Summer with My Sisters

by Holly Chamberlin

  Poppy frowned. “It can’t be that easy.”

  “Oh,” Allie admitted, “it’s not. It’s hard work. But it pays off marvelously. I wouldn’t have gotten over my disastrous marriage and only slightly less painful divorce if I hadn’t adopted a downright chipper persona and lied to myself all the way through that I was on the road to full emotional recovery.”

  “Chipper?” Daisy repeated skeptically.

  Violet nodded. “The power of positive thinking.”

  “Exactly,” Allie said. “You do what you have to do to get past the difficult stuff.”

  “It sounds like mumbo jumbo to me,” Daisy said. “Sorry, Allie, sorry, Violet.”

  “That’s our future doctor talking,” Poppy said. “Our rational scientist.”

  “Taurus people,” Violet pointed out, “are very methodical thinkers. They are very focused. They don’t like to take risks.”

  Daisy looked uncomfortable with this assessment. “Well,” she said, “I guess if positive thinking works for some people it’s real enough.”

  Violet put her empty glass on the table. “Taurus people,” she added, afraid that she might have been too harsh on Daisy, “also make excellent friends.”

  Chapter 34

  “I hope you don’t mind my just showing up. I figured someone might be home.”

  Poppy smiled. Finding Jon Gascoyne on your doorstep, she thought, was something no one in her right mind would object to. “Not at all,” she said.

  “Here. These are for you and your sisters. With one extra for good luck.” Jon handed her the large plastic bag he had been holding.

  Poppy peered inside and laughed. “Lobsters? What a coincidence! My friend Allie is staying with us for a while and lobster is her all-time favorite. Well, I’m a fan, too. Thank you, Jon. Can I—”

  “It’s a gift.”

  Like Julie’s gift of cheese in exchange for a renewal of their friendship. “A neighborly gesture?” she asked.

  “Something like that.”

  “First you solve my lawn mower problem and now . . .”

  Jon shrugged. “Glad to be of service.”

  Suddenly, Poppy felt almost overcome with emotion. Gratitude, simple happiness, sorrow—it was all mixed up and threatened to take the form of tears. She was glad when Jon (had he noticed her struggle not to cry?) said: “I thought I might have seen you at the town meeting the other night. Freddie mentioned something about your thinking of going.”

  Small towns . . . “Oh. I intended to go, but . . . something came up.” Poppy felt vaguely guilty for not having gone to the meeting, let alone not having read the report about it bound to have been in the local paper.

  “Things got pretty heated,” Jon said with a grin.

  “What happened?”

  “Well, there were several topics on the agenda, but what really caused a stir was the debate about adding a traffic cop at the intersection of Main and Vine.”

  Poppy laughed. “Really? I wouldn’t have thought the idea of a traffic cop could get people so excited!”

  “The big question is about how to pay him—or her. There’s money in the municipal budget, but those against the idea are arguing there are more important things to spend the money on than a guy waving cars by. And they have a point. It’s not like there’s been an accident at that corner for years, even at the height of summer.”

  “So, was anything decided?” Poppy asked.

  Jon smiled. “Only to let things cool down for a week or two. You know, I remember your mother coming to the town meetings. She really had a knack for defusing tempers when people got out of control, which some invariably did.”

  Poppy didn’t recall her mother going to town meetings and wondered what else she didn’t know about Annabelle Higgins—or worse, what she hadn’t noticed. But how many children—even children who were twenty-one, which was how old she had been when her mother had died—really paid attention to a parent as a person with duties and interests outside of the family?

  “Well, I’ve got to be off,” Jon said suddenly. “I’m doing a shift at the restaurant later. Two of our waiters called in sick today. Interestingly, both of them were seen partying late at Maine Street, that nightclub in Ogunquit.”

  “Go figure.”

  Jon turned to leave.

  “Jon?” Poppy called.

  He stopped and looked back toward her.

  “Thanks again.”

  With a smile and a wave, Jon Gascoyne continued down the drive and Poppy Higgins, clutching a bag of wriggling lobsters, went inside.

