Family Matters

by New York Tri-State Chapter of Sisters in Crime

  I know this sounds really crazy, but when she put her hand down on top of the purse she was carrying, red to match her dress, I could see the color coming right through her hand.

  Naturally, I ended up losing that case, but I guess I can’t blame that on poor Sylvia.

  I’d had no idea she’d moved back to New York, and for some reason, I really wanted to see her again.

  Did I have some crazy idea that we could move in together again? Both of us single? Both of us looking for some way of reviving our youth? I’m not sure what I was thinking. All I remember is that I had this really intense desire to see her again and speak to her.

  We had agreed to meet a couple of weeks later at Mandel’s, an old coffee shop in the neighborhood where we grew up. I googled it on the off chance that it still existed—it did—and I woke up each following morning in a cold sweat, counting down the days. Finally, I could stand it no longer.

  Sylvia had written down her address, somewhere in Queens, and I decided to surprise her there five days before the date of our meeting.

  I argued with the cabbie who refused to take me over the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge—Queens was like another country—but he finally gave in. Together, we wandered from street to street, searching for the occasional renovated building between gray garages with peeling paint and brown rotting warehouses. Close to Manhattan, with developer after developer singing its praises, with even the mayor offering incentives for small businesses, the neighborhood, in transition for as long as I remember, clung close to the cracked cement that had always been its foundation.

  After more than an hour of blind alleys, faded street signs, the cabbie’s muttered curses in my ears, we crossed back into Manhattan, and I resumed my agitated counting of the days before my scheduled meeting at Mandel’s with my long lost cousin Sylvia.

  SHE never showed up.

  I sat there a good two hours, sipping a chocolate egg cream and staring at the cracks in the linoleum floor.

  What had happened? She seemed, if not eager—Sylvia was never eager about anything—at least willing to meet me.

  Had Sylvia fled in fear of being trapped by me into a relationship she might never—looking back—have wanted?

  Did she blame me for her dim, strangely unlived life? Had I, in fact, somehow sucked all the color and life from her body? Had my ill feelings towards her and a lifetime of indifference called down some terrible fate upon her head?

  All I know is, the longer I sat there, the more guilty and upset I began to feel until, finally, old Mr. Mandel told me he wanted to close up the shop. When I lifted my head to reply, he shook his head, wiped off his glasses and uttered the words, “Rose’s girl!”

  “Yes!” I said. “Yes! I used to come in here years ago with my cousin Sylvia!”

  Mr. Mandel considered for a minute. Then he slowly shook his head. “Sylvia. I don’t remember.”

  I got up from the booth and grabbed his shoulder. “She was a blond girl. Very pretty. She was always with me.”

  Mr. Mandel’s eyes narrowed and he pulled away from me.“ I am an old man,” he said. “I don’t remember everything.”

  “But Sylvia! She followed me everywhere. We had two egg creams. Every afternoon after school!”

  Mr. Mandel retreated towards the door. “I have to close the shop now,” he said to me. “I hope you feel better soon.”

  ABOUT five years later, I received a couple of cartons in the mail. Inside were seven sweaters, all the same, in seven different colors and five skirts, all the same, in five different colors. I wondered what had happened to her shoes and her purses, and if they too had been all the same and in many different colors. There was no note. There was no address. Sylvia had no listing in the telephone book. She was not on Facebook or Twitter.

  I retired from the bench a couple of years ago, having finally made it to judge, but that’s an entirely different story.

  I have enough money to live comfortably in an old brownstone in Brooklyn Heights, and these days, I sit by the window and look out over the East River and I wonder what really happened to Sylvia. Did she disappear completely, little by little like a faded photograph? Had she been squashed by a truck, her body pounded down into the asphalt, my name and address the only physical residue peeled off the ground? Or had she jumped into the East River in a vain attempt to attract some attention from a world that so ignored her?

  Most nagging of all, I wonder how responsible I was for her life and her death.

  Like a shadow-self she followed me, a bland, blank canvas upon which I threw the vivid colors of my life. Had I, like a parasite, drawn off all her life to fuel the frantic energies of my own body? Had the fierce cravings and urgings that gave my life shape destroyed hers?

  I suppose none of this is really important, except that lately, something frightening is beginning to happen to me. Last week when I looked in the mirror, I could swear I saw the outline of my bureau right through my chest. And yesterday, when I put my hand down on the New York Times lying on top of my kitchen table, I could almost read the print, right through it.

  Am I going to slowly disappear, just like my cousin Sylvia?

  I grasp the edge of the window sill and tremble.

  THEIR LITTLE SECRET

  Anita Page

  IT was a Sunday evening in June, and a driving rain had kept them in all day, so Cassie’s parents were pretty well lubricated—her mother’s word. Cassie, expert reader of moods and body language, figured they were minutes away from the Sunday night fight. The table was cluttered with Chinese take-out containers and packets of mustard and soy sauce.

