Whisper Me This

by Kerry Anne King

  “Easy,” Tony warns, in a big-brother tone.

  She sticks her tongue out at him.

  Now that the cat’s out of the bag, I can’t stop talking. “I’ve never met her, that I can remember. I didn’t even know about her until a couple of days ago. I found a birth certificate in my mom’s legal papers. I thought she must have been dead or something, but here she is. In the flesh. And for some reason she hates me.”

  Tony and Mia both stare at me like my nose has suddenly misplaced itself and is wandering over my face. “Still boggled,” Tony says.

  “Grandma probably left her because she’s such a bitch,” Elle says.

  “Elle! Don’t talk like that.”

  “Well, it’s true.”

  “Marley would have been a baby.”

  “Bet she cried all the time. Mean crying. On purpose.”

  I feel an oppositional desire to defend my sister, the one who just told me to get lost in no uncertain terms. The one who appears to blame me for her childhood. Down below, Marley has her back to us. Sound Check Guy has his arm around her waist. Her head rests briefly on his shoulder, and he pulls her in for a hug.

  How would I feel if my mother had left me when I was a baby? Especially if she’d chosen another child over me?

  Guilt almost suffocates me, but I welcome it in. This, of all my emotions, is the most familiar. The most comfortable. As it settles its heavy weight into my belly, I’m able to breathe again. My legs and hands steady, although the internal quaking goes on.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Mia says, her hand on Elle’s shoulder. “Anybody else for ice cream?”

  “There’s nothing open,” Tony protests.

  “Safeway,” she says. “A tub for everybody. Four favorite flaves coming up.”

  Maybe literally, I think, as my stomach does a little heave. But Elle perks up at the mention of ice cream, and I don’t have to eat mine. As the four of us shove back our chairs and get up, I can’t help one more glance down at Marley.

  She looks up at the same moment. Our eyes lock. Neither of us waves.

  I turn away first, quickly before my face crumples again. Tony’s hand engulfs mine, and I let his strength flow into me, steady me, get me across the room and out the door. He goes serious, though, and as soon as he deposits me safely in the front passenger seat and shuts the door behind me, he closes in on himself.

  In the backseat, Mia launches a full-scale effort to entertain Elle. Left alone to my own devices, I lose myself in a futile search of my memory banks for any sign of remorse or regret from my mother. Any mention of another child. Any hints about what happened. But all I find is another instance of how hard she worked to eradicate Marley from my world.

  I’m five, and Mom has caught me with two cookies, instead of the one I’d been given permission for.

  “I said only one.”

  “I only have one.”

  “Maisey, I know perfectly well you know the difference between one and two.”

  “Yes. There are two cookies. But only one is for me.” And then my five-year-old brain catches up with my five-year-old tongue, and I stop short. A lie would have been better. I’m not allowed to play Marley games.

  “And who is the other one for?” Mom asks. Her voice sounds curious, but it’s a trap.

  “No one.”

  Mom’s hand, the one that can be so gentle when it brushes my hair at night, clamps around my jaw and tilts my head back so I have to meet her eyes. “Don’t mumble, Maisey. Tell me, who is it for?”

  “Marley.” I squinch my eyes shut, prepared for a slap.

  It doesn’t come. She releases me. My adult eyes looking back into the memory see that her hands are trembling. That her voice, when she tells me to go to my room, is taut with tears, not anger.

  I jolt out of the memory as Tony pulls the car into the Safeway parking lot. “Okay kiddies, go get your ice cream.”

  “Wait,” Elle says. “Phone.”

  Even from the front seat I can hear that, first, it’s Greg, and second, he’s pissed. I cringe, hearing her explanation that we’ve just been out to a concert with Mia and Tony.

  And now Greg is shouting. I can’t make out the words, but the tone is clear.

  “He wants to talk to you,” Elle says, holding out her phone.

  “Tell him I’ll text him.”

  She shrugs and relays the message. “Don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger,” she says. “Sorry. Fine, I apologize for my rudeness. Yes. I know. I’ll tell her. Night.”

