The fairy tale also says the sisters floated by trees of gold and silver, and I think of the gold in Eleanor’s hair that one morning, and wonder if maybe we really are those princesses.
Of course I know we’re not, but I wonder what it would feel like, for an afternoon, to live that story instead of our own.
I bring the tiaras and shoes and Barbies and book pages and everything else I can gather up from the fairy tale into the closet. I hang silver and gold chains from the hooks that used to be used for coats. I use some of Astrid’s supplies and hang tinsel and sheer fabrics from the closet bar and place the bowl of water on the ground and float the little blue ship in it. It rocks back and forth.
I almost close the door and enter the world alone, but I don’t. I miss my sisters. Even Marla, who is impossible and scaring me, but is one of us.
If I am going to travel inside a fairy tale, I want my sisters with me.
I close the closet door and wait on the stairs for Marla and Eleanor and Astrid to come home.
Mom wanders out of her bedroom after a few minutes, and I go cold and tense. I try not to smell her. I try not to look directly at her.
“Where are your sisters? You should all be together!” Mom says instead of hello, because somehow by sitting on the stairs alone I’ve done something terribly wrong. She’s screeching, and I don’t know why. It’s frightening in the way that being lost in the woods is frightening. I don’t know what’s coming next. There might be bats or owls or a ditch or it might be fine, there might be a lit-up cottage with something baking inside right around the corner.
“I don’t know, I got up late and—”
“What’s wrong with you? We came here to be a family, and you’re doing a terrible job! You’re not all taking care of each other!” she screams. My heart’s pounding. If anyone’s doing a terrible job, it’s her. My mouth is aching to say it. My tongue and lips are moving and drying out with how badly those words want to emerge. “You don’t deserve sisters. Any of you,” she says. She sounds like a snake. Hissing.
“What do you know about sisters? You don’t even talk about yours! Astrid and Eleanor have no idea you ever had one! You forget all about her!” I say because I can’t hold it in anymore. I throw my hand to lips, sticking the whole fist inside to shut myself up. I bite on the fingers, I can’t believe what came out of my mouth. We don’t talk about secrets. If Mom doesn’t talk about her sister, it’s because we’re not allowed to bring her up. I know better.
Mom’s hand raises into the air. It’s going to come down on me. I curl into a ball on the stairs. I make a squealing pig sound I didn’t even know was inside of me. But at the last minute Mom shifts her arm so that her hand crashes against the wall instead of me.
She falls to pieces.
Mom sits on the stairs and crumbles. She holds her own hand and cries. The house has never felt bigger or lonelier. I should do something, but I don’t know what. I guess I sort of deserve this, from looking away when it happened to my sisters. We’re all in it alone. I have to stay strong.
No part of me wants to touch her, but I stay next to her and look to make sure her hand’s not bleeding or anything. For a minute, a really long one, I try to be Eleanor.
“We have to get her out of the closet,” Mom weeps. It’s muffled and I could be hearing her wrong, and I certainly don’t want to ask any follow-up questions. “We have to get her unstuck.”
My heart thumps. The closet, she said. Mom thinks someone is stuck in the closet.
I’m caught between asking more questions and leaving her alone.
I’m weak and scared and not good enough to actually do anything useful, so I leave her on the stairs like that.
Seventeen
I don’t know where to go, so I go to the lake. Marla and Astrid are there. Eleanor must be with her secret boyfriend.
I don’t tell them everything that happened. Just that Mom is upset with me and Dad is at work and I had to leave. And that I have an idea for my closet, whenever we think we can go back to the house.
I don’t tell them that Mom basically said her sister, who we didn’t even know about, is stuck in a closet. I’m scared if I say anything like that, Eleanor and Astrid will decide the closets are too evil, and they’ll lock them all up. It’s too sad to think about. We need the closets.
We watch the lake but don’t swim.
Eleanor joins us later. We don’t talk all afternoon.
When Eleanor stands up, we all follow. We’re turning into zombies.
When we get close to the house, we slow down even more. We walk with straight legs and hunched backs and nervous fingers.
But when we go inside, it’s empty. Mom’s gone.
The place that Mom hit on the wall looks the same as the rest of the wall, but it seems like it should be marked. There should be a hole or a scratch or a warning sign. Mom didn’t leave a note, but her car’s gone, so we know she’s traveled farther than down the street.