The Space Between Sisters (3 page)

“All right, fine, you're on a
working
vacation. The point is, you're still going to have some free time, and now, you're going to have it with me,” Poppy said, giving Win her most charming smile. “It'll be fun. We'll go canoeing, and we'll go on picnics, and we'll go raspberry picking. And skinny-dipping. There's no age limit for that, is there? And that goes for making s'mores, too. Oh, and playing Monopoly. We can do that, and maybe,
maybe
, if you're really nice, I'll even let you have the thimble this time,” she said, of the Monopoly game piece they had battled over as children. “And Win, seriously, when was the last time we watched
13 Going on 30
?” she asked of their favorite chick flick.

Win chewed on her lower lip. “I don't know,” she said. Because while she and Poppy had had fun together over the years, they'd had other things, too: hurtful words, screaming matches, slamming doors. And the six months they'd shared an apartment during Win's last year of college came to mind now. Poppy had left a trail of wet towels, unwashed dishes, and unpaid bills in her wake—unpaid bills that, in the end, Win had paid for her. And she was always avoiding some lovelorn suitor, and worse, always carrying that godforsaken cat around with her.

“Look, I really need this,” Poppy said, with an urgency that surprised Win. “I need a change. I need to figure things out. And, for some reason, I feel like . . . like this is the place I'm supposed to be right now,” she said, looking around the kitchen.
“Right here, with you, on Butternut Lake.” She smiled at Win, a little tremulously.

“Oh, Pops, then of course you can stay,” Win said, with a rush of emotion.

“Yay!” Poppy said, grabbing her and twirling her round. “You won't regret it. I promise.”

But as they were spinning around, something caught Poppy's eye, and she stopped, mid-spin, and pointed at the cherry pitter, still sitting on the kitchen table. “Winona Robbins,” she said, with mock seriousness, “were you rearranging your kitchen drawers tonight?”

“No,” Win lied.

“No? Then where are the cherries?”

Win didn't answer.

Poppy walked nonchalantly over to the kitchen table and picked up the cherry pitter. “So you don't mind if I just put this . . . in here?” she asked, opening the top drawer.

“Go right ahead,” Win said, and she couldn't help but smile. No one had ever been able to tease her the way Poppy did.

“Or what about . . . this drawer?” Poppy asked, opening up the bottom drawer. “Can I put it in here?” She dangled it over the drawer.

Win started laughing. She couldn't help it. This was the best thing about Poppy. This was what made everything else about her worth putting up with. She could always be counted on to make Win laugh. Laugh at life, yes, but even more importantly, laugh at herself. And suddenly, it seemed ridiculous to her that this was how she'd spent her night, at home, alone, rearranging her already perfectly arranged kitchen drawers.

“I missed you, Pops,” she said, through her laughter.

“I missed you, too,” Poppy said, giving Win a hug.

Win hugged her back, hard. “And you're right. We
will
have fun this summer. Stay, Pops. Stay as long as you want.” This would be good for Poppy, Win thought, but it would be good for her, too. Because for every night Win made a gourmet dinner for one, there was a night she ate a bowl of cereal leaning against the kitchen counter. And for every night she curled up on the couch after dinner to read an edifying novel, there was a night she ended up on her bed, tearfully perusing old photo albums until she fell asleep, in a soggy heap, on top of the covers.

“We should let Mom and Dad know I'm here,” Poppy said, giving Win one final squeeze before she let go of her. “They'll be happy we're together.”

“
Oh,
I got a postcard from Dad,” Win said. She plucked it out of a basket on the kitchen counter and handed it to Poppy. Their father, who was divorced from their mother, was a part-time carpenter, a part-time musician, and a full-time drinker who spent most of his time ricocheting around the country, going wherever his work or his drinking took him.

“He sent me the same one,” Poppy said, studying the postcard. She flipped it over and read it. “Same wording, too.” She glanced over at Win. “Where, exactly, is Shelby, Montana?”

Win shrugged. “Do you really think he's found a regular gig playing in a bar there?” she asked Poppy, a little skeptically.

“I think . . .” said Poppy, putting the postcard down. “I think that he's probably got a regular gig sleeping with the woman who owns the bar. And I think she'll probably keep him around until she gets tired of him. Or until he drinks her out of Jack Daniel's.”

“One or the other,” Win agreed, wishing Poppy wasn't right, but knowing that, in all but the details, she probably was.

“I got a phone call from Mom, though,” Poppy said, with artificial brightness. Their mother, like their father, could never be
accused of being an overinvolved parent. But unlike their father, she was not a drinker. She was instead, as she'd explained to her daughters many times before, on a lifelong journey of self-realization, a journey that had not often included, when Poppy and Win were growing up, such mundane things as attending their orchestra performances, or school plays, or parent teacher conferences. Now she and her most recent boyfriend were living in a trailer outside Sedona, Arizona, and she was trying to get her new crystal business off the ground. “Apparently, selling dream catcher jars is much more competitive than she realized,” Poppy explained. “I guess Sedona's a crowded market.”

