The Sisters

by Nancy Jensen

  What she needed was a place to anchor her while she kept searching, kept trying to gather her little family back in. “I’ll trade you,” she said. “I let you take my picture to put up and you give me a job keeping this place clean. I’m good with hair, too, so I can help you get people ready for their pictures.”

  “Done!” He flung out his hand for a shake. She was startled by her own boldness, stunned and suspicious that he had so easily agreed to her silly bargain. He even gave her a few dollars, an advance on her first week’s pay, so she could make the rent on her room. Walking back there against the bitter wind, she had begun to wonder if, seeing her need, Paul had somehow set the whole thing up, tossing about a quick mess, just so he could give her a job. To this day, she still wondered. Far-fetched, maybe, but not impossible; indeed, the longer she knew him, the more likely it seemed.

  Paul had the power to see even the subtlest signs of a person in trouble, and he had the gift of being able to give without appearing to. The woman who ran the bakery next door would sometimes find that the heavy bags of flour had been lifted onto her storeroom shelves while she was out front paying for the delivery. A messenger boy who’d half-ridden, half-carried his bicycle into town to get his punctured tire repaired might come out of the shop and find a dollar woven into a wheel spoke. Their own customers, always the ones who had long saved for the luxury of a special photograph, would often come back after paying to mention some miscalculation on their bill, and Paul would jovially tap his head and say, “My mistake!” and when they would promise to pay him the rest when they could, he would wave them off and say, “No! No! Paul Connolly pays for his own mistakes!”

  At one time or another, nearly everyone in the neighborhood had told Paul their greatest sadness—because he let them tell their stories in their own time and way. It was nearly two years before Mabel told him about Wallace, calling him her brother, and several months more before she told him about Bertie and how she and Wallace had written and written—how she had written since—and never gotten an answer. To tell him about Bertie, she had to identify Wallace rightly, not as her brother, but as Bertie’s beau. When she did, she didn’t confess to having lied before, just went on as though she were mentioning Wallace for the first time. Paul’s eyebrows didn’t even flicker in question. He never asked why she’d left Juniper, why she couldn’t simply go back and talk to Bertie, and for that, she loved him.

  While Mabel became an expert at eluding Paul’s sneaky efforts to photograph her, she was pleased at how she’d managed to catch him unawares perhaps a dozen times in as many years, a quick snap of the shutter as she pretended to test the light or rewind a roll. She’d saved all those negatives in secret, concealing them in the cabinet under the name M. Brownlow, recalling Oliver Twist’s rescuer. When Paul died, she printed every one of the negatives, unwilling to give up a single view of her friend, and hung all but one in the darkroom, where, in the dim light, it would seem that he was still there, watching over her shoulder, guiding her. Her favorite, she hung in the studio, behind the counter. Paul would have scoffed and snatched it from the wall, saying no one wanted to look at such an ugly bloated old man, but she defied his memory on this and kept the portrait up because his laughing face—with his mounded cheeks, bad teeth and squinting eyes—was glorious.

  One by one, as she finished them, she clipped the prints of Daisy, ten in all, to the line to dry, then shut off the red light, stepped out of the darkroom, and pulled up the shades on the front windows to let in the late-morning light. Sitting backwards on the bus stop bench in front of the shop, staring in at her, was Daisy Harker.

  Mabel turned the lock on the door and stepped out to the sidewalk. “Hi,” she said. “Have you come for your photos? They won’t be ready for a couple of days. I was planning to bring them with me on Saturday.”

  Daisy said nothing, just stood up, walked nearer to Mabel, and studied the yellow words Photographic Studio on the window, tracing the letters with her finger. “Can I come in?”

  Mabel stood aside to let Daisy pass. “No school today?”

  Daisy walked around the studio, hands behind her back, strolling from one grouping of photos to the next. She hadn’t looked at them when she was in with her father. “Sometimes I don’t go,” she said.

  “What do you do those days?” Mabel closed the door, but she didn’t turn the sign around to OPEN.

  “Library,” Daisy said.

