The Space Between Sisters

by Mary McNear

  “Uh-huh,” Win said, too caught up in her own emotions to feel any sympathy for Poppy. “Well, I think we can both agree it’s time for you to snap out of it.”

  “You’re not supposed to tell people who are depressed to snap out of it,” Poppy said, looking genuinely hurt. “I read that somewhere.”

  “Okay, fine, except you’re not feeling depressed, Poppy. You’re feeling sorry for yourself. There’s a difference.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Poppy said, raising her voice. “I’m going through stuff you don’t even know about. And as for Sam, I told you how much I cared about him. And I told you how much it hurts for it to be over. But it didn’t count with you, did it? No, because you’re the expert on loss, Win. You’ve cornered the market on grief. No one else can even begin to compete with you, can they?”

  Win was shocked. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh, please. I’ve watched you all summer long, arranging and rearranging those little shrines on your dresser.”

  Win felt tears burning in her eyes. “I was trying to remember Kyle,” she said.

  “Then remember him. But stop using him as an excuse to not live your life.”

  “I am living my life,” Win said, furiously swiping at her tears. “I have a job. I have friends. And I might even have someone else I care about.”

  “Everett?” Poppy said dismissively. “I don’t think so. I don’t see how you can possibly make room for him when you’ve still got all of the memories of your marriage to Kyle taking up an entire closet. An entire life,” she amended. And then she picked Sasquatch up off the bed, and carried him to the front door, where she loaded him into his pet carrier. Win followed her and watched her do this. Why, she didn’t know. She didn’t know what she expected to gain from her and Poppy being together right now. Her emotions were positively in riot; so many different ones were battling with each other that she couldn’t separate them, let alone name them or understand them.

  But when Poppy, who looked caught between anger and sadness, had latched Sasquatch’s pet carrier closed, and picked it up, and settled her handbag on the other arm, she hesitated at the front door. “If you don’t mind,” she said, her face coloring a little, “I really do need to borrow your car keys. Sasquatch’s appointment is in half an hour.”

  And Win, savoring the irony of Poppy having to ask her for a favor now, went to get her keys off the front hall table. “Here,” she said, handing them to Poppy. “And while you’re driving into town maybe you can think about your life, Poppy. Because the last time I checked it wasn’t going anywhere. In fact, it’s starting to look a lot like Mom and Dad’s lives.”

  Win stood in the doorway and watched Poppy drive away. She was so angry, but her anger had nowhere to go. It was so unfair, she thought. Today, heat aside, was supposed to have been a nice day, a special day. Everett was coming soon and they’d planned on taking a swim and going out for dinner in town. Their first date. Their first real date. Now she wasn’t even sure she wanted to go on it, and, worse, doubts about Everett were creeping in, mixing dangerously with anger. Then, as if on cue, Everett’s car came down the driveway. He must have passed Poppy, she realized. Had he been hoping to see her today, too? After all, she was the reason he’d come here the first time, and maybe even the second and third times. And suddenly, it seemed preposterous to Win that she’d ever believed Everett had come here to see her.

  By the time he got out of his car, Win was already halfway down the front porch steps. “She’s not here,” she said.

  “Who’s not here?” he asked, caught off guard.

  “Poppy,” she said, coming up to him.

  “That’s okay,” he said uncertainly. “I didn’t come here to see her.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He looked mystified. “Yes. I’m sure.”

  “Well, all that means is that you’ve decided to settle for me,” she said, folding her arms across her chest.

  “Win, what are you talking about? I haven’t settled for you. I haven’t settled for anyone. I don’t . . . settle.”

  She shook her head impatiently. “So, you’re saying it was always me you wanted to be with? Since the first time you came up here? Because that’s not how I remember it. You came here for Poppy. And you came back here for Poppy. And the only reason you ended up with me, Everett, is because she wasn’t interested in you.”

