Good People

I had overheard them talking, and on several occasions caught my mother crying in her room. I never knew quite how to address it, so I didn’t, and often retreated to my room in the basement. Through the vent I could make out words, words like: dangerous, scared, prison. I made believe that my parents were watching the news, and simply speculating on each story. This was false however, and I knew it. They were speaking of Anna.

We used to be close, my sister and me. In winter we would slide on the ice of the creek behind our house, and camp out for days in the woods. Our mother eagerly awaited our return, peering out through the window. Anna always complained about her, said she complained too much. In a way, I was her escape—little brother Aldo, quiet and agreeable. She often joked that I was like a dog, following her everywhere. She didn’t mind though, and neither did I. We went to the movies and on the brisk walk home she would complain about mother and father and I would just nod in agreement. She told stories about ghosts and demons and when she saw the nervous fear on my face, she just laughed and put her arm around my bony shoulders.

Things began to change the summer before Anna’s junior year. I was in the seventh grade, with few friends to speak of, and when high school began for Anna, she stopped hanging around as much. She had new friends and a boyfriend my mother despised. He always wore black, and that was enough of a bad sign for her. She would confide in my father, “I just don’t trust him,” she would say so anxiously. Being a man of few words, he would nod, “hmm, yeah,” as he lounged in his e-z chair after a long day. He was little help to my mother on the issue of my sister’s attire when Anna quietly tried to escape the house.

“What do you think you’re wearing?” my mother would shout as sister inched out the door. “Well aren’t you going to say anything John?”

My father pretended he couldn’t hear over the noise of the television. By that time Anna was already speeding off in friend’s car; supposedly her name was Julie. We never actually met her. My mother, a kind but terribly paranoid woman, would hold vigils on the nights Anna didn’t return home.

“Where have you been?” she’d say near tears.

“Relax; I spent the night at Julie’s.”

“It’s four in the morning, you smell like--” stopped short by the slamming of Anna’s door. I winced in bed, hoping she was indeed telling the truth. Soon it became routing and my mother stopped caring, or at least she pretended to. Sometimes I knew all of us were lying there awake at night, the old house standing ominously watchful--a quiet strength we all learned. An intoxicated sister stood below my window and threw pebbles. I helped her up to her room and into bed, encapsulated within her covers. Her brown hair lay eerily across her pale face, covered in smeared makeup. Kneeling on the stairs, scrubbing out the evidence of the preceding events, I felt the wearisome sickness that consumed my mother. What would happen to Anna? Would things ever be normal again? I blamed my mother, partly. It must have been her constant bickering and nagging that brought Anna to this place.

After a month of this I tried not to care anymore. There was nothing I could do, and Anna’s choices were not my fault. She started asking me for money. I pretended to be ignorant of the reason for inquiry. I knew though; I knew all too well. Being the entrepreneur that I was, I complied. I also demanded interest in addition to the IOU. After all, my paper route only paid $4.50 an hour.

I could smell it on her clothes—that aroma of ashes and something unidentifiable. I snooped around in her room to find exactly what she used the money for. I found what I had expected to in a drawer, buried beneath underwear. I didn’t tell my parents. It wasn’t that I needed the money. What does an eighth-grader need with money? I felt I held an obligation of secrecy to my sister. If she was found out, she would wind up in prison.

They found it in her locker the following week. I was never clear on what exactly “it” was, but something similar, I assume, to what I found in her drawer that night. They called my parents into school for a meeting of sorts. I’m sure my mother cried. My father probably just stared past the principal, out the window to the courtyard. I doubt Anna even glanced up from her shoes. She received an in-school suspension, but her evenings were spent at home, although I rarely saw her.

The following weeks were quiet; nobody really spoke to each-other, but my mother, a kind woman, tried to spark light conversation about the weather, or my life (which was less than scintillating). My father would just sit and stare at the contemplative, gray, winter skies. Occasionally he would offer a response to a comment about the weather.

Tears streaming down my mother's face, my father's strong arm wrapped tightly around her--a scene I had become too familiar with. I saw it again on a dreary , bitterly cold day of January. The principal stood with them. I had been called from class to hear that she had been taken.

"Your sister has a problem. It's become serious," my father said as if I had not witnessed the previous months. Anna had been found, passed out, in the bathroom that morning. Arrangements had been made for her at Glenwood Rehabilitation Clinic five hours north. Depending on her progress, we were to see her again in a month. I couldn't stop thinking of Anna and how she became someone so different that the sister I grew up with. I wondered if she thought of me--if she felt sorry for what she had put us through. Days rolled by so slowly i felt as if time itself was elongated. The house remained quiet; i could hear the TV from my room as I absent-mindedly did homework. My mother's thoughts were almost audible, and I didn't blame her for worrying anymore. I was worried too.

Word came three weeks after Anna's enrollment that we were to pick her up at the Greyhound station the afternoon of the 12th. I wasn't sure I wanted to go--What would I say? A simple "hello" would suffice, but after that, it was all questionable.

"You will go," my father said sternly.

"It's best for Anna, she needs to know we're all supporting her," my mother concluded.

We got off on Glenwood Drive and turned into the bus depot. It was only a couple of miles down the road from the rehab clinic, which seemed strange to me. Aren't these places usually secluded? My parents debated as I watched the buses roll in and divide out. It had been one hour and there was no sign of Anna. We drove to Glenwood, through the unending, roundabout entranced that was encompassed by blank trees--a haunting beauty loomed over the grounds.

"What do you mean--she left?" my mother said at the front desk, perplexed. "Isn't it your job to keep track of these things? Thats my daughter, you know!" she cried helplessly.

My sister was gone; I was certain of that. She had left without so much as a note. So many different directions she might have gone. I considered the possibility that Julie had gotten her, if she existed; she was the only friend Anna spoke of.

After filing a report with the police department, we went home. The house I grew up in met us with disappointment--only three of our family was returning. My mother stood at the kitchen sink, gazing out the window, sinking her eyes into barren woods. My father kept his coat on and was stopped at the door by mother's unusually mild voice.

"What are you doing John?"

"I'm going to wash the windows--they could use a washing," my father replied in an equally placid tone.

Retreating back to her accustomed voice, my mother said harshly, "What? Why the hell would you wash windows? Its winter for Christ's sake!"

"I see that they could use a washing."

And with that he crept into the dim winter evening and washed our windows. He continued in the dark, moving from window to window in the serene night. I had never seen my father like this. That must have been him being upset. Some people cry. Some people swear; others drink. My father washes windows.

The letters started coming during that summer. Once every two weeks she would write. Anna's boyfriend, Charlie, whom she met at rehab had gotten a hold of a car and they drove west. She told me she was happy, and that Charlie was a good man. They were having a baby soon, and she was going to name it Aldo, after me. Anna never mentioned rehab or the year before, and neither did I; it was better that way. I collected the letters, stored them, and brought them to college with me. I never told my parents, knowing they would only try and find her. Eventually the letters became scarcer and then non-existant. I thought of Anna often, and her letter, Charlie is a good man. Much like my father I thought.