I'll Be You(30)

In fact, I realized, I hadn’t seen a single photo of Charlotte in the entire house. Of course, Chuck had left only weeks before Charlotte arrived; a lot had been going on. And, of course, people don’t have nearly as many framed photos anymore, now that snapshots so easily lived on your smartphone. But still, it struck me as odd that in four months, my sister hadn’t found time to frame a single picture of her daughter.

I walked around the desk and began to throw open drawers, not exactly sure what I was looking for but hoping that whatever it was that I needed would reveal itself.

Chuck and Elli had meticulously organized files. Mortgage Health Investments / Utilities. Neatly labeled tabs marched in perfect symmetry across the span of the file drawers. Everything was color coded and organized by date. But there were no folders labeled Adoption or Charlotte or Foster care.

I closed the file drawers and quickly riffled through the rest: rubber bands and paper clips and neon sticky notes, a few loose keys rattling around, but nothing of interest. Most looked half-empty, as if Chuck had removed everything of value on his way out five months back.

Where else might my sister keep valuable documents? There were others missing, too, I realized: Elli’s birth certificate and the title to her car and the deed to her home and her passport. Maybe this was all together in another file cabinet. There was a small closet on the opposite side of the office; I walked over and flung it open. Winter coats, sports equipment, no more cabinets but—on an upper shelf, tucked behind a box of snow boots and a can of tennis balls, there was a small gray fireproof lockbox.

I pulled this down—something inside was heavy, rattling—and brought it back to the desk. I collected the loose keys from the desk and tried them, one by one, in the lock. It opened on the third try.

Inside was a handgun.

This, I hadn’t expected.

I stared at it for a long time, afraid to touch it. I’d never held a real gun before, though I’d held a convincing fake. On our second-to-last season of To the Maxx, Jenny had confronted a serial killer, shooting him in the stomach and killing him before her mother could arrive to help her. The scene was mine, and before I went on set they sent me down to the prop master to fit me with a handgun. What the prop master dug up for me looked just like a real gun; it even had the same heft. When he urged me to pull the trigger and give it a try, I balked, because it felt so realistic. But eventually, with his coaxing, I picked it up, pointed it at a wall, and pulled the trigger.

I could still remember how heavy the gun was in my hand, and the surprising backward kick when I pulled the trigger. The power in it made me feel like something hot inside me was trying to crawl out of my skin. I almost dropped it.

The prop master laughed, clearly delighted by the sight of a twelve-year-old girl wielding a Smith & Wesson. “And that’s not nearly as intense as the real thing,” he informed me.

This gun could have been a twin of that gun. Maybe it was the same gun, and my sister had saved it as a souvenir? Except that my sister had never even touched that gun—the scenes were mine, and I couldn’t fathom Elli being nostalgic for an episode she hadn’t performed.

I closed the lid of the lockbox, feeling oddly shaken. I couldn’t imagine why Elli would own a gun. What was she trying to arm herself against? Thieves, roving marauders, the zombie apocalypse?

Or—Jesus—was she trying to protect herself against me?

Something broke open inside me at this thought, my heart flipping back and forth in my chest. I couldn’t stand to be in my sister’s house anymore. The hushed silence felt like judgment, the lifeless rooms an indictment. With shaky hands, I shoved the lockbox back up on the shelf where I’d found it. I made my way back down the stairs and to the front door, past the vases of rotting flowers and the spill of junk mail that had carpeted the parquet floor under the mail slot.

I had my hand on the doorknob when, just on the other side of the wood, I heard the sound of movement on the front porch. A key rattled in the lock.

Elli came home, I thought with relief as the door swung open.

But it wasn’t Elli. Instead, it was a young brunette woman in a slim blue suit and sky-high heels, who stared at me with shock as she stood in the doorway, a key dangling from her fist. “Oh my God, Elli, I didn’t realize you guys were here or I would have rung the doorbell.”

“I’m not Elli,” I said. “I’m her sister.”

“Oh, right. Of course. I used to watch your show.” She blushed, then looked down at a folder she was holding in her hand. “I’m working with your sister’s listing agent. I don’t want to bother you, but—she asked me to leave some documents inside the house for her.”

Something tightened in me. “You’ve spoken to her recently?”

The woman slid a foot out of her stiletto, flexed it painfully, and offered me a crooked smile. “Well, I haven’t. But my boss has. We’re doing our first open house this Sunday.”

My relief—so I guess she’s OK after all—was quickly chased off by a swell of unexpected anger. Apparently my sister was talking to her real estate broker, even as she was avoiding her family entirely. Clearly, then, she wasn’t being held at GenFem against her will—and wasn’t in mortal danger, either—so what was her issue with us? Not a single call to check on her daughter, even as she was arranging the staging of her house?