Wrath of the Sister

by Shannon Heuston

  “I guess it’s too late to buy a turkey,” I said.

  “We wouldn’t be able to defrost it in time, and the supermarkets are probably all closed by now, anyway,” Laurel said. “Maybe we can order in Chinese or pizza.”

  “There’s always a Chinese restaurant open somewhere,” I reasoned.

  “Are you girls talking about dinner already? It’s two in the afternoon!” Sam said.

  “But some appetizers would be nice,” John put in.

  “We don’t have any appetizers. We didn’t know any of that stuff was necessary because we were supposed to be going out for dinner,” I answered. God, I hated him. Get off your ass and get your own appetizers, you chauvinistic jerk-off.

  “There’s a sack of Totino’s Pizza Rolls in the freezer,” Sam said, without taking his eyes off the television. “Be a love and pop them in the oven for us?”

  The pizza rolls were freezer burned. Laurel and I exchanged looks, then shrugged. It wasn’t like they’d taste them, anyway. It was just something to toss in their mouths to wash down with beer.

  Laurel leaned on the counter. “Man, I wish I had a cigarette.”

  “I didn’t know you smoked.”

  She snorted. “I don’t. I feel like starting.” We both giggled even though it wasn’t that funny. These sisterly moments were few. “So. Would you rate this Thanksgiving as better or worse than last year?”

  “That’s a tough one,” I admitted. Last Thanksgiving featured Agnes in all her irritable glory, lording over the kitchen, demanding that we help, then screaming at us for doing it wrong. Yet she was still alive, creating her signature dishes and cooking for her family. Agnes demonstrated love with food. “I think last year was better, because Ma was still alive.” My voice broke.

  I knew how scenes like this were supposed to go. Laurel would wrap her arms around me and rock me, or give me an encouraging hug, or an awkward pat.

  Instead, she rolled her eyes and muttered, “Sorry I asked.”

  The guys sobered up enough to go out to dinner. Mostly. I drove to be sure. In the days leading up to the holiday, I’d attempted to discuss restaurants and been ignored. It left me sad. I would have liked to mark the holiday with turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. But I was the only one who felt that way.

  “Let’s get to the American Diner,” Sam suggested from the backseat. “Nothing more traditional than plain old American food.”

  “Diners are Greek,” I couldn’t help pointing out.

  There was a resounding silence in the vehicle. I glanced in the mirror and saw my sister exchanging looks with Sam and John. Sam had complained a time or two that I loved correcting people, but it was a shock to discover the three of them talked about it amongst themselves. I didn’t like it. The three of them were talking about me behind my back made me feel excluded. Like they were an exclusive club of three with secrets I didn’t know.

  “Well,” Sam said, “they’ll be bound to have a turkey special, and I know you have your heart set on a traditional Thanksgiving feast.” His words sounded thoughtful, but I wasn’t fooled. I saw the look on his face. If we were going to a diner, I’d prefer a cheeseburger deluxe, but now I felt locked into ordering whatever parody of a feast the restaurant had on offer.

  The American Diner was nearly empty. It was depressing. Across the room a single father was trying to coax two small children to eat. At the counter, an elderly man stared at the television with the remains of what looked like eggs on his plate. A heavy, middle-aged woman with greasy, messy hair sat all by herself in a booth, reading a magazine. It was not happy circumstances that brought them here on Thanksgiving Day, and their misery hung over the place like a pall.

  Sam looked at John. “What d'ya think? Burgers?”

  “You know it!” John replied.

  I stared down at my menu to hide my expression. I hated when they acted like best buds. It reminded me that there were things about Sam I just didn’t get. Maybe I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.

  I felt forced to order the Thanksgiving special, turkey with dressing, sweet potatoes, and cranberry sauce. I regarded it silently after the surly teenage waitress deposited it in front of me. The stuffing was from a box, the cranberry sauce was a gelatinous maroon mound, and the turkey was the institutional, frozen kind, a staple of school and hospital cafeterias everywhere. Tears threatened. Ma, oh Ma, I miss you so much.

