Splinters of Light

by Rachael Herron

  “Good enough.” Nora pulled the white platter closer and helped herself to two pieces. “I don’t want to go out and face the rest of the world. Let’s just eat the fixings, then.” It was just getting funnier. “Minus the mashed potatoes, of course.”

  Cutting herself a piece of the cold, Jell-O–like meat, Nora was about to put a bite in her mouth when her daughter interrupted her.

  “We’re not even going to pray?”

  Nora’s fork stilled in midair. “Pardon?”

  “Grace. We always say grace.”

  “Fine.” Prayer. It couldn’t hurt. “Would you say it, then?”

  Ellie bowed her head and said, “No. You have to.”

  Heck of a time for her daughter to find religion. Nora closed her eyes and said as quickly as she could, “Lord, thank you for this food, and nourish it to our bodies.” Would that be enough for her daughter? Because Nora didn’t think she had much more thankfulness left to give.

  Mariana, though, continued it for her. “And thank you for this past year, and everything we’ve been given. Thank you for the love of family and friends, and bless the year to come.”

  Nora, her eyes open again, saw Ellie nod.

  “Amen.”

  “Amen.”

  Mariana smiled, her teeth beautiful and even. With her tongue, Nora touched her own upper left incisor. Once upon a time, Mariana’s tooth had been equally crooked. When had she gotten that fixed? Was that something that Nora had once known?

  Where did the knowledge go, when it left her mind? She held out her hands and looked at the ridges that formed the whorls on her fingertips. Her body knew how to make these. But her brain didn’t know how to cook a non-rotten turkey anymore. Apparently.

  “Now,” said Mariana, leaning forward, putting her elbows on the table. “Tell me why we’re eating the only foodstuff lower on the food chain than plastic bags?”

  Nora poked the cranberry sauce on her plate. “I’m losing it.”

  “You just need a bit more sleep. Sleep helps everything.”

  “I can’t remember the date unless I write it on my hand.”

  “You’ve been doing that for months, Mom.” Ellie’s eyes were worried. Ellie’s eyes should never look like that. And it was Nora’s fault.

  “I want to do two things,” she said, her throat almost closing again. “And I need help.”

  Mariana said, “We know. We talked about it, remember? We’re here.”

  “No, you don’t know. I didn’t tell you what they were.” They needed to let her talk. It was her turn. Nora knew what she needed. She’d known for a while. It was time to say it. She put a smile on her face, and the inappropriate giggle that had been hiding in her chest burbled upward. “I want to have fun.”

  She saw Mariana look at Ellie. Mariana said, “Okay. Of course . . .”

  “No, really. Big fun. That Thanksgiving we had nothing, the year everything broke? I wasn’t fun. I feel like I’m in that same place, and I need to get out of it.”

  Ellie bounced a little in her chair. “Okay! Like what?”

  “Bucket-list stuff. Like, maybe the northern lights.”

  “Oh!” Ellie clapped and Nora could see her, suddenly, at every age, making that same rapturous face. At three, skinned elbows and happy eyes. At seven, gaps in her teeth but the same overjoyed expression. Now, at—Nora thought very hard—at seventeen. Gorgeous. Luminous in her body, which, please, God (Nora prayed for real this time: please, God), wouldn’t betray her, ever.

  “And Cuba. I’ve always wanted to go to Cuba,” Nora went on.

  Mariana leaned forward. “Let me pay.”

  “No, no . . .” She hadn’t gotten that far, hadn’t gotten to planning the financial aspect of the trips, but it would work out, wouldn’t it? She’d sell another book—did she have time to? She could—

  “I have the money.” Mariana grinned at Ellie. “I have so much money. It’s like someone opened a fire hose in my bank account.”

  “You have to put that back into your business.” Nora refolded the napkin on her lap. She knew how business worked. You spent money to make money.

  “I do. I have been. And I’ve paid Luke back. And I’m still making bank. And nothing”—Mariana covered Nora’s hand with her own—“would make me happier than taking the three of us around the world.”

