Lock and Key(65)

“All right,” I said. It wasn’t like I was in any position to argue.

Cora swallowed, then looked at me for a long moment. “I know a lot happened yesterday. It was emotional for both of us. But you doing drugs or drinking . . . that’s unnacceptable. It’s a violation of the agreement we arranged so you could come here, and if the courts ever found out, you’d have to go back to Poplar House. It cannot happen again.”

I had a flash of the one night I’d stayed there: the scratchy pajamas, the narrow bed, the house director reading over the sheriff’s report while I sat in front of her, silent. I swallowed, then said, “It’s not going to.”

“This is serious, Ruby,” she said. “I mean, when I saw you come in like that last night, I just . . .”

“I know,” I said.

“. . . it’s too familiar,” she finished. Then she looked at me, hard. “For both of us. You’re better than that. You know it.”

“It was stupid of me,” I said. “I just . . . When you told me that about Mom, I just kind of freaked.”

She looked down at the salt shaker between us, sliding it sideways, then back again. “Look, the bottom line is, she lied to both of us. Which shouldn’t really be all that surprising. That said, though, I wish I could have made it easier for you, Ruby. I really do. There’s a lot I’d do different, given the chance.”

I didn’t want to ask. Luckily, I didn’t have to.

“I’ve thought about it so much since I left, how I could have tried harder to keep in touch,” she said, smoothing back a few curls with her hand. “Maybe I could have found a way to take you with me, rent an apartment or something. ”

“Cora. You were only eighteen.”

“I know. But I also knew Mom was unstable, even then. And things only got worse,” she said. “I shouldn’t have trusted her to let you get in touch with me, either. There were steps I could have taken, things I could have done. I mean, now, at work, I deal every day with these kids from messed-up families, and I’m so much better equipped to handle it. To handle taking care of you, too. But if I’d only known then—”

“Stop,” I said. “It’s over. Done. It doesn’t matter now.”

She bit her lip. “I want to believe that,” she said. “I really do.”

I looked at my sister, remembering how I’d always followed her around so much as a kid, clinging to her more and more as my mom pulled away. What a weird feeling to find myself back here, dependent on her again. Just as I thought this, something occurred to me. “Cora?”

“Yeah? ”

“Do you remember that day you left for school?”

She nodded.

“Before you left, you went back in and spoke to Mom. What did you say to her?”

She exhaled, sitting back in her chair. “Wow,” she said. “I haven’t thought about that in years.”

I wasn’t sure why I’d asked her this, or if it was even important. “She never mentioned it,” I said. “I just always wondered.”

Cora was quiet for a moment, and I wondered if she was even going to answer me at all. But then she said, “I told her that if I found out she ever hit you, I would call the police. And that I was coming back for you as soon as I could, to get you out of there.” She reached up, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “I believed that, Ruby. I really did. I wanted to take care of you.”

“It’s all right,” I told her.

“It’s not,” she continued, over me. “But now, here, I have the chance to make up for it. Late, yes, but I do. I know you don’t want to be here, and that it’s far from ideal, but . . . I want to help you. But you have to let me. Okay?”

This sounded so passive, so easy, although I knew it wasn’t. As I thought this, though, I had a flash of Peyton again, standing at the bottom of that stairway. Why are you surprised? she’d said, and for all the wrongness of the situation, I knew she was right. You get what you give, but also what you’re willing to take. The night before, I’d offered up my hand. Now, if I held on, there was no telling what it was possible to receive in return.

For a moment we just sat there, the quiet of the kitchen all around us. Finally I said, “Do you think Mom’s okay?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. And then, more softly, “I hope so.”

Maybe to anyone else, her saying this would have seemed strange. But to me, it made perfect sense, as this was the pull of my mother: then, now, always. For all the coldness, her bad behavior, the slights and outright abuse, we were still tied to her. It was like those songs I’d heard as a child, each so familiar, and all mine. When I got older and realized the words were sad, the stories tragic, it didn’t make me love them any less. By then, they were already part of me, woven into my consciousness and memory. I couldn’t cut them away any more easily than I could my mother herself. And neither could Cora. This was what we had in common—what made us this us.

After outlining the last few terms of my punishment (mandatory checking-in after school, agreeing to therapy, at least for a little while), Cora squeezed my shoulder, then left the room, Roscoe rousing himself from where he’d been planted in the doorway to follow her upstairs. I sat in the quiet of the kitchen for a moment, then I went out to the pond.