My mother wanted me to be a good sister to my own siblings. You’re all you’ll have left after I’m gone, she warned. But I wasn’t sure how to do that. I was troubled by the example she and my aunt set. Would history repeat itself in my own generation? Would there be warning signs, or would alienation strike out of the blue?
I never did see my aunt Jennifer again, and my mother passed away without ever telling me what had come between them. My other aunts wouldn’t tell me, either. Whatever it was had to be huge, though. It had to be enormous.
Years later, when I set out to write Invisible, I thought about that. What could come between two sisters who had once been so close? My imagination took flight. In writing this story, I would rewrite my own history. I would get to the bottom of the mystery that had haunted me all my life. Who had wronged whom? Had it been my aunt for committing some terrible infraction, or my mother for refusing to forgive her? I understood, or thought I understood, the power of family and the way silence could start out small, then filter down through the generations, taking on weight and substance and power. One way or another, I would work to understand my mother and why she kept her secret to the grave.
It proved difficult for me to come up with something plausible that could keep two sisters, who had once loved one another very much, apart. Everything I tried made no sense. My characters, Dana and Julie, kept pulling back together. They wanted to rely on each other, confide in each other. So was it really possible to excise someone so completely from your life? My mother evidently thought so, or at least, she had tried, but I wondered, Did her estrangement from her sister gnaw at her, tinge her dreams, and stalk her waking hours? As she watched me and my siblings grow up, did it remind her of all she had lost?
I remember returning home during my first college break. Everything seemed more intense—the autumn leaves burned with unusual brightness; the hardwood floors gleamed like gold. My mother’s homemade vegetable soup had never tasted more delicious. I’d only been away for a few months, but everything was colored with poignancy. I had already taken my first few steps away from home. I was becoming an adult and I would never again view my childhood home in the same, carefree way. Already I was pulling away from my younger siblings. Those complicated feelings, I thought, would be magnified for Dana, who would be coming home after many years of being away.
A homecoming to a large city—where people are always moving in and out—might go unnoticed. But someone returning to a small town, where everyone knows one another, and where loyalties and conflicts run deep, would have the right resonance. I decided to place my fictional small town in northern Minnesota, where I have spent the past twenty summers. In some ways, northern Minnesota feels like home to me; in other ways, it’s clear that I’m an outsider. It would be that way for Dana, too.
My first few attempts to reunite Dana and Julie were awkward. They were wary and watchful, and it was hard to believe that they had once been close. Would it have been that way between my mother and her sister, if they had ever met again? Now I began to think about things from my aunt’s perspective. What had it felt like to know that she had pushed her sister away? Were her dreams dark and fractured, too? I knew my aunt had made overtures to my mother, attempts at reconciliation that were shot down. At some point, my aunt gave up. Would it be like that for Dana and Julie?
Being capable of maintaining a long silence indicated that there was a dark side to both Julie and Dana. It would have to color their relationships with other people. Having been away for so long, Dana might find she had nothing in common with the people she had once known so well. She might not be able to rebuild old friendships, or rekindle a lost romance. Too much time might have passed and the differences between them were insurmountable. I wondered, Could you ever go home again?
Peyton showed me the world unfiltered, through her clear adolescent eyes. Like me, she would be bewildered by the estrangement between her mother and her aunt; she would wonder why her mother couldn’t tell her the truth, and she would resent Dana’s absence from her life. I loved the idea of a child who lived in the middle of the country dreaming of becoming a marine biologist. In many ways, Peyton is just like Dana. She, too, keeps the world at arm’s length. It was in thinking about this young girl who is overcome by loss but can’t talk about it, that I struck on the idea of having her begin her chapters musing on the one thing—the ocean—that she feels most passionate about, thereby revealing herself in the only way she can.
The ocean passages are among my favorite parts of the novel. Other than the occasional trip to the beach, I knew nothing about the sea or the life that inhabits it. During the day, I would write, and at night, I would read everything I could get my hands on about sea urchins, sharks, rays, and clownfish. The ocean is far more vast than I’d envisioned, inhabited by creatures I never knew existed. I was most astounded to learn that fish can behave in very human ways. The more I grew to understand these creatures, the more I grew to understand Peyton. And I saw how the ocean, like families, is much more than what is visible. There are all the undercurrents, the dark secrets that lie hidden beneath the surface. Some are washed ashore and reveal themselves. Others never come to light.
I’m cautious in mothering my own daughters. Talk to one another, I tell them. No one can understand you like your own sister, I say. I speak from personal experience. There is no one who understands me better than my own sister, no one with the same sense of humor, with the same perspective on the world. I know that, no matter what, my sister will always be there for me. In the end, I’ll never know what drove my mother and her sister apart. But my mother had been right: there is no one like your sister. I just wish she had been able to know that for herself.
READING GROUP QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Do you believe it is ever justified for a company to put people at risk? When, and how much risk?