  Would that be okay? Was it allowed? Nora searched her brain for the rule book, but in the jumble she couldn’t find it. She tugged the napkin harder.

  Ellie said, “Can we go on an Alaskan cruise? I want to see a fjord.”

  “Yes,” said Mariana. “And Antarctica.”

  “Penguins! I want to see penguins! Oh.” Ellie stopped wriggling. “What about school?”

  Nora let hope grow inside her. The tendril of it wrapped around the jagged edges inside her chest and grew stronger, taller. “We’ll go when you’re on break. I would very much love to see penguins myself,” she said. Then she added, “Because I’m dying.” She said it on purpose, knowing the small green growing thing inside her would fail, knowing she had to do it anyway.

  A dark cloud passed over Ellie’s face. “Don’t.”

  Mariana said, “Not now.”

  Nora opened her hands and laid them on the table, face up. “Now is all I’ve got. We have to be realistic.”

  “Please don’t, Mama.”

  Oh, Nora hadn’t planned for that one. The sneak attack, the child’s voice coming from Ellie. That wasn’t fair. She felt pain bloom behind her brow. “We have now. Right now. Let’s make a list, right here at the table. A happy list of the things we all want to do—” Lists were good. Lists would fix . . . Okay, while she was facing things, Nora could admit they would fix nothing. But they sure helped. Crutches weren’t what cured a broken leg, but they made things easier. “I’ll start. Penguins. The Great Wall of China. The gondolas in Venice. What do you want to see?” She would live her life not without fear—never without it—but in spite of it. Fear would be the spice, the salt of adventure.

  “Mom,” said Ellie with patience in her voice. “School?”

  “Screw school,” Nora went on with a bravado she didn’t quite feel. “School can wait.”

  “No, it can’t,” said Mariana.

  Nora stared at her sister. “What?”

  A quick shrug. Mariana reached for another helping of sweet potato hash. “I mean, this year isn’t really optional. Not with college coming up.”

  A prickle of discomfort ran along Nora’s forearms. “What do you know about it?”

  “Not much. I just know Ellie has to be there.”

  “She could do independent study.” That option would have been over Nora’s dead body at this time last year, but this year was different, and her body wasn’t dead yet.

  “And be satisfied with just a GED?” Mariana shot a quick smile at Ellie. “That doesn’t sound like our girl.”

  Ellie smiled and reached forward, taking a small, unasked-for sip of Mariana’s wine. As if they were in cahoots.

  Our girl? Ellie was hers. All hers. Anger, so quick to start lately, so impossible to let go, flashed up Nora’s arms from her fingertips straight to her heart. But she wouldn’t argue. Not at the Thanksgiving table. “I need to talk to you in the kitchen, Mariana. Now.”

  Chapter Sixty-three

  Mariana gripped the edge of a barstool at the kitchen island. She’d been listening to Nora’s rant long enough, the rant about how Mariana didn’t know enough to insert her opinion about Ellie. That Mariana had no right. “You’re seriously thinking that you should pull your daughter out of school less than a year before she goes to college.”

  “What I’m saying,” Nora said, her lips white against her face, “is that you don’t have a say in it.”

  Mariana nodded. “I hear you. I should just butt out.”

  “Exact
ly.”

  “Yeah, well. I can’t do that.” She straightened her spine, feeling every tiny bit of her half-centimeter height advantage.

  Nora laughed, and the sound of it sliced the interior of Mariana’s heart. “You think you get to say what my daughter does or doesn’t do?”

  Mariana pulled her lips in.

  “Oh, my god,” Nora said. “You do think that.”

  “Now’s not the time . . .”

  “Now? Now is the only time I have!” Nora hit the top of the cutting board with the flat of her hand, a thump followed by a wooden clatter.

  Mariana knew she wasn’t handling this right. “Okay, I hear you, we can just—”

  “Don’t you dare patronize me.”

  Her temper flared. “So you want me to help you with everything else, but not with Ellie.”