The two of them shared a look that spoke volumes about their respective relationships with their mother, and then Win remembered something. “Poppy, what about your friend?” she whispered. “We've just left him sitting out there this whole time.”

“Oh, Everett hasn't just been sitting out there,” Poppy said. “He's been getting his ax out of his trunk so he can . . .” She used her hand to make a hacking motion at her neck.

“Very funny,” Win said, and pushing through the kitchen's swinging door she found Everett sitting, ax-less, on the living room couch.

“Hey,” he said, standing up. “I hope you don't mind . . .”

“That you sat on my couch? No. I hope you don't mind that you'll be
sleeping
on it tonight,” Win said. There was a third bedroom at the cabin, one that their grandfather had turned into a study many years before, but Win knew, from experience, that the fold-out couch in it was almost comically painful to sleep on. Everett would do much better to bed down in the living room for the night. “Really, you're welcome to stay,” she said, gesturing at the overstuffed couch. “Unless you decide to drive back, and I think it's a little late for that, don't you?”

“Probably,” Everett agreed. “Especially since I don't know these roads that well.” He pushed his light brown hair out of his light brown eyes. He looked both shy and sleepy at the same time.

And Win, who soon discovered that Poppy and Everett hadn't had dinner yet, started to make it for them while they unloaded the car. When the grilled cheese sandwiches were browning in the pan and the tomato soup was bubbling in the pot, she stuck her head out the kitchen door to check on their progress. Everett was carrying one of Poppy's suitcases into the cabin, and looking at it, Win cringed reflexively. It was overpacked, bulging at the sides, and something—a bathrobe, she thought—was trailing out of it. Soon, she knew, that bathrobe would be flung, carelessly, over a piece of her furniture, most likely the living room couch. But just then, Win saw what Poppy was carrying into the cabin, and her jaw dropped.

“Poppy, you
didn't
bring him. You know I'm allergic to him,” she said, pointing at Sasquatch's pet carrier.

“Of course I bought him,” Poppy said, mystified. “What else was I supposed to do with him?”

“Leave him with a friend?”

“Win, I can't leave him with someone else. You know that,” Poppy said, looking wounded.

But Win was already heading back into the kitchen, and already convinced her eyes felt itchy.

W
in, I don't need this many towels,” Poppy protested, as her sister filled her arms with towels from the cabin's linen closet later that night. “
Nobody
needs this many towels.”

“You never know,” Win said, adding another bath towel, hand towel and washcloth to the stack. She was in full bed-and-breakfast mode now, Poppy saw, and she made a mental note to suggest this career to Win if her teaching job ever fell through.

“Now, what else do you need?” Win asked.

“
Nothing
else. And stop treating me like I'm a guest. I'm your sister, remember?”

“I remember,” Win said, giving the towels Poppy was holding a final pat and closing the closet door. “But what about your friend Everett?” she asked, lowering her voice, because they were in the hallway and Everett was no more than ten yards away from them, hunkered down on the living room couch she and Win had just made up for him. “Do you think he needs anything else?”

“You mean other than the thirty-six towels you've already given him?” Poppy asked.

Win nodded.

“No, Win,” Poppy whispered. “We've already fed him
and
given him a place to sleep. He's a man. He's not that complicated. He doesn't need anything else.”

“All right, well, then what about your feline friend?” Win asked, with what was probably an unconscious wrinkling of her nose.

“Sasquatch? Come see,” Poppy said, leading her down the hallway to the open door to the guest room, where the cat in question could be seen lounging, luxuriously, on one of the twin beds. “Sasquatch,” Poppy announced, “has got the world by the tail.”

“It certainly looks that way,” Win said, with a little sigh, and Poppy wondered, for the thousandth time, how her sister could be so immune to Sasquatch's insouciant charm. But, alas, she was. Now, for instance, Win starting clearing her throat, and when Poppy asked her what was wrong she said, “Nothing. It just . . .” She rubbed her neck. “It just feels a little scratchy, that's all.”

“Are you going to be okay?” Poppy asked, with what she hoped was the appropriate amount of concern. Privately, she was of the opinion that Win exaggerated her cat allergy.

“I'll be fine,” Win said. “I'll just take some Benadryl. But, Poppy . . . does he really have to stay here for the whole summer?”

“
Yes,
Win. He really does,” Poppy said, feeling hurt all over again. “And I've already told you, I'll stay on top of his shedding. I mean it. Girl Scout's honor,” she added, raising her hand.

“You were never a Girl Scout, Poppy.”

