No one on the Templetons’ side has thought to ask for the deed or anything else, and why would they? The sale is contingent only on the river running through the land they’ve bought, and we have assured them it will do so. They don’t care how, and even if they did, they wouldn’t ask in case it’s not been on the level. They certainly don’t want to take responsibility for any more than they have to, so I doubt they’ll think to ask for a very long time. What Bourne does next regarding the Templetons is their own decision to make, and we are lucky that we will all be somewhere else when they do so.
Your loving brother,
Elmer
I finish reading.
No one says anything.
Then Mab says, “Oh.”
Then she gets up and rummages around on her desk until she locates the emails River gave her.
First her face gets very white and then it gets very red. First her face gets very serious and then it smiles, but it is not a smile that means happy. It is a smile that means crazy. “I don’t believe it.” She laughs. It would be more accurate to say she cackles. “It’s a typo.”
“What typo?” People should proofread. It is a critical step because it ensures you have conveyed your intended meaning, and meaning is important. Otherwise, why would you bother to write it down?
“They’re not worried we’ll find the damn paperwork.” Mab’s face shows happy, surprised, and angry all at once which should not be possible but is. “They’re worried we’ll find the dam paperwork.”
I think she has forgotten all about the sex. So that is one good thing.
Three
Usually Nora goes into another room to call Russell. Leaves us in the kitchen and goes into the living room. Leaves us in the living room and goes up to hers. It’s a small house, so it’s more the illusion of privacy than the fact of it, but even the illusion of something precious can also be precious.
Today, though, she puts the laptop right on the coffee table with us gathered around, prays to the wifi gods for a strong enough connection, and lets Monday read Russell the letters she found. We are expecting tight, tentative optimism, but it’s been a long time since we’ve seen Russell or he’s seen all of us.
“Amazing!” he enthuses when Monday finishes reading.
“Really?” Nora breathes.
“Look at you girls!” He is grinning and shaking his head. “You’re all grown up!”
We forget that Russell knew us before we knew ourselves, back when we were brand-new. We forget that Russell began fighting this battle long before we did. We forget that Russell has loved not just our mother, however complicatedly, but the three of us as well for a very long time.
Last night, we looked—now that we finally knew what we were looking for—through Monday’s boxes in case the town deed to the dam was also hiding, misfiled, in the house all along.
“It could be like in a horror movie where the girl locks herself inside so she will be safe,” Monday said, “but the zombie or madman or monster or alien or deranged ex-boyfriend is already in there.”
“He’s only already in there if the girl is stupid,” Mab said, dismissing her, “or slutty.”
“You had sex,” Monday said, “so let us look through all the boxes again.”
Monday read over a great many pieces of paper herself, and I read over the great many pieces of paper she piled on my tray, and Mab lay on her bed with her legs up the wall and said things like “It’s so amazing. It’s beyond words. I really can’t tell you what sex is like.”
And Monday responded things like “Lie. That is all you have been doing since you had it.”
And Mab said, “Would you just concentrate on what you’re doing?”
And Monday said, “Why cannot you help us?”
And Mab said, “You’re the one in charge of pointless pieces of paper.”
And Monday said, “On television, sex makes people happy, but you are still annoyed and annoying.”
And I tried to remind myself that if I killed them both I would never be able to use the toilet again when my mother was not home.
Looking through all those papers was fruitless maybe, but not pointless. It was distracting. And I needed a distraction. It’s not like River and Mab having sex was a surprise, but that doesn’t make it any less of a betrayal—not by her and not of me, but a betrayal nonetheless. It’s not that I’m jealous—at least not exactly—more like I don’t want River to have sex with anyone. Not in an if-I-can’t-have-him-nobody-can way. In that I want him to be beyond—above maybe—his body’s baser limitations. I transcend mine every hour of every day. Is it too much to ask him to do the same for one afternoon with my sister?