The Winter Sister(13)

I folded a pair of jeans, placed them on top of a stack of sweaters, and put my hand over the pile to keep Lauren’s off of it. “My mom hasn’t worked in years. I don’t even know how she’s managed to afford her vodka all this time—let alone her treatment.”

Lauren groaned, throwing her body back on my bed and swinging her feet up onto the mound of shirts I had yet to fold. “Maybe your aunt can pay for home care, then.”

“No,” I said quickly. “I can’t ask her to do that. She’s been supporting my mother financially for years. She’d never admit it, but I know things are tight for her.”

“Okay, fine,” Lauren conceded, “but let’s just think this through for a second. First of all, your mom randomly became a catatonic drunk when you were a teenager, and then she . . .” She stopped then, squinting at me. “What? What’s that look about? Is it because I said your mom’s an alcoholic? Because I’m sorry, but—”

“No,” I cut her off. “It’s not that.”

It had been the word randomly. I’d winced when she said it. But, of course, that word was consistent with the story I’d told her of my life. In the version she knew, there was more than a decade between the time Persephone supposedly died in a car accident and the time Mom started drinking. How could I expect her to connect those dots and understand that, painful as it had always been, there was a reason my mother drank?

I thought about what it would be like to tell her the truth—that Mom was an alcoholic because the worst thing had happened to us, not a tragic but common death like a car accident, but the void of an unpunished murder. I pictured myself confessing that Mom was only half of what haunted me in Spring Hill, that I did remember my sister and it was the remembering that, all these years later, kept me awake some nights. But I knew how much it would hurt to speak the truth, to answer the questions that would definitely follow, to be pushed into explaining the whole story—the bruises, the paint, the window.

No one knew how I’d locked Persephone out that night—not Mom or Aunt Jill or the detectives. According to the official police report, Ben told them that he’d dropped her off around ten thirty, but then she’d quickly come back to his car and they’d driven off again. He never told them why she came back; the report had him stating that “she changed her mind.”

Now, my throat ached at the thought of telling Lauren any of that. Still, she had seen me wince, and she stared at me now, waiting for me to explain.

“It just wasn’t that random,” I said, as casually as I could manage. “My mom’s drinking, I mean. She was really messed up about what happened to Persephone, and she used alcohol to cope.” Lauren’s eyes widened and I quickly added, “Even though it had been years since her death.”

“Wow,” Lauren said, propping herself up on her elbow and looking at me with focused, earnest eyes. “You never bring up your sister.” She paused for a few moments. “Do you want to talk about her?”

I forced a chuckle as I stared at the shirt I had folded. “No, I’m fine,” I said.

I could feel Lauren’s eyes lingering on my face, but I kept on placing clothes into my suitcase. Finally, she said, “Okay. But I’m just saying—reasons or no reasons, your mother has hardly been a mother at all to you for half your life. But now, when things get tough for her, you’re expected to go play faithful daughter? How is that fair?”

I sighed, pushing the suitcase aside to lie down next to her. “You’re right,” I said. “It’s not fair. But what choice do I have? Jill has to go be with Missy, and my mom’s alone. I’m the only option she has left.”

“Or . . .” Lauren said, “I could try to talk to Steve again. Maybe if you had your job back—”

“No. I don’t want him to feel worse than he already does.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re too nice for your own good, you know. You’re giving up everything to go nurse your horrible mother, and you’re worried about making the guy who fired you—after you gave years of your life to his business—feel just a little bit bad.”

“You didn’t see him when he was letting me go,” I said. “He was close to tears. He kept saying that when business picks up again, he’d love to have me back, but he just couldn’t afford it right now. He has a daughter going to college next year. How can you argue with that?”

I certainly hadn’t been able to. I’d sat on the metal folding chair in Steve’s office and nodded along to his reasons. I’d stared at the faded clock tattoo on his wrist and languidly wondered where I’d go from there. I knew of two other tattoo parlors in a four-block radius, but the idea of sending out résumés, of putting together a portfolio, exhausted me to the point where I’d gone home, crawled right back into bed, and didn’t get up again until Lauren came home hours later demanding we talk about it.

“It’s still bullshit,” she said now. “You know the only reason he fired you instead of me is because I look the part, right?” She pushed up the sleeve of her sweatshirt, exposing her right arm, which was tattooed with a scene she’d designed based off The Secret Garden, her favorite book from when she was a kid. “I’ve got the tattoos, the dyed hair, the nose ring, and you’re over here all ‘My skin’s never even seen the sun, let alone a needle and ink.’ It’s discrimination.”