Twenty-nine

Sitting beside Anthony at the breakfast table makes my skin crawl.

I tell myself what I always do: It’s not as bad as being a bridesmaid at their wedding, is it?

No, it isn’t. But this still sucks.

I took a quick nap around dawn, but now I’m here, drinking café au lait with my family as we pretend my father isn’t being wheeled into surgery this very moment.

“He was on the golf course,” Mom says as she sips her coffee from a china cup. “They say he simply fell over. Not a word. Bud Teague didn’t call me until they were already at Touro. Wouldn’t you call a man’s wife first thing?”

“I’d call an ambulance first thing,” I say. “Which Mr. Teague did. He might’ve saved Dad’s life, Mom. So maybe don’t worry about the etiquette.”

My mother gives me a wounded look, as does Chloe. It’s my sister who reprimands me as she primly spoons a slice from her grapefruit half. “We’re all upset. I think sometimes it’s easier to fret about little things than the big things.”

That would almost be wise, if it came from someone who didn’t take it to the point of living in total denial.

“Do you want some Cocoa Krispies, Aunt Vivi?” Libby believes us when we tell her that her PawPaw is going to be just fine, so she’s as bright and chipper as ever. “’Cause look, I have Cocoa Krispies, and then we would be alike.”

“Aunt Vivi would rather have some bacon, wouldn’t you, darlin’?” Anthony always smiles when he calls me darling. He knows I hate it. He also knows I can’t shoot him down for it without roiling waters we’ve all allowed to lie still.

“I’ll have Cocoa Krispies,” I say, to make Libby smile. Besides, I’m operating on about two hours’ sleep, so I could use the sugar rush.

“Better watch it with that kind of junk,” Anthony says. “Don’t want to lose that pretty figure, do you?”

How dare he examine my body. How dare he act as if he should get to control me. I say only, “You’re one to talk. That’s your fourth piece of bacon.” And I cast a pointed glance at his softer middle, but then I wish I hadn’t. Even looking directly at him revolts me.

He and Chloe broke up and got back together endless times during undergrad. Each time they split filled me with hope. Maybe this time he’d go away for good; maybe Chloe would be so angry with him that she’d think again about what I’d told her, and realize it was the truth.

But Anthony sweet-talked his way back into her life over and over again. My mom did what he couldn’t, encouraging Chloe to take him back. I know Mom was thinking more of the Whedon family fortune than anything else. If only the same were true for Chloe. Instead she actually loves the son of a bitch.

I can tell Anthony’s trying to think of a comeback to my “bacon” remark, so I decide to move the conversation along fast. “When can we visit him?”

“Once he’s in the recovery room.”

“Not before surgery?” So much for my hopes of seeing him before the operation.

“No, not until after.” Mom looks stricken, and for a moment, the real love she feels for my father eclipses everything else. I feel like her daughter, the one who trusted her so much. Despite everything I still want to trust her. “We’ll all go in together.”

“Not Olivia,” Chloe says hastily. “She’s too little. It will frighten her.”

“I’m not too little!” Libby insists. She would say this no matter what we’d just suggested, whether it was visiting the hospital or steering a fire truck. “And I want to see PawPaw.”

Mom says, “I tell you what, Chloe. Vivienne and I will go in first. If Thad seems up to talking, you can bring Olivia in with you. If not, she can stay with Anthony.”

Libby looks like she might cry. Anthony chucks her under the chin. “Cheer up, sunshine. I’ll take you someplace nice.”

She smiles at him. This little girl I love so much adores her father. To her he can do no wrong.

Someday, no doubt, Libby will learn that’s not true. But she’ll never learn it from me.

•   •   •

The mundane has a way of intruding on the extraordinary.

Mom runs out of bread, and Libby will want some milk later on, plus I don’t have any extra underwear with me. (Thank goodness I can write this off to packing in a hurry.) So around ten A.M.—even while our dad is lying on an operating table—Chloe and I make a Walgreens run.

“I feel so guilty,” I say as I grab a package of cheap Hanes bikini briefs from the drugstore wall. “I know it doesn’t make any difference whether we’re in the waiting room, or at home hoping the phone will ring, but—buying panties and groceries seems so trivial.”

