to be ground into fine sand between boards and soles. Zelda revels in entropy. But I obviously can’t leave the shattered wineglass lying on the ground, so I stoop to pick up the larger shards. I walk them to the upstairs bathroom, where I find a broom and a dustpan. I slice my foot open in a tiny, raw gash as I kneel to sweep up the rest of the remains, but I let the wound bleed onto the cool floor, ignoring it.
Standing in front of my mother’s door, I open the envelope, feeling nervous. Even though I’ve been receiving emails from Zelda, this feels strangely intimate, physical. I can’t remember the last time I got a real letter from anyone. Something about a person’s writing is immediate and corporeal, present. Could she have been in the house while I was out? Could she have planted the note for me earlier today? Or did she do it before the barn burned?
Inside the envelope, there is no letter, though. Just a scrap of paper with the name Jason scrawled across it. I flip the paper over, and on the back is a short P.S.: Surely there’s some photographic evidence somewhere, eh, Ava?
11
Kitchen-bound, I escape downstairs. At the sink, with a cold washcloth fixed to the back of my neck and my wineglass spruced up with a refill, I stare out the window toward the barn, thinking. I’m so distracted that I barely hear Marlon and Opal coming inside, and I jump when Opal touches my shoulder.
“Ava, doll, are you hot?” Her hands reach for the washcloth on my neck, and she takes it away, runs it under the cold tap, wrings it out, and puts it back on my neck, her gnarled and bejeweled fingers rubbing my nape with circular motions. I grit my teeth, trying not to scoot away. I can feel the heat of her body close behind me. She’s smaller than I am, and she peers out the window over my shoulder. “Oh, sweetheart. I know.” She grabs my hand and gives it a squeeze. I flinch visibly, but Opal doesn’t seem to notice or care. I take a big swallow from my glass and glance toward Marlon, who is slumped in one of the chairs in the living room.
“Glass of wine, Pops?” I ask cheerily. He gazes at me blankly for a second before tryin
g for a smile. It’s an appalling attempt. He looks haggard, old, the skin beneath his eyes puffed and bruised. My elegant, dapper father, who until recently looked like a man of forty, now hunched and wizened. Deflated.
“When I wanted one earlier, we didn’t seem to have any fucking corkscrews,” he complains. “Had to go to the Dandy Mart to buy one.”
I go to the fridge and fill a glass for him in pity.
“I’ll take one, too, Ava—thanks for asking,” Opal says testily. I pour her a third of a glass, a little passive-aggressively, and she accepts it with a roll of her eyes, perching on a stool at the kitchen counter. “Come here, sit, dear. I’d like to talk to you.” I desperately don’t want this, but I sit nonetheless. “Now, Ava. What are you doing with yourself, over there in Paris? No, no,” she cuts me off as I open my mouth. “I understand youthful experimentation and the desire to define yourself. Believe me. I spent a semester in Spain when I was your age. It was the best thing for me. Which is why I didn’t raise an eyebrow when Marlon asked for the money to send you to do your little degree in France…” She smiles indulgently at Marlon, who is looking pointedly out the window.
“I didn’t realize you were bankrolling it, Grandma,” I say, looking directly at Marlon. He has definitely implied that his successes in California were financing my “youthful experimentation.” Opal raises her eyebrows and looks over at Marlon too.
“Oh, well. Not entirely, but yes. And I’m not saying that gives me any right to comment on your choices or to help make those choices but…” Yes, it does, I think sourly. You’ve bought me, Grandma. Let’s see what it costs.
“No, no, I’d love to hear your opinion,” I say obligingly, and she smiles, patting my hand again. She holds on to it this time.
“Well, dear, I was very impressed when you finished your first degree, studying something that would be truly useful to you and your family. Silenus is such a complicated investment, and it really needs someone with skill and training. But you’re very young, and I know you want to go out and sow your wild oats and all. When I was young, only boys were allowed to sow their oats, and I think it’s amazing that your generation is able to give women the same privilege,” Opal says with a judgy smirk.
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