The Language of Sisters (16 page)

“Oh, so it was Lucy you were curious about?” He was teasing me, and I couldn’t believe how much I liked it. I switched to a safer subject.

“So, Nova said you own a restaurant on Alki?”

“Um-hmm. The Beach Basket.”

“I’m a baker down in San Francisco. What kind of menu do you offer?”

“It’s pretty eclectic. Seafood, pasta, sandwiches, salads. You name it, we’ve probably served it. We keep the entrées as healthy as possible, but I’m kind of a traditionalist when it comes to dessert. The more butter and cream you can stuff into a recipe, the better.”

“I agree. Do you have a pastry chef?”

“Are you asking me for a job?”

“Are you always such a tease?” I countered, my stomach fluttering.

“Most of the time. Do you like it?”

“Some of the time.”

He laughed. “You
are
Nova’s friend, aren’t you? Cut from the same fabric, I’d say.”

“What kind of fabric is that?”

“Intricately woven.” He directed his light brown eyes at me before finishing. “Beautiful.”

Color rose to my face again, but fortunately the girls returned with Jenny’s costume and saved me from making a complete idiot of myself by weeping in gratitude at the compliment. I could not remember the last time Shane had told me I was beautiful when we weren’t about to have sex.

I watched Garret as he used the tips of his fingers to gently
apply blush to my sister’s pale cheeks and then adjust the purple jester’s hat the girls had brought for her to wear. Jenny gazed at him with a smile in her eyes, happily patting her fingers together as the girls danced around her and pretended to laugh at the jokes my sister was supposedly telling them. When Garret jumped up to dance around with them, waving his arms and legs like a goof, the girls dissolved into puddles of laughter on the floor. I giggled along with them, the relief I felt washing over me like a river.

I tried to imagine Shane there, softly touching my sister’s cheek and dancing with abandon to entertain her, but I could not. Shane would be the man standing in the corner, arms crossed over his chest, looking upon Garret with amused disdain for so joyfully acting the fool. A month ago, I might have done the same. But there I stood, not quite believing the ease I felt with this man I barely knew. I had never met someone so sure of himself without it coming across as arrogance.

Later, when Garret and Lucy had gone home and Nova sat with Jenny and me in her living room, I asked about him again. “Is he really that great, or is there some dark side I don’t know about?”

“I know he’s a perfectionist when it comes to the restaurant, and
boy howdy
, the man can be stubborn when he thinks he’s right about something, but other than that I think what you see is what you get.” She twisted her soft body toward mine on the couch. “What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know, exactly. It’s not like I need another complication in my life right now, but man, he’s a hard one to ignore.” I clapped my hands to the sides of my head. “I can’t believe I’m even thinking about this. I love Shane. I want to work it out with him. My life is with him.” Dropping my hands to my lap, I tried to mask my uncertainty with false-sounding conviction.

“Your life is with you,” Nova said. “Whether you choose to live it with Shane is an option, not a requirement.”

Slightly annoyed that once again she had insinuated my relationship with Shane might not work out, I wasn’t sure how to respond. I decided humor was my best defense. “That’s good advice,” I said teasingly. “Are you sure
you
aren’t the therapist?”

“Yep. I just watch a lot of
Oprah.
”

“What would Oprah say I should do?”

“Pray, girlfriend. Oprah’d tell you to pray.”

•  •  •

Jenny was awake most of the night following her ultrasound; after getting up with her for the fifth time, I wondered if she, too, was excited about the news of her baby’s sex. When she finally drifted off into a deep sleep, around six a.m., I found that I couldn’t do the same, so I dressed and went into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee.

After setting it to brew, I stepped into the living room and discovered that my mother was already awake. With the aid of the pale pink light of dawn that flowed through the front windows, I could see that dark circles bruised the soft flesh beneath her bloodshot eyes; her skin was taut and paler than usual. Her bare feet were tucked under her on the couch, and a full ashtray rested on the side table, evidence that she had been there awhile.

Since her startling disclosure the other evening that she regretted not protecting Jenny, our interactions had been minimal. I was attempting to give her whatever space she might need in order to open up to me again, but it irked me to think that the tiny steps we had taken toward actually communicating might have been completely erased.

