She’d needed one hours ago, and the lingering taste of flour and sugar on her tongue made the craving worse. Digging into her jacket pocket, she found one precious Dubble Bubble left. She made quick work of unwrapping the gum and popped it into her mouth—her powdery pink salvation, for the time being. As she chewed, Murphy and Claire talked on, not fighting for once. None of them were fighting, so why did Eileen need a drink more than ever?
The conversation had turned into a game of Remember When.
Murphy started with, “Remember the tire swing?”
Eileen did. She’d swung on it before Murphy was even born. Dad had pushed her. Then the tree branch had broken off one night in a summer windstorm.
Claire said, “Remember the marionberry contest?”
The three of them had gone to the county fair and stood in a gray-sky drizzle, gawking as contestants pursued the most stereotypical Oregonian feat: shoving their mouths full of as many marionberries as they could, in front of a screaming crowd. When the sisters had returned home, Murphy had reenacted the event by standing on the kitchen counter and cramming twenty stacked pieces of Kraft singles into her mouth. She’d puked in the backyard a minute later, but they’d all found it hilarious. Eileen thought maybe that was the last time the three of them had laughed together.
The last time until today.
Claire and Murphy continued to reminisce, jumping on each other’s words like eager crickets. Eileen didn’t join in. She couldn’t anymore. She could only viciously chew her gum down to its stringy, sugarless core. It took the others minutes, maybe an hour, to notice. Murphy nudged Eileen’s foot and said, “Why’re you quiet?”
Eileen had been staring at the wall of boxes. Waiting for her chance to look inside, without the fear of either sister looking over her shoulder.
She shrugged and said, “Worn out, I guess.”
“Leenie.” Murphy ducked her head, looking oddly shy. “What’s your favorite memory with Dad?”
Eileen blinked, her throat growing rigid. The question should have been an easy one to answer—logistically, at least. Eileen had multiple memories of Dad. She should have been able to pick one she liked best.
It wasn’t as simple as that, though.
Back when they’d been close, Eileen and Claire had swapped memories of their father, and Eileen had found out that Claire had barely any; she didn’t even remember the funeral. Eileen had thought that was strange, that they could be a year apart, and yet Eileen got the lion’s share of memories. Was it something about the human brain, how its memory-making magically clicked on when you were four, but not three years old?
For whatever reason, Eileen had been given the responsibility: She was the designated memory keeper of John Sullivan. How twisted was that? He was their biological dad, not hers, and she got the memories.
The memories had been good, though, and John Sullivan had acted like her dad. She could tell Claire and Murphy that. She could recall the time they’d finger painted together in the kitchen, or how high he’d pushed her on the swing in the front yard, before its demise. She could recall his swishy bangs and solid presence and citrusy scent.
But doing that wouldn’t be fully honest, would it? Talking about their father when she knew she had another father too. A killer, with no good memories attached to his name.
Eileen couldn’t.
“Murph, I’m tired, okay?” It came out more irritably than Eileen intended.
An injured look cracked across Murphy’s face as she said quietly, “Okay.”
“Mom used to take us to his grave,” Claire said.
Murphy frowned. “I don’t remember that.”
“It was a long time ago when she stopped. You were little.”
“Oh,” Murphy said, looking deflated. Moments passed before she murmured, “I’d like to see it sometime.”
No one replied, and to Eileen’s relief, the conversation broke apart after that. It was as though her talk of tiredness cued Claire to yawn, and then Murphy caught it. Claire stayed where she was, sprawled out, eyes closed. Murphy burrowed into a pile of quilts, wrapping her body around a needlepoint pillow and, minutes later, producing delicate snores. Eileen watched her sisters sleep and the fire crackle, as shadows waxed and waned on the parlor walls.
Wind and rain pushed against the house, sending low creaks through the room. It was peaceful. In a state like this Eileen couldn’t imagine Mark Enright throwing his mother down the stairs or bashing in his father’s brains.