The Starfish Sisters: A Novel(78)

My blood literally turns cold, slowing to sludge in my body. A roaring fills my ears, and for a moment I don’t click on the rest of the story, trying to get my mind to capture what this means.

“Damn,” I whisper. I hand back the phone.

“I thought you’d want to know.”

Only Ogden survived. I think of the bloody squirrel on her porch. The guy at the restaurant. The WHORE painted on her house. “I’ll be back in a minute,” I say, and pick up my phone from the counter, carrying it upstairs to my bedroom, out of earshot. Right this minute, the past doesn’t matter. I dial Suze’s number.

“Hey,” I say when she answers. “Have you seen the news about the LNB?”

“No.” The word sounds hollow. “What happened?”

“They killed Juno Gerhert.”

She makes a soughing noise and I imagine her sinking into a chair. “When?”

“Last night. Gunned her down outside a concert venue.”

“Shit. That’s bold.”

“Yeah. Suze, do you want to come down here? I’m worried about you.”

“Maybe later,” she says. “I’m doing some writing, and Joel will be back to install a Ring camera in a little while. I’ve got Maui until then.”

Joel. This is not the moment to reveal I know that she’s been lying, and my feelings are so complex that I wouldn’t even know where to begin. “You’re the only one they didn’t kill,” I say, and it makes my chest hurt, like I’m going to have a heart attack any second. “That scares me to death.”

She’s silent for a long moment. “I know. Me too. But I need to do what I’m doing right now. I’ll come down after Joel leaves.”

I hang up, and for some reason, my mind coughs up an image of a velvet bodice Suze gave me for Christmas in ninth grade. She crafted it of dark-red velvet and edged the square neckline and the short sleeves with gold lace and hand-sewn pearls of alternating sizes, larger and smaller. She lined it with satin. “So you can be Juliet whenever you want,” she said. When I wore it over a white dress, I felt like the most beautiful girl in the world, and even my mother loved it.

What difference does it make if she loved Joel forty years ago?

Except it matters that she’s kept the secret for so very long. Why wouldn’t she have said something when I saw her— Oh my God. I sink down on the bed, haunted by the vision of her at the unwed mothers’ home.

The sorrow—so many things hidden by both of us, so many things lost, so much I misunderstood—bends me right in half, and I cover my face with my hands, rocking myself back and forth as waves of regret and shame and a tangle of resentments and jealousies and ugliness slam me.

Oh, Suze, I’m so sorry.

When I’m feeling more settled, I take a breath and head back downstairs. To Ben. To Jasmine.

He’s washing dishes, which touches me somehow, and looks up when I come down the stairs. “You okay?”

I shake my head. “She’s the only one they didn’t actually kill.”

“I get that.” He comes to stand beside me, and covers one of my hands with his own. “Where’s Jasmine?”

I point toward the stairs.

“Good.” He slides a hand under my hair and pulls me into a kiss. “Is that okay?”

I nod. “Very. I’m sorry I was weird last night. I just feel nervous about Jasmine.”

He brushes a lock of hair from my face. “I get it. But you’re allowed to have a life, too.”

“Yes.” Impulsively, I lift on my toes and kiss him back. “You can set the table.”

“No!” Jasmine cries from the bottom of the stairs. “That’s my job.”

Ben doesn’t move away as fast as I hope, and I slide around him, feeling embarrassed. Even more so when Jasmine says, “Did you guys kiss?”

“Yes,” Ben pipes up. “Is that okay with you?”

“I don’t care.”

I finally notice that her fists are clenched and disengage from Ben. “Hey. What’s up?”

“Did you know that we’re going to be in England at Christmastime?” Her entire body is taut with emotion. “Christmas! Did you know?”

I squat so I’m closer to her level, and take her hand. “I figured you would be. It’s fall now. Christmas isn’t that far away.”

“How can I have Christmas there? Huh?”

“Honey! Maybe it will be special. I’ll come and help celebrate. How’s that?”

“It’s not that. Where will we put our Christmas tree? And we won’t have Maui trying to eat the presents and I won’t have any friends and it’s going to be awful!” She bursts into tears and falls into my arms, sobbing with the heartbreak only a child can truly express.

I hug her, remembering how it felt when my parents didn’t listen to me over their divorce and not even Amma had much to say because she was so busy taking care of Suze.

Whoa. Where did that come from? I think.

But Jasmine is what matters right now. I hold her tight, smelling her hair. “It’s scary.”

“Yes. And awful. And it makes me feel so, so, so lonely.”

“I know.” I stroke her hair. “Go ahead and let it out.”