The Sisters Chase

by Sarah Healy

  “And it’s not far, right?”

  Stefan shook his head. “Nah,” he said. Mary pictured him lifting Hannah’s foot higher using his own. “It’s not far.”

  “And we’re just going to move once. It’s not going to be like before,” she said, letting herself find comfort in Stefan’s reassurances. Letting herself believe him. “It’s not going to be like after the swamp.”

  Mary shut off the water. She was in the doorway as Stefan asked, his eyes narrow with amusement, “What swamp?”

  And before another sound could be uttered, Mary said, her expression as smooth as stone, “So, should we start packing?”

  That night, after Stefan had gone home, Mary climbed into bed next to Hannah.

  “Bunny,” she whispered, stroking Hannah’s hair away from her forehead. “Wake up.”

  Hannah’s eyes opened for a second and then slipped shut again, as if her lids couldn’t manage under the weight of sleep.

  “Bunny,” said Mary again. “I just want to tell you that I meant what I said.” Mary looked around the dark room. The Chase girls’ few things had been put into cardboard boxes and stacked in the corner. In black marker Mary had written the contents on each. TOYS. CLOTHES. BOOKS. It was comforting to Mary to see how little they had accumulated. “We don’t have to move if you don’t want to.”

  Hannah’s eyes opened and stayed that way this time. Then she propped herself up on one elbow and seemed to think for a moment, the wheels of her mind starting to turn slowly after slumber. She looked at Mary. “Why does Stefan think we should?”

  “He cares about us,” answered Mary. “He wants us to have a nice place to live.”

  Hannah let her head fall back onto her pillow, and she stared at the ceiling, her arms at her sides atop the white sheets. She watched as lights from a passing car moved like a spotlight through the room. “I remember where we used to live.” It was the first time Hannah had mentioned the Water’s Edge in months and months. “With Mom.”

  “I do, too,” said Mary.

  “Do you think we’ll ever go back there?”

  Mary studied the curve of Hannah’s profile. “I don’t think so, Bunny,” she finally said.

  “We never go back to places once we leave. We stay there for a while and then we never go back.” Mary knew that Hannah was talking about their time on the road.

  “We’re not going to do that anymore.”

  “Promise?”

  Mary paused for a moment, realizing the gravity of what she was about to do. Hannah is the only person for whom she would try to hold to her word. “I promise,” she said, nodding.

  Hannah watched her sister, then took a breath and seemed to settle down deeper into their mattress, letting her eyes slip shut. “Hey, Bunny, one more thing,” said Mary. And Hannah’s gaze was once again on her. “You know some stories are just for us, right?”

  Hannah’s nod was slow and small.

  Mary leaned in and kissed her forehead. “I know it can be hard sometimes. To remember what’s what,” she said. “But it’s going to get easier. We’re not going to have to tell so many stories. We’re just going to have to remember the important ones.”

  “Mary?” asked Hannah.

  Mary pulled back to find Hannah’s eyes. “Will you tell me about Princess Mary and Princess Hannah? Until I fall asleep?”

  So Mary did. She took the princesses to a castle on a mountain with a spire that rose through the clouds, where the evil queen couldn’t find them. Where they could hide forever if they wanted. And when Stefan asked Mary about what Hannah meant when she was talking about the swamp, Mary smiled knowingly. “Sometimes Hannah just makes things up. She’s at that age, I guess.”

  Fifteen

  1976

  Mary had always understood her duality, which began at the moment of her conception. Her mother was young and unwed. Her father was a phantom or a devil, or some earthly incarnation of the two. She came into a place and a time where her existence was scandalous, but her beauty was revered. Mary was lovely and terrible. Mary was a blessing and a tragedy. Mary was capable of great love, but only toward a very few.

  In the months before Hannah was born, she had nothing to moor her to Sandy Bank. Her affection for her mother was real, but it was muffled by her adolescent anger that was like a roaring in her ears. And when Diane announced that they would be leaving in September, that she couldn’t endure the speculation and rumors that would soon be slithering around Sandy Bank—not again—the longing for the road that was cocooned in Mary’s heart finally unfurled its wings. And Mary decided that she would leave.

