The Almost Sisters

by Joshilyn Jackson

  All three of them exchanged approving glances, nodding to one another in parental solidarity. I stood outside the moment, still only secretly a budding member of that club.

  Alston said, “I almost don’t blame the kids, after the things Miss Martina implied. . . .”

  It was a delicate, sideways query, but a query nonetheless. Alston was approaching the subject of Birchie and the bones. This was why they were all here, wasn’t it? Grady looked decidedly uncomfortable, sticking his hands into his pockets, while Esme leaned in.

  “It was awful. I knew it would be like that. I didn’t want to go to church,” I said frankly. I turned to Esme and added, “It’s why we weren’t at Redemption last Sunday. Wattie and Birchie didn’t even walk down to the vegetable stand this week or go shop for yarn. They felt unwelcome.”

  As I spoke, Rachel dropped all pretense that she was working and joined the group. So far she’d been remarkably staunch about not questioning me. She hadn’t asked about the bones, not even obliquely, once she’d seen that Lav wasn’t in danger. It was as if she had entered into the conspiracy without needing to know what it was, trading silent unasking for the haven of Birchie’s house while Jake was MIA. Well, he was found now, and Alston had turned the conversation to the most essential question.

  “I hope Miss Wattie knows it isn’t true. We wanted her at church,” Esme said, then thought to add, “And you and Miss Birchie, too.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I’d visited Redemption plenty of times, and Birchie worshipped there every other week now, but we were welcomed on day passes, because Wattie loved us. “We knew that certain folks would be saying the worst things they could think of, and what could we do? Look what happened when we did go to First Baptist. Martina knew very well she was asking questions that Birchie’s not allowed to answer.” In an aside to the Franklins, I added, “Her grandson is a policeman. Cody Mack?”

  Franklin nodded. “I know him.” His tone was cool and so carefully neutral. He did know Cody, then, down to the bone.

  “What do you mean she’s not allowed to answer?” Esme asked.

  Alston chimed in, “For legal reasons?”

  I had come to the meat of it now, and all three of them had eager eyes. So did Rachel, for that matter. Well, they were human, and this was juicy.

  “That’s part of it,” I said. “But look at her.”

  We all looked, and maybe it was a good thing that Birchie wasn’t at her best this morning. Just now she was making shooing hands toward her feet, and Wattie stood in profile, whispering in Birchie’s ear.

  “What’s she doing?” Esme asked.

  I wasn’t positive, but I could guess. “She’s trying to get the sex rabbits to stop . . . well, doing what rabbits do.”

  “Sex rabbits!” Grady said.

  “Yes. She’s hallucinating,” I said. “This disease makes people see things—usually animals or people. Also, it messes with memory. The police could ask her about the bones five times, but they might get five different answers. Who knows which answer would be true? If any. We can’t let her incriminate herself when we have no way of knowing what’s real and what the Lewy bodies are telling her to say.”

  “Dear Lord, how terrible,” Alston said. She put a kind hand on my arm and added in a confidential tone, “I knew things were not right with Miss Birchie at the Fish Fry, when she said the P-word and . . .” She trailed off.

  It took me a second to realize what the “P-word” was. A couple of fouler possibilities ran through my head before I realized that Alston meant “penis.” It was a medical term, but when Birchie used it to describe a piece of associate pastor that was being put to an illicit use in the choir room? It was profane enough to earn the abbreviation.

  I nodded and said, “She may never be able to tell us the whole story.”

  More spin, but not dishonest. Most mornings, given a good sleep and a nice breakfast, Birchie seemed herself. But I had no way of knowing how many more good mornings Birchie would be granted. It wasn’t even 10:00 a.m. today, and she was already shooing rabbits. If the police questioned Birchie on a bad day, she might well say anything.

  “So you don’t even know?” Esme asked, surprised, looking back and forth between me and Rachel.

  “Nope. Not a clue,” Rachel said honestly. I shook my head, somewhat less honestly.

  “And Wattie?” Grady asked.

  “Nope,” I lied staunchly, looking Grady right in the eye.

