The Sister Season

by Scott, Jennifer

  Mourners started to file in, and Elise took her spot, with Julia, next to Robert’s casket, to shake hands and give hugs and thank people she barely knew or didn’t know at all for coming to join her in saying good-bye to her husband. Julia must have known almost nobody who came through the line, but she held her own. She was charming and poised, and Elise could see a side of her she had forgotten existed. They called her Queenie for a reason. Something had been off about Julia all week—now that Elise knew about Eli, she supposed that was what it was. But how her daughter could turn her charm on like flipping a switch she would never understand. She supposed it was Julia’s own defense mechanism, learned to help her survive Robert’s wrath.

  Claire didn’t join them. She sat in the front pew, sunglasses on, with Molly on her lap, holding Eli’s hand. Elise couldn’t tell what her daughter was thinking and feeling behind those giant glasses, but she could see the hard set to her jaw and knew that she would not be joining the receiving line anytime soon.

  If ever.

  Sad organ music played and people clutched tissues and a group of old farmers chatted quietly, respectfully, in the back and a couple of children nosed through a cookie platter just outside the chapel door. After a while, the music stopped and once again Joe Dale appeared and took Elise by the elbow, leading her to the front pew, where she sat between Eli and Julia. Maya stayed in the back pew by herself.

  “Welcome,” Joe Dale began, and Elise felt her eyes fill with tears. Not tears of sadness. Oh, no, those tears would come soon enough. Those tears would wash over her in a wave. Those tears would stretch back decades and would leave her raw and hollow and regretful.

  These tears were different.

  Robert was dead. Her husband of forty-seven years was gone. There was tinsel on the tree and poinsettias on the porch and nobody would get drunk and beat her tonight.

  These were tears of relief.

  Twenty-three

  The service was short, the preacher going on about shadows and valleys and all the typical funeral things.

  Nobody who knew Robert rose to speak, so even his eulogy was stale and ordinary, and Elise couldn’t help but feel some amount of smug satisfaction that nobody was going to stand up and talk about Robert Yancey as if he were some sort of saint. It was bad enough to hear that he might be heaven-bound. If anyone deserved a short trip on a long escalator downward, it was that man.

  So when the preacher began talking about Robert being someone who loved the outdoors and gathering over a good meal with good friends, until he got to the child of Christ part, it almost sounded like a dating ad. She wondered if he would also claim that her dearly departed husband enjoyed long walks on the beach and French poetry.

  After the service, everyone filed out except Elise and her daughters. Even Eli had dutifully taken Molly to the cookie tray, both of them silent and looking wrung out. It was going to be a rough patch for poor Molly, her family broken, her brother and mother sick. And rough for Eli as well, Elise suspected. She hoped her daughters were prepared to be there for their children. That was where she’d always fallen down, in taking care of her daughters. In protecting them. She hadn’t done enough of it and she knew it. If she had a regret in this life, it was of not taking them away from their father, rather than not taking herself away from him.

  “We’ll give you a few moments,” Joe Dale said, and left, closing the door behind him.

  Elise dutifully went back to the casket, said an internal good-bye and stepped away.

  Julia stepped up next, peered into the casket for a moment, then backed to her mom’s side. They looked out at Claire and Maya, who had both stayed in their spots at opposite ends of the chapel.

  Maya simply shook her head no, slowly.

  Claire stood, walked over to the casket, looked down, and said, “Fuck you,” then walked away. Elise was surprised that she didn’t feel scandalized by it. In fact, she felt a little triumphant.

  The ground was soft and slushy. The snow had melted a good deal, and their high heels sank into the ground as they walked, all except for Maya, who seemed to know how to float above treacherous ground in her heels. Probably because she had worn them so much.

  The wind had kicked up and they huddled against themselves as they traipsed to the grave site, hugging their coats tight around them, ducking their heads down into their collars. Julia lit a cigarette and smoked it on the way, then gave one each to Claire and Maya, who both took them gratefully.

