Rachel Goddard 01 - The Heat of the Moon

sister walked through the back door.
    ***
    Michelle, deep into research and composition, spent evenings at her computer with a do-not-disturb expression hung on her face. Mother was always just across the hall or downstairs. How could I get my sister alone and in a mood to talk?
    In a fit of impatience, after waiting a couple of days for an opening, I walked into Michelle’s room one night and closed the door. She sat at her desk in a corner, inclined toward the computer monitor, long fingers busy on the keyboard. The screen was filled with words.
    “I need to talk to you,” I said.
    Tap tap tap. “In a minute,” she murmured.
    I sat on the bed, watching her. She’d tucked her hair behind her ears, but a stray strand fell across her right cheekbone. Chewing her lower lip, an old habit of concentration, she looked so young that it was hard to believe we were both adults and everything had changed between us.
    I walked to the window. Beyond it lay the side yard, but I saw only my ghostly reflection in the glass. Michelle typed, engrossed in her task.
    “Mish,” I said, turning, “could I interrupt you for just a few minutes?”
    Her hands lifted and clamped into fists above the keys. When she swiveled in her chair, her long blue cotton skirt twisted around her legs. “All right, what’s so important, Rachel?”
    The second the harsh words were out of her mouth, her expression softened. Sighing, she said, “I’m so wound up, all this work to finish.” She pushed the tendril of hair off her face. “God, graduate school’s a grind. I should’ve stayed home Sunday and worked on this paper, instead of going off to the gallery to look at those ugly paintings.”
    I sat on the bed again. “Or maybe you should have gone sailing with Kevin and relaxed a little.”
    I hoped this would prompt her to tell me she’d seen Kevin only a few hours earlier. An accidental meeting, she was meant to think. Since she broke their boating date Kevin had called me a couple of times, wanting advice on how to win her over. I’d given him her seminar schedule and suggested he bump into her on the street and invite her to lunch. Today was the day he’d planned to do it. During the afternoon he’d called the clinic and left a message, conveyed to me by Alison: “It worked.”
    But Michelle wasn’t going to confide in me. At the mention of Kevin’s name a furtive look came into her eyes, like a curtain closing, before her gaze flicked downward. Like me, she wanted to protect her secrets.
    She tugged her skirt, straightening it. “What did you want to talk about?”
    I leaned forward, elbows on my knees and hands together prayer-like. How could I get into this? Questions, a dozen of them, swirled in my head. “You’re studying childhood memory, aren’t you? What people remember from different ages and so on?”
    Looking faintly incredulous, she glanced at the computer screen. I’d interrupted her work for this? Then she folded her hands in her lap and assumed a patient, knowing expression that she might have copied from Mother and practiced in a mirror. I was on my guard before she spoke.
    “I don’t remember you burning the pictures,” she said. “If that’s what you’re about to ask me.”
    My mouth fell open. My suspicion was right: Mother and Michelle had been discussing me. Since Friday night I’d been keenly aware of Mother’s watchful gaze, keeping tabs on my psychic balance, but when it seemed that Michelle also looked at me that way, I told myself I was imagining things, going paranoid. I couldn’t stand the thought of them murmuring together over my emotional wounds.
    “When did she tell you about it?” I asked. “Saturday?”
    “That doesn’t matter.” Michelle leaned into the space between us. The strand of hair loosened and brushed her cheek again. “I understand why it upset you. Mother’s sorry she told you now. If you were able to deal with it you would’ve remembered it on your own. Sometimes forgetting is a blessing—”
    Parroting Mother, her very words.
    I sprang to my feet, wanting to run out. But need kept me where I was. “All right, since you two have been analyzing the whole thing, analyzing me, tell me something. If I was such a mess, why did Mother leave me alone? How long did it take, burning all those pictures? And where were you when I was doing it? You were practically a baby. Did she leave you in the house with your mixed-up sister—”
    “Rachel, Rachel.” She rose