The Weird Sisters

by Eleanor Brown

  He went back to the arm of the chair and perched there, his arms crossed over his chest. His face was serious, thoughtful. Like our father, he was prone to quiet consideration, and he let Rose speak.

  “I feel . . . different here. Like, not myself. Freer.”

  Jonathan nodded. “It might not stay that way forever. The new becomes commonplace.”

  Rose wrinkled her eyebrows and thrust out her bottom lip for a moment. “I don’t think it’s like that, really. I mean, maybe it is, somewhat. But I was thinking today, maybe it all happens for a reason. Maybe the reason Cordy and Bean came home was to send me a message.”

  “What do you think the message is?”

  “That it was okay to leave. It’s like for years I’ve drawn this mental circle with Barnwell at the center of it. I never felt I could go beyond the edges, that someone had to be there—oh, it’s silly.”

  “No, finish.”

  “Like I was the thing holding the family together, and if I left it would all fall apart. And with Cordy and Bean gone, it was like my parents were mine again, like my sisters didn’t exist and I was an only child, so they needed me. But now that they’ve come back, and they handled this thing with Mom—it’s like they didn’t even need me and . . .”

  “You’re free to go,” Jonathan finished for her.

  “And maybe I should. Maybe all these things that have been holding me there weren’t the problem. Maybe they were a symptom of staying too long. A signal that I should have broken free years ago.”

  She turned back to the stove and lifted a lid of a pot and then, satisfied, removed it from the burner and fished out a vegetable steamer, tiny perfect rounds of zucchini going translucent in the heat. When she turned back, Jonathan was sitting in the chair, his feet up on the coffee table.

  “I suppose the only nagging question is what you would do while you’re here. I don’t know that you’re cut out to do nothing.”

  Rose joined him, sitting across from him in an equally battered armchair. “No, I don’t think I am either. But I’ve never let myself do nothing, either. When I used to look at my mother and wonder how she filled her days, maybe I was being too judgmental. Because if she . . .” Rose caught herself before she said the words that, however unlikely, we had not dared speak aloud for fear of tempting fate. “Because if she doesn’t make it, I don’t think she’ll be wishing she’d spent more days at work. I think she’ll be wishing she’d spent more days in the garden, or reading, or taking walks with our father.”

  Jonathan nodded. “Are you still worried about the wedding?”

  “Not worried, no. Neither of us really wants anything big anyway, do we?” She tilted her head at him.

  “I can’t think of anything that would give me less pleasure,” Jonathan said, smiling. Funny, she thought, that this man who delivered such excellent papers to audiences at conferences, who spoke with such ease in front of his classroom, would be so unwilling to be the center of attention.

  “And I wouldn’t have to wear one of those awful dresses,” she laughed, holding the back of her hand to her forehead, mock drama. “We don’t have to do a big thing at Barnwell. At the end of the day, we’ll be married anyway, and that’s all that matters, right?”

  “See? Blessings abound,” he said. “Now come over here, little hen, and give us a kiss.”

  Rose climbed out of her chair and delicately sat in Jonathan’s lap, but then he threw his arms around her and pulled her close, and her tension dissolved into laughter. Were we wondering what it was that she so loved about him and he about her? Perhaps this: he had the singular ability to knock down her carefully bricked defenses, which was a compliment to them both, and the secret of their love.

  That night, as they lay in bed side by side, she contemplated the shadow of the moon as it washed slowly across the duvet. It was, as the poets say, the same moon that shone over us back home.

  Well, here she was. And she could continue to exist in the darkness of her fear, or she could tend and coax the seed of hope inside her. And Rose, with all the determined ferocity that had made us so proud as she had axed and hacked her way through the battles of academia, chose hope. She had changed the wide Midwestern sky for the blue and gray of England, but the place did not matter. It mattered only that she took the step from safety and trusted she would soar.

  The letter seemed heavy in Bean’s hands. She turned it over, checked the seal on the envelope, turned it back. She had enclosed a check and a note—how she had agonized over the wording of that brief missive.

