Liar

“I don’t know. That’s why I came to you for help.” She peered over my shoulder. “Why aren’t you letting me in? Is the house dirty?”

“No, it’s not,” I said, then thought of the time I had found her carefully washing out all of the covers on the light fixtures in her home-Barbara would not wait for a burned-out bulb to necessitate the chore. “The house isn’t dirty by the standards of human beings with real lives,” I amended.

“Frank is too lenient with you about keeping the place neat,” she said, pushing past me.

I issued an invitation to come in as she made her way to the living room. I put the cat in the bedroom and the dogs outside, as much for their benefit as hers. I offered her something to drink, but she politely declined as she took a seat in our grandfather’s armchair. She often sits in that chair when she visits me. Barbara has always been annoyed that our father passed that family heirloom on to me instead of her. She ran her fingers over the upholstery and frowned. I know that kind of frown. On Barbara, it’s the equivalent of a labor pain before the birth of a critical remark.

“You came here to ask for my help?” I said.

The frown became a smile. “You’re a reporter-here’s something you can investigate. I think this would make a great story-”

“Uh, Barbara, I don’t think the Express is going to be all that interested in-”

“Of course it will! You don’t want the LA Times to get this story first do you? It’s exactly like that case that was in the headlines awhile back. Cemetery fraud. Illegal burial. Selling the same burial plot to two different people.”

I sighed. “I’m sure it’s nothing more than a simple mistake. If you’re certain the plot is yours, just go into the cemetery office and show them your receipt.”

“Receipt? I don’t have a receipt.”

“You lost it?”

“No. No one sold it to me, but it’s where I’m supposed to be buried. You know that.”

I felt the beginnings of a headache. “What cemetery are we talking about, Barbara?”

“Holy Family.”

“Where Mom and Dad are buried.”

“Yes. I’m supposed to be buried next to Mama.”

“Supposed to be buried next to Mom? Let me guess who’s doing the supposing.”

“Of course I am! I knew her longer than you did, Irene.”

“Don’t start!”

“Okay, okay. I’ve always wanted to be buried there, but even having you buried there would be better than some stranger lying next to Mama for all eternity.”

“Barbara, I don’t own that plot and neither do you. The cemetery can bury whomever they want to in that space. It’s not up to us.”

“You never have cared about their graves!”

“Oh, for pitysakes-”

“You haven’t. I’m the only one who visits them.”

I stood up and walked over to the sliding glass door that leads to our backyard, looked out at my husband’s carefully tended garden, felt myself relax a little. Trying to stay calm, I said, “For you, it’s important to go to the cemetery. I respect that. But for me, it’s… not where Mom and Dad are.”

“You think someone else is buried in their graves?” she asked in alarm.

I turned to look at her. “No. I mean, the cemetery is only where their remains are-that’s all that’s there, what’s left of their bodies. Not who they were or who they still are in my memories of them.”

She shook her head. “Honestly, Irene. As if you can only have it one way or the other. Besides, if you did care about their memories, you’d honor them on important dates.”

I felt my spine stiffen. “I know that Tuesday was the anniversary of her death, Barbara. If you think I’ve forgotten the day she died, you are seriously full of shit.”

“But you didn’t bring any flowers to the cemetery, or you would have noticed that no one was in my-in the grave next to hers on Tuesday. And if you had returned on the anniversary of her funeral-”

“You think it’s healthy to be that obsessed with death and funeral dates?”

“If you had returned today,” she went on forcefully, “you would have noticed that between Tuesday and today, someone was buried next to our mother without our permission!”

“Maybe that person’s family-whose grief must certainly be fresher than yours-has every right to bury someone there without our permission.”

She folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them.

“Not the praying bit, please, Barbara.”

At least she didn’t say them aloud. After a moment, she looked up and said, “In the whole world, I have only one living relative.”

“Am I adopted, or did Aunt Mary die? Not to mention the ones that live a little farther away-”

“One living sister,” she amended. “One sister to go to when I’m upset, or need help, or any of the other things that sisters do for one another. And even though you don’t like me much-”

“Barbara-”

“I hope you know that if you ever needed me, even for something much more significant than this small request I’ve made of you-”

“All right, all right! I’ll go to the cemetery first thing tomorrow-”

She smiled. “They’re open until sunset.”

“Frank will be home any minute now. I’m not going to the cemetery tonight. I’ll go in the morning.”

“That’s fine, that’s fine. I’ll probably find some way to go to sleep tonight.”

“I’m sure you will.”

She seemed to figure out that she had obtained her most important objective, and that she wasn’t likely to push me into any further concessions just then. Before she left, she told me again how much she appreciated my help and gave me a kiss on the cheek-which surprised me. A sisterly hug between us isn’t unheard of, but a kiss on the cheek is rare. I had some idea of how important this request was to her then, and found myself standing on my front steps, holding my hand to my cheek as I watched her drive off.

But in the next moment, I realized that once again I had let her con me into doing something I really didn’t want to do. She’s my older sister, but somehow I’ve ended up solving a lot of her problems. There was no reason she couldn’t have gone into the cemetery office on her own and asked who was buried next to our mother, but I saw now that Barbara wanted to get me involved at this early stage for a reason. Later, if a confrontation was necessary, I’d be asked to do her fighting for her.

I went back inside the house, disgusted with the knowledge that the one thing that definitely wasn’t buried in that new grave was my old habit of rescuing my sister.

“Let’s go over there now,” Frank said when I told him about Barbara’s visit. “Shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”

“You just got home from work. Don’t you want to relax, have some dinner?”

“No, I’m not really hungry yet. Let’s go now-Jack wants to take us sailing tomorrow morning. He’s invited Pete and Rachel. Cassidy might come along, too.”

Although Pete and his wife are at our home quite often-Pete is Frank’s partner-I hadn’t seen Thomas Cassidy in a couple of weeks. He’s a detective with the Las Piernas Police Department-as are Frank and Pete. But Cassidy rarely works with them-Frank and Pete are homicide detectives, Cassidy spends most of his time as a negotiator on the Critical Incident Team.

Jack Fremont, our friend and next-door neighbor, must have noticed the same things all of Frank’s friends had noticed lately. He had lost weight he didn’t need to lose, wasn’t sleeping well. All to be expected, Cassidy told me, of someone who had survived being held hostage.

A day out on the water might be good for him; the companionship undoubtedly would be.

“Sure,” I said. “We can go out to the cemetery now, and save tomorrow for sailing.”