Wrath of the Sister

by Shannon Heuston

  “Here we are!” the hostess said. She must have heard Agnes complaining. She withdrew a lighter from her pocket and lit the citronella candle in the center of the table. “This will keep the bugs away!”

  “Great. No bugs. It’ll stink instead,” Agnes said. She sat down. “Ugh, this chair hurts my back.”

  I gave a loud sigh. “How can you possibly know that already? You just sat down!”

  “I know because I can see with my eyes what kind of chair it is, and I know my body, because I’m old, as you so kindly pointed out.”

  I fell silent, choosing instead to open my menu. “They have whole belly claims,” I pointed out. My mother claimed whole belly clams were the food of the gods.

  Agnes said nothing, not ready to make nice. But she turned on the charm when the waitress came over to introduce herself. “We’ll try the stuffed Quahog as an appetizer,” she said. “And we’ll both have the whole belly clam platter with corn, French fries, and extra tartar sauce.” She handed the menus back and shot me a look, daring me to say something about her ordering for me.

  I looked away. I was going to order the clams anyway. I wanted to try them. But I wasn’t going to let her know she got it right.

  A few moments later, the waitress deposited a dish of olive oil and bread on the table. “What’s this?” Agnes said, outraged. “Why can’t they just give us butter like everywhere else?” She frowned, then dipped her bread into the dish, tasting it.

  We ate all the bread and depleted the dish of olive oil in mere minutes. “I wonder if we can order more,” Agnes said, refusing to acknowledge she hadn’t even wanted it.

  Our appetizer arrived, preventing Agnes from screeching across the patio to get the waitress’s attention. “This is stuffed Quahog?” she said. “It’s lousy.”

  Fortunately, our entrees were ready. “These are the biggest clams I’ve ever seen,” Agnes informed me in a dubious tone of voice. “How did they get so big?”

  “Maybe it’s the time of year,” I said.

  The clams were delicious, fried in a light batter, the bellies deliciously salty and tangy, like eating bits of the sea. “I told you,” Agnes crowed. “Nothing on earth to compares to them. Nothing.”

  After we finished the meal, Agnes handed the tip directly to the waitress. “Those were the best claims I’ve ever had,” she stated.

  The waitress beamed. “This is our family restaurant. My great-great-grandfather started it.”

  “Really?” Agnes said. “I used to come here when I was a little girl. My entire family would come and take up every seat in the restaurant! We were the Quinn family. Did you ever hear your grandfather talk about us, the Quinn family?”

  The waitress screwed her face up like she was thinking. I was so embarrassed. No. Of course she never heard of the Quinns, Ma, because they have loads of family parties in the summer. It’s nothing special.

  “Maybe,” she said with a smile. “It sounds familiar.”

  Yeah, my ass. It got her a big tip though.

  That was the longest weekend of my life. Although she said she wanted to go to the beach, Agnes claimed she didn’t have the stamina to walk down to the ocean, preferring to sit and inhale the salty air from inside the car with the window cranked down. She spent most of her time watching television in our hotel room.

  We spent hours shopping, and I took her to a movie, stuff we could have done at home. I was at a loss. There was loads of stuff to do in Cape Cod, but my mother shot each one of them down, from whale watching to going to the Sandwich Glass Museum. “I don’t like to do those things,” she whined.

  I spent a thousand dollars I didn’t have on a long weekend in Cape Cod at the height of summer so my mother could eat whole belly clams. She seemed satisfied with that, so I let it go. The wild child who ran laughing through the cranberry bogs was long gone.

  And now so was Agnes. As I listened to John and Laurel’s Cape Cod plans, I realized I’d gladly return to Cape Cod with my mother at her most irritating if it meant I could spend one more day with her. I’d take her back in all her abusive, critical, toxic glory. In a heartbeat.

  Suddenly, tears were streaming down my face.

  “What on earth?” Laurel asked.

  I swiped at the tears with my fingers. “It’s okay. I just miss Ma.” My voice broke.

  Irritation flashed across Laurel’s features before being replaced by a look of sympathy. I was being difficult.

