Rapid Falls Read online

I heard the betrayal in his voice. Rick hated people with no self-control, and he hated being deceived. It was something we had in common. As it turned out, Rick’s prediction about Anna had been correct, disastrously so. Anna’s first drink led her right back to where she had started and then dragged her down deeper than I ever thought she would go. A week after her announcement at the diner, Anna showed up at the hospital while I was in labor, so drunk that she tripped and fell onto my bed and nearly pulled out my IV. Security escorted her out. One of the happiest moments of my life was shadowed by shame. When my newborn daughter was placed in my arms, I promised her that she would never feel like trash.

  Three weeks after Maggie was born, Anna stumbled into our house, drunk at three o’clock in the afternoon. It was the first time she had met our daughter, and I was glad Rick wasn’t there to hear her ask if she could hold her new nephew. The late-night phone calls and requests for money I had been fielding since our daughter’s birth were enough to turn Rick’s patience for Anna to disgust. Between managing Anna’s needs and the demands of our new baby, I was too busy to find a way through his growing contempt for my sister.

  He told me that I should cut off contact with her for good when she failed to show up for Maggie’s first birthday. I nodded and said that I would think about it, but I knew I could never stop speaking to my sister. Rick thought he understood everything about Anna, but he couldn’t. He didn’t know what it had been like for us, growing up in Rapid Falls. I made sure of that. Rick was a city kid from a wealthy family and had graduated from a prestigious art school. When we met he was about to start a job at a fast-rising snowboard and skateboard company run by classmates from his private high school. Everything came easy to Rick. I didn’t want him to know how different it was for us, given where we’d come from and what we’d been through. I knew that telling him more about Anna would reveal things about myself that I never wanted him to see. Anna’s choices brought awful things upon her, but I was someone who had earned a good life. Nobody thought Anna deserved happiness. Not after they found out what happened to Jesse.

  I was never sure if the accident was the reason that Anna later became suicidal or if it was just one piece of the puzzle. What changed that tipped her over the edge? Was it Rick’s disgust with her? Or my lack of attention? Rick blamed her actions on the alcohol, and my mom backed him up. She sent us articles about how addicts deaden their ability to be happy, changing their serotonin levels with the constant influx of poison. My mother was convinced that after sixteen years alcohol had simply dissolved Anna’s willingness to live. It was nobody’s fault but her own.

  Anna’s first attempt was a year ago. Her boyfriend phoned 9-1-1 after he stumbled over her unconscious body on the bathroom floor of her apartment. The boyfriend told me, right before he left me alone with her in the emergency room of the hospital, that it was an accidental overdose—too many antidepressants combined with cheap liquor. I wanted to believe that it was an accident, but I was furious to learn that Anna had been drinking at all. Just days before, she had assured me over the phone that she’d been sober for thirty days, and I had accepted her words without question. I had been too busy to do anything else but pretend she was okay.

  While I sat in the uncomfortable vinyl seat by her hospital bed, Anna admitted that she had never really stopped drinking, that what happened was not by accident. Her boyfriend had threatened to leave her, she said. She didn’t know what else to do but drink a fifth of vodka and swallow a bottle of painkillers. I was mad that she had lied to me, but I asked her gently why she hadn’t called me, why her first instinct had been self-destruction. I must have failed to cloak my anger. She stopped talking. We sat in silence as we waited for the hospital psychiatrist. I bit back words about how futile her actions had been: that despite her dramatic gesture, her boyfriend had left her anyway. I wanted to tell her that maybe the problem wasn’t that he was gone but that she had chosen such an awful person to begin with.

  First minutes, then hours ticked by. Emergency rooms can’t discharge a suicide attempt without an okay from a mental health professional. We needed a psychiatrist to evaluate her and devise a treatment plan before they would let her go. I wanted to leave, but a good sister would never do that. No matter how many times life gets turned upside down.

  When the psychiatrist finally walked in, I was surprised to feel a wave of optimism. Maybe this doctor would have the solution for my sister. Surely someone would help her now. My hope faded when the doctor began rushing through his questions.

