Vera
The first time the police came to Agnes’s door, we’d been living with her a year. We’d been dropped off by the bus and wandered
up the long driveway toward the house.
Surprisingly, we’d both adjusted to the new school fairly well. Ana was guaranteed to be popular everywhere she went: beauty,
charm, a titanium backbone. And I was happy to linger in her shadow, a good student, teacher’s pet. We were survivors. Our
parents were gone; the pain of it had formed us. Ana had nightmares. I slept too little, the night haunted by memories and
fear. But we moved ahead, as we knew Sadie would have wanted. Be strong, girls. This world has no patience for weakness.
When we turned the corner, there was a black-and-white cruiser parked in front of the house. I felt Ana freeze as I stopped
in my tracks. By that point, we were accustomed to visitors. They came at all hours, often in the middle of the night, would
talk with Agnes in hushed tones at the kitchen table. Most often women, occasionally men. Once a boy.
But we hadn’t seen a police cruiser since Sadie and Mac were alive.
In our other life, the police would come to our house often, called by worried neighbors when things got loud.
And their arrival always brought some mingling of dread and relief.
It meant an end to the evening’s violence.
Sadie would turn on the charm. Mac, if she’d convinced them that all was well, would be contrite. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, baby.
But I also knew, long before it actually happened, that one day things could get so bad that they’d come and take Mac away
for good. Or us.
Until that late spring afternoon, I never thought about what would happen to us if something happened to Aunt Agnes. Our situation
was far from perfect, but it was safe, manageable. Agnes loved us in her way, and she let us be.
“What’s happening?” asked Ana. She grabbed my hand.
“Nothing,” I said. “Probably nothing.”
I peered inside the cruiser. There was a computer mounted on the dash, a radio, a notebook on the passenger seat. There was
a picture of a woman and two small boys, wrinkled and creased, held to the driver’s side visor with a rubber band. A shotgun
was mounted on the grate that separated the front of the car from the back. It was like another world in there, a place of
black-and-white, right and wrong.
I looked across to see Ana peering in the other window with wonder.
Inside the house, maybe I expected to see Agnes in cuffs, like one of the nights they took my father away, when Sadie’s bleeding
nose or blackened eye belied her claims that everything was fine. Instead, Agnes was sitting at the kitchen table with a beefy
older man with a white head of hair and tired eyes. They spoke quietly, both going silent and then turning in our direction
as we entered the room.
“Girls,” said Agnes. “This is Little Valley Police Chief Royer. He’s an old friend.”
He stood, seemed huge, with his Kevlar vest beneath his flannel shirt and denim jacket, big gun holstered at his waist. He
shook each of our hands with his big bear paw.
“Vera, Ana, you go to school with my boy, Chuck.”
Chuck was one of those golden boys, star athlete, heartthrob, a senior graduating with honors, dating the homecoming queen. We both nodded.
“Well,” he said, looking back and forth between us. There was something about him—a quiet seeing that made me squirm. “I’d
best be getting on. Agnes, you let me know if you think of anything else.”
“Of course.”
And then he was gone. We were all quiet as we listened to the engine start, then the car pulling away.
“He just had some questions,” said Agnes after he’d gone, answering a query neither of us had dared issue.
“About?”
“A girl from your school. She got ill from food poisoning. Seems she missed cheerleading tryouts and another girl got the
spot. Her mother suspected foul play, went to the police.”
Agnes’s visitors came often late at night, but every so often we’d get home from school, and someone would be sitting where
Chief Royer had been. Maybe pale with anger. Maybe crying. We knew enough to scuttle by, not ask questions. In the night,
we might sit at the top of the stairs and listen. Most often Agnes’s visitors weren’t local, came from far away. Sometimes
Agnes spoke to them on the phone. The next day maybe a package would go out in the mail. These visitors were the people who
came to Agnes for her help.
Not everyone needs a permanent solution, she taught us. Some just need a leg up, a head start, a way out of the situation they’re in.
“Daphne?” asked Ana.
It was all the buzz at school, how Daphne projectile vomited at the lunch table, was moaning in the nurse’s office with stomach
cramps. Her period came. A gusher, she bled through her clothes.
Agnes frowned, put her finger to her lips. “Shh. No names. Not in any diary you may keep, not on your tongue.”
“What did you do?” asked Ana without heat, just curious.
