Acts of Violet(26)
“There’s always been an abundance of attention on my sister. I’ve grown used to it.” Lying and playing dumb to my therapist? Tsk-tsk.
Fortunately, she calls me out on it. “I think you know what I’m getting at. You said something about fake sightings and photos.”
I clench the pillow in a death grip. “It’s just a meme. #violetisback. Something to show off for social media. People are already moving on to eating laundry detergent pods and other dumb crap. None of the posts are actually her. The sightings are bullshit, too.”
Renatta adopts a delicate tone. “That may be the case, but there’s no way to know that with a hundred percent certainty, correct? Is there a part of you that wonders or hopes—”
“No,” I snap. Another lie, but I plow through before impending tears close up my throat. “I don’t want to waste my time on false leads.”
“Okay. I’m just trying to see the connection between your sleepwalking and everything happening around this anniversary. When did this latest episode occur?”
“A few nights ago.”
“Did anything noteworthy happen around that time?”
Gabriel and I were binge-watching the latest season of Black Mirror, our phones untouched on the coffee table. It felt good to take a break from my special brand of doomscrolling, splitting my attention among multiple screens, and obsessing about my sister. A couple hours in, Gabriel went into the kitchen for a snack (sour straws or a Granny Smith apple or yogurt—he jokes about having a sour tooth). As soon as he was out of sight, I grabbed my phone. Automatically, as if I’d been waiting for him to leave, pulling up Instagram before I could talk myself out of it, searching that wretched hashtag, though I knew I shouldn’t.
The most upsetting #violetisback posts, the ones that make my breath catch in my throat, are the ones that, at first glance, look like they could be her. They never are, so the initial jolt of familiarity is followed by disappointment (a separate type of familiarity).
I looked at only one post before switching my phone off. It was upsetting for a different reason. The photo was of a combat boot in the middle of an empty road streaked with blood. Tagged with: #violetisback #justkidding #violetisgone
“Sasha?” Renatta’s voice is like being slapped by a hand in a velvet glove.
“Yeah. Sorry.” I grit my teeth. Don’t ask me, don’t ask me, don’t ask me.
“Where did you go just now?”
And even though it’s the main reason I’m here, the last thing I want to discuss is that photo or my sleepwalking. Inside me, a steel gate is clattering down, locking me in. I am closed for business.
“Let’s talk about something else,” I say.
The flicker of disappointment across her face is fleeting, but I catch it. “I’d still like to know more about your relationship with Violet,” she says. “Maybe you could talk a bit about your childhood?”
This I can do. Some of the early territory is thorny, but not as incendiary as the later years.
“Growing up with Violet was … never boring. We had a way of balancing each other out. She had a year on me, but I often felt like the sensible older sister, even as kids. I was more reserved and cautious, she was more outgoing and daring. I was the realist, she was the fabulist, trying to get me to go along with the crazy stuff she’d make up. Like that we were royalty and fled Russia to avoid getting executed like the Romanovs, or that our parents were spies. Or when I started sleepwalking, she tried to convince me that I had special powers and could actually teleport. I didn’t believe any of it.”
“How old were you when you first began to sleepwalk?”
No no no. That’s one origin story she won’t get today. “I don’t know—it was sometime in grade school.” A buzzing in the back of my mind urges me to change the subject, but I can tell Renatta will harp on it if I don’t give her more. “It didn’t happen a lot, and it wasn’t a big deal. One time, after Violet made me watch Poltergeist with her, I woke up in the middle of the night in the bathtub. Not all scary movies made me sleepwalk, but I figured out pretty early on horror could be a trigger, so I tried to limit my exposure to it. Of course, that didn’t stop Violet, who was obsessed with horror movies, from coercing me into watching that stuff with her. I swear, it’s like my job was setting the boundaries and hers was pushing them.” Eager to keep the discussion moving away from my nighttime wanderings, I add, “Like whenever we’d go to the beach…”
“What happened at the beach?”
“Violet always tried to get us to swim out farther than anyone else. It drove our mother crazy. Mom would be standing on the shore, frantically waving for us to come back in, and yelling at us afterward. Funny thing is, she yelled at me more, even though I was younger, because she said I should know better.”
“It sounds like there were expectations early on for you to be the more responsible one.” Renatta uncrosses and recrosses her legs.
“Which was fine, because that was the role I gravitated to naturally. I didn’t mind Violet being more mischievous, because without her I would’ve been a dull Goody Two-shoes. But she did have a mean streak. Or maybe it was just a sick sense of humor?”
“Say more about that.”
“She was double-jointed and loved to play gruesome tricks on people. Like having them arm wrestle her until she cracked her elbow joint and made it look like they broke her arm. Or pretending to fall down the stairs and contorting her leg, screaming in pseudo-agony until she couldn’t help but laugh. The first time she pulled that one on our parents, she played dead at the foot of the stairs instead. When they saw her, Mom fainted, and Dad got chest pains—Violet came close to giving him an actual heart attack. Hilarious, right? But that’s not what really bothered me.” I pause to take a sip of water and side-eye the box of tissues like they’re daring me. “It’s funny, talking to you is the opposite of what it was like talking to Violet. With her, it was like a high-speed game of double Dutch; she did most of the talking and I had to find the right second to jump in. My daughter can be like that, too. But you actually give me time to collect my thoughts. It’s nice.”