Chapter 6 - The Cream Sweater in the Background
The living room kept humming without us. Glasses clinked and somebody laughed too loud at something the woman in green said, and that sound covered us in the entryway. Grandfather hadn't moved us far, just back into the alcove where the coats were still piled on the marble. The red scarf on top had bled a little color into the meltwater. My boots were still wet and my socks made a soft squelch when I shifted my weight.
My sister stood with her back half to the living room, so the guests would only see her cream sweater with the dark pattern. She kept her hands tucked into her sleeves. I could see her breathing fast, shallow. Grandfather had one hand on my shoulder and the other light on her elbow, not pulling, just there. The open door behind us let in a draft that made the garland by the fireplace shiver.
She looked at me first, not at him. "I was supposed to let you get it," she whispered. Her voice was so low I had to read her lips as much as hear her.
I didn't understand. "Get what?"
"The door," she said. Her eyes flicked toward the woman in green. "She told me this afternoon. She said you needed to learn responsibility. She said if you couldn't even answer the door right and take coats without complaining, how would you ever be useful. She said I wasn't allowed to help you."
The words landed slow. I remembered standing by the front hall closet while she lined up the hangers, telling me to hold the pile and not drop it, not to drip on the marble. My sister had been right there by the stairs with her hands empty.
"She told you not to help?" Grandfather asked, quiet.
My sister nodded. A quick, tight nod. Her jaw was clenched. "She said if I helped you'd never learn. She said I'd be making it worse for you." She swallowed. "I wanted to take half. I really did. I just stood there."
I remembered how she'd looked at me over the pile of coats in my arms, her mouth pressed thin, and I'd thought she was mad at me too. Now I realized she'd been staring at the woman behind me. My chest felt hot and then hollow. I didn't say anything. I couldn't figure out if I was supposed to forgive her or thank her for telling the truth.
Grandfather let a breath out through his nose. He didn't look angry at her. He just looked at the pile on the floor and then at her face. "Did she say what would happen if you did help?"
My sister glanced back toward the living room again. The woman was holding a drink now, smiling at the man in the suit, touching his arm. My sister reached into the pocket of her dark skirt and pulled out her phone. Her thumb was shaking.
"She texted me," she said. She turned the screen so Grandfather could see it and tilted it enough that I could see too.
The bubbles were green and white. The last one from the woman, time-stamped 5:42 p.m., said: Do not embarrass me in front of your father's friends tonight. You know how to act. Keep him in line or you will both be sorry. Do you understand?
Under it, my sister had typed: yes ma'am.
There was one before that, from around four, that said: Let him handle the coats alone.
Grandfather read it twice. He didn't take the phone. He let her hold it. I watched his eyes move and his mouth tighten just a little at the corner. His hand on my shoulder squeezed once.
"Can I keep that?" he asked her softly. "Not the phone. Just a picture of it? So someone outside this house can see it."
My sister hesitated. She looked at the phone like it might bite her. "If she sees I screenshotted it..."
"We can do it right now, quick," he said. "She's with her guests. I won't make a sound."
She nodded after a second and held the phone out. Grandfather pulled his own phone from his overcoat pocket, the screen lighting his gray hair from below. He took a photo without the click sound, then another. He checked the images with his thumb, zoomed in.
"Thank you," he said, and his voice was lower than before. "That took guts."
She slipped her phone back into her pocket and shoved her hands back into her sleeves. The draft from the door made the hem of her sweater move. I could hear the meltwater dripping off the pile now, ticking against the marble.
Grandfather crouched a little so he was closer to our height. His burgundy scarf brushed my cheek. He looked at my sister directly.
"I'm going to ask you something straight," he said. "And you can tell me the truth. No wrong answer. Do you want to leave tonight? With me and your brother? Tonight, not later."
My sister's eyes went wet right away, but she didn't cry. She pressed her lips together and breathed through her nose. I watched her look at me, then at the living room where our dad stood behind the woman in green, holding his own drink, not looking our way.
"I want to go," she whispered, and her voice cracked on want. "I do. I'm just... I have finals next week before break. And Dad. If we leave on Christmas Eve in front of everyone, he'll... he won't ever forgive us. She'll say we ruined everything. She'll make him choose."
"He already is choosing," Grandfather said, but gently. "By standing in there and not standing here."
She flinched. I felt bad for her even though I agreed with him. She was fifteen, almost sixteen, and she'd been trying to keep things smooth for months, making my lunch when the woman forgot, letting me sleep on the floor of her room when I didn't want to be alone upstairs.
"What happens if we stay?" she asked.
Grandfather didn't sugarcoat it. "More of this. More texts. More coats on the floor and you being told to watch. That's the pattern. I saw it tonight because I came. The deputies will see it too."
My sister stared at the coat pile. The red scarf looked loud against all the wet dark wool. "Will Dad come with us?" she asked finally.
"I don't know yet," Grandfather said honestly. "I'm going to ask him. But you and your brother don't have to wait for him to decide."
May you like
She nodded slowly, but she didn't say yes and she didn't say no. She just stood there shivering a little, not from cold. Grandfather didn't push. He put his hand back on her elbow and my shoulder at the same time, holding us both in that small alcove while the party kept going a few feet away, warm light and cold air mixing right at our backs.
I realized then that she wanted to be rescued and she was terrified of what rescue would cost. And that the woman had made sure we felt that fear even when she wasn't looking at us.
