Chris Whitaker - We Begin at the End

“When will Peter come?” he said.

Shelly looked at Duchess and Duchess told her alright, she should go now. Shelly said she would be back the next day to see them settled.

Duchess went over to him and put a hand on his back. “Peter and Lucy.”

He turned then, sat up and stared at her.

She said nothing more, just shook her head.

He reared fast, cursed her with every word he knew. He lashed out and caught her cheek hard. She kept her hands down, just closed her eyes as he yelled and screamed the kind of truths that no longer hurt her. She knew them already. She was a bad sister. She was a bad person. He cried so much he shook, his face in the pillow, screaming for a life so close that for a few, blissful weeks, he had it in his grasp.

Duchess waited for him to cry himself out. It took a long time. She felt blood on her cheek where he had caught her.

When he finally slept she took his sneakers off and covered him over, and worried she had not brushed his teeth.

That night she heard noise, someone as new as them, across the hall in the small room. Crying, then Claudette and calming words.

Duchess scooted over into her brother’s bed and watched him. She thought of Thomas Noble and how he would not be able to find them now. She did not know his address to write him. She could ask Shelly but she knew she would not. She was nothing more than a footnote in his life, in Dolly’s, in Walk’s. She left no lasting impression, her impact ugly but mercifully brief.

“Duchess,” Robin sat upright.

“It’s alright.” She stroked his hair.

“I had a dream. That dream again. I can’t work out what the voice is saying.”

She lay him back down.

“Sometimes I forget where I am.”

She placed her hand on his heart till he calmed.

“But you’re here.”

“I’m here,” she said.

He reached up and touched her face. “Did I do that mark there?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You never need say that to me.”

Spring drifted toward the promise of summer. As Walk and Martha prepared for trial the Radley children started at yet another new school, rode the bus with the other kids from the home and settled into the rhythms of another, fettered life. Duchess still tended to Robin, cared for him like a mother but did so without fuss, setting about her tasks like it was all she was good for. She tried her best to smile for him, to push him on the swing and play his games, run around the big yard and help him climb the oak. But she could not outrun her mistakes, feeling they were destined to sink not only her but now her brother too.

Shelly still made her visits, Robin smiling when her hair changed from pink to a cobalt blue. He asked after Peter and Lucy at every visit, even asked for their address so he could write. Duchess helped him with the letter. He told them he knew he and his sister were not the right fit for their family, and that it was okay. He asked after Jet, asked how hot it got over in Wyoming and how Jet kept himself cool. He signed off with love, then drew a picture of the group home, and of him and Duchess. Stick figures with wide bubble heads and straight mouths, as if deep in contemplation of what might have been. He made Duchess sign her name too. She scrawled Duchess Day Radley, Outlaw before he made her cross the last word out.

She received a postcard from Walk. He’d been in touch with Shelly and she’d filled him in. He wrote her about Cape Haven, how it was all quiet without her, his writing so small she almost could not read it.

The card was a shot of Cabrillo, Bixby Creek Bridge, the arc in Big Sur, the water below breaking so hard she could hear it. She tacked it to their corkboard, along with a letter that arrived from Peter and Lucy a week later. They said everything and nothing, told Robin it was hotter than Hades and Lucy had got sunburn tending the yard. Robin had made her read it five times, each peppered with questions she could not possibly know the answers to. They signed off with a drawing of their own, Robin and Duchess, from memory. Lucy was a decent artist, but she made the smiles a little too wide. Along with the letter they enclosed a photo of Jet. That night Robin slept with it by his nightstand, waking a couple of times and checking it was still there. The next day Duchess tacked it to the corkboard and their collection grew a little.

Duchess began to tentatively think of the future, not her own, but Robin’s. Her grades fell again as she drifted toward the lower end of her class. The other children left her alone, knew she was from Oak Fair so might well be gone soon enough.

And then one day a boy named Rick Tide began to seek her out. It turned out Rick’s cousin was Kelly Raymond, Mary Lou’s sidekick. Rick heard the story, then he gave it a dressing and sent it on its way. By the time it made it back to Duchess she’d been responsible for Mary Lou losing an eye. For her part Duchess let it slide, even when Rick tripped her in the lunch line and sent her and her food to the floor.

A day later she popped Rick hard enough to send him to the nurse. Shelly was called and it was smoothed over. The principal knew enough about Rick Tide to keep it from spilling further.

She was excused for the day and Shelly took her into Main Street, where they sat outside a burger joint and drank shakes while the traffic crawled past. The road was coned for an upcoming parade. Flags were strung and a banner crossed from one building over the street to the opposite side.

“Berry Parade? Sounds about the shittiest parade I ever heard of.”

Shelly smiled. “You know what today is?”

“I’ve been following.” The first day of the trial, she’d been on the computer when the house slept and read all she could.

“You alright?”

“Sure. Hal said it’d be over quick. They’ll put him to death.”

Shelly sighed, her head tilted a little.

“Spill it,” Duchess said.

“What?”

“Whatever it is you want to say.”

Shelly hid her eyes behind sunglasses. “I never split siblings. They’re always better off together.”

“Jesse James and his brother Frank, they robbed banks from Iowa to Texas. Cops got their gang at Northfield, only the brothers escaped. They looked out for each other.”

Shelly smiled. “I’ve been doing this job twenty years now. Worked all over. I’ve seen all sorts. They pass through, on their way out, on their way back in. I’ve placed hundreds, each time … I cried. I made it my life, and it should be. But—”

“There’s no such thing as a bad kid, right?” A trace of panic on her voice.

“You’re not bad, Duchess.”

A truck pulled up, the same color as Hal’s. Duchess felt the pain in her gut.

“Robin is six. That’s a good age. That’s a real good age, but it doesn’t last. Hard as that is to say, and to think even.”

Duchess set her milkshake down and stared into it.

“Do you know what I’m saying, Duchess?”

“I know what you’re saying.”

Shelly fished a tissue out of her bag, lifted her glasses and dabbed at her eyes. She looked older then, like the years had run her down, the weight of such privileged, abject responsibility night and day.

“I would die before I let go of my brother.”

“It’s not about letting go.”

“It’s about trusting his care to someone I’ve never met. And I’ve not met many decent people in my life. I don’t like the odds.”

“I get that.”

“Is it a selfless act?”

Shelly looked up at her.

“Is it?” Her eyes desperate now. “Is it a selfless act to do that? He’s so sweet, you know, he’s so good and sweet and he needs a better sister than me. Can you give him that, Shelly? I’m losing him, he’s turning hard. I can’t let that happen. He gets up in the night and he needs me. He calls out. And if I’m not there—”