  Cassie’s mother poured the remains of the wine into her glass as she went on about the guest cottage. A client had offered the place after she mentioned the trouble they were having finding a beach rental. That last was directed at Cassie’s father, who didn’t think they should spend the money this summer. They used to be rich, but since the economy tanked, they were poor. Relatively poor, Cassie’s mother, a stockbroker, said. Cassie thought that was bullshit; poor people didn’t own brownstones in Brooklyn Heights. Her parents just needed a reason to fight.

  “Where?” Cassie’s father asked.

  “The North Shore,” her mother said. “Cove Neck. Peter said we’ll have the place to ourselves because no one’s staying in the main house.”

  “When?”

  “The first two weeks in August.”

  “You’re unbelievable,” Cassie’s father said.

  “Why?” Her mother widened her eyes the way she did, which fooled no one in the room.

  “You know what I’m dealing with in the office those two weeks.”

  “What was I supposed to do, negotiate dates?” Cassie’s mother pulled her hair back, then shook it loose, a gesture Cassie hated. “He’s giving us a cottage on the bay in August. And, just for the record, you didn’t say those two weeks were definitely out, because obviously if you had—”

  “Obviously, my ass,” Cassie’s father said.

  “Can I bring Molly?” Cassie asked.

  Her mother said, “That’s all I need.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not having this discussion,” her mother said.

  Two weeks alone with her mother. She’d rather be dead. Cassie stormed upstairs. Minutes later, the sound of the door slamming reverberated through the house like a shot. Another Sunday night with the Woodhulls.

  She’d just fallen asleep when she heard her father come in. She went downstairs wrapped in an afghan and found him at the kitchen counter, pouring himself a drink, his hair wet from the rain.

  “Make her let me bring Molly,” Cassie said.

  “Baby, don’t do that.” He stirred the drink with his finger. “This is her call.”

  “Her call? It’s my life.” The afghan slipped to the floor and she caught his discomfort at the sight of her in tank top and underpants.

  “You’ll have a good time,” he said.

  She hated when he did that, sayin
g things he knew weren’t true. “Let me stay home,” she said.

  “I’m going to be working around the clock.”

  “So what? I’m fifteen. I don’t need a babysitter.” Sometimes, she hated him almost as much as she hated her. “I thought you’d be on my side,” she said.

  “For chrissake, Cassandra, this isn’t about sides. We’re a family.”

  “You call this a family?” She was crying as she gathered up the afghan. “I call it hell.”

  THE client appeared at the door of the cottage soon after they arrived, an old guy with a white crew cut and a deep tan. Her mother made a big show of being surprised to see him.

  “Change of plans,” he said, smiling at Cassie’s mother, then at Cassie who ignored him. Glancing around, he said, “Just the two of you?”

  “My husband’s tied up with work.” Cassie’s mother smiled and shrugged. “Poor him.”

  “Poor him indeed,” the old guy said. Then he offered a tour of the grounds, and her mother followed him out onto the deep front porch, first asking, “Coming Cass?” in that fake, actressy voice. Cassie stared her down.

  She carried her bag upstairs, past the bedroom with the king-size bed and the skylight to the room with twin beds at the far end of the hall. Everything was white: the walls, the chenille bedspreads, the dresser, the painted pine desk. It was peaceful, in an empty sort of way.

  Cassie put her bag on a bed and opened the window shutters. From here, past the sloping lawn, she could see the water. A private beach, her mother had said, like she was supposed to be impressed. They’d been stuck in traffic for hours on the Long Island Expressway and then ended up in the middle of nowhere. It was like being on fucking Alcatraz. She closed the shutters and lay down on the empty bed, thinking that except to go to the bathroom and scrounge for food, she would not leave this room for the next two weeks.

  A while later, her mother appeared in the doorway and said, “Charming manners, Cassandra. Just don’t think you’re going to spoil this vacation for me, because you’re not.”

  BY day four, the room felt like a prison. Cassie waited for her mother to leave, then packed her knapsack with water and peaches. From the driveway, she could just make out the main house through the trees, and wondered if that was where her mother disappeared to each day.

  She retraced Saturday’s route, the bay on one side of the road, woods interrupted by an occasional gated driveway on the other. She was pretty sure if she followed the road to the end she’d come to the bird sanctuary. When they passed it on Saturday, her mother had said, “Let’s go there one morning,” and Cassie had thought, yeah, right.

  The walk was longer than she expected, but that was okay. She was glad to be out on her own. When she got to the sanctuary, its gates were open, no one selling tickets, which was good, because she hadn’t thought to bring money. She started up the trail, past a marble fountain with a statue but no water, drawn by the cool, damp shade and the smell of the woods. As she climbed the trail, the hum of traffic from the road faded, and she found that she could pretend the world outside this place didn’t exist.

  When she spotted a fallen tree trunk close to the trail, she sat down, the peeling bark rough against her bare legs. She ate a peach and drank some water, then dug in her knapsack for the tampon holder. Molly had slipped it to her the night before Cassie and her mother left. Now she took out the joint and lit it. She took two slow hits before pinching the end and tucking it back in the holder. She was a little nervous about getting stoned alone, because sometimes she had a bad high.

