by Nancy Star
Ginger cocked her head. Was he confusing her with someone else? Had another mother died? Would it be impolite to set him straight?
George checked his watch. “Okay. Better get this show started.” He gestured to seats in the front row. Callie took one on the aisle and Ginger sat beside her.
George climbed the stairs to the stage and adjusted his mike. A piano player joined him. They consulted, head to head, and when they were done, the piano player looked toward Callie and gave her a tip-of-the-hat salute, which she returned with a backward wave.
“Do you know everyone?” Ginger asked.
“No. I know the people I sing with. They’re very kind.”
George tapped his mike and the crowd quieted. “Welcome, welcome. You’ll have to bear with us tonight. New sound system. Hope you’re in a patient mood.”
There was laughter and a smattering of applause.
“A few announcements.” The system cut in and out, chopping off words, but no one seemed bothered. Ginger followed along as best she could. It was something about a cleanup at the Campgrounds, and the date for Illumination Night, and the newly expanded hours for the museum. A screech of feedback made everyone groan. Somewhere someone made an adjustment. George’s voice boomed out. “Better?” The crowd applauded. “Before we get started, I want to say a few words about one of our community chorus patrons, Glory Tangle. Her dear Callie Claire is with us tonight, along with her sister, Ginger.” He gestured toward them and the crowd applauded.
Ginger turned to Callie. “Patron?”
Callie stared straight ahead, and Ginger noticed she was clenching her jaw. As soon as the applause subsided, her sister’s mouth relaxed.
“I’ll do my best,” George announced, “to get Callie Claire to stay to the end so you can offer your condolences. ‘Swiss Navy’ will be our last song tonight, Callie Claire. Will you wait?”
Someone nearby called out, “Stick around, Callie,” and when Ginger turned to see who it was, she saw Callie was uncomfortable with the attention.
“Tonight,” George told the crowd, “a challenge. Sea shanties. Are you up to it?” The crowd’s applause confirmed they were. A screen descended. “How do you like this? No more excuses for not singing along. Lyrics, compliments of Glory Tangle.” There was enthusiastic clapping and the music began. Text scrolled down the screen. “The words to this one have been changed a bit. Chalk it up to the Mangle Tangle. Your mother did have a unique way with words.” He directed this toward Callie.
Ginger leaned over and whispered, “Did Mom send them a big donation or something?”
But the singing had already started and Callie, with her chin up, sang along, full-hearted, with the crowd.
“There once was a boy in the north country. He had sisters one, two, three.” Ginger recognized the tune as Glory’s dishwashing song. Her mother often hummed it, but sometimes she sang with made-up lyrics, nonsense words strung together, gibberish, or so Ginger thought until now. “Love will be true, true to my love. Love will be true to you.”
The song ended and the crowd applauded itself. George applauded too. “Happy to see everyone brought their energy tonight!” George moved them along to “Kookaburra,” in a round, with an admonition to “stand up or at least do something when you say the first half of the word. You do know what the first half of Kook-aburra is, don’t you?” When that song ended, George motioned for everyone to stand. “This is an offering in memory of our dear friend and patron, Glory Tangle.”
Ginger watched as all around her parents shuffled, pulling collapsed children to a stand and setting sweatshirts, purses, and water bottles on the floor. George waited patiently until everyone, Ginger included, was up. Callie was the last to stand. George signaled to the pianist as words flashed on the screen. This time when the crowd sang, Callie did not join in.
“Fading light, dims the sight. And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright. From afar, drawing nigh, falls the night.”
The great open-air room fell still. George let his hands fall to his side. He waited—he was patient and willing to wait for a very long time—until everyone was seated. Then he put his hands to his heart and offered a nod to Callie, which she returned with a backward wave.
“All right. Let’s go. As promised, ‘Swiss Navy.’”
The mood of the crowd turned buoyant as they performed their favorite song with practiced gestures, stamping feet as they “marched with the infantry,” pointing fingers as they “shot with artillery.” When they stood for the final chorus, Callie stood up and kept going, hurrying down the aisle and out of the front of the Tabernacle.