  Chapter 35

  “The nurse said it’s just to be sure she doesn’t have pneumonia,” Daisy told Mr. Wilkin for what was probably the third or fourth time that afternoon. She honestly didn’t know who she was trying to reassure most—Bertie Wilkin or Daisy Higgins. “They’ll take an X-ray and then she’ll be right back here with you.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Mr. Wilkin,” Daisy scolded. “Don’t say that.”

  They were together in the TV room, but neither had any interest in watching the stupid game show that seemed to have mesmerized a handful of residents.

  Bertie Wilkin shrugged. “At our age, Young Daisy, you can’t expect to be around from one moment to the next. I know it’s going to come sooner rather than later. One of us going off. And I know it’s still going to be a shock.”

  Daisy squeezed Bertie’s hand. It would be stupid to tell him not to think about losing his wife. And who was she, a sixteen-year-old, to offer any real comfort to a man in his eighties? He had known so much more of life than she had, than she ever might.

  “Do you know,” Mr. Wilkin said suddenly, “I fall in love with Muriella all over again, every day?”

  Daisy smiled. “Was it always that way, all through your marriage?”

  “No,” Bertie replied emphatically. “No, it wasn’t. There were times when one or both of us were unhappy. Health issues. Money troubles. The kids needing more attention than we thought we had to give. There were times—not many, mind you—when I was tempted to stray. Now, don’t look shocked, Young Daisy. I wasn’t always this bag of skin and bone you see before you!”

  “I know that,” Daisy assured him. “It’s just . . . How can you—anyone, I mean, be tempted to—stray—if you’re in love?”

  “Ah, may you retain that innocence for many years to come,” Bertie Wilkin said with a kind smile. “But then again, the sooner you understand the complexities of marriage and human feeling the better. There are strains on the human spirit, Daisy, you must know that much. Mundane strains like chores and jobs and rebelling children and leaky pipes. Larger, more existential strains, too, like loss of faith and the aftermath of a lie or a betrayal and the sudden sure feeling that you’ve wasted your life and it’s all because of your spouse having tied you down to a life that wasn’t yours to live.”

  Daisy thought about that. Her parents must have experienced tensions and troubles, but try as she might she couldn’t recall ever seeing any evidence of it. “Then why do people stay together if it’s so hard?” she asked.

  Bertie chuckled. “Oh, many reasons, Young Daisy. Laziness. The need to punish oneself or the other. But, if you’re lucky, you stay with the person you married because in spite of the occasional difficulties life is simply so much better with her. And that, I’m happy to say, is the way it is with Muriella and me.”

  “So, if someone gave you the chance, you would do it all over again? Marry Mrs. Wilkin?”

  “Most certainly. But . . .” Bertie looked rapidly around the room and went on in a whisper. “I might have the nerve next time around to ask her not to make that awful cauliflower casserole she was so fond of.”

  Daisy laughed. And just then, the automatic double doors to the TV room opened and there was Muriella, being wheeled in by a nurse.

  “What was that you were saying about my cauliflower casserole, dear?” she asked, smiling and reaching for her husband’s hand.

  Mrs. Wilkin
must have supernatural hearing, Daisy thought, hiding her own smile.

  “Oh,” Bertie replied, studiously avoiding Daisy’s eyes, “I was just telling Young Daisy how much I loved it.”

  Chapter 36

  Traffic in downtown Yorktide was heavy and slow-moving. The sky was cloudless. Vacationers—men and women—were coming out of craft and jewelry stores loaded down with shopping bags. Kids were eating ice-cream cones. Teenage girls were strutting as if on the catwalk. Teenage boys were sauntering and not so surreptitiously eyeing the teenage girls.

  Evie, who was leaning against the wall of the old clapboard building that housed two gift shops, was part of the scene but apart from it, too, not in Yorktide to have summer fun and spend money on cheap souvenirs or overpriced pottery, but to get through the day without discovery. And then, to get through the next day. If she had ever had a long-term goal, at that moment Evie couldn’t remember what it might have been.

  And then, Evie spotted her, looking in the window of the ice-cream shop across the street. The girl from the convenience store. The one who described herself as being clumsy. The nice one. Daisy. The girl who had wanted to hang out with her. Before she could lose her nerve Evie dashed over to her, narrowly avoiding being hit by a slow-moving car full of tourists.