I walked in quietly through the entryway from the kitchen, sitting down in the recliner across the room from her. She glanced
at me briefly, green eyes exhausted as she took a final drag before snuffing her cigarette out.

“Sorry,” she said shortly, referring to her smoking. After I’d found her in the kitchen that first night Jenny had cried, she had promised that she’d keep her habit outside, in consideration of Jenny’s baby.

“It’s okay,” I said, pulling a rainbow-hued afghan from the back of my chair to cover my legs. It was already the first week of July, but the early mornings still felt chilly to my California-set internal thermometer. I looked at my mother and thought of what Nova had suggested, that I should try to see our situation as I would a client’s. What would I say to my mother if she had come to me for help? I started slowly. “You couldn’t sleep?”

Mom shook her head and jutted her chin in the general direction of Jenny’s room. Earplugs or not, she had obviously been distressed by her younger daughter’s cries. I wondered why, then, she couldn’t bring herself to come and comfort Jenny. She pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her shins, turning her gaze out the window to the gold-rimmed, puffy white clouds that served as buffer to the bright morning sun. I recognized this classic defensive position and realized how vulnerable my mother must be feeling. Maybe my training hadn’t been a waste, after all. “Jenny had an ultrasound yesterday,” I revealed. “She’s having a girl.”

Mom’s expression brightened momentarily, her color perking up, but then it faded again without so much as a word. Her eyes looked glazed and distant; it struck me that she might be seriously depressed. “Is something bothering you?” I asked her carefully. “Do you want to talk?”

In response to this question she stood up abruptly, grabbing the ashtray and looking at me warily. Her dark bob hung limp and tangled around her face. “No, Nicole, I don’t. I want to get ready
for work.” She sounded as though this were the last thing she actually felt like doing.

I sighed in defeat as she brushed past me down the hall to her bedroom. I pushed the recliner back so that I might rest a little before Jenny decided to wake for the day. As the water began to rumble through the pipes for Mom’s shower, I closed my tired eyes and considered the brief interaction that had just occurred. At least I knew I was right to quit practicing therapy. If I couldn’t get my own mother to open up to me, how could I have ever expected to get a complete stranger to?

I curled up under the afghan, pulling it to my chin and holding it there with two tightly clenched fists. Maybe it was time to face the ugly truth that my mother and I might never heal the wounds between us, that I’d simply help Jenny through the pregnancy on my own, find placement for both her and the baby, then return to my life in San Francisco.

If it was a life worth returning to, I thought sadly, opening my eyes as the sun’s long fingers touched my face. If it was a life I wanted to live at all.

•  •  •

On a Saturday morning a couple of weeks after Jenny’s ultrasound, I was in the kitchen with my sister when Mom came through the door from the living room, yawning.

“Did I wake you?” I asked as I firmly pressed fresh raspberries through a sieve I held over a bowl. We’d barely been speaking; I’d given up trying to reach her.

“Kind of. It’s early for seafood, isn’t it?” She nodded toward the pile of peeled and steamed shrimp that sat next to the sink.

“It’s for the barbecue at Nova’s this afternoon. Right, Jenny?” I looked at my sister, who sat quietly watching me from her wheelchair. We had had a tough night. She was awake several times, moaning and crying off and on, and though I’d managed to settle her back to sleep each time, I could not figure out what was bothering her. Her eyes were a blank page, no messages left for me to read.

She was up early in the morning, too. It was only seven o’clock, and I had already fed, showered, and dressed her in one of the maternity outfits Nova had passed on for her to use. She wore a short-sleeved, pale lavender top and matching stretch pants, tightly laced white tennis shoes, and a purple-and-white-checked headband in her dark brown hair. Despite her advancing pregnant state, the adult-style outfit looked slightly out of place on her child-size frame.

