Forbidden Sister

  “She won’t have to. She knows I’m capable of taking care of myself. I won’t leave you, Mama,” I said.

  She could see the look on my face. I was sure it was Papa’s determined look, so she knew it would be useless to argue, at least right now.

  She nodded and turned to Aunt Lucy. “We’ll discuss it, Lucy. Thank you so much for offering to help and for stopping by,” Mama said.

  Aunt Lucy bristled. She clearly sensed that she was being dismissed. I was sure Uncle Orman spoke to her that way whenever he wanted to end a conversation or an argument. In fact, she pulled herself up so sharply I thought she might crack her spine. It almost brought a smile to my face.

  “Well . . .” she said rising. “You know how to reach me, Vivian. I do have to make some preparations, of course. Orman hates last-minute things, as you know.”

  Like my father dying, I wanted to say, but swallowed back the words and raised my eyes toward the ceiling.

  “I’ll be here at the St. Regis tonight,” she added. “But I am going to dinner with the wives of some Pentagon officials.” She looked at me. “Be a good girl, now, Emmie, and please help your mother get through all this.”

  “No one has to ask me to do that, Aunt Lucy,” I said in the softest, sweetest tone of voice I could manage, but you’d have had to be tone-deaf not to hear my sarcasm, too.

  She nodded.

  Mama rose to walk her to the door. I waited, my heart still racing.

  “I know how you feel, Emmie,” Mama began even before she entered the living room, “but she was the closest relative I could think of and the easiest trip for you to manage.”

  “I don’t need to go anywhere, Mama. Really, I’ll be fine, and if I’m not here, who will visit you in the hospital?”

  “I won’t be there that long,” she said. “I do have some friends, you know,” she added with a smile.

  “Not like me,” I told her. “I’m not going to leave you. Don’t worry about me. All I would do is worry about you and be too far away to see you every day. I don’t want to upset you, Mama, but . . .”

  “Okay, let’s not talk about it now,” she said, obviously frustrated. “I just have to check on the chicken breasts I defrosted for us.”

  I felt terrible being so difficult, but I knew I would feel worse running off to be comfortable and safe with my uncle and aunt who couldn’t even be at my father’s funeral. I didn’t want to continue talking about this, either. I knew that what I would say would only bring Mama more pain. Instead, I went up to my room and, to keep my mind off it all, began to do my homework.

  At dinner, I prodded Mama as much as I could about her condition. I easily sensed that she was trying to make it seem less serious than it was, but I didn’t pursue it. After I cleaned up and watched some television with her, I retreated to my room.

  The day of Papa’s death, I was shocked, of course, but I was more frightened than anything. He was truly a rock, our security and protection. Like any young girl, I looked to my father to shield us from danger and to come up with the solution to solve any serious problems. The analogies he used when he spoke about himself weren’t so far-fetched. Fathers, he said, were always on the front lines, like guards manning the walls that kept out our demons.

  When I lost him that day, one of the first things that came to my mind was how terrified Roxy must have been the day she left our house and stepped into the streets of the city on her own. How naked and vulnerable she must have felt despite what face she had put on. For all practical purposes, as she seemed to insist, Papa had died for her then as much as he had died for me now. He was gone, unreachable, deaf to her cries for help, not that she was used to asking him for it. It simply gave her and all of us a sense of assurance to have such a father. In Papa, there was sanctuary.

  Within his embrace, beside him, holding his hand, having his arm around our shoulders shielded us from what Hamlet called the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Accidents, evil people, even our own foolishness wouldn’t destroy us as long as Papa was there.

  Daddies were supposed to be harder, tougher, firmer. They were more capable of facing the gritty and rotten things in our world. Mothers could be strong, of course, and I did know mothers of some of my classmates who made their husbands look like wet noodles, but for the most part, daddies were built physically stronger and could be more intimidating when it came to facing something outright violent.

