The Space Between Sisters

by Mary McNear

  “Why are you throwing that away?” she objected. “Grandma gave it to you.” Grandma had given one to Win, too. It was from the Butternut Variety Store and it was identical to this one except that the roses on it were yellow instead of pink.

  “I don’t want it anymore,” Poppy said, indifferently. “It’s for a little girl.”

  “Pops,” Win said, coming over to her. “What’s wrong? Tell me.”

  “Nothing’s wrong. I just don’t feel well,” Poppy said, using all of her self-control to not break down and tell Win everything. She remembered Rich’s threat. Her whole family could end up on the street. And worse, if she told Win, she would confront him or want to tell the police, and then he might hurt Win, too.

  Poppy, moving mechanically, went back to her dresser and put on a pair of underwear and an oversized T-shirt. Win still looked worried. “Do you want me to brush your hair, Pops?” she asked. “It’s all tangled up.”

  Poppy looked at herself in the mirror above the dresser. Her wet hair was impossibly knotted. But she looked away before she could see her face. For some reason, the thought of seeing it scared her. Maybe it was because she was afraid it would look as empty as she felt inside.

  “Come on,” Win said, gently, leading her over to her bed. Poppy sat down on it and Win sat beside her and started brushing her hair, being careful not to pull too hard, and to work through the knots patiently.

  After a few minutes of this, the brush began to move more easily, and Poppy started to relax a little. It felt nice, in a way, especially when Win had settled into a rhythm, running the brush over and over again through Poppy’s now smooth hair.

  “Win?” Poppy said, finally. “Do you know that man who lives down the hall? The photographer?”

  “Uh-huh,” Win said, after a moment. Her voice sounded almost sleepy now. As if brushing her sister’s hair was having the same sedating effect on her as it was having on Poppy.

  “Have you ever talked to him?”

  “What? No,” Win said.

  Poppy took a steadying breath and tried to sound casual. “I mean, did he ever ask you if he could photograph you?”

  “Uh-uh. And if he ever did, I’d say no.”

  “Why?” Poppy asked, softly, trying to emulate Win’s almost dreamy tone.

  Win skimmed the brush through Poppy’s hair, which hung down her back now like a straight, blond curtain.

  “Well . . . I don’t know him. He’s a stranger.”

  Practical Win, Poppy thought, with a feeling that was part pride, part envy. She would never have gotten herself into the position Poppy had been in today. And there and then was born the idea, long held and not easily let go of, that this had all somehow been Poppy’s fault. That she had let it happen.

  Win brushed her hair for a little while longer, before yawning, sleepily. “My arm’s getting tired, Pops. Mind if I stop now?”

  “No,” Poppy said, feeling it again, that strange sense of being removed. As if she’d somehow become detached from her body. “No, that’s okay.”

  Win went to put the brush on the dresser, and then turned off the lights and got into bed.

  “Poppy, are you going to go to sleep?” she asked, after a little while. Poppy was still sitting on her bed where Win had left her.

  “Uh-huh,” Poppy said, crawling under the covers. But she couldn’t get comfortable. She was still scared. And she was cold, too, even though it was warm in their bedroom. She shivered, violently, and curled herself into a ball. In the bed next to her, Win stirred, sighed, and settled into sleep. Poppy listened to the steady rhythm of her breathing, and found that, for a little while, anyway, it soothed her. But then it got harder to stop her body from shaking. She curled it into a tighter ball, and screwed her eyes shut. She wouldn’t think about what had happened in that apartment, she told herself. She wouldn’t think about anything. She’d keep her mind a perfect blank.

  And she was able to do this, but only for a little while. It was hard to shut out the knowledge of what had happened, harder still to shut out the feelings it provoked in her. She was terrified of those feelings, though. They were so overwhelming to her that she was afraid they would be like an enormous wave crashing over her, pushing her under and, ultimately, drowning her. She had to try to feel less. She had to. And it seemed to her the only way to do this was to forget, to forget as completely as possible, what had happened to her. To bury it. And to never tell anyone, not even Win. That would make it easier to forget, she reasoned, easier to pretend it had never happened.

