Dead Letters(12)

“Listen, I’ll text you a list of what all needs to be done. And Nadine should be quiet for a few hours. Just feed her some of Betsy’s casserole.” I can’t help wrinkling my nose in snobby reluctance at the suggestion. If she weren’t half out of her mind, my mother would never contemplate a tuna casserole, regardless of circumstances. “And give her the meds in her pill dispenser once she’s eaten. And don’t let her start drinking until at least four. Though I should be back by then.” Marlon nods mechanically. “Thanks, Dad. It’s good to see you, even…” I turn to leave the room, scooping the car keys up as I go.

“Ava?” he asks gently. I stop. “Do you think there’s something a little…off about this?” He looks reluctant to even be suggesting it.

“I don’t know. Zelda was in a weird place. I…don’t know what to think,” I concede. I’m not about to say that I think Zelda might be holed up somewhere with one of her crazy friends, laughing at all of us and cooing over her escape. I know that would sound crazy to him, like denial. Yet the combination of Zelda’s letters the last few months and the bizarre neatness of all this feels too much like one of my sister’s elaborate plots. But if she is up to something, she wouldn’t want Marlon to know. After he left us cold, she’d want him in the dark. Strange, that I should still be attentive to her wants, that I should give a flying fuck after everything that’s happened, but…what can I say. I’m loyal to my twin, even if I haven’t spoken to her for nearly two years.

I bob my head at Marlon and walk out the door, carrying one of Zelda’s bags. There are two vehicles in the drive, and I reflect that maybe I should have asked Marlon to borrow his fancy rental, rather than drive my mother’s (now my sister’s) unreliable pickup. Zelda’s bedraggled, antique jalopy, which sits decaying in torpid disrepair, slowly oxidizing in the upstate moisture, was a point of acquisitive pride for my jackdaw sibling. Having long coveted the truck, she had finally prized it from my mother following an eye-exam coup that left Nadine humiliated and without a license; she had no choice but to transfer the title to the gloating Zelda, who made a point of inappropriately revving the engine and briskly ramming the body into the deep culverts that ran alongside the fields, battering the suspension and brutalizing the alignment.

Watkins Glen is only seven or eight miles from here, though, and Zelda drove the goddamn thing all over the vineyard every day. Besides, I’m home now. I can’t be cruising around in a flashy convertible. That would just be asking to get pulled over. Zelda’s the driver. As an afterthought, I dig around in the glove compartment and pull out her driver’s license. Can’t hurt.

The drive is relaxing, and I feel better the farther I get from my own nest of crazies. I try very hard not to think about how I’m going to keep it together for the next few weeks. I’m good at repression (as Zelda loves to point out), and this task is surprisingly easy. I find a pack of Zelda’s cigarettes on the tattered seat of the truck and light an American Spirit, the smell of Zelda filling up the small cab. Frankly, there’s no way she can be dead. I would feel it, would know with the cells of my body, which are so entwined with hers.

Watkins Glen is sleepy, and the truck putters along until I pull up in front of the police station. American flags billow from every storefront and porch, in a show of patriotism that is almost shocking after my time in France. I wonder vaguely if I should have called ahead to the station—I don’t know what the protocol for this is. I’m already regretting the cigarette, which makes me feel nauseous and light-headed. I find gum in the glove compartment (“Because you never know when you’ll have to talk to a cop shit-faced, Little A!”) and get out of the truck. I half-expect to see people I know on the streets; even though I’ve been in town for only twelve hours, it feels weird that I haven’t seen anyone.

The air-conditioning in the police station is turned up unjustifiably high (very upstate New York), and no one is at the reception desk. I wander around the reception area, exploring before anyone shows up. I like to find the corners of rooms, see what brochures are moldering in the rack on a cluttered side table, peer down empty hallways, locate the bathroom. I’m a snoop. I’m just leafing through a pile of crisis-hotline fliers when a cop wanders in. He seems surprised to see me. I can’t imagine that the Watkins Glen police have much to do: Make sure people are staying on the trails on the gorge hikes, check boat permits, rescue kittens, wait for NASCAR weekend. I wouldn’t think that many citizens are burned alive in their homes in this backwoods municipality.

“My name’s Ava Antipova,” I say, jauntily sticking out my hand. The cop flinches.

“I know. You…look like your sister.”

“Oh, you know—knew Zelda?”

“Yeah, I, uh, wrote up the report. I was the responding officer, after the fire department. Officer Roberts.”

“Good. Then you’re the man I need,” I say, smiling brightly. “You may have noticed that my mother is not exactly…with it. I’d really like a more reliable account of what happened, what the report says.”

“Um, yeah, of course. I’m sorry I have to ask, but do you have ID? I’m only allowed to release details to the family and, well…”

I nod sympathetically, hunting in my bag. I’m ninety percent sure I don’t have my passport with me, which is my only government-issued ID.