  “Aww, come here honey,” Sam said, holding out his arms. I burrowed my face into his neck, inhaling his aftershave, a scent that aroused me and made me feel loved. He rocked me against his chest. “We don’t have to go to Cape Cod, hon,” he whispered into my hair.

  “Well, we…” Laurel began. Sam held up a hand.

  He drew back and grabbed my shoulders, staring fixedly into my eyes. “Say the word and we won’t go. We can go to Montauk or the Jersey Shore or Rhode Island instead. Mystic. Ocean City. There are tons of beaches within driving distance. We don’t have to go to the Cape.”

  I sniffled. I didn’t want to be difficult. I wanted to be easygoing. I forced a smile. “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m sure I’ll be okay in Cape Cod.”

  “That’s my girl,” Sam said, giving me an approving pat on the head.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The weather forecast was favorable for our trip. The initial plan was for the four of us to ride up together, sharing a car, but Sam nixed this at the last minute. “Let’s take our own car,” he suggested. “I don’t want to be in a position where I have to ask John for permission to go places.”

  “Agreed,” I said.

  “I have a feeling there will be times when we’ll need a break from them,” Sam warned.

  I nodded. He’d get no argument from me. I already wanted a break from them.

  John and Laurel wanted to drive up early afternoon, because my sister liked to sleep in on her days off. I didn’t blame her, but I preferred to get an early start.

  Sam was of the same mind. He slept over my house the night before we were due to leave. Although neither of us went to sleep before midnight, we were awake by five am. “You awake?” Sam asked into the silence.

  “Yes,” I said, turning towards him.

  “Great. Let’s get on the road.”

  I sat up. “Laurel will be so pissed!”

  “Fuck Laurel,” Sam said, dropping a t-shirt over his head. I reached out a hand to stroke his flat belly. I couldn’t help myself.

  There was no mistaking the shudder of revulsion. I snatched my hand back as if burned. “Sorry,” I muttered.

  Sam’s face emerged from the neck of the shirt. “I wasn’t expecting that,” he said. “It startled me.”

  I attempted to shake off the crushing, unexpected feeling of rejection, but it stayed with me as I took a quick shower and brushed my teeth. My mind kept replaying the way he’d shuddered, repulsed by my touch. Like a spider had scurried over his chest.

  I didn’t address it until we were on the road. Part of me thought I should let it go, but it stayed in my mind, an irritation. I had to say something. I couldn’t retreat into classic Ripple denial. I knew that was no good. It would spell the death of our relationship.

  We stopped for gas. Sam went into the Quick Mart and emerged with an armload of snacks.

  “It’s a four-hour ride, not a week-long journey,” I said, shaking my head. “This is enough junk to feed an army of people with horrible eating habits.”

  “I’m an army by myself,” Sam said, tearing into a cinnamon roll. I gazed out the window at the passing scenery as he pulled back onto the highway, singing along with the radio. This was the man I knew, laid back and relaxed. I was making too much out of the shudder.

  “Sam,” I began. I didn’t know how to go about confronting him. We had yet to have our first fight, and I didn’t want the day to be today, of all days.

  “What?” he asked, turning his head to bestow his dazzling grin on me.

  My heart melt
ed. I was being stupid. This man loved me. I was projecting my own insecurities onto him.

  “Nothing,” I said, shaking my head.

  Sam’s smile faded. “No, what is it?”

  I sighed. “I’m just being silly. Something is bothering me. Before, in the bedroom, when I touched you, the way you shuddered…”

  “Are we still on about that? It’s not a big deal. Your hands were fucking freezing.”

  “Oh!” I exclaimed, relieved. “Of course! That’s what it was.”

  Sam kept his eyes on the road. “What did you think it was?” he asked.

  “For a split second it seemed like my touch, I don’t know, disgusted you or something. Like you didn’t want me touching you. Isn’t it wild what I come up with?”

  “Wild,” Sam said. “Yeah.”

  He turned the radio up.

