Sisters One, Two, Three

by Nancy Star

  Ginger met her eyes. “I never got a chance to tell Glory about Julia.”

  Mimi quickly barreled on. “‘Also, Callie, call Thomas. He’ll bring Evelyn and Casper. Richard and Neil, you’ll have to help Thomas and Captain Lou put Casper’s wheelchair on the boat. Neil, try not to strain anything.’”

  There was no way to argue with the dead, so Mimi got busy, canceling the bagpiper, the banquet tables, the galvanized tubs, the champagne and flowers, and the catered beach supper.

  It was in the bright light of the noonday sun that Ginger finally saw Casper Diggans. His eyes had sunk deeper into his long face and his hands, curled into knots, lay limp in his lap. He sat, listing slightly, in his wheelchair, his understanding of the occasion unclear. Thomas had told her to expect this, that his uncle was in a state of genial befuddlement, happy to go along in good humor even when he didn’t know what it was he was going along with.

  When Casper saw Callie at the dock, his face brightened, but when he called out, “Hello,” Ginger was struck by how weak his voice was, and how devoid of authority. He glanced at Echo, who had a cone over his head and asked, “Well, well, who have we here?”

  “That’s my dog, Echo,” Callie reminded him. “He has to wear a cone till his eye heals. It got injured at the pond. Remember, I told you? How your friend Bo helped rescue him?” Casper’s forehead remained furrowed. “Bo,” Callie prompted him. “Commissioner of Clams.”

  “Ah, yes. Bo.” Casper smiled, but a moment later he lost the plot and nodded toward Echo, asking, “Well, well, who have we here?”

  Evelyn laid a hand on Callie’s shoulder, as if to reassure her there was nothing she could do, and then she moved and stood beside her brother. “Casper, I want you to meet Mimi’s boys.” She wheeled him over to the boys, and Ginger watched as he offered each of them a shy wave. Another wave went to Mimi, which Mimi returned, though Ginger thought it looked begrudging. After that, Evelyn wheeled him to where Thomas and the other men stood, talking to Captain Lou.

  The men gathered round to admire Casper’s new motorized wheelchair, but now and then, Ginger saw Casper steal a glance in her direction. She had no idea what memory she’d evoked, but it was clear, when he looked her way, his agitation increased.

  She found it hard not to stare. She was sorting it out, how to reconcile the threatening stranger her father had mistrusted on first sight, with the sunken-eyed befuddled man listing in his wheelchair. As to whether Casper Diggans had done anything to earn her own disdain, she could no longer say.

  The captain dropped anchor at three nautical miles, the legal distance for a scattering at sea. The boat rocked for a moment and then steadied, but Ginger and Richard, standing together in the middle of the deck, still grabbed each other’s arms as if they needed to hold on to keep balance. At the bow, Callie and Mimi stood together, Mimi busy wrangling the boys out of an argument over who would hold the urn, who would toss it, and who would read the short speech they’d written together. Glory had somehow neglected to leave a list about whether she did or did not want a speech.

  As she tried to defuse the situation, Mimi fussed, organizing the boys for photographs, making them stand in size order, and after Wallace tried to cover Hunter’s face with his baseball cap, grabbing Neil and inserting him like a human shield between the middle and eldest boys. When Troy looked over at his mother, she smiled and gently touched his cheek, and when Wallace’s face collapsed into a sulk, she leaned in and gave him a light kiss on his head. There was something in her movements that reminded Ginger of a cat managing a litter. Light touches here, quick nudges there, a mild but firm assertion of power all conveying love.

  Ginger closed her eyes and pictured Julia when she was five, the year she discovered soccer and announced she loved to sweat, and when she was eleven and ran into the kitchen like it was an emergency to say she needed to learn how to cook eggs, and when she was thirteen, moved to tears in a department store dressing room because the saleswoman announced in a loud voice that she didn’t fill out her dress, and when she was seventeen in the parking lot at Mount Washington, refusing to get out of the car.