“No, but you were. And you totally rocked that green sash with all the badges on it,” Poppy said, pulling her down the hallway so that they were standing outside the door to Win's bedroom. “Now go to sleep,” she added, giving her sister an affectionate push in the direction of her bed. But as she was doing this, something in Win's room caught her eye.

“Win, you're not still doing this, are you?” she asked, walking over to her sister's dresser. She frowned as she examined the objects arranged on top of it. There was a photograph of Win and Kyle, taken at a Fourth of July parade, a set of ticket stubs from the Minnesota State Fair, and a paper coaster from Kieran's, the little Irish pub down the street from the apartment they'd lived in after they'd gotten married.
So she was still doing this,
Poppy thought. Still arranging these little shrines to her marriage. A marriage that had now been over for longer than it had lasted.

But Win, as if knowing how short it would be, had saved everything from it—every photograph, every postcard, every memento—and put them all in neatly labeled cardboard boxes that Poppy referred to, privately, as “the marriage files.” Periodically, Win would take things out of the boxes and arrange them on her dresser top. Sometimes, they would be random things. But most of the time, they would all be part of a larger theme. Like now, for instance, the theme was obviously summer, or more specifically, the last summer Win and Kyle had spent together. And this would have been sweet, too, Poppy thought, fingering the ticket stubs to the state fair, if it wasn't also, at the same time, a little . . . well
, morbid
. She looked at Win now and shook her head.

“
What?
What's wrong with my doing this?” Win asked, defensively. “These are just some memories, that's all.”

“There's nothing
wrong
with it,” Poppy said. “It's just . . .” She paused, trying to find the right way—the kindest way—to put this into words. “Look, don't get me wrong,” she said, finally. “I
loved
Kyle. You know that. And I
loved
the two of you together. And by all means, Win, keep a picture of him out, or a picture of the two of you out. But this stuff”—she indicated the dresser top—“put this stuff away. Otherwise you're going to be like that
character in the Dickens novel we had to read in high school. Remember her? What was her name? The woman who used to wear her old wedding dress all the time and—”

“Miss Havisham,” Win said, impatiently. “Her name was Miss Havisham. And the novel was
Great Expectations
. And I doubt, very much, that you read the whole thing.”

“I
definitely
did not read the whole thing,” Poppy said, laughing, and her laughter seemed, miraculously, to break the tension that had been building between them. “But I still remember her character. And I don't want you to be like her.”

“I'm not like her,” Win insisted. “I just like to keep things. And organize things. And . . . and remember things. Remember
him
. And I know you think that it shouldn't be that hard. That I should be able to just hang a picture of him on the wall and be done with it. But it's not like that. It's more . . .
complicated
than that.”

“Even now? I mean, Win, he died three years ago,” Poppy said, softly.

“Three years is
not
a long time. Not in the general scheme of things.”

Poppy was ready to argue this point, but then she changed her mind. After all, who was she to be giving Win advice? Who was she, in her current position, to be giving
anyone
advice? So she hugged her sister instead and said, “You know what? You're right. Three years isn't a long time. Pay no attention to me. If it weren't for you, I'd be homeless right now. Seriously, I'd be sleeping in a bus shelter in Minneapolis.”

L
ater, back in the bedroom she'd spent so many summers in, Poppy puzzled over its dimensions. Had she gotten bigger or had the room gotten smaller? Neither one, she decided. She hadn't grown so much as a centimeter since she'd last stayed
here, and the room, well, the room hadn't shrunk, obviously; not when everything in it—except for Sasquatch, on one of the beds, and her boxes, piled unceremoniously in one of the corners—was exactly the same as it had been before. There was the twin bed and dresser set, made of a honeyed pine with decorative acorns carved into them, there were the blue-and-white-checked curtains and bedspreads and window seat cover, and there was the funny little bedside table lamp, whose iron base was the figure of a bear climbing a tree.

And suddenly, Poppy was seized, for the second time that night, with the sensation of having entered a time capsule of her childhood. She walked over to the bookshelf now, and randomly pulled out a book. Nancy Drew's
The Secret of the Old Clock
. It had belonged to her grandmother when she was a child. Poppy flipped it open, read the first page, and smiled. She put it back, and continued her tour of the room, opening one of the dresser's top drawers—it still smelled vaguely of mothballs—and running her fingers over the robins-egg blue dish on the dresser top; the very one she and Win had used to keep their beaded bracelets in.