  “You guys,” Laurel scolded through the Bluetooth radio setting on Sam’s car. “We can’t pick up the keys to the cottage until two. The owners need time to clean it.”

  “So?” Sam asked. “There’s plenty of stuff to do till then. I brought my surfboard. I might catch some waves.”

  “I’m disappointed you guys left without us,” Laurel said. “I had games planned to play on the road.”

  Sam and I exchanged looks. I relished these moments when we both could tell what the other was thinking, because we were thinking the same thing.

  “Sorry,” I said, struggling to keep the laughter out of my voice.

  “Mel, it would have been just like when we were kids and driving to Grandma’s. We could have played the license plate game, the punch buggy game…”

  “How would you play punch buggy?” Sam asked. “I haven’t seen a Volkswagen Bug since its brief spurt of popularity at the turn of the century.”

  “We could have substituted another car instead,” Laurel said, sounding annoyed.

  “Oh yeah, punch Toyota Corolla! That has a great ring.” Sam winked at me.

  I pressed a hand against my mouth to muffle my laughter.

  “Well, we won’t be doing it, because you two took off,” Laurel said.

  “You could have left early,” Sam pointed out.

  “John’s still sleeping.”

  I rolled my eyes. I didn’t know what she saw in that loser. But I said nothing because no matter what, he was Sam’s brother. Thankfully not biologically, so Sam didn’t get the loser genes. But John was important to him, since both their parents were dead. I knew the feeling all too well. I wasn’t happy about it either.

  Leaving early started a trend for the entire vacation. Sam and I did our own thing. The days fell into a routine. Every night, we would discuss what we wanted to do the next day with John and Laurel. We talked about bike rides, whale watching, fishing, etc. We made elaborate plans, which were foiled by John and Laurel staying in bed until past noon. Then it was too late to do anything except go to the beach.

  “What’s the big deal?” John retorted, when Sam grumbled. “Isn’t that why people come to Cape Cod? To go to the beach?”

  After it happened for the second time, Sam and I started waiting until ten thirty then setting out. Together we did all the fun touristy things, bike riding along the Canal with the wind whipping our hair, whale watching, fishing, and boating. By the end of the week, we were both tan, our hair bleached gold by the sun.

  In contrast, John and Laurel did nothing. My sister moaned about being left behind, but she refused to go with us, insisting John was about to get up.

  Staying in the cottage with John showed me yet another ugly side to his personality. He drank and smoked weed constantly. He would drink at night until he passed out, which was why he was never up early enough in the morning to go anywhere.

  “Your brother sure drinks a lot,” I remarked one sultry afternoon at the beach. It was overcast. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Sam was flushed with pleasure, having just caught an enormous wave with his surfboard. But his smiled faded when he heard my words.

  “I do too, darling,” he said, and this was not a lie. Sam did drink a lot, often matching John beer for beer. It didn’t seem to have the same effect on him. He could knock back a dozen beers and still be up for a sunrise bike ride. It was a mystery. Perhaps something genetic.

  Sam’s attitude towards John frustrated and confused me. There were times he’d make fun of him with me. Then there were other times when he’d bristle and defend him. It seemed to depend purely on his mood, and there was no telling which way it would go. I had to learn to keep my mouth shut. Saying nothing was better.

  But wasn’t I the same way? I criticized Laurel, but got mad when someone else made a nasty comment about my sister. I was the same way with Agnes, too. Families were complicated.

  On our last evening in Cape Cod, we went to Captain Jack’s, in Agnes’s memory.

  “So, this is the famous Captain Jack’s,” Laurel said, looking up at the weather-beaten building. “Doesn’t look like much.”

  “It’s meant to look like a captain’s quarters, on the beach,” I said. Sam shot me a look when he heard the defensiveness in my voice.

  Laurel shrugged. “I’m not running the place down, I’m just saying.” She slipped her hand into John’s and they both gazed at me, a united front. John’s mustache quivered.

  We’d had our fill of each other on this trip, that was for sure. No bonding for us. A casual observer would never guess we were related. They’d assume the connection was Sam and John being brothers. Laurel and I behaved like we were stuck hanging with our boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend, whom we did not like.

