The Story Sisters (25 page)

F
OR MONTHS
A
NNIE
had been feeling exhausted and out of sorts. Elise insisted she go to the doctor. Tests were run, and she was diagnosed with leukemia, stage four. After her second treatment, her hair began to fall out. She went to a wig shop on Madison Avenue with her mother and cousin and decided to become a blonde. She and Elise and Natalia had laughed so hard everyone in the shop thought they were mad. It was an uncharacteristically wild decision. When Annie came home and presented herself, Claire too had laughed out loud. It was such a delight to hear Claire laugh again in the middle of her great silence that Annie almost felt being bald was worth the price of that glorious sound. Claire raced off to get a magazine. She returned with a photo of a
Vogue
model with the very same hairstyle. Annie laughed too. “Is that what I look like?” They couldn’t stop laughing. “Some bombshell,” Annie said of herself. Claire wrapped her arms around her mother. “Some blondes are tough, you know. They fight and they win,” Annie assured her, even though she knew from the lab reports that that was not likely to be true.

S
HE PUT OFF
returning Pete Smith’s call. When they finally met again for lunch, she tried to pick up the check. After all, she was the employer. Smith wouldn’t hear of it. He felt wound up in some foolish way when he was with her. He’d been looking forward to seeing her again and had been strangely determined about calling her even after she canceled several appointments.

“Lunch is on me,” he insisted.

They squabbled over the bill, but in the end Annie gave in. It was nice to have someone be concerned about her, even if it was only in regard to a sandwich and a cup of coffee. She didn’t kid herself into thinking any man could actually be interested in her. They went outside and he still hadn’t said anything, so she knew the news about Elv was bad. He had no choice but to tell her the truth.

Pete Smith drove a Volvo. He liked it because it was dependable, even though it had logged more than a hundred thousand miles. He was a great believer in safety. He believed in keeping his personal life personal, such as it was, or at least he had until recently. But now he had the urge to tell Annie everything about himself. Instead he handed her the address in Astoria. He found out more about the Storys than Annie would have ever imagined. That was what happened once you started digging around.

“She’s with him?” Annie asked.

Pete nodded. “You won’t like the way she’s living.”

Annie thanked him and handed him a check. “I didn’t expect to,” she said.

S
HE FOUND THE
street in Queens, but first she went to a coffee shop to settle her nerves. The restaurant was grungy, but at least the coffee was hot. The waitress was a young Dominican woman, very businesslike and pretty. Annie left her a five-dollar tip.

Two old woman were sitting on a bench by the bus stop. Annie showed them a photo of Elv. They spoke to each other in Spanish, then one of them patted Annie’s arm. Elv lived across the street, in the brick building, first floor. Annie found the apartment, then had a spike of fear. She hadn’t thought what she might do if that man was there. He had a hold over Elv she didn’t understand. But now Annie had the element of surprise.

She knocked on the door. Nothing. Once more and the door opened wide enough for someone to peek out.

“What do you want?” a woman said.

It was Elv, half in a dreamworld. She had obviously just gotten high. She peered out. The door opened a bit farther, until she realized who it was. “You can’t be here,” she said, stunned. “You can’t just appear.”

The apartment was a mess. She wasn’t at all prepared. She tried to shut the door, but Annie grabbed it and held on. “Elv, please. Just let me in for a minute.”

“You should go away,” Elv said. “It’s been two years. You never even looked for me.”

“I did. I’m here. Just give me five minutes,” Annie pleaded. “That’s all.”

Elv shook her head. “It’s too late. You know it is.” Her side began throbbing. The ache never went away. Sometimes she curled up in Lorry’s arms and pleaded for something to take the pain away.

“Four minutes,” Annie offered. “Less time than it takes to boil an egg.”

They both laughed.

“Oh, so now I’m an egg,” Elv joked.

“Just give me three minutes,” Annie urged. “That’s a hundred and eighty seconds. You can time me if you want.”

Elv opened the door. There were a set of works and some wax paper envelopes on the coffee table. Annie watched as Elv quickly swept it all into a drawer. Elv sat down and lit a cigarette. She felt too much shame to look at her mother. “It’s usually cleaner than this.”

“I think you should come home. I’ve thought it over and it will be easy. Just pack up and come with me.”

