The Sweetness of Salt

by Cecilia Galante

  I looked around. “Where’s Sophie?”

  Mom and Dad exchanged a knowing glance. “She left, honey,” Mom said softly. “She went back to Vermont.”

  “What do you mean, she went back? She was supposed to be here until tomorrow. How’d she get back?”

  “She took the train,” Mom said. “Dad took her to the station a little while ago.”

  I felt a stir of panic. Had there been a scene? Something worse than when I left? “Why’d she leave?” I asked. Because of what happened at dinner?”

  Dad sighed heavily. He reached down along the side of his easy chair and pulled the handle so the footrest closed back up. Then he folded his hands. “Yes,” he said simply. “Because of what happened at dinner.”

  “But why?” My panic was folding in on itself, turning into some kind of confused rage. “Why do things always come down to this? Why’s she always so mad at you?”

  Dad put his head in between his hands.

  “Dad,” I started. “Sophie said at dinner that there were things that I didn’t know about…”

  His voice came out from under him like an echo. “Yes.”

  “Can you…”

  “Listen to me, Julia.” Dad lifted his head. His voice was so grave and so serious that for a moment I was frightened. “Before I say what I am about to say, I want you to know that being loyal to this family is the most important thing in the world. Your mother and I would do anything to protect you, Julia. Anything. And we may not have done everything perfectly, but we’ve tried our best.” He stared at me with a piercing look. “Being loyal to your mother and your sister and you has been my whole life. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  I nodded, trying to push down the fear rising inside my chest. My heart beat unsteadily with a lopsided kind of rhythm: ba-dum-ba-dum-ba-dum. I rubbed my hands up and down my arms again, trying to get warm. Dad cleared his throat.

  Mom looked up. “You have to start at the beginning, John.” Her voice was as faint as fog. The clock in the kitchen ticked slowly. My insides were churning.

  “Dad?” I pressed.

  He swallowed. “There was another…”

  “Woman?” I said softly. “There was another woman?”

  His head snapped up. “No! Of course not.” He ran his hand down the length of his neck. “A child. Another child.”

  Mom pressed her fingers against her mouth. Her nails, which she had gotten painted at the salon, were chipped and worn at the edges.

  “What are you talking about?” I demanded.

  “Your sister,” Dad said. “Maggie.”

  Mom shut her eyes at the mention of the name.

  “Maggie?” I echoed.

  Dad nodded. “She was born three years after Sophie. In Milford.” He paused. “She died when she was four.”

  Wait. Was I imagining this? Was this really happening? “But why…haven’t you ever told me about her?”

  “That was a decision your mother and I made a long time ago,” Dad answered quietly. “We were trying to protect you.”

  “Protect me?” I repeated. “From what?”

  Mom opened her eyes. They were dull and glassy looking, as if a thin film had descended over the iris. She reached up behind her ear and fingered the cord attached to her hearing aid. “Oh honey, Maggie died so…tragically. It wasn’t something we ever wanted to revisit, let alone make you part of.”

  My legs folded themselves beneath me until I was sitting on the floor. “How did she die?”

  Neither of them answered.

  “Dad?” The worst possible scenarios began to unfold behind my eyes: She was murdered. Kidnapped. Killed in a terrible, unspeakable way. “What happened to her? Tell me.”

  “She had asthma,” Dad said. His face contorted, as if something beneath it was pulling strings in opposite directions. “She couldn’t breathe…”

  “It wasn’t anyone’s fault,” Mom said. “She got worked up one day, and couldn’t stop crying, and…”

  “Oh my God.” My hand flew involuntarily to my chest, as if to steady the violent beat of my heart. “She suffocated? When she was four? Goober’s age?”

  A muscle flexed in Dad’s cheek. He nodded.

  “And Sophie?” I asked. “She was there? She knew about it? She saw…?”

  Dad nodded again. “She saw everything, Julia. And she’s never gotten over it. She was only seven when it happened.” He raised his head again. “We thought maybe if we just didn’t talk about it, if we put it behind us, that Sophie would be able to do the same thing. And when you came along…” He caught the tiny noise that escaped from between his lips with the edge of his fist. “It was like we’d been given another chance, another shot at life. At…starting over.”