  Still, we’d both lost Agnes, and this was our tribute to her.

  I thought we might get the same waitress as the night I came here with my mother. But no, instead we had a waiter, a young man attempting to grow a goatee. I wondered if he was also related to the owner. We listened politely as he told us the specials with his hands clasped behind his back like a schoolboy reciting.

  When he finished, John announced, “I’ll have the chicken,” without opening his menu. He clearly thought he was being funny, but he looked like an asshole.

  The waiter looked confused. “The chicken…”

  “I don’t know, you said some chicken dish in there. I’ll have that. I hate seafood.”

  Of course, he hated seafood. Because it was normal to vacation in Cape Cod, a place renowned for their seafood, when you hate seafood, and spend the whole time getting drunk and complaining. I felt a sudden wave of sympathy for Laurel. I kept lumping the two of them together in my brain, but she wasn’t having any fun on this trip. She spent the whole week waiting around for her loser boyfriend to wake up while Sam and I were out having a ball.

  But my sympathy only went so far. I couldn’t help thinking I would never date such a creature. But if Laurel had not been dating him, Sam and I wouldn’t be together. I owed her one for that.

  I caught Sam’s eye. He flashed a grin at me, looking me up and down, his message clear. Later. I instantly felt horny, like one of Pavlov’s dogs hearing a bell.

  Yeah, I owed Laurel. Big time.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “I’m not doing the couple thing on Halloween,” Sam declared.

  I deflated. It seemed like a silly thing to care about at my age, but I’d never had a boyfriend serious enough for a couple’s costume. I spent many years feeling envious of other couples attending Halloween parties dressed as Anthony and Cleopatra, or Raggedy Anne and Andy. It had taken on a ridiculous amount of significance for me.

  Nancy, a coworker I didn’t like, tossed an invitation to her Halloween party on my desk. “Bring your boyfriend,” she said. I was convinced she believed Sam was made-up, that I was a pathetic fortysomething spinster inventing a dreamboat boyfriend like a middle school age loser.

  I figured Sam would be okay with it, that he’d understand how much it meant to me. But once again, I read him wrong. Maybe he would have dressed up as one half of a couple for the illustrious Lucy, but he wasn�
�t willing to do it for me. I was missing that intangible quality women had that motivated men to slay dragons and fight wars for them. I could barely get a man to cross the street for me.

  I was starting to get concerned about our differences. Sam was tidy. Dishes were washed as soon as we finished using them. And no, they could not be stacked on the drainboard to air dry, instead they had to be dried right away and put in their proper place in the cupboard. Sam owned a very small garbage pail because once anything food related got thrown out, the bag was removed to the dumpster behind the apartment complex.

  Everything had to always be in its correct place, and I could never get this right. “If you don’t know where something goes, ask me,” Sam said more than once. “It irritates me when I can’t find something because it was put away wrong.”

  Was Sam’s compulsive need for order another red flag? I worried we were not compatible enough to live together, that we didn’t have a future. Most of the time, I shrugged off these negative thoughts. I loved Sam enough to wash, dry, and put the dishes away right after a meal. It was no big deal. But in the middle of the night, when I was alone, and the doubts were creeping in, I admitted to myself that it was a big deal. It wasn’t just about dishes, or garbage, it was about everything. Sam craved order. And my shoes dropped in the foyer, my makeup on the rim of his sink, and my panties kicked under his bed clashed with his need for order.

  Minor issues, the logical part of my mind insisted. Sam is perfect in every single other way.

  “Do you see us living together?” I asked.

  Sam blinked, not having anticipated the question. He was expecting me to argue more about Halloween costumes. After years of living with Agnes, I’d learned minor disagreements often deflected from the real issue, the ones people were afraid to confront. My distress over Sam’s refusal to be Anthony to my Cleopatra wasn’t about a stupid costume. It was because I wanted a partner, a husband, and I wanted him to be Sam. I needed to know if Sam was in for the long haul, and I needed to know it now.