The Good Sister

by Drusilla Campbell

  She ran her hand down the swale of Johnny’s backbone. “Did you have a bad day?”

  “Long,” he said, stretching. “These Chinese guys are really perfectionists and working with an interpreter slows everything down. It bugs me I never know what the dudes are really saying to each other.”

  He talked, and she let her thoughts drift away and back again. Eventually, talked out, he pulled the sheet over them. “How’d you manage without Franny?”

  “I called Roxanne three times, but she didn’t answer. I left messages.”

  “She’s got her own life, Simone. You forget that sometimes.”

  “Merell was good.”

  Morning and afternoon, while Simone dozed intermittently on the sectional in the family room, Merell had kept Valli and Victoria occupied. At lunchtime she found a chicken-and-rice casserole in the freezer, and Simone put it in the microwave. They had eaten the leftovers for dinner.

  “Olivia?” Johnny asked, his voice drowsy.

  Simone had put the baby in her crib and closed the door. She and Merell and the twins went into the tot lot and she pushed them in the swings and on the merry-go-round. It was quiet in the house when they went back inside and watched a video.

  “I think maybe she’s getting better.”

  “We can all hope for a miracle.” He yawned again. “I’m going to call Alicia, get her over here to help out for a few days. She might be better than someone from the agency.”

  An arrow of alarm shot through Simone. Mention of Johnny’s oldest sister confirmed her fear that his forgiveness was conditional. Simone had to remodel herself or Alicia would come in and take over everything. Childless Alicia had been divorced for decades and had run the accounting office of Duran Construction like a totalitarian state before she retired. If she walked into the house carrying a suitcase, she’d never leave.

  “You know she doesn’t like me.” Simone pressed herself against him, whispering. “Be patient with me, Johnny.”

  “I’ve been patient since the day we got married. It gets old, Simone. If there was just something you knew how to do, that you liked to do, you’d have a reason to get up in the morning. If you weren’t so fucking helpless.”

  He threw his forearm up over his eyes. “I can’t come home to disaster every day. And forget about me, it’s not good for the girls either. Firing Franny was the last straw, Simone. You’ve done a lot of stupid things but that was the worst. We needed her to make this work.”

  “You wouldn’t divorce me, would you?” She blurted the horrible question without thinking, followed by a short, squealing giggle unlike any sound she’d ever made.

  “No, honey, not divorce, never divorce. I’ll always take care of you. I promised that. But maybe we could make some kind of arrangement. Alicia could live here. She could manage the kids and the house.”

  “She’s too bossy, Johnny, and the girls don’t like her.”

  “You could have your own little house.”

  “I don’t want my own house, I want you.”

  “The girls and I would live with Alicia and you’d see them, of course.”

  She was terrified into silence.

  “And then if you got better…”

  “I’m not sick!”

  “You’re miserable all the time, Simone.”

  “I can be happy.”

  “And you lie in bed like an invalid. If you’d just do something.”

  I am doing something, she thought. I’m having another baby. For you.

  “You knew what I was like when you married me. Why did you marry me?”

  Convulsively, he grabbed her, pulling her close. “Because you were beautiful and I could see our children in you. My son.”

  He pushed her away, making a sound—a sigh mixed up with a laugh or a sob. She didn’t know what a sound like that meant, and she was afraid to ask.

  * * *

  Ellen spent Wednesday mousing around her apartment in her dressing gown, eating nothing but aspirin and a few saltines, and drinking flat ginger ale to settle her stomach. Her phone rang and she didn’t answer it. She left her computer unopened. She did not fully remember Tuesday night after she left the Mariposa but she must have gone somewhere else; there was Scotch all over her dress. The blackout had brought back too vividly the memory of her years with Dale, and if she could have crawled under the house to hide from herself she would have done it. Later in the day, when her brain had stopped banging against her skull, her mind cleared enough for her to remember what BJ used to say, that no experience was so terrible it couldn’t be learned from: no more drinking and no more online and telephone love affairs.

