“Sounds frightening.”
“It was,” she agreed. “It was real frightening but you learn to avoid it, you know?”
“Where was your mother when all this was happening?”
“Quiet drunk. She’d go under quicker than Daddy and just fall asleep.”
“You and Connie had a challenging childhood.”
“Me and Connie and Connor — he was in between us, Connor learned to be a real good runner because Daddy would yell at him the most. He ran in high school and college. Long distance, he won awards, could go for miles.”
“Where does Connor live?”
“Up north,” she said. “He’s got a nice family.”
“When your parents weren’t drunk, what were they like?”
“Working,” she said. “Mommy secretaried at a trucking company and Daddy drove one of their semis.”
“So he was gone a lot.”
“Thank God.”
“Did he treat you and Connie differently?”
“Hmm … I’d have to say yes. Her, there’d be books turned into confetti. Me — truthfully I wasn’t one for books, reading wasn’t my favorite thing, friends were — having a social life. So there was no confetti.”
“Did he take out his anger differently with you?”
“Not really. Truthfully, he didn’t do much to me because I’d have to say he liked me the best. Because he’d tell me that. When he was sober. ‘Ree, you’re the pretty one, you make sure you stay pretty so you can get married. Connie, she’s just gonna bury her nose in a book and make like she’s smarter than everyone, no man will want that.’ ”
“So Connie had it the roughest.”
“If she’d been friendlier, it could’ve been better for her.”
“Friendlier to your father?”
“To him, to everyone — Dr. Delaware, I have to tell you: That girl was weaned on a sour pickle — that’s what Mommy always said. Never smiled, always off to herself, pretending to ignore you when you said something. It’s like she thought she was better than everyone else.”
“Nose in a book.”
“In the library more than she was at home. That meant I had to do extra chores. If Daddy and Mommy were sober, they’d probably gone after her to make her do her chores.”
“They were drunk so Connie got to do what she wanted.”
“Exactly.”
“Did you, Ree?”
“Did I what?”
“Get to do what you wanted?”
“After I left home I sure did.”
“When was that?”
Black eyes shifted to the floor. “A long time ago.”
“How long ago?”
“I was young, I admit it.”
I waited.
She said, “Fifteen.”
“You ran away.”
“Nope, I just walked out the door and no one tried to stop me.” Sudden smile, Death Valley — dry. “They never even reported me missing.”
“How’d that make you feel?”
“Did it insult me?” she said. “Maybe if I cared it would’ve. I knew if they found me it would just be more of the same.”
“Avoiding your father when he was drunk.”
“That, too,” she said. “But I’m talking about how boring it was. Nothing ever happened. I got to wondering if that was what life was gonna be like if I stayed there.”
“Out on your own, you had adventures.”
She studied me. “I had experiences. You gonna hold that against me?”
“Why would I?”
“Alternative lifestyle, Doctor. That’s what her bitch lawyer called it. Like I’m some kind of freak. I just lived my life the way I wanted and didn’t hurt no one. So don’t judge me for any of that, okay? Please. And how about we talk about right now and not get into the past? ’Cause the past doesn’t exist anymore, right?”
“I do need to ask about a few things that happened in the past.”
“Like what?”
“Have you and your sister ever had any financial connections?”
“What kind of connections?”
“Has she made substantial loans to you?”
“Because she’s rich and I’m not?”
“Because obligations can create issues.”
“Well, they’re not issues for me. I’m happy with my life, if I wanted to be rich I’d go be rich. I figured it was better to bring joy and love into my life. She thought different and look where she is now.”
“Alone.”
“Alone and all dried up and mean as a wolverine. Not that it bothers her, Doc. She really doesn’t like people. That’s why she became a microscope doctor. So she can sit in her lab and not talk to patients. It was always like that with her. Study study study, no friends, no parties, no fun. You daren’t go into her room when the big genius had her nose in the books.”
“So no financial entanglements between you.”
She fidgeted. “I loaned from her a few times. Small stuff. But I always paid it back. Now look how she’s paying me back!”
“What do you think motivated her to bring the suit?”
“Hatred,” she said. “Pure and evil hatred. I was always the pretty one, I had friends. There was always that hatred.”
“Why do you think she chose now to take you to court?”
“Ask her.”
“The suit was filed two months after you retrieved Rambla from her care. It takes time to hire a lawyer and start building a case, so it sounds like she started the process soon after.”
“So?”
“Maybe she started to think of herself as Rambla’s mom.”
“Fuck her and fuck what she thought.”
I said nothing.
Cherie Sykes yanked her braid hard. “Sorry. It just makes me so … she’s hurting me, she’s really chewing me up inside. It’s like she’s trying to kill me.” Another pat of her breast. “Whatever — yeah, she probably was plotting all along but not because she cared about Rambla, Doc. All she thinks about is herself, she wanted to carve out my heart and watch me bleed but I went and took my heart back and she couldn’t stand it and she figured she could tell me what to do and I’d just do whatever because when we were kids it was sometimes like that.”
“Connie called the shots.”
“She sure as hell tried. And when I was little, I bought into it. Then I got smart.” She pushed her head forward. “To tell the truth, one of the reasons I left was to get away from her.”
“From being dominated.”
“Yeah, and now she figures she can use her money to … terrorize me. Her and that rich-bitch Beverly Hills lawyer.” She snapped her fingers. “Little Ree didn’t play the sucker, little Ree went and got her own legal representation so forget that—do you have something to drink? All this talking’s taken the spit out of my mouth.”
I fetched her water.
“Thanks, Doc. Anything else you need from me?”
“Let’s talk about the three months Connie took care of Rambla.”
Her jaw jutted. “She keeps saying three months. It was eighty-eight days.”
“Fair enough, Ree. Tell me how it came to be.”
“I was afraid you’d get to that. Why’s it important?”
“Connie’s citing it as evidence you wanted her to have guardianship.”
She put the cup down hard enough to resonate. “That’s fucking bullshit!”
“How’d the arrangement come about?”
“There was no arrangement,” she said. “No arrangement at all. I was playing with Rambla and out of the clear blue Connie came over. She was nice — a different Connie. She brought me stuff for Rambla. Baby clothes, diapers — like I didn’t have the brains to buy diapers. The ones she brought were the wrong brand and wrong size, but no matter, I said thank you because that’s the kind of person I am, I always see the best in everyone. And truthfully, Doctor, I was happy with my life, no reason to be unfriendly.”