Barry was immediately at his wife’s side, kissing her cheek. “Nothing to it,” he assured her.
Maureen gave her husband and sister one of her luminous smiles. Despite the fact that she had to be exhausted, she looked radiant in a crisp white shirt over black wool pants. Her figure was almost back to normal, Jess noticed, wondering if Barry had talked his wife into resuming her strict exercise routine. As if looking after a big house and three small children wasn’t enough to keep her busy.
“You look wonderful,” Jess told her sister truthfully.
“And you look tired,” Maureen said, giving her sister a hug. “You getting enough sleep?”
Jess shrugged, recalling her recent nightmare.
“Look what Auntie Jess gave me,” Tyler said from the door, proudly brandishing his new airplane.
“Isn’t that wonderful! I hope you said thank-you.”
“Your sister doesn’t believe in thank-yous,” Barry said, walking across the room to the wet bar and pouring himself a scotch and water. “Can I get anybody anything?”
“Not for me,” Maureen said. “That’s a great sweater, Jess. You should wear blue more often. It’s a great color for you.”
“It’s green,” Barry corrected, lifting his eyebrows toward his sister-in-law. “Isn’t that what you said, Jess?”
“Oh no, it’s definitely blue,” Maureen said flatly. “No question.”
“Are the twins asleep?” Jess asked.
“For the moment. But that never lasts very long.”
“I bought them a little something.”
“Oh, Jess, you don’t have to buy them something every time you come over.”
“Of course I do. What are aunties for?”
“Well, thank you.” Maureen took the Marshall Field’s bag from Jess’s hand and peeked inside.
“It’s just some bibs. I thought they were kind of cute.”
“They’re adorable.” Maureen held up the small white terry cloth bibs festooned with bright red apples and berries. “Oh, look at these. Aren’t they sweet, Barry?”
Jess didn’t hear Barry’s reply. Could this really be her sister? she was wondering, trying not to stare. Could they really have shared the same mother? Could the woman she’d watched graduate with honors from one of the top colleges in the country be so enthralled with a couple of five-dollar bibs from Marshall Field’s? Could she really be proffering them forward for her husband’s approval? From Summa Cum Laude to Stepford Wife?
“So, what happened in court today?” Maureen asked, as if sensing Jess’s discomfort. “You get a verdict?”
“The wrong one.”
“You were kind of expecting that, weren’t you?” Maureen took Jess’s hands and led her to the sofa, not relinquishing her hands even after they were both seated.
“I was hoping.”
“It must be tough.”
“So’s your sister,” Barry said, taking a long sip of his drink, not releasing it from his lips until the glass was almost empty. “Aren’t you, Jess?”
“Something wrong with that?” Jess heard the dare escape her voice.
“Not as long as it’s confined to the courtroom.”
Don’t bite, she thought. Don’t let him get to you. “I see,” she said, despite her best efforts. “It’s okay to be strong when I’m fighting someone else’s battles, just not my own.”
“Who says you always have to be fighting?”
“I don’t think Jess is tough,” Maureen offered, her voice questioning.
“Tell me, Jess,” Barry asked, “why is it that as soon as a woman gets a little power, she loses her sense of humor?”
“And why is it that whenever a man fails at being funny, he attacks a woman’s sense of humor?” Jess shot back.
“There’s a big difference between being strong and being tough,” Barry said, returning to his original point, and emphasizing it with a nod of his head, as if this were one of those constitutional truths supposed to be self-evident. “A man can afford to be both; a woman can’t.”
“Jess,” Maureen intervened softly, “you know Barry’s just teasing you.”
Jess jumped to her feet. “Bullshit, he’s teasing!”
Tyler’s head snapped toward his aunt.
“Kindly watch your language in this house,” Barry admonished.
Jess felt the sting of his rebuke sharper than a slap across the face. She desperately hoped she wouldn’t cry. “So now we don’t swear either, is that right?” she said, using her voice to keep the tears at bay. “We don’t drink Coke and we don’t swear.”
Barry looked at his wife, his hands in the air, as if giving up.
“Jess, please,” Maureen implored, tugging on her sister’s hand, trying to draw her back down on the couch.
