Family Drama 3-in-1 Box Set: String Bridge, The Book, Bitter Like Orange Peel

by Jessica Bell

  “Are you sure you’re ready to do that?” Sein lifts his arms above his head and rests his head on his hands. If there wasn’t any railing at the bottom of the bed, his feet would be hanging off the edge.

  “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?” Kit gathers her hair and twists it to one side.

  Sein shrugs. “Okay. You want me to leave?”

  “Nah. Why?” Kit turns around to face him. She fiddles with the elastic of her sports bra and glances down at her breasts to make sure they’re straight. Not that they could really de-align themselves too much.

  “Thought you might want some privacy. That’s all.” Sein scratches the edge of his groin.

  “Never had any all my life; why would I need it now?”

  Sein levers himself into a sitting position and crosses his legs. “Aw, don’t be so hard on your mum. She’s a real nice lady.” His limp scrotum hangs like melted fudge on Kit’s blue cotton bedspread.

  Kit scoffs. “I don’t think you have a right to say that. You have no idea what I’ve been through.” She hands Sein his boxers, which are flung over the bottom left bedpost.

  Sein puts them on. “Ah, come on. She’s helped me out so much at Uni. You do know she even tutors me privately for no cost, ’cause she knows my dad can’t afford it. Right?”

  Kit shakes her head, biting her bottom lip.

  “Well, I think that gives me the right to say your mother’s a champ.” Sein punches emphasis into the mattress with a closed fist and a grin so wide Kit can feel her own lips sting.

  You’re too young for me.

  An internal smile creeps up on Kit like a sun shower. She grabs her handbag and sits next to Sein on her bed with a bounce. “You wanna see a picture of my father?”

  “Sure.”

  She pulls out the photograph and hands it to Sein with a sigh. She rubs her face with both hands as if to wipe away need.

  “Why’d you rip out his face?”

  “I didn’t. At first I thought Ivy had done it, but she said Eleanor did it.”

  “There aren’t any other photos?”

  “Nope. Ivy said Eleanor burned them all, and she only found this one because it had accidentally dropped from the box while Eleanor was moving it to the fireplace.”

  “Why did Eleanor rip out his face if she had planned to burn them?”

  “I dunno. Therapy?”

  Kit stands on the bed and jumps on it like it’s a trampoline, hoping she can free her mind, travel back to when she was a kid and didn’t care about anything but cooking up a storm with mud and food dye. Sein holds onto the bedposts to stop himself from bouncing off.

  “Kit!” A bedspring pings.

  “What? Who cares? I’ll get a new bed when I move out.”

  “No. I don’t mean that,” Sein shouts, and points to the window. “Ailish has just driven up.”

  “Crap.” Kit gets down and throws on the dress that is lying on the floor beside her bed. “Come on. Get dressed, damn it.”

  Ailish

  She turns off the ignition and rests her arms and head on the steering wheel, trying to come to terms with what she may be confronted with inside the house. She has to be strong. She has to summon the power she feels when she quotes someone else’s prose, to transfer that control of memory into the muscle of self-worth. Yes, she has made mistakes. And she should use the regret to fuel forgiveness, and hope that the idea rubs off on her daughter too. She can do it. She knows she can.

  When she enters the house, Kit and Sein are eating Chinese crackers at the kitchen counter. Kit’s hair resembles a bird’s nest, and Sein appears to have been roughed up by the mafia. They both look up at her, chewing. They mumble “hi” in unison. Ailish smiles in return, conscious of every minuscule crease in her skin as her lips part and teeth are exposed. She holds the smile a little too long. The front of her gums go dry.

  Ailish opens the fridge. “Looks like we need to go to the supermarket.” She wipes her brow, her own touch echoing through her body. She can feel Kit scrutinizing her as she massages the back of her neck with her right hand. Just tell her and finish this mess. You’ll get through it just like everything else in your life. Foolishly. But you’ll cope. She’ll cope.

  Ailish closes the fridge door and turns around. She catches Kit whispering something to Sein and licking the inside of his ear. When did this happen? Ailish clears her throat. She would do anything right now to run away like a rebellious adolescent and guzzle down a Slurpee from 7-Eleven. Yes, even a grown woman like me has a hankering for some frozen consumerist cordial on occasion, she says to herself to justify her craving.