“It’s trivial until you’re hungry,” Chloe points out. “Besides, what would be the point of the waiting room?”

This isn’t as heartless as it sounds. We live not even a five-minute drive from the hospital, which means the house is as logical a spot to wait as anyplace on-site could be. I know my parents stayed at the house while I was getting my tonsils out; they sat with me on the upstairs gallery while Chloe was in labor.

And if we get bad news, Mom would rather fall apart in private. Even then, she would care about appearances. Then again, I’d probably rather be at home too. Then I wouldn’t have to think about driving back, or pulling myself together to talk to doctors, or anything. I could just let go.

Listen to yourself, I think. You’re telling yourself how to react if your father dies.

Which is when Chloe’s phone rings.

We both freeze. She and I stare at each other, stricken. This is too early for them to be calling, isn’t it? Too early if it’s good news—

Chloe fumbles in her purse for her cell phone. As she lifts it to her ear, she holds her other hand out to me. For this moment we are sisters again, sisters only. Daddy’s little girls.

“Momma?” Chloe’s voice shakes. I can just make out my mother’s voice—high, tremulous—but the words escape me.

Then Chloe smiles, and I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding.

Thank God. Thank God.

I hug Chloe tightly. She hugs me back like nothing had ever come between us, or ever could.

This truce lasts all of seven minutes.

After we cry our eyes out standing in the Walgreens cosmetics aisle, and Chloe relates the details (went even better than expected, new valve is functioning perfectly), we check out and head back home. As Chloe steers her beige-gold Lexus down Napoleon Avenue, she asks, “What else do we need to do for him? He’s got his bag. We can bring him a couple of books—”

“And his slippers.” We forgot to pack those this morning. Then another idea occurs to me. “We ought to move some of his stuff downstairs and fix up the guest room for him.”

The guest room is a small, closetless space on the first floor separated from the living room by some old sliding doors. It’s not the most luxurious place on earth, but it’s comfortable enough.

Chloe stares at me. “Why would Daddy move into the guest room?”

“He can’t climb those stairs every day right after heart surgery, Chloe.”

“Who said anything about every day? We’ll get him upstairs and take care of him from then on.”

“It might be weeks. Or months.”

“Then we’ll hire someone to stay with him.”

My mother can’t afford that. Anthony and Chloe can, though. Maybe I should be thankful for their generosity, but—“You’re not thinking this through. Dad would hate being stuck up there for forever. He’d much rather be able to eat in the dining room, or go out on the porch swing when Libby’s playing in the yard—”

“You come home twice a year, if that.” Chloe snaps the turn signal, refusing to turn toward me. “It takes an emergency to get you here. Then, when you decide to grace us with the honor of your presence, you think you know what’s best for everyone.”

Count to ten, I tell myself. Deep breaths. “It’s like you said this morning. We’re all upset and tired, so we’re all picking at little things.”

Chloe doesn’t take the graceful way out. “You could be more a part of this family than you are, if you really wanted to be. Obviously, you don’t. It’s fun for you to play with Libby every once in a while, but otherwise you don’t care whether you see us at all.”

That’s not true. But it’s close enough to the truth to sting.

She keeps talking as she steers the Lexus onto St. Charles Avenue. “I don’t know why we bother asking you. All you do is see the worst in things. You’re always looking at the negative. Like now, when you assume Daddy’s going to be an invalid for the rest of his life.”

“That is not what I said.” Looking at the negative? For Chloe, that means I acknowledge reality. “You know what? Let’s ask Dad what he wants once it’s time for him to come home. Then we can do whatever he’d like best.”

Chloe’s shrug means she’ll consider it. By now, however, she’s too invested in our argument to let it drop so easily. “You’re not going to graduate school on the dark side of the moon. You’re in Austin. Why don’t you ever come home, if you care about us so much?”

I cross my arms in front of my chest. The edge of the seat belt rubs uncomfortably against a raw spot on my wrist. “I’m busy. The coursework is demanding.”

Which is true, and yet not true. I cleared a few days to visit Jonah in Scotland. If I wanted to get back to New Orleans more often, I could.