  There was a long, taut pause. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Nora shook her head, refusing to answer.

  Mariana heard what she didn’t say, though. She already knew the answer. Not good enough. Fuckup. Never the right one. “She’s my only niece. You’re my sister.” She bent at the waist, collapsed like a snapped clothesline, and then straightened as if she were being winched back into place.

  “One thing.” Nora crossed her arms. “I need you to leave me this one thing.”

  “One thing? Fuck, Nora, letting you take care of Ellie isn’t like you wanting to pick up the dry cleaning.”

  “You couldn’t even remember the mashed potatoes. Good god, when have I ever been able to count on you? And you want to take my daughter away from me?”

  “Of course not—”

  There was a cough behind them, in the living room.

  Ellie stood there, her thin arms long along her sides, her green eyes as wide as a startled cat’s. “Mom?”

  This was terrible. Mariana didn’t know much, but she knew this: she couldn’t go back to the table with Nora and pretend everything was fine.

  Nothing was fine.

  Her sister was dying.

  And she’d never be good enough, not even as a fill-in, second-string substitute.

  So she said, “Ellie, darlin’, I have to leave. I forgot . . .” God, it was hot in here. She had to get out. Go home. Find Luke. Look down. Open her hands. Find her breath.

  “She forgot what’s important,” said Nora. “That’s all.”

  That was too much. “Holy shit. Excuse me?” The only important things in the whole world were Nora and Ellie. Mariana never forgot it, not even in her deepest sleep. Never.

  Nora went on. “After all the ways I’ve taken care of you over the years, after all the things I fixed for you, you think you’re ready to take over? To just step into my shoes?”

  Mariana swiped at her forehead, which was as wet as if she’d just come in from the rain. “The things you took care of.”

  “Do I have to list them?”

  “You have a list?”

  Nora held up a hand. “Feeding you when Mom was too busy or too tired to. Making sure your homework was done while I did my own.” With every point, she raised a finger. “Moving out. Finding our apartment. Getting us financial aid, for whatever that was worth, since you didn’t even stay until graduation. When you came back from India the first time, I put you up again for three years.”

  “Put me up? I thought we lived together. I didn’t know I was considered a charity case.”

  “Stop it,” said Ellie.

  “You barely remembered to put money toward rent every month.” Nora raised her other hand and with it, more fingers. “Eddie, the goldfish. Timothy, our cat. Antonia, your godchild. Every plant I ever gave you. You’re irresponsible. You have no follow-through. You can’t be trusted with emotions.” She glanced at Ellie, as if she was going to stop, but then she didn’t. “You can’t be trusted with her.”

  It felt as though Nora had stabbed her in the gut. It was one thing to wonder. It was another thing altogether to know.

  But Nora kept talking, her voice acid. “I don’t know why I thought you could take care of my daughter when I was gone. What the hell was I thinking?”

  Did she want Mariana to crumble? To be washed away? To be forced into a free fall, through a space so cold she felt she’d never be warm again? “Nora, stop.” Mariana looked at Ellie, whose face was white as she held on to the doorframe, neither quite in nor quite out of the kitchen.

  Nora said, her hand back on the cutting board as if she might smack it again, “You’ve never taken care of one thing except your business, and that’s brand-new. Congratulations on that, by the way. Good thing you have a million listeners who think you’re compassionate. That’ll keep you warm at night. Keep up the good work.”

  Behind them, Ellie started crying.

  And Mariana knew it was finally time to tell her sister the truth.

  Chapter Sixty-four

  “You know nothing. You have no clue.”

  Mariana’s face was terrible, and Nora knew her own probably matched. She felt like an inferno inside, a fire that had ice at its core, and Mariana looked the same—her cheeks and eyes red, her lips as white as paper.

  Mariana went on. “I never took care of anything? You honestly think you’ve been taking care of me this whole time?”