  “So you wanted to die?” he began in a monotone without a greeting. Anna took his blunt tone in stride.

  “Yes,” she muttered, staring at the grubby drop-ceiling panels above her. He ticked a box on his form.

  “History of substance abuse?” he asked, looking down at his clipboard.

  “Yes.” She plucked at the cheap blanket draping her body.

  “Drugs? Alcohol?”

  “Both.”

  “Still thinking of suicide?”

  Anna paused, then turned her head to look at him. We all knew what the correct answer to his question was. “No,” she said clearly.

  “Great. I’ll draw up the paperwork for discharge.” He turned to leave. Anna had made his job simple.

  “Is that true?” I asked, loudly, before he was out of earshot.

  Anna shrugged and sighed. “It’s not like anyone cares.”

  “I care.”

  She shrugged and looked down again. I couldn’t blame the doctor for wanting Anna gone. I felt the same way about wanting her to stay. If she was in the hospital, I knew she was safe. Contained. Not my responsibility.

  I drove her home and then called her every day for the next week, despite her clipped replies when she bothered to answer. I started to think I should heed Rick’s advice to leave her alone. Then, back at work one day, I found a gift basket on my desk. It was full of my favorites: chocolate-covered almonds, pistachio biscotti, and a bottle of buttery chardonnay. A handwritten note read:

  Thank you for coming to my rescue. Again.

  The gift seemed like a turning point. Anna stopped drinking for six months and went back to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. She started running again. She came by more often, and she was sober when she showed up. Rick taught her how to make sushi one lazy Sunday afternoon with beautiful cuts of salmon and tuna from a local high-end grocery store. When the evening sunset caught her glowing face, I thought we would be able to put it all behind us. Maggie climbed up on her lap and patted her cheeks. I could see that Anna was thinking the same thing: the worst was over. She told us that she wanted to find a place closer to us and move out of her low-income housing unit. I said that I would do anything to help her move. I hated her neighborhood and wanted her close by again. The last time I had dropped off groceries for her, I had nearly stepped on a needle.

  Anna hugged Maggie close and told us that she wanted to be a real aunt, finally. Maybe even start giving Rick more time for his freelance design work by babysitting Maggie. Rick and I had smiled brightly, though he caught my eye for a fraction of a second to express his hesitation. We had a long way to go before we’d trust Anna with Maggie. We had never been able to trust her with anything. Still, I felt a swell of hope that this time it was going to be different.

  It wasn’t. The second time she attempted suicide, I found her. It was a Saturday afternoon in December; we’d had plans to go out for coffee and gift shopping. I had been unable to find space in my schedule so it had been nearly two months since I’d seen her. She didn’t answer when I knocked, so I opened the door. I found her sitting alone at the kitchen table in the dim apartment.

  “Hi, Anna. Anna? What’s going on? Are you ready to go?”

  She grinned at me goofily and my stomach sank. Something crunched under my feet as I walked through the cluttered room. When I was only a few steps away from her, my nose picked up the scent of the partially digested alcohol. My sister always drank vodka because she thought that no one
could smell it on her breath. She was wrong.

  She looked up at me slowly, the clumsy smile still pasted on her face. “Cara, I think I hurt myself.” She shifted her body to the left and extended her foot, like a suburbanite gamely trying yoga. I could see a dark stain on her heel.

  “Okay,” I said, flicking a switch. The overhead fluorescent light made the blood appear redder and blacker, like she had smeared globs of cherry jam or tar onto the sole of her foot. In the light, I could see thick bloody footprints leading from a broken glass on the dirty linoleum floor to where she was sitting. And a vial of empty pills on the table.

  “Oh, Anna.” I reached for my phone. “What have you done?”

  Anna had needed stitches and a stomach pump. That time, the same beleaguered hospital psychiatrist had recommended outpatient rehab. Rick and I offered to pay for it. Rick had been reluctant at first, but I convinced him that it would help. I was wrong. Anna went to one session and then stopped. We had not been able to secure a refund.

