"Anything can become extreme, even temperance. Ready to order?"

"You're so jumpy. What's wrong? You've been like this for days." Candlelight cast shadows on Lulu's wine-softened features. She bit off the end of a breadstick.

I brought my menu closer. "I'm just hungry. Let's order, then we can talk."

Lulu smirked with knowing. "See. I knew we had something to talk about." She put on her reading gla.s.ses, smiling with the pleasure of having uncovered the truth.

I caught the waiter's eye and raised a finger toward my empty winegla.s.s. Lulu, she of the still-half-full gla.s.s, noticed and widened her eyes. "Two drinks before dinner?"

"Just figure out what you want, okay?"

"Fine, fine. You're a big girl." Lulu picked up her menu, looked for a moment, and then placed it down. "But it's been wonderful seeing you so healthy."

I almost slammed my hand on the gla.s.s table, imagining the shattering, the blood running. Instead, I smiled. "The manicotti here is great."

The small restaurant invited intimacy. I'd brought my sister here as a man might bring a date, jumpy with wanting her love. I'd hoped the candles, the red walls, and the gla.s.s tables covered with sheer lace clothes would make Lulu yearn for our twoness. Lulu and Merry against the world; no one came between us. Please, G.o.d.

"Okay, then. I'll have the manicotti," Lulu said. "How'd you find this place, anyway? Who knew his neighborhood existed?"

Quinn had introduced me to Delfino. Being far from his South Boston home made it perfect for us. "You didn't know Roslindale existed?" I said.

"Of course I knew it existed. I just didn't know it had things like excellent restaurants. You've taught me something." She tipped her winegla.s.s to me. "To you."

Clinking my gla.s.s against hers, I said, "To us."

"To us," she agreed and sipped. "Oh, this is nice. No children. No paperwork. Once in a while, it's good to have just us."

"I told you."

We talked of everything and nothing through the main course and dessert. Then I wanted cognac, sambuca, anything, and I hoped Lulu would also have a strong after-dinner drink.

"Come back to my apartment," I said. "I need to show you something. I bought a bottle of B&B." The rich liqueur softened Lulu.

"I feel like I'm on some sort of perverted date. Are you trying to get me drunk?"

"I love you, Lulu."

"I love you, too." She laughed, uncomfortable as always with emotion served straight up.

"Remember when you came to the hospital? Right after?"

"I walked about a hundred blocks." Lulu pinched dripping wax from the candle between us. "And I think it was a hundred degrees."

"You saved my life."

"Hardly. I bought you a cheap doll or something."

"I'd been alone for so long. Mimi Rubee only came once."

"I still can't believe no one came to see you." She frowned at the memory and twisted her napkin into a rope.

"I guess everyone was too freaked out to remember me. Grandma probably sat outside the front door of the jail night and day, waiting for them to let her see Daddy. And Mimi Rubee must have been a basket case."

"Still," Lulu said. "Someone should have come."

"Maybe everyone thought someone else was taking care of it." I swept chocolate cake crumbs into a pile and brushed them into my hand, shaking the sticky bits on my dessert plate.

"I don't think anyone even thought about us long enough to wonder if anyone took care of anything."

"You were the one who took care of me, of us," I said. "I don't even know if I ever thanked you."

Lulu shook off my words. "We only had each other."

"Except Anne Cohen. Don't you think she cared?"

Lulu rested her chin on fisted hands. "No," she said after a long silence. "If she had, someone would have taken care of us after she died. She would have made sure of it. That's what you do for your kids. Anne wanted to love us the same as her own kids, but she couldn't, and that probably made her feel awful."

"Maybe that's why she was always buying me those expensive clothes." I remembered my short period of feeling rich. "You wouldn't let her get you a thing outside of the basics."

"I didn't want to get used to anything I couldn't keep up." Lulu's loosened hair reminded me of her as a teenager, flannel shirts and overalls masking how skinny she was, big black hiking boots announcing her anger each time she stomped into a room.

"Have you ever felt safe?"

Lulu hugged herself, gripping her upper arms. "What do you mean?"

"You know, safe. Because I don't think I ever have."

Lulu didn't answer, her softness leaving as we moved closer to unsaid words. That Day. Then. Him. Her.

"Because I simply never have felt that way," I continued, despite her silence, "and I wonder about you. I wonder if it's possible for either of us to wake up happy in the morning. Maybe you can, because of Drew and the girls."

"Haven't you ever been happy?" she asked.

"I don't know."

Lulu gathered her hair into a pile at the back of her head. "I don't know either. I don't know how normal people feel. Ever since that day, I've watched everyone, waiting for clues for the right ways to act. What do happy people look like?"

"What do safe people do? How do they make decisions?" I picked up my credit card receipt. "Come on. Time for that B&B."

"Sounds perfect," Lulu said. "And thanks for dinner."

"Thanks for my life."

Lulu's hands shook as she read our father's letter. I studied her face for clues to my future. Spots of red mottled her pale complexion. She scratched circles or squares, I couldn't tell which, with her right foot. Long after she should have finished reading the few paragraphs Dad had written, she continued staring at the letter.

"Do you want something to drink? Some water?" I asked to fill my need to speak, to keep from pouncing on her. Will you help me? What should I do? What's going to happen?

"I could kill him." Her face turned blank. Here was the Lulu who'd lived at Duffy, at the Cohens'. "Who the h.e.l.l does he think he is?"