  Sam slid his arm around me, pressing my head into my shoulder. “Are you okay?” he asked, stroking my hair. “That doesn’t look very appetizing. Why don’t you order something else?”

  I shook my head, smiling through my tears. “I just miss my mother,” I said.

  “Holidays are rough after a parent dies,” he said, his eyes moist.

  My heart swelled. I was feeling all alone, but I wasn’t all alone. Sam was here. He cared about me. He understood my pain, loved me, and wanted a future with me. I lost my mother but gained the love of my life. I wish Agnes could have met Sam and seen how happy we were together.

  Then she would have ripped him to shreds, but that was just her way.

  Dinner was almost over when Sam suddenly said, “I have an idea. We’re all off until Monday, right?”

  “No,” I said, glaring at the remains of my meal.

  “No?” The other three stared at me incredulously.

  “You work in an office. What office isn’t closed the day after Thanksgiving?” Sam asked.

  “Mine. We work the day after Thanksgiving, the day before Christmas, the day after, and if our boss could make us work from home Thanksgiving and Christmas, trust me, he would. He’s a real Ebenezer Scrooge.”

  Sam was gazing at me with his mouth open. Then he shut it. “Well, that ruins the plan,” he said, half to himself.

  “What plan?” I asked.

  “I was thinking we could all take a ride up to the family homestead in Lake George. You’ve never seen it, and Laurel’s only been there once. We could shop at the outlets this weekend, check out tourist attractions in the village, that sort of thing. I’d love to show you around. It would be fun.”

  I sighed. “I wish I could.”

  Laurel rolled her eyes. “You can. Call in sick.”

  “That’s not something I do unless I’m sick.” This was because when I used up all my sick time for frivolous reasons I always wound up with the flu. Karma seemed to operate on the side of employers.

  Sam widened his eyes. “Seriously, Melody? Everyone calls in when they’re not sick. Come on. Just this once. Trust me, nothing bad will happen.” He fake coughed at me. “Go like this.”

  I smiled. “If I do that when I call in, they’ll know I’m faking.”

  “I’m serious, Melody. We could have the most awesome weekend ever.”

  “Can’t we just go up tomorrow night, after I’m through with work?”

  “Come on, Mel,” Laurel said. “You work yourself practically to death. It’s ridiculous that you don’t have tomorrow off. You of all people deserve a break.”

  A long weekend in Lake George sounded nice. And going to visit Sam’s hometown was another milestone in our relationship, another step closer to marriage. I wanted that badly.

  “Okay. I’ll do it,” I said.

  “Don’t let us twist your arm,” Sam grinned.

  I gave him a look. “Okay. I won’t, then.”

  His grin grew wider, predatory. “Do it now. Let’s see those acting skills.”

  “Now? Wouldn’t that look, I don’t know, suspect?”

  “Coming from you?” Laurel said. “You never call in sick. They’d believe you, even if they wouldn’t believe anyone else.”

  The three of them stared at me expectantly. “Fine,” I said, dialing my office phone number on my cell, then punching in the four digits for my supervisor’s extension. I tapped my fingers on the table as I waited for her voicemail recording to end, then said, “Hey, Lisa. I’m not going to be able to make it in tomorrow. I’ve come down with the worst virus. I
’m literally getting it from both ends. Sorry to get graphic. Anyway. Hope to see you Monday.”

  I ended the call. Sam gave me a thumbs up. “More descriptive than necessary but claiming to have diarrhea was a nice touch. No one questions diarrhea.”

  Is that why he said he had diarrhea the night of the Halloween party? I started to ask, then bit the words back. I didn’t want to know. What difference did it make? I needed to learn to let things go.

  John and Sam put the finishing touches on our weekend plans in the car. “Let’s take your Jeep. We’ll all go home and pack, then you guys can pick me up and we can swing by Mel’s house and get her on the way,” Sam suggested.

  “We’re driving up tonight?” I said. “Isn’t it late?”

  “Oh, this is the best time, because there’s no traffic,” Sam assured me. “Drive home and pack a bag. We’ll be there in an hour, hour and a half at the most.”