  “Um, Sein, would you mind going home, so I can have a private word with my daughter?” Ailish’s pulse flits in her eardrums, teasing balance. The hum of the refrigerator is the only thing keeping her from slipping into another time zone. Kit stops chewing and glares at her.

  “Sure. No worries.” Sein scoops up a handful of crackers and signals something to Kit with his hands. Kit nods and winks, her face turning a baby shade of pale. The fly wire springs closed.

  “Oh, Mum, I’m so sorry. I knew it as soon as I had done it that it was a rotten thing to do. Fuck, I’m really sorry, but you kinda gave me no choice. You know? What else was I supposed to do? Am I fired? Has Harold completely lost respect for me now? Shit, I’m sorry. Are you in trouble with him?” Kit blurts out with chewed-up crackers still in her mouth, her shoulders receding with apparent regret.

  Ailish takes a deep breath. A gulp of air that only a few moments ago was ripe with Kit and Sein’s newfound lust. Something she wishes she could let Kit devour without family troubles getting in the way. But if she doesn’t say something now, things are only going to get worse, and then she might be forced to expose everything.

  “Kit. Calm down. Harold hasn’t the slightest idea that I didn’t send you. You can still intern for us.” Ailish leans against the sink by the window, one leg crossed over the other and her arms folded rigidly. “That is, if, after what I’m about to say, you still wish to.”

  Kit drops the crackers back into the bowl that she’s been cradling in her palm. “What’s wrong?”

  Ailish looks at her feet again. She slouches, too lazy to support her own body weight, laden with regret. She’s been doing it a lot lately. And it’s something she always told Kit off for. “Stand up straight; don’t slouch. Show the world you are confident and able.” Ailish looks up and clenches her teeth. Their collision echoes in her ears. “There’s something you must know. Something I’ve neglected to tell you.”

  Kit draws her chin to her chest and swallows. “Okay. What is it?” Her tone is blunt and cold.

  The air softens around Ailish’s body, as if the cosmos is making room for truth. She can sense a horrible reaction on Kit’s part, but it’ll be worth it, and she’ll be freer. One less thing cluttering her conscience. More room for love and acceptance.

  “I’m not sure Constance will know how you can get in touch with Roger, but she might know how to get in touch with someone else. And I think you should hear who that someone else is from me first.”

  Kit’s eyes glaze over as she nods a slow, hesitant acknowledgement. “Okay.”

  Ailish brings a hand to her forehead and closes her eyes, as if soothing the sound of anxiety and hiding from the preoperational disappointment on her daughter’s face might soften the blow.

  “You have another half sister.” Ailish lowers her hand. The air thickens again as if tampering with the earth’s gravitational pull. She opens her eyes. Kit is gone. The rattle of the fly wire slamming shut resonates as Ailish spends the next half hour analyzing the orange tree outside the kitchen window. It’s stripped bare of all its fruit. Lifeless. A frail barren trunk with nothing left to offer—not even a remnant of its skin on the ground to flaunt what it used to be proud of.

  Kit

  Sein is sitting at the front gate on the concrete slab Ailish likes to call a step when Kit bursts out the front door. He stands, runs his fingers through his
hair, and jiggles his legs as Kit runs up the path. Invisible tears mute her. She can’t hear a thing except a buzzing rage, rampant with vehemence behind her brow and between her ears. It siphons through her limbs, right to the very tips of her fingernails. It pleads for her to punch something. Anything. She swings her fist at Sein, lost and confused at where to direct this overwhelming energy. He catches her punch midway in an open hand.

  “Are you freakin’ crazy?” he yelps as Kit drills her violent thoughts into Sein’s eyes. Kit pulls her arm away from Sein’s sturdy grip and kicks the fence, over and over in the same spot, until she cracks a picket.

  “What’s going on? What’s got into you?”

