Chapter 42: Skylar

We had a funeral for Jo Beth and tons of people turned out. The press came too, though they hadn’t been invited. Jo Beth probably would have been pleased that they showed up, but to me their presence offered an extra level of anxiety because I was to deliver the eulogy. I stood at the podium, shivering underneath a scratchy, black wool dress that failed to keep me warm. When my knees buckled and words failed me, I looked out across a room occupied mostly by strangers and my eyes settled on the hundreds of white carnations dotting every available space. We’d covered the funeral parlor with the most predictable of flowers, but I’d chosen them because I thought they looked like little fragrant snow balls.

Speak, Skylar, a voice inside my head told me. It was a voice that sounded like Jo Beth.

I can’t, I silently plead, because once this speech is over and once this funeral is over then you’ll really be gone. Once we put you to rest, you really are dead.

“I may be dead,” the voice responded, “but I’ll never be at rest.”

I focused my gaze on Mom and Dad, sitting in the front row, their hands gripped together. I couldn’t add to their pain by refusing to talk. With a heaving chest, I told my favorite stories about Jo Beth, about her courage, skiing skill, success, and her magnetic personality.

“Jo Beth was talented,” I said, finishing up. “But it wasn’t her talent that defined her. It was her passion. She loved fiercely and she fought fiercely too. From the first day I was conscious of anything, I was conscious that my sister loved me. It’s her love and encouragement that’s made me who I am today.” My tears forced their way out; I was powerless to refuse, so I just let them flow. “The world will be a grey place without Jo Beth. The sun won’t reflect off the snow as brightly as it used to. I know Jo Beth would have done anything for Bijou and all I can say is…” I could hear my voice splintering with sorrow, “…Jo Beth, I promise to be a great aunt to Bijou, just like you were a great sister to me.”

Afterwards, Mitch approached me, holding Bijou. “That was lovely,” he said.

“Do you really think so?”

His eyes gleamed but I couldn’t tell if it was with tears or with happiness. “I think Jo Beth hated to be at her own funeral, until she heard your speech, and then she felt a whole lot better.”

Weeks went by and Mitch and I established a routine. Soon I was off my crutches so I didn’t need him to go downstairs in the middle of the night to fill a bottle with formula. We would take turns getting up with Bijou, but often we’d lose track of whose turn it was, and then both of us would get up. On those nights, we would sit while the rest of the world slept. While Bijou drank her bottle, Mitch and I drank in Bijou. I can’t say that I trusted Mitch or that I no longer suspected him, but somehow I wedged those fears into a less prominent place of my psyche, like they occupied a parking spot a mile away from the main event. Meanwhile, I worked on my coursework, on my novel, and on physical therapy for my knee.

One afternoon I came home after a particularly grueling session to find Bijou napping in the nursery, but there was no sign of Mitch. I limped around, softly calling his name, until I found him on the top floor, which I had set up as an office with a desktop computer. Mitch sat at it, consumed by whatever was on the screen and oblivious to my presence.

“What are you doing?” This was more accusation than question, and my malevolence-filled voice made him start and turn around.

“Oh, hi.” His Adam’s apple rose and fell and he let his fingers run absently through his curls, while his other hand tapped listlessly against the desk. He was no longer looking at the computer screen but he wasn’t looking at me either. I came closer and saw what had been the focus of his attention. It was my email account. He’d been reading an old correspondence between Jo Beth and me.

Hot rage occupied my limbs. “That’s private! What gave you the right to read it?” I reached over and slammed my laptop shut, cursing myself for not signing out of my email account the last time I was online. How could I have been so stupid?

He wheeled his chair back. Now there was enough distance between us to look at each other. “I’m sorry. I just missed her and I felt desperate for a picture that I’d never seen, or to learn something new about her. But I should have asked you first.”

“You’re damn right you should have asked me first! This is a total violation!”

Mitch remained calm in the face of my storm. The way he just hung his head made my cyclone-like anger twirl, unable to touch down. “I apologize,” he said. “And I wish I’d never read it. I mean, I had no idea that Jo Beth thought such things.”