  Mabel settled herself on the stool behind the counter. “I used to do that myself,” she said. “Not skip school. I wasn’t able to finish school, but sometimes I’d make up a reason why I needed to leave work early, or I’d tell my stepfather that I had to work late. Half an hour here, half an hour there. I still don’t know how I managed to read as many books as I did.” Daisy was looking at her now, focused and intent. She almost nodded. Mabel added, “But never enough.”

  When Daisy turned again to look at the photos, Mabel smiled to see her hair pulled up in a clumsy twist. “Your hair’s pretty that way,” she said. “I can help you fix it so the ends don’t come down.” She got off the stool and motioned for Daisy to take it.

  While Daisy pulled out the pins, Mabel set the dressing tray on the counter. Loose, Daisy’s hair fell halfway down her back. Mabel drew the brush through in short, shallow strokes to find the tangles, which she picked out gently with her fingers.

  “Why’d you quit school?” Daisy asked. She sat very still while Mabel worked, just like Bertie used to.

  “I didn’t, exactly. When I finished eighth grade, I had to go to work.” She didn’t mention Jim Butcher. “We were poor.”

  “Who’s in that picture?” Without moving her head the least bit, Daisy pointed over her shoulder to the wall behind Mabel.

  “That’s Paul,” she said. “This was his studio. He taught me to use a camera.”

  “He looks nice,” Daisy said. “I looked at him the whole time the other day.” She was quiet for a moment. “I don’t like having my picture taken.”

  Mabel gathered Daisy’s hair in her hands, smoothing it into a silky rope. “Neither do I,” she said. “And neither did Paul. But photos are for other people. Isn’t there a picture of somebody you have that you wouldn’t give up?”

  “I wish I had one of my mother.”

  “Nobody ever took her picture?”

  Daisy straightened on the stool, her back like marble. “All burned.”

  Mabel fished through the dressing tray for pins and held out a few for Daisy to see. “These will hold better.” She started the twist and said, “I wish I had pictures of my parents, and especially of my sister.”

  “I used to think I’d like to have a sister,” Daisy said, “but I don’t anymore. Does yours live here?”

  “No.” Mabel lined her lips with hairpins to avoid saying more. For all she knew, Bertie might live in Chicago, or anywhere else. Or she might not live at all. When the letter marked Deceased had come back to her, she’d locked herself in her room for two days, cycling in and out of weeping, answering the door only at Paul’s urgent pounding and pleas to let him give her some soup. When she let him in, he didn’t pry, just sat quietly with her, patting her shoulder occasionally, seeing to it that she survived.

  When she was calmer, she rubbed an eraser at the heavy pencil marks obscuring everything on the envelope but Bertie’s name, which she herself had written, and the words Deceased and Return to Sender, which at times struck her that Bertie had written, but after years of separation, she couldn’t be sure this was Bertie’s writing. Pressing away the black, blowing away the eraser fragments, she struggled to think of something else, but only two ideas, equally upsetting, rocked in her head: Bertie was dead; or Bertie wanted Mabel to think she was.

  Whoever had obliterated the writing on the envelope had done it with such fervor that much of the paper had come off with the lead. She could make out that someone had forwarded the letter, but of that address, there were only fragments—a house number with a 3 in it, a few l
etters from the name of the city, and a ghostly I for the state—Iowa? Indiana? Illinois? No trace she could follow.

  “So he didn’t like to have his picture made?” She’d almost forgotten Daisy, and that they’d been talking about Paul.

  “Oh, no,” said Mabel, pushing in the first pin. “I had to sneak up on him.”

  “Is that what you’re going to do to me?”

  Mabel laughed. “Hardly sneaking. When I come on Saturday, you’ll know why I’m there.” Daisy’s head tilted forward, just a bit. “Have I made this too tight?”

  Daisy shook her head.

  “Don’t you want me to come, Daisy?”

  The girl turned suddenly, the motion pulling her hair free from Mabel’s hands, unfurling the twist. Her eyes were urgent, the rims softly red, glistening with small tears. “I do. Say you will. Please.” Daisy’s hands wrapped around hers, pressing her fingers tight. “Please.”

  Paul might have been standing right behind her, his sturdy kindness urging her to listen, to see. Mabel looked at Daisy, as if with his eyes. “Of course I will,” she said. “Of course I will.”