  Too little payment for so great a debt, both literally and figuratively. A check had arrived from the consignment shop, more than she had expected, but less than she needed. And a cheery note from the owner, letting her know that if she had anything else to sell, she should feel free to bring it by! As if. She had taken nearly everything she owned, the pound of flesh for her sins. Looking in the closet now was dispiriting, the way the hangers moved easily out of the way as she flipped through the now-meager possibilities. She had quit smoking, not because she had any fear for her own mortality, but because it saved her money she could send in the next check. But she would not complain.

  Bean checked herself in the mirror over the hall table, flipped her hair over her shoulders. We did not know what secret she used to keep it so sweetly straight in the curling humidity. Animal sacrifices, perhaps. She gauged her appearance critically, slipped her bag over her shoulder. She had nearly emptied her bank account with this check. Not that she needed the money; it had been ages since she had spent anything. The secret to a wealthy life: living with your parents at the age of thirty. The thought left a bitter, metallic taste in her mouth.

  “Well then, to work?” our father asked, emerging from the kitchen. He was in uniform—short-sleeved shirt, tie, shapeless gray slacks. This is what he had worn for time immemorial, whether he was going to the office or not, and this is what he would wear until the end of days.

  “I’m going by the post office first,” Bean said.

  “I’ll walk with you,” our father said. “Just a moment.”

  Bean sighed, the letter weighing even heavier in her purse. Just a letter to some friends in the city. Just a note to say hello, don’t sue me, here’s some money, I’ll get the rest to you as soon as I can. You know, the usual.

  She heard his footsteps on the stairs and they headed out the door together, the squeak of the spring on the screen door announcing their departure. Outside, sprinklers hissed in the grass of a neighbor’s yard. She could hear some kids playing baseball, the crack of a bat and the shouts as they ran. Woven through it all, the hum of the insects and the peaceful morning greetings of the birds. The sounds of home.

  “I hear you’re considering taking over for Mrs. Landrige,” our father said, without preamble. He slipped his hands in his pockets, his steps slow and measured beside hers. Had he always moved so slowly, or was this the evolution of age? The sixth age shifts into the lean and slippered pantaloon, with spectacles on nose and pouch on side . . .

  “Considering it,” Bean said. “I’d have to go back to school.”

  He nodded. “Not so difficult.” Though the streets were silent, Bean looked left, right, checking for traffic before they crossed the street. She could feel the burgeoning heat of the pavement through the thin soles of her shoes.

  “Do you think I should?”

  Surprised, our father looked over at her, pulling his gaze away from the ground. “You were always so determined to get out of here,” he said. “I’ll admit to wondering why you came back.” He raised a hand, greeting Mrs. Wallace, who was out front gardening. She nodded back, dug her trowel into the ground, loosened a clump of wide-mouthed petunias.

  “I don’t really want to talk about it,” she said. “I just . . . It wasn’t right for me anymore.”

  “The lottery of my destiny bars me the right of voluntary choosing,” he said. “Portia.”

  Sometimes we had the overwhelming urge to grab our fa
ther by the shoulders and shake him until the meaning of his obtuse quotations fell from his mouth like loosened teeth.

  “Mmm,” she said instead.

  “Having you home would be nice,” he said. “Not that you need to stay with us permanently, though it has been tremendously helpful having you girls here right now. And to become a librarian! Not what we might have expected, but that may be better. A good, steady occupation. Knowing I loved my books, he furnish’d me from mine own library with volumes . . .”

  “. . . that I prize above my dukedom,” Bean finished with him.

  He smiled at that. “Tempest was always one of your favorites.”

  “The lost island. Like Swiss Family Robinson.”

  “You’ve always been so good with people, Bianca. This might be an opportunity for you. Though I fear you will find the social life of Barnwell . . . lacking.”

