THE WOMAN WHO DIED IN MY SISTER’S NAME
Her nose looked slightly crooked, as if it had been broken.
There were fine lines around her mouth.
But she had Dad’s hands.
Long fingers.
Crooked little finger.
The right thumbnail she always destroyed when nervous.
She was destroying it now.
“Ellie.”
“Don’t.”
She stopped.
I remained by the door.
“You don’t get to call me that yet.”
Her eyes lowered.
“Okay.”
I had prepared questions during the drive.
They vanished.
Instead I said, “Show me your knee.”
She pulled the blanket aside.
There it was.
A white uneven scar.
I felt nauseated.
“Anyone could know about that.”
“I suppose.”
“What was inside Dad’s red toolbox that Mom never knew about?”
Her eyes lifted.
“His cigarettes.”
“What kind?”
“Camels.”
“Where?”
“Under the removable tray.”
“What else?”
Rebecca almost smiled.
“The Christmas present you bought Marcus when you were seventeen.”
My face burned.
“Stop.”
“You asked.”
I’d hidden a box of condoms there because Mom searched our bedrooms.
Only Rebecca knew.
I dragged the visitor’s chair backward and sat.
“Who died?”
Rebecca’s expression changed.
“I don’t know.”
“You let us bury someone under your name. So who was she?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s convenient.”
“It isn’t.”
“Then explain it.”
She looked toward the window.
“I left the motel before the fire.”
“Why?”
“Tyler found me.”
My anger stumbled.
Tyler.
The boyfriend Rebecca had claimed she was no longer staying with.
I’d met him twice.
He’d been charming the first time.
The second time, Rebecca wore long sleeves in July.
I had asked.
She’d laughed it off.
“Did he hurt you?”
Rebecca stared at her hands.
“Yes.”
I waited.
“He’d been hurting me for months.”
Something old and ugly shifted in my chest.
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because you’d warned me about him.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It was to me at twenty-four.”
She swallowed.
“The night I asked you for money, I wasn’t trying to rent a normal room. I was trying to get enough cash to leave Virginia.”
I remembered our argument.
A deposit.
A room.
Nine hundred dollars.
“I said no.”
“Yes.”
“Did you go back to him because I said no?”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
“Don’t do that to yourself. I found another way.”
She told me she sold her laptop, borrowed money from a coworker, and checked into the motel under her own name because she didn’t understand how dangerous that was.