  * * *

  On Saturday, Mabel locked the studio nearly three-quarters of an hour before she needed to. The prints she’d made of Daisy were still in the darkroom cabinet, in an envelope marked only D. Boarding the bus, her feet barely touched the three steps up, as if her hurrying would make the driver go faster. She’d memorized the address but clutched the slip of paper Harker had given her, glancing at it over and over, mentally reciting the route so she wouldn’t miss the stop. She was on the corner, just half a block from Daisy’s father’s walk-up, by 1:20.

  She hesitated a moment before she rang the bell, shifting the handle of her camera bag into her left hand, wondering idly about the red door flanked by concrete planters filled with daffodils. Harker was sure to answer and be angry that she was early, that she hadn’t phoned first. She would apologize for not calling, say she’d simply left early for fear of being late, but still he might turn her away. If he did, she wouldn’t know anything more than she knew now—not for certain. But if he let her in, and if she saw something—what would she do then?

  Her eyes burned in the afternoon light. She’d barely slept since Thursday, lying in the dark, picking apart every detail she could remember about the day Daisy and Harker were in the studio, and about how different Daisy had been when she came in on her own. Maybe she was wrong. She wanted to be wrong. There could be all sorts of reasons for Daisy’s behavior, all sorts. Except Mabel couldn’t think of any. Still, there wasn’t any proof. Daisy hadn’t said a word. But then, Mabel knew very well that particular silence. What she couldn’t close out of her mind were the images she hadn’t caught with her camera: the barest flicker of a smile, that secretly triumphant expression of ownership Emerson Harker had let slip while he fanned Daisy’s hair over her shoulders—that, and what she had seen, or thought she had seen, reflected in the camera lens when she turned her back to adjust a light: Harker bending to kiss Daisy on her forehead, on the tip of her nose, on her lips—holding that kiss for one second, two, three, four.

  Still no one answered the door. Should she ring again? Mabel leaned in and tried to listen, but she heard nothing except the street noise around her. She knocked lightly. In the window to her right, a curtain twitched. And then came the tumbling of a lock and Daisy stood in the open doorway. She was pale. A smear of hot-red lipstick sliced her cheek. Her white blouse puffed open where a button was missing, the snapped thread still in place, the ends waving from the cotton like frayed arms. Daisy pushed back some locks of hair that were matted to her neck, revealing pinkish bruises, like crushed roses. “He’s gone for cigarettes,” she said. “He’ll be back any minute.”

  “Which way?”

  Daisy pointed up the street. Her cuff was torn.

  Mabel held out her hand. “Do you want to come with me?”

  Daisy’s hand snapped into hers like a mate. With her other, she slammed the door, and they ran back the way Mabel had come, down the street, around the corner, block after block, ignoring the curious shouts of playing children. Mabel spotted a cab, hailed it, and they breathlessly tumbled in. “Union Station,” Mabel said, and minutes later when the driver turned to say the fare, Mabel shoved a bill at him, tossed her camera bag onto the sidewalk and pulled Daisy out behind her. People coming out of the station grumbled about courtesy and the wrong door as Mabel and Daisy knocked into them. They pushed their way toward the ticket windows, and only then did they stop, panting, to study the timetables.

  “Does it matter where?” Mabel asked. Daisy shook her head. The big clock read 1:42. The train bound for Indianapolis left at 1:55. Just then, the boarding call crackled from the loudspeaker. At the nearest window, Mabel paid for their tickets and they hurried to the platform. Daisy started toward the open door of the car, but Mabel stopped her. She stroked a lock of hair, damp with sweat, from Daisy’s eyes and held the girl’s face in her hands. “Are you sure? Really sure? We do this, we can’t come back.”

  Daisy nodded. “You know, don’t you?” Those shining eyes Mabel had noticed that first day in the studio, those eyes that had seemed to divine a place inside Daisy herself, now penetrated Mabel’s heart. “It happened to you.”

  “Yes,” Mabel said, and took the girl, that brave girl, into her arms and held her tightly. “Never again, Daisy. Not ever.”

  Daisy drew back, holding on to Mabel’s hands. She looked around at the scurrying crowd. The patina of studied calm slid from her face in favor of righteous resolve. “Did you change your name when you ran away?”

  “I thought about it,” Mabel said. “But there was a part of me that hoped to be found.”