  “Whoa,” she says, after she hangs up. “Dad seriously needs to chill. Too bad we can’t send him ice cream. Are you coming in, Mom?”

  I rest my head against the seat and close my eyes. The car is safe and warm. All the windows are open, and a cool, lilac-scented breeze wafts in through the windows. All at once I’m too exhausted to even open my eyes, let alone go into the store.

  “I’ll wait here. You know what I like.”

  “Maybe I’ll surprise you instead.”

  “You are full of surprises, Elle.” I force my eyelids open and dig in my purse for my stash of bills. “I’m buying. Get one for Tony.”

  The car doors slam. One. Two. And Elle and Mia race away across the parking lot.

  “Mia is never going to grow up,” Tony says, but there’s the warmth of love in his voice.

  “She’s lovely. She’s been wonderful with Elle.” A lump comes up in my throat again. I had a sister for all of about five minutes before I lost her again.

  “She loves kids,” Tony says. “My sisters’ kids are always hanging out with her. Mia says it’s perfect because she gets all the fun of kids without the hard work and sleepless nights. Or the husband.”

  My phone buzzes and buzzes again with incoming text messages.

  “Elle’s father?” Tony asks.

  “Yep.” I flick through a series of messages. Greg has been texting all day, each one increasing in intensity. “He is not a fan of our activities.”

  “He’s probably worried. Maybe you should call him.”

  “Are you kidding? If I catch him up, then he’ll be really worried.”

  “You don’t talk much, then?” Tony’s voice is neutral, his face in shadow. It’s impossible to tell whether he’s making polite conversation or really cares about the answer.

  “Generally only about Elle.”

  Relationship or no relationship, the idea of calling Greg while I’m sitting here with Tony feels wrong in my belly. I’m staring at his questions on the text screen, thinking about how to word a summary that won’t send him into a meltdown, when the phone starts buzzing again. This time the screen lights up with a call.

  Accepting the inevitable, I answer.

  I needn’t have worried about trying to be tactful; Greg is already having a supersonic meltdown.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Take a breath, Greg. There’s no cause for—”

  “There is cause! There is plenty of cause! There is so much cause I could fill a corporate brief with it.”

  “I’m fine. Elle is fine. We’ve just been—”

  “Out. At a concert. With a guy you don’t even know. Are you out of your senses?”

  He’s shouting. I know Tony can hear every word, but it’s too late to get out of the car and keep this private. Greg, to my knowledge, doesn’t shout at anybody else. He’s quiet. Controlled. Polite. The rages I rouse in him have always been a secret between us.

  Not the good kind of secret, like birthday presents and surprises. Ours is a cloying, stifling, suffocating secret.

  Normally I retreat in the face of his anger, but the distance between us and the presence of a strong protective male in the car with me is ridiculously liberating. Instead of hurrying to soothe, smooth, and calm the storming beast, an unruly little part of me perks up its pointed ears and takes control. Without conscious intent, I find myself mimicking his usual ultracalm, annoyingly rational tone of voice.

  “We have act
ually and factually been out on family business. I’m confused as to why you’re so angry.”

  “Are you freaking kidding me? Family business? Is that what you call going out on a date? You didn’t answer your phone, so I tried to call Walter, and some woman answered. She told me you were out at a concert and who you were at the concert with. Elle affirmed the facts just now. So don’t bother to lie to me.”

  “I hadn’t realized that a concert is anathema. It was country music. Not even hard rock. No bats, no kittens, no blood.”

  Greg’s voice lowers, but every syllable is emphasized for effect. There is probably spit on his phone. “A concert is fine under normal circumstances. You are there for your mother’s funeral. You left Walter home alone with a stranger. You took Elle out with people you don’t even know.”

  Each one of his phrases fans the already blazing fires of guilt in my psyche. I’m about to lapse into a standard apology, when he ruins his whole rhetoric with the one-liner guaranteed to fuel my rebellion.

  “What are people going to think?”

