Rachel Goddard 01 - The Heat of the Moon

spot Mother’s keys in my hand.
    “I’m sure she’ll be okay,” I said. “Go on back to bed.”
    I took her arm and nudged her up the stairs. We paused at the top.
    “Promise me you’ll be careful not to upset Mother when she comes home,” Michelle said. “She can’t take any more stress.”
    “Oh, God, Mish, let’s not stand here and argue in the middle of the night.”
    My insecure baby sister had vanished. Michelle gave me that level, superior look I hated, her almost-a-therapist expression.
    “Rachel, I don’t know what’s going on in your head. You’re starting to scare me.” Then she softened, shifting gears again. “I’m willing to listen if you want to talk about it. You know, we used to be able to talk about anything.”
    I shook my head. “There have always been things we couldn’t say.”
    We held each other’s gaze for a long moment. I wondered how well I really knew her. She didn’t know me at all. “What do you think about the things she said tonight? About her parents.”
    Averting her eyes, she said, “If Mother doesn’t want to talk about all that, she has a right—”
    “But they were our grandparents. And they sound like lunatics. Doesn’t that bother you?”
    She tilted her chin obstinately. The door to her mind had clanged shut. “It has nothing to do with us.”
    She would believe that no matter what I said. She was turning away, toward her room. “Mish, what’s your first memory of me?” I said. “Of us as a family?”
    “Oh, Rachel!” She flapped her arms, then faced me again. “Where did this obsession come from? I can’t believe you asked Mother if you were adopted! She gave birth to you, she’s loved you all your life. How could you ask her something like that?”
    I could take her downstairs, use the key in my hand, make her look at the pictures hidden in Mother’s study, the pictures that didn’t include me. “You don’t understand—”
    Her face was hard and cold. “I understand this: you’re endangering Mother’s health. I want you to stop it. Now. Don’t you dare say another word to her about any of it.”
    She marched to her open bedroom door, stepped into the room and turned to throw me a harsh glance, a further warning. She didn’t slam the door, but closed it silently, the way Mother would.
    I returned the keys to Mother’s purse. Back in my room, I sank into the chair at the dresser. My mirrored image confronted me: messy hair, rumpled gown, eyes hollow and mournful.
    My questions had made my mother ill tonight, sent her to the hospital. My probing had touched her very heart, the core of her life. I was an ungrateful child, an unloving daughter.
    But I did love her. I loved her and yearned for her approval and embraces and proud looks. I thought of that other box in her study, filled with school records, report cards, my A’s preserved along with Michelle’s. No one who saw that cache of memories could have said, She didn’t love you, she only loved your sister.
    She wanted me to stop examining my own life, our life as a family. How could I persist after what had happened that night? Mother was the one person who knew all the answers, but now I didn’t dare push her to tell me. I didn’t want to hurt her, couldn’t bear knowing that I’d done something to endanger her.
    ***
    Mother came home Saturday morning wearing a heart monitor.
    “I have to put up with this thing for forty-eight hours,” she said, and her exasperation might have made anyone think the monitor was a fifty-pound weight.
    The device hanging on a strap around her neck resembled an ordinary cassette recorder-player and was only fractionally larger. A tape connected to five electrodes on her chest recorded her every heartbeat. After she’d worn the monitor for forty-eight hours, the tape would go to a lab for analysis.
    I didn’t want to leave her, but Mother brushed aside any suggestion of my staying away from work. “Michelle will be here,” she said. “I’ll be fine. Don’t fuss.”
    But Michelle fussed, and when I came home I saw that Mother had settled happily into being cared for by my sister. I stood on the sidelines, watching Michelle hold Mother’s arm as if she were an invalid and walk her into the dining room for dinner. When Mother wanted something from the kitchen, Michelle leapt to her feet to fetch it.
    After dinner they went to Mother’s bedroom. From the hallway I heard them murmuring beyond the open door. I stood out of sight and