The Winter Sister(88)

“Who were you talking to?” she asked.

I looked at her, but her face revealed nothing—just a pale oval of bone and skin. I turned my eyes toward the doorway. There was no way she could have seen us from there; the view didn’t reach that far. Still, there seemed no point in lying anymore. I was tired of it. I was so intolerably tired.

“Ben Emory,” I said. “He works here.”

Mom’s mouth dropped open, but then she squeezed her eyes tightly and twisted her head away from me, leaning it back against the chair.

I felt no need to explain or apologize. I just looked at the floor—eight and nine and ten—and got back to counting tiles.

? ? ?

I didn’t listen to the voicemail Lauren had left until Mom was back in her recliner at home, but by then it was too late.

“You’re either at your mom’s chemo,” she’d said, “or you’re still ignoring me. Either way, I’m leaving for work soon, but I’m out at seven thirty. You better call me back sometime after that.” Then she’d softened her tone and added, “Oh, and Wolf Bro called Steve to complain about his last session. He’s coming in today to discuss the issue with me—apparently the eyes don’t look beast-y enough with the new shading—so at the very least, you’re gonna want to hear that story. If I’ve forgiven you for ignoring me, that is.”

It was just after seven when I got to Ben’s, and I vowed to myself that I would call Lauren back as soon as I left. But for now, I was still carrying the weight of someone else’s lies, and before I could feel unburdened enough to talk to Lauren about my own, I needed to tell Ben the unfathomable fact of who Persephone had been.

“Hey,” Ben said when he opened his front door. “Come on in.”

He was smiling at me again, and it was enough to make me hesitate. His expression should have been wary, not welcoming; he should have locked the door when he saw me coming. But he didn’t know that yet, and I took a few extra seconds wiping my feet on the mat before walking inside, as if I could scrape off the truth.

“Can I take your coat?” he asked as he closed the door behind me.

“Uh, no, that’s okay.”

I didn’t know how long I was staying—or, more accurately, I didn’t know how long he’d want me to stay once I told him what I knew. If the situation were reversed, I’d ask him to leave immediately. Then I’d scream until the walls shook. I’d throw everything in the house to the floor.

“Okay,” he said, sliding his hands into his pockets. “I have something to show you. Or—sorry, not show you—I’m giving it to you. I remembered it when you were talking to Tommy yesterday, and I was going to give it to you when we got back to my house, but then, honestly, I just forgot about it, after the letter, and everything.”

I looked at my feet as my face flushed. “That’s okay,” I said quickly. “But can I just say my thing first?”

But he wasn’t listening. He had walked into his bedroom and was now heading straight for his nightstand drawer. After a moment of watching from the doorway, I crossed the threshold and followed him into the room where, less than a day ago, we’d pressed our bodies together, desperate to feel something other than pain. I stopped myself a few feet from the bed, closing my eyes against the image of us—mouths on skin, fingers gripping hard. I willed the memory to dissolve, then forced myself to picture Persephone instead, her blonde hair trailing down her back as she got into Ben’s car night after night.

Snapping my eyes open, I looked toward Ben, hunched over the nightstand, blocking my view.

How was I going to say it? I’d tried to rehearse it on the way over but I still didn’t know where to start. I could keep it simple—Ben, Persephone is your sister—but how could he take that seriously? And if I told him, instead, the story of how I’d found out, would he even be able to follow? Or would the words become only syllables, and then only sounds?

“Got it,” he said, turning toward me. He held his hand up in the air, palm toward the ceiling. Squinting into the space between us, I tried to translate the gesture—and then I saw it. At first I only noticed the delicate chain that dangled from his fingers, but as my eyes followed that down to the pendant hanging at the bottom, my pulse flickered.

It was the gold starfish swinging like a pendulum from his hand.

My eyes stretched wide. “Where did you get that?” I demanded.

Something flashed across Ben’s face—satisfaction, maybe, or anticipation—and I saw he was still smiling at me. “I’ve had it since she died,” he said.

My breath became shallow, the room teetering. I managed to take a couple steps backward. “No,” I whispered.

“It’s okay,” Ben said, “you can have it. I didn’t know until yesterday when you asked Tommy for it how much it would mean to you. But here—it’s yours.”

He held it out to me, his arm reaching through the air to close the gap between us. My feet continued to move backward, though the rest of my body felt frozen in place.

“Sylvie, what’s wrong?”

The smile had faded from his face, but I could still see the ghost of it, lingering in the corners of his lips.

“It was you?” I murmured, my eyes glazing with tears.

He cocked his head to the side. “What was me?”