Elv laughed, but her voice broke. “That’s why you’re here? Come on, Mom. Tell me how I ruined everyone’s life. Go on. You know you wish I was the one who had died.” She stubbed out her cigarette. “Tell me what a devious bitch I am.”

“Elv,” Annie said. She hadn’t expected to feel this way. “You have to leave him. That’s the first step.”

“You don’t get it. He’s not keeping me here against my will. It’s nothing like that.
I
don’t want to leave him.”

“I don’t understand—what has that man ever done for you?”

“That man loves me.” Elv’s fierce gaze met her mother’s. “He loves me for who I am.” Now that she really looked at her mother she was taken aback. “When did you become a blonde?” When Annie made some corny remark about being a gay divorcée, Elv’s heart sank. “It’s a wig,” she realized. “You’re wearing a wig.”

“I have leukemia.”

“No, you don’t.” Elv got up from her chair, agitated. She went to perch on the window ledge. She looked like a bird with broken wings. She grabbed another cigarette. She knew she shouldn’t have answered the door. “Did I do this to you?”

“Of course not,” Annie said, startled. “Elv, I have cancer. No one did it to me.”

Elv shook her head. Her eyes were rimmed with tears. She was bad luck. She’d always known that. He’d said that was why he was doing the things he did to her when he took her away in his car. He could tell she was bad and had to be punished. Elv was certain that Claire wasn’t bad, and that was why Claire was the one who needed to escape.

It had to be her. It was always her.

“You have to stay away from me,” she told her mother.

“Elv,” Annie said, distraught.

“This is just going to make you sicker. I can’t be who you
want me to be. Claire hates me, and I’ll just disappoint you. Don’t you see that? You have to let me go.”

“I don’t think I can.”

Elv turned away. “Don’t you think I wish it had been me? I can wish it from now until the end of time, but I can’t change it. I can’t bring Meg back.”

Elv was like a flower. She was closing up, the way flowers did at night, petal by petal. She lit her cigarette and exhaled a thin stream of smoke. “Just go.”

“Come home,” Annie said. She went to hug Elv, but Elv shifted out of her embrace. “You just have to get in the car with me. That’s all.”

“Walk away, Mom. I mean it. Forget about me.” Elv pulled herself together. She could do that when she needed to. She could hurt someone almost as much as she could hurt herself. “I don’t want to come back. I don’t even want to see you. Get out!” She went to the door and opened it. “If you come here again, I’ll call the police. I’ll say you’re harassing me. I don’t want you here. Forget you ever knew me.”

Annie went out into the hall. She heard the door close behind her. She’d done everything wrong. Elv was right. She had wished that Meg had been the one to survive. It was her deepest, most shameful secret; at least she had thought it had been a secret. But Elv knew she had been forsaken, and now it was too late. Elv was lost to her.

Annie noticed a figure at the end of the hall, wary, waiting for her to depart. That man had known she was there all along. He hadn’t come charging in, demanding she stay away from Elv the way Annie imagined he would. He didn’t have to. She belonged to him now.

Annie forgot where she had parked her car. She walked down the street, confused. The two old ladies she’d asked for help
were gone. A horn honked and she looked up. Pete Smith was parked on the corner. He signaled her over. Annie went to get into the Volvo. It was a relief to sit down, not to have to drive anywhere or think or be responsible.

“I didn’t have any other appointments.” Pete pulled into traffic. “I figured I might as well take a ride.”

“My car’s here,” Annie protested when he started to drive away.

“I’ll get it for you tomorrow. I’ll take the bus in.”

“You didn’t tell me she was a heroin addict,” Annie said accusingly.

“Annie, you knew,” Pete said. “You were just hoping you were wrong.”

She leaned her head against the seat and closed her eyes. They got off the highway and stopped at the diner. Pete ordered the Spanish omelet. Annie had coffee and grilled cheese, but this time she also ordered apple pie. “What the hell,” she said. “I won’t be able to eat tomorrow,” she explained. “I have chemo.”

“Every other Tuesday.” Pete Smith was an excellent researcher. He managed to convince people to tell him things they wouldn’t dare admit to anyone else. Plus he had learned how to get into hospital records, a fairly simple thing to do once you understood the system.

“Do you have a file on me, too? You seem to know everything. You don’t know how much I weigh, do you?”

Pete laughed and shook his head. “No.”

