Chapter 37
The too-hot sun was down by the time Sam got home from work. The squares of the house’s open windows were mostly dark, with only a glow from the living room. Elena must’ve already finished cleaning for the night. When Sam shut the car door, its sound lifted to the trees. A bat flew overhead.
Madeline had emailed back later that morning. A message as curt as Sam’s had been: Intervention with Elena is your best and only way out. The bear expert. Please. What did that woman know of them?
Sam unlocked the front door. Before her shoes were off, she heard Elena from the sofa: “Late night.”
Sam slid her second sneaker off her heel. “Not that late. Just a long one.”
“Come sit,” her sister said.
The house was so still these days without the rush of oxygen flowing from their mother’s bedroom. Its floor creaked under Sam’s feet as she crossed to the living room. The walls sighed. Sam settled on the sofa, where Elena sat, pillow on her lap, looking thin and worn and regal, her hair in a post-shower bun.
“You must’ve gotten a lot done today,” Elena said.
“Not really. Same old.” Sam’s legs hurt. No matter how many breaks she took to sit while on the boat, after a double, her body felt pressed down, spine grinding and feet pounded into bone. She shifted on the cushion. Her tailbone ached. If they asked her the next day to work these same hours, she’d decline, she thought, then thought again—maybe not, wouldn’t it help them to have the money…
“I don’t know about that,” Elena said. “I certainly had an interesting day. Thanks to you.”
The dread. Oh, God, it sent Sam right to childhood. Their mother, working, wasn’t always around, and when she was she didn’t have the energy for small disciplines, so Elena took over that responsibility on her behalf. The reprimands: be careful, Elena would say, watch out, what are you doing, didn’t I warn you? When Sam made a mistake, sticking a pebble up one nostril or biting a first-grade classmate’s arm on the playground, Elena would launch in. Sammy, what did I say…The tone of the older sister, which communicated love, certainly, and dedication, but also such deep disappointment, fatigue stemming from superiority. Even now, a grown woman, Sam squirmed under that sound.
There were a million possibilities for blame. Something Sam did wrong at the memorial? The way she tried to touch Danny, or insulted Kristine? Her screams at the bear? Or had Elena somehow seen the messages on Sam’s phone? Quick, Sam flipped through guilts, but there was nothing most obvious to start apologizing for. “What happened?” she asked.
Elena’s mouth twisted up. Only the lamp on the side table was on, making her features exaggerated, her eyes sink deeper than ever into their sockets. “We had a visit from a sheriff’s deputy this afternoon.”
Sam’s stomach dropped. “We what?”
“A man from the sheriff’s office stopped by,” Elena said. “He let me know it’s against state law to feed wild carnivores, and he issued me a five-hundred-dollar fine.”
Five hundred dollars. Sam’s work today, gone, like that—fourteen hours on the clock only got her three hundred and thirty dollars, before taxes—so this would take everything Elena had made at the club today, too—this took everything. Forget getting ahead on the mortgage. They were further behind than ever.
Elena said, “I wonder why he thought I was feeding animals?”
The dread. The guilt. The horror of it all. “Yesterday, at the club, that woman Madeline was there, and she told me she thought we were baiting it, so I emailed her this morning, and I said—”
Elena shook her head. She used to stand in the place of Sam’s mother, but now she was the sole leader of their household. In August, she would turn thirty; she waited up when Sam came home late; she issued punishments. It didn’t seem to matter how desperate Sam became to disrupt what was going on—Elena was in charge.
Sam said, “El, I’m trying to help you, I’m trying to help us. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to get this thing out of here.”
“He doesn’t want to leave. Neither do I. You do. So you go, Sam.”
Hearing this from her sister was more shocking than the notion of the sheriff. “What?”
“You go,” Elena said. “Move out. It’s overdue, anyway. You’ve wanted all this time to leave, so do it, already. Stop hanging around messing with my life. Go make your own.”