  “You asked her?” Esme wanted to know, all pretense that this was anything but a straight-up recon mission dropped now that I was dishing out the goods directly. It wasn’t very southern of me.

  “Of course!” I said, more comfortable now. I’d told the lie that mattered, the one I had to tell to protect my grandmother and her oldest, dearest friend. Everything I had left to say was pure gospel. “Between you and me? I would have done exactly what Wattie did. I would have helped Birchie move that trunk if she’d asked. The law be damned. She’s sick, and Wattie loves her.” Three small-town Baptists, and they were so interested they didn’t so much as blink at the mild profanity. “I honestly don’t think it matters who’s in that trunk or how they got there. Not now. I’ve accepted that I may never know why either. . . .” My voice broke, and it wasn’t spin. I wanted to know the why. I wanted Birchie to tell me. But even if she never did, what I had to say next I believed with my whole being. “I do know Birchie, though. I know her character. So do you, and so does Wattie, and so does this whole town. She’s been the same person for almost a century. Something bad happened in the middle, but a box of bones can’t wipe away ninety years of Birchie being who she is. Whatever she did, or knew about, or kept secret, I forgive her. It’s too late for any other course. She’s very old, and she’s too sick now to explain or defend herself. So I forgive her anything that needs forgiving, and I’m going to defend her. So is Wattie. We’re not going to hide in the house like we’re ashamed of her. We are going to help Birchie go on about her business for as long as she can, and we won’t let people question her or judge her. Wattie won’t have it. I won’t have it. It won’t do.”

  Those were Birchie’s power words. I said them for her, using her authority and her inflections, and Alston’s chin came up in response to them. Esme reached out and squeezed my shoulder.

  “Good for you,” Esme said, and Grady echoed, “Good for you both.”

  “Of course we all know your gramma. I have known Miss Birchie my whole, whole life.” Alston’s eyes were shiny, and the whites pinked as she spoke.

  “Good for you what?” Lavender said. She was back with Punchkin.

  Alston gave her head a little shake. She smiled at Lavender and took Punchkin’s leash. “Never you mind, young lady. You have work to do! And here I am standing here chattering and letting my heart rate drop.”

  “Oh, yes, us, too,” Esme said. “Grady’s doctor says he needs to walk at least two miles every day.”

  They paused only to exchange greetings with Birchie and Wattie, and then Esme and Grady hurried back toward their house, disappearing around the corner. Alston took off at a good clip, too, but poor old Punchkin lagged behind her, suffering. After a few hampered steps, she stopped and looked down at him with fond exasperation. He immediately flopped onto his butt again. In Birchville gossip was called “news,” and having some was social currency. I’d just handed Alston and the Franklins big fat wads of it to spend, and gossip waited for no exhausted dog. Alston picked him up and tucked him under her arm like a hairy clutch purse, then bustled away up the street.

  We all went back to work. Alston must have gotten on her phone the second she was out of sight, because not ten minutes later Darnette and Larry Pearson came out of their pink brick ranch, set catty-corner across the street from Martina. They were each toting a comfy padded chair from their back patio. They went right to Birchie and Wattie and set them up in the shade, then stood chatting with them.

  I hoped no one would ask Birchie questions she ought n
ot to answer. Especially since she was already seeing rabbits. Wattie was right there in case someone tried, and I’d been as clear as I could be with Alston and the Franklins both. I kept picking toilet-paper bits, staying out of the town’s way as it churned and wavered. The air felt charged with a hundred simultaneous phone calls zooming through the airways overhead. The chairs were a good sign, though, especially since the Pearsons had chosen to sit in the center section last Sunday. This might shift them to Birchie’s side.

  For the next half hour, even the most sedentary Baptists from both churches had sudden urges for midmorning walks that took them right past the Mack house. Most of these folks had not personally witnessed the lid of the old trunk swinging open. They had only heard about the bones, the skull with its empty eye sockets and its telltale stove-in dome. Hearing was not the same as seeing.