  Now, as I sat there and thought about Mama, I realized selfishly that I could lose all of my protection in this world. I’d be as alone as Roxy, but she seemed to be far better equipped to handle that than I was. I hated being this afraid for myself and not being more afraid for Mama. I felt selfish, guilty, even sinfully so.

  Get stronger, Emmie Wilcox, I told myself. Grow up overnight. Put away childish thoughts. Shove your dolls and teddy bears deeper into the closet. You have to step up and do for your mother what she has done all your life for you.

  I looked at Papa’s picture on my dresser. I wasn’t telling myself all of these things; he was. If he were there, he would expect me to be more grown-up. I had heard it when he died, and I was hearing him say it again tonight: “If you have no choice but to grow up, you grow up.”

  No, I wouldn’t run off to hide from fear at Uncle Orman and Aunt Lucy’s house. I would stay here. I would be alone at night, yes. I would have to take care of myself, yes. I would have to close my eyes and forget that there was no one else in the house, no one to call to if I had a nightmare or if I heard a strange noise, yes. But this was who and what I had to become.

  As Papa might say, “Let’s get some steel in those veins.”

  Over the next two days, Mama realized that I wasn’t going to give in and go to stay with Aunt Lucy. She accepted it and even complimented me on being strong enough to do it. We didn’t talk much more in detail about her condition, but I did my own research in the school library and realized how serious it could be and probably was. I didn’t want to show her how worried I was, so I tried to keep as busy as possible, telling her I had big tests to study for, while all the while I sat in my room feeling like someone tottering on a tightrope and on the verge of screaming.

  The next day, I made a big decision while I sat half listening to Mrs. Summerton go on and on about our term papers in world history due shortly after our upcoming holiday. When the bell rang at the end of the school day, I practically leaped up from my desk and ran out of the building. I was that determined.

  Probably in record time, I shot up the avenue and entered Roxy’s hotel. There was a different desk clerk, a much older man with a rust-colored mustache that looked painted above his lip. He obviously trimmed it under a microscope, I thought. He didn’t smile. He looked up from what I saw was a racetrack form and tucked in his thin, shrimp-pink lips. Then he sat back, pulling his shoulders so they tightened his jacket.

  “And what can I do for you?” he asked.

  “I have to speak to Roxy Wilcox.”

  He pulled his head back and widened his grimace. “Who?”

  “Don’t tell me she isn’t here. I’m her sister, and I have to speak to her now,” I said firmly, raising my voice.

  “Now, just a minute, young lady . . .”

  “I’m not leaving until you tell her I’m here. You can call the police if you want, but I don’t think that would please my sister or anyone else connected with this hotel.”

  “I know all of our guests, and there is no Roxy Wilcox,” he said.

  “Fleur du Coeur? Is that better?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He looked genuinely confused. It occurred to me that the help there might not know all that much about the clients and that the escort service was separate.

  “My sister might have a different name here,” I said, stepping closer and speaking more softly, reasonably. I then described her. I could see some recognition in his eyes. He might not know everything, but he knew enough, I thought.

  “Just a moment,” he
said, and got up and went into the office behind the desk.

  While I was waiting, a tall, thin man with a thick head of light brown hair came in. He was dressed in an expensive-looking dark blue suit and a light blue tie. He smiled at me and went directly to the elevator. Immediately, I wondered if he was going up to see Roxy. If so, this was certainly bad timing.

  The desk clerk came out. “Just sit there,” he said, nodding at the settee across from the desk.

  “Is she coming?”

  “Just sit there,” he emphasized.

  I did what he said. He went back to his racing form, and I kept my eyes on the elevator. It opened, but an elderly lady stepped out, glanced at me, and went outside to a waiting limousine. I looked at the desk clerk, but he was very involved in his racing form now and no longer paid any attention to me. At least another fifteen minutes passed. I almost gave up, but the elevator opened again, and Roxy came out. She had her hair down and was wearing a long raincoat and a pair of sandals. I sensed that she wasn’t wearing much underneath the raincoat. The desk clerk looked up at her, but her stern expression chased him back to his racing form. I stood up.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, obviously very annoyed.