  Molly said smoking weed was like sex. The more you did it, the better it got. She would mention different guys who thought Cassie was hot because she thought Cassie should get the virgin thing over with. Once, though, when they were stoned, Molly admitted sex was boring. All Craig, her boyfriend, ever wanted was for her to go down on him, but he would never do her. “Like I love sticking my head in his crotch,” she said.

  “Is it as boring as geometry?” Cassie had asked, and Molly snorted, laughing. “Don’t be stupid. Geometry is fifty minutes, and sex is like ten.” That cracked them both up, and they fell on each other, laughing so hard they nearly peed in their pants.

  That night she almost told Molly how she’d heard her mother and some guy going at it for way longer than ten minutes, but she couldn’t get the words out. The secret was locked in her brain, but she was the prisoner. It didn’t make sense, but that’s how she saw it.

  Now she stretched out on the log, one leg propped on the ground. She closed her eyes, and found that if she concentrated, she could shut out the distant traffic sounds and hear only the birds. She’d never known she had this power. She would keep the birds’ songs in her head, she thought, and use them to shut out her mother’s lies and the Sunday night fights.

  LATER, back at the house, her mother walked into Cassie’s room and said, “Take those things out of your ears, please.” Cassie, lying on her bed, caught her mother’s scent and noted the black linen dress and her mother’s bare tanned arms.

  “Peter and I are going to Oyster Bay for dinner,” her mother said. “He invited you, too, but I assumed you weren’t interested.”

  Cassie was this close to saying she’d love to go along, just to screw up her mother’s plans, but the thought of being with them made her want to puke. Instead, she said, “Peter? You mean the old man?”

  Her mother left without a word, her heels tapping along the hall and down the stairs. Cassie brushed away the tears that had come from nowhere. When she heard the front door close, she went to her mother’s room. From the window, she saw Peter get out of his car and walk around to open the door. Cassie kept her eyes on her mother, willing her to look up at the window, which she did. For a second, it seemed neither of them could look away, but then her mother turned and got into the car. And that made her, Cassie, the winner. Not in real life, though. In real life, her mother was always the winner.

  Cassie, at the window, replayed for maybe the millionth time the sleepover at Molly’s when they were in sixth grade. She was just starting to get her periods, and when she woke in the middle of the night and saw blood, she was too embarrassed to do anything but stuff toilet paper in her underpants, pull on her clothes and let herself out of Molly’s house, down the street from her own. Her father was supposed to be away at a conference so she was surprised to hear voices coming from her parents’ room. But not as surprised as her mother was to see her. She came out of the bedroom, shutting the door behind her, wanting to know what Cassie was doing home. Cassie told her and asked if her father had left the conference early. No, her mother said. Her father wasn’t home. She’d fallen asleep with the radio on, so that’s what Cassie had heard.

  Cassie believed her until later, when she heard the stairs creak and the front door close. She’d gone to her window, not understanding why her mother was going out in the middle of the night, only it wasn’t her mother she saw stopping to light a cigarette on the sidewalk. She was only eleven, but she wasn’t a total moron, so she figured out what was going on. She never found out who the man was though. Who the men were.

  At first, she thought her mother must think she was stupid, telling lies a four-year-old could see through. I’m going to the supermarket, she’d say, and come back two hours later without any shopping bags. But when she pulled crap like tonight, taking off in the dress and the perfume and the fuck-me shoes, Cassie was convinced her mother wanted her to know what she was doing. And that was so sick, she thought, it must be punishment for a crime she hadn’t known she committed. You’re going to keep my dirty secrets because if you tell, it will kill your father. She believed that for a long time, and then she stopped believing it, but still she didn’t tell her father, because he was so good at turning truth into lies and lies into truth.

  One day last year, she came home from school early because track practice had been cancelled. She was halfway up the stairs when she heard sounds coming from her parents’ room—her mother moaning,
a man’s deep grunts, the creaking of the bed. It went on that way for a long time, with her on the stairs, afraid they would hear her if she took a step. When the sounds stopped, she scrambled downstairs and slammed the door, like she was just coming in. Two minutes later the guy came down, nodding at her as he let himself out.

  When her mother came down, Cassie asked who the guy was, and her mother said, with that blank face she used when she was lying, that he’d come to give them an estimate on some electrical work. Then her mother left to run errands, and Cassie went upstairs. As she passed her parent’s room, she spotted something on the floor, a small religious medal on a thin silver chain.

  She shoved it into the pocket of her jeans, wondering if the man had taken it off because he didn’t want God to see him fucking her mother. She thought about that as she sat on her bed and waited for her parents to get home. She was trembling and felt like she could throw up, imagining the explosion she would set off when she handed her father the medal, proof even he couldn’t ignore. She tried to plan what she would say to him, but the words kept getting jumbled, so she lay on her bed and let her mind go blank. When her mother got home and called upstairs that she’d picked up a pizza, Cassie said she wasn’t hungry.

  Her father was late that night, which turned out to be a good thing because it gave her time to realize how stupid she’d been, imagining that her father would let her live with him. At that moment, she understood that she would be trapped in her mother’s secret life forever, or at least until her mother was dead. And that was something she prayed for every night, even though she wasn’t sure she believed in God.