“Where have you been?” Chris, as usual, fails to sound casual, her cadence too measured and contained.
“I’m not a kid anymore.” Ellie leans against a counter.
“You left in the middle of the reception.” Chris’s words get even slower, leaving no vowel or consonant unmolested. “How were you ever Mom’s favorite?”
Ellie straightens up. Chris has gone off script. She’s never said anything like this before.
“Why would you think Mom played favorites?”
The look Chris gives Ellie is one of pure contempt. Usually, Chris tries for some sense, sincere or not, of sisterly concern.
“You can’t be that stupid.” Chris is matter-of-fact, downright casual. “Mom took you with her into the skunkworks one thousand, three hundred and forty-seven times more than she took me.”
Of course Chris knew about every trip, even when she was at university. And of course Chris kept count. Not that it matters. Even one trip more than her is too many for Chris, but the number feels goosed up. Ellie suspects Chris is also counting trips to maintainer school. It was like Chinese school, which Ellie also went to. Practically everyone at Chinese school was ethnically Chinese. She knew maybe two kids at maintainer school whoweren’t the children of at least one maintainer parent. Anyone can go, but no one is interested.
“Why does it matter if Mom brought me along more—”
“I begged and begged. But once she started taking you”—Chris hurls the last word as an accusation—“she never took me with her anymore. Mom loved you more than she ever loved me and this is how you repay her? You leave me alone at her reception and make me wait up for you?”
Ellie takes a moment to do the math. By the time Mom dragged Ellie along to the skunkworks regularly, Chris was probably at university. Certainly, she had finished both Chinese school and maintainer school. By then, she went to the skunkworks without Mom all the time. It’s not like she needed Mom to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid.
“Well, Mom’s dead, so I don’t know that she cares one way or the other. Funerals and receptions are for the survivors. And you didn’t need to wait up for me even when I was a kid.”
Ellie turns on the lamp hanging over the table. The switch on the wall makes a satisfying click. A rough cone of light falls onto Chris. She squints and anger finally seeps through that news-anchor veneer. Something twinkles on one of her fingers. A diamond ring. Ellie has never seen it before.
“You ungrateful bitch. You should appreciate the sacrifices I make for you. What were you doing at the Chief Architect’s place?”
Wherever Ellie is, Chris knows or at least can find out. Ellie doubts that if she asked again, this time Chris would tell her how she always knows.
The question sounds like an accusation, as if they were in a cop movie and this is the scene where Chris interrogates the bad guy. Chris deploys the sentence as if expecting Ellie to deny it, so that she could slap down some piece of paper and say, “What would you say if we could make you for the murder of AlbertoFujimori there this afternoon?” Ellie would be damned for killing the problematic former president of Peru. There would be nothing for her besides the death penalty.
“She wanted to give me her condolences.”
“That’s all?” Chris does not look the least bit convinced, her hands now flat against the table. “Just admit you didn’t care enough to stay.”
“If the Chief Architect asked you to come over right away, wouldn’t you?”
“I would have made her wait.” Chris’s voice is the epitome of calm. “Because I love Mom.”
Ellie does not take the bait. The reception is yet another cudgel for Chris to beat Ellie with.
“Why didn’t you ask the Chief Architect yourself?” Ellie folds her arms beneath her chest. “It’s not like you stayed for the whole thing. You left to plant a bomb in Daniel’s car.”
Ellie still hopes it wasn’t Chris. This, however, is as good a way as any to find out.
“Are you serious?” Chris’s expression is more mocking than usual. “When have I ever tried to kill you? And even if I want to, are you really so conceited that you think, today of all days, in the middle of Mom’s funeral no less, I’d waste time on you?”
That last sentence could be the truth. On the other hand, she hasn’t denied it.
She’s no longer using the “I’m trying to kill you to keep you on your toes” line. If this is her way of telling Ellie that she’s quit trying to kill her, that’s good. If this is only more gaslighting, that’s bad.
“When did you get the ring?”
A startled expression flashes across Chris’s face. Her eyebrows rise and her jaw drops before a calm mask wipes the expression away. Her hand moves to cover the ring, though, like that does any good now.
“Mom gave it to me. Which you’d know if you’d simply quit grad school like I told you to.”
Ellie assumes “Mom gave it to me” means “I bought it for Mom, and it just so happens that I get it back after Mom dies.” She’s ashamed to even think this. Mom wearing a diamond ring, though, is not something Ellie could have missed. Most weekends after Mom was diagnosed, Ellie took the train down from Boston Friday nights and the train back Sunday nights. No point challenging Chris, though. Ellie wasn’t here when Mom died. To Chris, that’s all that matters.
