Twenty-Seven
Absentmindedly spinning the Manhattan on the low table between us, Angel shifts to slump back in his leather club chair, brow furrowed.
Angel asked Esther to meet in the same basement speakeasy bar as last time, only this time in the middle of the day.
Light streams in from the egress windows, giving a more church basement feeling, instead of a candlelit lounge.
I imagine both of my parents are still here, but I can only make out a faint trace of Mom hovering around him.
Angel’s Ties don’t seem to have noticed Esther and I yet, and I’m glad to sit in silence to delay the inevitable.
Today, Angel’s performative charm has vanished in lieu of despondency. His eyes are downcast, all traces of his crooked smile erased. “You know her birthday is coming up?”
Esther worries her lower lip. She looks carefully at Angel before she responds. “Her birthday was the last time I…well, not saw her. I didn’t see her on her birthday, but it was the last day she signed in to work.”
Angel nods without looking up, but it slowly transforms into a slow shake of his head.
“She didn’t want to hear from me, but I should have called her.
I thought about reaching out on her birthday every year, but now it’s too late.
I should have just fucking emailed her. Messaged her.
I dunno how I’d even reach her, but I should have tried. ”
I’m surprised he knew when my birthday was. But I shouldn’t be. Mom would never have gone out to eat to celebrate me if Angel didn’t ask her to. He would eat “half” (most) of my free dessert, and somehow charm the server into giving him a whole slice of cheesecake on the house, just for him.
Weird to think that one of my few good childhood memories was courtesy of Angel.
“Why didn’t you?” Esther asks.
Angel lets out a bitter snort. “Why didn’t she?”
“She used to look you up every year on your birthday and check to see if you were okay.” The words fly from Esther’s mouth, surprising all of us. “She did think about you.”
“She did?” Angel’s mouth crumples into a sob. He covers his face for a few moments. Esther and I watch helplessly as his shoulders shake. Once he catches his breath, he looks at her, his green eyes made vibrant with red from crying. “How do you know that? I thought you said you weren’t close.”
Esther purses her lips and blinks slowly. “I have a lot of her notebooks and course materials. There was a journal in there.” She winces. “I didn’t read much of it, just flipped through it until I realized what it was. Happened to open the page for your birthday.”
I squeeze her thigh approvingly. How quickly she invented that lie is rather impressive.
While I’d always consider adding it as a bitter joke, my annual social media check on my brother would never have made it into my journal (too close to feelings territory).
But still, my East lies far more convincingly than she used to, before she knew I was haunting her.
Whether good or bad doesn’t really matter, it’s touching enough that I’ve had some influence on her.
She has a reason to lie now.
“Thank you, Esther.” Angel’s eyes shine.
I’ve never seen him like this. Sure, he’s been emotional his whole life, but he was always confident.
Self-assured. Untouchable. Now my brother seems so…
fragile. His deep trembling breaths reveal how close he is to breaking.
“I never realized what a twisted perception of Lucy I had until you dumped a drink on my head.”
Esther’s face burns red. “Uh…you’re welcome.”
I’m proud of her for not apologizing for that.
Angel fluffs his sandy brown curls in an almost sheepish gesture.
“I started seeing a therapist after our conversation. I genuinely did not care that my sister was missing, and you called me out on how fucked up that was. Even if I can’t make amends, I want to hold myself accountable for how we treated her—how I treated her. ”
“I’m sure Lucy would be touched that you’re trying for her sake.”
I am touched. Angel holding himself accountable for anything is newsworthy, but for me? I don’t take that for granted.
“The hardest part for me is reconciling how my mom treated her, compared to how she treated me. Like, Mom was the best! We were so close! She could be a little controlling and clingy, but she was so loving and caring, protective and supportive. But not to Lucy. And when I was a kid, I just accepted that as normal, but now that I’m older…
” My brother trails off, back to shaking his head slowly.
“Lucy was just a kid. How could a kid cause all of the hardship in our lives? How could a kid who ran away at eighteen cause all of Mom’s problems? ”
Mom’s voice mutters, sullen and bitter, from under her shroud, but thankfully she doesn’t ground herself.
“She didn’t run. You know that, right?” Esther asks, interrupting him. “Your mom kicked her out. Lucy slept in her car until she could move into her dorm.”