"Calm down," I said. "We can figure this out."

Lulu didn't look at me. "There's nothing to figure out, Merry."

"What about everything he said? What he asked for? What am I going to do?"

She crumpled the letter and threw it on the floor. "This is what you do."

I folded my knees in as close to my chest as possible.

"Nothing. You're not taking care of him." She emphasized each word by shaking a finger at me. "Got it?"

I shrank from her, desperate for words to make it better. Make us safe. Make her not angry. "It'll be okay, Lu."

"It'll be okay?" Her ragged laugh made me tap my chest. "Look at you. You're already a wreck. Jesus. For G.o.d's sake, Merry, don't tell me you're even considering having him come here." Before I could say another word, Lulu went on. "That man's not coming within ten thousand miles of me or my family."

"I thought I was part of your family," I whispered.

"Of course you are. Give me a minute to digest this." She bent down and retrieved the crumpled letter, shaking it at me. "When did you get this, anyway?"

"A few days ago."

"Why didn't you tell me right away?"

"You know how you are about him."

"How I am about him?" She laughed. "What did you expect? How should I be about him? Tell me, exactly how should I be?"

"Don't yell," I pleaded. "It's not my fault."

"So, are you happy now? Isn't this what you were always begging for? Write a letter to him, Lulu. Call him, Lulu. See him, Lulu. Write the parole board."

"I never asked you to write letters to the parole board."

"But you wrote letters, didn't you?"

"I didn't know what else to do," I said. "I didn't know how to say no."

"Well, now you're both getting your wish, aren't you?" She threw the paper back down in disgust, wiping her hand on her shirt as though she'd touched filth.

"Don't." I moved to the edge of the couch, clutching a small pillow, concentrating on familiar objects to still myself. Thick unread books. Unopened magazines slick with promise. TiVo blinking.

"Don't what?" Lulu asked. "See? This is why I stayed away from him, so I wouldn't get caught in this s.h.i.t."

I flung the pillow away. "You could stay away because I was there."

"Bulls.h.i.t," Lulu said. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Right from the beginning, I had to take care of him. I had to be his family while you did whatever you wanted. Grandma didn't drag you to the prison week after week. Oh, no! Lulu was special. So smart. So sure of everything. No one could make you do anything."

"I was so special? Jesus, Merry. Who was the little princess? Who was so beautiful that Anne dressed you like you were her personal Barbie doll?"

"You think that's what I wanted? To be a pet? I was drowning. I was smothered in everyone's needs while you became a doctor. Got married. Had kids. You got the future, Lulu."

"You could have let go of him anytime you wanted. I begged you to let go."

"And I begged you to help me." I went to Lulu and took her hands, running my thumbs over her knuckles, her skin rough from constant scrubbing with medical soap. I pressed her hand to my chest. "Help me, Lu. I can't manage this by myself. What should I do? Help me."

27.

Lulu "Drew?" I laid a gentle hand on his back, not wanting to wake him and desperate to wake him. Our bedroom was dark except for the flicker of the eleven o'clock news.

"Hmm." He rolled over to face me, his expression less closed than it had been for the past few weeks since we'd fought. Because he was half-asleep or because he was ready to let it all go?

We'd been living in a wary detente since agreeing to send Ca.s.sandra to a therapist, walking on the eggsh.e.l.ls of agreeing to disagree. First, I gave in to the idea of sending her to a therapist, despite my misgivings. Then, after finally convincing me to send her, Drew began harping on his fear. He'd become convinced that by not telling the therapist the true family story we'd end up confusing and hurting Ca.s.sandra more than helping her. In the end, he'd given in to my frantic arguments for keeping things as they were.

"Are you awake?" I asked.

"I am now." He smiled. He touched my shoulder and pushed gently. "You look like Nixon with your shoulders up around your neck like that. What's wrong?"

I clasped my fingers into a temple and brought them to my lips. Drew reached up and brought them down. "What is it, sweetheart?"

"He's getting out." I didn't have to explain any further. There was only one he in our family. "Merry just told me."

"Christ. So that's what the dinner was about." Drew sat up and rubbed a circle on my back. I loved that he struggled up through his sleepiness rather than trying to draw me down to him. "What do you need right now?"

"A hit man?" I crossed my arms. "Merry wants me to help her with this."

"With what exactly?"

"With him wanting to set up house here." My arm hurt. Physician, heal thyself. I recognized the signs of an anxiety attack. I scratched NO, NO on my arm.

Drew tipped my face to him. He looked straight into my eyes. He took both my hands in his. "You're not alone. You're not a little girl. We'll get through this. Together. I promise."

My breath came in short, stabbing pants as I rocked in an ancient pattern of self-comfort.

"No one's going to hurt you, Lulu. No one's hurting anyone." He came closer. "You're not alone; I'll never let you be alone."

Cabot Medical Health Care Building swarmed with patients anxious for diagnoses before the holiday. Thanksgiving closed in with three days to go. At home, Ca.s.sandra spun in circles. Sparks of therapy flew off her. My father's imminent release bore down like a sick joke. Merry sagged with his weight, her eyes begging me for help even though she'd dropped the subject. Drew and I were regaining our closeness, but his constant monitoring of Ca.s.sandra reminded me how precariously we all rested on my lies.

I was glad to be at work.