Unspeakable Things(76)

She’d known this awful thing all along.

She was sorry I had to learn it now.

I slipped into a cave deep and black inside myself. Jin wasn’t going to make everything right.

No one was.

Mom stood. “I’ll make sandwiches.”

We sat uncomfortably while she rustled in the kitchen.

“So you like the Nellie Bly’s Trust It or Don’t I sent you?” Jin asked.

I wanted to rip the title right out of her mouth. “Yeah.”

“What’s this now? You’ve been writing me two letters a week for a year, and you’re shy suddenly?”

I tried to smile, but I felt like a clown. There it was, so plain it might as well have been written across a movie screen. How could I ever have overlooked it? Jin was missing a piece of herself, that same piece that Sephie had lost back in December. I turned toward Dad, who was perched on the edge of his chair, grinning at Jin like an ape. That’s all he was. A big, swinging ape who took and smashed and made us all clean it up.

A yell was building in my throat, a scream that would shame them all.

That’s when Mom returned with a ham sandwich and a slice of chocolate cake on a TV tray. She kept her head down and handed it toward Jin. “Here you go.”

“Thank you.” Jin drained her drink and handed it to Dad. “Another, please.”

Dad stood to take it, his gaze greedy. “Be right back. Then let’s take our drinks down to my studio. I have something new to show you.”

Jin was tucking into her sandwich but blinked like she had something in her eye. It reminded me of the trick she’d taught me for removing gunk: Grab your top eyelashes to pull your top eyelid out and over your bottom. Hold your eye closed like that, blinking the bottom lashes against your eyelid interior. It loosened whatever was stuck in there. Worked every time.

“Aunt Jin, I don’t want you to go to Dad’s studio,” I said.

She chucked my chin. I smelled the onion from her sandwich. “Whatever you say, peanut. I can head down there after you two are asleep.”

Mom winced.

I had banked everything on Jin rescuing me. She wouldn’t, or couldn’t. I didn’t think so, but I had to be sure. “Jin, I want to come live with you this summer.”

She guffawed at that, a lettuce fleck shooting out of her mouth and landing on the knee of her peasant skirt. “I don’t know where I’m staying tonight, let alone all summer.”

“You can sleep here tonight,” Mom said through gritted teeth.

“Or stay here and not sleep,” Jin said, coyly.

Mom nodded. It was a tight movement. “Or not sleep.”

“Sephie, tell me about your summer,” Aunt Jin said, turning toward my sister. Jin was already halfway done with her sandwich. She was so pretty, her brown hair cascading down her back, bright peacock feather earrings accenting her blue eyes. She was a butterfly, fast and temporary, and she was one more person who played the game by Dad’s rules.

I watched her talk to Sephie, but I didn’t hear what they were saying. All this time I’d thought of Aunt Jin as a hero. Well, here’s something you should know: heroes are willing to pause their own lives to help you. Jin wasn’t that. She was a regular person.

“Mom, I’m sorry,” I said suddenly, so loud that everyone stopped talking.

Mom had been sitting on the edge of the ottoman, hands clasped between her knees, leaning toward the three of us but disconnected. “What?”

I jumped up and ran to her, hugging her as tight as I could. “I’m so sorry.”

She patted my arm. Her laugh was surprised. “What for?”

“Yeah, Cassie-bo-bassie, what for?” Aunt Jin asked, chuckling. “Where’s the love for me?”

“I love you, too, Aunt Jin.” And I did. But not like I loved Mom.

“More importantly, where’s the love for me?” Dad asked, wandering into the room with a full drink in each hand. He offered one to Aunt Jin. She took it, sidling closer to Sephie. She patted the spot I’d vacated, and Dad dropped into it, his arm behind Jin. Mom twitched in my embrace.

“So many beautiful ladies here tonight!” Dad said. He was gregarious drunk, but there was an edge to it. “Who shall I sleep with?”

“Donny!” Jin said, faux shocked. She slapped his leg. “You shall sleep with your wife.”

“You know,” Dad said, his voice too loud, “there are some cultures where all the women in a family become lovers to a single man.” He meant it as a joke, or at least we were all supposed to act like it was. When it came to the extra-creepy things he said, that was the agreement we’d had for as long as I could remember.

Aunt Jin leaned toward Sephie, her voice brassy and loud, their faces too close. “That reminds me of your grandpa,” she said, waggling her eyebrows. “He was a good drinker, too, just like your dad.”

I didn’t think that was funny. I guess Mom didn’t either, because she gasped, pushing me aside so she could jump to her feet.

“Jin, I think it’s time for you to leave.”

Jin’s eyebrows shot straight up. “You have got to be shitting me, Peggy.”

“Now,” Mom ordered.

“You’ve always been able to forgive anything but the truth, haven’t you?” Jin asked, standing. Her face had fisted up small and tight. “Don’t talk, don’t feel, and welcome the past into the present.”