Page 104 of I Will Ruin You

“Bed!”

“But it’s only—”

“Bed!”

Bonnie could hear her daughter scrambling up the stairs. Bonnie would go up in a few minutes, make sure she was actually getting ready. Brushing her teeth, putting on her pajamas.

The doorbell rang.

“God, what fresh hell is this?” Bonnie asked of no one in particular. She went to the front door and found her sister, Marta, standing there.

“You’re back.”

“I’m back,” Marta said, stepping in without being invited. Bonnie stepped out of the way, and closed the door once her sister was inside. “Richard off to his school thing?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s Rach?” Marta asked.

Bonnie pointed to the ceiling. “Getting ready for bed.”

“Let’s go to the kitchen.”

Where, it occurred to Bonnie, all important discussions are held. She didn’t feel good about where this one might be going.

“Can you make us some coffee?” Marta asked when they got there. “Decaf, if you prefer, given it’s kind of late in the day. But I’m good with either.”

Bonnie decided to make the real stuff. She wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight, anyway.

Marta made a show of unclipping her badge from her belt and setting it on the counter. “Don’t let me forget that.”

“I don’t understand,” Bonnie said.

“Right now, I’m not a cop. I’m just your sister, and it’s just us. I’m going to do something right now that could very likely get me fired, because I should really turn this over to someone else, shouldn’t even be talking to you at all right now, but I don’t care, because I love you, and fuck it.”

Bonnie fumbled the sugar bowl, spilling some onto the counter.

“Let me do that,” Marta said, directing Bonnie to a chair.

Bonnie didn’t fight her, took a seat, and watched as Marta took off her jacket, hung it over the back of a chair, and waited for the water to drip down through the coffee filter. She filled the two cups, adding a touch of cream to her own, and half a teaspoon of sugar to her sister’s.

“You remember,” Bonnie said.

Marta brought the two cups to the table and said, “You got any cookies or anything?” Bonnie pointed to a cupboard. Marta found a bag of biscotti. “Ooh, fancy.” She brought them to the table and sat down at an angle from Bonnie. She pulled out a biscotti, smiled when she saw that the end was dipped in chocolate. “I love these.”

Bonnie hadn’t said a word.

“I was thinking about when we lived in the house on Breakneck,” Marta said. “I was eighteen, and you were sixteen, and Mom and Dad had to drive up to Boston when Dad’s best friend from college died. You remember that?”

“Yes,” Bonnie said, taking a sip of her coffee. “His name was Lenny. They were on the football team.”

“They were worried, leaving the two of us on our own. The arguments we were famous for. Borrowing each other’s clothes without asking. Fighting over that one computer that was connected to the Internet, how you even yanked my hair so you could have a turn. Plus all the stories about teenagers throwing crazy parties when their parents were out of town, and they were worried that even if we didn’t intend to throw a party, all the neighborhood kids might descend on our place, anyway. I think you were going out with Roy somebody at that time.”

“Roy Knightley,” Bonnie offered.

“Right. Not a bad-looking guy.”

Bonnie smiled. “You always remember your first.”