The Good Sister

by Drusilla Campbell

  “Mommy?” Merell said. “The baby’s crying again.”

  “Celia’s taking care of her.”

  “I think I know why she’s crying. I made a bottle for her when I got up, but she likes cereal and applesauce for breakfast.”

  Food for Olivia hadn’t occurred to Simone. At the moment she couldn’t even remember what the baby ate from day to day.

  “What did you put in the bottle? The milk has chunks.”

  “I opened one of those cans of formula.”

  Merell was all the things Simone wasn’t: active, resourceful, responsible. It was a small thing to thank this child, and yet the words jammed at the back of Simone’s throat.

  Eventually the twins wandered back from washing their hands, their T-shirts and shorts soaked down the front. Simone realized she had been standing in the kitchen doing nothing. Time had passed but she had no idea how much.

  “Where’s the cupcakes?” Valli asked.

  “Go outside. I’ll call you when I want you.”

  “You said—”

  “Go.”

  She sat in the kitchen, reading and rereading the cake recipe, trying to make sense of it. She forgot about her daughters and the print blurred in front of her eyes.

  Merell appeared in the kitchen with the baby on her hip. The little one wore clean overalls and her hair was still damp from washing. Merell put her in her high chair and Simone watched her move about the kitchen efficiently, warming formula in the microwave to mix with a packet of oatmeal, humming a little tune Simone recognized as the theme from Shrek. Between spoonfuls of cereal and applesauce Olivia smiled and whacked her hands on the tray of her chair. She had three teeth and it seemed as if Simone had never seen them before. Merell talked to her, coaxing her to open her mouth wide.

  She’s a better mother than I am.

  More time drifted by.

  The roots of the headache sank between Simone’s shoulder blades, the trunk rose up her neck, and the branches spread from ear to ear and throbbed with life. She thought it strange that when she touched the back of her head she couldn’t feel the tree-shaped headache under her fingers. Could it kill, a headache like this? Death did not seem so terrible.

  For some time now Merell and Olivia had been stacking plastic blocks on the floor of the family room. A book was open beside them.

  Merell said, “Franny always gave Olivia a bottle in the middle of the morning when she takes her nap. Do you want me to give it to her in her crib?”

  Simone saw that when Olivia wasn’t crying, she was pretty: brown eyes and a round face framed by dark hair. Johnny’s sisters all had girls who looked like Olivia. But she’s mine, I made her, Simone thought. She grew inside me. The pulsing headache receded, and she felt a warmth she recognized as love for poor, usually bawling Olivia. She wanted to do something special for her.

  “Let’s put her outside. Fresh air will do her good.”

  “In her playpen?”

  “Good idea.” She thought of the big wicker laundry basket full of clean sheets she’d seen on the washing machine. “She can sleep in the laundry basket.”

  Merell looked doubtful. “It’s a really hot day.”

  “We’ll put her in the shade, of course.”

  “What if the sun moves?”

  “After we make the cupcakes she can come inside and we’ll have a party. I think she’s old enough to eat cake, don’t you?”

  Simone imagined her four daughters gathered at the table with dish towels tied around their necks to keep their clothes clean, their fingers and faces covered with chocolate cake and frosting.

  In the deep shade under the avocado tree at the far end of the terrace Simone opened the playpen and put the basket full of clean sheets and pillow slips inside it. Olivia was a small baby and reluctant to explore her world. With encouragement she sat up on her own and rolled over, but she had not begun to crawl and showed no eagerness to stand. The laundry basket was the perfect fit for her.

  You’re like me, Simone thought, arranging the sheets to prop the baby bottle. She had produced a little girl as tiny and slow-moving as she had been. You’ll grow up just like me. But Johnny didn’t want any of their daughters to be like her. Stupid and helpless.

  She looked down at her baby and felt herself begin to break under the weight of love and certain failure, more than anyone should have to bear.

  Chapter 13

  Merell’s mother had gone upstairs hours ago, promising to come back down when her head didn’t hurt so much. The twins were whiny because there were no cupcakes, but Merell wasn’t disappointed. She understood that her mother’s intentions had been good.

