The Other Sister

by Dianne Dixon

  Every minute of every day, Ali struggled with the pain of losing Ava. In addition to Ava’s loss, Ali was also struggling to understand Matt’s hostile reaction when he heard the news about Sofie’s future.

  After Ava’s cremation, after they’d scattered her ashes in the walled garden, Ali had told Matt, “Ava’s landlady has been taking care of Sofie for the past few days, but now Sofie is coming to stay with us.”

  The color drained from Matt’s face. “When?”

  “Now. This afternoon.”

  “No.” Matt looked horrified. “This is a bad idea, Ali.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I fucking said so!”

  Ali was stunned. Matt had never talked to her like that, ever.

  The next thing she knew, he walked out of the walled garden, got into the car, and drove away. Ali had to call Jessica for a ride home. From that day to this, Matt and Ali had been cut off from each other. And Sofie was the wall between them.

  “Yeah, Sofie’s real special…a real good baby.” Marcie was folding her hands, then unfolding them, nervous, uncertain. “You know Ava had Sofie on formula, right? Jeez, of course you know. You’ve been taking care of her for how many months now?”

  “Almost five.” Ali fiddled with the strap on her purse. “Sofie’s first birthday is in a few weeks. I should’ve come sooner.” But Ali knew there was no way she could have done that. The agony of her rape, the rapist still being on the loose, her shredded relationship with Matt—all of it was emotional quicksand. It had taken Ali a long time to begin to pull herself out, even a little.

  “Gosh, I wasn’t saying I thought you should’ve gotten over here sooner. That wasn’t what I meant.” Marcie’s voice faltered. “I was just trying to say Ava was a good mom…wanting Sofie to eat all organic and everything. It about broke Ava’s heart that she couldn’t nurse. Her milk just never came in right and—” Marcie rolled her eyes. “Oh for goodness’ sake, I’m talking too much. It drives people crazy.”

  “It’s okay.” Ali’s smile was sincere. “I don’t mind.”

  Marcie went into the kitchen, to a shelf where there was a row of drinking glasses, each of them a different iridescent shade of peacock green. She filled one with water and gave it to Ali. “I feel like I know you. I guess it’s because Ava used to tell me about you all the time. She really loved you.”

  “I loved her, too.” As she said this, Ali was remembering Ava…in the doorway of the restaurant kitchen, gazing out at Sofie with such love. While Sofie cooed in the sunshine of the walled garden. While she napped in its gentle breezes.

  And Ali was recalling something else, too… A particularly beautiful Saturday afternoon. The yellow roses were in full bloom around the garden walls. Several months earlier, she and Ava had laid out a series of winding, gravel pathways and filled the spaces between them with purple basil and dusty-green sage. With the sturdy splendor of rosemary and the delicate silver of Spanish lavender. On that Saturday, Ali and Ava were getting the garden ready for the mild California winter. They were just finishing their work, the scent of herbs and the feel of the damp earth still on their hands, as Ava touched her open palm to Ali’s saying, “Where our sweetest first memories are made…that is where we put down the roots of home.”

  Ali had been looking at Sofie when she told Ava, “I hope that for Sofie, this garden will always be home.”

  The memory spurred a twinge of guilt in Ali: Be careful what you wish for. Had she, in loving Sofie so much, wanted Sofie all to herself? Without knowing it, had Ali wished Ava was gone?

  She pushed the thought away. It was too awful.

  Ali saw that Marcie was waiting restlessly. The time had come. They needed to get down to business. Ali was apologetic. “I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get over here to pick up Sofie’s things…” Her voice trailed off. She started again. “I guess now there’s really no point in doing it. Sofie has probably outgrown all the clothes.”

  “Yeah. But she might like having some of her toys.” Marcie flashed Ali an encouraging grin. “There’s this one little teddy bear she was crazy about. I bet she’d be real glad to see him again.”

  Not wanting to break down, Ali was trying to focus on what needed to be done. “I brought boxes… I forgot them in the car.”

