My Sister, Myself

“Bruce will probably keep tabs on Christine for a little while. If she’s alive, she has to be teaching college. Anything else will make him suspicious.”

“The bastard should be in prison.”

Tory couldn’t travel that road. If she did, her bitterness would destroy her.

“I have two choices,” she said, pushing congealed eggs around on her plate. “Either I come clean and spend the rest of my life trying to hide from Bruce and wearing his bruises every time I fail, or I show up at Montford University on Monday morning and teach English.”

She used to believe there was a difference between right and wrong. That for every situation there was a correct choice, the right choice. She’d even vowed, when her married life had first become a living hell, worse than the life she’d had growing up, to always make that right choice. She’d believed it would eventually deliver her from cruelty, from pain.

She didn’t believe that anymore.

“The boxes Christine shipped are in the closet in the spare bedroom,” Phyllis said. “I’m using it as an office.”

Tory watched the other woman scrape their uneaten food into the garbage, and then stack the two plates.

“Her lessons plans are in there,” Phyllis continued, speaking unemotionally, as though they were discussing nothing more serious than what movie they were going to see. “They’ll be clear, concise and very detailed. You’ve got thirty-six hours before school starts.”

Heart pounding, Tory said, “You don’t think I should even consider trying this, do you.”

Phyllis looked Tory straight in the eye, her expression grave. “I don’t see that you have any other choice.”

Tory held Phyllis’s gaze for as long as she could stand it, then dropped her eyes.

“What would Christine think?” she whispered, the guilt rising up to choke her. She should be dead, not Christine. She’d have gladly given her life if it meant saving Christine’s.

“She’s watching over you, Tory. Can’t you feel her?” Phyllis lowered her voice to a rough whisper, but the sharp conviction behind her words was unmistakable.

Tears in her eyes, Tory shook her head. She wanted so badly to believe that Christine was still with her. She could hardly even breathe when she thought about facing the rest of her life without her sister. But she couldn’t be sure of anything anymore. Did Christine really want her to do this? Or was Tory’s mind, influenced by her cowardice, playing some sick game with her?

“Christine told me once, not too long ago, that you were her only reason for living,” Phyllis said.

“You were the only good thing in or about her life.”

“She told me that, too, but she was just being kind. It didn’t really mean anything. How could it? She was an incredible woman, had the whole world at her feet.”

“She didn’t think so.”

The sincerity in Phyllis’s voice grabbed Tory, holding her until she had to admit that Phyllis might know more about her sister’s mental state in the past few years than she did herself.

“She would insist that you do this, Tory,” Phyllis said firmly. “And she’d want me to help you in any way I can.”

“WILL—DR. PARSONS—only met Christine once. Months ago. She’s had her hair cut since then. Lost some weight…”

The two women were in the bedroom Phyllis had turned into an office, sitting on the floor and surrounded by opened packing boxes. They’d been at it most of the day, Phyllis administering the fastest teacher-education course in history.

“Our eyes are what people notice most about us,” Tory said, trying, for Phyllis’s sake if nothing else, to get into the spirit of the plan.

“They’re beautiful,” Phyllis said gently. “So large and such a striking blue. But mostly so expressive.”

Tory leafed through the pages of the American literature anthology she held on her lap.

“They were one of the first things I noticed about Christine,” Phyllis added.

The familiar pang clutched Tory’s insides. “I’m so sorry, Phyllis,” she said, dropping a lesson plan for the third week of classes as she looked up. “I’ve been weeping all over the place about losing my sister, but you also lost a great deal, didn’t you? The way Christine talked about you, the two of you must have been very close.”

Tears brimmed in Phyllis’s eyes, but her ready smile was evident, too. “We were. Your sister was very special.”

Tory nodded, a measure of peace loosening the knots in her stomach. “I think you must be very special, too,” she said softly. “Do you know you’re the first real friend Christine ever had?”

“No,” Phyllis said, her eyes wide. “I know she was a private person, but as sweet as she was, I’m sure there were others who scaled those walls of hers.”

Scaled those walls. The words were threatening to Tory. She and Christine both had their walls. And the security in that was to think them unscalable.

“Our colleagues at the college all flocked to her,” Phyllis said. She was assembling materials for the fourth week’s lesson plan. “It must have been the same for her in college. You probably just never met any of her friends, since she was five years older than you.”

“She never had a friend,” Tory said with complete certainty.

Any chance of friendship had ended when they’d tried to report their stepfather’s abuse. Everyone had been shocked. Ronald was well-known in the community, soft-spoken, active at church. He’d carpooled. He’d protested his innocence, incredibly hurt by then-twelve-year-old Christine’s allegations. They’d been assigned a caseworker, but of course there’d been nothing to find. Ronald had simply not had anything alcoholic to drink during the weeks of the investigation.

And the confusing cruel truth was, when Ronald wasn’t drinking, he hadn’t been a bad father to them.

They’d been made to feel so ashamed of their complaints they’d begun to blame themselves for the abuse. They’d also lost all faith in the system that was purported to protect them.

“She lived at home when she went to college—probably because our stepfather wasn’t as rough with me when he had two of us to torment,” Tory said slowly. “Never once did she go out. Not on a date. Not to study. Nor did she ever have anyone over.”

Neither of them had. Neither had had the courage to risk bringing another person into their home. For that person’s sake. And for their own.

Bearing the violence privately was bad enough; to have it made known to others would have been intolerable. At least with no one else knowing, when they left the house, they left the violence behind. While they were safely at school, they were free. The real world was an escape neither of them had been willing to jeopardize.

“OKAY, THE FIRST THING to remember when you walk into the classroom is that you’re the boss.”

Exhausted, yet filled with nervous excitement, Tory sat on her bed, taking notes as Phyllis continued her crash course well past midnight Saturday night. They’d changed into their pajamas hours earlier, but hadn’t gotten around to turning in.

“You have to establish your authority immediately, and then you’re home free. The most important tool you’ll take into that class with you is confidence.”

“Kinda hard to be confident when they’re all going to know more about my subject than I do,” Tory said dryly.

“We’ll take care of that,” Phyllis replied, her entire body exuding positive energy. “Luckily you’re teaching five sections of American lit this semester. You’ll be teaching the same material five times, in other words. Now, we have all day tomorrow, to study the textbooks and Christine’s notes. For this next week, you only need to know Emerson and Thoreau, and you’re already familiar with a lot of that.” She was sitting on Christine’s bed, her legs crossed, her red hair framing her pretty face as though she’d just styled it an hour before, instead of the almost eighteen hours it had been.

“Christine said you were extremely intelligent. She said that when she was in college you used to help her study for exams, reading her texts and asking her questions from study guides. According to her, you’d often know the answers as well as she did.”

“Sometimes.”

“You must have a wonderful memory and a very acute, analytical brain.” Phyllis smiled. “Christine mentioned that you had some pretty stirring debates and some real differences of opinion. You’re obviously a natural.”

“Hardly,” Tory said, but she warmed at the compliment.

Phyllis twisted the opal ring she wore on her right ring finger. “Have you ever had your IQ tested?”