The Seven Boxed Set

by Sarah M. Cradit

  “And you.”

  He nodded. “And me. All right, buckle up. I’ll take you home.”

  Maureen’s heart sank. Home meant something different to each of them now. For him, from now on, it would be Ophélie, looming dark and large and lonely until his family filled it and either fixed this or made it worse. As for her, she had a new home, back in New Orleans. She’d wanted to come back so badly, but now that she was back, she only felt the hollow longing for the things she’d learned about herself at Ophélie.

  “I don’t like how separated the family is now,” she said as the car angled out onto the uneven cobblestones. “Augustus and Evangeline at Magnolia Grace. Colleen leaving for Scotland. You…”

  “It was gonna happen eventually.” He smiled from his peripheral. “Unless in your crazy head you had it that we would all live with Mama for the rest of our lives like a bunch of degenerates?”

  Maureen grinned into her lap. “No, I guess not.”

  “No. Most of us are grown now. Time to live our lives.” He didn’t sound very convincing.

  “Still.”

  Charles stopped at the light. He turned to her, one hand on the wheel, one on the gearshift. “Maureen, you can call me any time. Day or night. I’ll drop whatever I’m doing and come to you, if you need me.”

  “Nah, I’ll be fine.”

  “I’m serious.” The light turned green, but he didn’t move. “Tell me you understand.”

  A car behind them honked.

  “Are you gonna go?”

  “Not until you say you understand.”

  “Hell’s bells, go already!”

  “Then tell me you’ll call me before trying anything dumb again.”

  The car honked again, this time drawing out the sound. “Fine, fine!”

  “Promise it.”

  “I promise!"

  “Good.” Charles threw the car into gear and took off. “I’ve kept your secret. I did try to use it on Cordelia to scare her away, but it didn’t work, and she thought I was full of shit.”

  “I believe you.”

  “That thing with Franz and Daisy Mae, it was your idea. I wouldn’t have suggested it…”

  “I know, Huck. It was my idea. And I’m glad we did it, if it gets that cretin Franz off the planet before he can hurt other girls, or murder anyone else.”

  “I hate to tell you this, but there’s no fucking doubt in my mind he didn’t stop with Daisy Mae. She probably wasn’t his first, either. Men like that don’t get a taste and feel satisfied.”

  Maureen chewed her lip as she watched the houses fly by. “I was thinking that, too.”

  “Are you okay? That possession didn’t fry your brains or anything, right?”

  “I don’t think so. I feel okay. Just wish I remembered it.”

  Charles nodded. “I hope you know how useful that could be to you in life. Not every problem can be disposed of in the Maurepas swamp.”

  Maureen looked at him.

  “What I’m saying is, these gifts, we have them for a reason.” Charles pointed his cigarette at her. “You have this gift for a reason. And it’s not to continue late night gab fests with Maddy, God rest her soul, if you get my drift.”

  “I think so.”

  “You’re a Deschanel. Your list of enemies will have as many digits as your bank account. Not all of them will go away quietly.”

  “I know.”

  “Good. Good, it’s good you know, Maureen, because I think things just get harder from here. For all of us.”

  * * *

  Evangeline rubbed her shoulders, which were sore from spending the day helping her mother and Elizabeth unpack. Maureen should have been there, but she was off doing God-knows-what, not wasting any time getting back into her old bad habits now that she was in New Orleans again.

  So much had changed. The seven, now the six, were scattered like fractured chunks of what they once were. She supposed this was part of growing up, but it didn’t feel like that. Charles was alone now at Ophélie, which she knew felt more like a prison than a promise of the future ahead. Although she lived with Augustus, she never saw him, unless she was lucky enough to catch him as he was coming or going. She was almost never at the office anymore. He didn’t need her, if he ever had, and she harbored so much resentment and rage for the Russian—she refused to call her by her name—that this only got in the way and added tensions to the office.

  Evangeline wasn’t yet ready to process Colleen leaving for Scotland, so she didn’t.

  At least her mother and younger sisters were close again. The townhouse was only a couple miles away, just a streetcar ride and quick walk away. Or a hop, skip, and a jump, as their father used to say.

  She still heard his voice sometimes. There were moments when it was like he had never left at all, and others where he was as foreign to her as a stranger. Evangeline had adored her father, and she feared he never knew how much. She was neither the loudest nor the neediest of his seven children, often lurking behind in the shadows. Did he love her as much as he loved the others? Sometimes what hurt more than losing him was never having answers to her questions.

  The bed called to her aching body. How she longed to throw herself into the plush covers, falling diagonally, fully dressed. No one was there to nag her about switching into her pajamas… that was one of the few real perks of being an adult, as she saw it.

  But if she did that, she’d be letting someone down.

  Evangeline didn’t have a number for Amnesty, and besides, it was too late to ring someone’s house. They’d met every night for weeks, and every time Evangeline thought she was too tired, or didn’t need a walk, she thought of Amnesty and her curious blue eyes and soft face. She never let herself think too much into any of this, and as long as she kept her thoughts skimming the surface, she had no reason to fear them.

  She slinked past Augustus’ room, but she needn’t have bothered. He was still at the office, and why not? So was the Russian.

