Her heart swelled with a mix of emotions, but she couldn’t indulge them. There was too much left to explain. With reluctance, she turned to the window again, looked down at the cherub, and began.
“From the nape of Josh’s neck all the way down to his ankles, his back is horribly scarred. Ugly, awful scars.”
“What happened?”
“He fell into the fireplace and his pajamas caught fire. He was seven years old. I was nine. It was Christmas morning.”
Shaw murmured something unintelligible, but it conveyed a lament.
She said, “You really should repair that cherub in the fountain. She looks so sad.”
“Never mind the cherub. Get on with your story. What happened?”
She took a breath, continued. “The morning started out a happy holiday. Josh and I had woken up early and raced downstairs, excited, as kids are on Christmas. We drank hot chocolate while we opened our presents. Mother cautioned Josh not to drink it too fast or he would burn his tongue. After a catastrophe, you remember ironies like that.
“Anyway, after all the presents had been opened, Daddy went outside to check on his hunting dogs. Mother went into the kitchen to make waffles. Josh and I stayed in the living room to play with our new toys.
“One of mine was a Barbie. Josh was being a little brother, pestering me by flipping up her dress, messing with her hair, making fun of her boobs. I yelled at him to stop. Mom heard the quarreling and, like Moms do, called from the kitchen for us to quit fighting, that it was Christmas, that we didn’t want to spoil the day by bickering. But Josh kept it up. He grabbed my doll. We got into a tussle over it.”
She felt the familiar thickening in her throat and for a moment was unable to continue. She rather hoped that Shaw would grant her a reprieve and tell her that she didn’t have to talk about it. But he didn’t.
“It happened very fast,” she said. “One moment Josh was jeering at me, holding my Barbie behind his back, taunting me, and in the next, his pajamas were on fire. I actually screamed before he did. Mother came running in. She hollered for Daddy, but she also had the presence of mind to push Josh to the floor and throw a rug over him. Daddy ran in, fell on top of Josh, and pounded his back until the flames were out. By then, Josh was screaming, too.”
She noticed that drops of water were trickling down the cherub’s cheeks. It appeared she was crying. “It’s started to rain.”
Shaw didn’t acknowledge her weather report. He said, “All these years, you’ve been atoning for an accident.”
“It wasn’t an accident. I pushed him.”
“You were kids, Jordie. In a tussle over a toy.”
She came around. “If I hadn’t been fighting with him—”
“He holds that sword over your neck, doesn’t he? He never lets you forget it.”
Because he was so right, her burst of anger was quickly spent. “No. He never does. What you sensed that I omitted from our phone conversation today? He said that I wanted him dead, out of my life, that when Panella put a bullet in his head, I’d finally be getting what I want, rid of him.”
He rubbed his eyes again and when he lowered his hand, he said, “Your parents?”
“To their dying days, they didn’t let me forget it, either. Not maliciously. Just—”
“—just subtle but constant reminders that you were responsible for your little brother’s tragedy.”
“Something like that,” she admitted quietly.
“While they were piling guilt on you, they made allowances for Josh. Every rotten thing he did was overlooked, tolerated, forgiven. He—”
“Shaw.” The earnest plea in her voice stopped him. “Everything you’re saying, I’ve said to myself ten thousand times. Therapists have repeated it to me ten thousand times. In here,” she said, pointing to her head, “I know it wasn’t my fault that our family was never the same. Daddy sought consolation in the beds of other women. Not my fault. Mother subsisted on tranquilizers and vodka. Not my fault.
“How they parented Josh after that wasn’t up to me, either. Their indulgence turned him into a petulant tyrant. He loves nothing or no one. He thinks only of himself, and believes that he’s entitled to a free pass because of the pain he suffered. I know all that.
“But I wasn’t the one who spent months in agony. He was in the hospital for over a year. He had to endure skin grafts, life-threatening infections, and that was just the physical effects. His psyche was damaged more severely than his body. He didn’t respond to child psychologists, clergymen, counselors of any kind. My parents allowed him to be abusive to the people who were earnestly trying to help him, and they undid what little progress had been made by spoiling him.
“Josh behaved like a monster, because that’s how he saw himself. When he was well enough to return to school, he was subjected to curiosity and cruelty. You know how mean kids can be.”
“Big sis to the rescue.”
“Almost daily.”