  Here in the sunny yard, it was hard for folks to imagine Birchie with a hammer or Wattie stealing a car. I was having trouble imagining these things, and I’d witnessed Wattie’s crash into the mailbox. I’d tucked Birchie’s bare feet into soft socks and watched her do the Tomahawk Chop, her blue eyes blank and unsorry. It all seemed like a bad dream now, as folks from both churches came to rally around them.

  I stopped working and simply watched when the first cars pulled up and parked. They were full of folks who lived too far to walk. They came anyway, not bothering with the pretense of happening by. I counted emissaries from more than thirty families, many of them First Baptist folks who had taken center seats on Sunday. We even got RaeAnn Leefly, who I’d seen in the pews behind Martina. She was stiff and uncomfortable at first, but she unbent as Birchie asked about her shingles and her youngest girl, who was having marriage trouble in Montgomery. Birchie, brain-sick as she was, was so hip-deep in the day-to-day life of Birchville that she remembered. Maybe it was Wattie, whispering, remembering for her, but there was no doubting the care behind the questions.

  It was doing Birchie good to be out among friends again. Her little blue eyes were bright, and I kept hearing her ladylike trill of a laugh as we finished up. I could still see occasional movement in the curtains. Martina Mack could not be enjoying this now. The pleasure of watching us sweat and pick in her yard must be souring in her mouth. Good.

  “They can work a crowd, though, can’t they?” Rachel whispered to me, and I nodded.

  But it was more than that. My grandmother and Wattie had been a joint force in the lives of all these people. A force for good. They had brought handmade blankets to welcome new babies and warm pans of ham-and-potato casserole to countless funerals. Birchie owned the land their stores were on, and in lean years she’d helped them keep their businesses, in some cases their homes. Wattie’s husband had been the pastor at Redemption for decades, and Wattie had pastored right beside him, teaching Sunday school, counseling brides, sitting with the grieving.

  The yard was filled, people spilling out into the road, and I realized I had never seen so many members of these two congregations intermingled. It looked like Birchie and Wattie were holding court under the puffball tree, seated side by side with lifted chins and crossed ankles. A steady stream of pilgrims brought them smiles and news and, in Lois Gainey’s case, a huge plate of muffins. Birchie and Wattie took all these offerings as their simple due, these little old ladies acting as the hinge between the two communities gathering in the yard. They were the human overlap.

  Inside me I was growing a boy who belonged here in this yard. Today, in this unrepeated hour, the Mack lawn looked like his birthright.

  A station wagon pulled up, packed to the brim with the enormous Ridley family. The kids spilled out of the back with gallon jugs of ice-cold lemonade and a Tupperware container full of homemade gingersnaps. They started pouring drinks and passing out the cookies.

  Little Denise Ridley ran to me, braids bouncing, carrying a bathroom-size waxy Dixie Cup covered in flowers. She handed the tiny portion of lemonade to me with an equally tiny cookie.

  “Thank you, hon,” I told her.

  I put the cookie in my mouth. I drank the cup, all the while looking at a congregation my son belonged in, knowing that it existed only in this moment. I swallowed, and I felt like I was sharing in a spicy, tart communion, strange and rare. It was a taste of the world as I wanted it to be.

  Inside the house the drapes twitched. The world as it actually was, present and watching. This peace, this beauty, was temporary. The world as it was—it was coming for us still.

  18

  Walking home, Rachel lagged behind in a way that felt purposeful, making significant eyebrows at me. All I could think was, What now? This morning had felt like a patch of sweet, clear air I’d stumbled into, untainted by my troubles. I wanted to stay there and go on breathing it. When Rachel plucked at my sleeve to keep me with her, an image popped into my head: a misty-blue-sky picture that kept showing up in my Facebook feed. That meme had a cloudy-white font, and it burbled something about how God never gave a person more than they could handle. I had a sudden, irrational urge to ask Rachel to excuse me for a sec. Just long enough for me to find every friend who had ever shared that thing and smack them right upside their smug heads.

  I resigned myself to her pace, though, and Rachel slowed even more. She really had to work to drop back behind Birchie and Wattie. They walked arm in arm, pacing themselves as they toddled slowly home. Jake and Hugh were in front, their lead hampered because they were carrying Frank Darian’s long ladder at either end. Lav had gone ahead to walk at the very front with her dad, not even pretending to help carry the ladder, chatting Jake’s ear off.