  “I suppose I’m too old to date those handsome college boys,” she mused. They turned onto Main, strolled past the Beanery. Inside, Bean could see Cordy’s braid bouncing as she worked behind the counter. Something inside her withered. Is this what we’d become? We’d inherited our father’s genius to squander it on food service and academic peripateticism and librarianship? Life wasn’t supposed to be like this. Life was supposed to be martinis and slick advertising campaigns in slick offices with slick men by her side. Not stupid, frumpy Barnwell and its narrow alley of possibilities.

  “Have you talked to Father Aidan?” he asked. She clenched her teeth. Had he heard? Aidan wouldn’t have said anything, would he?

  “Sure,” she said, coolly. “We’ve hung out a few times.”

  “No, I mean as a priest.”

  Bean paused to look in the window of the hardware store. Long ago, before we can remember, really, it had been a dress shop, with windows designed to display the finest couture Barnwell had to offer. Deliciously, however, the couple who had bought the store had taken it upon themselves to outfit the windows as though their wares were as fine as any Paris fashions. Here they had created a garden, with tools and supplies standing in for the greenery: a bouquet of hammers in a vase, work gloves blooming in neat rows, labeled with seed packets.

  “I asked him to look out for you,” he said.

  Bean turned, the postmodern garden forgotten. “You what?” Her voice bounced across the empty street, fluttering against the plate glass windows. “What am I, five?” She felt her mouth pulling down as her mind worked a thousand hours overtime, recasting every moment with Aidan in the light of this new information. So he hadn’t . . . he’d never . . .

  “Holy shit,” she said. She had never misjudged anything as egregiously as she’d misjudged his interest in her. There hadn’t been any interest at all. None. Only textbook psychological transference and the pity of a man who didn’t actually care about her at all, who was just doing his job. She burned at the thought of how he must think of her. “What did you tell him?” Her voice cracked, hysterical.

  “It’s not like that, Bianca. Just that you had come back suddenly and seemed hurt somehow, and you might need someone to talk to. Someone who wasn’t us.” This last bit sounded melancholy, a sadly accepting smile directed at the ground. Bean turned and walked away, ahead, shame pressing her shoulders forward until they ached.

  In front of the post office, she pulled the envelope out of her purse and opened the slot, dropping it in, listening to the whisper of paper against paper as it fell down. The collected earnings of the library, the sale of that awful car, and all the glittering artifice of her life in the city. Thinking she could go back now was foolish. She hadn’t the wardrobe for it anymore.

  Our father came up beside her and they stared into the empty darkness of the mailbox’s maw for a moment. “Barnwell’s not such a bad life. I know you always wanted more, but I wonder what you believe you need so badly that you cannot find here.” She let the door of the mailbox clang shut and they walked on. “You were the youngest to start walking, you know that? Rose crawled so well it took her ages to decide she wanted to walk, and Cordy was content when we carried her. But you, you went straight from lying down to running at full tilt. I think of that every time I read Midsummer. My legs can keep no pace with my desires.”

  They were nearing the library. Our father, walking on the outside of the sidewalk, ducked under the branch of an elm tree that swept its leafy arm across the sidewalk as though taking a bow. “If you felt lonely in the midst of all those people, Bianca, there is nothing to be lost by letting the crowd go. The question to ask is what will satisfy you? What will bring you peace? And perhaps the answer to those is in asking yourself when you were last happy.

  “The city, that burning desire you had for freedom, what has it brought you? Sound and fury, signifying nothing. You may think I’m a foolish old man, gone to seed already, but we chose this life, your mother and I, and we have never regretted it. I earn what I eat, get what I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man’s happiness, glad of other men’s good. We won’t hold you back, Bianca, but we want you to find happiness.”

