Lisey's Story(47)

She didn't know if it smelled good to big sissa Manda-Bunny, but it smelled fine to Lisey, especially the coffee. She had one cup of straight black before her bowl of oatmeal, another with double cream and sugar afterward. Sipping that one, she thought: All I need now is a ciggy and I could ride this day like a pony. A smucking Salem Light. Her mind tried to turn toward her dreams and memories of the night just past ( SCOTT

AND LISEY THE EARLY YEARS for sure, she thought), and she wouldn't let it. Nor would she let it try to examine what had happened to her on waking. There might be time later to think about it, but not now. Now she had big sissa to deal with. And suppose big sissa's found a nice pink disposable razor on top of the medicine cabinet and decided to slit her wrists with it? Or her throat?

Lisey got up from the table in a hurry, wondering if Darla had thought to clean the sharps out of the upstairs bathroom...or any of the upstairs rooms, for that matter. She took the stairs at a near-run, dreading what she might discover in the master bedroom, nerving herself to find nothing in the bed but a pair of dented pillows. Amanda was still there, still staring up at the ceiling. She appeared not to have moved so much as an inch. Lisey's relief was replaced by foreboding. She sat on the bed and took her sister's hand in her own. It was warm but unresponsive. Lisey willed Manda's fingers to close on her own but they remained limp. Waxy.

"Amanda, what are we going to do with you?"

There was no response.

And then, because they were alone except for their reflections in the mirror, Lisey said:

"Scott didn't do this, did he, Manda? Please say Scott didn't do it by...I don't know...by coming in?"

Amanda said nothing one way or the other, and after a little while Lisey went prospecting in the bathroom for sharp objects. She guessed that Darla had indeed been here before her, because all she found was a single pair of nail-scissors at the back of the lower drawer in Manda's small, not-very-vain vanity. Of course, even those would have been enough, in a dedicated hand. Why, Scott's own father

( hush Lisey no Lisey)

"All right," she said, alarmed by the panic that flooded her mouth with the taste of copper, the purple light that seemed to bloom behind her eyes, and the way her hand clenched on the tiny pair of scissors. "Okay, never mind. Pass it."

She hid the scissors behind a clutch of dusty shampoo samples high up in Amanda's towel cupboard, and then - because she could think of nothing else - took a shower herself. When she came out of the bathroom, she saw that a large wet patch had spread around Amanda's hips, and understood this was something the Debusher sisters weren't going to be able to work through on their own. She got a towel under Amanda's soaked bottom. Then she glanced at the clock on the night-table, sighed, picked up the telephone, and dialed Darla's number.

2

Lisey had heard Scott in her head the day before, loud and clear: I left you a note, babyluv. She'd dismissed it as her own interior voice, mimicking his. Maybe it had been

-  probably had been - but by three o'clock on that long, hot Thursday afternoon, as she sat in Pop's Cafe in Lewiston with Darla, she knew one thing for sure: he'd left her one hell of a posthumous gift. One hell of a bool-prize, in Scott-talk. It had been a bitch-kitty of a day, but it would have been a lot worse without Scott Landon, two years dead or not. Darla looked every bit as tired as Lisey felt. Somewhere along the way she'd found time to put on a little makeup, but she didn't have enough ammo in her purse to hide the circles under her eyes. Certainly there was no sign of the angry thirtysomething who had in the late nineteen-seventies made it her business to call Lisey once a week and hector her about her family duties.

"Penny for em, little Lisey," she said now.

Lisey had been reaching for the caddy containing the packets of Sweet'n Low. At the sound of Darla's voice she changed direction, reached for the old-fashioned sugar-shaker instead, and poured a hefty stream into her cup. "I was thinking this has been Coffee Thursday," she said. "Mostly Coffee With Real Sugar Thursday. This must be my tenth shot."

"You and me both," Darla said. "I've been to the john half a dozen times, and I plan to go again before we leave this charming establishment. Thank God for Pepcid AC."

Lisey stirred her coffee, grimaced, then sipped again. "Sure you want to pack up a suitcase for her?"

"Well, someone has to do it, and you look like death on a cracker."

"Thanks a pantload."

"If your sister won't tell you the truth, no one will."

Lisey had heard this from her many times, along with Duty doesn't ask permission and, Number One on the All-Time Darla Hit Parade, Life isn't fair. Today it didn't sting. It even raised the ghost of a smile. "If you want to do it, Darl, I won't arm-rassle you for the privilege."

"Didn't say I wanted to, just said I would. You stayed with her last night and got up with her this morning. I'd say you did your share. Excuse me, I've got to spend a penny."

Lisey watched her go, thinking There's another one. In the Debusher family, where there was a saying for everything, urinating was spending a penny and moving one's bowels was - odd but true -  burying a Quaker. Scott had loved that, said it was probably an old Scots derivation. Lisey supposed it was possible; most of the Debushers came from Ireland and all the Andersons from England, or so Good Ma said, but there were a few stray dogs in every family, weren't there? And that hardly interested her. What interested her was that spending a penny and burying a Quaker were catches from the pool, Scott's pool, and ever since yesterday he seemed so smucking close to her...