“Hey. Hey,” Sam said. He rolled over on top of me, protecting me with the warmth of his weight, his arms shielding me from the memory. “You were not a disgusting pig. Women do things like that all the time. Hell, I used to find pads stuck to my ex-girlfriend’s underwear when I did laundry, and she was well into adulthood. It’s an oversight, nothing more. Your mother was crazy.”
“I’m still embarrassed. I felt humiliated just telling you, wondering what you’d think of me.”
He stroked my hair. “I think you’re human, and your mother was fucking crazy, and if she had done as she threatened, everyone would have thought she was a loon and felt sorry for you. Forget it. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
I wept enormous tears for the scared, embarrassed girl I was, the girl who didn’t think she was worth very much, and the insecure, tortured adult she became. Agnes’s death had swept away all the denial. Maybe she mellowed as she got older, and our relationship had relaxed from eternal combat to a truce of sorts, but it didn’t excuse the things she did to me when I was small and helpless.
As I drifted towards sleep, Agnes’s voice spoke up in my mind.
Why don’t you get over it already?
Because there’s no getting over something like that, Mother. You just learn to live with it.
Those memories created a wall between Laurel and I, an obstacle that lay between us, preventing us from relaxing and bonding as sisters should.
“You need to tell her,” Sam urged, on those endless nights when we discussed my abusive upbringing. It was our favorite topic, one neither of us seemed to tire of, although I worried about boring him.
“She already knows,” I told him for the umpteenth time. “I told you, she was there.” Laurel never actively engaged, but she didn’t intervene, either. Her face would just grow blank, and she’d leave the room. I saw the same vacant look on her face years later, when she was being abused by George, her ex-husband. Just like with Agnes, she’d pretend it wasn’t happening, choosing instead to live in an alternate version of reality where everything was hunky-dory and everyone was happy.
“She was there, but it sounds like she really wasn’t,” Sam insisted. “You need to confront her.”
How could I? Especially when, although she didn’t participate in the abuse, she condoned it. She took full advantage of the benefits of being Agnes’s favorite, down to taking all her money and leaving me with nothing, after everything I’d gone through. Laurel didn’t like the fact that I was being abused, but at the end of the day, she didn’t care. Better me than her.
Sam continued to push. “You’re never going to heal from all of this unless you talk this out with her,” he said. “Trust me, I know. Bottling it up just makes it worse. It’s not going away.”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “I’ll talk to her. But I have to find the right moment first.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The right moment was elusive. There was no guidebook out there for how to disclose your childhood abuse to your sister, particularly when she was unsympathetic.
At least, Laurel stopped pressuring me about selling the house. She thought with Sam in the picture, I’d sell it on my own without further argument. And she was right. I’d begun looking at real estate listings for condos in the area, not seriously, just trying to get an idea of what I could afford.
One day she came to the house to pick up her mail. It had been a source of ongoing angst for Agnes that Laurel insisted on using our house for her primary address, although she hadn’t lived there in well over twenty years. “What’s up, sis,” she asked. It was a rare Sunday that I was home. “How come you’re not with Sam?”
“He’s working,” I told her.
“Ah,” she said. “I forgot he works weekends.” Laurel would forget, since John didn’t seem to work at all. At least, not consistently. He never seemed to have a job for more than a few months at a time. Even his brother called him a shitkicker. Whenever anyone asked, Laurel said he worked in construction.
I took a deep breath. “We need to talk about something,” I said. Now was as good a time as any. We were alone. A rare occurrence these days.
Laurel looked up from her mail. “So serious,” she said. “What’s going on? Are you pregnant?”
“No!” I cried, outraged, even though I wished I was. I’d give anything to have Sam’s baby, although I continued to honor his wishes about taking the pill. I would only have his baby if he wanted it, too. Otherwise, what was the point?
Laurel shrugged. “Okay, then what?”
“Well, you know Mom and I didn’t get along,” I said.
Laurel snorted. “That’s the understatement of the year. Well, you always had to talk back.”
I wagged a finger at her. “Okay, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Laurel, Mom used to hit me and say awful things to me. When I was barely more than a baby, even.”
Laurel flipped the page of a circular she was looking at, a casual expression pasted on her face. “Do we have to talk about this now?”
Fury burned within me. I put my hands on my hips. “Yes, we have to talk about this now. We have to talk about it eventually, and it’s already been over forty years. Laurel, she used to say horrible things to me, and hit me, and all you and Dad ever did was walk away and pretend it wasn’t happening. And blame me. If only I didn’t talk back to her, or make her mad, or kept quiet when she came home from work. If only. There was always a reason that made it my fault. And it wasn’t my fault. It was hers. She was the adult. I was the child. There was no excuse for what she did. It was child abuse.”
Laurel shrugged, still refusing to look at me. “Things were different back then,” she said. “A lot of stuff went on that wouldn’t fly today. And yes, Mom clearly had some undiagnosed mental issues. She would fly off the handle when she had her, err, episodes. Dad and I always ducked for cover, but you…” she shook her head, “you always had to rattle her cage. It’s not an excuse, really. But mental illness is an excuse. It is what it is. Maybe Dad and I should have pushed harder for her to see someone, get on medication, but there really wasn’t a whole lot you could do about mental problems back then. Sorry, okay? Sorry I didn’t do more.”
