Love, your stupid sis
P.S. I am crying as I write this. Just so you know it ain’t easy.
She’d made it sound like her desertion was an act of self-sacrifice – and perhaps it was. Louise and Coffee Enema Bob had split ages ago. (I don’t know why no man is sticking with me, Billie. Or maybe it’s me that’s not sticking with them. Seems like Chuck did something to ruin me that way. He was too nice and I used up all my sticking power on him. Nowadays, I get so I can hardly sit still, once I’m done with a man. And he don’t need to do much to start getting on my nerves. It’s all my fault, I know that. I’m not dumb. Just impossible to live with.) After mentioning various men and various communes over the years, she was living with a woman reiki healer in a trailer park outside Dubois now – though there’d been no letters or postcards for a while. More than two years. Milly tried to picture her funny frizzy-haired sister cooped up in a trailer miles from the coast, but all she could come up with was her sister pacing the bedroom they’d shared in Redding, swearing in that sexy voice: ‘Goddammit, Billie, if I don’t get out of this hick town soon I am going to fucking explode.’ Though when they’d moved to San Francisco, Louise hadn’t settled. She had missed Redding and their mother.
It occurred to Milly that Louise wouldn’t realise she wasn’t Billie any more. For her sister, she was frozen as Billie – thirty-nine years old, blonde hair still natural, figure still marginally intact, husband still faithful. Milly might never see her sister again, might not even be informed of her death. This made her feel guilty for wishing Louise would never return to claim her sons.
Ah, Loulou! Darn you!
Yes, it was never pleasant remembering how the Dogtired Ranch tradition began, and so she mostly didn’t. Not while she chatted to the United Market clerk, and not now, while she organised their cabin the same way she’d always done: first putting the groceries on the sticky shelves, then making the bed up, then unpacking clothes. She noticed the absence of Mackie and Jaspy, but was relieved they’d decided to use a kennel this summer. Mackie was way too old, and Jaspy was way too young. Both were work. She wondered when August would turn up with those miniature twin girls of his.
He was moving into his own cabin right now. His daughters clung to him, sweat-soaked limpets with Asian faces. Their cabin was at the unpopular end of the ranch. It took years to be promoted to the best cabins. He walked through the wall of midday heat to his dad and Milly’s cabin, a daughter glued to each hip. At three, they were still light enough to carry. He was remembering his ex-wife’s words that morning:
‘I don’t trust you one bit, August MacAlister. If anything happens to the girls at that stupid Dog place, I’m going to kill you.’ Ah Lam had stood close to him as she hissed these words, so the children couldn’t hear. Some of her saliva sprayed him. This had almost certainly been an accident, but still.
He arrived and stood on the porch.
‘Hey, Milly,’ he called. ‘Hot, eh?’ He unpeeled the girls, walked inside and opened a Coke.
Milly had never wanted to meet, much less love this proof of her husband’s adultery, but the love had come anyway that Sunday afternoon when Jack brought him home to meet his siblings, a skinny five-year-old with Jack’s eyes and cowlicks. She’d kept her distance, but it turned out that loving August was as involuntary as loving Donald and Danny. He brought out her deepest maternal instincts because no matter how tall he grew, how old he got, he always seemed vulnerable. Growing up in a house with no siblings, a series of hedonistic step-fathers, a mother who could make martinis but not cook a hot dog without boiling the pan dry. In addition, though it hurt to admit it, he was the most beautiful child Jack had produced.
If only his mother hadn’t moved into their town! Milly bumped into her at the grocery store, in the post office, at the beach. It helped marginally that Colette was now married again, was wrinkly like the chain smoker she was, and Jack’s interest in her seemed entirely platonic. Poor darling August, having such a woman for a mother.
She held her arms open now, inviting his hug, which he duly delivered.
‘How are you? Are you settling in okay?’
‘Yeah, it’s good. But hot, eh?’
None of the cabins had air conditioning. In fact, they had no electricity. Food and drinks were kept cool with blocks of ice in iceboxes.
‘Where’s Dad?’
‘I have no idea.’ Flat toned. Wasn’t she enough? Jack Schmack. She headed to his daughters, both still in the doorway, edging her way round the room holding on to furniture. Her leg was bad today. It came and went. Heat and tiredness didn’t help.
‘Come in, girls! It’s…it’s me!’ Jack was Grandpa, but she hadn’t decided what they should call her. Grandma seemed a presumption, but would Milly seem to exclude them from the tribe of their cousins? Milly and Jack had seven grandchildren now, including Louise’s.
‘Milly, you should get a cane. It would be much quicker. Much safer.’
‘I am fine the way I am,’ she said, teetering as she closed the dangerous gap between a table and the doorway. A moment of no support. Would she make it?
August, pouring milk for his daughters, watched nervously out of the corner of his eyes. The girls stared at her with identical serious faces. Oh, this was all so ridiculous and predictable. The minute Milly pictured falling, she knew she would. Wham! A cloud of dust rose from where she fell. It was a soft, rolling fall. No damage, just that familiar indignity, and Milly lay there, giggling.
‘Oh my!’
‘Jesus Christ. Are you all right?’
Her laugh was like crying. A high-pitched, helpless, soft noise.
‘I’m fine. Just give me your hand for a minute.’ August levered her up, and she swallowed her giggles. ‘Where is Ah Lam?’ she asked.
‘Ah Lam’s not here this year. We’re not together any more. I told you.’
‘Did you? Well, tell her we miss her,’ she said, stubbornly avoiding August’s eyes. She’d only known this wife for a short time, but felt obligated to keep her present somehow, if only in her name spoken out loud. Goodness, it took her long enough just to learn how to pronounce it. She stared at him hard, then looked away when he looked at her.
‘Well, it couldn’t be hotter,’ she said. ‘I hope Ah Lam’s not stuck in commuter traffic.’
August sighed, and the girls clung to him again, their hands sticky.
‘Milly, mind if I leave the kids here for a little while?’
‘Not at all.’
He disentangled himself from the twins and let the screen door slam. The girls glared at Milly. She’d never seen such dark eyes. They were all pupil. And their black hair was exactly the same length. Aside from their different clothes, they were identical. And so petite! Like dolls.
‘Um…Miho?’ Looked carefully to see which girl responded, but both girls continued staring. She smiled her biggest smile.
‘Well, Miho and Chiew, what will we do with you? I know, let’s make playdough.’
It used to work, she was thinking. Playdough, the making of it and the playing with it, used to eat up entire afternoons. The salty, crusty texture, squished between fingers.
‘Where’s the flour?’ asked one girl suddenly. Milly startled. They didn’t look old enough to talk.
‘And a bowl?’ asked the other, looking round the room sceptically.
‘Ah,’ said Milly, remembering she had no ingredients for playdough. ‘I’ll tell you a story instead. Bring me a Coke, please. And the cookies. Bring me that bag of cookies.’
The girls exchanged a fathomless look, did as they were asked and collapsed against her legs. She hoped they wouldn’t make a break for it. She doubted she’d have the strength to hold on to them for more than a second. She looked at their bodies, soft limbed, tumbled together. She wanted them to like her but felt this was unachievable, so contented herself with observing their beauty.