  There was a moment that afternoon on the mountaintop when the wind went suddenly still and the sun burned hot on their necks. Julia could have made a sarcastic remark about the weather—Ginger would now say she deserved it—but instead she’d just tugged her mother’s arm and took her hand. It was an unexpected and surprising gesture of grace—but Ginger was stuck in the argument, stuck feeling hurt, so her hand stayed limp, a dead fish in her daughter’s hot palm. It didn’t take more than a moment for her to cast her pique aside, but by then, by the time she finally grabbed Julia’s smooth soft hand, it was too late. Too tight, Julia told her, the melody of her words like a curse as she pulled her hand away.

  “No running.” Captain Lou was losing his temper with the boys, and Mimi stood with arms akimbo, contemplating the best intervention.

  “Captain Lou,” Ginger called. “Any chance you know where Lillian Hellman lived?”

  “Yup.”

  Wallace, grateful for the distraction, mouthed thank you and Ginger smiled, happy to have helped. She turned to the captain. “Could we possibly do the scattering there?”

  “Can’t get closer than three miles out,” he reminded her. “Three miles is the law.”

  “Three miles from Lillian Hellman’s house would be great. My mother was a fan. If there’s added expense, we’ll cover it, right, Mimi?”

  Mimi nodded and the captain agreed. It was all the same to him.

  The boat slowly turned around and then speeded on, and the boys ran over and thanked Ginger for saving them from more lectures. Then they stood, three boys and their aunt, faces tipped toward the sun.

  Ten minutes later, Captain Lou called out, “House is just ahead,” and dropped anchor. “This is as close as I can get.”

  “Come on, boys.” Mimi called them over to the side of the boat. “Come on, everyone.”

  Thomas hung back with Evelyn and Casper, and Captain Lou stayed at the helm. The rest of them gathered at the stern where, in a rare moment of brotherly kindness, Wallace insisted Troy be the one to hold the turquoise shell urn while he and Hunter rested their hands on top.

  In the distance, a steamship ferry pulled away from the dock. Its horn blared. Captain Lou’s boat heaved in the wake. The turquoise shell slipped out of Troy’s hands. They all watched as it fell with an unceremonious plop, into the sea.

  Ginger let out a laugh of surprise, but then noticed Troy was crying. Hunter shoved him and told him to stop being a baby. Ginger glanced over the side of the boat. “Boys,” she called. “Come over here. You have to see this.”

  Troy, first to see it, shouted to the others. “Grandma Glory refuses to sink.”

  “Typical,” Mimi said as she joined her boys at the side of the boat and they all watched Glory float, refusing to sink, until, without warning, the sea swallowed her in a giant gulp and she was gone.

  Captain Lou let them off in Vineyard Haven. In the parking lot, Casper Diggans held his hand up in a stiff wave and Evelyn, standing behind him, put her hand in front of her mouth. But whether she was blowing a kiss or holding back a cry, Ginger couldn’t tell.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Thomas joined them for dinner: lobsters Richard had picked up, steamed, from a fish market in Menemsha. They ate on the back deck, Wallace and Hunter sucking lobster tentacles soaked in butter and dipping wet fingers into empty bags of chips to get the last of the salt. Troy stayed with Callie, running in circles on the back lawn, struggling to control a kite she’d bought as a gift, the kite now threatening to crash in the gusty wind.

  “More string,” Callie told Troy. “Let out more string.”

  The kite lifted off and Troy let the spindle turn in his hands, yelling with delight as the kite darted this way and that, drawing an erratic course across the sky.

  “Keep letting it out,” Callie shouted. “But don’t let go. No matter what.”


  Ginger watched them, Callie guiding Troy, both of them giddy as they ran from one end of the wide lawn to the other, the kite rising above the tree line, putting on a show.

  Thomas broke the silence. “So, I’m guessing Julia is away at college.”

  Hunter, who hadn’t developed his poker face yet, went wide-eyed. Richard moved closer to Ginger. Wallace spoke up. “We don’t talk about that.”

  “Isn’t the sky spectacular?” Mimi marveled. “Look at the colors.”

  “It’s okay, Wallace,” Ginger said. “We can talk about Julia.”

  “I’m sorry,” Thomas said. “I didn’t know—I don’t know—I’m sorry.”

  “Nothing to apologize for. Julia’s fine.”

