by Cora Brent
But I will not complain because Danny wasn’t expecting to be pulled aside by the family attorney this morning. He wasn’t expecting to hear that he’s been saddled with the joint guardianship of our two nieces.
“What now?” Danny wants to know and the question feels like a significant one but I act like it’s not.
“Let’s dump all the food trays.” I’m already moving toward the pantry in the hopes of locating some trash bags. “It’s all been sitting out for hours anyway.”
“You don’t need to do that, Gretch. I can do it.”
“Fine.” I find a yellow box of trash bags and toss it at him. “Then do it.”
He catches the box neatly in one hand.
We exchange miserable looks.
Music floats out of the den. Mara and Caitlin’s high, sweet voices join the chorus.
Danny stuffs all the food remnants into two black bags and carries them outside while I listen to the girls sing.
A few weeks before I graduated from high school, Jules told me she was pregnant. I was speechless. After all, Jules didn’t date. Jules hardly ever went out at all. Since our parents were basically out of the picture, she had devoted herself to getting me and Danny through high school. With Danny playing college ball in Michigan, she’d be free to do as she pleased now that I was also going off to college. Jules had put her own life on hold for us and I assumed once I graduated she’d leave Lake Stuart, hopefully embarking on the big plans she had before her future was derailed. There was no reason for her to stay.
Until there was.
Jules, though only twenty-one, was thrilled with the idea of becoming a mother. She announced she would remain in Lake Stuart, where she had the house and the familiarity of the only place she’d ever known. She’d keep her job at the physical therapy clinic and she would raise her child right here. She insisted she was happy. Lake Stuart and the baby were what she wanted. She refused to allow me to alter my college plans in any way.
So I left.
And Jules stayed.
Danny finishes dumping the trash and returns through the kitchen door. He brings the cold air with him and looks around like this is a place he’s never seen before and wishes he didn’t have to visit now. He catches me looking at him and nods in my direction.
“What did the ax wound have to say before she stormed out of here?”
I stifle a yawn. I’ve probably managed to get six hours of sleep in the last three days. “Mom was Mom. She complained about the food and the funeral service and said she had a long drive back to Rochester.”
He grunts. “Was she pissed that Jules didn’t want her to have the girls?”
“I’m sure she was pissed but only because of the optics.”
She shouldn’t have expected any different. Our mother didn’t even feel like finishing the job of raising her own kids. She handed us over to Jules and checked out.
“And what about him?”
“Dad? He was allowed to make a phone call this morning but I could only deal with him for a minute. He wanted to be reassured that Jules was laid to rest beside his parents.”
Danny nods. “I guess that was supposed to be his plot.”
“Well, I don’t think it matters much where your body ends up once you’re not in it anymore.”
I wish I hadn’t said that. Danny grimaces over my bitterness.
He moves closer to the antique end table that belonged to our great grandmother. There’s a framed picture sitting in the middle. I have a wallet sized shot of that same photo. Jules with the girls. Lake Stuart in the background.
Danny’s face sags as he stares at our sister’s vanished smile. “Do you have any idea who their father is, Gretch?”
I shake my head. “None.”
“But she told you everything.”
“She never told me that.”
“You think she knew who he was?”
I want to slap him for asking that question. “Jules didn’t sleep around!”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“She must have had her reasons for keeping his identity a secret. Maybe he was one of the summer people. Maybe he was a jerk. It doesn’t matter.”
He rakes a hand through the thick brown hair that could use an appointment with a pair of scissors. “What the hell are we going to do?”
“I don’t know but we’ll have to figure it out. Mara and Caitlin don’t have anyone else.”
“Maybe you should think about taking them back to the city.”
“A Brooklyn studio apartment isn’t a fantastic place to raise two kids.”
“Well, neither are second rate ballparks and cheap motels. I can’t very well bring them on the road.”
“And I’ve got another three semesters of law school,” I snap. “But I think it’s fair to say we’ll both have to make some changes.”
He crosses his arms and snaps back. “Right. I’ll just play baseball online.”
We’re falling back into our old bickering ways and there’s no Jules here to get in the middle and make us behave.
There’s no Jules.
That sentence will never stop being a kick to the chest.
I see a brand new wet splash of soda on the beige area rug and I feel a surge of intense annoyance for whoever carelessly spilled it today.
“The girls can’t hear us arguing about this,” I warn Danny. “We’re all they’ve got.”
He breathes out and hangs his head. “You’re right.”
“I guess our first act of irresponsible guardianship is saddling Trent Cassini with babysitting duties.”
“That old accusation against him was a crock of shit.”
Liam Cassini swore that he found Trent trying to smother their bedridden father with a couch pillow.
A painful pulse begins to grind against my right temple. I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth for few seconds and feel the threat of the migraine recede slightly.
“I know. But he’s probably also not equipped to entertain children indefinitely.”
