Good Girl Bad (27)
“Something bothering you, Nate?” Rebecca fixes him with a steely stare, and Nate has to remind himself that this is not his family anymore.
It’s not his problem.
Well, that’s not quite true, is it? he thinks to himself. They’re always going to be family, whether he likes it or not. But he doesn’t have to fix this. He doesn’t have to solve it, or save anyone.
“Hello, Mom. Hello, Dad.” Rebecca turns to her parents, her voice cool. “Still not big on giving notice, I see.” She looks determined to be frosty, but Nate thinks she also looks as though she might cry. He feels completely clueless about their family dynamics.
“I was just telling your folks we think someone broke into Tabby’s room last night. That perhaps it might be good for Gen to not be here for a while. Gen filled them in on what’s been going on here. Honestly, I don’t know what they can help with. What do you think?”
“It might be a good idea. Sure.” Nate nearly falls over in surprise. Rebecca trusts them with Genevieve?
“I won’t go.” Genevieve peers out from behind Rebecca. Nate didn’t hear her get up and wonders how long she has been standing within earshot. Despite her statement, she pushes past Rebecca and runs over to her grandmother and wraps her in a fierce hug.
“Sweetie.” Cheryl really does cry now, big fat tears sliding down her cheeks, gasping breaths that she tries to hide. “It’s so good to hug you.” Rob squeezes Gen’s shoulder too, his voice gruff: “Hey, kid.”
Nate looks from them to Gen to Rebecca in confusion. Gen has obviously been in touch with her grandparents more than just this incident. And Rebecca is pretending it’s all perfectly normal, pulling containers out of the pantry for breakfast.
He wants to shout, “What the hell’s going on?” Everything seems to be operating on two levels—the fake, false, shiny upper level where no one says what they mean, and they all just pretend this is a normal family get together; and a murky undertow, where nothing is as it seems.
Why are Cheryl and Rob here?
What has Genevieve told them?
Why is Rebecca letting them stay after decades of refusing to talk about them?
His head is pounding again. All this, on top of—where the hell is Tabby?
He can’t even think about Leroy.
He just wants his daughter back. Once she’s back, he can sort everything else out.
Like how Leroy died, for example.
Like why Tabby wanted to move in with him.
Like if an older man was taking advantage of her.
And how it all related to, oh God—why oh why had he left it this long—the fact that his children were scared of their bloody mother?
22
The little girl strokes her sister’s hair, murmuring soothing, shushing noises.
Her sister is sick, and she is looking after her.
She’s stripped her bed and put everything in the wash, and wiped up the vomit as best she can from the carpet. Later, she’ll ask her mother how best to remove the stain, and be shouted at because she left it so long, rather than praised for cleaning it up at all.
She doesn’t know that yet though.
She’s tucked her sister up in her own bed, wiping her brow with a damp face washer.
Her sister is hot. Very hot. But the little girl knows better than to disturb her mother’s sleep.
Outside, she can see stars stabbing holes in the sky. As she shushes and murmurs, she wonders what other children are doing. Sleeping, of course. But are they doing better than her? Are they looking after their siblings? Are they getting things right?
Just yesterday, she’d carefully chosen her clothes, brushed her long hair, looked at herself in the mirror and been pleased. She looked pretty, like the girls in the magazines some of the other girls brought to school. For some reason she thought that that was important, that that would please her parents, and now she doesn’t know why.
Why had she thought wasting time on her appearance would be a good idea?
Her father had stared at her, his lip curling, and she knew immediately it had been a bad idea.
“You look like a slut, just like your mother,” he had said, and her mother had turned on her in a rage. So her father was mad at her and her mother, and it was all her fault.
Except, it was just last week that her father had looked her up and down after school in disgust. “Brush your hair and wear clean clothes to school. You look like a tramp.” And she’d worked out how to use the washing machine all by herself. She’d made sure her clothes were clean every day since.
She didn’t have a hairbrush, but she had found her mother’s in the bathroom, and brushed her locks until they felt silky. She’d brushed her sister’s, too.
She was so proud of working out the washing machine.
Now, she strokes her sister’s head and watches her sleep. She’s restless. She’s vomited twice already. The second time the little girl was ready though—she had found a bucket in the laundry, and caught every last drop.
She kisses her sister’s brow gently, and can smell the vomit. So she goes and dips the face washer in soapy water from the bathroom, squeezes it out, and gently runs it along the offending hairs, alternately cleaning and cooling her sister.
She loves her sister more than anything in the world.