  She would go as far south as she could and then go farther still. She would find the boy in the white boat on his sandy island, the boy who could take her anywhere, and they would be together. She wouldn’t be in Sandy Bank in October when he came back. So she would go to him.

  But Mary needed money.

  And so on the sort of evening in August when the humidity was so thick that she would watch the graying sky, waiting for the opaque thunderheads to roll in like chariots, Mary set out for the Pools’ little house, her feet bare on their buckling sand-strewn back walk, and went up to the potted geranium plant. Tilting it carefully to its side, she revealed a brass-toned key. Alice kept it there, Mary knew, for those nights when Stan forgot his set on the boat. Mary was accustomed to taking what she wanted, snatching this and that, lifting a bill here or there to pay for little niceties for herself. But not from the Pools. She wasn’t used to stealing from the Pools. She hesitated for only a moment before lifting the key from the soil-dusted brick. Circumstances, she thought, were extenuating.

  Mary propped the screen door open with her hip as she slid the key into the knob and turned. With the side of her body, she pushed against the swollen back door. It offered only a moment of resistance before yielding. The Pools’ kitchen was small and tidy, like the rest of the house, with white ruffled curtains and a blue speckled countertop edged with metal. In the corner was the small table-and-chair set that Mary had sat at countless times while Mrs. Pool made fried bologna sandwiches or mended a hole in her sweater. She knew this house as well as she knew the Water’s Edge. She knew the rattle and roar of the fan in the wood-paneled bathroom. She knew the yellow stain on the doily that lay on top of the television. She knew the closet full of books saved for children who were never born, books of fairy tales with thick spines and leather covers. And Mary also knew the small metal box in the drawer of the Pools’ bedside table. Mr. Pool kept the cash from his fishing charters there. Right underneath the Holy Bible and beside his bottle of TUMS.

  It was a Thursday evening and Mrs. Pool played bridge on Thursday evenings. Mr. Pool had taken a group out fishing and wouldn’t be back for hours. Mary had already made her way to the Pools’ bedroom and slid open the drawer when she heard Alice’s voice at the front door. “Don’t say things like that, Marjory.” Her words came gentle but true, a reprimand more forgiving than firm. “She’s had an awful hard time.”

  The front door opened with a groan; Mrs. Pool only ever used that entrance when she had a guest.

  “Well!” Mary heard a voice she recognized as Marjory Porteiski’s. “I will say that she brings a good deal of it in on herself!” Mrs. Porteiski was a joyless busybody with the same physical softness as Alice Pool but with none of her kindness.

  “You don’t know how bad things have been for her. But by the grace of God—”

  “Go I. I know my scriptures, Alice.”

  Mary knew without seeing that Mrs. Pool was scuttling around the living room, hoping to make her guest feel at home. She was lifting the lid on her candy bowl. She was setting out a tray table that she’d place a plate of cookies on. Stepping carefully to avoid the floorboard that squeaked, Mary collapsed one of the louvered doors to the Pools’ bedroom closet and stepped inside, feeling Mr. Pool’s flannel shirts on her back, Mrs. Pool’s church dresses. More than even the Water’s Edge, the Pools’ house held the smell of the ocea
n. It was unadulterated there. Undiluted.

  “It is a shame that we didn’t get to play tonight,” said Mrs. Pool, trying, Mary thought, to steer the conversation in a more pleasant direction. “I hope Shelley feels better.”

  “Shelley is a hypochondriac,” said Mrs. Porteiski. “It’s a condition. Donohue was talking all about it.”

  Mary heard Mrs. Pool mumble in both assent and interest. “Can I get you a drink?” she asked.

  “Can you make a Tom Collins?”

  The doors to the oak liquor cabinet in the Pools’ living room opened and closed. “Let’s see . . . well, I do have gin . . .” Bottles clinked and clanged.

  “Just a scotch is fine, Alice,” said Mrs. Porteiski. “Neat.”

  Mary heard the glugs of liquor being poured. A few moments later came Marjory’s voice again. “Good Lord, Alice!” she scolded. “That’s plenty!”