The allegation against Trent was never believable, even to someone who disliked him. For starters, Trent’s relationship with his father always appeared to be comfortable. After the elder Mr. Cassini began to succumb to his physical and mental ailments, Trent could be seen pushing his father’s wheelchair slowly down to the lakefront boardwalk. Despite all the gossip about him, Trent could show humanity when he chose to.
In the end, there were no formal charges filed but Trent got sent away to some reform school on the other side of the country and no one heard from him for two years. He was never seen again in Lake Stuart. Danny has always said that when Trent finally did get out, he wasn’t the same guy. There’s no telling what he’s really like now. Trent doesn’t visit and I was caught off guard by his sudden presence. His good looks have sharpened into a broad-shouldered, smoldering sexiness. He is exactly the kind of man I would drool over.
That is, if I’d ever known him as something other than my brother’s oversexed, insufferable best friend.
Frankly, it doesn’t mean much to me that he’s here but I’m sure Danny feels differently.
The soda spill on the area rug taunts me. I can’t stand looking at it for another second.
After retrieving a stack of napkins from the dining room, I drop them on the floor and press with the tip of my shoe to blot the liquid. “Did you know Trent was coming today?”
“No, but I also didn’t know he’d moved back into his old house.”
I nearly lose my balance. “What are you talking about?”
Danny glances down the hall to the den. The girls are singing again. “Kind of threw me for a loop too. Yeah, he’s back here in Lake Stuart. He lives down the street again.”
“He must have pulled some strings to keep that news quiet in a town like this.”
Danny shrugs.
My efforts with the napkins are not worth much and I give up.
Danny decides it’s time to rescue Trent from the wo
rld of ice princesses and sing alongs in the den.
“Everyone’s gone,” Caitlin observes as she looks at the empty living room.
“Not everyone.” I crouch down to her level and speak gently. “I’m here. Uncle Danny’s here.”
Mara slides close and puts her arms around my neck. “I’m tired, Aunt Gretch.”
I kiss her cheek. “You were both up early this morning.” I reach for Caitlin but she holds back. She’s by far the more independent twin. And the more willful.
Caitlin raises her chin. “I don’t want to leave my house.”
“We’re not going anywhere, sweetie.”
“I heard this lady say we would have to leave.”
“What lady?”
“She had very long orange nails.”
“Then she suffers from bad taste along with ignorance.”
“What’s ignorance?” Mara asks.
“It means the lady with the orange nails is a fucking bitch,” Danny grumbles.
Mara nods. “Oh.”
My brother receives a roll of my eyes, which he ignores.
Jules made sure the house was placed in a family trust and I am the executor. There is no mortgage, only the property taxes and the upkeep. We can stay right here in Lake Stuart forever. With the harsh winters and the teeming crowds of summer people and the corpse of Rosebriar staring down from the hills.
Forever.
There’s inexplicable heat on the back of my neck. When I turn around, I find Trent staring at me. He stands less than ten feet away at the edge of the hallway and his dark eyes refuse to waver. I end up looking away first.
Caitlin yawns next. Mara rests her head on my shoulder. They are so small, just babies. Their mother was their world.
“Why don’t we go upstairs?” I suggest. “You can both take a bubble bath and bring any toy you want in the tub.” I try to use a bright, upbeat tone when I talk to them, the way Jules would. I’m a terrible actress.
Caitlin looks like she might argue but then she nods. She links hands with her sister and I steer them toward the stairs.
“I’ll be right up,” I promise and breathe through the threat of tears.
Trent’s voice comes from behind me. “Hey girls, thanks for teaching me all about Frozen.”
The two of them pause on the first step and look back.
They reward him with identical smiles.
“Bye, Trentcassini.” Mara waves with her free hand.
“You need to come over again,” Caitlin demands and seems to consider the matter settled.
“I’ll do that,” says Trent.
Danny waits until they are out of earshot before speaking up. “Gretch, you need me for anything else right now?”
“Do you have a date or something?” I ask, with more attitude than I intend.
He huffs with annoyance. “No. I’m just no good at helping with bath time or bed time or whatever. If you don’t need me to do anything I thought I’d go back to the carriage house and catch up with Trent.”
There’s an extra bedroom right here in the main house but since his arrival Danny has preferred to stay out back. I wonder if he’s planning to remain out there permanently.
Or if he’s really planning to stay at all.
“No, I don’t need you, Danny.”
He doesn’t catch the icy shade to my words and gestures to Trent. “How about it?”
“Sure,” Trent answers but I could swear a shadow of disapproval crosses his face.
Daniel still lives like he’s on perpetual spring break. The only thing he cares about is training to get back into the majors. Otherwise, his world is one of clubs and parties and women and he has never shown the slightest interest in being taken seriously.
Jules understood our brother as well as I did, maybe better. She had to know Danny isn’t cut out to be anyone’s father figure but she gave him equal responsibility for the girls.
I don’t quite understand why.
He and Trent are already heading outside through the kitchen door. Danny is saying something about the good old days of varsity baseball at Lake Stuart High.
With a sigh, I slip my heels off before climbing the stairs. I don’t want to keep the girls waiting.
