Whisper Me This

“Hey, Maisey!”

I turn back. Her bandmates are staring now. The sound guy comes back. Touches her arm.

“Marley,” he says. “Easy.”

“I told you,” she says, softer now. “I warned you. Go home. Leave me alone.”

I was going to tell her about the funeral. I was going to ask her what she remembers from our childhood, who our father is, if she knows why—why—Mom would have left her there and taken me.

Every muscle in my body feels shredded. My brain keeps spinning round and round, trying to make sense out of what makes no sense at all. What my mother could have been thinking. How my only sister can sing so beautifully while packing around so much venomous hate. My thoughts and feelings are so jumbled and bruised, I can’t begin to know what I think or feel.

Elle, who didn’t go find Mia after all and has been witness to this whole exchange, comes running up and flings her arms around me, clinging. “I don’t understand,” she says. “Like, at all. I thought she’d be happy to meet us.”

“Not so much, apparently.”

I can’t stop shaking. My hands, my legs, my insides, keep shivering like it’s twenty below zero.

Elle and I climb the steps together, and I fall numbly into my chair.

“What was that all about?” Tony asks, aiming for casual and missing by a mile. “The singer doesn’t like fans? Couldn’t hear what she said, but she didn’t look so happy.”

“Marley is . . .”

My voice fails me. I suck in a breath and try again. “Marley is my sister.”

The words feel strange and familiar at the same time. I used to talk about Marley all the time, before my mother chased the words away from me with spankings and scoldings and trips to the counselor. She told me I was imagining things. That it wasn’t healthy.

Even now I sneak a peek over my shoulder to see if Mom’s behind me, ready to administer a quick swat to my behind for saying the forbidden words.

Tony blinks and looks confused. “You two are sisters?”

“Twins.”

“Whoa,” Mia says. “I need another drink.” She pours one from the pitcher and gulps.

“Easy,” Tony warns, in a big-brother tone.

She sticks her tongue out at him.

Now that the cat’s out of the bag, I can’t stop talking. “I’ve never met her, that I can remember. I didn’t even know about her until a couple of days ago. I found a birth certificate in my mom’s legal papers. I thought she must have been dead or something, but here she is. In the flesh. And for some reason she hates me.”

Tony and Mia both stare at me like my nose has suddenly misplaced itself and is wandering over my face. “Still boggled,” Tony says.

“Grandma probably left her because she’s such a bitch,” Elle says.

“Elle! Don’t talk like that.”

“Well, it’s true.”

“Marley would have been a baby.”

“Bet she cried all the time. Mean crying. On purpose.”

I feel an oppositional desire to defend my sister, the one who just told me to get lost in no uncertain terms. The one who appears to blame me for her childhood. Down below, Marley has her back to us. Sound Check Guy has his arm around her waist. Her head rests briefly on his shoulder, and he pulls her in for a hug.

How would I feel if my mother had left me when I was a baby? Especially if she’d chosen another child over me?

Guilt almost suffocates me, but I welcome it in. This, of all my emotions, is the most familiar. The most comfortable. As it settles its heavy weight into my belly, I’m able to breathe again. My legs and hands steady, although the internal quaking goes on.

“Let’s get out of here,” Mia says, her hand on Elle’s shoulder. “Anybody else for ice cream?”

“There’s nothing open,” Tony protests.

“Safeway,” she says. “A tub for everybody. Four favorite flaves coming up.”

Maybe literally, I think, as my stomach does a little heave. But Elle perks up at the mention of ice cream, and I don’t have to eat mine. As the four of us shove back our chairs and get up, I can’t help one more glance down at Marley.

She looks up at the same moment. Our eyes lock. Neither of us waves.

I turn away first, quickly before my face crumples again. Tony’s hand engulfs mine, and I let his strength flow into me, steady me, get me across the room and out the door. He goes serious, though, and as soon as he deposits me safely in the front passenger seat and shuts the door behind me, he closes in on himself.

In the backseat, Mia launches a full-scale effort to entertain Elle. Left alone to my own devices, I lose myself in a futile search of my memory banks for any sign of remorse or regret from my mother. Any mention of another child. Any hints about what happened. But all I find is another instance of how hard she worked to eradicate Marley from my world.

I’m five, and Mom has caught me with two cookies, instead of the one I’d been given permission for.

“I said only one.”

“I only have one.”

“Maisey, I know perfectly well you know the difference between one and two.”

“Yes. There are two cookies. But only one is for me.” And then my five-year-old brain catches up with my five-year-old tongue, and I stop short. A lie would have been better. I’m not allowed to play Marley games.

“And who is the other one for?” Mom asks. Her voice sounds curious, but it’s a trap.

“No one.”

Mom’s hand, the one that can be so gentle when it brushes my hair at night, clamps around my jaw and tilts my head back so I have to meet her eyes. “Don’t mumble, Maisey. Tell me, who is it for?”

“Marley.” I squinch my eyes shut, prepared for a slap.

It doesn’t come. She releases me. My adult eyes looking back into the memory see that her hands are trembling. That her voice, when she tells me to go to my room, is taut with tears, not anger.

I jolt out of the memory as Tony pulls the car into the Safeway parking lot. “Okay kiddies, go get your ice cream.”

“Wait,” Elle says. “Phone.”

Even from the front seat I can hear that, first, it’s Greg, and second, he’s pissed. I cringe, hearing her explanation that we’ve just been out to a concert with Mia and Tony.

And now Greg is shouting. I can’t make out the words, but the tone is clear.

“He wants to talk to you,” Elle says, holding out her phone.

“Tell him I’ll text him.”

She shrugs and relays the message. “Don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger,” she says. “Sorry. Fine, I apologize for my rudeness. Yes. I know. I’ll tell her. Night.”

“Whoa,” she says, after she hangs up. “Dad seriously needs to chill. Too bad we can’t send him ice cream. Are you coming in, Mom?”

I rest my head against the seat and close my eyes. The car is safe and warm. All the windows are open, and a cool, lilac-scented breeze wafts in through the windows. All at once I’m too exhausted to even open my eyes, let alone go into the store.

“I’ll wait here. You know what I like.”

“Maybe I’ll surprise you instead.”

“You are full of surprises, Elle.” I force my eyelids open and dig in my purse for my stash of bills. “I’m buying. Get one for Tony.”

The car doors slam. One. Two. And Elle and Mia race away across the parking lot.

“Mia is never going to grow up,” Tony says, but there’s the warmth of love in his voice.

“She’s lovely. She’s been wonderful with Elle.” A lump comes up in my throat again. I had a sister for all of about five minutes before I lost her again.

“She loves kids,” Tony says. “My sisters’ kids are always hanging out with her. Mia says it’s perfect because she gets all the fun of kids without the hard work and sleepless nights. Or the husband.”

My phone buzzes and buzzes again with incoming text messages.

“Elle’s father?” Tony asks.

“Yep.” I flick through a series of messages. Greg has been texting all day, each one increasing in intensity. “He is not a fan of our activities.”

“He’s probably worried. Maybe you should call him.”

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