“I just want to make sure I have all your husband’s rules straight.” Jess glared at her brother-in-law, who was
suddenly a poster boy for reason and calm. He’d gotten to her again, she realized, disgusted and ashamed of herself. “I don’t know how you do it,” she muttered dejectedly. “It must take some special skill.”
“What are you fulminating about now?” Barry asked, a look of genuine puzzlement in his eyes.
“Fulminating?” Jess gasped, abandoning any further attempts at control. “Fulminating?”
“Tyler,” Maureen began, rising and gently steering her son out of the room, “why don’t you take your new toy upstairs and play with it there?”
“I want to stay here,” the boy protested.
“Tyler, go play in your room until we call you for dinner,” his father instructed.
The boy jumped into immediate action.
“His master’s voice,” Jess said as the youngster scampered up the stairs.
“Jess, please,” Maureen urged.
“I didn’t start it.” Jess heard the hurt child in her voice, was angry and embarrassed that they could hear it too.
“It doesn’t matter who started it,” Maureen was saying, speaking as if to two children, refusing to make eye contact with either of them. “What matters is that it stops before it goes any further.”
“Consider it stopped.” Barry’s voice filled the large room.
Jess said nothing.
“Jess?”
Jess nodded, her head swimming with anger and guilt. Guilt for her anger, anger for her guilt.
“So, what’s next on the prosecutor’s agenda?” Maureen’s words were full of forced joviality, as if she were visiting a
terminally ill patient in the hospital. Her normally soft voice was a shrill half octave higher than usual. She returned to the rose-colored sofa and patted the seat beside her with an intensity approaching desperation. Neither Jess nor Barry moved.
“A few drug charges I’m hoping we can plead out,” Jess told her, “and I go to trial the week after next on another assault case. Oh, and I have a meeting on Monday with the lawyer who’s representing that man who shot his estranged wife with a crossbow.” Jess massaged the bridge of her nose, disturbed by the matter-of-factness in her tone.
“With a crossbow, my God!” Maureen shuddered. “How barbaric.”
“You must have read about it in the paper a few months back. It made all the front pages.”
“Well, that explains why I missed it,” Maureen stated. “I never read anything in the papers these days but the recipes.”
Jess struggled to keep her dismay from registering on her face, knew she was failing.
“It’s just too depressing,” Maureen explained, her voice as much apology as explanation. “And there’s only so much time.” Her voice trailed off to a whisper.
“So, what special treat have you concocted for us for tonight?” Barry joined his wife on the couch, taking her hands in his.
Maureen took a deep breath, pulling her eyes away from Jess and staring straight ahead, as if she were reading from an imaginary blackboard. “To start with, there’s a mock turtle soup, followed by a honey-glazed chicken with sesame seeds, candied yams and grilled veggies, then a green salad with pecans and Gorgonzola cheese, and finally, a pear mousse with raspberry sauce.”
“Sounds fabulous.” Barry gave his wife’s hand an extra squeeze.
“Sounds like you’ve been cooking all week.”
“Sounds like much more work than it actually is,” Maureen said modestly.
“I don’t know how you do it,” Jess said, sputtering over the “how” when what she really wanted to say was “why.”
“Actually, I find it very relaxing.”
“You should try it, Jess,” Barry said.
“You should stuff it, Barry,” Jess said in return.
Once again both Jess and Barry were on their feet. “That’s it,” he was saying. “I’ve had enough.”
“You’ve had more than enough,” Jess told him. “And for much too long. At my sister’s expense.”
“Jess, you’re wrong.”
“I’m not wrong, Maureen.” Jess began pacing the room. “What’s happened to you? You used to be this fabulous, smart woman who knew the morning paper backward and forward. Now, you only read recipes? For God’s sake, you were on your way to a vice presidency! Now you’re on your way to the kitchen! This man has you up to your eyeballs in dirty dishes and dirty diapers and you’re trying to convince me that you like it?”
“She doesn’t have to convince you of anything,” Barry said angrily.
“I think my sister is perfectly capable of speaking for herself. Or is that another new role around here? She only speaks through you.”
“You know what I think, Jess?” Barry asked, not waiting for an answer. “I think you’re jealous.”
“Jealous?”
“Yes, jealous. Because your sister has a husband and a family, and she’s happy. And what have you got? A freezer full of frozen pizzas and a goddamn canary!”
“Next you’ll tell me all I really need is a good fuck!”