By the time Ginger caught up to her, she was untangling Echo’s leash. “Sorry,” she said. “I needed to get out. Fresh air.” Echo, happy to be released, jumped on top of her. Wobbling, Callie laughed, and then righted herself. “Okay, boy. Let’s go for a run. Come on. Back to the car.” He pulled at his leash, eager to get going, and Callie called to Ginger, “See you later,” before disappearing around a corner.
Ginger hurried through the dark streets of Oak Bluffs to the car. The town was busy, the night filled with the sounds of children laughing and their parents calling for them to keep up. In the distance, she heard the low roar of waves hitting the shore and the thump of cars coming off the ferry.
Twenty minutes out of town, driving slowly through the pitch-black of the up-island night, a buck leaped in front of her car. Ginger jammed hard on her brakes and stopped, just in time. The buck vanished into the woods on the other side, but Ginger didn’t move. A moment later, a doe sprang out of the trees and, face illuminated by the car’s headlights, stared at her as if stuck. Ginger switched off her lights, and the shadow that was the doe bounded to join its mate. A second later, there was a rustle of leaves and two young fawns sprinted, fearless in their determination to join their mother.
Ginger sat shivering at the thought that if she hadn’t stopped and sat there, hadn’t waited, she could have killed them all: father, mother, fawns. Her thoughts switched to the images she tried so hard to avoid: Julia, dreadlocked and dirty in a park. Julia, hungry and hurt on the side of a road. Then a memory came. Julia in the parking lot at the summit of Mount Washington, arms crossed over her chest, telling her mother she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe because of her.
A car flashed its brights in her rearview mirror and whizzed past. Ginger drove on, not much faster than a sleepwalker.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Mimi’s soft leather driving shoes were parked at the foot of the stairs. She’d gone to bed. Good, Ginger thought. She’d rather talk to Callie by herself.
As she walked to the back bedroom to wait, she recommitted to her decision. If she wanted to have an honest relationship with Callie, she had to be willing to ask the question. The question would hold no judgment. They were both young, Callie was just a child when she went away. A child who had seen something she shouldn’t have. It was possible, likely even, that Callie would have no memory of what she saw. But the only way to know was for Ginger to ask.
To make it easier, Ginger would share first. This was what she did at work when she wanted to help her timid students open up. She would tell a little boy she was hungry, and then the boy would admit he hadn’t eaten any dinner the night before. She would tell a girl she was feeling sad because her mother was sick, and the girl would confide that her mother was in the hospital and might never come home.
So tonight, Ginger would tell Callie about Julia. And she would share what she had realized at the Tabernacle. She’d been hoping for the wrong thing. Ever since Julia left, she’d been hoping her daughter would snap out of it and come home, admit that leaving was a mistake. But watching Callie at the sing-along, surrounded by a community that cared about her, Ginger found herself with a different hope. The hope that Julia would find what Callie had, that no matter where she ended up, she’d create a good life, surrounded by people who loved her.
It was surprising to see that so many people loved her sister, considering how h
ard Callie was to love. And it wasn’t only that she was odd. She’d been odd for a very long time. But she was odd now in a different way. Ginger had noticed it the very first day of their reunion, and she noticed it every day since. Callie could accept an embrace, but she couldn’t return one. She could answer direct questions, but she never offered more than what was asked. What was it? Depression? She ticked off the warning signs. Appearance, sleep habits, feelings of hopelessness. Ginger didn’t think so. Anger? That Ginger and Mimi hadn’t tried to find her in all the years she’d been here? How had Glory managed that, made it so that she and Mimi didn’t even try?
She looked around the room. Memories were everywhere. Glory breezing into the master bedroom for the first time, swooning at the clean-line whiteness of it all. There’d been the bed—California King!—and the walk-in closet—cubbies for shoes! The carpet, now an industrial wall-to-wall the color of dried leaves, then white as snow—like walking on a cloud.