“Do you know this is a wig?”

He had to admit that he did.

Annie touched her head. “Is it a bad one?” That would be the kind of thing no one would tell you. But Pete Smith would.

“It’s a fine wig,” he said.

Annie leaned her elbows on the table. “Do you follow everyone who hires you?”

“Just you,” he said, making his intentions clear.

The tables around them were crowded, but they didn’t seem to care.

“You must be dumber than you appear,” Annie remarked. “Look at my life. It’s a disaster.”

“I had a daughter too,” Pete told her. “Everything went wrong. She overdosed. She was our only child.”

Annie looked up at him. “I’m sorry. What was her name?”

“Rebecca.”

“That’s pretty. I like that.”

He insisted on driving her home. Nightingale Lane looked deserted after the traffic in Astoria. Annie invited him in for a drink. Grateful, he followed her inside and asked for a whiskey. She looked around until she found some in a kitchen cabinet. It must have been Alan’s a long time ago. She poured herself a glass of Bordeaux. She was glad not to be alone.

The dog hadn’t barked when they’d come in, so after Annie brought the drinks into the living room, she excused herself and went to look in on Claire. She stood outside the bedroom door. She could make out the faint murmur of words. Claire was talking to Shiloh. It was the first time Annie had heard her speak since the funeral. Her voice was lovely, quiet and measured.

It had been a horrible day, but Annie was surprised to find that she was glad to be alive. She wanted to be right were she was, in between the moment of hearing Claire’s voice and the instant when she went back downstairs, ready for whatever happened next.

P
ETE WAS THERE
more often, helping around the house, driving her to doctor’s appointments through the summer and fall, spending
more time out in North Point Harbor than he did at his apartment in Westbury. Sometimes he made dinner. He had never cooked for anyone before. When he was married, his wife had done the cooking; and when he was alone, he figured it wasn’t worth the time to cook for one person. He was nervous, fearing he’d burn every meal, but as it turned out, he was a natural. He should have been a chef, Annie told him. Even picky Claire would eat the meals he made: lasagna, mushroom soup, his grandmother’s recipe for stuffed cabbage, a fragrant old-world dish.

It was there in the kitchen, while Annie cut up a loaf of bread and Claire fixed a salad, the dog stretched out at her feet, that Pete felt he had stumbled into the best part of his life. He didn’t know if he deserved it, but he wasn’t about to turn it down, despite the fact that there wasn’t going to be much time. Maybe that was why it had happened so fast between them. Or maybe he’d been in love with her all along, since that first time she came to his office looking for her daughter.

He started sleeping on the couch when the weather was bad or when their dinner stretched into the late hours. One night Annie came out from her bedroom wearing a robe.

“You can’t be comfortable,” she said. He was too tall for the couch. His feet hung off the edge.

“I am,” he told her. “I’m fine.”

“Well, I’m not. I’d be better off with you.”

He’d slept with her every night since, waking early to go back to the couch so Claire wouldn’t know. Annie laughed at him.

“Do you imagine she’ll think we’re too young to get serious?”

He was a man used to setting things right, but in this case there was nothing he could fix. He’d done the research, had spent nights searching the Internet. He’d talked to doctors and brought her records to experts in the city for second and third opinions.
Sometimes, when he came to the house, having stopped at the market for groceries on his way, he put off going inside. It was the bright hour of
before
. He wanted to hold on to that for as long as he possibly could. He’d been there once before. He’d lost someone he loved. He knew what happened next. The air was cold; he could feel it in his lungs when he breathed in, little ice crystals. He left the sacks of groceries in the car while he went to the garage for the shovel. He came back and cleared the walk, making a neat path from driveway to back door. His breath billowed into the air. He might have cried if he’d been another man, one who hadn’t buried his daughter, lived a solitary life, fallen in love so late in life.

By the time he went inside, the eggs he’d bought at the market had frozen in their shells. The world felt enchanted. Perhaps in this snowstorm they would sleep for a hundred years and wake consoled, young again. Annie was at the kitchen table, drinking tea. She had a scarf tied around her head. She’d been watching him through the window. It was growing late and the snow was turning blue in the darkening light. “I should hire someone to shovel the snow,” she said. “You might throw out your back.” Pete had a football injury from high school, but he was shy about it. It had happened so long ago he figured he should be completely healed.