Poppy wandered around the room a little more, and when her curiosity had been satisfied, she went and sat down on the window seat, a favorite girlhood haunt of hers, especially on rainy days. Tonight, though, she felt pensive. And not just about her sudden move, but about what she'd said to Win, too, about keeping all of those reminders of Kyle on display. Had she been too hard on her, she wondered now, too judgmental? After all, if Win had saved everything from her marriage, she at least had a place to
put
it all. Poppy, on the other hand, was essentially homeless. And then there was the question of whether the things she'd brought with her—she looked now at the rather pathetic collection of suitcases, boxes, and bags jumbled in the corner—
were even
worth
keeping. She reached over and flipped open the lid of one of the cardboard boxes and then poked around in it a little. She found a waffle iron she'd never used before, an old high school yearbook, and a tennis racket with broken strings.
Perfect,
she thought. Perfect because these useless items seemed somehow to sum up the absurdity that had become her life. Almost thirty years on this earth, and she was still dependent on her sister for such useful things as grilled cheese sandwiches, clean towels, and the toothpaste she'd brushed her teeth with that night. And those were just the
little
things she'd needed from her sister. Because more than once in Poppy's life, Win's love and support had kept her going when it had seemed that nothing else would.

Now she pulled her knees up under her chin, and wrapped her arms around her legs. She watched, idly, as a daddy longlegs navigated the other side of the window screen, and wondered how Win had gotten so far ahead of her. But it wasn't only Win, of course, who was ahead of her. It was other people her age, too. People who had homes, hobbies, vacation plans, cars, careers, spouses, children . . .
lives,
she realized.
Real
lives. She'd sat by and watched as all of her friends, and Win, too, had chosen careers, or found work that they'd liked, and invested energy in relationships, or marriages, or families. What was
wrong
with her? Why wasn't she able to be like them? And an image of her at sixteen came, unbidden, to her mind. She was sitting on the fire escape of their old apartment building in Minneapolis, crying, her hair tangled, the strap on her sundress torn. She tried to push the image away. She wouldn't think about that now, not if she could possibly help it.

And Sasquatch, as if on cue, chose this moment to leap from the bed he was lying on onto the window seat, and to bump his
head against her hand in a signal that he wanted to be petted. He had an uncanny ability to sense when she was feeling down—which, lately, seemed to be most of the time. She smiled and stroked him under his chin. “I don't know why I'm complaining, Sasquatch,” she said now, “not when I've got you in my life.” He blinked, seeming to take this compliment as his due, which of course it was. Since Poppy had adopted him as a neighborhood stray when she was sixteen, he'd been one of the few constants in her life. The one person—because to her he was more person than animal—whom she'd never disappointed, and who had never disappointed her, either.

Now, with Sasquatch purring contentedly, she felt herself begin to relax for the first time that day. She'd read somewhere that people with dogs or cats had lower blood pressure than people without them, and she believed it. She felt a little more of the tension ebb out of her body. She wouldn't think about . . . well, she wouldn't think about a lot of things right now. But she
especially
wouldn't think about the expression on Win's face when she'd told her she would need to stay with her for the summer. Because for one second—one split second—she'd seen what Win was thinking. And what she was thinking was,
Oh, Poppy, not again.
Please tell me you haven't screwed up again.

She petted Sasquatch behind his ears, and noticed, not for the first time, that his fur had turned whitish around his eyes and mouth. He was still a perfectly beautiful cat, though, his fur a lovely shade of gray with white front paws that made him look as if he were wearing boots, and eyes the color of the Caribbean Sea. She didn't know exactly how old he was. The veterinarian she'd taken him to when she'd adopted him had guessed he'd been around two or three years old, which would make him around fifteen or sixteen now. But this—Sasquatch's aging—was
another
thing she wouldn't think about, for the simple reason that the thought of her life without him was, well,
unthinkable
.

Besides, she decided, he would like it here this summer. At first, he might miss their old apartment in Minneapolis. He was an indoor-outdoor cat, and there he'd had a windowsill in the kitchen he'd liked to sun himself on, and a whole backyard in which to while away the afternoons. It would be different here, of course. In the city, the greatest threat to Sasquatch, from the animal kingdom at least, had been an irritable skunk or a mangy raccoon. Here, he was clearly not at the top of the food chain. There were fox, coyotes, timber wolves, and even mountain lions, though the latter, she knew, were rarely sighted.

Still, he could go outside here, as long as she watched him like a hawk. No, she corrected herself. As long as she watched the
hawks
like a hawk, because for them, Sasquatch might be just another meal, and thinking about this, she suppressed a little shudder. In the next moment, though, she scooped him up, and deposited him on the end of one of the twin beds. It was time for both of them to be getting some sleep. And after she'd dug her nightgown out of a suitcase and changed into it, and gotten into bed and turned off the lights, she did what she always did at night when she was feeling out of sorts. She searched around under the covers with her foot until she found Sasquatch, a warm, solid lump at the end of the bed, and then she wedged her foot beneath him, and sighed, contentedly.

Win didn't understand how important to her he was, she thought, wriggling her foot. She never would. But if she thought Poppy was willing to just stash him away at a friend's house for the summer, she was mistaken. And her final thought before she fell asleep that night was:
Sasquatch is staying.