  “Mama’s very sick,” I said.

  She didn’t speak for a moment, but I saw her face soften. “What do you mean, very sick? What’s wrong with her?”

  “She has a cyst. She’s having a hysterectomy done, or at least that is what she’s telling me, but I think it might be more serious than she says.”

  “Are you a doctor already?”

  “I know how to read Mama,” I said. “She wanted me to go stay with Uncle Orman and Aunt Lucy.”

  “Orman and Lucy? You might as well be sent to Leavenworth prison.” She paused and looked at the desk clerk again. He didn’t look our way. “When is all this happening?”

  “Monday,” I said. “She goes into Sloan-Kettering. We have a ten-day break at my school beginning this weekend.”

  “Great. You’ll be able to play nurse,” she said. “Look, I’m busy right now. I can’t stand around and chat. Take care of yourself, and don’t go to Uncle Orman’s.” She turned to go to the elevator.

  “Don’t you care at all?” I cried.

  She pushed the button and looked back at me when the door opened. “Once,” she said. “A long time ago.”

  She got into the elevator and fixed her eyes on me as the doors closed. Her eyes were empty. They were like unlit bulbs. I stood there for a few moments and then looked at the desk clerk. He was staring at me now. I turned and headed out of the hotel, my feet pounding the sidewalk. I was so full of anger and turmoil that I almost went in the wrong direction. A heavyset man bumped into me as if I didn’t exist. He nearly spun me around, but he kept walking. I caught my breath, realized where I was going, and crossed the street, walking even faster now.

  I shouldn’t be so surprised by what had just happened, I thought, or even upset. I didn’t really know Roxy or who she had become. It was almost the same as talking to a complete stranger. Love, or the deep feeling we have for each other, is really a very fragile thing. Once it’s damaged as much as it was for Roxy, it probably floats down like a leaking balloon and settles under our feet. We step over the memories, even trample them, and go on, hardening ourselves, maybe even hating ourselves for being this way, but it’s probably what Roxy had to do to survive. I wanted to hate her, too, but I couldn’t. Despite how terrible things were for Mama and me right now, we still had each other, loved each other. What did Roxy have?

  A man waiting upstairs, someone paying for her attention and affection?

  And when he was gone, what did she have? What were her thoughts just before she fell asleep? What were her prayers? Had she grown so comfortable and indifferent to the darkness and the loneliness that it no longer bothered her or even mattered?

  She was traveling alone through her life now, gazing occasionally at those who weren’t alone. Maybe she still longed for family, for someone to love and someone to love her, but if she did, she kept it under lock and key, a secret so tightly folded it was as hard as her heart.

  I didn’t want to waste any more time feeling sorry for her. Yes, I had gone to her in the hope that she would join me, be at my side, worrying and praying for Mama. That she would return to being the sister I once had. That she would embrace both Mama and me. I was doing it for her as much as I was doing it for myself and for Mama.

  But she didn’t see that, or she didn’t want to see that.

  When those elevator doors closed between us, it was like closing the lid of a coffin. She wasn’t going up; she was going down.

  But I wasn’t going up, either. I was just hovering like some cloud unsure of which way the wind was to take it, hanging up there alone and afraid, especially of the rumbling on the horizon and the darkness that was seeping over the blue daylight, oozing like oil toward it and threatening to wash it under forever.

  14

  I didn’t sleep much Sunday night. No one from school called me over the weekend. I hadn’t told Chastity or Richard about Mama’s health problem. Richard had finally overcome his shyness and wanted to do something with me over the weekend, but I made excuses, telling him we had relatives visiting. It wasn’t a good time for me to develop a relationship with anyone new, anyway. As nice as he was, I didn’t have any warm emotions to spare, and I didn’t want to drag him into my difficulties. Chastity had remained aloof, and I continued to avoid her, especially now. Once she got wind of all of this, I was sure she would pounce, hoping that I needed her more than she needed me.

