LJ Idol Topic #14: "Cracks"
“This arrived at the school for you yesterday,” my best friend Liz said as she handed me the envelope. “Are you ever going to give her your address?”
I took the red envelope and tossed it into my bag without opening it, knowing what was inside already as I’d received a similar envelope every year on my birthday. “I don’t know,” I replied.
We sat in the coffee house, surrounded by college students working feverishly on their laptops or engaged in quiet conversation. A Sarah McLachlan’s song played low over the sound system and the aroma of coffee and pastries permeated the air.
“Eight years is a long time,” Liz said. “You ever planning on putting some cracks in the wall between you two? Maybe let a little sunshine in?”
I sipped from my coffee mug. “I really don’t know, Liz,” I said. “How can I just forget?”
“You can’t,” she said as she popped a piece of croissant into her mouth. “But you can learn to forgive. She’s your sister, Amy.”
“If it were only that easy.”
-00000-
Eight years ago, I was just beginning my career in teaching and was engaged to a wonderful man. I felt like all of my dreams were coming to fruition and I was on top of the world. My only regret was that my parents weren’t alive to see any of it. After their deaths, my younger sister and I forged the kind of bond we never had when we were growing up. We were more than sisters, we were each others confidants and best friends. I’d always felt it was unfortunate that it took the death of our parents to bring us that close.
“What do you think about this dress?” I held up the magazine so that Becca could see the picture of a wedding gown.
She studied it for a moment. “It’s great,” she said. “If you’re an elderly shut-in.”
I threw the magazine at her and laughed. “Shut up,” I said. “It was a pretty dress.”
“If you say so, grandma,” she said with a smile as she flipped through more wedding magazines.
Becca was helping me plan the wedding and would serve as my Maid of Honor, naturally. We sat on my living room floor flipping an endless assortment of catalogs and magazines, looking for everything from floral arrangements to dresses to food. Becca had a flair for organization and planning and knew how to do it on a tight budget.
“So what happened to that guy you were seeing,” I asked as I flipped open another catalog. “Randy, wasn’t it?”
“Didn’t work out,” she said. “He’s a nice guy but he just wasn’t… it. We lacked a certain spark. You know?”
I nodded. I had my fair share of dating horror stories.
“Now remember,” said my fiancée Steve as he walked into the room. “We’ve got about twelve dollars to spend on this wedding so plan carefully.”
I threw a pillow from the couch at him. “Very funny,” I said. “Where are you headed?”
“I’m going to go see my shrink,” he replied. “See if I’m mentally sound enough to go through with this.”
“Oh, I think your shrink is going to tell you that you’d be nuts if you didn’t go through with it,” Becca said. “You’ve got a great girl here. And probably the only one that can put up with you.”
Steve leaned down and kissed me on the forehead. “Yeah, you might be right about that.”
I don’t know what it was that tipped me off. Certainly, there were no outward signs. There were no hushed telephone conversations, no sudden “appointments” to keep, nothing like that and nothing out of the ordinary. I suppose it’s like when an animal catches the barest sniff of a predator lurking in the bushes nearby, stalking them, ready to pounce and devour them that sets off their internal warning bells. Call it psychic energy, intuition or ESP, I just had a feeling.
I cancelled my movie night with Liz and drove over to Steve’s house. My heart sank when I saw her car parked out front. Though I wasn’t a big believer in God, I uttered a little prayer that I was wrong, that this was something we’d be laughing about afterward. Walking to the front door, I pulled out my key and quietly inserted it into the lock, slowly turning the knob. It silently swung inward on an empty living room. Soft jazz music played on the stereo and I saw a bottle of my favorite Cabernet and two wine glasses sitting on the coffee table. I could feel my heart splintering and cracking like glass dropped on concrete, shattering into a million little pieces.
I quietly made my way to the back of the house, where the bedrooms were. As I walked down the halls, I could hear giggling and moaning coming from his room. The door stood open but the room was bathed in shadow, the only illumination coming from the several candles I’d bought for him. I stood in the doorway, watching my younger sister sitting astride my fiancée, her head thrown back, moaning with pleasure. I watched his hands trace their way from her hips, up her back, into her hair and back again and I could feel his phantom fingertips caressing my skin in the exact same way.
I’m not sure how long I stood there before they noticed me. Time seemed to have ceased for me in that moment. I slowly became aware of them, frozen in place, staring at me with shock and horror on their faces. They both opened their mouths to speak at the same time but I forestalled it by closing the bedroom door, walking out and going home.
It didn’t take long for the inevitable rush flood of tearful apologies, justifications and rationalizations to clog up my answering machine, voice mail and email. I ignored them all. I cut the both of them out of my life like a cancerous tumor, built an impregnable wall around myself and never looked back.
-00000-
“Miss Tanner,” her voice shook me out of my memories and brought me back to the present. “What should I do?”
Elise, one of my students, stood before my desk, tears welling in her eyes. I looked at her blankly, having only half-heard her problem.
“About my sister?” She prompted.
I shook my head. “I really don’t know, Elise,” I said. “But she’s your sister. You only have one of them. Is it really worth it to let something so ultimately small and insignificant come between you?”
She shuffled her feet and looked at the ground. “But I really like him.”
I folded my hands on me desk and looked at her. “Maybe,” I said. “She did you a favor in the long run. That he’s flirting with both of you, playing you both off of each other shows you what kind of a boy he really is, doesn’t it?”
She hesitated. “Maybe,” she said.
I stood in my living room with a glass of Merlot in my hand and my sister’s red envelope in the other feeling like the world’s biggest hypocrite as I reflected on my conversation with Elise earlier. I looked at the box where I’d put the seven other unopened envelopes from my sister and weighed my options. Drop it in there, tuck it away and go forward? Or take my own advice and try to begin repairing the huge, gaping cracks in my relationship with my sister? Maybe she ultimately did me a favor by showing me what kind of man Steve was. But why did it have to be her, dammit?
I finished the last of my wine and set the glass down. Breathing deeply, I opened the envelope and pulled out the card. The inscription simply said, “I will always be sorry and hope that one day you can forgive me. Happy Birthday and know that I love you.”
Could it really be that easy? Could I just forgive and forget and move on like that? I paced my living room, picking up my phone half a dozen times and punching in several numbers before setting it down every time.
Maybe Liz was right. I may not be able to forget but maybe I could begin to forgive. I missed my sister, I missed my best friend. She was all the family I had left. Maybe it was time to put some cracks in the wall I’d built around myself and let some sunshine in after all.
I picked up my phone again and dialed her number, feeling as if a million butterflies were trying to punch their way out of my stomach as her line began to ring.
“Hi Becca,” I said when she picked up. “It’s Amy...”