In the bathroom Ginger could practically hear her mother’s voice, the long-ago exclamation: Two sinks! Two mirrors! That darling crocheted hat for extra toilet paper! Toilet tissue, she’d corrected Ginger, who hadn’t said a thing.
The California King had been replaced by a single twin bed made up military-style, a taut paisley coverlet in a muted mix of burgundy and browns spread on top; with the big bed gone, there was now room for Callie to set up a reading chair with a table and lamp, and a study area with a bleached-oak desk, and above that, shelves. Ginger ran her fingers along the spines of the notebooks lined up with perfect posture, and then across the boxes—puzzle boxes, she saw upon closer inspection.
Her eyes skipped to a pile of papers on the desk next to the laptop, xeroxed flyers with a fringe of phone numbers on the bottom. She picked one up and read it. “Callie’s Dogs. Limited Availability. Affordable and Trustworthy. References Upon Request.” Her sister had a business taking care of dogs.
The flyer slipped out of her hand and floated to the desk, and when Ginger retrieved it, her fingers brushed the keyboard and the laptop came awake. A screen saver cycled through photographs of dogs at the beach. There was Echo and then others: a wet golden retriever, a small white dog with matted fur, a muscular black dog with a tennis ball in her mouth. As the image changed again, Ginger glanced down and saw a slim book on the floor—a song booklet from the Tabernacle.
She picked it up and flipped through, stopping at a page with the sea shanty they’d sung earlier that night. There were lines crossed out—“There was an old man in the north country. He had daughters one, two, three”—and above them, in Glory’s careful script, new lyrics were written in. The words they sang at the Tabernacle: “There once was a boy in the north country. He had sisters one, two, three. Love will be true, true to my love. Love will be true to you.”
The song suddenly seemed so sad. Ginger closed the book and put it down and the screen saver, done with dogs, flashed on to an image of Callie. Younger—in her twenties, Ginger guessed—in her pristine Vineyard kitchen. How long had Callie been here? How often had Glory come? Before the questions could sink in, the next picture came up, Ginger at home with Richard and Julia, just a little girl. Then it was Mimi and Neil in their parklike backyard with their boys and several Popkin relatives horsing around behind them. Images flashed by. Ginger and Richard on their wedding day. Mimi holding newborn Wallace, newborn Hunter, newborn Troy.
It seemed so unfair. The facts fell like weights. Glory had a ban on all photographs in her home while Callie had Ginger’s family as her screen saver. She knew nothing of Callie’s life while Callie knew all about hers. Exhausted, she lay down on the bed and watched the pictures cycle through and then cycle through again.
She woke with sunlight on her face and the sound of someone in the kitchen.
Mimi. “I was wondering where everyone was. You and Callie have a sleepover?”
“No. I was waiting for her in her room. I guess I fell asleep. She’s not here?”
Mimi shrugged. “Haven’t seen her.” She opened a container of coffee, took a sniff, and recoiled. “This smells like it’s a hundred years old. I already threw out the one that smelled a thousand years old.” She glanced at Ginger. “What’s wrong? Did something happen last night?”
Ginger sat down at the kitchen table and checked for her barrette, but it was gone. “It was strange.” She worked out a knot and twirled her unruly hair into a bun, which immediately came undone. “Callie is friends with half the island. Everywhere we went people knew her, and Mom, and us. I mean they knew of us. Did you know Callie has photographs of us on her computer? And our families? Me and Julia. You and Neil and the boys. We’re her screen saver.”
“That’s sweet.” Mimi opened more cupboards. “I can’t function without coffee.” She felt Ginger’s stare. “What? Are you unhappy I want coffee or are you unhappy we’re Callie’s screen saver? That means she cares about us. Come on, Gingie. Forward march. We’re together now. We need to stay together. If you have to worry about something, worry about that.” She opened the freezer, but it was empty. “I’m going to get coffee. Want anything?”
Ginger shook her head. “She could be dog-sitting. I saw flyers in her room. That’s what she does. She has a dog-sitting business.”
