As I ease onto the freeway, I think about Rachel, the Rachel before Eden and Jonah, the Rachel before Sam. The girl I helped to raise.
Our mom was a good mother. But after Dad died, she had to support us on her own, and when she went back to work, I had to pick up the slack of caretaking. Rachel was impetuous; she was the baby and got away with anything because she could charm my mother out of her anger. In truth, she could charm me as well, but I took the role of stand-in parent seriously and used any opportunity that came up to teach my sister important lessons about life. She looked up to me and resented me at the same time. She made fun of me because I chose to study instead of going out with boys and because I eschewed drinking even when Mom was gone for the night and would never catch me. Rachel would sneak the Kahlúa out of the cabinet, pouring water in the bottle to make up for what she drank. I would threaten to tell Mom, but I never did. Instead, I would watch her closely and make her drink water and give her aspirin and, finally, drape a blanket across her when she passed out on the couch.
She never thanked me, never made any noises of appreciation. Not until later, not until after that boy.
His name was Casey Holdaway. He was a beautiful bum. He looked like Brad Pitt, and he was affable and funny and as ambitious as a sloth. I might have had a slight crush on him even though he was two years younger than me and totally focused on getting into my sister’s Calvin Kleins. I don’t think he even knew my name, but he recognized me as a possible ally and so he joked with me and maybe even flirted with me in order to get closer to her. And although I admit to the occasional fantasy about him, I recognized him for what he was. I warned Rachel off him, but she mistook my ministrations for jealousy and careened headlong into his arms.
She came to me, one night, when Mom was on the late shift, crying, her mascara halfway down her face. She’d been at a party, and Casey had been on the arm of another girl, a slut called Amber, and they’d been making out in front of everyone. I told her not to worry, that she was better off without him, that she would be fine, but she’d sobbed and sobbed and then she threw up, right there on my bed, and I knew, before she even told me, she was pregnant.
I took care of her. There was no other choice. I could have betrayed her to my mom, but that would have led to misery for everyone. And she was so brokenhearted, so small and afraid and alone, and she needed a champion. I had always been that for her, even if she didn’t recognize that fact. So I lied to our mother, and I took her to the clinic, and I cared for her afterward, and I went to Casey Holdaway’s house a week after the abortion and I shattered his windshield with my father’s sledgehammer that had been lying dormant in our garage since his death.
And Rachel, still recovering and pleading the flu to our mother, took my hand and pulled me to her side and thanked me, tearfully, her emotions uncontained. She told me I was the best sister ever and she would always be grateful to me, indebted to me, and that she loved me.
I’ve held that memory since she was fifteen. It has kept me from hating her in her moments of complete self-absorption. It has kept me at the ready to validate her praise.
I reach the turnoff for Rachel’s neighborhood. The seed of worry has blossomed into absolute terror. Something is wrong, I know. I have no hands-free device, but I reach for my cell phone anyway. I call Rachel’s cell, knowing she won’t answer because it lies unused in its charger downstairs. I hang up and call Sam’s cell phone. He doesn’t answer, either. I call the house phone, but the call goes immediately to voice mail, which is no surprise since I helped them change the setting when they were overwhelmed by all of the phone calls from friends and relatives.
I put my foot on the accelerator, exceeding the speed limit, then have to brake suddenly at a crosswalk that lights up seemingly by magic. I idle, looking at both sides of the street, trying to find the pedestrian responsible for this unwanted delay. There is no one. I curse softly, then press down on the accelerator.
Three minutes, I think. I try to counsel myself. I tell myself that my worry is unfounded. All is well. If it weren’t, surely I would have heard from Sam. All is well. All is well. As well as it can be, considering the fact that Jonah is dead.
I reach the familiar tract of houses and make the turn onto Rachel’s street. When I pull to the curb in front of my sister’s house, I take a deep breath and let it out on a sigh. I don’t know what I expected to find, but there is nothing out of the ordinary. Lights blaze from inside, and I can see the flickering light from the television in the living room. There are no fire engines or paramedics, no curious neighbors—all is as it should be. I grab my bag from the passenger seat and get out of the car.
I approach the front door. I think back to when I arrived earlier this afternoon, when Rachel was screaming. She is not screaming now. All is quiet. Slowly my pulse returns to normal.
Shadow starts to bark.
TWENTY-FOUR
SHADOW
Something is wrong. I can smell it from where I lie. I raise my head and sniff the air. The smell is coming from upstairs, from my mistress. I raise my ears to listen for sounds from my mistress, but the screen on the wall is alive and very loud.
My master and Little Female are sitting on the couch, their faces turned toward the screen, watching flat humans behave strangely. Sometimes, my master and Little Female laugh at the flat humans, and the sound pleases me, because I haven’t heard them laugh in a very long time. There are plates on the chewed-leg table with food that Dark Female made. I know because I smell her on the bread.
I have been sitting on my couch-room bed, not lying down, but sitting up watching my master and Little Female eat, waiting for one of them to drop something on the floor or give me a taste. I’m not hungry because my master remembered to feed me, but I can always eat, especially if it’s human food.
But now, the smell from upstairs draws my attention, pulling me away from my master and Little Female and their food. I creep away from the couch and move to the stairs. My master doesn’t notice and neither does Little Female.
Most smells make me happy, even the ones that make my humans hold their noses and frown and cry out while waving their hands back and forth in front of their faces. But this is not a happy-making kind of smell. This smell makes me afraid, makes my ears flat and my tail curl down between my back legs.