  “We didn’t want to involve you in any part of that time,” Mom said. Her eyes were rimmed with tears. “Of all that terrible sadness, honey. We wanted it to be different for you. The best it could possibly be.”

  “You should’ve told me,” I whispered.

  “Julia…,” Dad started.

  “You should have told me!” My voice was rising. “I can’t believe you’ve kept all of this—my sister!—a secret from me. For seventeen years!”

  “Julia,” Mom said, wiping her eyes. “Honey, we just told you…”

  “You told me what? That you were trying to protect me? From your sadness? What does that even mean? What about my sadness? What about the sadness I feel now, knowing that you’ve kept my own sister hidden away in some drawer all my life?”

  Dad stood up. “Do you want to see a picture of her?” he asked. “Is that what you want? We have…”

  “I don’t want you to do anything! Just leave me alone. I mean it! Do not talk to me!”

  “Julia,” Mom cried. “Please!”

  “No!” I screamed, running up the stairs. “There is nothing you could say right now that would fix this. Nothing! Just leave me alone!”

  chapter

  10

  Inside my bedroom, I held on to the wall and tried to envision breathing slowly, but the strangling sensation became even worse. It was as if all the air in my room had been sucked out by some enormous vacuum. Beneath my shirt, I could feel my heart hammering, rapid as a woodpecker, and the palms of my hands grew slick with sweat.

  I stumbled over to my dresser, balancing myself against the top of it with the flats of my palms. “no one, not even the rain, has such small hands.” I repeated the phrase over and over again, waiting for the usual warmth to settle my trembling, but nothing happened. Instead, a coldness unlike any I had ever felt before began to sway and then move, little seaweed fingers pushing up through my stomach and along my arms. I began to cry, pushing my head under my pillow so Mom and Dad wouldn’t hear.

  “Julia?” Mom’s voice sounded distorted, as if she were calling to me underwater. “Julia? Let us in!”

  Dad rattled the doorknob. “Open the door!”

  “Go away!”

  “Please, Julia!” Mom’s voice was breaking. “Are you okay? Just open the door.”

  I brought the tops of my knees to my chest, feeling the thing inside lessening, leaking out of me like a slow drip. My shoulders sagged around me and my feet slid down heavily. “I’m fine,” I murmured. “I want to be alone.”

  “Come on, Arlene,” Dad said in a low voice. “She just needs some time.”

  I could hear Mom hesitate, as if she was about to say something more, and then the soft sound of their footfalls as they made their way back downstairs. I lay down flat on the floor and stared up at the ceiling. A pulse inside my head throbbed like a wayward electrical cord. My chest hurt. Even my fingertips hurt. I closed my eyes, as if the action might ward off the pain, but it did nothing except make the room darker. I kept them closed. Dark was what I wanted.

  When I opened my eyes again, it was black outside. I glanced at the clock next to my bed. 4:45 a.m. A wind rustled through the leaves of the trees outside, making a low, whistling sound against my window. My c
ell phone blinked and buzzed on my dresser. I picked it up and flipped it open. Seventeen missed calls. All from Zoe.

  I pushed the off button and threw it on the floor.

  Outside, the wind blew mournfully, trying to get my attention. Purple light, fragile as an iris petal, hovered behind the trees outside. The throbbing in my head had dimmed to a dull ache. I got up to get a drink. The floor creaked beneath my feet. Just the sound of the rushing water made me wince. The water itself felt like a thick sliver of ice inside my parched mouth. I drank for a long time, and then went back to bed.

  Maggie.

  I hadn’t dreamed that, right? Had they really told me I’d had a sister once, years ago, who had died? A real person they’d somehow—and purposely—kept from me for seventeen years?

  “When you were born, Julia, it was like we’d been given another chance at life. We wanted to make things as perfect for you as possible.”

  Perfect for me?

  Or perfect for them?

  Was there a difference?

