White Oleander

"Maybe you need some time," he said. "Think it over."

 

I heard his footsteps, closed the door before he caught me spying on them. I heard him pass down the hall.

 

I peeked out the door, she was back lying on the couch. She pulled the mohair blanket up over her head. I could hear her moaning.

 

I closed the door and sat on my bed, helpless. It was my mother all over again. Why did they do this? I'd been taking care of Claire for almost two years. I was the one she told everything.

 

I was the one who worried, submitted to her rituals, calmed her fears, while he was off chasing poltergeists and Virgin Mary apparitions. How could he send me away now? I opened the door determined to talk to him, to tell him he couldn't, when he came out of the bedroom with his hanging bag over his shoulder, his briefcase in his hand. His eyes caught mine, but they slid closed like steel doors as he swung past me out into the living room.

 

I didn't think Claire could get any paler, but when she saw Ron with those bags, she turned powder white. She scrambled from the couch, the blanket fell to the floor. Her bathrobe was ail twisted around, I could see her underwear. "Don't go." She grabbed onto his corduroy jacket. "You can't leave me. I love you."

 

He inhaled, and for a moment I thought he was going to change his mind, but then his eyebrows pressed down on his eyes, and he turned, breaking her hold. "Work it out."

 

"Ron, please." She grabbed for him again but she was too drunk, she missed and fell onto her knees. "Please."

 

I went back to my room and lay facedown on the bed. I couldn't stand to watch her crawl after him, grabbing onto his legs, begging, staggering after him out the door, in her red Christmas bathrobe all falling open. I could hear her outside now, weeping, promising she'd be good, promising him everything. The slam of his car door, the engine starting up, the unwinding ascending note of the Alfa backing out as she continued to plead. I imagined Mrs. Kromach peering out from behind her powder-blue curtains, Mr. Levi staring in amazement from under his Hasidic brim.

 

Claire came back in, calling me. I put the pillow over my head. Weakling, I thought. Traitor. She was in front of my door, but I didn't answer. She would give me up for him, she would do anything to have him. Just like before, my mother and Barry. "Please, Astrid," she begged me through the door, but I wouldn't listen. This sickness would never happen to me.

 

Finally she went to her room, closed the door, and I hated her for crawling after him and hated myself for my disgust, for knowing just how Ron felt. I lay there on my bed, hating all of us, listening to her cry, she'd done nothing but for a week. Twenty-seven names for tears.

 

I heard Leonard Cohen start up, asking if she heard her master sing. The circular repetition of an overwhelming question. I wanted to seal myself up, while I still had something of my own that I hadn't given to Claire. I had to pull back or I would be torn away, like a scarf closed in a car door.

 

How I despised her weakness. Just like my mother said I would. It repelled me. I would have fought for her, but Claire couldn't even stand up for herself. I couldn't save us both. On my desk was the picture of me and the steelhead trout from summer. Ron had it framed. I looked so happy. I should have known it wouldn't last. Nothing lasts. Didn't I know that by now? Keep your hags packed, my mother said. And me with less than a year to go, with college dangling before me.

 

But then I remembered how Claire took me to Cal Arts to see if I wanted to apply there, even got me the application. How she made me take honors classes, helped me with the homework, drove me to the museum every Tuesday night. If I had a future at all, it was only because she gave it to me. But then I saw her crawling again, begging, and was repelled afresh. Astrid help me. Astrid pick up the pieces. How could I? I was counting on her too much. I had to start facing that.

 

I read for a while in a book about Kandinsky, tried out some of his ideas about form and tension. How the tension in a line increased as it approached the edge. I tried not to listen as the Leonard Cohen cycled around. She must have fallen asleep by now. Let her sleep it off.

 

I drew until it got dark, then turned on the light and spun the pyramid that hung over my desk, the ridiculous pyramid my mother had sold Claire on. When I closed the Kandinsky book, I couldn't help noticing the inscription. To Astrid, with all my love, Claire.

 

It went through me like a current, shorting out my childish resentment. If I had anything good, it was only because of Claire. If I could think of myself as worthwhile for a second, it was because Claire made me think so. If I could contemplate a future at all, it was because she believed there was one. Claire had given me back the world. And what was I doing now that she needed me? Rolling up my windows, loading in supplies, unreeling the barbed wire.