  Nora didn’t think it; she knew it. Nora had been the one to keep them together, since forever. Since the first moment they slept in the same crib. There was a picture of them somewhere, standing in the rain as toddlers. Nora held the umbrella high over both their heads.

  “Fuck you.” Mariana’s voice was so low she was almost inaudible. “I’ve let you feel that way my whole life. Because that’s the one thing you needed.”

  The taste of Nora’s laugh was vinegar in her mouth. “Right.”

  “You remember that guy Bill? The one you thought got away from me, another one of my failures?”

  Bill had been nice. The only truly nice guy her sister had ever dated until Luke.

  “He tried to rape me.”

  Nora gasped. “No. He didn’t.”

  Mariana laughed, a brittle piece of chipped glass. “I couldn’t tell you. You would have fallen apart. That was during the time you thought you weren’t going to pass your econ class. Remember? You couldn’t think of anything else. It was all you thought about and every other night you were on the couch crying, thinking that if you didn’t pass, you’d be kicked out of college and you’d wind up living on the streets. You were so upset all the time, hyperventilating when you found mold on the yogurt in the fridge. You could never have handled knowing. You think you’re taking care of things, but you’ve only ever known how to deal with things on the surface. The easy things. If Windex can’t clean off the dirt, you’re not interested.”

  “No—”

  “I broke his thumb, you know that? Snapped it. You were out in the living room, flirting with some frat guy, and that’s all you talked about when we walked home that night. You didn’t ask me one thing, and I knew I couldn’t tell you.”

  “His thumb?” Nora’s brain felt like sludge. Her sister’s words weren’t making sense. They were crawling back on themselves, like the words on the menu at the gluten-free restaurant had.

  “The reason I came home from India? The reason I left Raúl? I needed an abortion.” Mariana spoke through gritted teeth. “The day I had it you got mad at me for not bringing home the half-and-half you wanted me to pick up. I’d taken a cab. I didn’t have money for an extra stop on the way home from the clinic.”

  Nora remembered that day. Mariana had come home with no half-and-half, her face blank. Nora had accused her of being stoned, and her sister had slammed her bedroom door so hard the mirror had fallen off their bathroom wall and shattered. Nora had been furious she’d been the one who had to clean it up. As usual.

  The words Nora chose were so distan
t she almost didn’t know how to pronounce them. “No, you would have told me that.”

  “You would have dissolved into nothing.”

  Ellie was sobbing now, but Nora stayed frozen. Broken. “I would have—”

  “If I’d told you, you would have done exactly what you did with everything else. You would tell me it was my fault and then clean it up so it looks tidy from the outside.”

  It was the worst accusation of all. And the accusation didn’t matter, nothing mattered but the fact that Nora hadn’t comforted Mariana then, when she’d needed it most. Nora hadn’t been there for her. “You should have—”

  “You think I’m the same person as you, just the weaker version. I’m not. I’m me. I’m only me. Fucked up and forgetful, but fucking real. I’m the Velveteen fucking rabbit, and you’re still wearing a goddamned price tag.”

  “Mariana, no.”

  Her sister dug her keys out of her purse on the countertop and kept talking while she shook them in front of her. “Let me tell you who I am. For once. Maybe you’ll hear it this time if I make it really, really clear to you.”

  “Mama. Auntie,” said Ellie. “Please stop.” Her voice was a child’s. She should go to bed soon, thought Nora, and then realized she had no idea what time it was or how old Ellie was or who she herself was. She glanced at her hands. More lines, her mother’s nails . . .

  “I’m someone who takes care of you, Nora Glass.”

  “I—”

  “Don’t interrupt me. You need to know this. When your life fell apart, I came running. I was here every weekend after Paul left. Every single one.”

  Weakly, Nora managed, “I’m sorry we put you out like that—”

  “Oh, Jesus, shut up. This is where I wanted to be. I’ve been taking care of you since before that, though. You think you’re the tough one, not because you keep the memories, but because you rewrite them that way. By the time you put something in essay form, you’ve already changed it in your mind, made yourself into better-than and everyone else into less-than.”