  “Hi,” she said. “It’s me. I mean, Evie. From The Clamshell.”

  Daisy turned from the window. It seemed to take her a moment before she recognized Evie and then she smiled. “Oh, sure. Sorry, I was spacing for a minute. Mesmerized by ice cream. Hi.”

  “Look, I’m on a break. Do you want to maybe grab a soda or . . .”

  Daisy looked at her watch. “Okay,” she said. “I’ve got an appointment with the eye doctor in about twenty minutes. She’s down on Vine Street. And I should probably pass on the soda,” she added with a frown. “I’ve been drinking way too much of it lately.”

  That was fine with Evie; she didn’t really want to spend the money on a drink when she could have one for free at The Clamshell. “There’s a bench over there,” she said, pointing over Daisy’s shoulder.

  Daisy hustled off and planted herself in the middle of the bench situated under a sprawling oak tree. When Evie joined her she moved to one end. “A free bench is a hot commodity at this time of the year,” she said. “All these tourists. It’s funny how so many people wait all year to spend one week in your own little hometown. And half the time you don’t even appreciate what you have right in front of you.”

  Wasn’t that the truth, Evie thought. All she had taken for granted—a house, two parents, security—all gone before she had ever learned how truly to appreciate them.

  “I hope I didn’t sound rude the other day when you came by The Clamshell,” she said to Daisy.

  Daisy shrugged. “Oh, no.”

  “Work can get pretty stressful,” Evie explained. “We get so busy and some customers can be really rude and impatient.”

  “I’m sure. Actually, I’ve never had a job. A paying one, I mean. I volunteer at the Pine Hill Residence for the Elderly.”

  “That sounds depressing.”

  “Not really,” Daisy said. “I mean, it’s sad when someone you like dies and it stinks that some people never have any visitors. But it’s good that the residents have a safe place to live. And there are lots of activities to keep them busy. Some are there with their husbands or wives. And there’s this group of four women who all used to be neighbors. They have these fierce card games every afternoon and they argue like crazy over who’s cheating and then it’s time for dinner and they’re best friends again. They remind me of some girls at my school. In fact, from what I can tell, the world inside the nursing home is all pretty much like the world outside of the nursing home.”

  “I guess. I’ve never actually been inside one.” It was on the tip of Evie’s tongue to tell Daisy that she had never known her grandparents when an alarm sounded in her head. Too much information. She had to give out information about herself—true or false—sparingly and carefully.

  “So, are you new to Yorktide?” Daisy asked her. “I don’t remember seeing you around until a few weeks ago.”

  Evie was prepared for this question or one like it. She had worked out and rehearsed her answer before the mirror in the bathroom she used at Nico’s house. It was not quite but sort of the truth. Barely the truth.

  “It’s kind of a long story,” she said, remembering to speak slowly so as not to say the wrong thing. Vigilance was all. “But I’ll tell you the short version. My mom and dad died when I was ten. It was a—a fire. I spent eight years bouncing around the foster care system until I turned eighteen. Now, I’m on my own and I decided that Yorktide seemed like an okay place to live. At least for a while.”

  Daisy put her hand on Evie’s arm for a moment. Her touch made Evie want to cry and it was with some effort that she remained dry-eyed. It had been so long since anyone had touched her like that, with sympathy.

  “Wow,” Daisy said. “I’m so sorry about your parents. And about the foster homes. You hear these horror stories . . .”

  “It wasn’t all bad,” Evie said. “Not always. Anyway, don’t tell anyone about this, okay? People can be weird when they hear someone’s been in foster care—like you said, all those horror stories. There’s, like, a stigma.”

  “Sure. I won’t tell anyone.”

  “Thanks.” Evie smiled. She didn’t know for sure if she could trust this girl, but her need to try to trust her was immense.

  “Not that it’s any consolation,” Daisy said, “but both of my parents are dead, too.”

  Evie’s stomach dropped. Here she was pretending to be an orphan while poor Daisy really was an orphan. “Really?” she said, her voice a bit high with stress.