  And now, sitting on the stepladder at Birch Tree Bait, Poppy thought about how the not remembering, the not feeling had seemed like a good strategy that night, curled up under the covers. And in some ways, it had served her well. After all, she had survived those years. Hadn’t she? Of course, it had come at a price. Not telling anyone, forgetting—or trying to forget—feeling less, caring less, all of these things had required her, in a sense, to drop out of her own life. She’d perfected the art of not putting too much of herself into any one thing, of not staying in any one place for too long, of not getting too attached to any one person. “Keep moving” had been her mantra. Avoid commitment, don’t get too close to anyone, don’t get hurt, and, above all, don’t take life too seriously. She’d quit marching band, lost interest in going to college, and then moved on to a string of failed relationships—if you could even call them that—lousy jobs, and vacated apartments.

  But here was the thing: what had worked for her once wasn’t going to work for her anymore. She understood, finally, that she couldn’t undo what had happened by simply not thinking about it. In fact, by burying the rape—Yes, Poppy thought, call it by its real name—by keeping it a secret, she hadn’t kept it at bay, she had let it take over her life. Maybe, just maybe, she thought now, the only way to take that life back, and to stop making the same mistakes over and over again, was to bring her secret out of the darkness, and into the light. Where she could see it, and perhaps even let those closest to her see it, too.

  The crazy thing was, until the night Sam had kissed her, she’d been content, or she’d thought she’d been content, to continue on as she had been. But being on Butternut Lake with Win this summer, and, well . . . being with Sam, had changed her. It had stirred something inside her, something she hadn’t felt in a long time. In fact, she had to go back to that spring afternoon, walking home from school, to find it. It was a sense of excitement, of hope and of possibility. It was a feeling that good things were going to happen, and happen sooner rather than later.

  She looked around now, surprised that night had fallen outside the windows of Birch Tree Bait. It was time to be closing up. She got up off the stepladder and moved around the room. She was still intensely preoccupied by her thoughts, so much so that everything she did—closing the shutters, turning off the fans and the few remaining lights—had an almost dream-like quality to it. But when she shut the front door behind her, absentmindedly, and turned the key in the lock, she thought, It’s okay. I’ll figure this out. I’ll see Sam tomorrow. We can talk some more then. And then she headed down the steps to Win’s car, the last one left in the parking lot.

  CHAPTER 16

  Less than twelve hours later, Poppy was pulling back into that same parking lot. She felt completely different, though, than she had the night before. If she’d gone to sleep weighed down by her new self-knowledge, she’d woken up feeling freer and lighter than she had in a long time. Everything suddenly seemed clear to her. It was as if, while she was sleeping, her priorities—or, more aptly—her lack of priorities—had magically rearranged themselves. It wasn’t going to be that easy, she knew. People didn’t change overnight, did they?

  But as she was thinking about this, she noticed a police car parked, haphazardly, as if whoever was in it had gotten out in a hurry. She felt a tightening in her stomach, which she tried to ignore. So what? she told herself, getting out of her car. So a policeman is getting a cup of coffee here, or just stopping in t
o talk to Sam. It wasn’t a big deal. She’d seen cops here before. It wasn’t like it was off limits to them.

  Still, her uneasiness persisted, especially since, when she went inside, Sam was nowhere to be seen, and Linc and Justine, who’d always been friendly to her in the past, now seemed reluctant to meet her eyes. Her stomach tightened a little more.

  “Where’s Sam?” she asked Justine, who was working the register.

  “He’s in his office with Roy,” Justine said, not looking at her.

  “Roy?”

  “Roy’s a cop,” Justine said, and because it was obvious to Poppy that no more information would be forthcoming, she went to get a cup of coffee.

