The Dead Romantics (75)

One of my biggest flaws. “What do you think’s in the letter that I have to read?”

Mom gave a think. “I’m not sure, actually.”

“You’ve gotta have some idea.”

“I do,” she agreed, “but I’m not sure. Though whatever it is, he wanted you to read it.”

“But why? Alice and Carver are much better at speaking in front of people!”

“Because he probably felt like you needed to the most,” Mom replied, and squeezed Dawn soap over the plates in the sink. “Honestly, you think I understood everything that went on in that man’s head? Of course not. He always surprised me. I think he will again. Are you helping this ghost friend of yours?” she added, changing the subject.

“She’s doing a wonderful job,” Ben commented.

“I’m trying to,” I replied, deciding not to dog her about the letter anymore. “He’s leaning beside you. Against the counter. To your right—I mean left.”

Mom turned to her left and said, “You’re welcome here anytime, Ben.”

“It would be a treat,” Ben remarked, and I bit in a smile because I wondered what Mom would really think of him, so tall his head almost brushed against the top of the doorframe, his dark hair floppy and his eyes bright.

“He says thank you,” I translated.

“Good. Now—”

“Dishes!” Carver pointed at me, sticking his head back into the kitchen. “You lost!”

“I did not!” I argued.

“You cheated and you still lost! Mom, stop doing the dishes—”

“I got them,” Alice interjected, shouldering past Carver.

“But, Alice—”

“Chill. I don’t mind. You look tired,” my sister added to me, taking the sponge from Mom. “You should probably get some sleep. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

I hesitated. “But I can do them . . .”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine, we can do it together. Mom, I think Carver wants to go set that wooden cage out to see if he can trap those damn birds, and Nicki’s scared shitless of them—”

From the other room, Nicki cried, “I am not!” Then, after a moment, he added, “But they are terrifying!”

Alice gave Mom a look. “Can you help him so he doesn’t hurt himself?”

Mom sighed. “If I must . . .”

“I don’t need help!” Carver argued, but Mom took him by the shoulder and guided him out the back door.

Alice and I did the dishes in silence. Ben had left the kitchen, but I didn’t know where he’d gone instead. Hopefully to oversee my ridiculous brother, because I had very little faith that Mom would do anything other than nod sagely without really knowing what to do.

I kept wanting to say something to Alice—this was the first time we’d really been alone together, not counting Dad’s corpse in the mortuary—but nothing sounded right in my head. I used to be so good at talking to Alice. We were best friends, with all the inside jokes of sisters who actually got along.

And then we weren’t. I didn’t really think about how leaving Mairmont would hurt everyone I loved, but especially Alice, and I couldn’t get our last fight out of my head. Well, the last few fights.

“I’m sorry,” I began, “that I never came back.”

She almost dropped one of Grammy Day’s favorite dishes. “Oh my god, warn me before you do that.”

“I just apologized!”

“Yeah—I know. Gross.”

“Fine,” I said, a little hurt because honestly, I meant it, and took the plate from her and dried it furiously. “I won’t do it again.”

“Please don’t,” she agreed, scrubbing another plate angrily. Then she sighed, and her shoulders unwound. “You’re apologizing for the wrong thing, anyway. I don’t really blame you for leaving.”

I blinked. “You don’t?”

“I’m not a monster. Leaving was the only thing you really could do. And I don’t really blame you for not coming to visit, even though I said I did. Dad never asked you to come home. He never asked if we were okay with going to visit you. We just did.” She sighed and shook her head. “I just . . . for a long time I was just so mad you didn’t take me with you. Do you know how many fights I got into over you?”

I actually had to think about that one. “Thirteen?”

“Fourteen! I got into one after you left. You know Mark Erie?”

“The football guy Heather married?”

“Bingo. Cracked his jaw. Had to sip out of a straw for a month,” she replied triumphantly. And then she sighed and took a sip of her drink. “And, I guess, after a while I started just being mad at you. Because even though you were gone, you were just as tight with Dad as you always were. I was jealous of that. Of you and Dad and y’all’s ghosts.”

I didn’t know what to say—I’d never thought about it that way. That the one thing that I had run away from was also the one thing I remembered most fondly about Dad—and the one thing that neither Alice nor Carver nor Mom could ever have with him.

“Dad was a good man,” she went on, “but he wasn’t perfect. He saved that part of him for you. I saw him every day. I got into fights with him. I watched him neglect his health because he thought giving other people their goodbyes was more important than sticking around for us. I thought he’d forgotten about us.”