Lesley Kagen - Whistling in the Dark

When I went into our bedroom to start putting my clothes into piles, so that when Eddie came back with the boxes I would be prepared, Troo was laying on our bed, spread out like she was making a snow angel in the room made dark by the storm. I tried to turn on the little lamp on the dresser but nothing happened.

Troo said, “What did Mother tell you?”

I knew this would bug Troo so I laid down next to her and told her. About how Daddy wasn’t my real daddy. How Rasmussen was. And about our green eyes. When I was done, she was so quiet. I figured she was just too sad to say words. So I quickly said, “I have a secret for you, too.” I knew that would make her happier because Troo loved a good secret and was most of the time good about keeping them.

We were both looking up at that crack that ran across the ceiling like the Honey Creek. I felt around for her hand and stroked it with my thumb the way she liked me to. “Daddy, right before he died,” I said quietly, “he told me to tell you that it was okay.” I said it right out like that because I thought that was the best way to do it, like when you went swimming and the water was too cold it was just a Chinese torture to go in slowly. Better just to jump right in.

I took her face in my hands and looked into the windows of her soul. “Daddy wanted me to tell you that the crash wasn’t your fault.”

Troo pulled away and turned to the wall. She wasn’t making any noise, but I could tell by her breathing. It was the first time I had seen my sister cry since forever. I gently lifted her head and set it back down on my Sky King- smelling pillow.

Nell came in and said, “What’s goin’ on in here?” She had a mop and other cleaning things.

I said, “Nothin’.”

“What’s wrong with Troo?”

“Nothin’.”

“I’m gonna clean this place up and then Eddie will take you over to Officer Rasmussen’s.”

“Today? But I thought we were just packing today.” That felt too surprising to me. Too quick. “Are you going to stay at Rasmussen’s?”

I thought Nell was going to say mind your own beeswax, you little brat. “I’m going to stay with Eddie because Mrs. Callahan said that would be fine now that we are getting married.” She looked over at Troo, who was still thunderstorm crying because she had saved up so many tears from since Daddy was dead and she hadn’t cried like I had, which was more like spring showers sprinkled here, there and everywhere. Nell didn’t say anything to Troo, but to me she said, “You know, Sally, you don’t always have to play second fiddle.”

Since I didn’t play the second fiddle or any other musical instrument, I thought Nell might be drunk again, especially since she grinned at me before she left. Yes, I was sure of it now. Nell was drunk.

I laid back down next to Troo and rubbed her back that was going in and out so fast. Since she still hadn’t said anything, I thought she might go quiet and give up on talking like she did after the crash. But as always, my sister was full of surprises. “I have a secret for you, too,” she said to the wall.

I wasn’t really that excited to hear another secret because I pretty much had had it with secrets that day.

“I put my hands over Daddy’s eyes,” Troo said. “Right over his eyes.”

The rain was coming down hard outside our bedroom window, a sound I usually liked, but it was too loud and a branch rubbed against the pane like it was trying to break in.

“On the way home from the game, Daddy and Uncle Paulie were fighting,” Troo whimpered. “I wanted them to stop so bad. They were yelling about you and something about your birthday and I wanted them to pay attention to me so I played peek-a-boo with Daddy in the car even though he told me to stop, and that’s why he ran into the tree and that sound was so bad, the sound of the car smashing.” She was holding the edge of the pillow between her teeth to keep them from chattering. “I’m… I’m so sorry for killing Daddy.”

Poor, poor Troo. What an awful shocking secret to have to hold on to for such a long time. I stroked her back and said, “Daddy said it’s not your fault and he meant it. I promise you on the O’Malley sisters’ hearts of love and all that is holy on Heaven and Earth, he forgave you.”

When Troo was sure I was telling the truth, she said in a baby voice, “Could I have a glass of water, please?”

On my way to the kitchen, I could hear that Troo had gone back to her crying, which was not only about her sadness but the sadness she thought she caused others she loved, the worst kind of sadness. Maybe after a while Troo would forgive herself, but I knew she’d never, ever forget hearing the sound of the car going into that elm.

Just like I’d never, ever forget the look on Daddy’s face on August 2, 1959.

“I’m disappointed in you, Sal,” he’d said that morning. He was angrily pulling weeds out of the little vegetable garden I had begged him to plow for me. “Instead of going to the ballpark with me today, you’re gonna stay home and work on your garden. I’m takin’ Troo instead.”

“But, Daddy,” I cried. “I’ve been looking forward to this game all week.” We were going to sit in the hot sun and eat salty peanuts and hot dogs with mustard and relish and sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh-inning stretches. It was a double-header against the Cards.

“I guess you shoulda spent less time looking forward and more time weeding. By the time I get home, it better look like somebody tends this garden. Like somebody cares about it.” He wiped his hands off on his overalls and stomped off toward the house.

I yelled at his back, “But you promised.”

He stopped for a second like he’d changed his mind, but then he just kept going toward the house.

“I hate you,” I yelled to his back. “I wish I had another daddy.”

The screen door slammed behind him.

I had visited that secret so much since he died that sometimes I worried it had left my heart in tatters that would never get mended.

Granny kept telling me time heals all wounds. I didn’t know about that.

Mother always said a house was nothing but a reflection of its occupants. She was right, because Rasmussen’s house also reminded me of a chocolate-covered cherry, even better on the inside than the outside. It was clean and organized like a classroom. Only it didn’t smell like books or poster paint or rubber boots. It smelled like all those flowers Rasmussen had growing in his garden and like that puppy dog Lizzie.

While we carried our clothes boxes through Rasmussen’s front door, Nell told us that he and Eddie would move some other stuff, like our dresser and the little lamp, later on, and for tonight we could sleep over in Mrs. Galecki’s screened porch. That was something everybody knew we really loved to do, especially Troo, who liked to watch the fireflies when she fell asleep, like they were a nightlight that made her feel safe and just so. Nell said that Rasmussen told her that me and Troo could each have our own bedroom, but I told her to tell Rasmussen no thank you, because I didn’t think either one of us could fall asleep if we didn’t rub each other’s backs. But really, I was probably just being sinfully selfish because I just couldn’t wake up in the middle of the night like I did sometimes with the Creature of the Black Lagoon chasin’ me all over the place and not have Troo next to me, making that noise she made when she sucked on her fingers, her baby doll Annie looking at me with those wide-open eyes like we’d just met.

So just like that, like we had been shot through space to another planet, the next morning we were sitting at Rasmussen’s very modern yellow Formica kitchen table that I knew Troo just adored even though you would have to chain her down and drip water on her forehead for six days to get her to admit it. Troo felt happy about being Daddy’s only girl now. But Troo wasn’t so happy about Rasmussen being my father and the boss of this house. Like she might have to be second in command around here and she wasn’t going to say something nice about any of it.