The Weird Sisters (24 page)

And you might well be right.

She had not told us everything, of course, not nearly. She hadn’t told us how she’d been hiding the sick, dark feeling inside by burying it in dangerous fantasy. She hadn’t told us about Edward and the way she’d betrayed Lila. She had told us none of this.

Sisters keep secrets.

Because sisters’ secrets are swords.

But at that moment, we were thinking not of what Bean had done wrong, but how she could make it better. “It’ll be okay, Bean,” Rose said softly, her words as gentle as her fingers on our sister’s head. “We’ll make it okay.”

R
ose was waiting with a towel when our mother stepped out of the shower. She genteelly averted her eyes, but the angry red incision, hatched with dark thread, persisted in her mind. The empty space where her breast had been looked odder than a missing limb, Rose thought. More like a face without features, the absent nipple a missing mouth. Our mother winced as she lifted her arm for the towel, and Rose handed it to her, let our mother pat herself dry and then drape it carefully across her chest, ignoring the water pooling on the floor. She still could not raise her arm enough to fold a towel around herself or to tie the scarves that she wore to cover her head. The fabric had a tendency to loosen into sloppiness until one of us was annoyed enough to rewrap it for her. Rose stepped behind our mother and turned off the tap in the tub, which was still dripping. Our mother reached out with her good arm and wiped away the steam on the mirror.

“Do you want help?” Rose asked.

“No thank you, honey,” our mother said. She was staring at her reflection.

“I’ll be in the bedroom. I’ll help you with your exercises and we can put on new bandages.”

“Goody.”

Rose slipped outside the door, pulling it shut behind her, and as she moved, she saw our mother let the towel slip down to reveal her cockeyed chest, and place a bare hand across the emptiness of her skin.

It must be so strange, Rose thought. We had never made much trade in our breasts, small as they were on all of us, but to lose one? Or both? And our mother’s breasts, the ones that had fed us, against which we had cried when we were young. Oh, it was selfish of us to think it, but we missed them as well.

Sitting on our parents’ bed, so high that an old-fashioned step sat at the foot to aid entry, Rose felt the comforter sink down below her as she pulled the lotion and gauze out of the bedside table. Once, when she was a teenager, she had walked into the kitchen to find our mother, her hands in soapy dishwater, our father behind her at the sink, his hands cupped over her breasts possessively. He kissed her neck, whispered something in her ear, and they laughed. Rose had retreated, embarrassed not so much by the scene but by the way her inopportune entrance had violated their privacy. Now she wondered when they made love again, would her father kiss the scar? Caress the empty space?

When it happened to her—it no longer seemed a maybe—would Jonathan?

“I feel so much better,” our mother announced, coming into the bedroom. She held the towel in front of herself again as she lay down on the bed, leaning on Rose, grimacing slightly as she shifted toward the center. “But I’m sick of these stupid scarves. I wish my hair would grow faster.”

“We could get you hats. Or you could just not wear them at all. It’ll be long enough soon that it would just look like you cut it that way,” Rose said. She pulled the towel down carefully, preserving what little modesty remained in our relationship by exposing only the wound—it was still a wound, wasn’t it? Not yet a scar.

“I think it’ll be a long time before it looks like anything intentional.”

“Do you miss it?” Rose stretched our mother’s arm gently, moving it in the patient way the physical therapist had shown us.

“I do. I still haven’t gotten used to it—every time I look in the mirror I think it’s a skeleton in the reflection, not me.” Our mother took a deep, shuddering breath, and Rose saw tears in the edges of her eyes. “Well, maybe it’s for the best,” she said finally. “It’s impractical for a woman my age to have that much hair. It’s like the Sphinx’s riddle, isn’t it? We start with short hair, grow it long, and then cut it all off again. Haven’t you noticed that?”

“Noticed what?” Cordy asked, coming into the room and bouncing onto the bed enthusiastically, causing Rose to shoot her a scolding look. Cordy ignored it, rolling onto her side and propping herself up on one arm.

Our mother turned to her and smiled as Rose continued to manipulate her arm. “That older women never have long hair.”

“I think you’re still too young for the once-a-week hairdo,” Cordy said.

“You’re getting flour on the bed,” Rose said. “Are you baking again?”