  “Well, you don’t have to finish it, Marjory!”

  After a brief pause, Marjory Porteiski continued her previous line of questioning. “So who is it this time?”

  “Hmmm?” asked Mrs. Pool. “How do you mean?”

  “Who’s the father of the baby this time?” The disdain in Marjory’s voice was unmistakable.

  “You mean Diane’s?”

  Mary heard Mrs. Porteiski huff. “No, I mean mine!” she said. “Of course I mean Diane! Who’d she get knocked up by this time?”

  “You know who the father is, Marjory. It’s not as if Diane is running around all over the town!” It was as firm a defense as Mrs. Pool was capable of.

  “So, it’s that Barry?”

  “He doesn’t want a thing to do with her since he found out.”

  “Well, of course not! That’s what happens when you give away the milk for free. No man wants to buy the cow!”

  “For goodness’ sake, Marjory!”

  “You mark my words; she’ll never find a man now. Not with two children born out of wedlock. It’s a real shame.”

  Mary could almost see the lifting of Mrs. Pool’s vast chest with a sigh. “It is.”

  At this, Mary felt a well of anger burst inside of her. She slipped carefully out of the closet and lifted the metal box out of the still-open drawer before gently shutting it. Mrs. Pool and Mrs. Porteiski were on the couch. Their backs would be to the wall. They wouldn’t see Mary as she slinked out of the bedroom, down the hallway, and out the way she had come.

  Mary moved without footsteps, without sound or breath, the box pressed against her stomach, until she reached the back door. She hadn’t intended to take it all, but her rage begged for retaliation, however misdirected. Mary turned the knob with a slow, steady hand, then opened the screen door in front of her. Stepping across the threshold as if she were stepping off of a ship, she pulled the wood door closed and, with a straight arm, kept the screen door propped open, feeling the tension in its springs. She pressed it until the springs groaned in pain, then she let go. And the clatter broke the silence like a slap.

  Mrs. Pool came quickly, her thick thighs rubbing at each other as she bustled down the hall, her eyes wide and anxious behind her glasses. With Marjory behind her, she’d step out onto the walk and look all around. But Mary would be nowhere in sight. What do you reckon that was? Mrs. Pool would ask her friend. Do you think someone was trying to get into the house? Mary would be nearly to the dunes by the time Mrs. Pool and Marjory would decide it was nothing and head back inside.

  IT WAS LATER THAT EVENING that Diane came into the office of the Water’s Edge, where Mary was on the couch watching television. Diane was wiping her hands on her apron; she had been in the kitchen. “You know, I was thinking that maybe getting away from Sandy Bank is going to be nice.” She looked at her daughter, perhaps sensing that something had changed. Perhaps sensing that somewhere a bag lay packed, that plans lay made. “I always hated the fall here,” she said. “It’s so depressing. Everyone’s gone and it’s always so gray. Florida’s supposed to be beautiful then. Silver linings, right, Mare? That’s how we have to think about it.”

  Mary gave her mother a glance. “Sure,” she said, her eyes back on the screen. “Silver linings.”

  Diane moved tentatively toward her daughter and sat down beside her. “I know you’re mad at me,” she said, staring between her legs at the tweedy couch, at the spots where the threads had been rubbed bare. “But I don’t know what else to do, Mare.” She shook her head. “I just don’t know what else to do.”

  Diane reached for Mary’s hand, and Mary let her hold it for a moment, just a moment, knowing that by tomorrow she would be gone. She’d be on her way to the boy with the boat. Then she pulled her hand away. Mary needed to hate her mother tonight. She needed her anger to stoke her flight. Diane leaned in and kissed her daughter on her forehead, then stood. She walked over and shut off the television; the picture disappeared with a flicker. “You need to go to bed.”

  Mary sat on her bed in the dark, the slick bedspread sticking to the backs of her thighs. Her room was off of the hallway that led to the office then, right across from her mother’s. It didn’t have a bathroom of its own so Mary used Diane’s. Her mother had watched her as she brushed her teeth, had watched her as she brought her face to the sink and filled her hands with cold water, drinking it down. Diane watched her as she went across the hallway to her own room. “You know, maybe we can move you into one of the guest rooms,” Diane said. “After the baby comes. So you can have a little more space. Your own bathroom.” Mary shut the door behind her. Diane waited until she heard the lock slide into place.

