I wish I could see her face.
“She did. And I was so mad—you have to believe me, I was so mad—I couldn’t listen anymore and I stormed out. I mean, it’s crazy, right?”
The other end of the line is quiet. It shocks me how quickly my blood is up. Because why isn’t there the immediate outrage, the shock? Why am I not hearing my baby sister curse down the phone at me? Keeping her temper has never been her strong suit.
“Claire?” I ask, and there are teeth in the question this time. I wonder if she can feel them biting into her.
“Claire!”
I pull the phone away from my mouth and watch the screen as it goes dark. She’s gone. I try to focus on one thought at a time, but there are too many, and they’re all so loud.
The house suddenly feels too big and too empty. There’s too much room for my thoughts to roam free, colliding with one another, colliding with me. I glug down some more wine in the hopes that it will quieten the noise, and it does, in a fashion. Or perhaps it’s the simple passing of time. Either way, the thoughts begin to come through to me in an organized line.
I have never clearly recalled the moment of any of my exes’ deaths. Claire has always been there, in some capacity. I didn’t invite her to Luca’s party, but she was in town to see me, and she knew where I was. And what he’d done. She’s always been more reactive than me, always had a stronger sense of justice.
The truth of these things does not sit comfortably in my body. It’s a donated organ that I don’t want, that doesn’t match the story of the relationship I have with my sister. Every part of me wants to reject it. Because there’s no way Claire would have allowed me to struggle like this, to believe I had this blood on my hands, to be driven mad by it.That’s a kind of cruelty we’d never deliver to each other. Or, at least, I didn’t think it was.
When the sound of the front door opening and closing finally echoes through the house, I still haven’t moved from my spot on the sofa. I feel strangely without feeling.
“Hi, babe.” James’s voice.
He wanders into the living room, eyes taking in my deflated form on the sofa, a balloon animal with the air let out. His body goes immediately stiff with caution as he approaches me, eyeing the wine.
“Everything okay?”
Hey, babe, so it turns out I’m probably not a violent psychopath at all. In fact, it looks like maybe it’s my sister who’s been doing all the maiming. Surprise!
He sits next to me on the sofa, arm around my back, my head in the crook of his neck. Tears are soaking into his shirt.
“It’s not just about George,” I say quietly.
“What do you mean?”
“My therapist, she got me to unpack Marc’s and Luca’s deaths, too, and…I don’t think they were accidents, James. I think she killed them. Claire.”
The blood seems to drain from his face and he goes so still that, for a moment, I’m worried he’s stopped breathing.
“James?”
“Are you sure?”
I don’t answer. Something in my gut feels certain. Of course it made me sick to think of murdering that guy in the bar. I’m simply not a murderer. “I think it’s true, though, James. It…it would explain a lot.”
“Well, I guess the good news is you’re not a monster,” he ventures.
To his credit, I do actually laugh. Properly laugh. “Fat lot of good it’s done us, though…. We’ve already lost all our savings.”
“Doing that to your own sibling…” He looses a heavy sigh, voice darkening. “I don’t wish to speak ill of her, but I don’t think I could ever forgive what she did if I were you.” He pins me with a tense look. “Do you think we could speak to her together? She owes us answers. Answers and apologies.”
The corner of a cushion is pushing painfully against my spine. I shift. “I don’t think that’s…I mean, you’ve only been in touch over text…” I leave the sentence unfinished.
His eyes track away from me, toward the French doors. At first, I think something’s caught his eye, but nothing’s there.
“James?”
He comes to, looks back in my direction. Doesn’t quite meet my eye. A hand rakes through his hair, balling into a fist and tugging at the roots. It hurts him to do this a little, I know, but he also considers it stress relief. I take his fist in my hand, gently pull it away from his hair, which is now sticking up at wild angles.
“I know it’s a lot to take in.”