She sat near the kitchen table, staring off into space, bottom lip sagging, drool leaking onto her shirt. For some reason, this annoyed me. “Careful, Jenny! I want to keep that outfit clean! Mom, could you put a bib on her?” The tips of my nerves felt raw from lack of sleep, as though an evil carpenter had rubbed them with sandpaper in the night. The compounded pressure of caring for Jenny alone and getting little rest was taking its toll; I felt as though if anyone asked me how I was doing, I’d fall to the ground weeping.

Our mother reached for the bib on the counter and placed it around Jenny’s neck, then kissed her on the head. The ease of her gesture bothered me. If she wasn’t going to do the work involved in taking care of Jenny, why should she be entitled to the affection?

“What’s the barbecue for?” Mom asked.

I tilted my chin down and looked at her over the end of my nose. “Sort of a late Fourth of July celebration. Ryan got home last night from Alaska, and since he hasn’t met us yet, Nova wanted to throw a little party.” I paused. “She told me to ask you to come, but I was pretty sure you wouldn’t want to.”

My mother reached for the coffeepot and poured herself a cup. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because you haven’t spent any time with us since we’ve been here. I guess I figured this wouldn’t be any different.” I opened a bottle of balsamic vinegar and carefully added a couple of teaspoons to the raspberry mixture in the bowl.

“Maybe you figured wrong.” She lowered herself into a kitchen chair. “Will Star be there?”

“Yes,” I said as I began to vigorously whisk the sauce. “I haven’t seen her yet, either. She’s been in Las Vegas and New York trying to get her jewelry line launched.” I set the whisk on
the counter and glanced at my mother briefly. “I’m sure she’d love to see you.” This wasn’t exactly true; Star and my mother had never been close, but because of Nova’s and my friendship, they were at least always polite.

When we were children, Star made a point to invite our family to their holiday celebrations and summer parties even though we rarely accepted. My parents didn’t understand the easy, open lifestyle Star and Orion championed. The Carsons touched readily in front of Nova, discussed politics and religion with her over dinner, and often took long walks around the neighborhood, holding hands and stopping to kiss every house or two, the love that flowed between them a palpable, glowing thing.

The only memories I have of my parents touching were the few times when my father came up behind my mother while she tended to Jenny or worked in the kitchen. He’d rub his face into her neck, his hands on her waist. I remember watching the look on Mom’s face move from surprise to impatient tolerance, then finally disgust. “Mark,” she’d say, her voice thick with warning. And he would walk away, shrugging his skinny shoulders as though he were trying to rid them of a heavy weight.

When I looked to the night sky, dreaming of what a marriage might be, I did not look for the story of my own parents in the stars; I watched for the constellation of Star and Orion.

As I began arranging the shrimp concentrically on a lettuce-lined wicker serving platter, I thought about how much I was looking forward to seeing Nova’s parents, knowing they would be equally happy to see me. I also knew Garret would be there, and the idea of talking with him again made my stomach warm and fall in on itself like a deflated soufflé. Thoughts of him had often invaded my mind since our last meeting at Nova’s house; I saw his easy smile, heard his chuckling laugh, felt the tips of his fingers brush mine when we parted. I felt like a teenager again,
my belly full of twittering muscles and my mouth overcome by spontaneous, happy grins.

My attempts to quell these feelings fell heinously short even as my conversations with Shane increased. Feeling guilty, I’m sure, after our last phone call, he was calling me every night when he got home from the office, no matter how late that was, but after a long day with Jenny I found I had little to talk about with him. I knew he wasn’t interested in hearing about my sister’s latest enema or crying jag; in fact, I was pretty sure he was thankful when I didn’t bring her up. Since my days were full of such details, my end of the conversation was fairly limited.

Mostly, I listened to the difficulties he was having with a particular case or coworker and offered words of comfort or advice. He’d talk about restaurants we’d gone to together, plays or movies we might have seen if I’d been there, but oddly, I didn’t feel as though I were missing anything. My life there almost seemed as though it hadn’t happened, as if it might have all been a dream. I ended the calls feeling frustrated and empty. I considered whether our relationship had always been like this and being so close to him, I had refused to see it. Once again I took Nova’s advice and thought about what I might say to a therapy client if she was in a similar situation, and I found that I wasn’t ready to hear my own advice.