They are both listless and sleepy during their bath. A social worker called yesterday and offered to forward some information for family grief counseling. I will need to look into that.
They want to sleep in the same bed again. Usually they love having their own rooms but for now all they want is each other. I understand. There’s nothing quite so comforting as the love of a sister. I’d give anything to have mine right now.
“Good night.” I tuck a lavender quilt around their little bodies and kiss their precious faces.
Mara clings to my neck.
Caitlin rolls over to look at me. “Are we orphans now?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her and immediately get irritated with myself for being unprepared to answer this question.
I truly don’t know. Their father is likely alive somewhere but if he hasn’t shown an interest in them yet then he’s not going to.
Funny, but I haven’t thought much about their father until three days ago. It always seemed as if the girls belonged to Jules alone and that was that.
Caitlin and Mara fall asleep quickly. I sit in a tiny wooden chair and don’t leave the room until I’m sure their breathing is deep and even.
“Sweet dreams, princesses,” I whisper. I blow them a kiss and shut the door only halfway in case they call out during the night. The stenciled characters on the walls, all from classic children’s stories, lapse into shadow and I wonder for the first time why so many of those stories include morbid details about death and orphaned children.
Earlier, I felt exhausted but I don’t think I could sleep now. My suitcase is up here in Caitlin’s bedroom. The downstairs suite feels too far right now and I haven’t been able to bring myself to go into Jules’s room yet. I rummage through my suitcase and discover slippers that I don’t remember packing but am glad to see.
My thickest cable knit cardigan is pulled on over my dress because I’m shivering now. The second floor of this house has always been inadequately heated. I should find someone to fix that. I’ll also need to find a way to pay for it.
I have yet to tell my professors at NYU that I will be discontinuing my education. This semester is clearly a lost cause but I don’t see how I’d be able to return for next semester either.
No, my life in the city is over.
And I think law school should also be over.
Really, it was Jules’s dream that I was fulfilling. NYU undergrad, followed by NYU Law. My plans have been designed around providing for Jules and the girls. Corporate law only interested me because it was the best chance to rake in a hefty salary and make my sister’s life easier. I would happily work endless hours so she wouldn’t have to. Jules had been working far too hard for far too long.
If only I’d managed to fulfill those plans sooner. Then Jules wouldn’t have been tiredly driving on an icy road late at night. Caitlin wouldn’t be wondering about her orphan status.
No, I won’t be going back to law school.
The girls tend to sleep soundly but I look in on them once more before plodding downstairs.
I dislike the feel of the empty first floor. The walls seem too far apart at night. I was here for the holidays and I could have stayed longer but I thought I had things to do in the city, things that were important. I can’t remember what those things were.
The last time I saw my sister was in this living room on New Year’s Day. She pretended like she was going to kidnap my cell phone so I couldn’t leave. She wrapped me in the tightest hug and made me swear I would return soon.
Of course I would return soon, I told her. I wasn’t Danny, swooping in once or twice a year. I promised I would be back for spring break, and then for a longer stay in the summer. We could rent a boat and take the girls out on the lake. They’d love the
paddleboats that can be pedaled around the shallow areas.
I should have let her kidnap my cell phone. Making Jules happy was so easy and I could have made her happier.
This morning I saw Danny raiding our father’s old liquor cabinet in the front room’s long wooden sideboard. The thought of doing the same is tempting even though I’ve been truly drunk exactly twice in my life. Jules wasn’t a hard drinker and I’m surprised she even kept all that crap around. Perhaps she just never got around to throwing it away. The most she ever drank was a beer now and then. In fact, I remember seeing two random bottles in the fridge.
Speaking of the fridge, the shelves are in desperate need of restocking. I breathe out a low whistle of alarm as I take a quick inventory. The girls will need more milk and juice and fruit and whatever else one is supposed to feed four-year-olds. I’ll go shopping tomorrow. I still have the rental car for now. I suppose I need to consider actually buying a car. Jules’s car was totaled of course and even if it hadn’t been I wouldn’t want to see it again. The girls will need to be taken places. Preschool. The doctor. The park. Lake Stuart is hardly pedestrian friendly.
I shut the fridge with my beer in hand. Jules’s beer. There’s no telling how long it’s been in there.
It’s overwhelming, this concept of being responsible for two small people who will not be able to take care of themselves for a long time.
I love my nieces dearly.
I would walk over lava for them and without Jules here I would never have wanted them to be with anyone else but me.
Yet the years ahead feel abruptly terrifying.
Like this kitchen is terrifying.
Like this house is terrifying.
Like this town is terrifying.
I’m ashamed of these thoughts.
I want to escape them.
In spite of the freezing weather, I pull my sweater belt tight and step outside in my slippers.
The moon peers down from the edge of a winter cloud and the light in the carriage house window is on. I would assume Danny and Trent are in there reliving past glory days of constant trouble. They were a hell of a team and not always in a good way.
I used to think Trent was to blame for Danny’s wild behavior. When Trent was gone and Danny’s wild behavior didn’t fade, I knew I’d been wrong.