  My mother used to ask the same question. And my answer to her has been the same for years. “I don’t know. What are they going to think?”

  I imagine saying these words to Greg. Imagine his face congested with responding fury, that twisty blue vein on his left temple all puffed up like it gets during rush-hour traffic. I see his fingers twitch at the top button of his meticulous shirt, adjusting his perfectly coordinated tie.

  I think of the way he constantly natters vague disapproval about my lifestyle, my parenting, my choices, and my lack of choices. The way he followed me after we broke up, first to Seattle, and then to Kansas City, with the eminently reasonable rationale that it’s best for Elle if we parent her together. No matter where I go or what I do, Greg is always there to highlight my insufficiencies and failures.

  But I’m here now, for the foreseeable future. And I’ll be staying here as long as Dad needs me. Greg has Linda now, and the baby. It won’t make sense for him to pack up his family and his thriving practice and move back to Smalltownsville to keep an eye on me.

  This thought emboldens me to ignore the warning signs, to shush the guilt, to push on.

  I match his tone, inflection for inflection. “I don’t know, Greg, what are they going to think? More importantly, what are they going to think when they find out that Walter isn’t actually my father, and that I have a twin sister named Marley who lives in the Tri-Cities and sings in a country band?”

  Silence on the other end of the phone. Carefully controlled breathing.

  When he speaks again, he’s reverted to his courtroom voice, the one he uses on unreliable witnesses. I can picture him sending meaningful glances to the invisible jury presiding over my case. Perhaps a slight headshake before leaning toward me, a calm, condescendingly sympathetic expression plastered to his face.

  “Listen, Maisey. I came down hard on you. I know you’re under a lot of stress. Do you think maybe your imagination is running away with you?”

  What he means is, Have you finally lost your marbles? Are you batshit crazy insane? Would a little R&R in a mental institution help to restore you to reason?

  I take a steadying breath and press on. “I found two birth certificates, one mine and one made out for my sister, Marley. Walter wasn’t the parental name on either of them. Oh, and I found a gun in my mother’s knitting bag, and I think that, yes, going to my sister’s concert and trying to talk to her counts as family business.”

  Again with the silence and the controlled breathing. “I’ll have my mom come over, shall I? To check in on you? Just to be sure . . .”

  “I’m not crazy, Greg. I resent the implication. Your mother disapproves of me, and she wasn’t precisely friendly with my mother. So please don’t.”

  “Maisey . . .” His voice rises again.

  Tony is quick, too quick for me to stop him. He grabs the phone from my shaking hand.

  “Greg? Hi. This is Tony. You are not helping. Maybe call her back when you’re calmer.” Tony pushes End Call, cutting off Greg midsplutter. “You could block him,” he says.

  “I could—what?” The idea is incomprehensible and foreign.

  “Block him. If he’s harassing you.”

  I shake my head to try and clear it. “It’s not harassment, really. He’s worried about Elle. We share custody. I can’t exactly not talk to him.”

  The atmosphere in the car, despite the calm night outside, feels electric. My hair rises on the back of my neck.

  “Give me my phone, Tony. I have to call him back and explain.”

  “You don’t have to do anything.”

  “You don’t understand! He’s an attorney. He could take Elle.” My voice breaks. I fan my face with my hand, waving back tears and trying to stop a weird gasping for air that my body has started, as if all the oxygen in the world will never be enough.

  Tony deflates. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry. I just—God, I hate guys who do that shit to women. Can’t ever learn to keep my mouth shut.”

  “It’s okay. I—it was nice to have somebody stand up for me. And I can see why you’d think that about him. But he’s a good father. And he doesn’t usually shout like that.”

  “It’s just that tone he was using, making you feel stupid. You don’t deserve that.”

  Which is when the memory hits me, right between the eyes with enough force to knock me backward against the seat.

  It’s no longer Tony sitting behind the steering wheel. It’s Greg.

  It’s late, winter late, and already dark by at least three hours. Snow gathers on the windshield faster than the wipers swish it away.