  Merell cleaned up the kitchen, the scattered flour on the counter, and the spilled sugar that crunched underfoot. She put the eggs back in the refrigerator and went outside to play in the tot lot with her sisters. Lunchtime came and went and the twins complained that they were starving, but the peanut butter was gone and though the freezer was packed with frozen meals, Merell was forbidden to use the microwave without an adult. She thought about asking Celia to do it, but the housekeeper was polishing and dusting in the living room no one ever used, and cleaning up Olivia’s mess had put her in a sour mood that told Merell she’d better stay away. She hated being bossed around in a language she didn’t understand. The idea of learning Spanish reminded her of school and her uniform. She left a message on Aunt Roxanne’s cell phone, begging like a baby.

  Merell finally got sick of Valli and Victoria blubbering about how they were starving and called the nearest Domino’s and ordered a large extra-cheese pizza. To pay for it, she found her mother’s purse in her study and took a ten- and two five-dollar bills out of the wallet.

  Several times during the day Merell checked on Olivia. Sometimes she was asleep, but when her eyes were open she seemed happy just to lie on her back playing with her fascinating feet. Merell wondered if Olivia would be smart like she was or more like the twins. Eventually the baby got tired of her toes and cried, but not the screaming cries associated with acid reflux. Merell understood these to be I’m bored, pay attention to me cries and put her in the stroller and pushed it around the house and up and down the driveway a dozen times, which seemed to make Olivia happy. Victoria and Valli rode their pink-and-yellow bikes with training wheels. After a while Celia asked Merell to unlock the gate across the driveway, and she drove the Mercedes to the supermarket. She liked to take the big car into her sister’s neighborhood and show off. She wouldn’t be back with groceries until late afternoon. The twins begged Merell to play school but Merell preferred to hold Olivia in her lap and swing with her. The breeze felt almost cool. She wondered if she should take Olivia into the house where the air conditioner, after going on and off all morning for no reason, now blew a steady, frigid wind. The twins complained that it was like the North Pole. Merell thought Nanny Franny would say that fresh air was the best thing for a baby, so she put Olivia back in the laundry basket, pulling it close to the trunk of the avocado where the shade was deepest. She put on a sweater and in the family room she lay on the couch and read about Harry Potter and his friends. Time always went fast when she was reading.

  Victoria ran in from outside screaming, “Baby Libia’s all red. And there’s bees on her.”

  Merell had never realized how rapidly the sun traveled across the sky. It had moved out from behind the avocado tree and was shining directly on the base of the trunk where she had resettled the laundry basket. Olivia’s bottle had fallen to the side in the basket and dripped on the pile of sheets and pillowcases. Where milk had seeped beneath her head, her fine, dark hair was gluey and stuck to the laundry. Striped yellow jacket wasps, drawn by the sweetness of the formula, crowded on her sticky cheeks and swarmed around her hair and ears. Her cheeks and forehead and the top of her head were sunburned a bright pink, and her eyes were glassy slits between her swollen eyelids. She tried to cry, managing only a dry, cracked sound like a frog learning to croak.

  Fear exploded throug
h Merell’s body. She waved her hands right into the buzzing midst of the yellow jackets, ignoring the vibrations of their angry bodies against her fingers, grabbed Olivia’s wrists, and dragged her up into her arms. The baby’s head fell to one side and the wasps swarmed and landed again, some of them on Merell. Feeling their tiny feet on her skin, she screamed and staggered across the terrace to a wicker chaise shaded by an awning.

  “Where’s Franny?” Valli whined.

  “Shut up, I have to think.”

