That was the only picture on display. There hadn’t been a lot of Kodak moments growing up. Rita’s therapist had once asked her to bring in an old photo of her family, but she hadn’t been able to find one.
When Rita was little, Lily had been at her best, relatively speaking. Back then, she could be trusted to walk Rita to school and pick her up. She vacuumed and dusted the house while swaying her hips to Billie and Ella and put out little dishes of mints on the front hall vestibule so the place felt more like her idea of a hotel. On hot summer days, she’d stuff tissues into her armpits to protect the pastel fabric of her sleeveless dresses from sweat stains, her dewy face barely an inch from the fan. Bursts of motherliness came over her, and she’d fidget with Rita’s pigtails, trying to get them just right, wiping fiercely at her cheek. “You have to look smart because I named you after Rita Hayworth, the most sophisticated lady on earth. Never forget that.” But it was Lily who had the star’s elegance and ambition — Rita Hayworth back in the days when she was still dark-haired Margarita Cansino, the exotic Mediterranean girl assigned bit parts: an Egyptian beauty, a Russian dancer, a mantrap.
With the caprice of a windstorm, Lily would sometimes flirt with the boarders. There was a prune-faced man named Mr. Dobson, whom she fawned over because he claimed to have been a professor and hoarded shoulder-high piles of books in his room. While reading the newspaper, he’d call out the headlines: “‘The Russians Plan to Get There First.’ Those damn Russians.” As she carried in his tea, his eyes lingered appreciatively. Some days, she’d put a great deal of effort into her appearance, powdering and repowdering her cheek with a great white puff, as if just the right flick of the wrist and wistful smile might make the scar disappear magically. Other days, however, she didn’t wear makeup at all, just pulled her hair back in a tight bun that accentuated the glistening pink seam, the exposure of which subdued her spirits. Rita didn’t like to see her mother get like that, but it was just her nerves, her weak nerves. Nothing to worry about, according to Grandpa, and he was a doctor.
In the absence of a family photo, the therapist had asked Rita to remember a scene from childhood. What came to mind was an image of them all playing cards.
The sound of the cards shuffling. Grandpa was shuffling them, while explaining the rules of old maid. Their whole family was a bunch of old maids, really. Grandpa hadn’t always been an old maid, of course, but his wife had died long before Rita was born. And yet, she wasn’t entirely gone because she’d left behind a double: Aunt Haruko, her twin sister. Another old maid, the quintessential old maid. As far as Rita could tell, Aunt Haruko’d never had a boyfriend — not unless you counted Jesus Christ. It was strange to think that Aunt Haruko had once been part of an identical pair, like Mary and Sally Cross in their matching gingham dresses at school. If her grandmother were alive, would the two of them have the same coarsely cut hair and spindly tree bodies? Rita wondered if Grandpa found it unnerving to live with the spitting image of his dead wife.
But two old maids didn’t form a pair. They remained just two unusable cards, destined for the reject pile.
Lily’s face would light up as she looked down at her hand, regardless of how good or bad her cards were; she knew how to hide her emotions behind that aura of wonder. Cards she wanted you to take protruded slightly. Tom was onto her tactic and it wasn’t long before he ducked out of these games anyway. Grandpa, on the other hand, continually fell for it. Only years later, as Rita looked back on those long, rainy afternoons, did she realize there’d been something deliberate about his efforts to lose. He’d always had a soft spot for his daughter-in-law, on account of the fact that his son had abandoned them all. So if indulging her desire to win at cards made her smile, what could be the harm?
“Oh, I don’t mind being the old maid.” A soft chuckle.
“The queen of hearts?” Lily plucked the lone card from Grandpa’s hand, raising an eyebrow. “It’s not a bad sign you’d be left with her.”
This was typical of her innuendo. Her hand would brush against Grandpa’s arm while clearing away his plate. Once he backed away so suddenly that a knife flew across the room and hit the wall, leaving a dung-brown smear. Their relationship was full of these strained flirtations, punctuated by moments of volatility.
What it came down to was this: Lily needed a man in her life. Her singleness, her old-maid status, seemed unnatural, cruel. Although Kaz had long vanished, his phantom remained behind in the form of her deep loneliness, which she’d transferred over to his father. It didn’t take much for her to erupt in a shower of tears and throw herself into Grandpa’s arms — his body rigidifying, hands awkward as paddles as they patted the back of her head a few times before pushing her away, gently but firmly. His face turned grey, grief-stricken almost, thanks to whatever she’d whispered in his ear.
On the day of Lily’s disappearance, Tom took his sweet time to show up. He’d been in meetings all morning, hadn’t even had a chance to check messages. Or so he said. Rita suspected he’d banked on it being a false alarm. Just wait half a day and Mom would reappear. Unless she didn’t.
He plunked his briefcase on the kitchen table, loosened his tie, and ran his hands through his coarse, buzzed hair. Not even a fleck of grey. Although he was forty — six years older than Rita — Tom was often mistaken as her younger brother.
“No sign of Mom, still? She hasn’t called? Must’ve lost track of time at the mall.”
True, Lily was a sucker for promotions. But shopping since the crack of dawn? Tom was a little late in the game to breeze in and throw around unhelpful suggestions.
Family stuff didn’t fall on him the way it fell on Rita. And he was quite happy to take the back seat. It had been this way for as long as she could remember. Tom had always found convenient reasons not to be around the house: his paper route, his job at the corner store. “It’s good for a boy to be independent,” Lily had said. And as long as his activities were tied to earning money, Grandpa seemed quite fine with his absence.
Most of the time when they were growing up, Tom wanted nothing to do with Rita. On one sweltering summer afternoon, though, she was allowed a glimpse into his adventures. Carrying her sand pail, she followed him a few blocks to an abandoned apartment building. In the overgrown courtyard was a wishing pond that hadn’t held water for years; rotted leaves clogged the paint-chipped bottom. But if you dug through the muck carefully enough, every so often a shiny penny or nickel would be illuminated. So Tom set her little, nimble fingers to work, telling her they were like pirates digging for buried treasure. In the end, they had half a pail of coins, from which her share was enough to buy a cinnamon lollipop. How fiery sweet it had tasted.
Only years later did it occur to her that her brother had given her less than a 5 percent cut of the spoils. The realization made her laugh. Even then, he had a firm grasp of profit margins.
By the time high school rolled around, Tom had moved on to other, more lucrative activities. He had no time for her — no time to torment her even — because he had places to go, games to make. His best friend had a broad forehead and blunt features, as though his face had been carved from a hunk of cheese. That family was rich by neighbourhood standards; they owned two divey bars, where Tom must have gotten his start on the pool tables out back. The sweaty, metallic tang of adrenalin and crumpled bills surrounded him wherever he went. Maybe Kaz would have knocked some sense into him, but not sweet, feeble Grandpa; he was past that stage in his life. Tom could get away with anything.
“So what’s the story, guys?” Tom asked.
“The