  Maggie. I couldn’t get the name out of my head. Maggie. Short for Margaret, I guessed. There was no face to attach to the name, no visual to flood my head. The only baby I’d ever known in my life was Goober. Little Goober, who had a face as red and wrinkled as the skin of a pomegranate when she’d been born, whose blue eyes were so dark they were like looking into deep water.

  What had Maggie looked like when she was born? Had she been a peanut like me? Tall and skinny like Sophie? Black hair? Blue eyes? Maybe she had looked like Goober. I didn’t know.

  I didn’t know!

  I hadn’t been told.

  I’d been kept out for some reason, left outside the inner ring.

  Maybe that was what some people called protection.

  Me, I just called it lying.

  A sharp rapping on my door a few hours later woke me up.

  “Julia?” It was Dad. “You have a visitor. Please get up now and come downstairs.”

  I peered at the clock. 11:06 a.m. “Who is it?”

  “Zoe,” Dad answered.

  “Tell her I’ll call her later.”

  The sound of Dad’s footsteps descended down the steps. I could make out just the faintest sound of conversation between Mom, Zoe, and Dad. God only knew what they were telling her. Probably that I got food poisoning or something at the party last night, which was why I was still in bed. There was the sound of pounding footsteps suddenly, and then a sharp banging on the door.

  “Julia!” Zoe yelled. “Let me in! I have to talk to you!”

  I slid out of bed, wincing as my feet touched the bare floor, and opened the door a crack. Zoe was dressed in blue jeans that she had cut off at the knee and a bright yellow T-shirt, emblazoned with the question what’s your problem? on the front. A tiny gold butterfly barrette cinched a lock of hair against her forehead. She raised her eyebrows as I opened the door a bit more, and then strode into the room.

  “What?” I asked.

  “What do you mean, what?” Zoe glanced around slowly, as if looking for contraband.

  I lifted my arms and then let them fall heavily against my sides. “Zoe, you just came running up the steps, yelling and screaming that you had to talk to me. What’s wrong?”

  “I want to know why you ran off last night.” Zoe planted herself on top of my bed, crossed her flip-flops at the ankles, and leaned back on her palms. “I texted you like eighty times, but of course you didn’t answer. Now what happened?”

  “Nothing happened.” I grabbed my robe off the back of the door and tied it tightly around my waist. “You know I hate parties like that. I just wanted to leave.”

  “That’s bullshit, and you know it.” Zoe lifted her knee and began to examine her toes, which were painted the same bubble-gum pink as her fingernails. “Come on, Jules. Spill.”

  “Can you please leave? It’s…” I looked around, bewildered. “God, what day is it?”

  “Friday,” Zoe said nonchalantly.

  “Right, Friday. One of the few days I have left to sleep in before my internship starts. Can we please have this discussion later?”

  Zoe bounded off my bed. “No. Listen, I have to go run a few errands for my mom. But I’ll be done in a half hour. I want you to meet me at Charles Street Park at 11:45 sharp so we can talk. Then I’m taking you to lunch.”

  “No way.” I shook my head. “I’m going back to bed.”

  Zoe put her hand on her hip. “Your parents already know you’re up. If you don’t leave they’re going to bug you until you come out of your room. You won’t get any sleep anyway.”

  I bit my lip. “Fine.”

  “Don’t be late,” Zoe said, pausing at the door. “And dude?”

  “What?”

  “Drive the new car.”

  chapter

  11

  The hot water felt good against my skin, but it did nothing to ease the ache that was beneath it. Still, I stood under it for so long that clouds of steam began to make the walls sweat. When I opened the door, the blast of cold air shocked me. I wrapped a towel around myself quickly. Except that I couldn’t do anything quickly, it seemed. Everything felt as though it took an enormous effort—even breathing. The towel scratched against my skin like sandpaper, and the muscles in my calf muscles were tight as knots. I got dressed, pulling on my soft jeans, a white T-shirt, and flats, and knotted my wet hair into a loose ponytail.

