Dead Letters(7)

I nod. I know he’ll go straight to the liquor cabinet once I’m out of sight, but he’ll be disappointed to find a combination lock barring his entry. Zelda informed me in one of her chatty emails, with a gleefully vindictive tone, that she installed it after my mother nearly OD’d on Scotch last year. Apparently, Nadine forgot that she had already been drinking wine and popping sedatives all day and almost boxed her liver with a bottle of Glenmorangie. Marlon will just have to rustle up something with a lower alcohol content from the fridge.

I skip upstairs, feeling the familiar grooves of the wooden stairs beneath my feet. I have instinctively taken off my shoes; my mother loathes the presence of footwear in her once-pristine Zen paradise. She could be driven to apoplectic rage by someone sitting in the living room with boots on their feet. The house is definitely dirtier than it was during my childhood; I suspect Zelda fired the housekeeper I’d hired from Craigslist before leaving for Paris. I feel grit and dust accumulating on the soles of my bare feet, and as I touch the banister, a layer of grime coats my fingertips in a seamless transfer. But the stairs are the same beneath me and I feel each creak in my body with intense recognition.

Mom and Betsy are outside, on the balcony that opens from the library. Betsy has her back turned to the barn, but my mother is facing it full-on, glaring belligerently at the scar in our lawn, zigzagged with crime-scene tape.

“Hi, Betsy, thanks so much for this,” I say, preparing myself for the inevitable hug as Betsy lurches out of her chair to greet me. “Really, you’re a lifesaver.” I wonder at my choice of words, but Betsy smooshes me to her breasts with a squeeze.

“Oh, Ava, I’m so sorry about—about your sister!” She instantly begins to cry, her substantial chest heaving up and down, her brown doe eyes watering. I pat her shoulder, trying to create a crevasse of space between our bodies. Her sweat moistens my shirt.

“Thanks. I’m so grateful you were here.” I pause. “Hi, Mom.” I lean in to kiss her cheek, interrupting her stare toward the barn. “How are you?”

“Goddamnit, Zelda, what the fuck did you do to the barn? How many fucking times do I have to tell you not to smoke up there?”

I flinch, knowing I should have expected to be confused with my sister. “Mom, it’s me, Ava,” I say patiently. “I just got here, I flew from Paris?”

“Very cute, Zelda. God, you’re exactly the same as when you were four, always trying to hide behind your sister whenever you screwed something up. I’m not an idiot, nor am I insane. I expect you to deal with that”—she gestures imperiously toward the barn—“immediately. And with none of your usual dramatic bullshit, please.”

I glance at Betsy, who is unable to tear her eyes from this scene. The rapt rubbernecking of good neighbors. I turn to her.

“Betsy, thanks again for everything. I know she can’t have been easy the last day or two. And thank you for calling the fire department. Who knows…what could have happened.”

“Oh, Ava!” Betsy carries on huffing and puffing without skipping a beat. “It was so terrifying, the whole barn just lit up like that! I rushed over as quickly as I could but—your sister!”

“Zelda, I need more wine,” Nadine says sharply, interrupting Betsy’s whimpers. I ignore her.

“How are your kids, Betsy?” I ask.

“Kids? Mine? Oh, they’re okay, I guess,” she titters. “Rebecca just started working as a dental assistant, actually. And you remember Cody?” she says, fishing. Yes, I do. Cody was one of the irredeemable assholes who graduated with me. I’d love to tell Betsy how he used to follow the one openly gay kid in our school around, whispering “Faggot” and smacking his ass.

“Yup. How is he?”

“He lives in San Francisco now. With one of his college roommates,” she announces proudly. I suppress a giggle. That’s perfect.

“Zelda, for Christ’s sake,” Nadine interjects.

“I’ll deal with her now, Betsy,” I say. A gentle dismissal. She seems grateful.

“No, no, of course, Ava. It was no problem. Anything I can do, really. I’ll stop by tomorrow with more food.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I say quickly. “Really, you don’t.”

“No, no trouble. I’ll check up on you then. Nadine’s already eaten, and there’s more casserole in the fridge.” That should make it easy not to eat. She dabs at her tears with the collar of her oversized batik-print muumuu. “At least I got her to eat this time. Last time I was here, she wouldn’t touch a thing.”

“Thanks, Betsy. Oh, and Marlon’s downstairs—you can say hello on your way out.”

Betsy’s face tightens perceptibly—she’s one of the few people who isn’t taken in by my father’s charm; she has a long memory and can’t forgive Marlon for the way he left. It makes me want to like her more.

“I will, of course. And, Ava? My sincere condolences,” she says earnestly and hugs me again. She bobs her head and waddles through the glass doors, trundling her way downstairs. I flop into the Adirondack chair she has vacated, glad that it faces the tasting room, though it is unpleasantly warm from her body.

“You look pretty good, Mom. All considered.”

“Don’t take that tone with me, Ava,” she says.