  “No problem.” Marcie indicated a stack of grocery bags piled near the door. “I already packed up all the baby things for you.”

  Ali was looking at the beauty Ava had left behind. The rain-forest mural and the wood-framed photographs lined up on the windowsill, and the rows of books neatly arranged in a series of low, coral-colored bookcases.

  “I still can’t bring myself to do anything about her stuff,” Marcie said “God knows I need the rent on this place, but I just can’t clear it out…can’t stand the thought of anybody else being in here.” Marcie went to one of the bookcases, signaling she wanted Ali to join her. “Come take a look at this. You’re not gonna believe it.”

  The bindings on the books were faded and cracked. When Ali leaned in to look closely, she was surprised. She saw names that included Dickens and Brontë, Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, Dostoyevsky, and Jane Austen.

  “It’s how she learned English,” Marcie said, “by reading all this fancy, old-fashioned stuff. That’s why it sounded so pretty when she talked.” Marcie took one of the framed photographs from the windowsill. A picture of a teenaged Ava, in a kitchen garden, wearing a school uniform. “Ava went to Catholic school for a couple of years.” Marcie pointed to the other person in the photo, an elderly nun whose face was luminous. “That’s Sister Pierre. She gave Ava all these books. She was from France, and she was in charge of the school’s kitchen. That’s how Ava learned to cook.”

  “Sounds like you and Ava were close…like you spent a lot of time together.” Ali was jealous. Ava belonged to her—Ali’s surrogate sister after Morgan stormed out of Ali’s life.

  Marcie sounded worried that she’d offended Ali. “We were pretty good friends, but it wasn’t the same as how she felt about you. Ava adored you. She told me you and she had the same soul. That’s why I wasn’t surprised, after Ava was gone, when I found the papers she’d made out just after Sofie was born, her will, where she said she wanted you to take care of Sofie if…if anything ever happened.”

  The loss of Ava was hitting with full force. Ali had a painful tightness in her throat. “Were you with her when she died?”

  Marcie drew an unsteady breath. “Like I told you…she was on the stairs out front. I don’t think she’d been there very long. By the time I found her, she was already gone.”

  “I still can’t believe she’s dead.” A new wave of grief swept through Ali.

  “Did you know she’d met somebody?” Marcie asked.

  “No.”

  “I think Ava was keeping it a secret until she was sure it was going somewhere. The only reason I knew is I ran into him a couple of times when he came to pick up Ava.” Marcie’s smile was wistful. “When I got nosy and asked, Ava said she thought maybe she was falling in love with him.”

  Marcie dabbed at her eyes. “It’s why she started taking the pill. And that’s what killed her…being in love. That blood clot from the stupid birth control pills went into her lungs, and she was dead. Just like that.” Marcie shook her head, then said, “Kinda gives you the shivers how easy it is for the people you love to just be…gone.”

  “Yes,” Ali agreed. She was thinking about all the people who were suddenly gone from her. She was thinking about Ava. And her grandmother MaryJoy. And Morgan. And Matt.

  Ava and her grandmother would never return, and Ali wished they could.

  She knew Matt and Morgan could return, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it.

  She wasn’t sure that when they came back, if they came back, they would be people she still loved.

  Matt

  “This is
unfair, Matt. It’s not like I’m asking for the moon.”

  Matt understood why Ali had kept her voice low—because she didn’t want to wake Sofie—but she’d made no attempt to hide her anger.

  They were driving away from a dinner party hosted by one of the actors on Matt’s show. Sofie was asleep in her car seat. The argument, which had started during the party, was boiling over now. Matt tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “I didn’t say you were asking for the moon. I’m simply telling you I don’t think I can make it.”

  Matt switched the radio on—thumping hip-hop. Ali slapped the power button and shut it off.

  “Matt, since Sofie’s been with us, you haven’t gone to even one of her pediatrician’s appointments.”

  He could feel Ali looking at him, trying to get him to look back. He kept his attention on the road. “Give it a rest, Al.” It was a warning.