Angel blinks. “Was that in her notes, too?”
Esther shakes her head, and for a moment, I worry she’s about to tell him I’m haunting her.
“No, her friend Cash, her advisor when she was an undergrad, told me. He used to tell me about how much he admired Lucy, and how creative and relentless she was. Everything she had, all of her success, was from sheer force of will, he’d say.
” Esther looks down at her lap, wringing her hands.
At the risk of Mom noticing me, I ground myself and place my hands over hers. Esther laces our fingers together under the table. I’m hesitant to speak, in case Mom hears me, but our fingers twined together say all I need to say.
I’m still not sure what I want to say to them, if anything.
“Mom used to say she was a storm cloud. Quiet, tense, foreboding, you never knew when she’d unleash destruction. Which, again—she was a child!” Angel shakes his head. “I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. I wish I could tell her that I don’t see her that way.”
“She knows,” Esther says simply.
“How?”
I look at her, to see how she can explain away her confidence.
“From her journal.” There’s no trace of upspeak in Esther’s voice.
It’s the way she gets in the rare moments when she’s at her most assertive, when she has something important she needs to get across.
“She understood you were a kid, too. That you were cruel to her, but your mom brainwashed you. Lucy was the scapegoat, and how were you supposed to question it when you’re a kid? ”
That phrasing gets Mom’s attention. “He wasn’t brainwashed! It was the truth! Lucy was evil! I was protecting him!”
I sigh. Should have known Mom would take issue with that. Angel is free to call her out, but the second someone else does, all bets are off.
“How could Lucy be evil? She was a damn kid!” Oh good, Dad’s still here, too. “It’s about time Angel understood that. It’s about time he started listening to me, instead of your lies!”
“Can either of you just listen to Angel?” I snap.
Esther looks over at me, but quickly returns to listening to Angel process his feelings, before he notices her attention is on the empty chair next to her.
“This emotional crisis he’s in isn’t about you—it’s about him!
You both are part of the reason he’s crying in a bar on a Thursday afternoon, so if you truly love him, listen to him! ”
“You think you know him better than I do? I’m his mother! You abandoned him!” Mom shouts, and I don’t bother to hide the roll of my eyes.
When Mom gets going on a tirade, she doesn’t let up.
I blink a few times to tune her out—a skill I haven’t forgotten in the dozen years since I’ve seen her.
Esther squeezes my hand, still in her lap.
I squeeze back to tell her I’m okay. At least, as okay as I can be, given the circumstances.
I can barely hear her and Angel speaking over Mom’s shrill voice.
“Lucy, I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to tell you, I’m sorry.
” Dad's veiled figure floats closer to me. “I’ve thought so much about what you said. Just seeing you shocked me—I thought you had just gotten Tied to Angel, too. But then you left with someone I’d never heard of before, and I realized just how distant you and Angel are, how long it’s been since he’d heard from you. ”
Dad reaches out, as if to take my hand, but pulls away when I don’t reach back.
“I did care. I hope you know that. I hope you can believe me. You always just seemed so independent and focused when Angel was young, that I didn’t realize how hurt you were.
Everything seemed to just roll off your back.
Like you didn’t care about him, or anything your mom said. ”
I sit quietly, trying to accept the excuses Dad’s making for himself. We’re both ignoring Mom at this point. We both had years of practice tuning her out. I don’t know if she’ll ever learn to listen.
“Not that that’s an excuse,” Dad adds, when I don’t answer.
“You were my daughter, a child, and I should have tried to be there for both of you, not just Angel. I was so focused on trying to counteract everything your mom was telling him, instead of seeing what was truly important.” Dad sighs.
“I didn’t drink myself to death, you know.
I know that’s what your mom told you, but I chose this. ”
“You killed yourself?” I ask, curiosity getting the better of my anger.
“No!” His veil shakes firmly. “Not on purpose. I got stuck here. I was trying this meditation shit to help me sober up, and I got really into this one book…damn, I lost what it was called. Long story short, I was reading some long ass Hindu epic, and in it there’s this guy who separated his soul from his body, so he could see his son while he was imprisoned.
Did my best to figure out how to do that myself, since there was no one waiting to stab me. ”