A beat passed, maybe two, where neither of us spoke. Then I pivoted back toward my computer. I lifted its lid and read:

Skylar,

I can’t stand being cooped up in Magda’s apartment one second longer. Mitch is still in love with her and she’s still in love with him. Every day I grow more afraid of them and then I get these violent thoughts that are too awful to describe. Plus, I worry that I’ll be a terrible mother. I think the baby will be better off if Mitch leaves me, which is probably what will happen. He and Magda will steal my baby and they’ll be a family together.

I sighed. Jo Beth had sent me lots of emails over the course of her pregnancy and they all had one of three themes. One: she was happy and in love. Two: she was anxious to get out, frantic to return to her former self. Or three: like the email Mitch had just found, her ramblings were paranoid, lonely, and kind of creepy. No matter the theme, I had put all the emails into their own folder so I’d never accidentally delete them, but right now I had no desire to read any of them or remember what I’d been trying so hard to forget.

“Do you believe what she wrote in those emails?” Mitch asked. “Do you think I would hurt Jo Beth, take the baby, and leave?”

I let my eyes fixate on him, considering his question, wishing not to deflect it. After all, now was my chance. “Yes,” I replied, and the pressure of my hostility suddenly popped like an angry zit.

Mitch gripped the armrests of the office chair. “Then why did you say that I should stay here?”

“So I could help take care of Bijou.”

Unblinking brown eyes, inflated with reproach, sized me up. “Your mom would’ve done that.”

“I also wanted to prove that you were guilty.”

“Guilty of what?” he asked.

“Murdering my sister. Breaking her heart. Stealing her money. Sleeping with her best friend. Any or all of the above.”

He stood and went to the window, casually, like he was interested in the afternoon’s weather. “And once you proved this, what would happen next?”

“You’d be forced to leave and my parents and I would raise Bijou, without you. That’s what Jo Beth wanted.”

“You know what she wanted?” His back was to me, but I could see his arms were crossed. Did his stance indicate a guilty conscience, defiance, or just fear?

“Of course. I knew her better than anyone.”

He turned toward me, his arms fell to his side and his expression turned cloudy, like a cumulus bursting with rain. “When did Jo Beth tell you that she wanted you to raise Bijou?”

“Hold on.”

Sitting at my computer, I opened my dropbox, where I’d stored the very last voicemail from Jo Beth, and pressed play. “Sky, you have to believe me because Mom doesn’t…” I watched his face as Jo Beth accused him of insanity, but he didn’t flinch. He just squeezed his eyes shut and clamped his lips together, probably to ward away tears. “Skylar, where are you? Why didn’t you come?” Now it was my turn to cry; I couldn’t listen without being pelted by guilt. “I have to get myself and my baby away from Mitch. Once she’s born I’m going to leave and I’ll need your help. Promise that you’ll help me.”

I pressed stop.

“I understand,” Mitch said, sounding like a patient who’d just accepted his doctor’s unfortunate prognosis. “Do you want me to go to jail, or do you just want to get Bijou away from me?”

I let my fingers glide over the keyboard, thinking about all the correspondences Jo Beth and I could no longer have, happy emails with good news, and sad ones wishing we were together. They were all gone and the horrible realization sunk in: not even making Mitch suffer would bring Jo Beth back. I inhaled heavily. It hurt to speak. “When my sister died, the world stopped making sense. I had to blame someone, so I blamed you instead of blaming myself. I wanted to make you miserable, because you made Jo Beth miserable. I would take Bijou away from you because you took Jo Beth from me. That would be my retribution. After that… I don’t know. I guess I don’t care if you go to jail or not.”

“That’s nice of you.”

“I don’t need your sarcasm.”

“No really.” He came over and leaned against the desk where I sat. “I deserve the worst punishment imaginable. Nobody is more irredeemable than me. I should be in hell right now. But don’t worry…” He held out his hands in a limp, defeated gesture, as if the air around him was somehow made pathetic by his mere presence. “…I already am.”

“I doubt that.”

“Why?”

“Because as much as I blame you for Jo Beth’s death, I blame myself even more. I’m the one who deserves to be in hell.”

He didn’t argue and at first, I thought he wouldn’t answer at all. He just stared down at me, until finally in a whisper he asked, “Do you think I’m insane?”