  The third time was last month. The call came just after I had settled on the couch beside Rick, Maggie safely in bed. Even though it was a holiday weekend, our plans for the night involved little more than a bottle of wine and a movie. Well, my plans involved wine. We were both tired. Work had been busy for me, and Rick was exhausted from full-time Maggie duty. People told me that having a kid changes your life, but they never mentioned how dull it becomes. Of course, if I had a choice, I would never have traded dull for Anna’s kind of interesting. I was about halfway through my first glass when the phone rang.

  “Who is it?” said Rick as I glanced at the screen.

  “Unknown,” I said.

  “Hello. This is, uh, Bert.” An unfamiliar voice, thickened by a strong Eastern European accent.

  I struggled to place the name. Probably a constituent who had managed to weave through the layers of electronic switchboards at our office. Working as an assistant to the state representative for the environment meant being available all the time, but I was still surprised to field a call on a long weekend. Most politicians went to cottages or vacation homes on their breaks, too far away to make glaring errors in policy or commit a publicly recorded blunder.

  “This is Cara Stanley. What can I do for you?” I used my professional tone.

  “Yes, Cara Stanley. I, uh, am calling because of Anna. Anna Piper.”

  My stomach lurched. Bert. The owner of the house where my sister rented a dingy basement suite. I remembered shaking his hand a few months ago, right after Rick and I had cantilevered her musty box spring into the small space. He seemed like a nice guy, one who shouldn’t have to deal with Anna.

  “Go ahead.” The wariness in my voice was obvious. I reached for my wine, took a sip, and tried to soften my tone. “Is everything okay?”

  “She’s . . . not doing so well. We heard noises. I go downstairs to check. She’s been drinking.” The man seemed pained to relay this to me, as if he was betraying some kind of sacred landlord-tenant code. “She’s okay, but . . .” He trailed off. He didn’t have to say anything else. I knew what my sister was like when she was drunk. “I saw . . . pills. She has pills.”

  I sighed, then took another gulp as I stood. “I’ll be right over.”

  “Okay. That sounds fine.” Relief flooded through his voice. Anna was no longer his problem. She was mine: always mine. I hung up.

  “Let me guess. Anna?” Rick asked.

  “Her landlord saw pills. She isn’t responding to him,” I said, feeling a twinge of guilt at my exaggeration. “I need to get over there.” I walked to the door, knocking one of Maggie’s tiny shoes off the rack as I reached for my own. A small plastic dinosaur flew out, and I smiled despite myself as I remembered her carefully tucking it inside earlier, telling me she was putting it to bed for the night. Rick followed me.

  “Are you sure you want to do this again?”

  I nodded, forcing myself to meet his eyes. “She’s my sister, Rick.”

  “I know.” He looked at me carefully. “Is she okay?”

  “I hope so.”

  “I can’t believe this is happening again. I don’t know whether to be scared or embarrassed for her. I thought after last time . . .” He sighed. I kissed him on the cheek and spoke before the next question came.

  “Maybe she’s just drunk.” I grabbed my keys and twisted the doorknob. “I’ll text you.”

  I walked into the garage and took a deep breath as I sat in the quiet car, steeling myself for what was to come. Anna was not good at life, but I was. I could do this. Maybe she would see that things couldn’t keep going this way. Maybe the third time would end things once and for all. The summer streets were quiet, and I got to Anna’s house in less than ten minutes. I pulled over, noting with relief that the main floor was dark. I didn’t want to deal with Bert. I walked to the back to my sister’s entrance. I opened the unlocked door and let myself in without knocking.

  “Anna?” No answer. Maybe she’d gone out. Her boyfriends came and went so quickly that I didn’t know if she was dating anyone, which would make tracking her more difficult. A faint orange glow from the streetlight in the alley shone in the window, guiding me to the light switch in the hallway. I clicked it. The place smelled faintly of mold—not overpowering, but enough to make you think it had been a long time since anyone had bothered to open the windows. A furry animal scuttled past my feet. My heart thumped in relief as I realized it was a cat. I didn’t know Anna had gotten a pet. I had been too busy to visit since the last crisis six months ago, but we spoke once a week on the phone. I thought it was enough to keep her safe. Wrong again.