  Evangeline flew down the stairs and out the door before she could change her mind.

  Nineteen

  The Answer

  Colleen didn’t belong anywhere.

  Irish Colleen and the younger girls were in New Orleans now, settling into their new townhouse, blocks from the Faubourg Marigny. Instead of moving her stuff to the room her mother set aside for her, Colleen had thrown all her boxes except the essentials into storage.

  Irish Colleen raised a brow at this decision, but said nothing about it. She never did. She wasn’t the kind of mother who fussed over such things as her children’s emotional well-being. A pulse, an education, and a lack of trouble were her expectations, and Colleen had those in spades.

  The essentials fit into two suitcases, which Colleen imagined herself carrying between Ophélie, the New Orleans townhouse, and Magnolia Grace, crashing from night to night as she awaited her inevitable exodus across the ocean.

  That’s what it was now to her, an exodus. An escape from everything. Herself, her choices. Her town, her home, and even her family. This last one hurt almost as much as the doubt she’d created in herself. All her life she’d told herself that everything she must do for her own life must also serve her family. Service to one’s family was next to service to God, and some, like her, were called to this in far more important ways. She believed this not because anyone had told her so. To the contrary, Irish Colleen had informed her, in many ways, that her sense of duty was overblown, if not misplaced. But the bar to lead this family was high. Ophelia was a matriarchal goddess, and when she was gone, someone had to step in who could operate at her level. Charles wasn’t ever going to be that person, and Augustus had no appetite for anything resembling a front seat on affairs. There was no way Colleen would let that honor go to Blanche’s line, even though there were several worthy candidates, like Eugenia, or even Pierce. No, this honor must return to the heir’s line, where it belonged, and if her brothers wouldn’t step up, Colleen had to.

  She had no choice. Sh
e’d given up so much in homage to this belief.

  Except she wasn’t at all sure about any of this anymore. If Colleen could not even see through the trite cliché of the professor seducing his student with false words and intentions, then how could she be trusted to make significant decisions on behalf of her entire family? She was disgusted with her actions… with her lack of instincts strong enough to overcome her inflated ego and burgeoning libido. She hated Philip almost as much as she hated herself. But, still, at night, she thought of him, and of the fire he’d ignited in her that she first thought did not exist and later with him, believed could never die.

  Her list of failures lined the shelves of her mind’s compartments, blurring the boundaries, knocking down the walls built to protect herself from plumbing the depths of her self-realization.

  Colleen counted them down, as she did almost daily, in her moments of self-reflection before she once again closed the doors.

  She should have known her father was sick with cancer. She could have blown past Irish Colleen’s need to respect his wishes and saved him, so he’d still be here, alive, today, and so much else wouldn’t have gone so horribly wrong. All of their misfortune started with the wasted death of a great man.

  Had she tried harder to reach Charles, he wouldn’t be stumbling through life but instead taking charge of it.

  If she’d been more patient with Madeline and tried to understand her plight without judgment, she’d still be here, trying to save the world.

  If she’d been a better sister, a more understanding one, a better example, she could’ve headed off the situation with Maureen’s teacher before it ended with turning their big brother into a murderer, a role he seemed in no hurry to turn away from, and she’d even gently encouraged.

  And to further insult her attentiveness, this hadn’t been enough for her to mind Maureen, who continued to struggle and then ended up pregnant, and being forced into an abortion that broke her spirit. She’d failed her middle sister not once, but twice.

  She’d pushed Evangeline’s needs aside for her own and ignored her cries for help, and then her sweet Evangeline sought comfort among people who eventually caused her great, irreversible harm.

  She couldn’t forget Elizabeth, who had suffered all these years, unable to control her gift or her tongue, and Colleen’s influence and intervention could have saved her many, many years of grief.

  She’d let herself fall for her best friend, only to break Rory’s heart, not once but many times, and as a result, skewing her own view of what love should mean, and whether she was even worthy of it.

  And all this culminated in her fateful affair with Professor Green, and her fall from grace with Tulane.

  Wounding her further was the phone call she’d received from Rory. Their first child was due the following summer. She should be happy for them, especially after Carolina’s tragic, hush-hush miscarriage months prior. Colleen had pushed the two of them together, and now they were doing exactly what she’d said she wanted, which was to make a life. But now that they were, she couldn’t stop the ache deep in her chest, even by plying it with logic. She and Rory were not meant to be. She knew it. Ophelia said it.

  Still, it burned.

  Failure to love him. Failure to let him go.

  Colleen had come to a decision. Although she wasn’t due in Edinburgh until late July, she would leave New Orleans just after Christmas. She wanted to leave now, but Christmas would always and forever be non-negotiable in this family, because of the ways in which it pulled them together with the memory of Madeline. She couldn’t believe three years had passed. Three years since her beautiful, passionate sister had flown through the halls with her dreams and desires that were too big for any of them.

  “What are you doing in here? Alone? In the dark?”

  Colleen squinted through darkness at Evangeline as she stepped through the front door of Magnolia Grace. “You know me. Overthinking everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “All of it. My whole life.”