  They sat in folding chairs under a canopy that had been hastily erected, but did a nice job of keeping the wind out, and listened as the preacher read from the Bible and said more generic things that had nothing to do with the man who was Robert Yancey. The children hung in the back of the crowd, Molly twirling in circles, her little skirt fanning out around her delicately.

  They sat in silence. They nodded their appreciation to the preacher. They nodded to Joe Dale. They stayed in their seats, shoulder touching shoulder, as everyone filed away.

  It was done.

  After everything, it was finally done.

  And that was when Elise finally broke down, sitting with her daughters, remembering all the times the girls’ cries and pleas had broken her heart and she could do nothing about them but hope that they wouldn’t be horribly tainted for life at the hands of her husband. She sat with them now, three grown women who all held pain in their eyes. Who all had secrets and who kept their feelings and thoughts locked away.

  She wanted them back. Not for Christmas, but forever. She wanted that relationship she’d never been able to forge with them, thanks to him. She wanted to be there for Maya as she nursed Will, and herself, back to health. She wanted to be there for Julia as she sought help for her son. She wanted to be there for Claire, who looked so haunted Elise wasn’t sure that it was only yesterday that haunted her. She wanted to be there for them at last.

  She wanted to know them, and she wanted them to know her. She wanted to be rid of this secret that was making her act crazy and felt like a brick wall between her and her daughters. If she expected them to speak, she had to do so first.

  “I did it,” she said at last, her voice creaky and small. She cleared her throat and repeated herself more forcefully. “I did it.”

  “Did what?” Julia asked. She squeezed Elise’s hand.

  “I killed him.”

  There was a beat of silence, and then Claire leaned forward. “Holy shit, Mom,” she breathed. “What happened?”

  “I’d had enough, and I wanted him gone,” Elise said. “So he’s gone.”

  Claire stood, faced them. “What did you do?”

  So, sitting in a folding chair next to the man’s fresh grave, Elise recounted to them how Robert had died that night.

  She’d been in bed, reading, just like every night. Reading, and hoping he was drinking enough to pass out in his stupid recliner, just as he’d been doing lately. As much as it sickened her to wake up to the stench of his acrid breath barreling out of his body and stinking up the front room every morning, at least when he was passed out in the recliner he wasn’t terrorizing her in the bedroom.

  She must have dozed off, because she remembered picking her book up off of her chest when she heard the thunk from down in the front room. It was a sound she recognized, like someone had sat up real quick in the recliner and knocked it back to sitting position. She opened her eyes and listened for more, hoping that he wasn’t coming to bed. He’d be angry that she’d fallen asleep with the lights on and wasted electricity.

  But then she heard a cry, a kind of strangled yargh sound and a wheezy cough. And then her name, only it took him several tries to get it out. “El . . . Eli . . . Eli . . . El . . . Elise!”

  She was scared. Was there an intruder in the house? A murderer? She strained to hear more, not moving a muscle for fear of drowning out an important noise such as footsteps climbing the stairs. But
there didn’t appear to be the sound of any sort of struggle going on. Just Robert making those strange guttural noises and the squeak of his recliner moving around.

  At last she got out of bed and crept downstairs.

  “Robert?” she asked, and when he didn’t answer, walked into the front room with her heart in her throat, barely breathing because she was so frightened.

  But she rounded the corner and saw him there, his face so red it was purple, both hands clutching his chest. He was holding his breath.

  “Robert?” she asked again, coming into the room, startled. “What’s wrong?”

  “Help,” he choked out, and he reached for her.

  Without thinking, she ran for the phone in the den. She picked it up off its base and carried it into the front room, her finger hovering over the “9.”

  When she came back in the room, she could see that his pain had only intensified. His cheeks bulged in fear and his fingers scrabbled at his chest. His breathing was coming out in raspy gulps. And looking at him, she realized she was looking at someone having a massive heart attack. If she didn’t get help for him, he could die. In fact, from the looks of things, he probably would die.