  “Yeah. My mom—her name was Annabelle Higgins—died about three years ago. She had cancer. And my dad . . . My dad died just a few months ago. He had a heart attack. I was in the kitchen when it happened. He was in the sunroom. His name was Oliver.”

  “I’m sorry,” Evie said. She wanted to touch Daisy’s arm in sympathy, as Daisy had done to comfort her. But she didn’t. “That’s awful. Where do you live? I mean, who . . .”

  “My sister Poppy is our legal guardian,” Daisy explained. “By ‘our’ I mean my sister Violet’s and mine. Violet’s thirteen. I’m sixteen. Without Poppy . . . Well, we probably would have gone into foster homes, like you.”

  “How old is Poppy?” Evie asked.

  “Twenty-five. She was living in Boston, but moved back home with us right after our dad died. He was the one who named her legal guardian.”

  “Did she mind coming home?” Evie asked. It was a big thing, being named someone’s legal guardian. Back when she had first gone to live with her aunt and uncle there had been some talk of the Shettleworths being named her legal guardians, but nothing had come of it. Evie didn’t know why.

  “I think she minded at first,” Daisy said. “But now I think she’s kind of glad to be home, not that she’s said anything to me. Anyway, it’s not like she had a steady boyfriend in Boston she had to leave behind. And our house is pretty awesome. And her best friend from Boston is visiting us, so that’s good. Allie’s really nice and she’s a way better cook than my sister!”

  Evie felt a tiny flair of jealousy. If only she had someone like Daisy’s older sister to rely on. Daisy and her sisters might have lost their parents, but they still had each other.

  “So, where are you staying?” Daisy asked her. “Are you renting a place?”

  Evie told her about the house-sitting gig at Nico’s. “My boss, Mr. Woolrich—Billy—set it up for me. He’s really nice.”

  Daisy smiled. “Yeah, he seems really sweet. And I’ve seen that guy Nico around town. He looks so . . . So full of himself!”

  Evie shrugged. “I don’t really know him. I mean, I met him once for about two minutes. He was wearing a bathrobe. And he had a towel wrapped around his head.”

  For some reason this bit of information and th
e image it conjured made them both shriek with laughter.

  “Look,” Daisy said when she had recovered, “we should get together again. Maybe do something.”

  “I don’t have much money,” Evie said quickly. “I mean I haven’t been working long enough to really save anything.”

  Daisy laughed. “That’s okay. I’ve got enough for both of us to hang out. See a movie or something.”

  “But I probably wouldn’t be able to pay you back for a really long time.”

  Daisy shrugged. “There’s stuff to do that doesn’t cost anything, or not much, anyway. Like go to the beach. Like go to craft fairs, although to be honest, craft fairs are more my sister Violet’s thing. Free open-air concerts, if we can get a ride to them. I don’t have my license yet, but I’ll have my permit in the fall.”

  A car. A car meant trembling, shortness of breath, lightheadedness. All classic symptoms of anxiety she had been told, as if that made things better. Evie managed a smile. “I hadn’t thought of any of those things,” she said lightly. But it was no smiling matter when simple, ordinary experiences like a day at the beach or a stroll through a craft fair had become experiences that seemed impossible or out of reach.

  Daisy pulled her iPhone out of her pocket. “What’s your number?” she asked.

  Evie swallowed. Why couldn’t anything be simple? “My phone’s kind of dead right now,” she said. “But I guess you could call me at Nico’s. I’m not really supposed to be using his phone, but . . .”

  “How could he object to someone calling you? And I can find you at The Clamshell most days, right? Not that I’m a stalker or anything!”

  “Right. I mean, I know.” Evie gave Daisy Nico’s number. “I’d better get back to work,” she said, getting up from the bench. “Billy’s a great boss, but I don’t want to mess up.”

  “And I’d better be going or I’ll be late to my appointment. See you soon, okay?”

  “Okay.” Evie watched for a moment as Daisy headed off toward the eye doctor on Vine Street and then she turned toward The Clamshell. And in spite of the anxiety parts of the conversation had produced, she didn’t regret for one moment having said hello to Daisy Higgins.