  Maybe I did, but I wouldn’t admit that to anyone, especially myself. I knew that Aunt Lucy had called one more time to offer her services. Mama mentioned it as casually as she could, hoping that I had somehow changed my mind.

  “I’ll be fine,” I insisted.

  I knew she hadn’t told any of her family in France about what was happening. All weekend, I toyed with the idea of calling Uncle Alain, but then I thought that if she hadn’t done it, she wouldn’t want me to do it. Maybe it would alarm people unnecessarily. On Sunday night, she went through some of the details for things she was leaving for me to do around the house and with some of our accounts. None of it was very critical, but I could see that it helped her to think of other things, and she was deliberately looking for activities that would keep me busy, too. Before she went up to bed, she pinned a list of important telephone numbers on the wall in the kitchen.

  I was sure neither of us slept much. I played a little game with myself, a game Papa had taught me when I was very young. He told me that it was guaranteed to keep you from being afraid. As soon as something terrible began to come into your mind, you were supposed to count backward from one hundred, and with each number, you were supposed to think of one happy thought, one happy memory, or one thing you loved, such as chocolate marshmallow ice cream. The effort at association eventually exhausted you, and the creeping nightmares ran out of steam. He told me that these were the sort of mental games soldiers freezing on guard duty or captured soldiers might play.

  I don’t think Papa ever gave up on the idea that there was always some sort of a war going on, whether with real bombs in Bosnia, the Middle East, or Asia or in everyday life. One way or another, we were always in training, always thinking about defenses, and always planting our flags of victory on some hill, whether the hill was real or in our imaginations.

  I was sure that Mama would be the first to admit that she was in a battle. As we headed for the hospital that morning, we were like two soldiers in some army. Maybe we were Greeks marching to Philippi, Americans in landing craft approaching Normandy, or Englishmen getting ready to face the Spanish Armada. Later, no one who survived would seem credible claiming that he was not terrified. Honest ones would admit to it but be proud of how well they kept fear chained down. In my mind, fear was like an aggressive dog barking and lunging at us.

  Staying with Mama did help her face the day
, because she had to keep courageous as much for my benefit as for her own. She didn’t utter a single syllable of self-pity. She never shed a tear. She smiled at all those who were there to help her. She treated it all as if she had done it hundreds of times and kept herself looking bright and hopeful. One of the nurses whispered to me not to look so sad and worried. It wasn’t good for Mama. I tried hard to be as brave as she was.

  “Be your father’s daughter,” I muttered under my breath.

  I kissed her and wished her good luck before they took her to preop, and then I retreated to the waiting area. One of the nurses promised to keep me informed about how things were going. She said they had direct communication with the staff in the operating room. I got myself something to drink and went to sit and distract myself with magazines. Although there was a lot of activity going on around me, including the small children of other patients complaining because they were bored and restless, people gathering to comfort one another, hugging and kissing, and medical personnel going to and fro, I managed to shut it all out by crawling into my own protective shell. I even lost my sense of time. At one point, I closed my eyes and sat back and dozed until I felt the weight of a shadow, someone looking down at me. I opened my eyes.

  Roxy stared at me. “What’s happening?” she asked.

  She was wearing very little makeup and had her hair pinned in the back and flowing just the way I had seen it that day I spied on her with Chastity. Although I would never call anything she wore conservative, she was dressed in a pretty but ordinary light blue jacket and an ankle-length skirt with a dark blue blouse. For a moment, I just stared up at her, digesting that she was actually there.

  “Well?” she demanded.

  I sat up quickly and looked at my watch. “She went in about two hours ago, I think. I mean, I don’t know exactly when they took her into surgery, but . . .”

  She blew some air of impatience out through her lips and went to the desk manned by two nurses. I watched her get their attention. After she spoke, one moved quickly to a phone. There was something about the way Roxy carried herself, the air of authority she displayed, and obviously the way she spoke that impressed them. The nurse listened on the phone and then spoke to her. Roxy nodded and started back to me. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed to me that even the restless children paused to look at her.