  He looked so pathetic. So frightened. Practically pleading for mercy.

  How many times had she pleaded for mercy and not gotten any from him?

  How many times had she looked pathetic, been clutching at a body part in pain, been frightened and needy?

  And how many times had he kicked her while she was down?

  His bulging eyes seemed to take her in and know exactly what she was thinking, because they’d gotten a fearful look to them. He’d thrashed in the chair a bit as if to get up and grab the phone from her, and then he’d gone unconscious.

  “I’m sorry, Robert,” she said, pulling the phone to her side. “You don’t deserve my help.”

  She’d climbed the stairs back to her bedroom, taking the phone with her, and locked the bedroom door behind her. She never knew if he regained consciousness, if he died right then, or if he suffered for hours first.

  They sat in stunned silence, their faces turned toward their father’s casket. Elise sniffled into a tissue, feeling miserable and responsible and as if her daughters would never again want anything to do with her. At last her secret was out. Nobody seemed to know what to say.

  Then a sound from the end seat punctured the silence.

  A snicker.

  Elise, Claire, and Julia all turned, leaned forward, to look at Maya, whose shoulders were shaking. Elise’s eyes grew wide.

  “I’m sorry,” Maya said, covering her mouth with one hand, but her giggles seeped out between her fingers. She tried to compose herself, cleared her throat, pressed her lips together. “You didn’t kill him, Mom. You’re not a murderer.” The other two daughters nodded in agreement.

  “You can’t be held responsible for someone else’s heart attack,” Julia said.

  “He died of natural causes,” Claire added. “Bacon killed him. Bacon and booze and a terrible temper.”

  “Who’s to say the paramedics could have saved him anyway?” Maya said. “You let him go. You should have done it years ago.”

  Maybe they were right. What if she hadn’t heard his cry that night? What if she’d slept just a fraction more soundly, or awakened two seconds more slowly? What if she’d searched for her slippers or stopped to tie her robe? What if the ambulance hadn’t arrived in time, if the CPR didn’t work, if he’d died on an operating table early the next morning? He would be no less dead, and she would be no more at fault.

  She liked the way it sounded, that Robert was dead, but she didn’t kill him. She just . . . let him go.

  He may have been the shy boy who’d carved that hummingbird box for her, the one who’d called her beautifullest, the one who’d promised to love and honor her. But he was also the one who’d pulled her hair, who’d pushed her down the stairs, sprained her wrist, sneered when she cried. He was the one who’d hurt her daughters—the people in this world she loved more than anything. He was the one who’d driven them away, made them lock up their hearts, made them forge secrets and keep them from her.

  He needed to be let go. And she’d let him go.

  There was a beat, and then Claire started laughing. “How surprised the old goat must have been when he ordered you to do something and you actually didn’t for a change.”

  “But he was only surprised for a few minutes,” Maya said, then lost her composure again and joined her sister’s laughter, and even Julia’s mouth tipped up in a little smile. But abruptly Maya’s laughter turned to sobs, so gut-wrenching they sounded painful. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m sorry. I’m such a mess. I just . . . everything that’s happened . . . I’m scared . . .”

  Claire rushed to Maya’s seat and knelt in front of her. She reached up and rubbed her sister’s arms, repeating, “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay, Maya.” Soon they were all sobbing again, and to Joe Dale they might have looked as if they would miss his friend Robert Yancey as much as he would. But they were mourning something much deeper. The loss of a father. Of a husband. Of sisters. The loss of their own childhood. The loss of so many years, spent up and wasted with pain and anger.

  They had so many years’ worth of tears to cry.

