Where the Staircase Ends(38)

“I worry about Taylor spending so much time with Sunny.”

My father was thoughtful. “Sunny’s a sweet kid. She means well. And Taylor’s a smart girl. She’ll make the right decisions.”

“I hope you’re right. I just wish she’d stick up for herself more often. Or find some other people to hang out with once in a while.” My mother sighed. “I feel sorry for Sunny, I really do, but I don’t want her rubbing off on Taylor in the wrong way. Kids like that need rules. Boundaries.”

Dad kissed her neck, then pressed his lips against her ear. “That’s why Taylor’s so lucky to have us.”


I’d never heard my mom say she felt sorry for Sunny before. I thought back to all the times she bent to Sunny’s wishes—extending my curfew so that Sunny wouldn’t have to come home early, letting Sunny come into the house drunk when I would have been crucified. Was she so quick to say yes to Sunny because she felt sorry for her?

I wanted to keep listening to them, but my legs were suddenly moving me out of the kitchen and toward my bedroom.

Wait. Stop. I don’t want to leave yet. I want to stay with my parents. I want to hear what my mother has to say. I want to understand.

But my legs carried me down the hall and up the stairs in the direction the girls had gone, and my brain was filled with a warm and reassuring certainty.

Upstairs, it said. You want to go upstairs.

No, I told it. I wanted to stay downstairs with my parents.

But did I? No, that didn’t seem right. As quickly as I felt the need to stay with my mom and dad, I was overcome with the desire to go upstairs and watch younger Taylor and Sunny. Yes, my bedroom was exactly where I wanted to be. How silly I was to think I wanted to stay downstairs. Why would I want to do that?

There was a small niggling in the back of my mind, like I’d forgotten something important, but just as quickly as I felt it, it was gone.

My feet carried me into my bedroom, where my younger self was folded onto my bed watching Sunny shove her things into her overnight bag.

“Do you think they’ll cancel school again tomorrow?” Younger me asked, leaning across the bed to peer out the window.

Sunny was silent as she zipped up her bag.

“It looks like it’s already melting. The street’s clear anyway. But maybe it will snow again tonight?” Young Taylor looked back at Sunny hopefully, but Sunny gazed at the bedroom door, not listening.

“You’re so lucky,” Sunny whispered, and I was reminded of the words I’d heard my dad whisper to my mother a few moments before.

“What?” the younger me asked. “What’s so lucky?”

Sunny opened her mouth, but was cut off by the sound of a car horn blaring from the front of my house.

She shook her head. “Nothing, never mind. Frank’s here.” She never called him Dad; it was always Frank.

We started down the stairs and her dad leaned on the horn again, letting the sound hang in the air, long and loud like a foghorn. Sunny frowned and waved goodbye, yelling a thank you to my mom and dad before she ran out the door (during which time her dad tapped on the horn three more times).

My younger self was perched on the window ledge overlooking the front yard, watching Sunny run down the driveway to the waiting car.

I remember this, I thought, watching myself watch Sunny.

Even from inside the house I heard Sunny yell, “Goddamn it, Frank!” when she opened the passenger side door. “Shut up already!”

He stared straight ahead and didn’t say anything to her, his face as vacant as it would have been if he was sitting in an empty car. I could see Sunny’s mouth moving through the passenger-side window and knew she was laying in to him thick and heavy, but he just looked straight in front of him like she was invisible.

I remember watching them all those years ago, wondering if she was crying, but convincing myself that it was a trick of the light. Sunny didn’t cry. In fact, I’d only seen her cry once, a few years before, on the night her mother left.

It had been a Wednesday night. I had just gotten out of the bath, my skin still pink from the hot water, when I found Sunny and her dog sitting on my bed next to my mom. Sunny’s eyes were so swollen and puffy that she looked like a bee had stung her.

“Sunny’s going to stay with us for a few nights,” my mother said, her hand gripping Sunny’s shoulder like she was afraid she might bolt for the door. I let out a squeal of excitement because it was the middle of the school week and Mom never let me have friends stay over on a weeknight. I had flashes of late-night video game battles, popcorn, movies, and forgotten homework. But Sunny wasn’t smiling, there were no conspiring looks exchanged between us.

I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep quiet and watched Sunny’s face. She looked down at the carpet, seeing something I couldn’t see. I said her name once, softly, trying to make sure she was really there. Her shoulders started to shake, and she leaned into my mother’s chest, holding on to Miss Violet Beauregard so tightly that the dog’s normally bulging eyes looked like they might pop out of their sockets.

My mother’s arms circled around her tiny frame, squeezing her and whispering into her ear, “It’s okay, Sunny. Everything’s okay. You’re going to be fine, sweetheart.” I was watching a ghost; Sunny floated somewhere far away from the shell leaning into my mother.