  “I’ve already been found.”

  Daisy flung her arms around Mabel’s waist and Mabel squeezed her hard. Gently releasing the embrace to slip out of her jacket, Mabel held it open to Daisy. “Here,” she said. “Wear this.” She wiped the lipstick from Daisy’s face with a handkerchief and kissed the girl’s damp cheek. “Better get on.”

  Not until they were settled in their seats, Daisy nestled against her, weeping quietly, not until the train had rocked and rattled its way out of the station, out of the city, across the Indiana border, did Mabel allow her own tears to spill over. For a long while, she sat stroking Daisy’s hair, saying nothing. At last, Daisy sat up, her eyes red but dry. “Let’s make a new name,” she said. “A name that means us.”

  Mabel wiped away her own tears. “Any ideas?”

  Daisy smiled—such a beautiful smile. “Who do you miss most? From before?”

  In fifteen years she hadn’t said the name out loud to anyone but Paul. Now she looked out the window, remembering how she and Wallace, on another train, had silently watched Juniper slip away. Mabel felt Daisy’s cool fingertips on her chin, softly turning her away from the past.

  “Who?” Daisy persisted. “What one person would you have with you if you could?”

  “My sister.” Mabel’s knotted throat released as she said it. “Bertie.”

  “I’d want my mother,” Daisy said. “Her name was Ella.”

  “Ella.” Mabel kissed Daisy’s forehead and hugged her close. “That’s lovely.”

  Holding her hand flat before her like a sheet of paper, Daisy scribbled across it with her finger. “El … Elber … Bertel … Bertelle.” She looked up at Mabel, her face a sunrise. “Bertelle,” she said. “We’ll be the Bertelles.”

  Daisy leapt to her feet and twirled in the small space before Mabel, her eyes full of fun. Placing a hand on the window to steady herself, she struck the pose of a sophisticate. “How do you do?” she said, extending her free hand to Mabel. “My name is Daisy Bertelle.”

  “So happy to make your acquaintance, Miss Bertelle,” said Mabel, and, joining her hand with Daisy’s, she drew it to her cheek, kissed it, and held her arms open to her daughter.

  SIX

  Independence Day

  July 1947

 
; Newman, Indiana

  ALMA

  IN THE FRONT SEAT, MOTHER was making a show of fanning herself with a road map she’d taken from the glove compartment, snapping it up and down, up and down, with short strokes that didn’t stir much air. “Bertie, just crack the window a little,” Daddy said, but Mother ignored him.

  Alma leaned forward, forced to shout over the roar of wind from Rainey’s open window. “She doesn’t want to muss her hair, Daddy.” Alma glanced at her little sister to see if she’d taken the hint. Rainey was sprawled on the seat, pretending to be in a faint, her long hair whipping out the window, which she’d insisted on putting all the way down. By the time they got to Mr. and Mrs. Crisp’s house, Rainey’s hair would be positively filthy. Child or no, Rainey oughtn’t be allowed to behave this way, Alma thought, and, besides that, it simply wasn’t fair that Mother didn’t come to the defense of her hair the way she’d done for Mother’s. Alma was grateful she’d had the foresight to wear a light scarf, and she did have her compact mirror and comb, but it was still possible that one of the Crisps would see her before she had the chance to correct the damage. Mostly, she was afraid of Gordon’s mother’s response, for Mrs. Crisp always looked just like she’d stepped out of the hairdresser’s chair. But perhaps this afternoon Alma could win back any lost favor by asking Mrs. Crisp to share her secrets for looking fresh.

  Mother sighed loudly and turned her face toward Daddy, her lips pressed tightly together. “I still say it’s the boy that ought to come to the girl’s on holidays.” She stared hard at Daddy to make clear she expected him to answer. “Any holiday.”

  Daddy said nothing. There was nothing to say. When Alma had told him about the invitation, he’d said it was fine with him, only that she needed to get driving directions from Gordon, since he’d never been in that part of town. Mother was still furious that Alma hadn’t come to her about the invitation first, and ever since, she had been taking it out on Daddy. “Well, if we don’t get home in time to get the sparklers out for her,” Mother said, cocking her head to indicate Rainey, “then it’ll be your job to hush her up.”