Page 67 of Just Like the Brontë Sisters

Chapter 42: Skylar

We had a funeral for Jo Beth and tons of people turned out. The press came too, though they hadn’t been invited. Jo Beth probably would have been pleased that they showed up, but to me their presence offered an extra level of anxiety because I was to deliver the eulogy. I stood at the podium, shivering underneath a scratchy, black wool dress that failed to keep me warm. When my knees buckled and words failed me, I looked out across a room occupied mostly by strangers and my eyes settled on the hundreds of white carnations dotting every available space. We’d covered the funeral parlor with the most predictable of flowers, but I’d chosen them because I thought they looked like little fragrant snow balls.

Speak, Skylar, a voice inside my head told me. It was a voice that sounded like Jo Beth.

I can’t, I silently plead, because once this speech is over and once this funeral is over then you’ll really be gone. Once we put you to rest, you really are dead.

“I may be dead,” the voice responded, “but I’ll never be at rest.”

I focused my gaze on Mom and Dad, sitting in the front row, their hands gripped together. I couldn’t add to their pain by refusing to talk. With a heaving chest, I told my favorite stories about Jo Beth, about her courage, skiing skill, success, and her magnetic personality.

“Jo Beth was talented,” I said, finishing up. “But it wasn’t her talent that defined her. It was her passion. She loved fiercely and she fought fiercely too. From the first day I was conscious of anything, I was conscious that my sister loved me. It’s her love and encouragement that’s made me who I am today.” My tears forced their way out; I was powerless to refuse, so I just let them flow. “The world will be a grey place without Jo Beth. The sun won’t reflect off the snow as brightly as it used to. I know Jo Beth would have done anything for Bijou and all I can say is…” I could hear my voice splintering with sorrow, “…Jo Beth, I promise to be a great aunt to Bijou, just like you were a great sister to me.”

Afterwards, Mitch approached me, holding Bijou. “That was lovely,” he said.

“Do you really think so?”

His eyes gleamed but I couldn’t tell if it was with tears or with happiness. “I think Jo Beth hated to be at her own funeral, until she heard your speech, and then she felt a whole lot better.”

Weeks went by and Mitch and I established a routine. Soon I was off my crutches so I didn’t need him to go downstairs in the middle of the night to fill a bottle with formula. We would take turns getting up with Bijou, but often we’d lose track of whose turn it was, and then both of us would get up. On those nights, we would sit while the rest of the world slept. While Bijou drank her bottle, Mitch and I drank in Bijou. I can’t say that I trusted Mitch or that I no longer suspected him, but somehow I wedged those fears into a less prominent place of my psyche, like they occupied a parking spot a mile away from the main event. Meanwhile, I worked on my coursework, on my novel, and on physical therapy for my knee.

One afternoon I came home after a particularly grueling session to find Bijou napping in the nursery, but there was no sign of Mitch. I limped around, softly calling his name, until I found him on the top floor, which I had set up as an office with a desktop computer. Mitch sat at it, consumed by whatever was on the screen and oblivious to my presence.

“What are you doing?” This was more accusation than question, and my malevolence-filled voice made him start and turn around.

“Oh, hi.” His Adam’s apple rose and fell and he let his fingers run absently through his curls, while his other hand tapped listlessly against the desk. He was no longer looking at the computer screen but he wasn’t looking at me either. I came closer and saw what had been the focus of his attention. It was my email account. He’d been reading an old correspondence between Jo Beth and me.

Hot rage occupied my limbs. “That’s private! What gave you the right to read it?” I reached over and slammed my laptop shut, cursing myself for not signing out of my email account the last time I was online. How could I have been so stupid?

He wheeled his chair back. Now there was enough distance between us to look at each other. “I’m sorry. I just missed her and I felt desperate for a picture that I’d never seen, or to learn something new about her. But I should have asked you first.”

“You’re damn right you should have asked me first! This is a total violation!”

Mitch remained calm in the face of my storm. The way he just hung his head made my cyclone-like anger twirl, unable to touch down. “I apologize,” he said. “And I wish I’d never read it. I mean, I had no idea that Jo Beth thought such things.”

A beat passed, maybe two, where neither of us spoke. Then I pivoted back toward my computer. I lifted its lid and read:

Skylar,

I can’t stand being cooped up in Magda’s apartment one second longer. Mitch is still in love with her and she’s still in love with him. Every day I grow more afraid of them and then I get these violent thoughts that are too awful to describe. Plus, I worry that I’ll be a terrible mother. I think the baby will be better off if Mitch leaves me, which is probably what will happen. He and Magda will steal my baby and they’ll be a family together.

I sighed. Jo Beth had sent me lots of emails over the course of her pregnancy and they all had one of three themes. One: she was happy and in love. Two: she was anxious to get out, frantic to return to her former self. Or three: like the email Mitch had just found, her ramblings were paranoid, lonely, and kind of creepy. No matter the theme, I had put all the emails into their own folder so I’d never accidentally delete them, but right now I had no desire to read any of them or remember what I’d been trying so hard to forget.

“Do you believe what she wrote in those emails?” Mitch asked. “Do you think I would hurt Jo Beth, take the baby, and leave?”

I let my eyes fixate on him, considering his question, wishing not to deflect it. After all, now was my chance. “Yes,” I replied, and the pressure of my hostility suddenly popped like an angry zit.

Mitch gripped the armrests of the office chair. “Then why did you say that I should stay here?”

“So I could help take care of Bijou.”

Unblinking brown eyes, inflated with reproach, sized me up. “Your mom would’ve done that.”

“I also wanted to prove that you were guilty.”

“Guilty of what?” he asked.

“Murdering my sister. Breaking her heart. Stealing her money. Sleeping with her best friend. Any or all of the above.”