  He looked at her uncomprehendingly, as if she were speaking a language he didn’t understand. But then he pushed his hair out of his eyes and said, with an unfamiliar tightness in his voice, “Look, I don’t know where this is coming from, but we need to get one thing straight. I never came here because I was interested in your sister. Not even the first time. That time, I gave her a ride because she needed a favor, and I like coming up north. The other times, though, I came here to see you. I mean, why do you think I’ve been spending so much time at my cousin’s cabin this summer—”

  “Oh, please,” Win said, exasperated.

  “No, it’s true.”

  She wouldn’t let herself be sidetracked, though. “You didn’t come back to see me that second time,” she reminded him. “You came back to give Poppy a box she left in your trunk.”

  “I could just as easily have mailed it to her,” he pointed out. “I wanted an excuse to see you.”

  “But you texted her,” she pointed out.

  “Only because I didn’t have your number.”

  This stymied Win, but only for a moment. “You came to see her that night,” she persisted. “And do you know what she did, Everett? She made me say she was out, and then she hid, in her bedroom, the whole night.” Later she would wonder what her motivation for telling him this had been. Had she wanted to hurt his feelings, or had she wanted him to see Poppy in an unflattering light? Probably both, she’d decided.

  But he only shrugged. “I don’t care what Poppy did that night.” He wiped perspiration off his brow. “I really don’t. But would you please tell me what’s going on? The last time I was here, we could barely keep our hands off each other, and now, now I feel like we’re strangers or something.”

  “Maybe we are,” she said, and the anger was back. The doubt, too. And the doubt . . . the doubt was full-blown.

  He leaned on his open car door. He looked hot, but mainly he looked disappointed. “Why are you selling us both so short, Win?” he asked, quietly.

  She didn’t answer him; instead, she left him standing there. She heard, but didn’t see him, driving away as she went back inside the cabin, slamming the front door so hard behind her that she knocked the wind chimes off their hook. She threw herself onto the living room couch then and buried herself in its pillows. Their feathery softness sunk beneath her weight, and, like them, she felt suddenly deflated, her anger suddenly gone. She lay there, perfectly still, for a long time, oblivious to the suffocating heat. Finally, though, her thoughts coalesced around a question. A question she desperately wanted to know the answer to. And it was not about how Poppy and Everett had failed her, but rather, about how she had failed them. Why had she provoked two fights, with two of the people she cared about the most, all within the space of thirty minutes?

  Anger, she decided, still buried in the pillows. Anger and doubt and sadness. Anger at the ups and downs of a summer spent living with Poppy. Anger at being the sister who always had to fix things, to prop up what was falling, to mend what was broken. And doubt. Doubt that a guy—a nice guy, a funny guy, a cute guy—could truly be interested in her if her sister was around at the same time. Doubt that she was lovable in her own right, that she was, as her father always said, “winning Win,” doubt born of those crucial high school years when she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was always standing in Poppy’s lovely shadow. And sadness. Sadness that her marriage was over and that Kyle was gone. Sadness that they’d had so little time together, and sadness that the memory of that time was being whittled away by the intervening years. Didn’t Poppy get t
hat? Didn’t she understand that the reason Win kept those things on her dresser was less because she wanted to remember and more because she was afraid to forget?

  Win didn’t know how much time passed before she finally stirred on the couch. She felt a breeze, the first one in days, coming in through the open living room windows that faced the lake. She sat up, and started to rearrange the jumbled pillows. She still felt hot, and sticky, and now, tearstained, but she felt something else, too: a new understanding. Yes, she’d fought with Poppy and Everett today, but she’d also fought with herself. Her childhood self, the one who’d felt responsible for her sister and her parents, who’d felt the weight of the world on her shoulders, and who’d believed Poppy was the beautiful sister and she the pale imitation. But she wasn’t a child, or even a teenager, anymore. Her life had changed since then. She had work now, and friends, and a town, and a cabin and a place that she loved.