  This seemed to be happening fast. Just a few minutes ago our weekend plans involved nothing more complicated than the usual. Now in a short time we’d be heading to the Adirondacks. What was the rush?

  Not that it mattered, I realized, as I fussed over what to pack. Other than work, I had no responsibilities, no ties to the community. That used to alarm me. Now I realized it could come in handy when I wanted to take an impromptu trip.

  The first of many, I promised myself, as John’s Jeep pulled into my driveway.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  We were halfway to Lake George when I realized I didn’t have my cell phone. “Shit!” I said, scrambling through my purse. There were times it fell to the bottom and I couldn’t locate it, but this wasn’t one of them. “I hope I didn’t leave it in the restaurant.”

  “When’s the last time you remember having it?” Sam asked, concerned.

  “The Diner, when I called in sick,” I said. “Ugh. Shit. I hope I just left it at home. Or in my car. Damn, I think I might of left it on the charger.”

  “Probably,” Sam said, putting a comforting arm around me. “If it makes you feel better, there’s no service at our house anyway. We’re kind of off the grid. We have WIFI, but the signal is iffy.”

  “It’s not like anyone will be trying to get hold of me anyway,” I sighed.

  Sam squeezed my shoulder. “You’re already with everyone who cares about you.”

  I considered this. “That’s true,” I admitted. “A much better way of putting things.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Sam said, giving me a lopsided side hug.

  I hadn’t been to upstate New York since my aborted sojourn at SUNY Albany. I’d forgotten how much I loved it. I was a country girl at heart. Northern Westchester wasn’t a teeming metropolis, but its inhabitants commuted to Manhattan, so everyone was always snappy and stressed. People were a lot nicer the further you went upstate. There were communities where everyone knew each other. It was like a breath of fresh air.

  Except if you were suspected of murdering your fiancée, I suppose.

  I wouldn’t mind living there. I made a mental note to drop that tidbit in conversation. Sam would retire from the fire department soon, which meant we could go anywhere. Even return to St. Anne’s, if that was what his heart desired. Although I’m not sure he’d want that, not with the cloud of suspicion still hanging over him about Lucy’s murder.

  But that was so many years ago. A lifetime ago. Did people up here have memories that long?

  We stopped at a McDonald’s in Clifton Park and went through the drive thru. “Really?” Laurel said. “We just ate two hours ago!”

  “We’re men, and men need meat!” John said, pounding his chest.

  “I don’t know about the rest of you, but my meal was awful. Order me a Big Mac meal with a side of chicken nuggets,” I asked.

  “What is this, your last meal?” Laurel joked.

  John turned his head to glare at her.

  “What? That’s a lot of food,” she said.

  It was on the tip of my tongue to say mind your business, but I didn’t want to argue with her. Instead, I said, “I’m hungry.”

  Soon we were back on the road. The holiday traffic grew lighter, then vanished, as we traveled further north on I-87. “This highway goes clear up to Canada,” Sam told me. I didn’t answer. We were on the Northway, the road Lucy took to travel up to college. She was last seen at a gas station off one of these exits. Sam had to be thinking that too. How could he not? But he was smiling and joking like he didn’t remember. Perhaps after so many years he didn’t. What did that say about him?

  “This is the exit you’d take for the village of Lake George,” Sam said, pointing. “Ours is three exits further north.”

  I nodded, but I felt uneasy. We were driving into the mountains. We hadn’t seen another car for at least fifteen minutes, and there was already snow on the ground up here. Just a dusting, but still. The wind was high. I could feel it pushing at the Jeep as we drove, a sensation I always hated. Just by looking out the window, you could tell it was frigid outside. Why were we doing this? It was raining downstate when we left, still fall. Sweater weather. Up here they were having fur coat weather, and I didn’t pack the right clothes.

  “What’s wrong?” Sam asked.

  “It’s cold up here. And isolated. I feel like the world could end and we wouldn’t know it.”

