Anne & Henry (18 page)

I sit upright and pull her close. She doesn't resist, but twists so that her back is against my chest. With my arms wrapped around her, her heart thumps wildly against mine.

“Mary's always been unstable,” Anne says. “Even when we were little.” She inhales, like she's trying to stop the waver of her voice. “We thought she was getting better—had her shit under control. But then, Dad left Mom and—” Anne pauses.

“She fell apart?” I fill in.

Anne interlaces her fingers through mine. “I'm the one who lost it,” she says. “I did stupid things—skipped school, started fights, got tangled up with the wrong crowd.”

“I get it,” I say, squeezing her with assurance, for comfort, but all I really want is to get back to the part about her sister's
boyfriend. “You needed to
feel
something. I've been there.”

I almost can't get the words out though, because I'm picturing another man's hands on Anne's body.

She slides out of my embrace and pushes herself up, starts gathering the empty glasses, the food, the picnic basket. Like hell she's getting off that easy.

I stand and grab Anne's shoulders, force her to look me in the eye. Her lips are chapped, skin pale. It's like she's dying, dead, already a ghost. I hate that this is tearing her up, but our relationship can't survive if she isn't honest. If I can't understand
what
led her to such a betrayal.

I lean forward to kiss the corner of her mouth, taste salt. “Mary was unstable—you said it yourself. Her depression wasn't your fault,” I say.

Anne closes her eyes. “I used to be so damned jealous of her when we were kids,” she says, her voice thick with emotion. “My parents doted on her. Did everything for her. It got worse after her diagnosis; it's like she couldn't do anything wrong.”

She stares over me, through me. “We fought. Stupid sister stuff, at first. She'd nag at me for doing pot, always letting me know how disappointed she was in me—and I'd respond by smoking up in front of her. Just to piss her off. Things escalated fast from there. The more she bitched, the more spiteful I got. It was like I was . . .” Anne eases away from me and shakes her head.

I can feel it in my gut, the anguish, her guilt. . . .

“Possessed,” she finally says. Fresh tears form in the corners of her eyes. “I don't know how else to explain it. I
wanted
to hurt her. Like seeing her in pain might take some of mine away.” She holds onto the back of her neck with both hands. “How fucked up is that? I knew she was going crazy and I didn't stop. We'd lost our dad to his affair, and because of my actions, we were losing each other, too.”

“Everyone deals with grief in their own way,” I say. “I know it sucks, but you're not the reason she's in the hospital.”

“Wrong again.” Anne looks up and her eyes shimmer. “Mary was only looking out for me, trying to get me back on track. At first, it seemed like that's what her boyfriend wanted too.”

Another bout of jealousy rocks through me. Suddenly I'm unable to process anything but another guy kissing her . . . touching her. I know it's selfish, that this isn't about me, but I can't stop visualizing him, her, the two of them. . . . “I don't get it,” I say, choking back anger. “You were so mad at her—at them—for
helping
you that you . . . had sex with her boyfriend?”

“We didn't actually have
sex
,” Anne says, and a tear crawls down her cheek. “Mary thinks that's what happened, though—lots of people do. Maybe if I'd been a weaker person, Jesse could have gotten his way. He sure as hell tried.”

Another tear slides down her cheek and she hangs her head before I can wipe it away.

“I guess it started out innocent enough—little things I mistook for kindness. Like he was just trying to make a good impression on Mary's family. And I enjoyed the attention.” She blushes. “Not in
that
way. I mean, after dating a string of guys who cared more about their bongs than me, it was easy to get caught up in . . . normal. Or what I thought was normal.”

Anne takes a deep breath. Exhales. “Mary loved seeing us hang out. Said it made her heart happy to have the two most important people in her life getting along. It seemed to even cover up the sibling crap going on between us.”

I reach for her, but she doesn't give in. I've never felt more helpless.

“A few months later, though, things started to change,” she says. “Or maybe I just became more aware. Jesse was always around, consoling, taking over as the
man of the house.
His subtle flirtations became more overt.”

Sensing what comes next, the cracks in my heart give way a little as I absorb Anne's pain. This time, when I draw her close, she doesn't push me away.

“The more aggressive Jesse became, the more I realized he wasn't at all who I thought he was,” she says. “But how could I tell my sister that? She loved him. I put up with it for a while—spent more time away from home, got myself deeper in shit,” she says. “I should have realized my rejection was pissing him off.”

She exhales with a shudder that vibrates through her entire body.

“I came home drunk one night, and never made it up to bed. I'd stripped out of my clothes—they stank like smoke and beer—and curled up on the couch. I thought I was alone,” she says. “When Mary came downstairs in the morning, Jesse and I were entangled on the couch—barely dressed. I don't even know when he slid under the blanket. He knew Mary would find us like that. A sick and twisted way to get back at me for rejecting him.”

Before I can react, she turns her eyes to me. The dark pools draw me in like quicksand. “It didn't look good, I know that,” she says. “But I never had sex with Jesse. No matter how crappy I was feeling, I would never cross that line.”

She kicks at a rock. Sends it flying into the creek with a light splash. “What I didn't know was that Jesse had started planting thoughts in my sister's head, making her think I was trying to break them up. God knows what other bullshit he was feeding her. He told her I took advantage of him that night.”

“Because he was so fucking weak?” I snap. Christ, this guy's an asshole. “He set you up.” Every piece of me wants to find this shithead and pile drive him into the ground. “But why let him win? Why let everyone think the worst of you?”