  I matched Rachel’s snail pace, and when we were so far back that we were definitely out of earshot, she finally spoke.

  “Jake told us that you called him.” Her gaze was down, and her cheeks went faintly pink. “I wanted to say thank you.” It wasn’t what I’d expected. I had meddled, Rachel style, in her sacrosanct, closed life. I’d hoped Jake wouldn’t tell her and Lav, because I didn’t need Rachel’s flared nostrils and an icy invitation to step out of their business. “He wants us to go to counseling. So we’ll see. We’re going home tomorrow to start sorting through the paper part of the mess at least.” Not just a thank-you, but actual information about her life. The downside of her life. I’d always been first on her call list when Jake surprised her with a cruise or Lav made the honor roll, but she kept her sadness to herself. Maybe this was her good news, though, the best bright side she had available. Even so, the slow pace of our walk felt newly companionable. She snuck a peek at my face and said, “There’s already an offer on the house, so that’s good. Not surprising. It’s waterfront. We have to decide what to do next. You mentioned before that we could stay at your place for a little. . . .”

  “Of course,” I said. “Just promise me you won’t reorganize my closets.”

  Rachel chuckled and linked her arm with mine. “I’ll try not to.”

  She was a head taller than me, and it pulled us both off balance. Still, I kept her arm as we made our way out of the neighborhood, walking back toward the square. For the first time in our long near sisterhood, we felt strangely even. Rachel wasn’t lofting her least-fucked-up trophy and smiling down at me, offering succor. I wasn’t holding it either. Neither of us was even making a grab for it.

  I was under no illusions that this would last. Rachel would get her life on track, spearheading economic and emotional counseling for her family. She’d go back to work and be amazing; she’d been a hellishly efficient wedding planner in her pre-Lavender years. If anything, she’d honed that skill set after she went full-time wife and mother. I hoped her marriage would survive, for Lavender’s sake, but if Rachel divorced Jake, it would be so perfectly done it would make Gwyneth Paltrow’s conscious uncoupling look like a bar brawl. I had no doubt that Rachel: The Comeback would be an epic, sweeping story, with multiple morals and endless opportunities for her to explain them to me, but I didn’t think it would bother me quite as much post-Birchville.

&n
bsp; We were coming up on the park on the back side of the square. Jake and Hugh turned left, to go around on the side that would put them closer to the Darian house. Birchie and Wattie turned right, and Lavender dropped back to join them. Rachel and I were still behind, and now I was the one who kept our pace overslow. I wanted, in this rare moment of Rachel being vulnerable, to make some amends of my own.

  “Rachel? I’m sorry Violet looks like you,” I said. “She’s not based on you, but”—and this was hard for me to say—“I wanted her to be pretty. You’re what pretty looks like in my head.”

  That did make her smile, but not the irritating one that seemed to beam down on me from Olympus. She squeezed my arm a little tighter.

  “Really? That’s sweet. I thought you drew her like that to make fun of me,” she said. “She’s so stupid. What girl goes skipping down an alley that looks like that?”

  “It’s a metaphor,” I said. “But apparently I do, because she’s actually kinda based on me.”

  We walked on, turning right to follow Birchie, Wattie, and Lav back to the house, and Rachel asked, “Do you think they’re lovers?”

  “No, I really don’t,” I said, though it was a popular theory on the Violence in Violet forums.

  Ship-nerds who wanted them to be in love argued bitterly with the Jekyll-and-Hyde dorks who thought Violet turned into Violence when threatened. There was a third faction who thought Violence wasn’t real, just an extension of Violet’s will. A smaller set still thought Violet wasn’t real. That was a huge stretch, but they’d written reams and reams “proving” Violence had invented her to have an excuse for blowing the planet to smithereens.

  I got asked about these theories all the time at cons and on my fan page, but I always said people had to make their own decisions. In my head, though? Violence was real, and Violet had to be separate because I really did see myself in Violet. I wanted Violence, who ate people and eventually destroyed Earth, to be separate from me.