Ronnie didn’t like anyone going into his room when he wasn’t there. On the day of Mom’s funeral and the night Mom died, he’d let me come in there because he was there already. He kept his room neat and orderly, with some but not much help from Mom. He lived in fear that someone—like his little sister—would come in and wreck things, which I’d done on more than one occasion when we were under the age of ten. Given the extreme circumstances of the moment, I had to believe he would forgive me if I entered his private space.
I didn’t expect to find much. Ronnie kept jigsaw puzzles and sketchbooks stacked neatly on a shelf by the room’s lone window. He shared that analytical, logical side of his personality with Mom and not really with me. I opened his closet. Everything hung neatly on hangers, and the shoes were lined up on the floor, two by two, like animals ready to enter Noah’s ark. I didn’t see any loose papers or cards. I closed the closet door.
I was ready to leave when I saw the photo next to Ronnie’s bed. Ronnie used a small nightstand, one made out of cheap particleboard. It had a drawer and two shelves, and on the top sat a lamp, an alarm clock, and an empty water glass. The framed photo rested on the bottom shelf, almost obscured by a box of tissues.
I went over and picked it up. My heart flipped when I realized it was a photo I had never seen before. In the shot, Ronnie and Mom stood behind two small children about three and five years old. Everyone smiled big and goofy, the kids hamming it up like performers. Everyone looked happy. More than happy. Ecstatic. And I had no idea who the kids were.
I guessed it was a recent photo. The four of them were standing outside near a lake, and the trees in the distance were thick and green—it must have been summer. Just a couple of months ago? Was it possibly the last photo ever taken of Mom?
I traced my finger across the glass in the frame, right over her face. I swallowed hard. Who were these goddamn kids? And who had taken the photo?
“Okay, Mom,” I said. “You’re coming with me.”
I threw the photo—frame and all—into my purse and left the house.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Ronnie lay with a sheet pulled up to his chin, his eyes closed. I stood and watched him sleep, his chest gently rising and falling with each breath. The air made a soft whistling sound as it passed in and out of his nostrils. He looked peaceful.
I thought about the new will and my guardianship of Ronnie. If all this ended the right way—when it all ended the right way—and Ronnie was released, he would be in my care. He needed a place to live, structure, and stability. My graduate school life provided none of those things. Still, my mind ran through the possibilities. I could schedule my classes and teaching for a few days a week and stay home with Ronnie on the others. With Paul’s help and understanding from my professors…
But then, when I graduated? When I went looking for a job, one that might send me anywhere in the country to teach? I had refused to promise Mom for the very same reason. I wanted a career, a life. I didn’t see how the two went together.
Ronnie’s eyes fluttered open. He blinked against the light from the bedside lamp, then looked over and saw me.
“Hi, Ronnie.”
He smiled. “Hi, sis.”
I went to the side of his bed and sat down. I ran my hand over his arm, which was still beneath the sheet. I remembered when Dad was first in the hospital. Nothing makes a person seem more vulnerable and weak than being wrapped up in a hospital bed.
“How are you?” I asked. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m okay,” he said.
He seemed less morose than he had before. I couldn’t be sure how much of that had to do with whatever drugs they were giving him to even out his moods.
“Are you getting enough to eat?” I asked. “Shoot. I should have stopped and got you a sandwich or something. Do you want me to go out and do that?”
“I ate my dinner here,” he said. “Not too bad.”
“Good.”
Then he said, “I don’t want to be here anymore.”
His words hit me in the chest, as if someone had taken a two-by-four and whacked me there. I struggled for air. “I know, Ronnie.”
“I miss home,” he said. “I miss Mom.”
“I know,” I said. “I do too.” I rushed to speak before he could say anything else that would break my heart. “Look, I’ll talk to the doctor in a minute. I’ll find out what’s going on. You’ll probably just have to stay here a little longer.”
“That’s what Paul said. He wouldn’t take me home either.”
My brother didn’t sound angry or emotional. Just resigned. I think the resignation in his voice, the defeat, made it even worse. I decided to change the subject as fast as possible.
“You know what I found today?” I asked, trying to sound chipper. To my own ears, my voice sounded high-pitched and a little crazy, laced with false cheer. I might have found myself on the receiving end of a visit from the men in white coats. “Do you remember Peppy?”
Ronnie’s face brightened a little. “Of course,” he said.
Peppy was a white poodle. Someone Dad knew had found him abandoned on the interstate when he was just a puppy. This person asked Dad if he’d like to take the dog, since he knew Dad had two kids. Peppy lived with us for more than ten years, until he had to be put to sleep when I was in high school.
“Do you remember that picture Mom took of him?” I asked. “The one where he’s wearing the Santa hat?”
Ronnie nodded. “He used to jump on us in the yard when we came home from school. Every day he came running out to us.”
“Mom let him out so he could do that,” I said.
“He used to sleep in my bed sometimes,” Ronnie said.
“Sometimes? He slept in your bed all the time. He wouldn’t sleep with anyone else.”
“I know.”
“You know? Then why did you say sometimes?”
He tried to suppress a grin. “I didn’t want you to feel bad.”
I laughed at his slyness. “I was mad then. I wanted him to be my dog, but he was yours. He lived with the whole family, but he loved you the most. He was your dog.”
“He went to Indiana Beach with us,” Ronnie said.
“That’s right.”
We’d rarely taken vacations when I was growing up. We weren’t poor by any means, but we didn’t have an excess of anything. And Ronnie’s extra schooling and medical bills took a bite out of the family budget. In fact, Mom didn’t have any real sense of financial security until Dad died and she collected on his life insurance policy.
But one summer when I was eight, the vacation bug bit my parents. All four of us piled into Dad’s Ford Taurus and we drove across the state line to Indiana Beach, a cheesy, family-friendly resort area someone had built on the shore of a man-made lake in west central Indiana. We spent five days there, going on the rides on the boardwalk and swimming in the small roped-off enclosure they’d made for kids in the lake. I could still smell the cotton candy and the popcorn, the elephant ears and the hot dogs they grilled along the midway. Ronnie loved it. We all loved it, but for some reason we never went back.
“Peppy got carsick,” Ronnie said. “He puked in the backseat.”
“He did. That’s right.” It didn’t sound like fun, riding down the interstate in a hot car with a puddle of dog puke at my feet, but I couldn’t think of it any other way. “Dad was furious,” I said.
“He said he didn’t want to bring Peppy in the first place.”
I laughed. “Oh, my God.” I closed my eyes and the memories were all right there, as vivid as anything on a movie screen. Dad in his Ohio State baseball cap. Mom in her sunglasses. The green car, the passing scenery, the fishy smell of the lake. I closed my eyes tight, squeezing off tears.