“Why did you bring her into the house so quickly?” Mrs. Fennel asked. “She saw your father with him on the stairway.”
Brianna sighed deeply. “I was just… so flustered,” she said. “She fell out of a window!”
“Stop whining about it. You’ll wake your father.”
Brianna lowered her voice. “Talk about stupid. How could she be so stupid, even at four?”
“How could she be so stupid? Why didn’t you wait longer, give your father the time he needed, befor
e you brought her back into the house?”
“I was flustered. I never saw Daddy in such a rage,” Brianna said. I’d never heard her sound so frightened. “I didn’t think clearly. My brain was a blur. All I could think about was getting her back into her room.”
“Did Lorelei ask you anything this morning?”
“Nothing,” Brianna said. “I think she was still too afraid to ask me about anything.”
“You can thank me for that. I spoke to her last night and calmed her down.”
“What did she say she actually saw?” Brianna asked.
I drew closer. What did I actually see? Would Brianna explain it now?
“Enough,” Mrs. Fennel said. “Too much, for now I guess you won’t be your father’s best daughter after all.”
Brianna was silent. I heard Mrs. Fennel walk off, and I moved back to where I had been, but Brianna was in the room too quickly. She seized me at the shoulder and spun me around.
“Were you listening to my conversation with Mrs. Fennel, Lorelei? Were you eavesdropping, spying on us?”
I just looked at her.
“You’d better not say anything more about this to Daddy, or we’ll both hate you, Lorelei, both me and Mrs. Fennel. Forever.”
I didn’t have to say anything to Daddy. He could keep hundreds of secrets from us, but it was very hard for any of us to keep one from him. Brianna knew that better than I did, especially back then. As Mrs. Fennel had said, Daddy was furious at her about the man she had chosen to bring home to him. A day later, I overheard him telling her that she had been very careless. He didn’t yell, but he warned her that she couldn’t make another mistake like that. I was surprised to hear her crying. I had never seen either her or Ava cry.
For nearly a month afterward, Brianna was more than just sorry and sad about Daddy’s being angry with her. She moved about as if she was constantly terrified. I saw the way she avoided Daddy and Mrs. Fennel whenever she could. She was like a whipped puppy. She spent more time alone in her room. Still blaming me for everything, she would give me stabs of fury when she was teaching me, but they were instants, and she was very careful not to get me crying. She was just as frightened of failing to do for me what she was supposed to do as she was of anything else. I was tempted to complain about her nasty looks, but I sensed that would make her more furious with me. Anyway, I had learned early on that sisters like us didn’t tell on each other. Loyalty.
I tried not to look at or speak to Daddy any differently, but Daddy could easily read my thoughts and tune in to my feelings. One day not long afterward, he decided to take me aside and tell me more. Whenever Daddy isolated one of us for some special time with him, the rest of us were jealous. I was sure that was true for Ava and Brianna, even though Brianna had less reason now. Daddy was doing this only because of the mistake she had made.
He held my hand, and we walked out to the gazebo behind our house. It was a much colder afternoon than the previous one. I wore my winter coat, but Daddy wore only his turtleneck black knit shirt. Neither the cooler air nor the sharper breezes bothered him. He was comfortable and relaxed.
“Let’s just sit here a while and talk,” he said when we stepped into the gazebo. He buttoned the top button on my coat. “Warm enough?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Good.” He smiled at me and looked out at the woods. “Most of the leaves are already gone. Earlier this year,” he muttered, and shook his head as if someone had made a great mistake.
“The trees died again?”
“No, not died. They’re just hibernating like bears.”
“Did you see ever see a bear here, Daddy?”
He smiled. “A few times.”
“You weren’t frightened, though, right?”
“No, it was the bear who turned and fled.” He took my hand and held it between his as he leaned forward, his eyes seeming to grow larger as he gazed into my face. “Now, I want to talk to you a little bit about what happened the other night.”