IT IS FIVE YEARS LATER, and I have not found my good. Sam Bishop was wrong. The bad is what endures, what increases.
My father vanished a week after the car accident, and my mother has spent every day since pretending that he never existed. We are not allowed to mention him, to ask about him, to think about him, to miss him. As per her declaration, he was simply never here. My mother has the ability to erase whomever she wants, and it’s by the skin of my teeth that she allows me any sort of place in her world. In her eyes, Amy has always been the good daughter, and in the years after the accident, that opinion inexplicably grew when Amy became insufferable and learned to loathe me.
I check my reflection in the mirror one more time. As of a few hours ago, my hair is now my mother’s exact shade of rich deep red and styled in sculpted, tiered waves. For once, I am confident that my appearance will get her seal of approval. My lips are stained in dark mauve, and my eye makeup is immaculate. I flash my practiced smile and pose, readying myself to show off for her.
The pale-green top I’m wearing is something that she would have selected for herself from one of the many high-end stores she frequents, and my tan shorts and heels show off my legs. I turn to the side a bit. My shirt shows enough cleavage but not too much. I check my jewelry—small gold hoops in my ears and a matching bracelet. It’s classy. Classy and seductive, the way she is.
While I’m in college, my mother has let me stay in the guesthouse above the garage on her property. I know she doesn’t really want me here because she’s hoping that my sister will move back home, but I doubt that will happen.
Amy likes her privacy—a lot. That’s understandable, given her massive coke and prescription pill addictions. No one actually acknowledges that she has a problem—particularly our mother—but it’s idiotically obvious. It doesn’t take a genius to recognize that Amy’s mental and physical states are the result of more than recreational partying.
I scan my room, memorizing the precise placement of the furniture. Then, I rescan and take mental pictures of the desk light, the alarm clock, the shelf of books, and the framed pictures. The floral wallpaper and Ralph Lauren patterned bedspread make me dizzy, and I touch the vanity behind me to steady myself. It takes a minute, but I refocus and slowly look from item to item. It’s four o’clock on the dot, and I make sure to spend exactly six minutes reviewing every item in my bedroom.
Every time I leave the room, I have to go through this ritual. On more than one occasion, I have returned to my room, convinced that something is off in here. My perceptions are often muddied, so I work hard to pay attention to specifics.
I stare at my desk—penholder, laptop, magazine, scented candle, scissors, calendar on the wall behind it.
I go over this ten times until I’m sure.
I hear a car door slam, and I try not to rush as I grab my clutch purse and lock the guesthouse.
In the driveway, my mother takes shopping bags from the trunk of her ostentatious Mercedes while my sister sits in the passenger seat. The door is open, and her legs hang out. Amy stops examining her chewed fingernails long enough to catch my eye. She looks worse than usual. She might have on sunglasses, but I know that the bags under her eyes are particularly dark today. Her skin is pale, her badly bleached hair is stringy, and she is way too thin. The designer T-shirt hangs in a way that I can see her shoulder bones through the fabric.
I don’t feel sorry for her though. I hate my sister. Not only has she routinely sabotaged the relationship between my mother and me over the years, but there is also nothing left of the childhood love we had for each other.
“Well, good Lord. Who the fuck are you supposed to be?” Amy talks loudly and snidely. “Oh, Lucinda!”
I have no idea why she insists on calling our mother by her first name, but she has for years.
“Lucinda, look what the hell the cat dragged in.”
My mother shuts the trunk and looks my way. I can see her sigh as she struts toward me, bags bouncing against her legs.
I smile and touch my hand to my hair. “See? I got it done like yours.”
My mother stops in front of me and runs her look over my hair and green shirt, managing not to meet my eyes. “Stella,” she simply states. “Oh, dear. You just can’t get it right, can you?” She makes no secret of rolling her eyes. “Amy, darling, tell your sister that her purple shirt is a joke.”
Amy hops out of the car and stands in front of me. She smiles. “Stella, your mother says you’re hideous.”
I listen to the click-clack of Lucinda’s heels as she heads into the main house. I don’t say anything.
“Nobody likes you,” Amy matter-of-factly tells me. “I just thought you should know that.”
I’m disgusted with my sister. “Leave me alone,” I whisper.
“Gladly.”
My junkie sibling leaves me in the driveway.
I am not going to cry over this. I will not be some poor little rich girl standing in front of a mansion and manicured gardens, crying because life isn’t perfect. How fucking cliché. Although, technically, while my mother might be rich—thanks to my father’s money and her trust fund—I am not, so really, the cliché isn’t even applicable. Nonetheless, I’m not going to let my sister get to me.
I inhale and exhale. I make myself smile and walk down the long driveway to my old two-door silver Civic that I always park on the street. My mother is understandably embarrassed by having this car on her property.
I sit behind the wheel for a while. A long while. Or at least I think it’s a long while. I look at the clock. It’s almost six. I don’t know if I stood in front of the house for ages or if I’ve been in the car this whole time.
I watch the digital numbers change over and over. Finally, I drive.
I try to clear my head and attend to what I know is true. This is not easy for me, but I do this because I don’t want to get lost again.