Part of me wanted to drop it, wanted to let it go., Agnes was dead. It wasn’t like I could ever get an apology from her, and if she was alive, she wouldn’t give me one, anyway. There were times, when she was in her calm periods, that I’d tell her what she’d screeched at me while in a rage, and she’d say, “You’re a liar! I would never talk to one of my daughters like that, not ever!”
Liar. Yet another name she called me. And she made me feel like one, even when I spoke the truth.
“That’s not good enough,” I said.
Laurel sighed and tossed the flier aside. Her eyes met mine. “Okay. I never really knew it went to the extent you’re describing, but I guess that’s probably because I didn’t want to know. I’m sorry I didn’t do more. I’m sorry I failed to protect you.”
“Okay,” I said. “Thank you for that.” Maybe we could move on now and have one of those special relationships so many sisters shared.
I decided to let it go. We hashed it out. Laurel said the words I needed to hear, even though they sounded insincere to me, and her eyes were hard and shiny.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It was a glorious summer, impacted by the hand of fate, bringing Sam and I together.
I lived for the moments I could be in his presence. He was like oxygen. We couldn’t get enough of each other. It was like that from day one.
At work, I got in trouble for texting him too much. “Your productivity has dropped,” my boss complained.
Not long ago, a reprimand like that would have sent me running to the bathroom, to lock myself into a cubicle and have a good cry. Now I shrugged it off. I didn’t care anymore. What was work compared to the shining, enormous love illuminating my life, taking up every waking thought? I spent my daily eight-hour sentence daydreaming about Sam’s sky
-blue eyes.
Our chemistry was powerful. The sex only got better. “Good thing my apartment is soundproofed, you’re a noisy little thing,” Sam said, after giving me a series of orgasms that exploded through my body like firecrackers, leaving me shrieking and shaking.
The mere touch of Sam’s thumb, tracing the inside of my arm, caused me to tingle with an intense, unbearable ache. He could make me moan just by sliding a finger along my collarbone. The muscles in my inner thighs would relax, ready to spread for him. We were made for each other. Instead of feeling intrusive, the delicious feeling of him sliding into me was like coming home.
When we weren’t together, I worried that sex was the only thing we had in common, the glue that held us together. After all, I was a nerdy girl who liked to read, and Sam was a community college dropout who owned not a single book and preferred to talk about sports or sex.
Yet when we held each other in the dark, heart-to-heart, and poured out our souls, it put my fears to rest. Especially when we spoke of our dead parents. We both struggled with a mixture of grief and anger. Sam’s mother was a controlling woman who ruled her family with an iron fist. She died soon after Lucy’s murder.
“Me being under suspicion for Lucy’s murder killed her,” he said, his eyes filled with rare tears. “St. Anne’s is a tiny town. My parents were shunned. My Dad was a loner, so he didn’t give a shit, but it hurt my mother. She was kicked out of her book club, and people she’d been friends with for decades would cross the street to avoid her. Everyone stared and whispered when she went grocery shopping. And when we went out for John’s birthday, months after it happened, the owner came out of the kitchen and told us to leave.”
We were sitting up in bed, the sheets pooled in our laps. I stroked his back. “What awful people,” I said.
Sam shook his head. “No, it wasn’t that. They was good peoples.” I hated the way Sam butchered grammar, but said nothing. What difference did it make? I understood what he was saying. “They thought I got away with it, so they were punishing me the only way they knew how, through her. Little do they know every second I have to live without Lucy is a punishment.”
My heart stopped at that statement. Are you sure you want to get involved in this mess? Agnes hissed in my ear. It’s not too late to put the brakes on.
I leaned over to wrap my arms around Sam’s chest, snuggling into him, inhaling the clean smells of Tide and Dove Body Wash and beneath it, the salty tang of his musk. I could devour that smell. “I love you,” I whispered, not caring it was too soon. “I love your flaws the most.”
We rocked together, my tears mingling with his, our shared pain a palpating, living thing beating in the darkness between us like a toxic heart.
Another time he told the full story of the loss of his virginity, which he’d only related in bits and pieces in the past. All he’d say before was he lost it to Lucy, and it was goddamn beautiful. It was only in the darkness, cradling each other, that he could bring himself to admit there was much more to it than that.
“Tell me,” I said, although I wasn’t sure it was a good idea. I was both hungry for details about their relationship and sick of hearing about her.
“It was the summer before our freshman year of high school,” he recited. “My parents were away.” He sat up and scrabbled for his cigarettes on the nightstand. I rose on an elbow as he lit one, cupping his hand around the flame. The flickering light distorted his features, turned them demonic.
“That’s kinda young,” I said.