  Ali lunged toward him and was yanked back by her seat belt, her words coming out choked and clipped. “Don’t bother to give me the ‘I’m too busy at work’ speech.” She angrily loosened the seat belt. “Every time I go to the pediatrician’s office, there’s a waiting room full of parents, and plenty of them are fathers. I doubt they’re all unemployed.”

  Without giving Matt a chance to respond, she added, “It’s not that off the charts. It happens all the time. Kids go to doctor appointments with their parents.”

  “We’re her temporary guardians.” Matt was jaw-clenched, pounding-headache angry.

  It was obvious Ali was equally angry—ready to scream at him or hit him, or both. He told her, “I know you’re in a tough spot, Al. You and I haven’t been the same since…” He couldn’t bring himself to say the word rape. “Ali, it isn’t just what happened to you or what’s going on with us. It’s this thing with your sister. You being cut off from Morgan. That’s not doing you any good either.”

  The mention of Morgan brought a quick silence. Afterward, it sounded like Ali was fighting tears. “I don’t know how to get it all done,” she said. “I don’t know how to take care of myself, and Sofie, and Morgan.” Ali looked exhausted. “When Morgan’s around, she leans her entire weight on me, expects me to be her rock. Right now, I need a rock…somebody I can lean on.”

  “Then lean on me.” Matt said it with gentleness and tenderness. There was nothing he wanted more than to have Ali lean on him—and be close to her again.

  “What good would it do…to lean on you? I’d just fall flat on my face. You wouldn’t be there. You’d be at work.” She’d said it sarcastically, with disgust.

  His feeling of gentleness had vanished—Matt was aggravated now. “Ali, there’s no reason for me to play daddy at a doctor’s visit for a kid who’ll probably be gone before it’s time for her next appointment.” The left turn he made was deliberately hard; the car rocked. “We’re her temporary guardians.”

  He wished he could tell Ali why he was so unwilling to be responsible for Sofie. But there was no way to explain without telling the truth about the things he’d done and exposing secrets that could cost him Ali’s love.

  “Maybe we’re her temporary guardians for now,” Ali snapped. “But I won’t let it stay that way. It’ll be permanent. Just as soon as I can get all the legal stuff worked out.”

  Ali’s tunnel vision about the issue of Sofie terrified Matt. Ali was pushing him into a place he didn’t want to go—not again. He had to stop her. “Al, you need to put the brakes on this. We’re not ready for it.”

  “Not ready for what? Not ready to do what’s obviously the right thing?”

  Why didn’t she understand that he was trying to warn her? Why wouldn’t she listen? Matt’s anger exploded. “There’s nothing obvious about it. It’s complicated as hell!”

  “Not to me,” Ali shouted.

  Matt had to let several minutes pass before he could get his temper under control. “Ali, ever since you were—” He stopped, then said, “Ever since that night when you were attacked, we’ve been cracked up. To take on this kind of responsibility out of nowhere, out of the blue, it seems like the straw that’s going to break us.”

  Ali’s determined expression left no room for negotiation. “I want Sofie. I want to be a mother. I’m going to be her mother. I expect you to step up and be her father.”

  Matt felt goaded—and was pushing back. “You expect?”

  She stared him down, silently telling him, You owe me this. He was too upset, too guilty, to tell her he didn’t.

  “Sofie belongs with me,” Ali said. “It’s what Ava wanted. It’s what I want. And I won’t let you try to stop me.”

  Ali was shoving them into a corner they might not be able to get out of. Matt sensed the color draining from his face. He glanced up at the rearview mirror—looking at Sofie, in her car seat.

  When Matt looked back at the road, he was seeing another little girl from a very long time ago. Dancing in a flower-sprigged dress. So breakable. So defenseless.

  And he murmured, “I can’t do it again.”

  Ali gave him a curious look. “Can’t do what?”

  “I can’t have this fight right now.”

  “No. That isn’t what you meant.” Ali was scrutinizing him, trying to see what he was hiding. “You were talking about something else. I heard it in your voice.”

