show Aunt Emily the bedrooms, shall we?’
Shelley and Ben wanted to show me their rooms first, of course. Overcome with nostalgia, I let Ben give me the tour of his bedroom, the same room where my sister had slept when we were kids. The Debbie Gibson posters and purple speckled paint were gone, replaced by neat brown and blue wallpaper, pictures of boats and trains on the borders.
‘Mom’s going to let me paint it soon. I don’t want these baby pictures no more. I want Five Nights at Freddy’s covering my walls.’ Ben raced back and forth in front of his TV set, running the tips of his fingers along the wall. There was a clear wear pattern in the carpet where I suspected he paced a lot.
‘Do you know the game Five Nights at Freddy’s? Want to play it with me?’ Ben asked, his words loud and strung together.
‘He’s obsessed with it,’ Shelley whispered, squeezing her tiny hand in mine.
Before I could answer Ben’s question, Madeline replied, ‘I’m sure Aunt Emily would love to, but not right now. We’re going to finish showing her around the house first.’ Ben made that high-pitched squeal again and saddled up to a laptop that set on his desk.
We left him there, already focused intently on his game, while we moved on with the tour.
Next was Shelley’s room. It was only one door down from Ben’s, but this room was smaller. This was the one I was most excited to see because Shelley’s room used to be mine.
Expecting to see a huge change in décor, I was shocked to see the same pink plaster, with tiny unicorn paintings on its surface. I’d painted those unicorns myself when I was only eleven years old.
‘You didn’t paint over them…’ I reached out to touch one of the unicorns. With its blue-black eyes and a long golden horn, it was sneering in a way that now almost seemed grotesque.
‘Of course not,’ my sister said.
‘I thought Mom would kill me when she saw what I’d done,’ I whispered, still running my fingertips over the bumpy paint.
‘Oh, I didn’t. I knew she’d love your little masterpiece,’ Madeline said, quietly. I didn’t have to see her face to know there was a trace of resentment there.
While she was always my father’s favorite, I was my mother’s baby. So, it was no surprise that when they split, we both took separate sides…
You let her get away with everything! I could still hear my sister’s startling screams echoing through the hallway. She loved me to death when we were kids, but our teenage years were strained.
The bedroom closet had white pocket doors that also looked the same. They were pushed halfway open, and without thinking, I reached for the handles, eager to see inside it.
‘I did paint over your stuff in the closet, though.’
My hands froze on the handles. ‘I’m glad,’ I mumbled as I turned away from the closet.
‘I love your bedrooms!’ I was trying to be one of those perky aunts, with overdone enthusiasm, like the ones you read about in wholesome novels, but in truth, this whole situation felt awkward and strange. I wasn’t used to being around kids, and even though I was thrilled to meet them, I couldn’t help feeling like an actress playing the part of ‘Aunty Em’. I should have come home when Ben was born, and then Shelley, and there were plenty of chances in between too – birthday parties, and the funeral – but I wasn’t ready to face this place, not yet, at least.
‘Shelley, why don’t you go play with Ben? Or take some of your dolls out of the trunk? Your aunt and I are going to have some coffee and a little chat. Please don’t fight with your brother. I would hate for Aunt Emily to see you guys get in trouble.’
Ben had drifted back into the hallway and he was clinging to Madeline’s leg. ‘Go on now, you two.’ She gently nudged them. They galloped toward Ben’s room, pushing and shoving one another in a race to see who could get there first. I smiled at them, overcome by my own memories of sibling rivalry.
Grateful to have a moment to speak alone with my sister, I followed her back down the hallway toward the kitchen. I hadn’t seen the rest of the house yet, and I was eager to see which bedroom Madeline had chosen for her and John, and which bedroom she’d put me up in for my stay.
‘The kids are beautiful. I wish I could have met them sooner,’ I said to her backside as she walked.
As soon as we were back in the kitchen, she set to work pulling out coffee mugs and plugging in her Keurig machine.
‘John left me for another woman.’ Her back was still to me when she blurted out these words, and I saw her hunch down in a defeated posture.
I took a seat at the table, flinching as the chair squealed loudly across the tile floors. I wasn’t sure what to say. I was shocked, to say the least.
Mournfully, I watched my big sister glide around the kitchen, taking a package of cookies down from the cabinet and choosing a coffee blend for both of us.
This was the thing about Madeline and me – we were comfortable in our silence together, even after all this time. I could tell her I was sorry and ask a million questions, but I knew she would tell me when she was ready.
After the cookies and coffee were on the table, she told me, in a hushed whisper, that John had been having an affair.
‘Did you know?’
Madeline shook her head. ‘I had no idea. He told me two Saturdays ago, out of the clear blue, that he was leaving me for his secretary. Her name is Starla. What kind of stupid name is that?’
‘Pretty freaking stupid,’ I agreed. ‘I’m so sorry. Have you filed for divorce?’
She took a sip of her coffee, and said, ‘Not yet, but I’m going to. I haven’t even told the kids. I covered for his sorry ass. Told them he was going on a business trip for a while. I thought maybe he would change his mind … but he hasn’t even called or come by once since his little crude announcement.’
‘He hasn’t even come around to call on the kids?’ I was shocked. I didn’t know John well. Sure, he’d seemed pleasant at the wedding, but that didn’t mean much. I tried to remember what I knew about him but it wasn’t much. He was essentially a stranger to me. Madeline rarely talked about him in her texts. There was one time she called me … what was it that he said in the background? I couldn’t remember. He’d been irritated about something, shouting about one of the kids. But she’d always given the impression that things were good between them.
Madeline shook her head in disgust. ‘He took a duffel bag of clothes and his bottle of cologne, and then told me he was staying at Starla’s for a while.’
What an asshole, I thought, clenching my teeth as I thought about those sweet little kids and my sister struggling to work and take care of both of them.
‘What can I do? Tell me how I can help.’ I took her hand in mine, my jaw still tight with anger.
‘Well, I could use your emotional support, for one. But most of all … the kids go back to school next week. I need more time – time to figure out what I’m going to do. Time to