2. What lengths would you go to for your sibling? Would you make the same choices Dana and Julie made?
3. Do you think of Peyton as a typical teenager? What makes her unique?
4. A major theme of Invisible is the idea of going home again. Has Dana outgrown her hometown? What does that mean to you?
5. If Dana’s sister had not died, do you believe she would have made the same crusade against nanochemicals? If she had returned to Black Bear for unrelated reasons, do you think she would have taken up this cause? Why or why not?
6. Is there a company or industry that you would want shut down? Why?
7. On page 280, Eric says to Peyton:
“Sometimes I feel like I’ve lost you, which is dumb.” He reached up and set his baseball cap facing forward again. “Because how can you lose something you never really had in the first place?”
Do you believe this is true?
8. Is Brian Gerkey a villain? Why or why not?
9. On pages 293 to 294, Dana narrates:
A tube of sunscreen poked out of my purse. I’d automatically started to apply it that morning and caught myself just in time. A new tube, an expensive brand filled with antioxidants. I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out. Was the danger in the manufacturing process, or in the product itself? Until I knew, I’d hold on to it, just in case. It would serve as a reminder for all the other things I’d have to be on the watch for.
What would you do if you found that you had to live your life constantly checking products to see if they contain something you believe harmful? People already do this for other things, like cholesterol, or sodium. How would you manage if every product you used had to be carefully reviewed?
10. If you knew you would survive, would you willingly donate a kidney if there were only a chance that the person you were donating it to would survive? If so, what would the chance have to be before you would agree to do it?
11. How are Dana and Julie alike? How are they different? How do siblings help shape your worldview and personality?
If you enjoyed Invisible, you will be mesmerized by all of Carla Buckl
ey’s powerful novels.
Please read on for sample chapters
THE THINGS THAT KEEP US HERE
BY CARLA BUCKLEY
Available now from Orion.
PROLOGUE
IT WAS QUIET COMING HOME FROM THE FUNERAL. Too quiet. Ann wished Peter would say something, but there was just the soft patter of rain and the wipers squeaking back and forth across the windshield. Even the radio was mute, reception having sizzled into static miles before.
As they crossed into Ohio, Ann turned around to see why Maddie hadn’t called it, and saw her seven-year-old had fallen asleep, her head tipped back and her lips parted, her book slipped halfway from her grasp. The first hour of their trip had been punctuated by Maddie asking every five minutes, “Mom, what does this spell?” Ann leaned back and teased the opened book from her daughter’s fingers, closed it, and put it on the seat beside Maddie. Kate hunched in the opposite corner, a tangle of brown hair falling over her face and obscuring her features, the twin wires of her iPod coiling past her shoulders and into her lap.
Ann turned back around. “The girls are asleep.”
Peter nodded.
“Even Kate. I don’t know how she can possibly sleep with her music going.”
He made no reply.
“Do you know I caught her trying to sneak her iPod into the church? I don’t think giving her that was such a great idea.” When Peter remained silent, she went on. “It’s just one more way for her to tune everyone out.”
He shrugged. “She’s twelve. That’s what twelve-year-olds do.”
“I think it’s more than that, Peter.”
He said nothing, simply glanced into the rearview mirror and flicked on the turn signal, glided the minivan around the slower-moving vehicle in front of them.
It was an old argument, and he wasn’t engaging. Still, there was something else lurking beneath his silence. She read it in his narrow focus on the highway and along the tightness of his jaw. “You all right?” Of course he wasn’t.
“Just tired. It was a long weekend.”
A long, horrible weekend. All those relatives crammed together in that small clapboard house, no air-conditioning, Peter’s mother wandering around, plaintively asking everyone where Jerry was. “I’m glad your brother made it.”
“Yep.”
Not yes, or yeah. Yep. He never talked like that. He was throwing up warning signs, telling her to back off. But fourteen years of marriage made her plow straight through anyway. “Everything okay between you two?”
“Sure.”
So he wasn’t going to tell her. “Bonni said she saw you and Mike arguing.”
He glanced at her. So handsome her breath snagged for a moment—the strong, tanned planes of his face and the beautiful blue-green of his eyes that Kate had inherited. Now he looked drawn and older than his forty years. He returned his attention to the road. She wanted to cup her hand to his cheek, but he was sending out those keep-away signals.
She crossed her arms. “Mike doesn’t think it was an accident.”
“Mike doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“He has a point, though. It is strange your father wasn’t wearing blaze orange.”
“What are you suggesting, Ann? Suicide by hunter? Give me a break.”
She should have, but she couldn’t let it go. The questions piled up inside her, three days’ worth of strangers whispering, three days of Peter’s mother tugging at Ann’s sleeve. “Things have gotten so bad with your mom, Peter. I had no idea. This morning, she told Maddie that her parents must be looking for her and that she’d better run along home. You should have seen the hurt look on Maddie’s face.” Ann shook her head. “It just breaks my heart. We can’t leave her like this.”
