Liv snorts. “She thinks my mother is a benevolent goddess. And that we live in a yellow-pink-and-green palace.”
“Really?” I say, though I’m not surprised. Deborah has that effect on people who don’t know her well, that lethal combo of faded looks and faux-folksy warmth she projects on newbies. Crystal will learn soon enough.
“And it’s mutual. Deborah dotes on her. Sometimes I don’t know if she got her for me or for her,” Liv says airily.
“I think it’s cool that you’re doing this,” I say.
“It wasn’t my idea. Deborah tweaked and polished my application so hard she could see her reflection in it,” she says, hooking her elbow through mine, and we walk into the dining room. Steps away, she stops. Crystal is seated at Deborah’s right, looking awkward and stiff, like she’s supposed to be having fun but isn’t. When she sees Liv, her face relaxes and she lights up. Liv turns fast and drags me close. “Listen, if something ever happened, if, say, I had to leave for a while, just to clear my head, would you do something for me?”
“Where are you planning on going?” I say, startled.
“It’s an important question. Would you take care of Crystal?”
“I can’t be her Big Sister. Isn’t there a whole vetting process? I see a therapist regularly, I probably wouldn’t pass muster.”
“I don’t mean be her Big Sister. I mean make sure the arrangement ends. She shouldn’t start spending time with my mother.”
“It’s Big Sister, not Big Mother,” I say. “That’s not how it works.”
“It’s looser than you think. Just promise me,” Liv says.
She drops my wrist. Crystal gives a tiny wave. Father Carl tries mightily to engage Crystal, but she only has eyes for Livvy, as she calls her.
“Just promise me,” Liv demands.
“I promise. God!” I rub my wrist.
When she faces me, her eyes are wet. “Thank you.”
It is the only time she’s ever said it.
Liv sits on Crystal’s other side and transforms back into a teenager, a cool teenager Crystal adores already. Liv and Crystal have each other; Father Carl and Deborah have each other. I am alone but for my knowledge, which I wear like a hair shirt. I sit across from the clove-spiked ham, silent. It’s as though I’m not there at all. There are two tall windows in the dining room, and I find myself gazing out of them throughout the night, drinking in the velvet darkness like sanity. With each sip of wine and forkful of ham, Deborah grows softer and Father Carl grows more moist and red. She flirts with and cajoles Father Carl, skilled at using her womanliness. Liv pushes salad around her plate and makes jokes at the expense of Paula Papademetriou, whom Deborah predicts won’t be showing her face around the Shiverton Chamber of Commerce luncheons or the charity circuit or the athletic fields or the country club for that matter for a good long while, given the Pantanos’ long reach in this town, never mind the MacDougalls, who are darn near salt-of-the-earth-style royalty. Crystal laughs at things she doesn’t understand.
Deborah expounds on all that she will do as Catholic Woman of the Year, plans for readings at the senior center, clothing drives, spiritual retreats.
“You always have to have a project,” Father Carl says approvingly, between bites.
Deborah serves Crystal more ham, never taking her eyes off Father Carl, who hasn’t yet offered comfort or wisdom during our post-ordeal year, maybe because Crystal is here and she is an innocent, or maybe because he has forgotten.
My breath is visible. I didn’t notice it at first, and no one else seems to either, since the adults are flushed with wine, and from what Liv says Crystal is probably used to the cold, and Liv’s skin always looks like poultry these days, and truth be told, the cold does not bother me anymore. When the conversation pauses, I hear metal furnace ducts whistling, hot air rushing within, but the heat pours straight through the old, wooden-sash windows. It’s not just the heat that is failing. Circular brown stains on the ceilings show the heavy rains. The hardwood floor shines pale in spots, and cracked seals let moisture cloud the windows. Outside, yellow paint peels like molting skin. The house seeps and sheds with neglect.
Deborah always has to have a project.
In my lap, my hands hold a nonexistent pen above a nonexistent notebook. I mime scribbling, trying to trace the logic. Liv’s purpose for Donald was to foil Deborah. What is the purpose of Shane?
Old truths wash away like a splinter of glass from my eye.
*
My stomach is finally quiet. Snakes wait in weeds and holes in the ground, not in girls’ bellies. They defy decapitation and are immune to their own venom. Sometimes, they have daughters.
FIFTEEN
368 Days After the Woods