  “I think this is actually the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen,” Mimi said. “Have you ever seen a sky this gorgeous?”

  “You don’t have to change the subject,” Ginger told her. “Boys, if there’s anything you want to know about Julia, just ask me. I want to talk about her.”

  Wallace shrugged. “We don’t have any questions. We know what happened. Some kid at school started a rumor she ran away, but I told him she’s at boarding school and he should butt out.”

  “Watch the kite,” Mimi called to Troy. “Callie, it’s getting too close to the trees.”

  “Mimi, did you tell the boys Julia’s at boarding school?”

  Mimi slumped. “Sorry, Gingie.” A moment later she straightened. “Neil, go take the kite.” She called to Troy, “Give the kite to your father and come here. I need to talk to you. Callie, can you come too?” She turned to her husband. “Neil.”

  Busy searching through a pile of discarded lobster pickings for anything that still had meat, Neil didn’t look up.

  “Hey,” Richard said. “Neil.”

  His brother-in-law stopped his search. “Yeah?”

  “Our wives want us to go fly a kite.” Richard turned to Thomas. “Care to join us?”

  “Sure.”

  Happy to disappear into a kite-skills competition, the three men jogged over and relieved Troy and Callie of their toy.

  Troy returned to the bench and sat down. Callie sat beside him and draped her arm around his narrow shoulders. When Echo tried to insert himself between the two of them, they laughed and let him in. Wallace moved closer to Ginger. Hunter inched toward his mother. Everyone waited. Finally, Mimi spoke.

  “Boys, I made a mistake. I’m sorry. Julia is not at boarding school. I told you that because I didn’t want you to worry about her. The truth is your cousin Julia went away. With a friend.”

  “Why?” Troy asked.

  “Remember when you were little and I used to tell you how important it is to pick carefully? Like with apples, you shouldn’t pick the ones with fingernail marks, and how it’s the same with friends. You have to be careful not to pick a bad one?”

  Ginger interrupted. “Julia didn’t pick bad friends.”

  “You’re defending the boy now?”

  “This is not about the boy. Julia went away,” she told her nephews, “because she needed to figure herself out. Most of the time, practically all the time, people can do that right at home. I’m sure that’s what all of you are going to do. But every once in a while, someone can’t manage to do that at home. So they go away.” She looked at Callie, who offered her an unexpected smile. “Want to know the best thing to do when that happens?”

  The boys nodded.

  “Talk about it. Talk about the person. Talk about them all the time. Can we do that? Can we talk about Julia? Because I bet if Julia was here, she’d have a lot of funny stories about Grandma. Like the year you all went trick-or-treating and Julia dressed up as a movie star and Grandma thought she was dressed up as her?”

  Wallace remembered that. “Grandma Glory thanked her and Julia got so mad.”

  “But she let Grandma think it,” Hunter added. “Even though Julia was mad, she told Grandma, You’re welcome. She wasn’t even snotty when she said it.”

  Troy smiled, remembering. “And Grandma liked her costume so much, she gave Julia an extra Hershey bar. The big size. And Julia gave it to me.”

  “That’s not fair,” Wallace grumbled. “How come Grandma always gave Julia extra stuff?”

  “No more reminiscing. Forward march. We need to be sure—”

  Ginger interrupted. “We need to be sure not to confuse marching forward with forgetting.”

  They were throwing away paper plates, cups, and lobster carcasses when Callie announced her news. “I found Charlie yesterday.”

  Ginger put down the stack of cups she’d been carrying. “How could you find him?” She met Callie’s eyes and spoke the words slowly. “Charlie died, Callie. A long time ago.”

  Callie stared back, unfazed. “I can take you to see him. Do you want to come with me?”

  While Ginger struggled to figure out how to answer, Mimi said, “That is crazy talk, Callie. We—”

  Ginger cut her off. “We do. The answer is yes.” She hooked her arm through Mimi’s elbow. “We’ll go wherever you want.”

  They were twenty minutes from the house when Callie pulled the car onto a grassy shoulder. “He’s right through there.” Ginger turned and saw the rough-hewn gate of a cemetery.

