The Silent Sister(87)

I was too stunned to say a word.

“You have to forgive your parents,” Jeannie said. “They’d always planned to tell you the truth when you were old enough to understand, but with everything that happened with Lisa—the charges against her and her suicide—they felt it was best for you never to know any of it.”

“So … you were the person who gave her the pendant.”

She nodded.

I thought of the photograph on the coffee table inside the house. Lisa and Matty. Like Siamese twins, Jeannie had said. “Was Matty my father?”

The reflection of the porch light bounced in her eyes as she nodded. “We always thought so, though Lisa adamantly denied it, so your parents never talked to him or his parents about it. Lisa said it was a boy she met at one of the music festivals she went to. The one in Rome. I suppose that’s possible, but Lisa and Matty were so inseparable, and when you were born with that full head of dark curly hair, we all just assumed. They were so young, her and Matty. They may have been … I don’t know, experimenting or whatever. She never told him, as far as I know. She talked to him on the phone a lot when she was with me, but I’d overhear her telling him about violin techniques she was learning, when the truth was, she barely picked up the violin while she was in Asheville. She was quite depressed.” Jeannie’s voice cracked. “I always wished I could have helped her,” she said. “Done more for her. She probably should have been on medication.”

“I need to get that picture,” I said, standing up. The muscles in my legs shivered as I walked toward the house. I climbed the porch steps and walked into the living room. It felt like days had passed since I’d been in that room, going through the cabinets. I picked up the photograph of Lisa and Matty from the coffee table. It suddenly seemed even more precious to me and I held it tenderly. When I brought it outside, Jeannie was sitting on the top porch step again, blotting her eyes with a tissue. I sat down next to her, holding the picture on my knees so that it caught the light. That curly mop of Matty’s hair seemed like a dead giveaway. “Do you know where he is?” I asked.

“Matty? I have no idea. He was still studying with Steven Davis right up until Steven’s death, as far as I know.”

“His last name is Harrison, right?”

She nodded, then rested her hand on my knee. “Lisa was a good girl, Riley,” she said. “She became very dear to me while we lived together. I felt like I’d failed with Christine and I really wanted to help Lisa, and she was so easy to be with after dealing with my own difficult daughter. She helped around the house while I worked. I was an accountant for a group of doctors’ offices in Asheville. I had a dog and he got so attached to Lisa, he nearly ignored me, and he grieved for her when she left. So did I, actually.” She smiled. “I got to know her very well. Probably even better than your parents did, because she felt like she could be more open with me than with them. You’re a counselor. You know how that is sometimes.”

“But she didn’t tell you if it was Matty?”

“And I never pressed.” She changed position on the hard step. “That’s how I got her to talk to me,” she said. “By not pushing her. I loved her.” Her eyes clouded over again. “I was sad when she returned home. I missed her. She was such a dear soul.”

How could she leave me? I thought, feeling more alone than ever. She faked her suicide and left me and never looked back. How could I ever move past that fact? But I couldn’t say any of that to Jeannie. She still thought Lisa was dead.

“Were my parents angry with her?” I asked. “For getting pregnant, I mean?” With a jolt, I realized that my father had been my grandfather. My mother, my grandmother. Danny was actually my uncle. I hugged my arms across my chest, suddenly terribly sad. In the space of a few minutes, I’d lost the family I’d known. I’d lost my only brother.

“If they were angry, they didn’t let me see it. Once they accepted what was happening and made the decision to adopt Lisa’s baby, I think your mother was excited.”

“Were you there when I was born?” I asked.

Jeannie hesitated, then sighed, as though she’d made up her mind to answer any question I had. “Let’s go inside,” she said. “I can’t sit on this hard step any longer.”

I followed her into the house and we circled the hulking trash bags to reach the couch. She sat down heavily, taking the photograph of Lisa and Matty from me to look at while she talked.

“She called me at work one morning to say her water had broken and the contractions were starting,” she said. “She knew what to expect, because we’d talked about it a lot. I called your parents right away so they could set out for Asheville. They left Danny with some friends. Your parents didn’t make it in time. I was able to stay with Lisa in the delivery room. I can’t lie and say it was a piece of cake. That she didn’t suffer. She was afraid and so was I, but we muddled through together.” She smiled into the distance and I knew Jeannie really had loved my sister. My mother.

“And then she cuddled you,” Jeannie said. “Covered you with kisses. I don’t think she would have been able to give you up for adoption to anyone other than her own family. She couldn’t have parted with you. She loved you very much.”

I blinked back tears at the thought of Lisa cuddling me.