  Slowly, Elise pulled herself to standing and walked over to the casket, shining and pristine with a spray of red roses adorning the lid. She reached into her pocketbook and pulled out the necklace Molly had found in the Christmas tree branches, which she’d tucked in her purse at the last moment. She held it up and watched the pendant swivel at the end of its chain. Such a mystery, that necklace. But the man—there was no mystery about him. Even if he’d been trying to apologize with this gift—even if he’d been saying he wanted to start anew—Elise knew it wouldn’t have been long before she was nursing a broken bone, or a broken heart, a broken soul again.

  The pendant, the mystery, it didn’t matter. The man was a monster, and she should have rid herself of him years ago.

  She dangled the necklace over the casket. “I’m sorry, Robert,” she said. “It just doesn’t work that way. Too little, too late.” She opened her fingers and let the pendant fall. It landed on the casket with a rattle and slid over the side, down into the yawning grave below.

  Julia stood, wrapped her arm around her mom, and pulled her close, leaned her head against Elise’s. “It’s okay, Mom,” she whispered. “We’re here. We’re all here.”

  Twenty-four

  Elise didn’t get to taking down the tree until after she’d gotten back from Chicago.

  She’d flown home with Maya and the children two days after Robert’s funeral. By the time she got back, the Colorado blue spruce was brittle and browning. It no longer carried the smell that God intended. Her mother would have been frantic with worry. Would’ve been expecting it to spontaneously combust any minute.

  Still, when she got home from Chicago, from the frenzy of heartache, during which she tried so helplessly to be there for her daughter who was grieving the loss of her marriage in between difficult doctor’s appointments, she left her bags by the front door and went straight to the spruce and stood in front of it, pondering her own heavy heart.

  When Maya’s shock had worn off and the realization that her marriage was over had finally arrived, it hit her with such a force as to dissolve her. Elise’s daughter was empty, drifting about with wet eyelashes and a sunken look that suggested a part of her had disappeared with Bradley. She scarcely spoke, couldn’t do anything for the poor children, who seemed lost as well, couldn’t lift a finger without needing to go back to her dark bedroom and lie down for hours.

  Elise tried her hardest to help out. She kept on top of Will’s pain pills and daily visits to the doctor, as the blood vessels in his fingers slowly repaired themselves. She sat with the children during Maya’s radiation appointments and pl
ayed with them when their mother arrived home, tired and crabby. She took down the Christmas tree and helped the children open up all their new toys. She made sure the kids bathed and dressed and she arranged for them to spend some time with their father, who appeared to be living with a colleague just a few blocks away. She cooked dinners that nobody ate and vacuumed floors that nobody walked on.

  Will was doing better every day, but Elise stayed on, tending to her daughter’s shattered life the way she’d tended to the farm as a child—a set of unwelcome, yet satisfying, chores to do. Nobody was waiting for her to come home. She could stay as long as she needed.

  But after three days, a bald lady in a pink T-shirt came to the door, carrying a bag loaded with supplies. Cleaning supplies, comfort food, bottles of wine. The poor thing looked so shrunken, Elise stepped aside and ushered her in, taking the bag off her shoulder and carrying it to the kitchen for her.

  “I’m so sorry I couldn’t get here sooner,” the lady said, following oh so slowly behind Elise. “I’ve been out of commission lately. But I’ve rallied once again . . .”

  Maya, who had heard her friend’s voice, flew off the couch and into the kitchen, wailing like a siren and holding her arms out like a child. They fell into each other’s embrace, rocking and crying so that Elise knew it was time for her to go, time for her to let Maya’s friend take the reins.

  Now, standing in front of the Colorado blue spruce, many of its needles under her feet on the floor, more sleet clicking against the windows, she felt very alone. But peacefully so.

  “I suppose I’ll go ahead and take down the tinsel, Robert,” she said, even though she knew he wouldn’t answer.

  She started to reach for a strand of silver, but her hand fell away. Instead, she leaned over and plugged in the lights, knowing, but not caring about, the danger of doing so on such a dry tree. She stood back admiring the twinkling lights for a moment, hands on hips, reflection on her face, and then eased herself down to the floor.