  As they walked through the gate, Callie explained. “Whenever Mom visited me, she went to see Charlie. But she never let me come along. She said it would upset me to think about him. I told her I thought about him anyway, every day. But she still said no. I started looking for him the day I got back. There’s more seminaries on the island than you would think.”

  “Cemeteries,” Ginger corrected her.

  Callie nodded. “Yesterday, I found him.” She stopped. “Here.” She squatted in front of a small footstone. Her sisters kneeled beside her.

  Ginger read the inscription: “Charlie Tangle. Beloved son and brother.”

  “We need some rocks,” Mimi said. “There’s got to be rocks around here.” She got up and searched the grass between the plots, looking for stones to lay atop the grave.

  Ginger turned to Callie. “I had no idea you lived here. You know that, right?”

  Callie nodded. “We kept it a secret. Because, separate the troublemakers. That’s what the school said. Together, we were trouble. Separated, we were okay. It worked.” She smiled. “We’re all right.”

  Mimi returned, her hands clutching rocks which she then shared with her sisters. She kept the largest, a flat one, and put it on the top of the footstone. Ginger laid hers on top of Mimi’s. Callie crowned the pile with a third. There was one stone left in Mimi’s hand, and Callie took it and placed that one on the top of the tiny tower.

  “There,” she said. “Now it’s four. All the originals.” She leaned over and let her hand hover above the pile of rocks. Mimi placed her hand on top of Callie’s, and Ginger placed her hand on top of them all. Then, hands stacked, one atop the other, muscle memory took over and as if they were once again thirteen and ten and six, Callie pulled her hand out from the bottom and put it on top, and Mimi did the same, and so did Ginger until, hands moving fast and then faster, they became a muddle, impossible to tell one from the next.

  Someone’s hand, Ginger couldn’t tell whose, hit a rock and the pile tumbled. Mimi put the stones back, carefully rebuilding their tower.

  Just as Mimi finished, her cell phone buzzed. “At least someone in the family lives where there’s good cell service.” She read her text. “Neil’s thirsty. He wants to know, can we stop and pick up beer. Do you mind?” Ginger’s phone buzzed and Mimi joked, “Guess all the men are thirsty.”

  But Ginger’s text was from an unknown number.

  Mimi looked over and saw the text was just a link. “Don’t you hate that? Isn’t cell phone spam the worst?”

  But Ginger couldn’t be sure it was spam. She touched the link and a video came up. Her sisters leaned in close to watch as she turned up the volume and pressed Play.

  She saw the girl first, a girl in
a long sundress, Julia. Not someone who looked like Julia but really, Julia. She saw Nick next. Nick in his Salvation Army uniform. He was sitting on a chair with a cello between his knees. Had Julia ever mentioned that Nick played the cello?

  They were on a stage, she saw now. Not exactly a stage, she realized. Their chairs were on a sheet they were using to mark off the area as if it were a stage. Julia was holding something. A marionette. A marionette made out of a doll. It was one of Julia’s old dolls. The American Girl doll with red hair, the one they bought because Julia said it looked like her. The doll was wearing a dress, which Ginger saw was made from a Salvation Army uniform; the doll’s clothes matched Nick’s.

  Nick called out, “Can you hear me?” and the answer was a shout from a crowd, “Yes!”

  Then Julia spoke. “I’m dedicating this song to my grandma cause she taught it to me.”

  It was hard to make out all the details on the phone screen, but Ginger could see that Julia was operating the American Girl doll marionette. The marionette, she now noticed, had a toy cello and a chair, and was moving in concert with Nick. Ginger was still thinking what a surprise it was to discover Nick was a good cello player when she realized the melancholy sound she was hearing came not only from the cello. Her daughter was singing. Julia had a beautiful voice.

  “‘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 screen froze. Ginger waited, but that was it. The video was over. There was no more.

  “Look.” Callie pointed up to the sky where a pair of birds was circling and chattering loudly. “They like Julia’s song so much they’re singing along.”

  “That’s not a song,” Mimi said. “That’s a warning. There’s a hawk. See?” She pointed.

  “Maybe.” Callie turned to Ginger and took her hand. “Julia will be back.” Then she closed her eyes. “If you keep your eyes closed and you don’t see the hawk, it sounds like a song. Like a happy song.”