Help for the Haunted(40)

“Ow! Go where?”

“Don’t ask! Just do what I say for a change! Now!”

My sister still had on her T-shirt and jeans from earlier, though her sneakers were off. While my father kept squeezing her arm, she made an effort to get her balance and slip her feet into them. All the while, Rose looked to my mother and me. The defiant expression she wore when slamming the truck door earlier gave way to something frightened. Normally, I knew my mother would have made some effort to calm the situation, but after the way Rose had behaved at the convention center, she just turned away, walked to her suitcase, and pulled out her nightgown. My sister barely managed to get her feet into her sneakers before my father began jerking her toward the door. Rose stumbled as she stared back at me. My mouth opened to say something that might stop it, but what words would he listen to? In the end, I just stood there, mute as that girl who emerged from the bushes.

Once they were gone, the room filled with a heavy silence. My mother walked to the window, not to stare outside, but to adjust the curtains. There wasn’t enough fabric to cover the glass, so she had to choose where the light would come in the next morning: down the middle or at the sides. I watched her sample both before choosing the middle. After that, she told me I might as well get ready for bed too.

When she stepped into the bathroom and shut the door, I listened to the faucet handles squeak, the water run. The hard, cinnamon-colored suitcase I shared with Rose lay open on the floor across the room. I had every intention of doing as my mother said, but stopped to look out the window. Through the gap in the curtains, I could see fat moths doing a sloppy flutter beneath a light, but no trace of my sister and father.

At last, my mother emerged from the bathroom. She wore a knee-length white nightgown, her feet bare so she must have forgotten her slippers back in Dundalk. Since she was never the type to walk around the house in sleeping clothes, I rarely saw her this way. Unpinned, her hair fell past her shoulders, revealing more silvery streaks than were apparent in her bun. That hair, that gown, that pale skin, made her look ghostly—a vision worthy of those slides on the screen at the convention center.

“It’s been a long day, Sylvie, and an even longer evening. We need our sleep. Now come away from the window and get ready for bed.”

I stared outside again at those moths around the light. “Where did Dad take her?”

“I’m sure he just wanted to talk with Rose about what she did.”

“Why outside?”

“Well, since it was not going to be the quietest of conversations, it only makes sense to have it someplace where they won’t wake the other guests in this hotel.”

“But I don’t see them out there. I don’t hear them either.”

“They’re probably farther away. Down in the parking lot. Now try not to worry, Sylvie. I know it’s hard. Your sister’s behavior this evening upset me too. But difficult as it is to watch your father be so tough on her, it’s what she needs. Something has gone wrong with Rose, and we’re working hard to make it right.”

I didn’t want to turn my attention away from the world outside that window, but I forced myself. Pajamas. Hairbrush. Toothbrush. Once I pulled those things from the suitcase, I slipped into the bathroom. When I stepped out, I saw that my mother had unfolded the cot my father ordered. On account of his back, he needed his own bed. He and Rose could work out who slept where when they returned, my mother told me, and I could sleep with her.

Before pulling down the covers, she knelt and clasped her hands in prayer. When I was little, I used to kneel with her each night when she came into my room to tuck me in. No longer. And my prayers had become more of a mental wish list I ticked off with my head on the pillow. Still, I knew she expected me to join her, so I knelt on the opposite side of our hotel bed. Eyes closed, I prayed that my father and Rose would stop fighting. I prayed that whatever had gone wrong with Rose would go right, just the way my mother said. After that, I waited in silence until I heard her stand, and I stood too.

In bed with the lights off, we listened to the rise and fall of each other’s breaths. Rather than her usual milky scent, I smelled the perfumed hotel soap on her skin. How much time passed? I was not sure, but when my mind wouldn’t give itself over to sleep, I whispered, “Are you awake?”

“Yes, dear. I am.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“You know the rule.”

The rule. It had been a while since she or my father mentioned it, but this is what it was: Rose and I could ask any questions or share anything we were feeling. In return, our parents would listen and do their best to understand. Despite the rule, I felt nervous saying, “Back at the conference center . . .”

“Yes?”

“That man. That girl.”

“You mean, Albert and Abigail Lynch?” The way my mother said their names, it was as though she had been speaking of them all her life.

“Yes.”

“What about them?”

“How . . . how did you, you know, do what you did?”

My mother paused before responding. I shifted my head on the pillow so I was that much closer. At last, she said, “The most truthful answer I can give you or anyone else, Sylvie, is that I don’t know. All I can say is that it’s something I have done for a long time without understanding the whys and hows of it all.”