  “Ah, yes. Your specialty.” Evangeline closed the door and switched on a soft lamp on the desk. “You staying here tonight?”

  “I think so.”

  “You know I love having you here, and Augustus probably wouldn’t know you were here even if you told him, but don’t you think you should pick a place and, I don’t know, move in? You’re not really the transient squatter type. More like the perpetually neurotic type.”

  Colleen ran her hands over her knees. Her vision blurred, losing focus. “I just need to get through the next few weeks.”

  “What does that mean?” Evangeline leaped through the air and bounced into the cushion next to Colleen’s. Colleen grunted at the invasion, then wondered if that, too, was a failure. To be human. To connect. To relax.

  “Christmas is in two weeks. Sometime in January, I’ll be leaving for Edinburgh.”

  “What? That soon?”

  Colleen nodded. “Something is fundamentally wrong with me, Evie. I’m not myself, and I’m not anyone I recognize, and I’m certainly not anyone I’d want to know.”

  “Leena, what is this self-hating bullshit?” Evangeline leaned forward and wrapped Colleen’s hands in hers. “Seriously, why are we brooding alone in the dark? We both know you’re not a failure, and that there’s nothing wrong with you. Nothing much, anyway.”

  “You say that because your expectations of me are different than the ones I hold for myself.”

  Evangeline rolled her eyes so hard they fluttered. “That’s an understatement.”

  “Ophelia won’t be around forever. She talks about it like she’s already decided I’m next in line.”

  “If you’re surprised by that, you’re the only one.”

  “But I have failed everyone. I failed you, too.”

  “Oh, like hell, Colleen. You couldn’t fail me if you worked at it.”

  “You know I did.”

  “If you’re talking about the rape, I’d rather we didn’t.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Just don’t make it your cross, too, because I can’t bear knowing you suffer from it, too.”

  “See?” Colleen said. “I can’t even be supportive without making it about myself.”

  “At worst, you’re a bit of a narcissist,” Evangeline said with a slow nod. “But what I see is a big sister who does more for her family than any sibling on the planet. I see my best friend, who makes mistakes but then learns from them. Who are we without our terrible mistakes? Boring, that’s who.”

  “You’re my heart, Evie. But I need to leave for a while. I have to get my head on straight.”

  “Yeah. You do.”

  Colleen gave a slight smile. “So now you agree with me?”

  Evangeline dropped her hands and threw them up in surrender. “Hey, I never said anything was wrong with you! But if you think so, that’s what matters, right? You’re not gonna listen to a damn thing I say. Or anyone says. You never did, even when they were right. Especially when they were right.”

  Colleen’s grin turned whole.

  “You ask me all the time what I need. I need my big sister to stop hating herself. I need her to see how much good she does in the world, and how big her heart is. And if she needs to go off and fuck William Wallace and his woad-faced rebels for a few years, well…”

  Colleen punched her. “You’re so crude.”

  “You love it.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” Colleen admitted. “Isn’t that sad? I profess to the world that I’m capable of anything, and I can’t even overcome the homesickness before it happens.”

  Evangeline chuckled. “Why do you think I haven’t gone to MIT yet?”

  “That’s not why.”

  “It’s part of it. I’m positively terrified of leaving New Orleans! What if people in Massachusetts don’t know how important I am?”

  Colleen laughed. “You’ll let them know, in your own very
special way.”

  “Mostly for Aggie.” Evangeline answered the rest of her own question. “I worry about him, and that Russian.”

  Colleen patted her arm. “He couldn’t have anyone better in his corner if he is in trouble.”

  “You’re really not concerned about him?”

  “I think, of all of us, Augustus deserves to be happy, and he’s smart enough to know what he wants.”

  Evangeline frowned, visibly deciding whether to continue down that path. “Want me to come with you to Scotland? Help you get set up in your new digs?”

  “Only if it won’t interfere with school.”

  “Fuck school.”

  “Evangeline!”

  “Really, Colleen. The more I think about it, you should go. You’ve carried the family on your shoulders all these years and, you know, I think I can do it for a while. I can take over. Call me Atlas.” Evangeline flexed her upper back.

  “Thanks for saying that.” Colleen exhaled. “That’s what’s eating at me, that there’s a task I’ll be leaving behind. Maybe it is narcissism, because I can’t help but believe everything will fall apart when I leave.”

  Evangeline shook her head. “What do you think the most important trait in a leader is? Here’s a hint: it’s not leadership. Every last one of our politicians are narcissists, and probably sociopaths, too, but let’s ignore that for now, because that’s not my point. Only those bold, and let’s face it, a touch delusional enough to believe they’re capable and worthy will step up to lead. And you’re going to lead this family one day, Colleen, just as Ophelia does now. You’ll probably do it better. And you know what? You’ll do it with heart and conscience, and both of those are bigger than any delusions of grandeur you might secretly harbor about your importance.”

  A well of powerful emotion rose within Colleen and she rolled forward into her sister’s arms. Sobs shook her body and she didn’t try to stop the tears like she normally would. Tears were weakness, and only those without the proper mettle cried—this she had told herself, all these years, and now she knew she was wrong, wrong. There was a time and place for tears, and to let others be strong for you when you were at your lowest.