  By Wednesday she felt herself to be back on track.

  During her twenty-four-hour recuperation she did a lot of hard thinking and admitted to herself that she was never going to be happy while she lived over Johnny’s vintage-car garage. Ellen wasn’t cut out to be a boarder; and nice as it was, this apartment would never be home. But she could not just leave with the home situation so precarious. First something would have to be done about Simone for the sake of the children. Ellen and Johnny were going to have a good talk and she would share some down-home truth about his wife. If she had to tell him what really happened at the swimming pool that made Merell call 911, she would even do that.

  But by the time she got down to the house on Thursday morning Johnny had already left for work. Upstairs she found Simone dressing for the day and abuzz with determined energy. There had been a girl in one of BJ’s offices years ago who chewed amphetamines like breath mints.

  “Have you taken something?”

  “What?” Simone asked. “You mean Xanax? Hardly!”

  “Where did all this energy come from?” Simone had showered, and the door to her steamy bathroom was open, filling the bedroom with the fragrance of lemon leaves. “Are you sure you’re not taking diet pills or something?”

  “The kids and I are going to make cupcakes.” Simone’s beauty had a fire in it when she was manic. “Want to help us?”

  On Ellen’s list of one hundred possibilities for the day, baking with her daughter and granddaughters had its own special place at the very bottom. Still, she wondered if it was safe to leave Simone alone, and did her resolve to be the new and improved Ellen require that she make cupcakes?

  “Where’s Merell? Will she be here?”

  “Of course. School doesn’t start until next week.”

  “Let her help you, Simone. Don’t try to do too much.”

  “I’m fine, Mom. Really. You don’t have to hang around. You have plans?” She cocked an eyebrow. “Coffee date?”

  Ellen felt her cheeks flush. Matter-of-factly, she said, “I’m having breakfast at the Hob Nob. Alone. After that, I have some appointments.”

  She would order poached eggs and bacon and read the real estate listings while she ate. Since early that morning her mind had been occupied with plans.

  Though Ellen had been half out of her mind for several months after BJ died, she was not so far gone that she let any of her licenses lapse. She had sold the Vadis Group and the new owners had kept the name to capitalize on the reputation of the firm. They would hire her back but she didn’t want to work for anyone.

  She liked the highbrow ring of Ellen Vadis Properties.

  * * *

  In the kitchen Valli announced, “The milk’s got chunks.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Simone said. “Merell, go around the house and check the windows, make sure they’re closed.”

  The air conditioner whirred noisily as it struggled to cool the big house.

  Merell said, “Daddy says it’s broken.” She pointed to a printed sheet of numbers tacked to the wall next to the phone. “You can call the repairman.”

  “Just close the windows like I told you to. We’ll keep the cool air inside.”

  In the pantry there was a big box of powdered milk she would mix with cold water and whirl in the blender. If she rinsed out the carton of sour milk and pour
ed in the reconstituted, the twins wouldn’t know the difference, and Merell could do without if she didn’t like it.

  The pantry smelled of onions and old apples, of a life far away from the one she was living. Simone wished she could pull the door shut and just sit in that place for a while, breathing in the comforting, rural smell; but she had a full day ahead of her, and it was going to be a wonderful day. It had to be. What was the saying? Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

  For now she would pretend that everything Johnny had said last night was a nasty dream; and if his words came into her mind, she drove them away by singing the alphabet song. The twins thought this was hilarious and joined in at the top of their lungs; and then they all got silly, mixing up the letters on purpose, and Simone forgot what she didn’t want to remember.

  She found the dry milk, and while she was about it she grabbed up the flour and sugar and chocolate she knew she’d need for cupcakes.

  In the kitchen she sang out, “Countdown to cupcakes! Ready-set-go in a few minutes.” She set the canisters of flour and sugar on the counter.

