All We Left Behind (14 page)

“Where did you find her?” I ask, and he removes one of the tissues and breathes deep, dabbing his nostril with the back of his hand.

“Nowhere good.”

My jaw tightens with the implication and I glare at the padlock on Josie's door. The one on the
outside
. Our side.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means, be happy she's here.” He shoves the tissue back in his nose and slaps the mop on the tile.

I stand up and grab the padlock. I yank the metal and it bangs, making the door smack against the frame. But I don't have the key.

“Hey!” Dad rushes me. “She needs her sleep. Let her rest.”

“How long are you going to keep her in there?” I get in his face. “Why isn't she in the hospital?”

He snorts and a bitter laugh drops out of him. One of his tissues falls to the floor, and I smell dried blood.

“You got money for that?”

“I could get a job,” I offer, but he shakes his head, not bothering to pick up the tissue.

I smack the padlock, hating this.

“So that's it?” I say. “We lock her up, like a prisoner?”

He nods at me calmly and I want to hit him.

“That's it.”

I curse under my breath and he walks away, tossing the mop into the bathroom, where it smacks loudly against the tile. So much for quiet.

I slump onto the floorboards and wonder if he gets that
he's
the reason she stays away. The last time Josie was in this house it was Christmas Eve. She came home from BU after her first semester, only she looked like shit. She hadn't gained the freshman fifteen. She'd lost it. She and Dad were decorating the tree when I heard a loud
bang
!
I came out of my room to find them screaming at each other. Broken ornaments all over the floor. It was dark, except they both had fists full of glowing tree lights, strung taut between them.

“I'm a fucking adult,” she hissed.

“Yeah? Who's paying for those classes you're not attending?”

“You can't tell me—”

“No, I can tell you
exactly
what to—”

“Fuck those classes.” She yanked on the lights and the tree wobbled like it might fall down. “I didn't sign up for next term. So keep your money!”

“You what?” He yanked on the string and the lights ripped from her hands.

“You're impossible!” She threw her arms in the air and stalked away from the mess.

I could barely make out her eyes when she looked up and saw me. But they went dark.

“What?” I glared at her, standing my ground.

“God, you love having this house to yourself, don't you?” she snapped.

“I don't miss this,” I said, pointing to the shattered glass.

“No, but you would have loved picking up the pieces if I was
Mom
.”

“Fuck you.”

“You thought she was such a saint!” She shook her head at me. “You do know she was only ever nice to you when she was drunk. You know that, right? You know that being drunk was the only way she could pretend she wanted this life!”

“Knock it off!” Dad boomed, moving forward in a shadow of anger. I cowered against the wall, but Josie glared at him. Unflinching.

“You think that scares me anymore?” Her voice was eerie calm. “You think the
truth
scares me anymore? At least I can look at it.” His fist clenched and she laughed. A mean laugh, gutted from some dark place inside her. “Why don't we all admit that we
loved
it when Mom was drunk. She was fun. It was easier.”

“You're full of shit,” I snapped, but she looked at me so hard it felt like she'd kicked my kneecaps in.

“Am I?” she said, and I wanted to punch her for all those lies. “You're so naive, Kurt. I bet you didn't even know she was fucking around on Dad, or that he kept on handing her beers so she'd keep on laughing and playing music on
the back porch. Like that music was going to fix anything!”

Dad slammed the lights to the ground. They sparked violently and slashed out. Cold crawled up my arms and darkness cast over both of them.

“Get out.” His voice was so black I stopped breathing.

“You think—”

“Get out!”

I couldn't tell if she was scared, only that she shut up.

I heard footsteps against broken glass—hers—walking away from him.

“You don't live here anymore,” he said, and my throat felt thick with ash. “Get your things and don't come back.”

She didn't take a suitcase, or even her coat. There was only a black shape walking out the door.

On Christmas Day she called. But when he heard her voice on the other end of the line, he hung up.

*  *  *

In the morning I wake up in the hall. I must have fallen asleep outside her room. It's quiet and I don't hear Dad or Josie. But when I look at that padlock—

It's open.

I shoot up. Push through the door, but there's no one in there. Fear streaks through me, but a hand grabs my side.

“Hey—” It's my father.

“Where's Josie?”

“She's in the kitchen,” he says, holding up his hands to calm me. “She's eating breakfast. Give her some space.”

I shove past him, but when I get to the kitchen I slow. Not sure I'm ready. Where has she been? Will she be that animal I saw last night?

Through the door I see her hunched over a bowl of Froot Loops. Her legs poke out from baggy shorts revealing skin over bone, and the oversized sweatshirt she wears doesn't hide how little of her is underneath. Scabs cover her legs. Her hair is chopped short on one side, and I swear there's a bald spot above her ear.

Her spoon scrapes against the bowl. Scrapes again, going round, chasing the last Froot Loop. Only she never catches it. Never raises the spoon to her mouth.

She's only been gone ten months, but I would have walked right past this person on the street and never have known it was her.
My
sister. I would have been looking for someone else. I hate how that makes me think of Mom. How I liked seeing Mom happy and playing her guitar. How I didn't want to see her when she wasn't drinking.

“You gonna stand there like a pervert and stare? Or you gonna come in?”

Her body's thin, but her voice isn't.

I walk to the fridge. She tilts her chin up at me, and yellow skin stretches over the tendons of her neck. I yank open the fridge and force my eyes inside. Rotted KFC. Green Powerade. Bread.

She's got a carton of milk on the table, but I'm not going near her.

