“You went through hell, so it makes sense that you’d look like it.”
“Well, thanks for that,” I say and pull my purse into my lap, sitting stiffly on a very comfortable sofa draped in deep blue velvet. The clock above my sister’s desk ticks away as she sighs, both frustrated and saddened. “You need to talk to someone. It doesn’t have to be me.”
Playing with the thin necklace that drapes across my décolleté, I do my best to consider what she’s asking me to do. She wants me to tell all my secrets to someone like her. A man or a woman who supposedly won’t judge me, yet they’ll have the option to give me pills if they deem them fit.
Isn’t that a part of judgment? Sighing to myself, I ask her, “Do you really think it’s going to help me?”
I know what would help me, but he’s not answering me. I have no way to see him, no way to make any of this better.
“I’m seeing someone,” my sister says and leans forward, “after mom …” She leaves the word dying unspoken, leaning back in her seat. The leather groans as she continues, “And what happened with our father.”
I can’t bear the mention of our father. Staring past my sister’s cream blouse, I focus on the textured wallpaper that lines her office. It’s a simple damask pattern in a pale blue and cream colorway.
“Don’t bring up Dad, please.” Cadence’s shoulders sag slightly, her brow raising in condolence. I didn’t realize how much she loathed him until I saw her reaction to the news that our father was a serial killer.
Beyond a moment of surprise, she believed every word to be true without hesitation.
I still don’t know what I believe.
He took the fall for all those murders. Some of those murders, though, really were his handiwork. Without a doubt, I know he must’ve killed them. I remember the names of some of those women. They news was peppered with them when I was younger. A series of young girls going missing, each time happening closer to home, and a public outcry for their bodies to be found.
I remember the way my mother stared at the television, demanding my sister and I never stay out late and always check in even though we were so much younger than the victims. There’s no way she knew my father committed those murders. At least not then, but somehow, I think she found out. Or maybe she only suspected.
I wish she were alive so I could ask her. I wish I knew what she was thinking and why she stayed with him if she thought he’d killed them.
“You know he did it, don’t you?” My sister’s question brings me back to the here and now, and the faint memories of childhood vanish. “Did you read the articles?”
“I read them,” I lie.
“The parts about you aren’t true.”
“I know,” I say to go along with her although I imagine some parts are true; not in black and white, but they’re true in the gray areas. Maybe because I know the truth and I’m holding it in. Therefore, whatever comes out is most certainly a lie.
“There’s no evidence that you were involved. They can’t pin a thing on you. It’s all—”
“Circumstantial,” I say, finishing the sentence for her. “I know,” I repeat, my voice quieter and the fight in her eyes draining.
“It’s not okay that anyone thinks you were a part of any of this.”
The steady ticking of the clock passes between us before my sister starts up again, saying, “You’re not okay.”
“I know.”
“What if …” she starts with a hint of optimism and leaves her place in the wingback chair across from me to round her desk. The drawer opens and closes quickly enough, and she presents me with a pale blue journal.
“What if you put whatever you’re feeling in this?”
“You therapists and your journals.” It has the softest leather cover, but it feels like betrayal in my palms.
“I’ll feel better if you’ll tell me you’ll at least try,” she says, attempting a compromise. Her tone is telling, as if she’s certain this is the solution. “If things get bad or start to slip even the slightest … will you come talk to me?”
“So you can be my shrink?” My response is both dismissive and playful. “I thought you got a promotion and you won’t have time for patients?”
Her smile makes me smile. It’s humble and small, but I know