Page 18

I’m pacing, waiting for Dad to come home so I can confront him about Calvin, but he’s still at work and Melissa’s still at school. I thought Mom had gone to work, too, but she came home after only a few hours with a bag full of new clothes that she dumped in front of me before leaving again. The entire transaction happened without her looking at me, never mind hugging me or doing typical mom stuff. If anything, she seems mad at me. Mad that I died. Mad that I didn’t. I can’t tell the difference.

When Melissa finally comes in at five o’clock, I practically pounce on her. “I’m so glad you’re here!”

I say before she even takes off her gas-station-attendant jacket. “I missed you.”

She pauses, smiling as she hangs up the jacket in the front-hall closet.

“What’s funny?” I ask.

“You missed me,”

she says. “It’s nice to hear.”

“Well, did you miss me?”

Melissa looks at me squarely. There’s something about her expression that feels so grown-up, way more adult than I was at seventeen. “Yes and no,” she says.

“Ouch,”

I say, even though I think she’s joking. Though she would have every reason not to miss me. I was such a bitch to her.

I follow her to the kitchen. She opens the refrigerator and pulls out a hunk of cheese and an apple, and then goes to the pantry for some crackers before sitting down at the kitchen table. I plunk down across from her. I look at the cheese, crumbly sharp cheddar Mom always bought, and the apple, small and green and glistening, appetizing, and yet I can’t even imagine putting them in my mouth, chewing, swallowing.

“I don’t seem to eat,”

I confess to Melissa because I need to tell someone. “I don’t know why. It’s not exactly something you can look up on WebMD. But maybe it’s like my systems have to reboot.” I pause. “Don’t tell.”

“I won’t,”

she says. “Anyhow, I already knew.”

“How?”

“I pay attention, . I’ve always paid attention.”

“Once a spy, always a spy.”

I pause. “And you haven’t already told Mom and Dad?”

“No. Why would I?”

“You used to be so terrible at keeping secrets.”

Melissa gives me a peculiar look as she peels the apple skin in one long strip. “I was great at keeping secrets. It was my specialty.”

“You went around spying on people.”

Melissa cuts a slice of apple and a piece of cheese and layers them on a cracker. “I know, but I never told anyone what I saw.”

“What was the point of spying if you didn’t tell?”

“I was looking for answers,”

she replies, popping the cheese, apple, and cracker into her mouth. “For myself.”

“Did you find them?”

She chews, swallows, and grins. Suddenly I can see my little sister, excitedly telling me how she’d figured out what I was getting for my thirteenth birthday present or whispering that Dad had found out about me and Calvin “doing it”

and later yet inviting me to her spy party. She was so sweet and open but I shot her down every time.

“I did.”

She makes another cracker, cheese, and apple sandwich, eating it with relish before she adds, “I did miss you today. I hated being away. I just wanted to come back and be with you.”

“Why?”

My voice is tart, verging on mean, a tone that would have been very familiar to nine-year-old Missy. Only this time, my disdain is aimed squarely at myself.

“Why?”

she repeats, pushing her plate back. “Because you’re my sister.”

“Yeah. A shitty sister. I made fun of you. I excluded you. I treated you like crap.”

Melissa carries her plate to the sink, rinsing it and putting it in the dishwasher. With her back to me, she says, “That was a long time ago. Things change. People change.”

“But I didn’t. I died an asshole.”

Melissa shrugs. “I didn’t see it that way.”

“It doesn’t matter how you saw it. It’s a fact.”

I pause. “I was not a good sister.”

“You were!”

“I wasn’t. I knew I wasn’t. I always figured we’d get close when we were older, like Mom and Pauline. That I’d have time to fix it.”

“And you did.”

“As far as I can see, I only screwed things up worse.”

I sigh. “I mean, Mom and Dad split up. I didn’t think there was a force on earth that could do that.”

“That’s not your fault,”

Melissa says.

“Kind of is. Even if it isn’t.”

As Melissa wraps the cheese in plastic, not messily as I would, but carefully, like it’s a gift, I ask: “What happened with them? Was it because of religion?”

That had always been a bone of contention between them, but their fights were more like debates, with neither side ever conceding.

Melissa pauses. “I don’t think it helped when Dad punched a guy in church.”

“Shut up! He did not!”

“He did. Some well-meaning parishioner told Dad that you dying was God’s will. We heard this a lot. But I guess it was one time too many. Dad just lost it and clocked the guy, broke his nose.”

“Oh, shit.”

I start to laugh. “I know I’ll probably go to hell for saying this, but I wish I could have seen that.” I pause. “Or maybe this is hell. Do you think this is hell?”

“I don’t believe in hell,”

Melissa says. “It’s just a construct, a way of controlling people, the way parents threaten time-outs if you don’t eat your vegetables. And you being back is a gift. So, definitely not hell.”

“What happened after Dad punched the parishioner? Mom got pissed and they split up?”

“That was just one of a thousand cuts. When Mr. Fluff died, Mom completely lost it. She was dry-eyed at your funeral, in a daze—like she is now. Everyone said she was in shock, but I think it was something else. Like she just couldn’t touch the pain. But the cat died. Officially he ran away, but he’d been sick and the vet said cats often disappear outside to die. We never found him and Mom went bonkers for a while. She checked all the animal shelters once, sometimes twice a day, looking for him. She cried so hard, her jaw started clicking. Dad couldn’t believe that she was going to all this trouble to find a cat that was obviously dead but was no help trying to find who killed you.”

“‘A Father’s Crusade.’”

I repeat the headline of the article.

“You know about that?”

I nod. “I may have researched myself.”

“Well, yeah, that was a big wedge, too. Mom was mad that he wouldn’t let it go, but he kept pushing, taking out ads, a billboard even, hiring a series of private detectives, spending all this money. Mom begged him to stop but he wouldn’t. It’s ironic, though.”

“What is?”

“Mom searching the pet shelters for Mr. Fluff, Dad trying to find your ‘killer.’”

She makes air quotes around the word killer. “Both of them were, in their way, searching for you.”

“When did you get so damn insightful?”

Melissa shrugged. “I told you. I paid attention.”

“Maybe I should’ve paid more attention.”

“It’s never too late.”

“Except sometimes it is.”

Mom’s car pulls into the driveway and screeches to a halt. The door slams shut. I can tell from here that she’s enraged—still, or again—and I wonder how I messed up this time.

She flings open the door and my mother, who used to teach catechism because she enjoyed it, who never cursed or raised her voice or took the Lord’s name in vain or even said “God,”

the way some people do as an expletive, shouts: “Where the fuck is he? Where the fuck is your goddamn father?”

“He’s not here,”

I say, suddenly worried about my dad. “What did he do?”

“He told . . .”

Mom’s voice shakes with anger. “He told Father Mercer.”