  His St. Crispin’s Day speech ended, they came to a stop in front of the library’s wide stone steps. Bean turned to our father, put her hand on his arm, and gave him a kiss on the cheek, the tickle of his beard so familiar on her lips. “Thank you, Dad,” she said. He nodded, stood with his hands still in his pockets, his shoulders hunched forward, and watched her until she got inside. Then he walked away, staring up at the sky, and Bean watched him go. She wanted to hate him for asking Aidan to look after her, for making her an object of misfortune instead of beauty. But hard as it was to admit, she knew he had done it out of love.

  The knowledge hit her then, hard: someday he would be gone. His inscrutable quoting, his missives by mail, his old-fashioned fashions, the protective web he and our mother had spun around themselves, would evaporate, and leaving us only with the memories of his thoughtful smile, his distance, and a lifetime of work that would have mattered most to a man dead four centuries ago. She let the door shut, placed her head against the cool glass, and prayed.

  TWENTY-TWO

  There had been no response from New York, but they had cashed the check. Bean didn’t know what she had expected. A thank-you for the return of something that had been theirs to begin with? A reprimand for the money still owed?

  She had thought an installment would make it easier, but it had only intensified the disgust she felt with herself. At night, she ran. She waited until the heat of the day had cooled, until it was dark and she could weave in and out between the streetlights, running for blocks beside darkened houses. Occasionally she would pass children playing on a lawn, chasing fireflies, playing hide-and-go-seek, aided by the shadows of trees, and she would cut to the other side of the street. People passed by, walking their dogs, and Bean nodded, breathing hard as though she were a force of nature, constantly propelled forward, incapable of stopping to chat. She ran until she was drenched with sweat, until squeezing her braid released a trickle of cold liquid down her back, until her legs screamed with every step, and only then would she turn around and go home.

  Running was the only place she could forget. New York had always held distractions. Other people, new places. It was the best place to hide whatever was dark inside her. But here there was no escape. She ran and she ran, desperate to put distance between her heart and her head, memories of Edward, of Lila, of the thousand ways she’d been ready to make a fool of herself for Aidan, when he hadn’t cared for her, when she hadn’t known him at all.

  Tears mingled with the sweat on her face. Every pounding beat was a recrimination, a tom-tom reminding her of what she had lost—her life in New York, her self-respect, her job, her ability to see her future. Now she saw nothing. Before it had seemed like there were a million possibilities in front of her, a thousand paths not taken stretching out into the years ahead, and now one path led straight ahead, and she was terrified to take it because it meant she could no longer hide from the fact that she was terrifyingly,
completely normal.

  One night, pounding her way back home, feet crying out for relief, she ran smack into Aidan. Of all the people to see at that moment, he would have been her last choice.

  They were only a few blocks from the church, and he was heading in that direction, hands in his pockets, strolling slowly along the darkened streets. Her head hit his chest, her ankle twisted, and he grabbed her shoulders to steady himself as much as her.

  “Bianca?” he asked. “Are you okay?”

  She looked up at him. They stood, as the great movie director of our lives would have it, in the pool of a streetlight, and she knew her face was swollen from crying and beaded with sweat. She was soaked; her shirt clung to her back, her shorts plastered to her thighs with sweat. Her breathing was quick and raspy.

  “Bianca?” he said again, and she noticed that he always seemed to use her full name. It sounded so strange coming from his mouth, hearing it in this town, where everyone knew who she was, everyone knew she was just Bean Andreas, trouble with a capital T. “What’s wrong?”

  She looked up at him, at the gold in his hair and the light in his eyes, and she said, “I need to make a confession.” And then she burst into tears, and he pulled her close and held her as her tears and her sweat soaked his shirt and it didn’t even occur to her that after all this time, she was in his arms.

  Confession in our faith is not like the cinematic Catholic version, with tiny boxes and screens. It is not even required, as the weekly service contains a penance in a tidy, practical, terribly English way. But we know that when she was ready, confession was the only word that seemed right. Maybe it was a slow accretion of change over time, maybe it was simple desperation, but something inside her was shifting, and the thousand ways she’d violated things she cared about felt not just amoral but like a cruel middle finger to everything good she had been given in the world.