“See? Dog-sitting. Nothing to worry about.” She sighed and sat down. “Look, two things about Callie that haven’t changed. She’s always been different and she’s always been happiest out and about. Don’t blow this up into something it’s not. I’m going to get coffee, and I’m going to assume by the time I get back, she’ll be home.” The door clacked closed behind her.
Always been different. Ginger turned the phrase over in her mind. She thought about how it would go today if there were a family like hers, where a young child died in an accident. One thing was for sure: if a six-year-old student under her watch was hauled off to a hospital during a family catastrophe and ended up witnessing her brother’s death, Ginger would refer that child to a therapist. Post-traumatic stress disorder. That was it. Ginger’s retroactive diagnosis. How had she missed it? Callie had all the symptoms after Charlie’s accident: nightmares, difficulty sleeping, changes in behavior, emotionally numb. But there’d been no such diagnosis then and no one to suggest taking Callie to a therapist. Easier to label her a wanderer. A child who acted odd for reasons no one would explain.
She tried to recall if she and Callie had ever spoken about the day their brother died. But of course they hadn’t. None of them did. That kind of talk was forbidden. Just as later, it was forbidden to say anything about Callie’s behavior. She likes to explore. That’s how Solly used to put it. Explores the world like a regular Christopher Columbus. Was Christopher Columbus so terrible?
Ginger laughed, remembering that. And then her memory skipped forward to the night, Solly long gone, when Glory broke the news that their sister had joined a cult.
“Decided just like that.” Glory snapped her fingers. “I told her, it’s a terrible idea, but she’s eighteen, so of course she thinks she knows better than me. What am I supposed to do when she tells me the cut isn’t dangerous? Tie her to a chair?”
Ginger had corrected her, “Cult,” and then studied her mother’s face. Had Glory been thinking out loud? Had she forgotten Ginger and Mimi were with her? Or was the ban against talking about Callie now lifted? Ginger weighed the odds and risked a question. “Which cult is she in? There are so many.”
Glory seemed to wake up to her mistake. “What are you talking about? It’s nothing of the sort.” The topic was closed. “Who wants to play Spite and Malice?” When neither Ginger nor Mimi made a move to get the cards, Glory’s tone turned caustic. “Or are you going to insist on continuing this conversation? Because if you do, I am perfectly happy to climb onto the roof right now and jump off.” She lurched up, as if she actually was going to do that, right then, go to the roof and jump.
“I’ll get the cards,” Ginger said, and never mentioned Callie’s name to her mother again.
He got away with it because Glory liked him. She’d liked him from the start, liked the way he looked and liked the way he laughed at her jokes. She’d told this to Ginger in the kitchen that night. “Such a good face. Chiseled. Shows character. Good eyes too. Light up like fire when he hears something funny. Sign of a keeper, Gingie. Don’t let this one go.”
His questions continued. “Would you like me to find you a deprogrammer? I know a good one.”
“Gingie told me your job is to save children. Makes my heart want to burst.” Glory lowered her voice. “Unfortunately, between you and me, not every child can be saved. Some butterflies need to fly free.” Ginger watched it register on her mother’s face that her metaphor had failed. “You are so darling. But there’s nothing you can do for Callie. She’s not in a cult anymore.”
This was news to Ginger. “Where is she?”
Glory shrugged. “Prefers to live elsewhere. Prefers to be left alone. Prefers we stop discussing her.” She drilled her eyes into Ginger’s, and then she got up and disappeared into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a platter of what looked like melting snowballs onto which she’d dribbled a sauce that was an unfortunate shade of yellow. “Voilà! Le Floating Islands.”
The porch door clacked closed, Mimi announcing her return. She juggled a container with three cups of coffee in it and a bag of beans. “Don’t look so disappointed.” She put everything down on the counter. “Callie’s not back?” Ginger shook her head. “Well, I brought one for her just in case.” She pulled a sheet of paper out of her back pocket. “Look what was on the bulletin board at the store.” She handed Ginger a flyer. It was a copy of the same flyer that was on Callie’s desk, except this one had a note pasted across it like a warning. “Closed Temporarily Due to Family Emergency.”