  She got up from the couch and went out to retrieve the wind chimes from the porch floor. She disentangled them and hung them carefully on their nail. She knew now what she should have done today. She should have taken Everett at his word. And she should have told Poppy, kindly but firmly, to take charge of her life—to look for another job, to talk to Sam, to get up, and to start to move forward—because otherwise their living together was not going to work.

  She was going to need to apologize, she realized. To two people. She sat down on the porch steps, and wondered how long she’d have to wait before Poppy came home.

  CHAPTER 19

  After a long wait in Dr. Swanson’s over-air-conditioned waiting room, Poppy sat in his over-air-conditioned office. The fact that she was shivering now, though, probably had less to do with being cold than with what he had just told her.

  “Kidney failure?” she repeated.

  He shuffled some papers around on his desk. “In layman’s terms, it’s kidney failure, yes. In veterinary terms, its end-stage chronic renal failure. It’s not uncommon in older cats,” he added, gently.

  “Are you . . . sure that’s what it is?” Poppy pressed. “I mean, could you run some more tests?”

  Dr. Swanson hesitated. He was an older man with thick white hair and kind blue eyes, and, at first, Poppy had trusted him. Now, she wasn’t so sure. He took off his glasses and polished them on his white coat. “It’s not necessary to run more tests,” he said. “Your cat’s blood and urine tests have already confirmed it.”

  “Okay,” Poppy said, refusing to panic. “So, can we start him on dialysis?” She looked down at Sasquatch. He was lying, limply, in her lap.

  “Dialysis wouldn’t be appropriate under the circumstances,” Dr. Swanson said patiently. “His kidney failure is age-related.”

  “He was fine, though, until recently,” Poppy insisted. “I mean, he’s been low energy this summer. He’s been sleeping more, and eating less. But these other things—the thirstiness, and the peeing, and the not eating anything—these are all new. They only started over the last week.”

  “I know it seems sudden,” Dr. Swanson said. “Partly, it’s because in a cat this age, the symptoms of aging can mask the symptoms of other illnesses. But partly, too, it’s the nature of the disease. By the time chronic kidney failure is symptomatic in a cat, they may have lost as much as 75 percent of their kidney function.”

  “If I’d brought him sooner—” Poppy began, feeling a wave of guilt, but Dr. Swanson was already shaking his head.

  “I can promise you that even if you had the outcome would still be the same.”

  “The outcome,” Poppy said, looking down at Sasquatch again. “You mean . . . death?” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper.

  “Yes,” Dr. Swanson said, and Poppy noticed that he was speaking softly, too. “That’s what I mean.”

  She closed her eyes. This was not happening. This was too soon. Too fast. She opened her eyes. Dr. Swanson was still sitting there, a concerned expression on his face. His office’s waiting room was full of people and their pets, but he wouldn’t rush her, she saw. How many pet owners, she wondered, had he delivered this news to over the years? Too many, she decided. She tried to smile at him then, but she couldn’t quite manage it. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, a lump hardening in her throat. “I knew Sasquatch wouldn’t live forever. But I thought the two of us would have more warning. You know, more time to get ready for it.”

  He smiled, a little sadly. “Can I tell you something?”

  She nodded. A single tear slid down her cheek.

  “I’ve been doing this for forty years. And, trust me, there’s never enough time to get ready for it.”

  “What . . . what happens now?” she asked. She was back to whispering again. It was the best she could do. She didn’t trust her voice to speak out loud.

  “Well, that depends on you. You have some decisions to make.”

  “You mean, about putting him down?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t just let him go . . . naturally?”

  “You could,” he said.

  “But you don’t recommend it?” she said, already knowing the answer.

  “I don’t. I think he’d be in a lot of pain.”

  “I don’t want him to be in pain,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t even stand to think about him being in pain. Is he . . . I mean, is he already in pain?” she asked, horrified. She pulled Sasquatch closer to her.

  “It’s very likely,” he said.

