Yeah. I knew it. I’d been living with my sister’s psychosis since she was sixteen and I was eighteen. Managing it. Cleaning up after it. Trying to find ways to funnel it into something useful.
Zilla was a genius, and by rights she should be able to do anything she set her formidable mind to. When it was healthy. She tried law school, thinking that might help her find the justice she craved. But the stress sent her into a manic phase that nearly killed her. I urged her to apply to the police academy and when she didn’t pass the psych eval, social work. But when she left in the middle of her second week of school, I settled for keeping her safe.
And contained.
Belhaven.
The last two years she’d been in and out of care between Belhaven and her apartment I paid for in Brooklyn.
“Remember that pond at the back of the property in Bishop’s Landing?” Zilla asked.
“Of course.” That pond had been magic in a childhood without a lot of magic. The willow tree beside it had been a fort and a secret play place and safe. Safe most of all. More home than our actual house.
“Dad wanted to drain it. Said it was a breeding ground for mosquitos and that we would wander down there and drown.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “So Mom taught us how to swim in it.”
“He was so mad.”
“But she won the fight, right?”
“Yep. And she won the fight with all the staff that tried to keep us away from it, too,” I said. The housekeepers and tutors, even Monsieur Belleville the chef who tried to tempt us away from frog-catching with cakes and cookies.
“I’m fighting for the pond right now,” my sister whispered.
“What’s the pond in this scenario?” I asked.
“You. Us. The willow tree. The frogs. The way things used to be.”
I let out my breath as slow as I could, curbing the rising tide of tears. “I know,” I said. “I know.”
“Don’t be mad at me,” Zilla whispered.
“Me? Mad at you? I can never be mad at you.”
“Well, that’s a lie.”
“Fine,” I said with a laugh because that was what she wanted. “I can neverstaymad at you.”
“You can come see me in two weeks,” Zilla said. I was silent. Because the senator wouldn’t allow it. Not without some wild story and help from the staff, who would eventually turn on me, resulting in some painful punishment.
The last time he’d taken my phone away and didn’t let me leave the house for a month. I’d been bored, yes. Lonely. Terrified. But the real repercussion of it all was that all those people who called and texted me, who offered lunch dates and tickets to galas, who asked if I wanted to be on boards or fundraising committees—they all vanished. And when the month was over I was even more alone than I’d been before.
As punishment it had been wildly effective.
“Please come visit me, Pops. Pops—” her voice broke, and so did I. My nickname in my sister’s voice was one of my favorite sounds in the world, and I was so scared for my sister and by my sister.
But she was all I had left, and I loved her so much. And it would be worth the punishment. It always was.
“Of course,” I said. “I love you, Zilla.”
The phone clicked twice, which was the end of the amount of allotted time I had to talk to my sister who was locked up in what was an insane asylum with a fancy name.
I listened to the echoing silence for a few seconds before hanging up, sitting limp in the chair. Relief and guilt and anger tossing bombs at each other in my stomach. And my heart.
My love for my sister was so complicated. And I wished that it could be easier. And then felt guilty for that wish.
A deep breath and the last of the adrenaline rippled out of my system and I sat, wrung-out in the chair I’d collapsed in.