  Kit stops kicking and crouches to catch her breath. Her fragmented wheeze runs deeper than her lungs; it runs into bones and pokes little holes in them, deeming her skeleton brittle. She wants to collapse and break and go to sleep and forget she ever started this shit—anything to stop finding out about the hidden truths her mother seems to have boxed up and try to forget herself. How could her mother have lied to her for so many years? To the only person who has stood by her side through everything. Through her cancer and her suicide threats and her pleas to never let her wind up abandoned and alone.

  Kit gives in to her body weight and drops backward onto the lawn, fanning her arms and legs. She spreads her fingers so the blades of velvety grass sweep between them. The ground smells like burning rain. If only I could always feel this. Release.

  Sein kneels by her head. He doesn’t touch her, but she can feel his leg brush against her shoulder.

  Kit lifts her head, balancing herself on her elbows, cheeks flushed. “I have to call Constance. Can I come over to use yours?”

  Sein hums an affirmative response. “But what’s going on with Ailish?”

  “Nothing. Don’t worry about her.” Kit gets up and brushes off her bum as if nothing has happened.

  Sein sneaks Kit up to his room, trying not to wake his dad, who has flaked out on the sofa. Kit can’t help but notice the bottle of scotch sitting on the coffee table. Her eyes flit to it and away again.

  “It’s not what it looks like,” Sein whispers as they tiptoe up the stairs.

  Kit nods. Jittering remnants of anger still prickle her skin. She just wants to get on the phone and get her sister’s number from Constance. She needs to find Roger, and then everything will fall into place.

  Then I’ll know what to do.

  Sein opens the door to his bedroom and gestures for Kit to enter first. She sits on his bed, which is covered in coffee-brown sheets with green stitching around the edges. His room is empty. Just a bed, a wardrobe, a desk full of Uni stuff, and thick black drapes. No old toys, posters, electronic gadgets. Nothing. No boyishness. Not a hint.

  “Anyway,” Sein says, “just so you don’t get the wrong impression, Mum gave that bottle to him just before she died.”

  “Hmm?” Kit looks up from scratching her infected mosquito bite.

  Sein shakes his head and chuckles with unease. “The bottle of scotch.”

  “Oh.”

  “He hasn’t even opened it. He just stares at it all night.”

  “Oh. You want to talk about it?”

  Sein shrugs and sits next to Kit on his bed. He slips his hands between his knees and sighs into a slouch. Kit hesitates to rub his back. She decides not to touch him at all.

  “She died when I was two. Dad won’t tell me how. I used to get pissed off that he’d never give me any answers, but then I realized he wanted me to remember her in good way, so I just let it alone.”

  Sein puts an arm around Kit and pulls her close. She shuffles over a little, lies on her side, and rests her head in Sein’s lap. He bends over and kisses her cheek. “I don’t bother trying to know anymore. I’m happy with the flashes of her face I get now and again. The problem is, though, I don’t know if they’re just memories of photos I’ve seen or if they’re real. But I suppose that doesn’t matter now.”

  “Doesn’t it make you mad he won’t tell you?” Kit half-whispers into Sein’s knee. She turns around so her head is facing upward. “It’d make me mad.”

  “There’s no point. What’s done is done. It’s not going to stop me from loving him. And he does his best, you know? He does what he thinks is right. And that’s really all he can do. And that’s all we can really ask for, isn’t it? For them to do their best?”

  Kit smiles with closed lips, suddenly realizing what he’s getting at. She sits up. Blood rushes from her face, and she feels a little dizzy. Sein blinks, takes her cheeks in his hands, and gives her a peck on the nose. “Anyway, the phone’s on my desk. Dial your heart out.”

  “Sein. I’m sorry, but I think I should go back home.”

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  Kit looks into her lap and swallows a lump of guilt. “I think you know very well that you haven’t.” Kit wraps her arms around Sein and whispers “thank you” in his ear.

  Ivy

  In bed, she stares into Brian’s eyes as if behind one-sided glass, unsure of what neurological action is taking place behind them. One of Brian’s hands rests below Ivy’s head, tangled in a sweaty mess of hair. The room fills with the first inkling of morning light, and a neutral silence that masks Ivy’s deeper thoughts. Thoughts that go beyond the temptation to make love to Brian for a third time, beyond the desire to surrender and allow herself to fall in love again.