  “Mrs. Duran.” Celia, the housekeeper, stood between the kitchen and the family room with a dust rag in her hand. Though she had been with the Durans since Merell was an only child, Simone had never warmed to her. “Upstairs already it’s hot.”

  “Well, I can’t help that. The air conditioner’s on as high as it’ll go. Complain to Mr. Duran if you’re unhappy. Did you check Olivia?”

  “Is not my job to babysit.”

  “I know that, but it wouldn’t kill you to look at her.”

  “She not crying.”

  “Never mind then, just do your work.”

  Simone stared at the directions on the side of the powdered milk box until they made sense, dug around in drawers and cupboards for the measuring cups, and poured dry milk into one of them. There was probably an expiration date printed somewhere on the box but she didn’t want to know it. Watching every move she made, the twins pressed against her until they made her skin itch and she pushed them away. The reconstituted milk roared in the blender.

  “Are we having a milkshake?” Valli asked.

  “I want chocolate.”

  Well, why not? Simone thought with a bounce of happiness. It was already hot and ice cream was a dairy product. Calcium for the bones.

  The twins cheered as she dropped enormous scoops of chocolate ice cream into the blender, whirled it again, and poured it into tall plastic glasses. “Drink fast,” she said.

  When Merell returned to the kitchen the twins were outside in their play yard, and Simone was putting their drinking glasses into the dishwasher.

  “What’s for breakfast?”

  “Toast.” Something wormy and resentful in Simone wouldn’t let her make a milkshake for this daughter. “And peanut butter.”

  “We ate all the peanut butter yesterday. For snack.”

  “Have jam then, or cheese. Don’t say it. There’s no cheese.”

  “Do you want me to write a list for Celia?”

  “I don’t want you to do anything except eat if you’re hungry and then watch your sisters.”

  Merell got a box of crackers from the cupboard and smeared several with strawberry jam.

  “You know what, Mommy? I saw on TV, you can order groceries by computer and they get delivered in a van.” She shoved a cracker in her mouth and wiped her sticky fingers on her shorts. “You don’t even have to leave the house. And the man’ll bring the bags in too, so you don’t have to carry anything.”

  “What makes you think I don’t want to shop?”

  “You could tell me what to get and I could order for you.”

  Johnny had bought Merell a computer when she turned seven. Simone had no idea how it worked and was afraid to ask, dreading the humiliation, already knowing it would be too complicated for her.

  “I can live without you managing my life, Merell. You’re as bad as Roxanne.” And Alicia.

  She felt the first pinch of a headache, the kind that began between her shoulder blades and groped its claws up the back of her neck, dug under her skull. Aspirin couldn’t touch it but she swallowed four anyway.

  Merell sat on the counter and watched her. “Mommy, are you going to have another baby?”

  Simone opened a cupboard and took down a blue-and-white-striped coffee mug and then put it back. It was too hot for coffee. A shadow of profound, bone-melting lassitude fell over her.

  God, no, not today. Please, not today.

  “I like babies, Mommy.”

  “Well, that’s lucky because you’re going to be helping me take care of this one. And Olivia. And the twins.” And after this one, another and another until Johnny got his boy.

  She poured a glass of ice water from the spigot on the front of the refrigerator and drank it down without breathing. A fist of numbing cold slugged the back of her throat.

  “Mommy, I bet if you called up Nanny Franny she’d come back. She likes us.”

  “I don’t want her back, Merell. And I wish to God you’d quit telling me what to do.” The muscles in her neck weren’t strong enough to hold up her head.

  “Is anyone coming to help us? Can I call Aunt Roxanne?”

  “Use the brains God gave you, Merell. Your aunt’s got a job, she’s a teacher. It’s Thursday and school is in session.”

  Merell tugged hard on her bangs.

  “You’ll go bald if you keep doing that. Make yourself even uglier.”