“You look good,” she says, as I pull out the bread and untie the bag. “Big-boy soccer champ, taking on the world.” She opens her mouth, like she's trying to smile, but her tongue juts into an empty space between her teeth. It writhes around like it knows the tooth is missing, but looks for it anyway.

“You—” I start, but I pull out slices of bread.

“Me what?” she fishes.

I keep pulling out slices until I have five in front of me and nothing to do with them. I grab them all and head for the door.

“Kurt.”

Her voice catches me. I scrunch all the bread in my fist and don't want to look back at her. Everything she says is a trick.

But when I do, she doesn't say anything mean. She just looks tired.

“It's good to see you,” she says, and it's not a joke.

I nod, but my throat is tight. “Yeah,” I say. Not sure I know how to look at her. How to see her this way. “It's good to see you, too.”

“Yeah,” she agrees, and I want to ask her about the scabs and where she's been. But maybe those things are too personal. Maybe they're none of my business. She shakes herself suddenly, like a reflex, and her hand flies to her nose. She starts huffing through her nostrils like she's trying to blow her nose without actually blowing it. It's rhythmic. Again and again and again.

I watch her, but she's lost in it. Like she can't make it stop.

I go to my room and change my clothes. I need to run. Get out of this house and—

But I hear Dad padlock Josie in her room. I lean against the wall and try to hear her through the wall. I listen for wheezing like in the kitchen, wheezing like I was watching something already broken. Something that can't be fixed.

But I don't hear a thing.

No screaming. No scratching. No nothing.

I listen harder, knowing this wall is thin. When Josie was in high school, I could hear her talking to her girlfriends through this wall, or playing music. I even heard her having sex with her boyfriend once when our parents weren't home. But after Mom died, things got different.

Muffled.

I knew something was wrong. I could hear her, crying. But I wasn't going to knock on her door. There was a wall between us.

Josie came out of her room one night with her face puffy and red, and I started to ask, but she told me to fuck off for even looking at her. She didn't want me to see her like that, and what would I have said anyway? Nothing I ever said to Mom made a difference. Josie would be exactly the same.

Josie didn't need me. Josie never needed anyone.

I arrive at 114 E.
Macnamara Street and the front door is open. The house is huge and I knock politely on the door frame, unsure if I'm supposed to walk in or not. I don't see a single person despite all the cars parked in the driveway.

I pad down a hall, my shoes sparkling with sequins that seem too dressed up. I look for Conner or Kurt or anyone, but all the main rooms are empty. I should have brought Lilith. She would yell loudly and storm this silence to find out where everyone is hiding. I run a hand through my blond ringlets, which I spent way too much time curling, and tell myself I don't need Lilith. I can do this without her.

Laughter cuts through an open window and there are lights in the backyard. Conner didn't mention that this was going to be a pool party, but it is. I find everyone in the pool house out back, wearing bathing suits and shorts. It's so humid inside that I start to flush, the ceiling covered in a hundred panes of glass, all fogged with breath.

I take off my coat to deal with the heat, and a dizzy smell of coconut and marijuana seeds the air. Music plays, which sounds vaguely tropical, and people linger with tiny pink umbrellas in their drinks. One umbrella has fallen into the pool and is floating on the surface with its thin tissue paper soaked wet.

My dress is already damp, sweaty under my arms, and I lift my hair momentarily to get it off my neck. The hairspray lacquered all over the curls makes them sticky with frizz. I look for Conner, but he's nowhere to be found, Kurt either, and I make a deal with myself to stay for at least half an hour. Or at least till Conner gets here. But the more I look around, the more I feel like I've crashed the party. And maybe that's the gag. I show up uninvited and the joke's on me.

No one's in the pool, which I'm happy about. Only I overhear a girl behind me mention that it's so hot that she and her friend ought to go skinny-dipping. I run a finger along the strap of my dress, not sure I should have worn it. I'd thought it was pretty when I put it on, with its off-white color and swirled rosettes. But the fabric is thin, layered with cheap chiffon that makes it soft and ruffled. If I did jump in that water with this dress on, all those layers would lie flat. They'd become pink as skin, and transparent.

Someone opens a side door to deal with the heat. It doesn't help.

“I don't think the AC's really broken,” the girl behind
me says with a snicker. “It's a plot to get everyone naked.” I peek over my shoulder and she's smiling like she thinks that would be fun. Her friend grabs a towel from a stack and tosses it at her, and the two stumble off giggling.

The surface of the pool is smooth, as still as the lake before Kurt and I dove under it with all our clothes on, like there was something beneath needing us to disturb it. I slip off my sequin shoe and dip a toe in the water. It's warm, as hot as the room, and definitely heated. Only Kurt's not here, and there's no way I'm going into that pool.

“You need a beer.”

I turn to see Tommy Rhodes from the soccer team walking my way. He eyes my legs and smiles, but his lips are so thin they almost disappear. A group of soccer players hangs by the far side of the room, and I scan them for Conner and Kurt.

“What's your poison?” Tommy asks, flashing yellow teeth, and I almost decline the drink, but no one else is talking to me.

“A beer's fine,” I say, pulling my toes from the balmy water to follow him to the keg.

“You here with someone?” he asks, shooting liquid froth into a cup, only the whole thing overflows as he hands it to me, foam oozing over the rim and covering my knuckles. “Careful there,” he says, wiping the drippage, and somehow his other arm finds its way around me. I get a whiff of his BO laced with chlorine, and I adjust, trying to move
out of his grip without being rude. But his arm squeezes my shoulders.