“Jess!” Maureen looked toward the stairs, her eyes filling with tears.
“What you really need is a good spanking,” Barry said, walking to the piano by the large picture window and slamming his knuckles against the keys. The sound, an unpleasant fistful of sharps and flats, swept through the house, like a sudden brushfire. From upstairs, the twins started to cry, first one, then the other.
Maureen lowered her head into her chest, crying into the crisp white collar of her blouse. Then without looking at either Jess or Barry, she bolted from the room.
“Damnit,” Jess whispered, her own eyes filling with tears.
“One day,” Barry said quietly, “you’ll go too far.”
“I know,” Jess said, her voice dripping sarcasm. “You never forget. You get even.” In the next instant, she was on the stairs behind her sister. “Maureen, please, wait. Let me talk to you.”
“There’s nothing you can say,” Maureen told her, opening the door to the lilac-and-white-papered nursery to the right of the stairs. The smell of talcum powder immediately invaded Jess’s nostrils like a heavy narcotic. She hung back, newly dizzy and light-headed, clinging to the doorway, watching as Maureen ministered to her infant daughters.
The cribs stood at right angles against the opposite wall, mobiles of tiny giraffes and teddy bears swirling gently above them. There was a large bentwood rocking chair in the middle of the room and an overstuffed chair in bold
white and purple stripes off to one side, as well as a changing table and a large flower-printed diaper pail. Maureen leaned over the cribs and cooed at her children, speaking over her shoulder at Jess with a gentle lilt in her voice that belied the strength of her words. “I don’t understand you, Jess. I really don’t. You know Barry doesn’t mean half of what he says. He just likes to give you a hard time. Why do you always have to rise to the bait?”
Jess shook her head. A million excuses fought their way to the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed them all, allowing only an apology to escape. “I’m sorry. Really I am. I shouldn’t have lost control like that. I don’t know what happened,” she continued, when the apology didn’t seem to suffice.
“Same thing that always happens when you and Barry get together. Only worse.”
“It’s just that no matter how hard I try, he always finds a way to get to me.”
“You get to yourself.”
“Maybe.” Jess leaned against the doorway, listening to the babies settle down at the sound of their mother’s voice. Maybe she should tell Maureen about Rick Ferguson’s threat, and the nightmare and anxiety attacks that threat had subsequently unleashed. Maybe Maureen would cradle her in her arms and tell her that everything would be all right. How she needed to be held; how she longed to be comforted. “I’ve had a really rotten day.”
“We all have rotten days. They don’t give you the right to be mean and unpleasant.”
“I said I was sorry.”
Maureen lifted one of the twins out of her crib. “Here,
Carrie, go spit up on your mean auntie Jessica.” She deposited the baby in Jess’s arms.
Jess hugged the infant to her breast, feeling the softness of the baby’s head against her lips, inhaling her sweet smell. If only she could go back, start all over again. There were so many things she’d do differently.
“Come to Mommy, Chloe.” Maureen lifted the second baby into her arms. “Not everything has to be a confrontation,” she told Jess, rocking the baby gently back and forth.
“That’s not what they taught us in law school.”
Maureen smiled, and Jess knew all was forgiven. Maureen had never been able to stay angry for long. She’d been like that since they were children, always eager to make things right, unlike Jess, who could nurse a grudge for days, a trait that drove their mother to distraction.
“Do you ever think …” Jess began, then hesitated, not sure whether to continue. She had never broached this subject with Maureen before.
“Do I ever think what?”
Jess began rocking the baby in her arms back and forth. “Do you ever think you’ve seen Mommy?” she asked slowly.
A look of shock passed through Maureen’s face. “What?”
“Do you ever imagine that you’ve seen … Mother?” Jess repeated, straining for formality, avoiding her sister’s incredulous gaze. “You know, in a crowd. Or across the street.” Her voice trailed to a halt. Did she sound as ridiculous as she felt?
“Our mother is dead,” Maureen said firmly.
“I just meant …”
“Why are you doing this to yourself?”
“I’m not doing anything to myself.”
“Look at me, Jess,” Maureen ordered, and Jess reluctantly turned toward her sister’s voice. The two women, each cradling an infant in her arms, stared into each other’s green eyes from across the room. “Our mother is dead,” Maureen repeated, as Jess felt her body grow numb.