  His laugh was hollow. “That’s impossible, Al. You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, or noticed anything I’ve done, for months.”

  Matt turned the car onto their street, Paradise Lane, his pulse racing like he was hurtling toward a brick wall.

  Ten miles from Paradise Lane

  at the beginning of spring.

  Brutality.

  A vicious punch.

  A terrified moan.

  And a diamond stud. Falling into soft, new grass.

  Matt

  Before he could get to the door, the phone rang. The voice at the other end of the call was coldly impersonal: Matt needed to report to the soundstage immediately.

  Matt’s heart skipped a beat. Whatever this was, it was trouble.

  When the call came, he’d had his car keys in his hand, was seconds away from leaving his office. Sofie was scheduled for another routine checkup today. He’d decided to be there and make it a surprise for Ali.

  Ever since the fight they’d had in the car about Sofie, Matt and Ali had stayed sealed off from each other. Ali, with Sofie never more than an arm’s length away, spending the majority of her time at the restaurant; Matt almost always at the studio. What he had been hoping for this afternoon was to find his way back to Ali. All day, all he’d thought about was walking into that pediatrician’s waiting room and putting a smile on Ali’s face.

  Now, the only place he was headed was back to work, because there was an emergency on the set of his show. The series, called Darling, followed the exploits—in and out of the bedroom—of a glib sleuth for hire named Jake Darling. A recent ratings spike had turned Seth Kates, the actor who played Darling, into one of the hottest stars on television.

  When Matt arrived on the soundstage, the only illuminated space was the lavish set that was the interior of Jake Darling’s private jet. Seth Kates was there, sprawled on one of the set’s oversize leather lounge chairs, playing a game on his cell phone. Aidan Blake was nearby with two high-ranking network executives. A tall, hawkishly attractive woman. And a man with peculiarly small ears that were several shades lighter than his face.

  Aidan gave Matt a tense smile, confirming what Matt already suspected—whatever the trouble was, it was serious.

  Matt gestured toward the darkened soundstage, then shot Aidan a questioning glance. “We’re scheduled for a full day today. Why are we shut down?”

  “On his way back from the lunch break, our boy Seth announced he wants to leave the show at the end of this season,” Aidan said. “We sent everyone home till we can get things worked out.”r />
  “I’m not interested in working anything out.” Seth didn’t look up from the game he was playing on his phone. “All I want is for everybody to join me in celebrating my freedom.”

  Aidan yanked the phone away from Seth and tossed it to Matt. “Before he got this part, he was a fucking out-of-work Pilates instructor living in his Subaru, and now he’s a television star with more money in the bank than he knows how to count. So, you might ask yourself, what could the man’s problem possibly be?”

  The game noises stopped as Matt switched off Seth’s phone and looked at the others, waiting for the answer to Aidan’s question. The network executive with the tiny ears spoke up. “It seems Seth sees himself as a movie star.”

  Seth gave Matt a patronizing squint and held out his hand, demanding his phone. The hawkish-looking female executive reached in and slapped his hand away. “The show’s called Darling. You’re Jake Darling. No you, no Jake. No Jake, no show.” She gave Seth a glare cold enough to freeze him. “Do you understand the world of hurt you’re about to create?”

  “Have you ever heard of the saying ‘strike while the iron is hot’? Well, my iron is sizzling.”

  Matt’s stomach was in a knot. “If this show shuts down,” he told Seth, “it will put a lot of people out of work.”

  “Hundreds of people,” the female executive added. “Writers, crew, wardrobe, makeup. They’ll all be unemployed because of you, you selfish little shit.”

  “It’s just money.” Seth’s statement was accompanied by a wave and a careless grin.

  Matt was fighting not to grab Seth and choke him. Without the weekly paycheck from Darling, Matt had no idea how he and Ali would survive. Their finances were stretched to the limit. The restaurant was slowly moving into the black but was still a money drain. The mortgage and maintenance on the house took a huge bite out of the bank account every month. And now, with Sofie, there even more expenses.