The Girl Who Stopped Swimming - By Joshilyn Jackson Page 0,74

insisted. “God help me, I am not going to let you dig at that poor woman.”

Thalia’s mouth bloomed into its widest, most hateful grin, and she said, “I think God knows you never could stand Bunny.”

“Take her home,” Laurel said. “Now.”

Thalia lifted one shoulder and then turned away, rum bottle in hand. Laurel couldn’t tell if her sister was capitulating or ignoring her. Meanwhile, Thalia went from sober to dead drunk in the single step it took her to get through the door back into Barb Dufresne’s line of sight.

The drunk dropped back off her in the next heartbeat, and she said, “Dammit. Now look.”

Bunny had melted down into the sofa, head resting on the back, faint snores coming from her throat.

Thalia thumped the rum bottle down on the kitchen counter. “Barb? Barb?” she called, but there was no response.

“We’re going to hell,” Laurel whispered, staring at Barb’s slack face.

Thalia waved hell away with one hand and said, “She’s not going to remember this in the morning, Bug. Help me get her up.”

“No, Thalia,” Laurel said. “I won’t be part of this.”

Thalia looked Laurel up and down, as if appraising her. Then she gave Laurel a short, sharp nod, as though she had decided. “Fine. I’ll handle it myself, then. I always do.” She glanced at the sleeping Bunny, and then she shaped her hand into a gun. She pointed her index finger at Laurel. “Close your eyes, baby,” she said. She cocked her thumb and shot Laurel in the chest.

All the air went whooshing out of Laurel, as if she’d been hit, as if Thalia’s hand had actually been loaded.

Thalia was already turning away. She poured a cup of coffee and headed back into the keeping room toward Barb.

Laurel stared after Thalia and felt herself sway and tremble, all at once undone. She’d left her half-empty wineglass sitting by the sink; she picked it up and drank deeply. The Chablis was room temperature and tasted much too sweet. Laurel swallowed with an effort, leaning on the counter.

It’s almost always people in a family who kill each other, Thalia had said at the theater. They’d been thinking of Marty. Both of them had been, perhaps for the first time in years. Now Thalia had quoted Daddy exactly, had shot Laurel with her finger. It was more than a reminder. It was an invocation calling something up. Laurel could feel it rising. The hair at her nape prickled, and her skin felt charged, electric.

Thalia said, “Wakey-wakey, Barb. Let’s have a little coffee.”

Barb didn’t so much as twitch, even when Thalia sat down beside her on the sofa.

Laurel drank the wine down to the warm dregs. Did Thalia mean only that Bunny was a deer? That Thalia was taking her down, and if it was too ugly for Laurel to watch, then now was the time to look away?

I’ll handle it myself, then, she had said. I always do.

“Thalia?” Laurel said, but her voice was small and seemed to come from very far away.

Thalia was patting Barb’s hand, getting no response. Outside, Marty uncoiled from his knothole. He was coming. Thalia had awakened him, and Laurel knew if she pulled back the curtain that covered the door, she would see his pale face pressed against the glass.

Want to see, Lady Laura-Lee?

She didn’t. She really, truly didn’t.

She opened the junk drawer in the kitchen, sifting through peelers and melon ballers and teaspoons and strainers until she dug out a metal jigger. The rum bottle was still out on the counter, and she grabbed it, pouring the big end of the jigger full. She drank it off in a single open-throated swallow. It smoked a molten-hot trail from her mouth to her stomach, dumping into the wine, combining and igniting. She had to stand very still and concentrate hard on not sending it right back up. She gulped air, trying to hold it, even as her unsteady hands were pouring another. She curled her hand around the refilled jigger, waiting out the burn.

From the sofa, Thalia said, “Laurel?”

Laurel made a shushing noise. She didn’t want Thalia’s voice coming at her from the outside. Thalia was already talking so loudly inside her head.

Close your eyes, baby.

Laurel felt her body cross a threshold, accepting what she’d put into it, and immediately, she lifted the jigger and downed the next shot. It was like being punched in the gut with a fist made out of blue flame. She coughed in two short barks, sounding like their old