Nineteen Geny
I hear the crunching gravel outside and my whole body tenses up.
My annoyance wrestles with my guilt and my gratitude, and I can’t decide where to land.
It’s always been this way with Grace. With nearly everyone I know, if I’m being honest. I can’t quite push away the resentful feeling of being let down by everyone in my life and then feeling guilty that I feel that way.
Grace flies through the door like she’s trying to win a race. I spin in my seat on the couch and face her.
“Hey,” she says, a little breathless.
“Hey.”
“I’m sorry I’m late. Do you want to go now?”
“It’s probably getting too late. We can go another time. It’s no big deal.” I honestly try to keep any bitterness out of my voice.
Grace looks behind her through the screen door. “No way. It’s not too late. Come on.”
She smiles hopefully and I can’t tell her no. Not when just thirty hours ago I thought I’d never see my sister with smile lines, and now here she is, in my doorway asking to go on a walk with me.
“It’ll be like old times,” she says, and I stand up.
Like old times. Walks were Grace’s way to reconnect when she’d gotten too busy with her life for too long.
She’d sense a distance between us and ask to go for a walk.
My sister, who doesn’t do leisure. Who would rather run than walk through the sandy beach trails.
She slowed down for me. It was one of the rare times she listened more than she talked.
My chest aches for all the walks with her I could have used over the years. She clocks my sadness and reaches for my hand, her face pinched with concern.
“I’m okay,” I say.
“It’s okay if you’re not.”
Her words take me aback. They’re deeper and more compassionate than I’m used to from her.
But then, I’m not used to anything from her now.
My sister as an adult isn’t quite who she was as a teen, and I have to get to know her all over again.
The thought is strange. She had never been someone I needed to get to know at all. We had always just known each other.
I slip my shoes on and grab my coat from the hook behind the door.
“All right. Let’s do this,” I say.
The sky is gray and the smell of rain hangs over us.
It should hold off until later in the evening.
We stroll down to the road and, without planning it, we head in the direction of the same beach trails we’d walk when we were young.
I love the smell of fall, though I hate the season itself.
The trees have mostly changed, and I wonder how I missed the shift.
It feels like just yesterday that everything was lush green without a trace of yellow, orange, or red.
“I love this weather,” Grace says.
I laugh. “I know you do.”
She chuckles. “You hate it. You’re so weird.”
“I’m not weird. You and all you fall freaks are weird. You’re literally oohing and aahing over death and decay.”
“Death can be beautiful. You’re the poetic one. I’d think you’d be the one to see the beauty in it.”
I shake my head. “There’s nothing beautiful about death.”
My eyes sting and I blink back the tears.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “You’ve had to deal with so much death, and I’ve been gone for it all. It makes sense that you don’t see it that way.”
I glance over at her. “You’re a lot more insightful than you used to be.”
She snorts. “Thanks.” She rolls her eyes, taking it as an insult.
“I didn’t mean it in a bad way. You just didn’t talk like that before.”
“It’s okay, don’t feel like you have to apologize. I could be an asshole back then. I had a hard time seeing past myself.”
“You weren’t an asshole—”
“I was. It’s okay. And I was even more of one than you think, because the truth is, I did see past myself. I don’t know why I said I didn’t, because I did. I saw, but I didn’t care. And I’m sorry.”
I’m at a loss for words. I don’t know this person, this version of my sister who is self-aware and apologetic.
“Is there anything else you can tell me about your life the last eighteen years?” I ask, desperate for more pieces to the puzzle.
She takes a deep breath and looks up at the trees. “Bloomington was my favorite place I lived. I stayed there for six years. I didn’t think I’d like city living but I really did. There’s so many places in walking distance.”
“Everything in Raven is walking distance,” I say.
She laughs. “It is. Maybe that’s why I liked it so much.”
“What else?”
“I learned how to code. Websites and apps and stuff. I waitressed a lot for a while, but then I learned coding and mostly did freelance work for money.”
I look at her incredulously. “That’s not what I ever would have expected.”
