Laura Lippman - I'd Know You Anywhere

“So you went through that whole charade and put them through all those trips, your mind made up the entire time?” It was all too easy to imagine Iso doing something similar.

“Why not?”

“Wouldn’t it have been simpler to tell them how you felt?”

“No, it would have been simpler for you . I broke them in, Elizabeth.” Vonnie was prone to use the old name when discussing their childhood. “All the privileges that you took for granted—I won them for you. I bet you weren’t told that you had to apply to at least five colleges and visit all of them.”

“No, but I didn’t have your grades, your opportunities. I had to have a safety school. A safety-safety, even. I still don’t know how I got into Wesleyan.”

Vonnie coughed-laughed.

“What?”

“Oh, seriously, Eliza. You can’t be that naive.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Your essay. I helped you punch it up, remember? You all but told them what happened to you.”

“I did not .”

“Yes you did.”

“My essay was about Anne Frank.”

“And your personal connection to her. It was subtle—especially after I helped you revise it—but there could have been no doubt in the minds of the admissions officers that you had firsthand knowledge of what it was to be held captive. That you were a victim of a brutal crime, with that hard-earned knowledge that people are not basically good.”

“That’s just not true.”

Vonnie shrugged, fiddled with the radio, probably looking for the local NPR affiliate or even, God help them, C-SPAN. The prime minister’s “question time” was one of the highlights of Vonnie’s week, although Eliza knew that was usually broadcast on Sundays. “I’m not criticizing you,” she said. “You’re entitled to use your experience.”

“I’ve never used it.”

“You’ve never really had to. It’s always there, like… like… some huge dog, sitting at your side. A big dog, that never barks or growls or shows its fangs, but it’s so huge, who would dare? You’ve effectively been spared from criticism for twenty years now. You’re untouchable. Like—to use a reference from your world—Beth in Little Women. So good, so sweet and with that horrible destiny hanging over her head.”

“Spared by whom? Only you, our parents, and Peter know about me. And our grandparents, but they’re gone. No one else can see this dog. If you want to talk about how you feel, have at it. But don’t put it on me.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll own my feelings.” Vonnie paused. She was going to say something difficult, Eliza realized, the kind of thing that could never be unsaid. “From the day you were taken, I’ve always felt that our parents became less interested in me, and my achievements. They almost lost you, so you’re more precious to them. They can’t help it. They try, because they’re smart and compassionate people, but nothing I do can compare to what you give them simply by existing. And, no offense, Eliza, but existing is pretty much all you do.”

It was the last bit that stung. Until then, she had been okay.

“I’m a mother and a wife. You probably couldn’t survive a day in my life. In fact, the reason we’re making this trip is because Peter didn’t think you could handle a day in my life.” That was cruel and would only damage the already tenuous bond between her sister and her husband, but Eliza was too angry to fight fair.

“Don’t twist this into some mommy-war argument. You know I’m not that simplistic. You…float through life. You let life happen to you. I think you’re a great mother, and I know you put a lot of energy into what you do. But you live the most reactive life of anyone I know, Eliza. Jesus, if there’s one thing I would have learned from your experience, I think it would be to never let anyone else take control of my life. Instead, you’ve handed yours over. To Peter, to the children. And now you’re giving it back to Walter Bowman.”

“I’m going there because he’s agreed to tell me what he’s never told anyone else. How many girls he killed, where they are.”

Vonnie was silent for a few minutes, and Eliza focused on the car’s GPS, which was narrating their way to the B and B, not having an alternate location to offer. She hated the GPS voice. It always sounded a little smug to her. She rather enjoyed it when construction or some other unanticipated problem put the GPS in the wrong, not that the voice ever admitted that she had screwed up.

“And then what?” Vonnie asked.

“What do you mean?”

“He confesses to you. So what? Has it occurred to you that it won’t be considered valid if his lawyer isn’t present? That it might not settle anything, just stir things up? It’s occurred to Peter, I can tell you that much.”

So Peter and Vonnie had discussed this, outside her hearing.

“When did you and Peter hash this out?”

“Last night. He was up late, working. As was I. I went downstairs to scare up a glass of wine. You know, someone should tell Peter that just because wine is expensive and French, doesn’t mean it’s good.”

Oddly, that offhanded criticism softened Eliza’s anger. It, at least, was classic Vonnie, careless and thoughtless.

“Back when we were teenagers, you once said that everything would be about me from now on. Isn’t it possible that your own perceptions became reality? That you see what you look for?”

“Yes,” Vonnie said. “But isn’t it also possible that I’m right? That I’ve lived my entire life in my sister’s shadow?”

“Not in the world at large.”

“Fuck the world at large. It’s the family I care about.”

That was news. “Are you worried that what I’m doing will become public? That all the old stuff will be dredged up again?”

“No. I know that’s not what you want.”

“So why are we talking about this?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we’re talking about it because it’s always there and yet we never have. Maybe it’s not a big dog but just the old clichéd elephant in the room. I’ve always understood that what happened to you happened to you. But it happened to the rest of us, too. To Mom and Dad. To me. We were there. Not Peter. Yet it’s Peter whom you trust, more than any of us. It’s Peter who shapes your life. You follow him wherever his job leads him, make the sacrifices necessary to make his career possible, even as you give up on your own.”

“Vonnie, this may be the hardest thing for you to understand, but I never considered dropping out of graduate school a sacrifice. If I hadn’t withdrawn, I’d probably still be there, trying to write a thesis on the children’s literature of the 1970s, and bored to tears. I learned a long time ago that I just didn’t have that much to say about Judy Blume’s Forever and why a boy would name his penis Ralph, given its associations to vomiting. Talk about semiotics.”

Vonnie laughed, and the air cleared. They continued to laugh throughout the day, old stories bubbling up to the surface. The Stuckey’s log (again) and their attempt to feign innocence as peanut-fouled water overflowed their bathroom at the charmingly quaint Martha Washington Inn. More memories followed throughout the day in Richmond, as they strolled through the fan district, ate dinner at the New York Times –anointed charcuterie restaurant. Vonnie remembered the terrible woman who had threatened to run them down at the beach, but also how Mr. Sleazak, their society painter neighbor back in Roaring Springs, had asked Inez to pose nude for a portrait, saying it would be “Just for me.” It was a most satisfactory day and one that had done the impossible—taken Eliza’s mind off tomorrow. She wouldn’t be surprised if the fight itself had been Vonnie’s attempt to distract her. She was a good sister, in her way, and her way was all she had.