“Bonni will check in on her.”
“Checking in’s not enough. She needs round-the-clock care.”
The rain had stopped. A watery sunshine glinted through the clouds. Peter switched off the wipers. “I don’t want to talk about it. Especially with the girls in the car.”
“You mean the girls who are sound asleep?”
“Ann.”
Maybe she was pushing too hard. She leaned her forehead against the window and watched a hawk spin circles high above. “You sure you need to go into the field tomorrow? Maybe one of your students can go in your place.”
“I’ve got no choice. Hunters are nervous enough right now without me sending in some twenty-year-old.”
“Because of the bird flu?”
“Exactly.”
“Do you think you’ll find anything?”
He shifted position. “Probably. But it’s not an isolated case that’s a problem.”
“It’s a cluster of cases.”
“Right.”
The hawk grew smaller and smaller, a smudged dot that eventually disappeared, no doubt to perch on a branch somewhere and watch for prey. “I forgot to tell you, things were so rushed Friday, but that interview came through.”
“At Maddie’s school?”
She nodded. “I go in next week to meet with the principal. I keep thinking, what if I don’t get the job? Then I think, what if I do?”
“You’ll be fine.”
“I haven’t worked in, God, twelve years.”
“How hard can it be?”
She flashed him an irritated look, but he was staring straight ahead. “It’s not finger painting and Popsicle sticks, Peter.”
“I just meant I know you can do it.”
“It’s theory and history, too. What if I teach above their heads? What if they’re bored? What if Maddie hates me being her art teacher?”
“There must be some part of you that’s looking forward to it.”
Did she want to talk about this? “It’s the whole . . . thing. I’m not sure I can do it.”
“You mean art in general?”
“Exactly.”
He heaved a sigh. She heard the impatience in it. “It’s been a long time,” he said.
Nine years. An eternity. A blink.
“Maybe you’re ready, Ann.”
“In other words, I should be ready.”
He lifted his hands briefly from the steering wheel. I give up. “Whatever.”
The hills undulated by, the woods fiery red and burnt orange. She caught glimpses of barns and houses set high and solitary. She wondered about the people who lived there, if they were lonely.
“It’d be good for you to go back to work,” Peter said. “A fresh start.”
She nodded, distracted. They needed the second income, what with two college tuitions coming up. And everything had gotten so frighteningly expensive, especially gas. It was costing as much to fill up the minivan as it was to take everyone out to dinner and the movies.
“Actually.” He cleared his throat. “We could both use a fresh start.”
She turned to him, worried by the strangeness in his voice. “Okay.”
“Not okay, Ann. It hasn’t been okay for a long time.”
“What does that mean? What are you talking about?” But she knew. This quiet autumn day had suddenly become strange, queered by intensity and the feeling that something terrible was about to happen.
“I think we need some time apart.”
She stared at his profile, speechless, feeling her heartbeat accelerate. He was suddenly a stranger to her. The seatbelt slid down her arm, she was skewed so sideways. “You don’t mean that.”
“I have to.”
“I thought we were doing okay. Not good but . . . better.” Maybe this weekend had been the last straw. Was it just his father’s death? Or had he been thinking about this for a while? How could she not have known? How foolish she’d been, taking things for granted, being her clumsy, pushy self. She’d been too harsh about his father’s death. Maybe she should have been kinder, but she’d never really liked the man.
“Dad was sixty-two. Sixty-two.” Peter gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white. “There were so many things he never got to
do. So many things he put off. Going to Gettysburg. Seeing the Vietnam Memorial. Finishing that tree house for our girls. I stood there and watched them put his coffin into the ground.” He leaned back and let out a breath. “I don’t want to be that man. I don’t want to live like he did.”
She put her hand on his arm, felt the warmth of his skin. “But . . . you’re not.”
He shook his head. “I’m just like him, living in suspended animation, watching everything go past.”
“Is this some kind of midlife crisis?”
He glanced at her. “I wish it were, sweetheart.” His eyes were gentle. “Ever since the baby died—”
“Don’t,” she said, hearing her voice sharpen, and took her hand away. She’d never forget walking into the nursery. Seeing William silent and unmoving in his crib.
“We can’t even talk about it.”
“This isn’t talking about it. This is telling me to get over it.” She twisted to look back at the girls, saw that they were still fast asleep. He didn’t want to discuss his mother with them sleeping back there, but it was okay to talk about the one thing they struggled every day to get past? She felt a spark of anger at his indifference. “Which is all you’ve ever done.”
“That’s not fair. You won’t let me in to do anything else. It’s like you slammed all the doors shut and threw away the keys.”
“I’ve tried.”
“I know you have.” There was that horrible kind voice again. “I’ve tried, too. Don’t you think it’s time we both stopped trying, and started loving one another the way we used to?”
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