“I know, right?” she says. “But it’s nice. I can do it from anywhere. I didn’t have to be tied to one place. I just worked.”
I nod. “What about people? Did you date? Are you married?” I hesitate. “Kids?” The question comes out quieter than the others.
Grace shrugs. “I dated here and there. Nothing serious. Never married. No kids.”
It makes me sad, and once again, guilt overwhelms me. She was supposed to marry Wyatt and have his children. Instead, she disappeared and I took her place.
“What really happened that night, Grace?” I stare at the side of her face as we continue to walk.
“I told you. I got caught in the current and it pulled me out. I woke up miles away on a shore and I didn’t remember anything.”
I stop. It takes her a few strides to realize and turn back to me.
She sighs. “Can we please just finish our walk?”
“I don’t want to walk. I want answers.”
“You want something I can’t give you, Genevieve. I’ve already told you everything I can. Everything I remember that’s important.”
“You haven’t and you’re lying to me. Since when do we lie to each other?”
She laughs, but it’s a cruel sound. “You tell me, Gen.”
We walk home in silence. Yet another moment ruined and I’m too tired to figure out whose fault it is. What does it matter anyway? This is going to keep happening until the whole truth comes out.
* * *
Grace helps me make dinner, then goes downstairs to bed shortly after eating.
I can tell she’s trying to avoid more questions, and she’s clearly got a lot on her mind about Dad.
But it feels strange to go about the night with Wyatt and the boys with her downstairs by herself.
I try my best to focus on the kids, the homework, and the night routines.
Before I know it, I’m lying in bed with Wyatt beside me.
I scoot closer to him and lay my head on his chest. He adjusts to wrap his arm around me.
He’s warm and it feels nice, if a little foreign.
My heart pounds in my ears as I slide my hand down his stomach.
It’s been a long time since we’ve been intimate.
He hesitates but only for a second. I know he’s probably thinking about Grace being downstairs because so am I.
Another bag of mixed emotions. The excitement is because it almost feels like back then, sneaking around and afraid to get caught.
He’s mine now, and I shouldn’t feel bad about being with my husband.
But I probably shouldn’t feel hot at betraying my sister either.
Wyatt falls asleep quickly after. My skin is still buzzing as I slip out of bed and back into my pajamas.
I tiptoe downstairs and look in on Jack and Carter, both fast asleep.
Wanting to make sure Grace is asleep, I try to open the basement door, but the heavy wooden door meets resistance almost immediately.
I peek through the small crack and see a stack of boxes piled on the stairs, blocking the door.
I close it and take a step back. Is she afraid someone’s going to come down here in the night? Me? Wyatt?
I’m reminded, once again, that I have no idea what she’s been through the last eighteen years. I’ll get her a lock from the hardware store she can use. She should feel safe when she goes to bed.
But for now, the boxes keep her in as much as they keep me out and I don’t want to waste time. I hurry outside, as quietly as I can. I have Grace’s car keys in hand. She left them on the entry table when she came home after hanging out with Brooke O’Neil.
She’s not going to tell me the truth, so like always, I have to take things into my own hands.
Maybe there’s something in her car that will tell me something Grace won’t.
I pull the door open, freezing when it groans loudly.
Jesus. She really needs to grease these doors.
I watch the house for signs of movement.
When ten seconds pass without anything of note, I keep moving.
I go through her center console and find a few pens, a package of Black Ice air fresheners, and some receipts.
I read through the receipts. One for a fast-food place. The address on the receipt is for a town about an hour from here and the date is yesterday’s. Another is from a gas station. Same date, $30 in gas and $6 for air fresheners.
I lower the receipts and look back at the house. She bought the same scent Wyatt used to use right before coming here. Why?
I roll my eyes and keep sorting through them.
There’s one for a place I recognize. A bar just outside of town.
Wyatt and I would go there sometimes when we wanted to hang out without people in town seeing us.
It was close, but no one from town ever went there.
I scan the small paper for the date, and all the breath leaves my lungs.
The date is from six months ago. Before she apparently remembered me and her home.