  “You’ll like it once you get used to it,” Sam assured me. “I know you. You hate crowds. This is the least crowded place you could be. At least at this time of year.”

  I tried to summon some enthusiasm, but I wanted to go home. The weekend after Thanksgiving was when Lucy was murdered. The thought hadn’t occurred to me till now. I wondered if there was already snow on the ground then, too. Or had it still been autumn, shreds of colored leaves clinging to the trees?

  “This is us!” John announced, turning off an exit.

  Sam pointed to an ordinary gas station at the side of the road. “That’s the last place Lucy was seen alive,” he said, as if he’d read my mind. “It didn’t have a Dunkin Donuts back then.”

  Poor Lucy, having to make do with the ordinary gas station coffee. No cocoa mocha lattes for her. Hysterical laughter bubbled up my throat.

  “Ah, Lucy,” John said. He didn’t sound sad. More like a man reminiscing about a hot girlfriend.

  We were on Route 9, driving through sparsely inhabited towns, past trailers, cabins, and rundown storefronts. Everything had a shuttered, vacant look. “That’s the bar I used to hang out at all the time,” John said, pointing a thick finger. TINA’S, the unlit electrical sign said. It sounded like the name of a whorehouse. It looked closed, but it was Thanksgiving night.

  “Did you hang out there too?” I asked Sam, trying to make conversation.

  He squirmed. “No. I wasn’t wanted there.”

  John glanced over his shoulder at his brother. “Sam went through a rough patch after Lucy died,” he said, as if maybe I didn’t know. “A lot of the locals thought he did it and got away with it.”

  “Still do,” Sam said.

  “It’s been how many years now?” I asked. “There can’t be that many people around who still remember.”

  “Enough do. St. Anne’s is a small town. You’ve encountered nothing like it, living your whole life in Westchester. A lot of our former classmates stayed in the area, married up, had families. They may not believe I’m guilty, but they go along with the status quo. Small towns are funny like that. They can be the most caring, supportive people you’ll ever come across. Or not.”

  She used to travel this road all the time, both as a driver and a passenger I thought, feeling sick to my stomach. It was like her ghost was in my head, enraged that I was with her man. On this spooky stretch of road anything seemed possible.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The night grew darker as we continued to drive north towards distant mountains. What must it have been like to grow up in their shadow, always aware of their magnificent presence, old as time? I was chilled by the thought of peopl
e hiding in its nooks and crannies, unseen.

  “What mountains are those?” Laurel asked, jabbing a finger in their direction.

  Sam snorted. I sighed.

  “Those are the Adirondacks, babe,” John replied, as if it wasn’t a stupid question coming from a lifelong New Yorker.

  “Oh. Not the Catskills?”

  “Jesus,” Sam said under his breath.

  “Geography was never her strong suit,” I whispered back.

  “The Catskills are around New Paltz, babe,” John said. “We already drove through them.”

  The towns along Route 9 faded away as the road shrank to two narrow lanes. There were no streetlights, no billboards or house lights or even headlights. It was the most profound darkness I’d ever encountered. We were literally in the middle of nowhere. I shivered.

  Sam’s arm tightened around my shoulders. “Cold?”

  “Something like that,” I said.

  John made a right turn onto a street paved with a single strip of cracked asphalt. “So long, civilization!” he called.

  If I thought it was dark before, I was in for a rude awakening. Trees crowded the road, blocking every bit of moonlight. “It’s so dark,” I whispered.

  “Why are you whispering?” Sam asked.

  I giggled. “I feel like I should. It’s so quiet out here.”

  “Just wait. You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  He was correct. John turned right again at a stone structure crumbling into dust. “That was once a mill,” he said. We were now on a dirt road, which we followed for another mile or so before turning and driving straight up a nearly vertical embankment. The Jeep canted crazily, threatening to tip over. My breath caught in my throat.

  “Home sweet home!” John announced.

  Shrouded in blackness, the two-story cabin looked abandoned. It had a porch and two windows gaping like empty eye sockets on either side of the front door. It reminded me of the abandoned cottages along the lake in our development. We used to think they were haunted.