Page 24 of Final Installment
“I’ve been awful, too.”I didn’t like admitting it, but I hadn’t exactly been the easiest person to love either.
The sound of our mother and grandfather fighting downstairs drifted up to her room.We both eyed the locked door separating us from them.Neither of us had to say what we were thinking.
We were emotionally and mentally fucked up because of that dysfunction.All that generational trauma had been distilled down into us, morphing and molding us into the anxious, hypercritical, emotionally fucked young women we currently were.
“I can’t stay here tonight.”Dafina clutched at my hand.Her clammy skin and trembling fingers worried me.This wasn’t simple drunkenness.There was something else going on with her.
“You can come to the hotel with me.”I glanced back at the door as the raised voices grew louder.“Get showered, and I’ll pack a bag for you if you tell me what you need and where to find it.”
She was a bit wobbly on her feet as she plucked clothing out of her drawers and the closet.She didn’t pack much into her overnight bag.I shadowed her to the bathroom, worried she might fall.She was unsteady, and I really didn’t want her to fall and spend the night in the emergency room.
“You need some help?”I lingered in the doorway of the bathroom after unzipping her dress.“I won’t look.”
She snorted.“You seeing my tits is the least of my worries tonight.I’m fine.It’s not the alcohol making me feel this way.”
I caught her terrified expression in the mirror’s reflection as I turned my back toward her.I leaned against the door frame and asked, “Are you sick?”
“Yes.”
I swallowed anxiously.“Like sick-sick?”
I couldn’t bring myself to say the word I feared—cancer.
“No, it’s nothing like that.”She was in the shower now, and her voice was muffled by the glass door and the water.
“You’re seeing a doctor?”
“Yes.”
I hesitated.“Does our mother know?”
She didn’t answer immediately, and I wondered if she had heard me.Eventually, she said, “Yes.”
If it wasn’t cancer serious, what was it?Diabetes?Something autoimmune?Neurological?
“What about Luka?Have you told him you’re sick?”
“No.”The answer came swift and harsh.“He canneverfind out.”
I wanted to point out that it was highly unlikely she could hide whatever this was from her husband, but I kept my mouth shut.It wasn’t the time for that discussion.The fact that she had confided any of this to me was shocking.Her drunkenness explained her candor, and I wasn’t going to push it.
The whole time she showered, her phone vibrated nonstop with message alerts.I didn’t invade her privacy to look at the screen even though I desperately wanted to know what secrets she might be hiding.We had made a little progress on our relationship, but snooping through her phone would set us back.
When she was done showering, she changed into leggings and a shirt.I grabbed her bag and then put my finger to my lips, urging her to be quiet.We crept out of her bedroom and a few steps down the hall, both of us listening intently for our mother or grandfather.Their voices carried from the formal living room where the dinner party had started.
I glanced back at Dafina, silently exchanging a look that I hoped she understood.The staircase was a straight view from the open doors of the formal living room.If we were quick and quiet, we might be able to sneak through to the kitchen where my purse and keys were waiting.She nodded, and I slipped off my shoes, letting them dangle from my left hand.
I held my breath, terrified we would be discovered, and hating myself for being this scared of my mother.I was a grown woman with a college education, a career and a home of my own, but here I was tiptoeing through a house, terrified to be caught.
When we slipped through the swinging kitchen door, Mariana noticed us.She waved her hand, urging us to grab what we needed and run.I mouthed thank you and then rushed to my purse.I shoved my shoes inside and ran to the patio door with Dafina hot on my bare heels.We made it outside, but we didn’t breathe a sigh of relief yet.
We reached my car, locked both doors as soon as we were inside and burst into laughter.We were like two little kids sharing a secret.It felt so good to be silly with her.Before everything went bad, we had been as close as any two sisters could be.
Before I’d fucked everything up by believing I was special and mature and beautiful.
“We better go before she comes running out of the house to drag us back in there.”Dafina twisted in her seat to check that she wasn’t.“Like.Seriously.Go.”
I drove as fast as I dared down the driveway and out onto the street.Next to me, Dafina tapped furiously at her phone.Indulging in some nosiness, I asked, “Everything okay?”