  “Oh, God,” she murmured, letting a few tears roll unchecked down her cheeks. Dr. Swanson’s words, though, had given her a new courage. She didn’t want to say good-bye to Sasquatch, but she didn’t want him to suffer, either.

  “Let’s do it,” she said, quickly. “Let’s . . . put him down.”

  “All right, but we can’t do it right now. You’ll have to schedule it with Valerie, our office manager. We should have an opening tomorrow, and, if we don’t, we’ll make one. In the meantime, we can give him IV fluids before you leave, and we can also prescribe a liquid painkiller for you to give him. That way you’ll have a little more time with him,” he said. “And he should be reasonably comfortable during that time, too.”

  “It won’t hurt, will it? The putting him down, I mean?”

  “No. And we’ll give him an injection of a sedative beforehand.”

  “And afterwards,” she asked, her voice tremulous, “do you have any . . . funeral packages?”

  He blinked. “Funeral packages?”

  “Yes.”

  “Um, no, nothing like that. Though there’s nothing to stop you, of course, from having one privately.”

  Poppy nodded, miserably. Because who, other than her, would come to a funeral for Sasquatch? And besides, she’d never been good at planning things, anyway. That was Win’s strength.

  “Whether or not you decide to have a funeral,” Dr. Swanson said, “you could still have him cremated.”

  “I want to do that,” she said, decisively. “And I want an urn, too.” The best, most expensive urn available, she thought. And then she remembered something. She had no money, and therefore no idea how she was going to pay for any of this.

  “Dr. Swanson?” she asked, quickly, since he was starting to stand up. “Does your office have, like, a payment plan or something? You know, for people who can’t pay for everything up front?” She was too miserable to be ashamed.

  “You can work something out with Valerie,” he said, unfazed.

  “I promise I’ll pay for everything. I just need a little time.”

  He opened the door to the examining room, and then looked back at her. “I’m not worried,” he said. “I know Win. She and my wife, Liz, are on the library board together. Your sister, by the way, has been a wonderful addition to this town.”

  “I believe that,” Poppy said, a little wanly. No need to mention here that she and Win were not even on speaking terms with each other now.

  After she left the veterinarian’s office, Poppy couldn’t bring herself to put S
asquatch back in his pet carrier. Which was just as well, since she couldn’t bring herself to drive back to the cabin, either. So instead, she put the pet carrier in the backseat of the car and, holding Sasquatch in her arms, crossed over to the other side of Main Street.

  It was still sweltering outside. She stood perfectly still, under the red-and-white-striped awning of Pearl’s, hoping that if she conserved energy, she would stay cooler. But it didn’t work. Little beads of perspiration broke out on her forehead, and Sasquatch’s fur, already matted from the heat, stuck to her bare arms. They needed to take refuge in the air-conditioned car, she thought, and the sooner the better, but she didn’t know if she had the energy to cross the street again. Her despondency, like the humidity, was weighing her down, and making even the smallest movements feel like they were taking place at the bottom of a swimming pool.

  Still, she was about to make a run for the car, when the front door of Pearl’s opened, and Caroline, the woman who owned it—a fortyish strawberry blonde—started flipping the sign on it from Open to Closed.

  “Hello,” she said, seeing Poppy there. “Everything all right?”

  Poppy nodded.

  “How’s your sister?” she asked.

  “Fine,” she whispered.

  “Good.” She smiled. Win and Caroline were friends. Every morning during the school year, Win stopped in at Pearl’s for their famous blueberry pancakes, or their slow-cooked oatmeal. “Are you okay?” Caroline asked, with a slight frown.

  Poppy tried to say yes, but found she couldn’t form the word. No matter. If she looked the way she felt, it would be obvious to even the most casual bystander that she was not okay.

  “Do you two want to come in?” Caroline asked, her eyes traveling down to a bedraggled looking Sasquatch. “Just to cool off?”

  Finally, Poppy roused herself. “You’re closed,” she pointed out.

  “Well, for most people,” Caroline said. “But not for Win’s sister.”