The Last Hour (Thompson Sisters), Sheehan-Miles, Charles [reading an ebook .txt] 📗

“I don’t see how I can leave that alone,” I said.

“Your sister will be happier if you do. There’s nothing but grief there.”

I didn’t know how to answer that. “Fine,” I said. “For now, anyway. But don’t think I’ll leave it alone forever.”

She released my hands. “I suppose I have to accept that. For now, anyway.”

It felt like she was mocking me.

I took a long drink from my coffee and said, “Where’s Dad?”

“He fled to his office when the twins started fighting.”

I closed my eyes. Typical, I suppose. It’s not that my father was a coward, but avoiding confrontation? That was his style. “Why don’t I see if I can drag the girls downstairs peacefully, and you work on Dad? It is Christmas morning.”

“Yes. I agree,” she said, as I stood up. I wasn’t actually ready to go yet. I wanted two or three more cups of coffee before even considering dealing with my sisters. But the conversation with Mother had made me so uncomfortable that I needed to get out of there.

“Carrie?” she said, as I started to back away from the table.

“Yes, Mother?”

“Even though I’ve never been very good at showing it, especially with you older girls ... you do know I love you?”

I felt my mouth twitch to the side, and I didn’t know what to say. I should lie, and say, ‘Of course I know.’ I should tell her that her episodes when I was a teen didn’t matter. I should tell her that the hideous way she’d treated Julia didn’t matter. I should try to build a bridge. I wasn’t sure I knew how. I was getting close to thirty years old, and I couldn’t even talk with my mother without lying.

“Of course I know,” I said, with a sinking feeling, the lie stark, sitting in my chest like a wound that would never heal.

I turned away before she could sense the lie and started up the stairs. As I climbed the four flights of stairs to the top floor and Julia’s old room, now Sarah’s, I wondered for the thousandth time how Julia had reconciled herself, even made peace with our mother. Was it like it was with me—just a pretense to keep the peace? We still had two sisters at home ... three, if you counted Andrea, though it seemed unlikely she’d ever live in this house again. Sending our mother into another tailspin of depression wouldn’t do them any good at all.

Finally on the fourth floor, I rapped on Sarah’s door. The door had a hand-lettered sign on it reading “Keep out.”

“What do you want?”

“Why don’t we start with common courtesy?” I replied.

For a second, I thought she was going to ignore me. But after a few moments, I heard what sounded like a wood board slide back, and the door opened. “Come in,” she said.

My mouth dropped open when I walked into the room. For one thing, Sarah had roughly nailed a sliding bar to the doorframe so she could bar the door from inside. Which I couldn’t ever imagine was necessary in our house. My mother might freak out occasionally, but I don’t think my father had ever raised his voice in his life. He was such a stereotypically uptight WASP I don’t think he’d yell if the zombie apocalypse were taking place in his living room.

But that was the least of it. This room had been sterile as long as I could remember it. It was, in theory, Julia’s room. But by the time Dad retired and we moved back to his family home in San Francisco, Julia was already in college. She’d never actually lived here, though she’d stayed in the room a few times. Devoid of decoration or personal touches of any kind, it could have been a barely used guest room.

Sarah had painted the walls and ceiling black. Posters for bands like Disturbed and Morbid Obesity were on the walls. And in the corner, something I’d never seen: a gleaming, highly polished black guitar. It had mother of pearl inlay on the fret board. Three of the four dials on the face were yellowing with age. The fourth had been replaced with what looked like the round wooden hub from an Erector Set.

Looking closely at the walls, I could just make out dark red lettering against the black. Sarah just stood there watching me as I furrowed my brows and walked to the wall above her bed, scanning the words. It was dim in here, and they were difficult to read, because the only illumination came from a string of Christmas lights hung along the top of one wall.

It was poetry.

I blinked, and turned and looked at her.

“This ... isn’t what I expected.”

She smirked. “What did you expect? Flowers?”

I smiled at her. “I don’t know what I expected. But I like it. It’s ... uniquely you.”

That evoked the biggest smile I’d seen from her since I’d come home.

“You think?” she said.

I nodded. “Can I ask you ... when this started?”

She shrugged. “When I was three?”

I laughed. “If you say so. Why do I have the feeling that Mother and Dad blame Crank for this?”

She rolled her eyes. “Crank is old school. And kind of lame.”

That I didn’t buy. Sarah had been crushing on Crank since she was old enough to notice boys.

“What’s next? Piercings?”

Now she really did smirk, a kind of endearing grin, and she pulled up her shirt to show me the ring that Mother had called “self mutilation.” It wasn’t bad ... understated really, just a small stud in her belly button.

“Nice,” I said. “So, can we talk for a few minutes?”

“Did Mother send you up here?”

“Not for this. This is me talking. Your big sister.”

“Sorry,” she whispered. She looked down at the floor as she said it.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, and I took a seat next to her.

“I’m worried about you,” I said.

She frowned. “Because of all this?” she asked, her eyes scanning the room.

I shook