  Wearing only a white bra and bikini briefs, Merell’s mother lay on her back, snoring gently. Awake, she would be no help, but Merell had come to her anyway, not knowing what else to do. Gramma Ellen had driven somewhere without saying good-bye, and she wasn’t answering her cell phone. Celia wouldn’t be back until she’d spent a lot of money and had coffee with her sister. Daddy was in Las Vegas. Merell tried calling Franny’s cell phone but it rang and rang and there was no voice telling her to leave a message at the tone. At the lake Aunt Roxanne had written down her cell phone number and given it to Merell. She had been afraid of losing the paper so she had memorized the numbers on it. Merell left a message telling her to come soon because something terrible had happened and she wasn’t kidding. She repeated this twice.

  She thought about calling 911 again. The police would come, and this time no one would be able to save Mommy from trouble. The secret Merell held grew enormous inside her. The police would make her confess it and she would be punished, banished to a foster home. But whatever happened to her, it would be much worse for her mother.

  On Simone’s bedside table Merell saw an amber-colored pill bottle lying open on its side. She replaced the lid and read the label. It was the only word Merell had ever seen that began and ended with X.

  Simone sighed and threw her left arm up. Merell stared at her underarm, at the prickles of black hair spiking there. She inhaled the sour scent of her mother’s body, repelled and attracted at the same time. Of all her mother’s identities—mother, wife, woman—it was woman that fascinated her and filled her mind with questions. She knew—though she could not quite believe—that one day she too would be a woman with breasts and hair in hidden places. But how was she to know the right way to be a woman if no one told her? She loved her mother at the same time she pitied her, understanding that she did not know how to be a woman or a mother any better than Merell. The pity shamed her. She had read many books about girls growing up, and not one of the heroines had ever felt sorry for her own mother.

  Her mother did not know how to act like a mother, but her body knew how to have babies anyway. Merell had gone online and seen a photo of a baby’s head emerging from a red and bloody wound. She hated to think of this, hated knowing that she had once been part of her mother’s body and had entered the world through the secret place between her legs and caused her an unspeakable pain. She laid her hand on her mother’s stomach, felt it rise and fall with each inhalation.

  Be a boy. Mommy will love you if you’re a boy.

  Downstairs, the twins stood guard over Olivia on the chaise.

  “Libia needs a bath,” Valli said.

  For once her little sister made sense and Merell wished she’d had the idea herself. With one arm under the baby’s bottom and the other around her back, she carried her sister into the house and down the back hall. The house was cold but Olivia radiated a damp, sticky heat. In the bathroom two inches of water stood in the tub and there was more pooled all over the floor where the twins had played earlier. Merell slipped out of her sandals and sat in the tub.

  “Mommy’s gonna be mad,” Valli said. “You can’t wear clothes in the bathtub.”

  “Yeah, Mommy’s gonna be mad.” Victoria held her hands on her hips.

  The twins prattled but Merell ignored the irritation, facing the faucet with Olivia between her legs. She turned on the cold water and gently dribbled handfuls over the baby’s head and body, soaking her. Olivia flinched at the touch of the cold water, her eyes popped open, and her arms jerked out, pinwheeling. She began to scream and Merell hoped this was a good sign.

  “You’re in trouble, Merell. You made Libia cry.”

  A red plastic cup sat on the corner edge of the bathtub. Merell filled it with water and held it to Olivia’s lips.

  “She can’t use a cup yet,” Valli said. “She likes a bottle.”

  “Go get one.”

  Merell filled the plastic bottle from the tap and screwed the nipple top tight. She held it against Olivia’s chapped mouth, but she seemed to have forgotten how to suck.

  Merell’s heart sank.

  The children turned at the sound of a door slamming and footsteps. Aunt Roxanne called, “Merell, where are you?”

  Victoria ran into the family room calling, “Merell did something bad.”

  Merell cried with relief when she saw her aunt standing in the bathroom door.

  “I came as soon as I could.”

  Immediately, she knew what to do. She knelt beside the tub and the twins hung on her shoulders and pulled on her arms, chattering excited versions of the day’s events and blaming Merell for every bad thing that had ever happened. Normally Merell would have defended herself, but she was too relieved and grateful to care how they went on.

  “Twins, be quiet. Merell, you tell me.”

  She stumbled over her words but her aunt seemed to understand.