“Why does it matter what I think?”

The eyes that examined me were passive but not still. His face held no flicker of challenge, nor a wish for a showdown. I got the feeling that if, at that moment, I whipped out a gun, he would remain rooted to his spot, but he might thrust out his chest to make it easier to shoot him in the heart.

When Jo Beth died, had a part of him died too? Did we have that in common?

“Never mind,” I finally said. “Jo Beth always said that I was too romantic, that I’m just like all the heroines in all the classic novels I read, who are way too eager to forgive a guy for his ‘many trespasses.’”

I’d used air quotes when I said, “many trespasses” but with an abrupt motion, my right index finger swung up and landed firmly on the keyboard’s delete button, erasing Jo Beth’s voicemail for good.

“Deleting it doesn’t matter,” Mitch said. “We’ll both always remember what she said. That voicemail is like a living, self-regulating organism that will simply adapt to being erased.”

“Okay….” I shook my head, unable to respond to his strange simile. “Look, I’ll try to forget and I think you should too. We should start clean.”

He rubbed his temples like he had a migraine. “Skylar, I wish I could explain what happened between Jo Beth and me. But I don’t think I can. You’re so pure, so convinced you know the difference between right and wrong, and maybe you do. Maybe you understand the things that will always confuse me. But nevertheless, I wouldn’t even know where to start.” He sighed and switched to massaging the back of his neck. “You loved her so much and she loved you back. No, go ahead and blame me for everything. It will make you feel better and I owe you that much.”

I knew there was subtext to his little speech, but I wasn’t picking up on the meaning. Slowly I rose from my chair, so we stood face to face. “What are you saying?”

His voice was soft, almost soothing. “I’m saying that I should go.”

I felt like pushing him but I settled for putting my hands insolently against my hips. “You can’t go! What about Bijou?”

“Obviously, she’ll go too.”

“You can’t take her from me!” Those nights spent rocking her, the days spent encouraging her to lift her head during tummy time, or the moments of just sitting, propping her up against my knees so I could watch her face morph into a variety of expressions (which I knew were probably caused by gas and probably not smiles) all came rushing at me. I was already way more attached to her than I’d ever thought I’d be.

Mitch took in my face, my tone, my desperation. “Fine,” he said, “then I’ll stay with your parents. But I think some distance between you and me would be healthy.”

“No!” I really needed something to push, so I chose the office chair. I sent its wheels spinning, slamming it into the desk. If my action shocked Mitch, he didn’t let on and he didn’t pull away when I grasped his forearm. “Look, I don’t hate you. I doubt I even know you.”

“But you thought you did. You thought you knew me just from Jo Beth’s descriptions.”

“So what?” I squeezed his wrist, liking how thick and sturdy it felt in my grasp. “I was eager to believe anything she had to say about you, especially if it was bad.”

“Why?”

“Because I was jealous.” My confession seemed to pull us closer together, though all at once I was aware of how tall Mitch stood over me, how his chest was almost twice the width of my torso. I released him and stepped away. “I wanted Jo Beth to myself and even though I should have been happy when she found you, I was eaten up inside.”

Mitch’s laugh was gloomy yet forgiving. “Wow. That’s ironic, because I’ve always been jealous of you.”

My raised eyebrows urged him to continue, which he did. “It was clear from the start that she’d never be as close to me as she was to you.” His chin dropped and he was suddenly consumed with picking at what had to be a crusty spot of baby spit-up on the hem of his flannel shirt. “There were times when she scared me, when I knew I didn’t understand and I didn’t know how to make things better, and I thought, if only Skylar was here, and then I’d sort of hate you for being the one person who could help her.”

“But in the end, I failed her.”

“If that’s true, then we both failed her.”

We were silent then, and from downstairs came the sound of Bijou crying. “How long do you think she’s been awake?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But we should go down.”

Mitch started for the stairs first and I followed. Once in her nursery we worked together: changing Bijou’s diaper, giving her a bottle, and coaxing out a burp as she cried for over an hour. Then we ate dinner and watched TV, exhausted from the drama of the afternoon.

Mitch didn’t mention leaving again.