“Jesse was Mr. Perfect around anyone else. While I was busy making a reputation for myself, Jesse was scoring brownie
points with my mom and Mary. They thought the guy was an Adonis. Probably still do.” Anne shakes her head. “Sometimes, it's just easier not to fight, you know?”

Her words hit home.

“After Mary was committed, Mom met Thomas and next thing I know, we're riding off in his limo with the promise of a fresh start,” she says. “Thomas has set her up in the best hospital money can buy—no way we could have afforded it. But even if we had access to the same care here, Mary would have stayed away. She hates me. And now, I'm somehow supposed to forget. Simple, right?” She sighs. “I guess that's why I confronted John that first night. I didn't know what people knew, or thought they knew. I'd been too subtle with Jesse—and there was no way in hell I'd make that mistake again.”

Her shoulders slump, and her eyes fade to dull charcoal. It almost kills me to see her pain.

“I don't know how to forgive myself, how to let it go. If only I'd told her sooner what was happening, maybe . . .” She reaches up and touches my cheek.

My chest swells so full I think it might split in half.

“I have a history of fucking things up when the going gets tough. And that scares me, Henry. Because you're right. This—us—is never going to be easy.”

I
pause in front of the glamorous master suite and brace for whatever version of my mother I will find. The anxious woman, nervous about fitting in, terrified of losing all of . . . this? Or some semblance of the woman I remember—the confident, nurturing mother who isn't afraid to admit a piece of her misses our old life, our old selves.

My father.

And yes, Mary.

Before Dad left, we didn't walk on diamond-crusted eggshells. Mom didn't wear high heels to the grocery store.
We
didn't keep secrets. Confiding in her used to be—

Easy.

My mother emerges from her dressing room, luminous in her aqua ball gown, hair pinned up and curly. Her heart-shaped face glows in the incandescent light.

“Hello, dear,” she says when she sees me. “You look
different. . . . Worried, maybe.” She pauses to collect her thoughts. “Is everything okay?”

Things between us are less strained now that we've moved away from my mistakes, her heartache . . . Mary. But part of me knows she's worried I'm going to somehow fuck this up. Her eyes narrow as she studies me, tries to assess the situation, determine what's wrong. Whether I've got good news, or if I'm in trouble at school, or maybe I'm knocked up. She always thinks the worst of me. In addition to committing my sister to the psych ward, I'm also somehow to blame for Dad running off with that librarian.

My mother's voice lifts, her skin pales. “Anne? What is it?”

“It's not bad,” I say, and blink, blink, blink away the tears and the fears. I move over to the bed, unfold my body onto the cream-colored duvet sprinkled with tiny pink roses.

My mother sits on the edge and tilts her body so she's facing me. “It's not your father, is it?”

I shake my head, struggle not to frown. Why would she think that after all this time, my father would call, that he'd even want a relationship with . . . me, the problem daughter? I wonder whether he's visited my sister, or if she's met his new wife.

My mother's shoulders sink, weighed down with relief. She pats my leg. “That's good. I worry he'll try to contact you now that—”

Now that we have money.

“It's not about Dad,” I interrupt, biting back a knee-jerk
he's-not-like-that
response. He didn't leave my mother for money.

My mother frets, her fingers twisting at her shiny new diamond-studded wedding band. “Good, because I want this to work, for you to be happy here.”

“I
am
happy,” I say. I'm totally blushing now, and if she knows me, remembers who I am, who I was before Dad shattered our illusions of happiness and true love and forever, she'll see I'm telling the truth.

“You've started to make friends, then?” my mother says, nodding. Her eyes shine with hope. “Some nice girls from the area?” She stands, busying herself with getting ready for the unknown checkmark on her social calendar.

This evening's gown spills over her hips, flows onto the floor, forms a satin puddle on the white carpet. She sits at the dressing table and rummages through her jewelry box, holds diamonds, topaz, and pearls up against her ears and neck.

I wait for her to notice me in the reflection.

Our eyes meet. I force myself not to blink and she freezes midmotion, the string of pearls clutched in her fingers.

Her voice is low and soft, barely more than a whisper. “What is it, ladybug?”

“I've met someone,” I finally say.

My mother's expression is an eerie mixture of confusion and joy and fear rolled into one giant wrecking ball. Only her lips move. “You're dating someone?”

I grin, afraid my face will crack, relieved and scared. It's more than just dating, but I doubt she'd understand. “Yep. And I'm going to see him again tonight.”

“Someone from . . . Medina?”

I nod.

She blows out a breath that is more than relief. I don't need to read her mind to know what she is thinking. She's wondering who, and how, and maybe why, but most of all she's wondering when, because she knows, or thinks she knows, that when we left I'd sworn off relationships altogether. A twinge of something akin to pain skips across my chest, and I don't know if it's because I'm broken or missing or maybe even that I'm healing, almost healed.

My mother twists on the stool so that she's looking at me, really looking. Her smile is genuine, so wide I could count all her teeth if I wanted.

“Come on, ladybug, spill,” she says, and she's suddenly standing, practically running toward me, taking me back, back, back to my childhood, to days when we laughed and played. Before Mary got sick. Before Dad left. She sits on the edge of the bed and pokes my thigh with a long manicured finger. “Who is it?”

I giggle—and almost gasp, because the sound is so unnatural for me. I can't remember when it happened last and so I do it again as she jabs and jabs at my leg, poking and prodding me to share my secrets, to confess.

“Don't make me tickle it out of you,” my mother says.