  “Anna?” I called as I peered in the bedroom. A small lamp glowed in the corner. I could see her shape huddled under a new comforter on the bed: white with a sweet repeating pattern of red cherries. It looked like she was trying to make the place less dingy, but it wasn’t working.

  “Anna, what’s happening? It’s Cara.”

  “Cara?” she said. Even in the low light, she looked terrible. Her eyes were red and bloodshot as she squinted to focus. She looked ten hard years older than thirty-six.

  “When did you start drinking again? You told me last weekend that you’ve been sober since you left rehab.”

  No response. Her loose features slowly began to rearrange themselves into a coarse, childish frown. I could tell she was trying to come up with a convincing lie, so I kept talking to save us both the trouble.

  “How much have you had to drink tonight? Have you taken anything?” I could hear the impatience in my voice and something else too. I was numbed. Her second suicide attempt had been far less severe than the first. She had taken half a bottle of pills and left the rest spilling out on the table, like a prop in a bad play. People who really want to die don’t take pills like that; they keep swallowing until they’re gone. Anna was calling out for help that she wasn’t ready to accept, and I couldn’t keep playing along. Rick was right. Something had to change.

  “I can’t . . . remember.” She turned over on her side, letting her arm loll off the bed. My gaze dropped to the floor below her outstretched fingers. A scattering of pills dotted a pile of dirty laundry.

  “How much did you take, Anna?” She turned her face into the light. I saw bruises and dried blood. “Oh my God. Did someone hit you?” I rushed to her side as my eyes scanned the room again in sudden panic. Her landlord hadn’t said there was anyone else here, but someone could be hiding in the closet. Then I noticed the nightstand. The corner was brown with dried blood. She must have rolled off the bed at some point and hit her head.

  “Did you fall?” My words were meant to be neutral, but it sounded like I’d just accused her of losing control of her bowels.

  She seized on my scorn with drunken righteousness. “Why are you even here, Cara?” she slurred. “Nobody cares. You don’t care.” I patted her hand reassuringly as I pulled out my phone. I had to care. Or at least try.

  “Hello, 9-1-1. Fire, emergency, or police?”


  “Emergency. I need paramedics. My sister just tried to kill herself.” Sort of, I thought silently. “Again,” I said out loud. The paramedics were brusque when they came to collect my sister. They seemed tired of her too. I took the familiar route to the emergency room, following behind the ambulance. Anna looked sweaty and distracted as they wheeled her in under the ugly lights.

  “You should have let me die, Cara,” she said belligerently. A tired nurse straightened Anna’s arm, trying to fit a blood pressure cuff onto her thin limb.

  “I can’t do that, Anna. I would never let anything hurt you.” I squeezed her hand tightly, overearnestly. The nurse gave me a small sympathetic smile. That night, the psychiatrist admitted her for overnight observation. They made up a cot for me, and I slept fitfully beside her. They released her the next day with a piece of paper that listed AA meetings in the area.

  That was three weeks ago. We haven’t spoken since. If I had a regular sister, I would have been able to call her this afternoon when Maggie collapsed. For once, Anna could have supported Rick and me as we waited for the results from Maggie’s testing.

  As the doctor stares dolefully at the X-rays pinned to the light box, I’m thinking about spending an even more miserable night at the hospital with Maggie. Then the doctor breaks into a smile.

  “I’m not seeing anything on these films, which is a fantastic sign. All our tests have come back negative: meningitis, strep bacteria, polio.” She speaks brightly, as if she’s not rattling off a list of my worst nightmares.

  “So what is it?”

  “The flu!” the doctor says, and I find myself cautiously returning her smile, though I am confused. “Kids grow so fast that some viruses can actually present in their hips and knees. It’s painful, which is why she is having problems moving around, but it’s completely normal.”

  “What is the treatment?”

  “Rest, fluids, and good healthy food. Soup, or whatever she will tolerate, and lots of liquids. Keep her on the ibuprofen for now, and it should resolve in the next day or two.”