  Chuff. Chuff. Chuff.

  We’re parked at the corner of the lot, and the glare of the gas station lights stops short of me, in the passenger seat, illuminating only Greg’s face so that he looks disembodied, insubstantial.

  “When, Maisey? You keep putting this off and the baby will be our flower girl.”

  My hand goes automatically to my belly. In response I feel the flip, flip, of the baby growing in my womb. She feels like a fish, a tiny fish growing in a dark, private place that belongs, so far, only to me.

  Greg wants halvsies, and I’m not sure I want to share.

  “I don’t know when. Soon. Just . . . not yet.”

  Every other day he asks about the wedding, the one he’s been talking about since high school, the one he gave me a ring for months ago, the one he wanted before we moved in together, before we got pregnant. The wedding he wants because he says he loves me.

  I have no good reason to put it off, and yet I do. Over and over and over again. Of course I love him, how could I not? He buys me flowers and takes me places. He’s handsome and smart and going to be rich. But my love is a pale thing compared to the love he expresses for me. His feels too hot, too bright, like a fire that might consume me if I stand too close.

  Whatever I give him, it never seems to be enough.

  He wants all of me, including the bits that I’ve managed to keep for myself, hidden away from my mother. I’ve learned from her how demanding love can be, with all the expectations I can never live up to, and something inside me rebels at the idea of surrendering my inner self—or the tiny baby growing inside me—to Greg.

  Mom wants me to marry him, and she doesn’t even know about the baby. My secret. Still a part of me and nobody’s business but my own.

  She wants me to marry him because he’s solid, whereas I am flighty. Focused, whereas I am scattered. Successful. Safe and law-abiding and going to earn more than enough money to support me in comfort. She says he will help me grow into the woman I’m capable of being. What she means is that maybe I’ll finally stop being flighty and indecisive and irresponsible.

  All my life my mother has made my decisions for me, not trusting I can make my own. And I’ve let her do it. I’ve let her decide everything from the color of the ribbon in my hair as a child to my choice of university and my journalism major.
We all know I am terrible at making decisions, so why am I resisting both her wishes and Greg’s now?

  But whenever Greg asks me to marry him, I choke on the word yes. I say maybe, and later, and of course “I love you,” because I do, I must, what is wrong with me if I don’t?

  But now there is a baby, or at least the promise of one, and that changes everything.

  Greg takes a long quavering breath, and then another, and his shoulders begin to shake. In quiet horror, I realize he is crying, that I have caused him to cry.

  My hand butterflies onto his shoulder and rests there, tentative. He stiffens beneath my touch, the muscle going from soft to rock-hard, and my hand flies back to the comfort of my belly and the baby swimming secretly within.

  “I can’t do this,” Greg says.

  I think I’ve heard him wrong, but he straightens up and turns his head to look at me. His face is wet with his tears, his dark lashes glued together, his features taut with pain and determination.

  “This is the last time I’m asking, Maisey. Give me a solid answer tonight. Say yes. Say when. Hell, tell me the word, and I’ll drive us all the way to Vegas, and we can tie the knot tomorrow.”

  My throat is dry, but the sensation of tiny wings flitting against my ribs is not grief or fear. I don’t answer. Can’t answer.

  “I mean it,” he says, desperation hardening his voice. “Tell me now, or it’s over between us.”

  Fear comes barging in, a big old clumsy bear of it, crashing and rattling the corners of my life. I moved in with Greg before I finished college. I’ve never lived alone. I don’t have a steady job. I sure as hell don’t want to move back in with my parents. How do I think I’m ever going to be qualified to take care of a baby when I’m not capable of taking care of myself? I have to say yes. I’m going to say yes. What other choice do I have?

  I open my mouth on the words that want to choke me.

  “I . . . can’t.”

  Greg’s face turns a mottled shade of red and white. His hands clamp around my shoulders, the fingers digging into my flesh so hard they feel like they’re going to meet, going to separate my bones.

  I try to twist away. “Stop it. You’re hurting me.”