Firecracker by David Iserson Page B

so much as borrowing.
    My house was not full of good people. My grandfather was the most like me, so it was safe to say he wasn’t good. My mother was awful. My father wasn’t bad, but he was too lazy to do much good. That left Lisbet. Was Lisbet a good person? Lisbet was certainly a nice person. But was that the same as good? Some people would say so. And being nice is a very important part of being good. How much a part of it, I wasn’t positive, but I thought I might as well ask her before going to anyone else.
    I found Lisbet in her bathroom, where she can usually be found in the mornings. A good chunk of her time there was spent dallying with makeup and hair-related issues. But, mostly she just sat there, happily smiling at her reflection. I was years past finding this weird.
    While Lisbet’s fiancé, Randy, lived in the guesthouse with Lisbet, he would leave early in the morning for work—sometimes while I was still awake from the night before. He worked either far away or long hours or both. When Lisbet first met him, she told me what he did for a living. He was a lawyer or banker or fireman or astronaut or horse whisperer or candy maker or something. He was not so successful that they lived somewhere else but not so unsuccessful that he didn’t need to comb his hair and put on a tie and go to the office.
    I knocked. Knocking was always a good idea. There were things you just didn’t want to walk in on people doing. I learned that lesson when I was in boarding school in Switzerland. I had a roommate then. She had a name, of course, but I couldn’t think of her as anything other than Girl Who Licks My Used Tissues When She Thinks I’m Not in the Room.
    Lisbet didn’t answer when I knocked, so I cracked the door and yelled her name a few times.
    â€œI’m so glad you could come see me, Astrid,” Lisbet said, staring deeply at her reflection while perched on a tufted stool in front of her vanity. Lisbet had this thing where if you and she were ever in the same place, she would assume that she asked you to be there. Once I was in the elevator at our dad’s office and she happened to be there too, and she said, “I’m so glad you could make it, Astrid,” as if she’d scheduled this elevator get-together. 11:08 on the east, middle elevator. We will meet for nineteen seconds until the door opens again.
    â€œI wanted to ask you something,” I told her. I leaned back against the mural of a foxhunt that was painted above the wainscoting. After Lisbet moved into the guesthouse, she’d added smiles to most of the foxes with acrylic paint.
    â€œAnd I wanted to ask you something.” She addressed my reflection in her mirror.
    â€œYou first.”
    â€œNo, you first,” she said.
    â€œWhy are you nice, Lisbet?” I said.
    â€œWhy am I nice? I don’t understand.”
    â€œYou know how I have to do all this stuff now?”
    â€œStuff you have to do?” Lisbet absolutely never remembered backstory. If you were watching a movie with her, you’d need to re-explain who the cop was and who the murderer was multiple times. And when she called me on the phone, she would sometimes say, “It’s your sister . . . Lisbet.” As though I had more than one sister.
    â€œI’m going to the school in town. I have to go to therapy. That stuff.”
    â€œOf course. Yes. How’s that working out for you? I’m very worried about it.”
    â€œIt’s awful, Lisbet. I’m constantly miserable.”
    â€œAnd you want some tips from me about how not to be miserable?”
    â€œNo. It’s more about . . . how you’re a good person.”
    â€œMe?” She gave herself a hard and probing stare in the mirror, apparently considering it. “I don’t think so. I’m normal. I’m not especially good.”
    â€œWell, you’re probably the most good person I