  Sitting restless in the corner of her mind—as she examines the rippled brown rims around Brian’s irises—is the unwanted written connection she has with her father, a connection she wishes she could forget by just tearing the letter into pieces and burying deep below the earth.

  She hasn’t told anyone about this letter, having hid it in her wardrobe, in a box she keeps trying to ignore. Its contents have haunted her ever since she received it at eighteen. But what has haunted her most is knowing that acknowledging this letter could give her the life she has always dreamed of, a kind of closure, and freedom to discover the world, to learn how it evolved. To become that successful archaeologist she has always dreamed of being. But there is no way she can accept the cash. No. Way. It wouldn’t be right. It would be a declaration of forgiveness. And that is out of the question.

  Ivy rolls onto her back, and Brian rests his right hand on her stomach.

  “Can you call in sick today?” he asks, circling Ivy’s belly button with his middle finger. “I don’t have to go into the office if I don’t want to.”

  Ivy turns her head to face him. “You know I’d love to, but I can’t afford to miss a day of work.”

  “Aw, come on. You’re going to get that awesome job at the museum.” Brian winks. Ivy smiles and looks at the ceiling.

  “I can take you in and introduce you today or tomorrow if you like. You never know—they might interview you right then and there.”

  Ivy laughs under her breath and lets out a little groan. She inches closer to Brian and kisses the tip of his nose.

  “Yeah, why not? Screw the café.”

  Brian makes a gurgling noise as if trying to imitate Cat Woman and runs his tongue between Ivy’s lips. Her body dissolves into his cream cotton sheets as he kisses up and down her arm like Gomez would do to Morticia.

  “Coffee? About time I served you, right?” Brian leaps out of bed and wraps himself in his red-and-brown striped robe. Ivy nods, pulling the duvet up to her chin and spreading her body across the mattress.

  Brian spoons coffee into the percolator. “What was that all about? With your mother? Last night? What is she accusing you of?”

  Ivy was wondering when that might come up. She shouldn’t have answered the phone. Period. But she did, and she shouldn’t have expected anything less of Eleanor than to annihilate the first night she’s been able to let go in ages.

  “Long story. Seriously, don’t worry about it.”

  “I am worrying about it. You became really, I don’t know … absent. I have to say it was the, er, strangest sex I’ve
ever had. I felt like the woman.” Ivy scoffs as Brian switches the percolator on and crosses his arms in front of his chest with a shrug. “I’m sorry if that sounded sexist, but you get what I mean, don’t you?”

  Ivy takes a deep breath and lets the air gradually escape over her protruding bottom lip. Is she ready for this? Is she ready to let him in, to involve him? Her real life? Her past? What if everything comes crashing down right when she needs him the most? Will he remain by her side even after he discovers her unhealed emotional wounds?

  “Anyway, we’ve got all day. Whenever you’re ready,” Brian says above the crackle and drip of the brewing coffee.

  “No, it’s okay.” Ivy takes one last courageous breath. “No, wait—gimme a cigarette. I can’t do this without a cigarette. You mind?” She flicks her fingers in the direction of the kitchen counter, where she dropped her handbag last night.

  Brian shakes his head and probes Ivy’s bag for the packet of Marlboro Lights and her Zippo. He throws them on the bed along with a small white dish for an ashtray. Ivy lights one, and breathes in virtual relief.

  “Right.” Ivy pats the bed for him to come back in. “Where would you like me to start? When my father left me to be raised by a depressed pediatric surgeon, and the woman he had an affair with, or when I filed for divorce after discovering my husband tried to have it on with my sister?”

  Kit

  “Why couldn’t you tell me when I was a kid?” Kit leans against the door frame and crosses her arms.

  Ailish rests her hands on the edge of the kitchen sink. Lights off. Moonlight hushed. Smoke wafts from between two trembling fingers, toward the ceiling—a muted tornado of memories. Her mouth opens and closes, as if resisting the urge to spit the first response that comes to mind.

  Resentment constricts Kit’s throat. She swallows. It echoes in her ears. “Mum. I know you’re hurting.” Kit’s voice wavers. “I’m sorry I got upset. But I’m hurting too.”