“What she did, she did to herself,” said Agnes, taking a sip from the cup in front of her. I could smell licorice root, her favorite tea.
Agnes had a code, but it was less a set of metrics than it was a feeling. Does this person truly need my help? How can I do
the least harm? Does the help I offer this person outweigh the harm I am going to cause someone else? She made her decisions
quickly and never changed her mind. She never regretted the consequences or collateral damages. My remedies are organic, and like nature they are powerful and sometimes unpredictable. When you agree to avail yourself of
these recipes you assume all the risk.
“The girl was pregnant,” said Agnes, setting her cup down. “She is no longer.”
“And she’s no longer the captain of the cheerleading team,” I said.
Agnes nodded slowly, holding my eyes. “Our actions often have unintended consequences, girls. You make a choice, and it alters
the course of your life, or the life of someone else. You change one thing, and you can’t predict what else will change because
of it.”
Agnes was a good teacher, and I was her willing student. I miss her, even now, though I wouldn’t say I ever really loved her.
Or forgave her.
In my “mom tank” as Coraline calls it, I roll down the drive, glancing back at the warm, glowing windows of our house, the
lit landscaping. I have worked hard for the relative safety and peace of this life. I would be lying if I didn’t say I resented
Ana sometimes for her various dramas. Or whoever mucked with the fire protection system, the damage such an event can do to
our livelihood. I should be focused on helping Brad with damage control, keeping our company in the black, not on my sister’s
latest mess.
But here we are.
I turn onto the road to town. I am a careful driver, slow and always following the rules. I don’t push the speed limit. I make a full stop at stop signs even when there’s no one else on the road. Where am I going?
I’d like to start at Paul’s place, but I have no explainable reason to go there. If the police are watching his place, I’ll
have some talking to do about why I’ve turned up hours after he was discovered murdered. Not the actions of someone unconnected
to the crime.
The park where the hapless hikers discovered the body would be my next choice. But all the same concerns apply.
Then, where? It’s been a while since I had to clean up after Ana. I’m out of practice. I guess I’ll start at her place. I
have the keys, know that she’s not home. No one would question my right or reason to be at my sister’s place.
As I turn in that direction, my phone chimes three times. The messages from Ana pop up on the dashboard screen, one after
another.
Iggy’s sick. She’s in a coma.
The doctors want to know what she ate at brunch.
Something’s going on. Something bad.
My stomach bottoms out. Shit. Who brought what? Who ate what? What is happening?
“Hey, Siri, text Ana,” I say. “Meet me.”
Her reply is quick, desperate in its single syllable. Where?
“Lisander’s,” I say and watch the message bubble populate.
When she doesn’t answer, I take it as an affirmative. I make the next right, and head toward the house of Agnes’s mentee.
No need to call ahead. Like Agnes, Lisander is always ready to answer the door at any hour.
As I make my way there my phone rings with Coraline’s signature tone, the theme from Stranger Things. I didn’t announce my departure, figuring I wouldn’t be missed—since no one usually comes looking for me unless they need
something.
I answer the call and see Coraline’s pretty face fill the screen.
“Where are you?” she asks.
“I had an errand. Do you need something?”
“I forgot I’m supposed to make something for Spanish class tomorrow.”
“Make something?”
“Like food.”
This is one of those moments when I usually get annoyed, say something I shouldn’t. I try the child shrink’s technique. Stop. Breathe. Be.
“Okay,” I say. “How are you going to solve that problem?”
See. That’s how good I am at this now.
She’s opening and closing cabinets in the kitchen. I glance at the phone to see she’s put it down on the counter.
“There’s rice. And black beans. I’ll just make that.”
Basic, lazy, but okay.
“Mom?”
“Yeah, kiddo.”
“Is something wrong? Is Ana in trouble?” I forget how young Coraline is because she’s so smart, so wily. But it wasn’t that
long ago that I had to lie on the floor next to her bed while she fell asleep because she was afraid to close her eyes.
“I heard you say that you had to take her to the police station tomorrow.”
“We have a good lawyer. It will be okay.”
“Did she?” She leaves the rest of the question unspoken. And I feel a fresh wash of anger for Ana, who has taught Coraline
things I didn’t want her to learn. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
“No,” I say firmly. “No.”
I almost believe it.
“Can I help?” she asks. “Is there anything I can do? To help Ana?”
The question makes me go a little cold. What is she asking? “Like what?”
She’s quiet for a moment. “I don’t know.”