  “’Morning Byron,” she said, as she filled her cup. He was, as usual, sitting on a stool at the coffee counter, reading the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

  “’Morning,” he said, keeping his eyes trained on the paper. Poppy stared at him, uncomprehendingly. Under ordinary circumstances, Byron was courteous to the point of being chivalrous. Now he was bordering on rudeness. As Poppy poured half-and-half in her coffee, her face burned with indignation. What had she done? And why was everyone giving her the cold shoulder? Did they . . . did they know about her and Sam? And even if they did, why would they all be so angry with her? It wasn’t as if Sam was giving her special treatment at work. After work, of course, it was a different story.

  She’d just made up her mind to ask Byron what was going on when the door to Sam’s office opened and he and a policemen came out. Sam glanced at Poppy, then glanced away. This time her stomach twisted, almost painfully. “Thanks for getting here so fast, Roy,” Sam was saying to the cop as he shook his hand.

  “’Course. I’ll be in touch. But don’t, uh, don’t get your hopes up.”

  “No, I’m not going to,” Sam said. He walked Roy to the door, opened it for him, and waited until he’d cleared the porch. Then, with another quick glance in her direction, he said, “Poppy, can I see you in my office?”

  She nodded, wordlessly, and hurried over. Linc and Justine and Byron, who’d been so unwilling to look at her before, were all looking at her now. She knew they were because she could practically feel their eyes boring into her back.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked, trying, and failing, to read Sam’s expression. He didn’t answer her, though. Once they were in his office with the door closed, he sat down at his desk and gestured for her to sit down, too.

  The office was so small that her knees touched his desk. He hated this room, she knew. He only came in here during the busy season when it was absolutely necessary. She waited for him to say something, but instead he leaned back in his swivel chair, sighed, and massaged his eyes.

  “Sam, what’s going on?” she blurted out. “Why was that policeman here?”

  He paused, then answered her question with another question. “Do you remember what you did with the keys I gave you last night?”

  “The keys?” she said, reaching instinctively for her handbag, which was sitting on her lap. She opened it and rummaged through it. They weren’t in there. Had they fallen out onto the car floor? Had she taken them out last night and left them on her dresser? “I . . . I don’t have them,” she said, looking helplessly at Sam.

  “You don’t have them,” he said, patiently, “because you left them in the door when you locked up last night.”

  “How . . .”

  “How do I know that?” he asked, his tone still patient. “I know that because they were still in the door when I got to work this morning.”

  “Oh, thank God,” she said, relief welling up in her. “So nobody stole them?”

  “No, they didn’t need to steal them,” he said, and now, in addition to patience, she thought she detected weariness in his tone. “They only needed to borrow them.”

  “Borrow them?” she repeated, not understanding.

  “That’s right. They let themselves in with them, and then they cleaned out the cash register.”

  Poppy sucked in a little breath of surprise. “You were robbed?”

  “Burglarized. Roy—the police officer who was just here—said it was a crime of opportunity. Someone came by after the store had closed, saw the keys in the door and . . .” He shrugged.

  “Does . . . does Roy have any leads?”

  He shook his head. “No. He’ll keep his ear to the ground, though. If it was a young person, or young people, they might tell their friends about it and word might get out.”

  “Oh, Sam, I’m so sorry,” Poppy said, and she was stunned to feel tears burning in her eyes. She was not a crier. “I don’t know what happened last night,” she said, trying to piece it together. “After you left, I was thinking . . . and I was so preoccupied I didn’t realize . . . Oh, God, I feel terrible.”

  He tipped his chair back again, but otherwise said nothing.

  Poppy blinked. A tear ran down her cheek. She was mortified. Beyond mortified, really. And she was something else, too. She was disoriented. She felt like . . . she felt like she didn’t know this Sam. He was so different from the man she’d been with yesterday evening. That man had been affectionate, and flirtatious, and funny. He’d always maintained a sense of professionalism during the workday, of course, but still, he’d never been like this before. He’d never been so detached, and so, so impersonal.