Cordy peered at the spread. “It’s white. It doesn’t show. And yes—I’m making challah.”

“It smells good,” our mother said.

Rose squirted some lotion into her palm and rubbed her hands together before stroking them up and down our mother’s arm. She could feel the muscles beneath the gentle droop of age. Cordy sat up and held out her hand, and Rose poured lotion into her palm so we could rub her arms together.

“Now this is the life,” our mother sighed. “If I’d known I’d get treated like this, I’d have gotten sick years ago.”

“Gallows humor,” Rose said.

“No, if this were the life, we would be cabana boys and you’d be on a beach somewhere,” Cordy said.

“I could hardly keep up with a cabana boy nowadays,” our mother said. “I feel like all I’ve done for the past six months is lie around. I’m going to have muscle atrophy by the time this is over.”

“We’ll get you some servants to carry you around in a palanquin,” Cordy said. The phone rang, and she flopped backward into a seemingly impossible position, her pants slipping down to reveal her belly as she reached above her head for the receiver. Our mother gingerly stretched her arm up as Rose put on the new bandage.

“Hel-LO,” Cordy said. “Hi, Jonathan! How’s my favorite brother?” Rose’s eyes flicked to the clock. After midnight there. Unusual. A little flicker of panic zipped through her.

Cordy paused, wiggled her eyebrows at Rose. “We’re good. Getting Mom ready for bed.” She tucked the receiver against her shoulder and helped Rose as we pulled our mother to a sitting position, grabbed the white nightgown and tossed it to Rose, who pulled it over her head. “Uh-huh. She’s better. What’s up in England? Had any good tea lately?” There was a pause again, and she giggled. “Totally. Hey, isn’t it like a million o’clock there?”

Our mother gasped as Rose pushed her arm slightly too roughly into the sleeve of the nightgown. “I’m sorry.”

“Here, let me give you to Rose before she breaks Mom’s arm. See ya!” Cordy handed the phone to Rose and then tugged our mother’s nightgown down over the towel before pulling it out, like a magician pulling a cloth from a table.

Leaving Cordy plumping up the endless pillows our mother could never be without, Rose stepped out into the hallway.

“Are you okay?”

Jonathan laughed. “That’s my Rose. Always looking for the disaster.”

“Stop. You know it’s past your bedtime.”

“You always call me when it’s the middle of the night there. Turnabout is fair play.”

“I’m glad you called, actually. I was trying to get you last night, but you weren’t in. Can’t you get an answering machine?”

“I could. But that would spoil all the fun. I was in London at that conference, remember? Presenting my paper?”

“Oh, of course,” Rose said guiltily. She’d been so excited that she’d completely forgotten he was presenting. “How did it go?”

“It was great. I was awfully nervous, but once I started reading, it got much easier. And there were some wonderful questions afterward. Got to go to some good sessions, too. So why were you trying to call?”

Excitement swelled up in Rose and she forgot all about her careful wording. “I’ve got some really exciting news.”

“Do you? I do, too. Who goes first?”

“Me,” Rose said. “I’ve been jumping up and down since I heard.”

“There’s a mental image.”

“Metaphorically.”

“Disappointing. So what is it, love? It’s nice to hear you so happy.”

Rose went into her bedroom and closed the door, lay across the perfectly made bed. “I ran into Dr. Kelly at the pharmacy yesterday. Do you remember my telling you about her?”

“Sure. She was your favorite professor in college, right? Supervised your honors thesis? How is she?”

“Yes, that’s her. She’s fine. She’s getting ready to retire, actually, at the end of next year.”

“Oh.” He inhaled slowly on the other end of the line, and if Rose had been in any state of mind to hear it, she would have known that her plan was about to fall apart.

“She wants me to apply, Jonathan. She says they’ll take an internal candidate to be department head, and then there will be a tenure-track position open. And she said it was mine if I wanted it. She actually said that. Can you imagine? A year from now, I could be teaching at Barney.”

“I thought we’d talked about looking for somewhere else after next year,” Jonathan said. His voice was cautious, probing.

“We did. But this is Barnwell, Jonathan. I’ve always wanted to teach there, ever since I was a little girl. Isn’t it exciting? I know it sounds stupid, but it’s like a dream come true.”

