Lydia Cooper - My Second Death

“What about the other one?”

“The other one?” She licks her lips. The moisture glistens. “You mean Stella. She was — Barb loved her so much.”

I look at Judith Greene. “Loved her more than the others?”

“No, but with her — disability . You know how it is. We love the ones who need us in a special way.”

“Disability?”

“With her, you know, her mental condition.”

“Oh,” I say. A sister with a mental disability. A fire. I almost smile but it’s not particularly amusing. “Yes,” I say. “I know how it is.”

She reaches for me and before I can move, she squeezes my bare hand. Her palm is clammy and soft. “You know, I sing with a choir and we are doing a performance to raise money for a scholarship in her name — you’ve probably heard of it. The Barb Devorecek Memorial Scholarship?”

I swallow. My mouth tastes like rotten fruit.

She says, “Let me get you a card with the information on it. You should come. I think you’ll really love the performance.”

And she turns and scuttles back to her house. I stand by the car. I bend forward, resting my forehead against the cold metal frame. I wipe my sweating palms on my shirtfront. She comes back waving a bookmark-shaped flyer. I take it from her, fold it into my jeans pocket, and open my car door before she can touch me again. Shielded by the metal and glass door, I say, “Okay. Thank you. I’ll be there.”

I’m lying, of course, but she forgot to ask my name so it doesn’t matter.

When I slide in, I see her lips forming a question. I crank the ignition, slam off the parking break, and roar away from the curb.

She stands watching me until the car reaches the end of the street.

At the next stoplight, I pull the legal pad out of my pack and find the list of names Aidan wrote. I circle the name “Stella” three times in red ink. The way Aidan told the story, it sounded like this sister is in an assisted living home because she was injured in the fire, or because she was psychologically unhinged by it. Or maybe that’s just how I heard it. I wonder why my mind didn’t assume she was already a mentally sick violent criminal. And then I think about Aidan’s inexplicable friendliness, his utter lack of fear or discomfort around me. I wonder what Aidan considers acceptable in human relationships. How he defines normalcy, or innocence.

I call Aidan’s cell as I drive. He doesn’t pick up. I leave a message.

“Your psycho sister,” I say. “What exactly is wrong with her? You’ve got to give me the details. I’m kind of new at this detective business, so you’ve got to help me out. Okay?”

When I get back to the apartment, I notice a dark figure sitting hunched over on the wooden staircase outside the door. I hesitate, but then I recognize the shaggy fringe of caramel-colored hair under the knit cap. I head for the stairs. He looks up when my sneakers rattle the slats. His cheeks are chapped.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

He scrubs a knuckle under his nose and then sniffs hard. “My school had this field trip to the university’s polymer science building.”

I look at my baby brother and remember the dean’s imperative pink slip from yesterday.

“Oh. Damn.” I should have looked. I wave my hand at Stephen. “Get your ass out of the way. I have to unlock the door.”

He stands up, dragging his heavy backpack with him, squeezing himself back against the railing. I edge past him to unlock the door and push it open. The kitchen feels warm after the frigid outside air. I put my backpack in my room and when I come out he is standing in the middle of the kitchen floor like an island of teenage angst.

Since he hasn’t been to the apartment yet, I say, “Hey, why don’t you go check out my room. It’s in the style of early modern rustic, the college years.”

He nods once and shuffles obediently down the hall. I check the fridge and pull out two sodas, a bar of cheese, and a carton of eggs. I fry scrambled eggs and melt cheese on top, scrape the eggs onto two dishes, and set one of the dishes and one of the sodas in front of the couch.

“Hey, scrawny. You hungry?”

He comes out and slouches on the couch and looks at the food. Then he picks up the soda.

I lean against the kitchen sink. “So.”

He pulls off his hat and holds it balled in his hands. His straw-stiff hair crackles. “So what?”

I pick up the dish of eggs and start eating. Around a mouthful, I say, “So you must have a real reason for coming over. Spit it out.”

He squeezes the hat and looks down at the eggs. Then he takes a breath and shrugs his shoulders, and picks up the dish.

“That tour was frigging boring. We did it when I was in middle school.”

“God,” I say. “The appalling nerve of some people. But seriously. What’s the deal?”

He doesn’t say anything for a while. From the street below someone screams an obscenity and a car horn blares. He bends down and unzips his bag. He roots around and then pulls out a textbook, which he opens. Slotted in the textbook is what looks like an old Polaroid.

“I found this a while ago. I was looking for a baby picture for this stupid school project we have to do. I was going through some of Dave’s old pics, like, in the basement.”

I can’t see the picture from the kitchen, and I don’t feel like going into the living room where I’ll be able to smell his teenage body odor and deodorant and the cafeteria and perfume scents lingering on his school clothes.

“You know, my telepathy just isn’t what it used to be.”

He looks down at the picture like he doesn’t quite know how to explain it. Then he stands up and holds it to me. I don’t move, so he takes another step, still holding it out.

“At first,” he says, not looking at me, “I thought it was, like, a picture of Dave.”

I can see the photo from here. It’s a baby picture, your normal sort. Fat kid with crazy black hair, the hippy-looking mother squeezing the hell out of the kid, who’s laughing up at her. I can’t for the life of me think why he’d guess Dave, except that Dave and I are the only other kids in the family.

“Well,” I say, “if that was Dave wearing a ruffled pink onesie, it would sure explain a lot.”

Stephen pulls the picture back and studies it. Then he glances up at me from under his eyelashes. A little smile twitches up the corner of his mouth. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess it would.”

He slumps back on the couch. I finish eating the eggs and rinse the dish in the sink.

“Do you remember that?”

I shut off the water. Shake my hands and then wipe them on my jeans. I don’t know what to say. I understand what he’s asking. He’s asking the same thing all those years of shrinks asked. Stephen was born late in the year that I was ten. He doesn’t remember before that, just like all the shrinks I had to visit didn’t know the pre-killer Mickey, either. So of course they want to know, Was she always like that? Is there a genetic flaw in this child? Or are we witnessing some psychotic reaction to a traumatic event?

I raise my arms slightly. “What you see,” I say, “is what you get.”

He frowns down at the photo.

“No, you stupid ass,” I say. “ Here . Me. Right now. Who I am now. I don’t give a fuck about people, about any one. It so happens I was born this way, but it wouldn’t matter anyway, if, you know, something made me this way. Point is, this is the way I am. So whatever is weighing on your young mind? You should probably take it somewhere else.”

He looks up at me. “Does Dave ever ask you for money?”

There is a silence. I notice cracks in the plaster wall behind Stephen.