I’ve got a score to settle and I’m not leaving until I get my pound of flesh.
And if word reaches that son of a bitch that I’m in town, let him sweat out the reason why until I’m ready to share.
A short whirlwind in dark blue satin zips this way from out of nowhere.
“Uncle Danny! Trentcassini found you.”
At first I don’t know if the little girl in front of me is Mara or Caitlin but then I remember being told that one of them has shorter hair.
“I sure did, Caitlin.”
She flashes the tiniest of pleased smiles and then pulls at her uncle’s hand. “Where have you been, Uncle Danny? Gramma was looking for you when she said goodbye.”
Danny frowns. “Your grandmother left already?”
“She said she had a headache. Aunt Gretchen got real mad at her.”
“And where is Aunt Gretchen?”
While he’s in the middle of asking the question, his sister appears on the far side of the room. I’m still not used to the fact that Gretchen Aaronson has evolved into such a beauty. If possible, she’s more stunning than she was half an hour ago. Gretchen doesn’t seem to notice me at all. She’s staring at her brother. Mara holds her hand while drinking out of a cardboard juice box.
Danny and Gretchen are eyeing each other like two wary opponents who are waiting to hear what the rules of the ring will be.
Well, I won’t be the one making the rules.
But with Jules in mind, I think I can manage to do a small good deed right now.
“You know something? I didn’t get to finish watching Frozen,” I say to Caitlin. “I was wondering how it ends.”
She forgets her sadness for a minute and her face lights up. She drops her uncle’s hand and reaches for mine. “We can watch it right now!”
Mara overhears and hands her juice box over to Gretchen so she can help drag me back to the den. “We’re gonna watch Frozen with Trentcassini.”
“You both can just call me Trent,” I tell them. I doubt they are listening, but I pass within inches of Gretchen. Our eyes meet and hers are full of grudging appreciation.
“Thank you,” she murmurs.
And the strangest thought flies through my head.
Right now I’d do just about anything to earn a smile from her.
3
Gretchen
Abigail Fisher sent an arrangement of white lilies as big as a coffee table. There was a printed square card attached from Doris’s Flower Shop here in town.
Whatever will be.
Love always, Abigail
I wonder who told her.
Jules keeps in touch with Abigail but I hadn’t found the time to call the Long Island nursing home where she lives.
It’s possible she considers the note to be a universal piece of life advice.
Or maybe time has just robbed her brain of too much and one of the few things that remains consistent is the name of her favorite song.
The flowers arrived at the house this morning before the funeral and there was really no place to put them. I left them in our parents’ old room, which is where I usually stay when I visit. Caitlin has my old bedroom while Mara has Danny’s. Jules kept the same upstairs bedroom she’s always had.
Once the mourners begin to straggle out it’s like someone rang a dinner bell and they all become eager to get away.
I don’t blame them.
Too many hours in the middle of a tragedy makes people afraid, as if their own lives and families might be unwittingly damaged.
“Call me if you need anything, sweets,” says Ashley Schwartz as she plants a dry and very unnecessary kiss on my cheek. She and Jules were friends in high school. Ashley and the rest of the popular clique ditched Jules following our father’s arrest.
I don’t smile at her. “Right. I know I can count on you.”
She begins to smile but falters when she takes a good look at my face and considers that I might be trolling her, which I am.
I don’t give a fuck about Ashley Schwartz’s feelings.
My sister is in a box at the Woodlawn Cemetery and my soul is in shreds.
The exit becomes a full blown parade of hasty condolences, more than a few tears and a handful of randomly offered business cards. I shove the business cards down the narrow neck of a ceramic vase the first chance I get.
Soon there’s no one left except me and Danny and the twins.
Oh, and Trent Cassini.
He’s here too.
A couple of times I poked my head into the den to make sure all was well and found him hunched on a seat that was too small for his tall, muscled body while he stared at cartoon characters. He listened as the twins provided constant instruction on the finer plot points, in case he was confused about why a snowman could speak.
Each time I looked in, Trent would glance at me for a split second and turn back to the screen without a word. It was an odd setup but the girls were strangely delighted to have his company. Since they have had nothing to smile about today, I allowed Trent to stay where he was.
Right on schedule at six p.m. my phone suddenly plays a few bars of Sunrise, Sunset from Fiddler on the Roof.
My heart shatters anew.
This is Sunday, a day when I would always check in with Jules. I’ve forgotten to turn off the reminder alarm set to a tune from Jules’s favorite musical.
I never want to hear that song again. That song makes me sick.
I hate Sunday too. Sunday will now always be the day that I buried my sister.
The call came at four in the morning, an unknown number with an upstate area code, and I answered before I had time to think about why anyone would need to get in touch with me at that hour.
Officer Gavin Brand from the Lake Stuart Police Department was given the unpleasant chore of breaking the news. He was in my high school class, a quirky kid who was always trying to crack bad jokes.
He was all out of jokes when he explained about the ice and the garbage truck. He promised Jules had died instantly, as if that fact was a small mercy that should ease the devastation.
Not possible.
Jules didn’t have time to whisper a prayer or think about her girls. She was on her way home after a late night at the thankless low level job where she worked too hard to provide for her daughters. She was probably tired. She was likely anxious to pick up Mara and Caitlin from the woman who watched them in her home daycare.
Officer Gavin Brand said the girls were safe and staying with their babysitter until a family member could claim them. He was still talking when I abruptly ended the call.
I’d lived inside terrible moments before. None as bad as that one but I’m familiar with the unnatural sense of calm that can carry the mind through when things need to be done.
And there were things to be done.
I called my mother at her home in Rochester. I left a message at the Central New York State Correctional Center so my father could be informed. And I called my brother in Arizona, who was just stumbling home to his apartment after partying all night.
“Are you sure, Gretch? Oh Jesus, it can’t be her!”
The sound of my big brother’s sobs unlocked my own and for a terrible second I became the girl who crawled under her math desk one day and screamed until she was slapped.
I might have gone that route again if not for the girls.
Because of the girls I calmly packed my bags, rented a car and drove straight to Lake Stuart. I’m the one who told them that the beautiful, loving, funny mother they adored would not be coming home. Everything had become too real and too horrible.