  It was Sunday night, so Mary knew there would be weekenders heading back over the bridge until late. She’d walk to the highway and hitch a ride over to the bus station in Darby. She’d get on the late bus to the city. And then she’d be gone.

  Mary waited until she heard Diane go out and lock the door to the office, flipping the sign to read CLOSED. She listened for the flush of her mother’s toilet, and then she waited. And it struck her how well she knew her mother’s routine, her waxing and her waning. She wondered if she might miss it someday.

  Then at a quarter after ten, Mary stood, her backpack already slung onto one shoulder, the $892 from Mr. Pool’s box divided between the pockets of her shorts, the inside flap of her bag, and the cup of her bra. With small silent movements, she slid back the lock to her room and opened her door.

  She was guiding it gently back into place when her mother’s voice came through the dark. “Hi, Mary.” A light switched on and Diane was sitting on the couch in her pink polyester nightgown, her arms bare, a blanket on her lap. She looked at her daughter. “Alice called. She said she’s missing some money.”

  Mary remained as still as stone, her hand on the knob to her room, her muscles tensed. The only part of her body that was in motion was her heart, which was thumping quickly inside her chest.

  “But Mr. Pool doesn’t get back until late.”

  “He’s not the only one who knows where the box is, Mare.”

  Diane and Mary stared at each other until Diane finally spoke. “Where were you going?” Diane looked weary, her limbs seemingly weighted with effort. “Hmm? Just where in the hell did you think you were going to go?”

  Mary found some of her anger. “Away,” she said.

  “Well, we’re going to do that anyway. Remember?” Diane rubbed her hand over her face. “Mary, what do you think? That I’m just going to let you go? You’re my child. Do you know what that means?” Diane leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “Do you have any idea what that means?”

  “I don’t want a sister,” said Mary.

  Diane let out a chuckle that sounded like a sob. “Mary Catherine Chase,” she said, meeting her daughter’s eye, her head starting a slow shake. “I don’t want you to have one.”

  Mary drew back at the truth of it. She looked at her mother; behind her was only a smooth pane of glass and then the limitless night beyond.

  “I need you to stay with me,” said Diane. “Promise
that you won’t leave me.”

  If Mary’s life came down to only a handful of decisions, a smattering of choices directing the lines of her life, this was one of them. Finally, she looked at her mother. “On the way down to Florida,” she started. “Can we go to the swamp?”

  Diane settled back against the couch and lifted her chin toward the sky, her body and mind spent, her hand resting on the belly that had once born Mary. “You don’t know what it is to be a mother, Mary” was all Diane could say.

  Sixteen

  1983

  Mary let her arms lie limp above her head as she stretched out on the bow of the boat in her bathing suit, warming herself in the sun. The space behind her eyelids glowed orange as if heat were a visible thing, as if she were turning into light from the inside out. The Kellys’ summer party was that evening, and so she, Stefan, and Hannah had left early to spend the day on the boat. She could hear Stefan and her sister now as they leaned over the railing, spotting the fish that floated over the green and brown pebbled bottom of the marina, their voices distant and close all at once. “Did you see that, Hannah Banana?” Stefan asked. “I think that one was a shark.”

  Hannah’s laughter came trilling up like bubbles, and Mary’s lips curled into a Pavlovian smile at the sound of it. “It’s not a shark,” giggled Hannah. “It was a minnow.”

  “Alright, you make sure it doesn’t attack,” Mary heard Stefan say. “I’m going to go sit with your sister.” With her eyes still closed, Mary felt his steps, sure and solid, make their way toward her. He sank down next to her on the bow, and Mary brought her hand to his back, letting her fingertips slide underneath his shirt, letting them run up and down his skin, her center finger on his spine. “She loves you,” she said.

  Stefan looked down at Mary, his head cocked to the side, his hair sun-bleached and salted with summer. “What about her sister?”