Page 19 of The Favorite Sister

“I want to leave,” she sobs into my shoulder.

Ugh. So she’s one of those. One who is still holding on, hoping it will get better. I could knit the world’s least cozy quilt out of the things they’ve confessed on my shoulder: I’m so stupid. No one knows. My mom said it’s nothing compared to what my dad did to her. I should be grateful. He has a job. I’m being dramatic. I have nowhere to go. I have no one. It’s not that bad. It’s not that bad. Black women are three times more likely to die at the hands of an abuser than white women. It’s unconscionable that our government hasn’tstepped up to do more for us. One of the things I’m planning on speaking about with the Female Director when I meet her in a few months is the possibility of an initiative specifically devoted to helping black women extricate themselves from their violent partners. I was thinking we could roll it out in tandem with the movie’s release.

I pull away and pat her on the shoulder. “We’re going to get you help, okay?” I beckon Gwen, who is armed with the numbers for Chicago’s women’s shelters and some of the national hotlines. She will call none of them. Or maybe she will, and he’ll kill her anyway. As Gwen passes her the cards, I scrawlBe strongin the book she was forced to buy to enter this room.

A small woman steps forward next. It’s nearly June but she’s drowning in a heavy winter sweater, which either means she runs cold or she’s covered in bruises. Her face is unsmiling as she passes me my book, telling me her name is Justine.

“I knew your mother,” she waits to say until after I’ve signed.

Instantly the line ceases to exist. There is no one else in the room but this woman who knew my real mother. I was prepared for this at the signings in New York and New Jersey and Philadelphia, for long-lost relatives angry I’ve aired our family’s dirty laundry, for the truthers with documents and police reports that fact-checkers missed. But here, in Chicago, in front of the cameras, I am completely defenseless and at the mercy of this frail, cold, and possibly battered old woman. Justine looks to be in her seventies, meaning she can’t have been a peer of my mother’s. If my mother were alive today she’d be approaching fifty. It takes a sizable amount of courage just to ask, “How did you know her?”

Justine nods, a single slow dip of her chin, as though she’s gotten my attention now. “I grew up withhermother.” Her pointer finger does a little leap, skipping a generation, the gold bracelets on her wrists caroling together. “Your grandmother. Your grandmother was a good woman.” She makes a noise to back this up. “She tried everything to help Sheila. Rehab. Doctors. A program in California one time too. And Sheila, she wasn’t a bad person. But she had hertroubles with alcohol and with men. Your grandma did too. With men, that is. So many of us did back then.” Justine’s chin is held at a high, strong angle, but a tear slips down her face.

I pluck a tissue from the box on my table. I also learned on the last book tour: Keep tissues at the ready. “What happened to her?”

Justine blows her nose quietly, folding the tissue in half and taking her time slipping it into her purse. When she looks at me again, her eyes are dry. “She died. Twelve years ago this summer. She would have been so sorry this had happened to you. It was in your blood, for this to happen to you. But she would have beenproud”—her voice wavers briefly on the word—“that you found a way to break the cycle. Promise me you’ll stay away from it. Alcohol and bad men.” Justine draws herself together with a deep breath, casting a steely glance first at Vince, then at me. “I only wish you had the courage to pay your respects at St. Mark’s. We would have embraced you.”

There is a resistance in my chest when I try to breathe, like I’m wearing one of those lead bibs in the dentist’s office. In the book, I write that I stood across the street from the church during my mother’s funeral service, watching the puny gathering process in and process out. Thinking about going inside was as close as I got. There just weren’t enough people. I would have been noticed. I would have had to explain who I was.

But that’s not what has left me short of breath. It was the very particular mention of St. Mark’s that did that. And now I just want her to go away. I need her to go away. I say, with a note of finality in my voice, “Thank you for coming tonight, Justine.”

“Well, okay now,” she says, with a smile that says she gets it.

I wanted to be seen so badly I made it the title of my memoir. Whatever comes next, I asked for it. I had it coming.