The Winter Sister(83)

Mom shook her head so slightly it was as if she didn’t move it at all. “No,” she said, but her voice was distant.

“You’re lying!” I screeched. “You’re still seeing him, aren’t you?”

I thought of Ben’s scar, how Will had thrown a blade at his son and sliced the boy he was into two—one who had trusted his father and one who never would again. I raked my eyes over Mom’s body, searching for signs of Will’s damage on her skin. She was pale as milk and there were bruises on her arms—but that was because of her sickness, that was because of the chemo. Right?

“No, I’m not still seeing him,” she hissed, and when her eyes connected with mine, there were tears in them. “The last time we met up, your sister was still alive, okay? The last time I even saw him was at her wake. Do you think I don’t wish I’d seen him since then? That we were together right now? But look at me. I’ve hardly left the house in the last sixteen years, and he’s never asked me to.”

Her eyes fell to the floor again, a tear sliding down the sharp curve of her cheek. “He doesn’t love me anymore. He’s forgotten I even exist.”

I was struck by how young she sounded—like a lovelorn teenager, or like Lauren when she got attached to someone who then began ignoring her texts. “He’s over me,” she’d always say, her tone nearly theatrical.

I shook my head, glancing at Will’s letters on the bed. “I don’t get it,” I said. “These notes are clearly connected to your Dark Days—the dates prove that. But shouldn’t they have made you happy? I mean, he was sending you a letter once a month telling you how much he wanted to see you. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Do you see two hundred and sixteen notes in there?” Mom snapped.

I paused. “What?”

“It wasn’t once a month. The notes weren’t, anyway. And that’s what broke me, if you really have to know. Eight, nine, ten times a year—I’d go to the mailbox, take out the envelope, and there’d be no note inside it at all. It was . . . Jesus, it was brutal. I’d wait for weeks for the fifteenth, for his middle-of-the-night courier or whoever the hell he sent, and then, most of the time—nothing. He’d completely shut me out.” She turned her head to look at the wall, crossing her arms once again. “You can’t possibly know how that feels.”

Laughter burst through my lips. “I can’t possibly know how it feels to be shut out? Are you ser—” But then I stopped. “Wait.”

I rewound the words she’d just said, playing them back in my mind.

“Why would there be an envelope in the mailbox if there wasn’t a letter?” I asked.

Mom stared at the wall, her mouth firmly closed.

“What else was in the envelopes?” I tried.

When she still didn’t answer, I riffled through the notes again, picking out envelopes in the box I hadn’t yet touched. I opened them up and shook them out, as if whatever else had been in them were still inside. But all that slipped out were the same strips of paper with the same handwriting I was already beginning to hate.

“I still have dreams about us at the lake.”

“I ate our favorite pizza last week. It wasn’t the same without you.”

“I saw you outside the movie theater with another guy. I wanted to kiss you right in front of him.”

“Couldn’t get to the bank in time to make the withdrawal. I’ll—”

My pulse sped up. I tightened my grip on the note, crinkling it a little. Then I started over.

“Couldn’t get to the bank in time to make the withdrawal. I’ll get it to you tonight. Wear the green dress.”

I flipped the paper over. “Usual place. 8:30.”

“He was giving you money?” I asked. “Why?”

Mom drummed her fingers on her arm as if she were bored, but her eyes flicked nervously across the wall.

“Was he buying your silence?” I pressed. “You got to have your affair with him but you couldn’t let anyone know?”

She opened her mouth a little, but she didn’t respond.

“It couldn’t have been very much,” I said. “We lived paycheck to paycheck.”

Finally, she shrugged. “I saved it.”

“For what?”

She pinched her lips together, resuming her silence.

“Is that how you’ve been paying for your treatment?” I asked.

“My insurance pays for my treatment.”

“Right,” I said. “But you told me you pay for your own insurance—and since you don’t have an income, that’s never made any sense to me. Is this how you’ve been able to afford it?”

Her eyes crept toward me. “I’m tired of this conversation. Give me back my box.”

“No.” I picked up the box and held it to my chest, protecting it as Mom took a few steps and reached out her hands. I was close to something—I could feel it. There were tremors of it in the air, beckoning me closer, or warning me to turn back.

“Does he still send you money?” I asked.

She dropped her arms. “What?” There was genuine surprise in her voice. “No.”

“Yes, he does. He has to be. That’s how you keep affording everything.”