Me, I am an athlete and a narcotics addict.
A leader and a mourner.
On the outside, I am gray-eyed and butter blond, with a strong line to my jaw now, and a mouth full of braces. Pale skin, pink cheeks. A little taller than my sisters, taller than a lot of boys my age. I have the confident walk and good shoulders of an excellent softball player. I stand up in front of crowds with a smile. I fix my sisters’ problems. Those are the qualities anyone can see.
But my insides are made of seawater, warped wood, and rusty nails.
9.
THE MORNING AFTER our arrival, I am up at six. I pull on a sweater over my nightgown, since mornings on Beechwood are chilly. On my way downstairs for coffee, I pause at the door to Rosemary’s old room.
Inside, it is bare. The bunk beds are made up neatly with old quilts from my mother’s collection. Used to be, Rosemary kept about thirty stuffed animals on the upper bunk with her, mostly lions. But they are not here anymore. Not even her favorite lion, a floppy white one named Shampoo.
Rosemary’s books are absent, too: old picture books and chapter books, collections of fairy tales. Gone are her Barbies, her spiral drawing thing, her Magic 8 Ball. The room’s built-in shelves display a few pretty objects I don’t remember—a green-and-white vase, a few books on botanical subjects. When I open the closet, it is empty except for some neatly folded blankets.
Tipper must have worked hard to put every reminder of Rosemary out of sight, not wishing to cause pain to anyone who might wander in here without thinking.
I climb to the top bunk, where my sister used to sleep.
I should have played more “lion family” with her.
I should have done her hair in French braids, though Bess did that.
I should have made cookies with her more, though I did sometimes.
She was the baby who wanted to go up and down the porch steps a thousand times, right leg always stepping up, left leg following. The four-year-old in tutus, running along the walkways with a magic wand. The seven-year-old in a snorkel mask and flippers, stomping in frustration that no one wanted to take her down to the beach. The ten-year-old with a battered stack of Diana Wynne Jones novels; asking for seconds of strawberry rhubarb pie; baking cookies studded with butterscotch chips; demanding I read her fairy tales, even though she was too old to be read to.
“Mother cleared this out when?” Penny stands in the door. Her shiny, pale hair is chaotic from sleep. She wears her green North Forest gym shorts, an old chamois shirt, and beloved slippers that have lamb faces on the toes.
“Don’t know. Maybe Luda did it last fall.”
“I need coffee,” says Penny. But she climbs into Rosemary’s bunk with me.
I know she doesn’t want to talk about our sister. About our feelings. She never does. She’ll lash out if you push her, so I stay silent.
Penny puts her feet in the air, still in the lamb slippers. They touch the ceiling.
I put my feet in the air, too, in blue scrunchy socks.
We wiggle our toes on the ceiling together.
“Would you want to go hunt in the attic?” I ask, getting an idea. “Just to look for maybe some of the old books? And maybe games? We might want them.” I don’t mention Rosemary’s other things, her clothes and stuffed lions and so on.
“I wouldn’t say no to a game of Clue.”
“Also those Diana Wynne Jones books,” I say.
“Those are sweet,” says Penny. “I could do a reread of some of those babies, for sure.”
* * *
—
WE PAD UPSTAIRS to my parents’ floor. At the end of the hall is a doorway to a narrow wooden staircase. That goes up to our attic space—the turret. It is a hexagonal room with two windows and a finished wooden floor, but it tends to be stuffy and hot, so Tipper uses it for storage.
The room smells of wood and dust. There are a couple of carpets, in rolls. Trunks and cardboard containers are carefully labeled in our mother’s handwriting. As I expected, there’s a cluster of new-looking boxes against one wall, neatly taped.
Penny and I spend the next half hour looking through the contents. I say hello to Shampoo and the other stuffed lions, to Rosemary’s shorts and T-shirts. Oh, I miss her. But I want to keep Penny with me, so I close those boxes quickly. Instead, I focus on games. We find Clue, Scrabble, and the Magic 8 Ball. Do we want the Spirograph art thing? No.
Penny shakes the 8 Ball while I rummage some more. “Will I fall in love?” she asks it.
Better not to tell you now, it says.
“Will I at least make out with someone? This summer? Anyone?”