  “Hi,” Mom said softly, getting up from her chair as I came down to the kitchen. Her green stem-stripper gloves were on the table, next to her coffee. “How are you feeling?” I didn’t answer, reaching instead for my purse, which was hanging on the back of one of the chairs. Mom’s eyes were taking in my appearance, but slowly, as if she didn’t want to frighten me.

  “Are you going to work?” I asked, nodding at the gloves.

  “I thought I would,” Mom said. “It’ll be slow at the shop today, though. If you need me to…”

  “No. I’m leaving.”

  “Where’re you going?”

  “I’m meeting Zoe for lunch.”

  “Don’t you want to dry your hair first?” Mom came around behind me, surveying my ponytail. “It’s soaking wet, Julia. The whole back of your shirt is…”

  “It’s fine,” I said curtly. “It’ll dry on my way over. I have to go.”

  “Well, hold on a minute,” Mom said. “You haven’t eaten anything yet, honey. I made you some scrambled eggs and toast.”

  “I’m not hungry.” I swung my purse over my shoulder and headed for the door.

  “Julia.” Mom rested her hand on side of the stove. “You father had to run out to get a few things but we want to talk to you. Honey, please. Could we just talk before you leave?”

  I slammed the door behind me with a sharp thwack.

  I spotted Zoe immediately, sitting on a swing next to a little kid, who was pumping his feet furiously. “Come on!” she yelled to him. “You gotta get super high first. Come on! Pump!” Pieces of the boy’s brown hair blew backward as he threw back his head and strained his legs. “That’s it!” Zoe said. “You’re almost there! A couple more! Keep going! I’ll tell you when!”

  The swing shook as it flew forward and then back again. Even from where I stood, I could see the boy’s eyes scanning the patch of ground up ahead of him. He looked terrified.

  “Okay!” Zoe yelled as the swing began another upward ascent. The boy’s face was white. At the apex of the swing, Zoe stood up. “Now!” she screamed. The boy let go all at once, his eyes the size of quarters. He soared through the air, arms and legs flailing like a kite unleashed. Just for a moment, it seemed, he hung there—suspended against the fading light, almost as if he had been pinned up against the sky somehow—and then he came crashing back down, a tangle of elbows and knees, rolling in the dirt. He skidded a few feet and then lay still, flat on his back.

  Zoe rushed over to him and got down on one knee. “You okay?”

  The little boy sat up. He blinked a few times, and th
en grinned. “I want to do it again.”

  “That was friggin’ awesome,” Zoe said. “You were flying! Gimme five!” She held up both hands. The boy slapped them hard and raced back to the swing set.

  Zoe spotted me coming up behind him. She trotted over quickly and slowed as she got closer. “You still look like crap.”

  “Thanks.”

  She interlocked her elbow into mine and led me over to the small cluster of trees that overlooked the pond. Arranging herself along one of the thick roots, she settled in, tucking her legs under her. I leaned against the side of the tree, poking the grass with my toe. “I really don’t feel like talking.”

  “Just sit, okay?” Zoe squinted up in my direction. “Please. Humor me.”

  I sighed heavily and sat down.

  Zoe stared out across the park at the little boy who was still working his way up to jumping height on the swing. “I’m worried about you,” she said quietly.

  “Don’t be. I’m fine.”

  She swiveled her head, looking at me sharply. “Don’t give me that. The only thing I know that would make you stay in your room for twenty-four continual hours would be a college rejecting you. And since you got accepted to not one, not two, but all ten of the colleges you applied to, I’m assuming it’s not that. So what is it?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t.”

  “I don’t know why you always shut me out,” Zoe said. “I told you about my mom. You’re the only one too.”

  I thought about this for a moment. It was true. The real reason Zoe and Milo’s parents had moved across the country so abruptly two years ago was because their father had discovered their mother was having an affair. The move was a last-ditch effort to keep their marriage together, but things were strained. The last time they had fought about it, Zoe said, her mother had started crying and said that she felt as though she was living in jail. Milo had never said anything to me about it.

  “I know,” I said, stalling. “This is just…I don’t know. I guess I need a little time.”