Yes, I’m the most emotionally honest member of my family, but that’s not saying much.

Chloe actually laughs at me. “Is your ‘coursework’ the reason you didn’t come see us the last time you were in New Orleans?”

“Chloe—”

“No, tell me. I want to know. You used to like me. I remember how we used to play, and how I put your hair in curlers for you—” Her voice has become hoarse, and I realize she’s on the verge of tears. “When did you start hating me?”

“I don’t hate you. You’re my sister, Chloe. I love you.”

“Then why don’t you ever come home?”

Something inside me snaps. “You know why!”

For a few moments we drive along in silence; the only sound is Rihanna on the radio. Then Chloe shakes her head. “I can’t believe you’re still hung up on Anthony after all these years.”

I swear to God, right now I could put my fist through the windshield. “Never, ever have I been ‘hung up’ on Anthony.”

“Then why did you make up all those vicious stories about him?”

“They weren’t stories.”

This is as close as Chloe and I have come to discussing what Anthony did since the week before her wedding, when I made the mistake of bringing it up. I thought I might be able to talk her out of making the worst mistake of her life. No such luck. Even before I’d gotten the whole story out of my mouth, she became even more convinced that I was a liar, one who had it out for her beloved Anthony.

Maybe I should try again, this moment. Simply start with Anthony and me on the sofa, Titanic on the TV, the beer can in his hand. Tell her every detail, from the way he yanked down my leggings to the way he called me a “good girl” for simply lying there and crying. Would she recognize any of that? Or does Anthony save his cruelty for women who aren’t his wife?

Down deep, though, I know it will do no good. Chloe believes Anthony. She doesn’t believe me. Second verse, same as the first.

“You’re right,” Chloe finally says as she parks on the street in front of our house; she’s so ready to get me out of her car she doesn’t even bother with the driveway. “We’re all upset and tired today. Let’s forget about this.”

Everyone else in my family chooses to forget. I’m the one cursed to remember.

The weight settles over me. I feel ungrateful, childish, for caring about anything else after I just found out Dad’s going to make it—but even that happiness doesn’t shield me from the hard truths: My family remains as toxic as it ever was. Anthony will be waiting for me back at the house with a grin on his face, and for Libby’s sake, I will have to be polite to my rapist, again. My exhaustion and my sorrow bear down on me at the same time, and suddenly I feel too heavy and sad to even get out of the car.

But there’s Libby, waving both arms as she runs around in the yard. “Aunt Vivi! Come and swing with me!”

So I get out. When I open the car door, it bumps the white carriage stone. Sure enough, there’s a small scuff on the golden surface of Chloe’s luxury car. She breathes out sharply through her nose but says nothing. Instead she jams her hands into the pockets of her quilted vest and heads straight up the walk, her golden hair swinging behind her as she goes. Even at a difficult time like this, her jeans are neatly pressed, her boots match her Prada bag, and her nails are perfect. Chloe doesn’t let anything touch her. Her shell is her shield.

As much as I want to despise her for that, I envy it, too. I could use a shield around now.

I follow her up the path to my parents’ front door. Anthony leans against one of the tall columns in front, watching. Probably Chloe thinks he’s looking at their daughter, but he’s looking at me. His smile always makes me remember the things he said that night.

You don’t want them to catch us, do you?

Good girl.

My steps falter. Struggling for composure, I turn toward Libby instead. She’s running in circles around the oak tree in the front yard, and I try to summon the energy to chase her. Before I can, though, she stops and points. “Who’s that?”

I lift my head to see a taxicab pulling off, and Jonah standing on the sidewalk, his dark suitcase by his feet.

It’s not as if I forgot he was coming. But until this moment, I didn’t realize how badly I wanted him to be here. How much I needed him. At this moment, I feel safe—from Anthony, from my screwed-up family, even from the ghosts in my own mind. It’s as if I had been drowning until this moment, when I finally broke the surface and breathed in fresh air.

Jonah came here for me.

I take one step toward him, another, and then I’m running. Jonah steps through the gate in time to catch me in his arms. I don’t speak. I don’t cry. I just let him hold me. It’s enough.