Lisey's Story(24)

"Darla?"

"Lisey - it is you!"

"Sure it's me."

"Where are you?"

"Scott's old study."

"No, you're not. I already tried there."

Lisey only had to consider this briefly. Scott had liked his music loud - in truth he'd liked it at levels normal people would have considered ridiculous - and the telephone up there was located in the soundproofed area he had been amused to call My Padded Cell. It wasn't surprising she hadn't heard it down here. None of this seemed worth explaining to her sister.

"Darla, where did you get this number, and why are you calling?"

There was another pause. Then Darla said, "I'm at Amanda's. I got the number from her book. She's got four for you. I just ran through all of them. This was the last."

Lisey felt a sinking sensation in her chest and stomach. As children, Amanda and Darla had been bitter rivals. They'd gotten into any number of scratching matches - over dolls, library books, clothes. The last and gaudiest confrontation had been over a boy named Richie Stanchfield, and had been serious enough to land Darla in the Central Maine General ER, where six stitches had been needed to close the deep scratch over her left eye. She still wore the scar, a thin white dash. They got on better as adults only to this extent: there had been plenty of arguments but no more spilled blood. They stayed out of each other's way as much as possible. The once-or twice-monthly Sunday dinners (with spouses) or sister-lunches at Olive Garden or Outback could be difficult, even with Manda and Darla sitting apart and Lisey and Canty mediating. For Darla to be calling from Amanda's house was not a good thing.

"Is something wrong with her, Darl?" Dumb question. The only real question was how wrong.

"Mrs. Jones heard her screaming and carrying on and breaking stuff. Doing one of her Big Ts."

One of her Big Tantrums. Check.

"She tried Canty first, but Canty and Rich are in Boston. When Mrs. Jones got that message on their answering machine she called me."

That made sense. Canty and Rich lived a mile or so north of Amanda on Route 19; Darla lived roughly two miles south. In a way, it was like their father's old rhyme: one went north, one went south, one couldn't shut her everlasting mouth. Lisey herself was about five miles away. Mrs. Jones, who lived across the road from Mandy's weather-tight little Cape Cod, would have known well enough to call Canty first, and not just because Canty was closer in terms of distance, either.

Screaming and carrying on and breaking stuff.

"How bad is it this time?" Lisey heard herself asking in a flat, strangely businesslike tone of voice. "Should I come?" Meaning, of course, How fast should I come?

"She's...I think she's okay for now," Darla said. "But she's been doing it again. On her arms, also a couple of places high up on her thighs. The...you know."

Lisey knew, all right. On three previous occasions, Amanda had lapsed into what Jane Whitlow, her shrink, called "passive semi-catatonia." It was different from what had happened ( hush about that) ( I won't) from what had happened to Scott in 1996, but pretty damned scary, all the same. And each time, the state had been preceded by bouts of excitability - the sort of excitability Manda had been exhibiting up in Scott's study, Lisey realized - followed by hysteria, then brief spasms of self-mutilation. During one of these, Manda had apparently tried to excise her navel. She had been left with a ghostly fairy-ring of scar-tissue around it. Lisey had once broached the possibility of cosmetic surgery, not knowing if it would be possible but wanting Manda to know she, Lisey, would be willing to pay if Amanda wanted at least to explore the possibility. Amanda had declined with a harsh caw of amusement. "I like that ring," she'd said. "If I'm ever tempted to start cutting myself again, maybe I'll look at that and stop."

Maybe, it seemed, had been the operant word.

"How bad is it, Darl? Really?"

"Lisey...hon..."

Lisey realized with alarm (and a further sinking in her vital parts) that her older sister was struggling with tears. "Darla! Take a deep breath and tell me."

"I'm okay. I just...it's been a long day."

"When does Matt get back from Montreal?"

"Week after next. Don't even think about asking me to call him, either - he's earning our trip to St. Bart's next winter, and he's not to be disturbed. We can handle this ourselves."

"Can we?"

"Definitely."

"Then tell me what it is we're supposed to be handling."

"Okay. Right." Lisey heard Darla take a breath. "The cuts on her upper arms were shallow. Band-Aid stuff. The ones on her thighs were deeper and they'll scar, but they clotted over, thank God. No arterial shit. Uh, Lisey?"

"What? Just str...just spit it out."

She'd almost told Darla to just strap it on, which would have meant zip to her big sister. Whatever Darla had to tell her next, it was going to be something rotten. She could tell that by Darla's voice, which had been in and out of Lisey's ears from the cradle on. She tried to brace herself for it. She leaned back against the desk, her gaze shifted...and holy Mother of God, there it was in the corner, leaning nonchalantly next to another stack of liquor-store boxes (which were indeed labeled SCOTT! THE EARLY YEARS! ). In the angle where the north wall met the east one was the silver spade from Nashville, big as Billy-be-damned. It was a blue-eyed wonder she hadn't seen it when she came in, surely would have if she hadn't been in a lather to grab the phone before the answering machine kicked in. She could read the words incised into the silver bowl from here: COMMENCEMENT, SHIPMAN LIBRARY. She could almost hear the southern-fried chickenshit telling her husband that Toneh would be rahtin it up for the year-end review, and would he like a copeh. And Scott replying -