Family of Liars(3)

I said no again, but inside, I had begun to feel wrong. My face was wrong. My jaw was weak. I looked foolish. Based on a fluke of biological destiny, other people would make assumptions about my character. I noticed them making those assumptions, now, pretty regularly. There was that slight condescension in their voices. Did I get the joke?

I began to chew slowly, making sure my mouth was shut tight. I felt uncertain of my own teeth, whether they ground up food like other people’s did. The way they fit together began to feel strange.

I already knew boys didn’t think I was pretty. Even though I was popular—went to parties and was even elected freshman delegate to the student council—I was always one of the last to be invited to dances. Boys asked girls in those days.

At the dances, my dates never held my hand. They didn’t kiss me, or press against me in the dark of the dance floor. They didn’t wonder if they could see me again and go to the movies, the way they did with my friends.

I watched my sister Penny, whose square jawline was nothing to her, shove food into her mouth while talking. She would laugh with her jaw wide open, stick her tongue out and let people see every shining white molar.

I watched Bess, whose mouth was fuller and sweeter, and whose jaw was a forceful, feminine curve, complain about her six months of braces and the retainer that followed. She snapped the blue plastic retainer cover open with a groan when Tipper reminded her to replace it after meals.

And Rosemary. Her square face mirrored Penny’s, only freckled and goofy.

All my sisters, their bones were beautiful.





4.


THE SUMMER I was sixteen, we spent our days on Beechwood, as always. Kayaks, corn on the cob, sailboats, and snorkeling (though we didn’t see much besides the occasional crab). We had the usual Fourth of July celebration with sparklers and songs. Our annual Bonfire Night, our Lemon Hunt, our Midsummer Ice Cream party.

Only that year—Rosemary drowned.

She was ten years old. The youngest of us four.

It happened at the end of August. Rosemary was swimming at the beach by Goose Cottage. We call it the Tiny Beach. She wore a green bathing suit with little denim pockets on it. Ridiculous pockets. You couldn’t put anything in them. It was her favorite.

I wasn’t there. No one in the family was. She was with the au pair we had that year, a twenty-year-old woman from Poland. Agata.

Rosemary always wanted to swim later than anyone else. Long after we all went to rinse our feet at the hose by the Clairmont mudroom door, Rosemary would swim, if she was allowed. It wasn’t uncommon for her to be with Agata on one beach or the other.

But that day, the sky turned cloudy.

That day, Agata went inside to get sweaters for them both.

That day, Rosemary, a good swimmer always, must have been knocked down by a wave and caught in the undertow.

When Agata came back outside, Rosemary was far out, and struggling. She was beyond the wicked black rocks that line the cove.

Agata wasn’t a lifeguard.

She didn’t know CPR.

She wasn’t even a fast enough swimmer to reach Rosemary in time.





5.


AFTERWARD, WE WENT back to boarding school, Penny and I. And Bess began it.

We left our parents, only two weeks after Rosemary died, to be educated on the beautiful campus of North Forest Academy. When our mother dropped us off, she hugged us tight and kissed our cheeks. She told us she loved us. And was gone.

It was up to me to take care of Bess. I was a junior that year. She was a freshman. I helped decorate her dorm room, introduced her to people, brought her chocolate bars from the commissary. I left her silly, happy notes in her mail cubby.

With Penny, there was less to do. She already had friends, and there was a new boyfriend by the second week. But I showed up anyway. I stopped by her room, found her in the cafeteria, sat on her bed and listened to her talk about her new romance.

I was there for my sisters, but we dealt with our feelings about Rosemary alone. Here in the Sinclair family, we keep a stiff upper lip. We make the best of things. We look to the future. These are Harris’s mottoes, and they are Tipper’s, as well.

We girls have never been taught to grieve, to rage, or even to share our thoughts. Instead, we have become excellent at silence; at small, kind gestures; at sailing; at sandwich-making. We talk eagerly about literature and make every guest feel welcome. We never speak about medical issues. We show our love not with honesty or affection, but with loyalty.

Be a credit to the family. That’s one of many mottoes our father often repeated at the supper table. What he meant was Represent us well. Do well not for yourself, but because the reputation of the Sinclair family demands respect. The way people see you—it is the way they see all of us.

He said it so often, it became a joke among us. At North Forest, we used to say it to each other. I’d walk by Penny, pushed up against some guy, kissing in the hall. I’d say, without interrupting them, “Be a credit to the family.”

Bess would catch me sneaking a box of shortbread into the dormitory—same thing.

Penny’d see Bess with tomato sauce on her shirt—same thing.

Making a pot of tea. “Be a credit to the family.”

Or going to take a poop. “Be a credit to the family.”

It made us laugh, but Harris was serious. He meant it, he believed it, and even though we laughed about it, we believed it, too.