“Yes, I guess it is.”

“You don’t sound happy.”

“I’m not
un
happy. I just . . . You’ve taken me a bit by surprise here. This isn’t the direction I thought we were heading in.”

“No, it’s not like we’d talked about it. But it’s so perfect. I could be near my parents, and you’d be so close to home, too, and I know Columbus would take you back—the provost said as much, even though you broke your contract. And it’s so much more affordable here than in the city. You could commute, and, well, it would just be perfect!” Rose could hear the hesitation in his voice, and she pushed through, forcing cheer into her own, as though she could inflate him with her excitement from miles away. She bit her lip and waited for his reply.

“It’s funny that you’re telling me this now, because the thing is . . .” He stopped, cleared his throat, laughed awkwardly. “It’s kind of ironic, really. I’ve been offered a visiting professorship.”

“Where?” Rose said, but her stomach was already souring. He was going to leave her. He was going to leave her alone.

“Here! It’s amazing. Two years. I’d be able to finish my research. I’ve got these amazing doctoral candidates to work with; I know we could finish and publish in that time. It’s incredible, really, Rosie. You wouldn’t believe the competition.”

“I didn’t even know you were applying,” Rose said, and she could hear how weak she sounded, and she hated herself for it. She sat up and leaned forward on the edge of the bed, her stomach pressing into her thighs.

Jonathan’s voice softened. “I didn’t want to upset you. You’re upset, aren’t you?”

Rose swallowed. “No, I’m happy. Happy for you.” It was a lie and he knew it.

“But I haven’t even told you, Rosie. They’re moving me into an apartment, so there will be room for you, too. You can come over and we’ll be Brits for two whole years.”

“In England.”

“That is the primary location,” Jonathan said. Tension thrummed behind his voice. “Think of it, Rose. It’s like a sign.”

“But we’re getting married,” Rose said, and it was more of a cry, her voice cracking in the last syllable.

“And we still are,” Jonathan said. “But it means you could come here, take a sabbatical.”

“I can’t. There won’t be a position open when we come back. Do you know how long I’ve waited for something to open up here?”

“Does it have to be Barnwell?”

“Does it have to be England?” she asked. She sounded ridiculous, whiny, childish, but she couldn’t stop herself.

“Rosie,” he said, and he sounded stern. “This is the chance of a lifetime.”

And it was. For him.

“For both of us,” he said. How well he knew her.

“You want me to come to England,” she said.

“No, you’re coming to England anyway. I want us to live in England. For a little while. Rose, you know what a coup this is for my career. And you know the odds of a position opening mid-year are so small. It’s perfect for me, and it’s perfect for you. You can write and get some articles published, and then we’ll find positions somewhere else. Somewhere that sees you for the incredible researcher and teacher you are.”

Rose said nothing.

“Rose, I’ve got to have you with me. I miss you so much. Every day I look at those stupid dreaming spires and I wish you were here to see them, too.”

“Jonathan, I don’t know,” she said. “I mean, my mother, and the wedding, and we were going to buy a house, and I . . .” She trailed off. It was so unfair. He knew how much she’d always wanted a job at Barnwell. And a tenure-track job at that. Security. No pulling up roots every two or three years to head somewhere else only to have to do it again. No wondering where she’d be living in a few years’ time, or what might happen if they couldn’t find jobs at the same place.

“You can’t live in Barnwell your whole life, Rose. There’s so much out there you’re missing. And it’s missing you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, her voice flat. Cold.

“You are so much more than that town. You’re so brilliant, and you’re such an amazing teacher. You know that. And you’d only learn more if you’d spread your wings a little and try out a few other places.”

“And my mother?”

“She’ll be okay. And you said it looks like Bean is sticking around. Let her keep the home fires burning for a while. You need to take care of yourself for once, Rose.”

“I don’t know.”

Silence hung across the line for a moment, and then he sighed heavily. “Look. We don’t have to make any decisions right now. I know what they said, but we don’t even know if you’ll get the position at Barney for sure, right?”

“Right,” Rose said carefully, wondering if she was ceding some important ground just by admitting that.

“We’ll think about it. And you’re coming out in a while to visit, right? You can see how you feel about it then. Have you bought your ticket yet?”