  She was seized with a sense of panic. She needed to put things right. She needed to put things back to the way they’d been before. “I’ll reimburse you,” she said, suddenly. Decisively. “For all of the money you lost.”

  “Poppy, you can’t. It’s too much,” he said, rubbing his eyes again.

  “How much?” she asked, impatiently, as she wiped away a tear with the back of her hand.

  “It’s doesn’t matter,” he said.

  “It does.”

  He sighed. “It was around seven hundred and fifty dollars, more than we usually have in cash.” She sagged a little in her chair. She didn’t have that much money. She didn’t have even close to that much money. She knew it, and he knew it, too.

  “What about insurance?” she asked. “You’re covered for this kind of thing, aren’t you?”

  “No. Not if the theft is due to . . . negligence,” he said, and she got the impression that he was somehow trying to soften the sound of that word. It didn’t work. It still cut her to the quick. It was such an ugly word, though to her it should at least have been a familiar word. After all, this wasn’t the first time in her life she’d been negligent.

  A silent sob shook her now, and Sam, looking mildly alarmed, opened one of his desk drawers, looked around in it, and took out a packet of tissue. He handed it to her across the desk. “Look, I don’t want you to cry, okay? It could have been worse, it could have been a lot worse,” he said, his concern for her registering in his voice. “As far as I can tell, all they took was what was in the till. They could have cleaned this whole place out.”

  Poppy swallowed back another sob, and ripped into the tissue packet. It was hard to imagine it being any worse than it already was. She extracted a tissue now and mopped her eyes with it.

  “Hey, take it easy,” he said, and his voice was gentle again. “In the general scheme of things, it’s not that big a deal. It was a day’s cash earnings. That’s it. If we’re lucky, we’ll make it back today.”

  She forced herself to take a deep breath and tried to smile. “I guess my quitting last night at least saves you from having to fire me now.”

  Sam didn’t answer. He reached back into his top desk drawer, took out an envelope, and handed it to her. It was her paycheck. He tipped forward in his chair. “Well, yes,” he said. “Under the circumstance, I think your leaving is for the best. Don’t you?”

  She brushed away those words with the sweep of her hand. She didn’t care about this job. She cared, very much, about him. About them. Together. She waited for him to say something about this, but when he didn’t, she said, uncertainly, “Sam, what about us?”

  He hesitated. �
��Honestly, Poppy, I’m not sure about us right now.”

  It was so quiet in the small room then that she could hear the clock on Sam’s desk ticking. Outside his office, someone called out to someone else, a screen door slammed, a car engine started up. Inside the office, the seconds ticked by.

  “Are you saying . . . you don’t want to see me anymore?” Poppy asked, in an almost whisper, and she felt as if she had put whatever remained of her pride on the desk between them. It didn’t matter, though. Her pride didn’t seem important right now.

  Her words seemed to galvanize Sam into action, though. He got up, came around to the other side of the desk, and sat on its edge. They were so close now they were almost touching, but what he said now didn’t close what little space remained between them.

  “Look, Poppy, don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I’m incredibly attracted to you, and I’ve really liked getting to know you better this last week. But we’re at completely different places in our lives. You’re free to come and go as you please. When the summer is over . . . you’ll move on. In fact, part of me is surprised you haven’t already.” She shook her head wordlessly; leaving here was the last thing she wanted to do. “I, on the other hand,” Sam continued, “I’m tied to this place. I have three children, a business, a mortgage, two mortgages, actually—one on the cabin and one on the store—and a whole lot of other responsibilities I won’t bore you with now.” Again, she shook her head in protest. She knew what he was doing. He was saying, in the nicest way possible, You’re not like me, you’re not a grown-up, and we’re done here.

  He looked away from her now. They’d reached an impasse. But it didn’t matter. It was still over. Poppy couldn’t force him to be in a relationship with her. But he wasn’t the only one she was going to miss, she realized, and she was surprised at how much this new knowledge hurt.