  Merell’s expression pinched; and Simone wished she could take the spiteful and unkind words back. Merell couldn’t help being someone else’s baby, it wasn’t her fault that she’d been switched in the hospital nursery, exchanged for Simone’s real child, a baby boy. Voices in Simone’s head—a chorus of Johnny and Ellen and Roxanne—told her that never happened, that it was a crazy thought; but Simone didn’t know if it was or not. There were times when she just couldn’t tell where the truth stopped and imagination began.

  If you weren’t so helpless…

  She hummed the alphabet song and focused on gathering the necessary ingredients and equipment for making cupcakes. One afternoon, watching the cooking channel from her bed, she had seen a stout, dark-haired woman make chocolate cupcakes in about five minutes. Measure the dry ingredients, then the wet. Mix and put in the oven. What could be simpler?

  She opened several cupboard doors before she found the mixing bowls and all the while she felt Merell watching her, assessing her, passing judgment.

  “What is it?”

  “My school starts on Monday, Mommy. If I don’t have the right clothes the other girls’ll laugh at me. They won’t want to be my friends.”

  “What’s wrong with your clothes?”

  “I need a special school uniform. I’m in the Upper Primary now. Remember?”

  Johnny’s saintly battle-ax sister, Alicia, would never forget something like a school uniform. Roxanne would write it on one of her lists. “I’m sorry, baby, I forgot again.”

  “Can I ask Aunt Roxanne to take me? We could go tonight. The stores are open until late.”

  Oh, what the hell.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I love you, Mommy.” Merell bounced off the kitchen stool, springs in her legs. “I love you more than anyone in the whole world.”

  Olivia had painted her sheet, the crib, and herself with the contents of her diaper. Simone backed out of the nursery, yelling for Celia.

  “I can’t do it. I’m pregnant. I’ll throw up.”

  “Babies is not my job.” Sweat shone on Celia’s forehead and curled her dark hair. “Johnny tol’ me I don’t do babysitting.”

  “This is cleaning. The crib… the wall…”

  Simone watched Celia’s expression as she considered the situation. “Start with Olivia, okay. Put her in the tub.”

  “Who gonna watch her in the tub?”

  “I don’t know. You, I suppose. You can sit down for a change. It’ll be a nice rest.”

 
; “I tol’ you—”

  Simone’s almost automatic reaction was to scream and then to cry; but she controlled the impulse because this day had to be a new beginning. A thought flashed across her mind. If this wasn’t a new beginning, what was it? An ending?

  She tried to put some steel in her voice. “I can’t do it, Celia.”

  “I still gotta vacuum Mr. Johnny’s office and then I gotta go to the market.”

  “Merell’s making a list.”

  “I got my own list.” Celia looked at the door to Olivia’s room and wrinkled her nose. A half smile dimpled her cheek. “That baby, she made a big mess.”

  “You knew? You went in there and saw it and then you just left her?”

  “Mrs. Duran, I got plenty to do without babysitting.”

  “I’ll give you twenty dollars extra.”

  “Is not the money—”

  “And another twenty if you’ll keep her out of my hair for a while.”

  “Johnny don’ like it if the house is dirty.”

  “You clean six days a week. How can it possibly be dirty?”

  “Okay, okay.”

  Simone hefted the big upright mixer out of the pantry. It weighed more than one of the twins, and she bet the dark-haired woman on television had never tried to lift hers. She set it on the counter and cleared a space beside it. In a cookbook she’d gotten as a wedding shower gift she found a simple recipe for chocolate cake, and she began to look around for the rest of what she needed.

  The twins, watching television in the family room, ignored her when she called them; and they complained noisily when she stood in front of the big screen, blocking their view. “Go wash up so we can make cupcakes.”

  Holding hands, grumbling and giggling, the twins ambled off in the direction of the bathroom next to the laundry room. Their little backs and tangled hair and shuffling barefoot walk looked odd and pitiful to Simone. She wondered what mischievous spirit had been present in the bedroom when she, who had never truly wanted even one baby, conceived two at the same time.