  “Well, the first thing we have to do is cool this pumpkin down.”

  Celia came home with bags of groceries in the trunk of the Mercedes, and Aunt Roxanne stormed at her for leaving Merell and her sisters alone when Simone was napping. Celia tried to make excuses and Roxanne said she didn’t have time to listen.

  “I want you to stay here and watch the twins and if my sister wakes up, tell her we’ve gone to urgent care.”

  At the hospital the nurses and doctors made a fuss over Olivia, and finally Merell realized that everything would be all right and her knotted stomach relaxed and her hands stopped making fists.

  Olivia was given fluids and the sunburn was treated. She had one yellow jacket sting on the back of her thigh. On the examination table in the emergency room she looked pink and peaceful in her tipped-back car seat. Merell thought they would leave the hospital then, but a nurse said they had to wait to see another doctor. This doctor had a clipboard and at first Merell wasn’t sure he was a real doctor because his white coat was so perfectly clean and ironed, but his name tag said he was Jerry Hamid, M.D. He asked Aunt Roxanne some questions and watched her face intently when she answered. Sometimes he made notes.

  “I’m going to have to write this up,” he said, motioning with his clipboard. “This baby was neglected to the point—”

  Aunt Roxanne interrupted him, but in a polite way. “Dr. Hamid, I’m not minimizing this, I know a sunburn’s serious. But my sister’s pregnant and not well. She has four young children, and normally she has help, but today she didn’t. She put Olivia outside in what seemed to be a safe place and then… She has three other children. It was just more than she could handle. Today.”

  Dr. Hamid chewed on the end of his pencil the way Merell’s teachers said was bad. He had chocolate-syrup eyes with thick lids, and he didn’t blink as he looked back and forth between Merell and her aunt. “How did you get involved, Mrs. Callahan?”

  “My sister called me at work.”

  The lie astonished Merell.

  “And where is the mother now?” he asked. “Why isn’t she here with her baby?”

  “She’s home,” Roxanne said. “She was in no condition to drive so I left her with the other children….”

  “What do you mean, ‘no condition’?”

  “Well, she’s upset, of course. Who wouldn’t be?”

  “She’s alone with the children.”

  “The housekeeper’s with her.”

  “You just told me she didn’t have help.”

  “She didn’t. Not earlier in the day.”

  Dr. Hamid wrote something on his
clipboard.

  “Look, it was a judgment call on my part.” Aunt Roxanne made her voice sound everyday friendly. “I just thought she’d be better off at home with her kids.”

  She didn’t sound like herself when she lied. It was lucky Dr. Hamid was a stranger or he would have known she wasn’t telling the truth exactly.

  Merell said, “My daddy’s in Las Vegas.”

  “On business,” Roxanne said.

  “I see.” Now Dr. Hamid tapped his pen against the side of his nose. Merell knew he was worried about Olivia. “I want to see this baby again in a couple of days. And I want the mother with her.” He drew his phone from his pocket and moved his fingers on the keys even faster than Daddy. “I’ve made a note to myself that if I don’t see Olivia and her mother by Monday next week, I’ll file a report with protective services.”

  In the car Merell asked, “What’s protective services?”

  Roxanne adjusted her rearview mirror. “An office that looks after children.”

  “Like foster children?”

  “That and other things.”

  “What other things?” Merell knew her aunt didn’t want to answer questions, but she asked again, “What other things?”

  “I don’t know, Merell.” Aunt Roxanne started the car and backed out of the parking space. She turned out of the parking lot onto Torrey Pines Road. To the right, between the trees, Merell could see the flat line of the ocean, a darker blue than the sky. “Child welfare, I suppose. Abuse. Neglect.”

  “Will I get in trouble?”

  Roxanne took her eyes off the road for a second. “You’ve done nothing wrong, Merell.”

  “What about Mommy? Is she in trouble?”

  “She’ll bring Olivia back in a couple of days and everything’ll be fine.”

  Merell didn’t know how this could be managed. She would be in school and with Franny gone there was no one to take care of the twins.