Sam waved that away. “I forget where they went, but they were gone for days. They left John in charge.” We both snorted. “So, of course our house was party central from the moment they pulled out of the driveway. There were kids from as far away as Albany passed out in our living room. Anyway, Lucy wasn’t allowed to sleep over. Her parents were strict. Every night, I walked her home in time for her midnight curfew. She’d go in her house, kiss Mommy and Daddy goodnight, head on up to her room, and climb out the window. There was a perfect climbing tree just outside. I would wait for her in the woods behind her house.” He sighed. “They found her body in those woods.”
“We had a place. A fort we built when we were just kids with some scavenged lumber. It wasn’t much. It didn’t even keep us dry when it rained. But it was a place we could go to have privacy, to be alone. It seemed like a palace.”
“We had a double sleeping bag I’d dug out of my basement. We’d make out then fall asleep in each other’s arms, my face in her hair. It always smelled like strawberries. We never really thought about going all the way, having sex. We were too young, as you pointed out. But the third night of my parent’s absence she had a big fight with her old man. He threatened to take his belt to her, because he said she smelled like alcohol. Neither of us were drinking, but she may have sat in something at my house. Her Dad was a real asshole. She almost didn’t come to me in the woods, because she was afraid of getting beat. But she did it anyway. She did it for me. She loved me that much.”
Sam fell silent. I stared at him, at his skinny chest with the Roadrunner tattooed in fading blue ink on his right shoulder (the result of a very drunken night), his slender fingers clutching the cigarette with its glowing end, and I was shocked by the powerful surge of love I felt for this man, this lost soul. I would do anything for him. I would even die and allow Lucy to take my place, if such a thing were possible.
“We never drank before, but that night I had a bottle of Boone’s I snagged from the house, and we drank it in defiance of her suspicious old man, sniffing at her like a dog. We started smooching while passing the bottle back and forth, and then it happened. I was inside her. It was the most powerful moment of my life, to be inside another human being, inside her, and it was perfect. She was warm and wet and inviting, and she wanted me so bad, and we loved each other so much. We made love under a sky full of stars and fell asleep cuddling.”
Sam sighed, reaching over to stub the cigarette out in an ashtray on his nightstand. The mattress creaked as he rolled over to face me, his expression hidden by darkness. “We woke at first light and I walked her back, waiting on the driveway to make sure she got inside okay.” He paused. “I heard her scream before I made it to the road. I ran back as fast as I could. I could hear her old man bellowing, so I knew she’d gotten caught. He was lying in wait for her.”
There was another long pause. This time when Sam spoke, it was through a voice clogged with tears. I reached out and grabbed his hand, gave it a squeeze. He lifted it to his lips and kissed it. “I was just a kid, there was nothing I could do to help her, not against her old man. I crept across the porch and peered through the front room window, just to make sure she was okay.” He winced. “She was bare- assed, bent over a chair, with her pants down around her ankles. She was trembling. Her old man was walking back and forth, raging at her, then he stopped in front of her and yanked his belt free of his pant loops. He snapped it in front of her, and she flinched. She was sobbing and begging. I couldn’t hear the words. I was convinced it was just a threat, there was no way he’d hit her. Then he walked behind her, brought his arm back, and lashed her shaking ass with an enormous crack. She shrieked. Then she pissed all over the floor.”
Sam clenched his hands. “I watched, helpless, as he beat her. I didn’t leave, although I wanted to, because she wouldn’t be alone if I was there. She stayed bent over the chair the whole time, her hands clutching the rungs, howling. She never moved out of position as he striped her bottom. From intense pleasure to intense pain in a matter of hours.” Sam began weeping.
I reached over and slid my arms around him, cradling him to my breast, stroking his silky blond hair. I loved this man with a fierce intensity that I never knew was possible. I would kill for this man.
“I loved her,” Sam wept. “I loved her so much.”
I rocked him against me, wishing there was a way I could undo his terrible sorrow.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
After our discussion about
Agnes, I felt much closer to Laurel. It was like we were finally sisters. She was excited and pleased Sam and I hit it off, because it gave us something in common. “I’m so glad you two like each other,” she said over the phone. “Sam’s been so lonely.”
Together, Laurel and I double dated with John and Sam, making a nice foursome. We had a ball that summer, going to Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey to ride the rollercoasters, to Splashdown Beach to use the water slides, and to countless baseball games because the men were avid Yankees fans. Laurel and I couldn't care less, but even we got caught up in the crowd's excitement whenever they hit a home run.
One weekend we attended a small carnival, the type of affair that featured shaky overpriced rides and tons of games. This one had something different, a psychic tent pitched out beyond the midway. A sign in front depicted a purple-haired woman gazing into a crystal ball. Madame Marisha, Fortunes, $20.
“Twenty dollars, my goodness! What happened to crossing their palms with silver?” Laurel asked.
“Now they want you to cross their palms with gold, babe,” John said, chortling at his own wit.
Sam winked at me. We often made fun of Laurel and John behind their backs, particularly the way they acted like two horny teenagers. Sometimes we even imitated them, calling each other babe. Sam said they reminded him of monkeys picking fleas off each other in the zoo.
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