by Beth Kephart
“I could not stop what happened from happening,” Bennett says as if there’s a difference, and with his eyes he asks, Is there a difference? and suddenly Katherine imagines that he has chased her all this time, hunted her down, to find out the answer to that question. To be made safe from asking it only of himself. He is a beautiful man, and beauty breaks, and he is broken.
“You stole her from me,” Katherine says, and she doesn’t mean at the river in February, she means all the days before, the barricaded intimacy, the secrets that Katherine was forced to keep, because, No, Bennett, if you want to know: no. Katherine never did confide in her father, never would confide in her mother. Katherine never said, Anna was in love with that boy who was with her at the river. Anna was in love, and he did not save her. Anna was in love, and I knew it, and I did not save her. Anna is gone, and this is all that Katherine still can give her—her secret kept, from now through eternity. Katherine and Bennett are the only two people alive who know what sort of love theirs was, and this binds them. Lottie is a warm weight in Katherine’s arms. She turns the child to face forward. She looks away from Bennett’s eyes.
“Katherine,” Bennett says now.
“What?”
He steps closer, for the crowd is behind him, because more people have climbed to this height, as if the real show’s up here.
“I couldn’t reach her. I tried. I couldn’t.”
“You didn’t love her like I loved her, Bennett. Maybe that’s why.” And of course that’s not why, of course not—he would have saved her if he could have; he wouldn’t have lost her, not on purpose; he would have kept her alive, for they would marry someday—wasn’t that the plan of it, they’d marry? Anna in immaculate white and Katherine by her side and big-mouthed tulips in every corner of the Church of the Holy Trinity on Rittenhouse Square, and they would have married in spring despite her parents’ warning, a wedding, not a funeral, because in the end Anna would have had to tell, and in the end, Pa’d have said yes, because beauty always wins. The fist of this logic sits somewhere in Katherine’s brain—Bennett would have never let her sister die, never allowed it to happen—but Katherine makes the accusation anyway, spits it out: murderer. She’d pound her fists against his chest and make him bring her Anna back, bring her back, she was my sister, but it’s the two of them and Lottie in this crowd, Katherine’s hands momentarily bound up with the child.
“We loved her differently,” Bennett says. “But Katherine.” His eyes aren’t sky. They’re clouds and storm.
“I don’t know what you want, Bennett. I don’t know what I can give you.”
“I’m not asking for anything. You’re not responsible.…” And of all the things Bennett might have said just then, this is the thing that Katherine won’t withstand. This is what does her in here, at the Centennial, when she was trying to be so righteously brave. For if Katherine isn’t needed for anything, if she is no longer responsible for Anna, who is she now? What can she give? He, her sister’s lover, has stripped her of this, too. Lottie whimpers, and Katherine turns her to her shoulder. She howls, and Katherine looks far past Bennett; she succumbs to the drowning moan of the organ.
“Her final thoughts were for you,” Bennett says. “That’s it, Katherine. That’s all. That’s all I wanted you to know.” He pulls his fingers through his hair, then touches one finger to Lottie’s ear. He looks for Katherine to meet his eyes—just this one time—and Katherine does. Everything shatters. Every last thing.
“What are you saying?” Katherine sobs.
“Your name,” he says, “was Anna’s last word. The last thing your sister ever said.”
“Don’t,” Katherine says. “Please don’t,” but he says, “I loved her, too,” and now the crowd is coming on, the crowd is pushing in, and Katherine reaches past Lottie, toward Bennett, but he is gone.
THERE IS A LONG WHITE PLUME OF SMOKE RISING FROM the Centennial train in the distance. There are crowds everywhere. Katherine has climbed. She has carried Lottie to the highest spot—to this balcony above the city from which, all day, Katherine has imagined soaring, swooping, falling. Bennett is gone now, and Katherine is devastated, holding Lottie tight, telling her to look, to see—see that smoke; see that long strut of Machinery Hall next door; see that procession of windows and steeples, thin as weather vanes; see the future, Lottie. Touch it and take it; it is yours.
But Lottie wants to take in the whole protuberating thing at once. Her head bobs and her fingers fan, and if she could walk, she would; if she could fly—up above Belmont Avenue and the Bartholdi Fountain; above the Glass Magazine and the Torch of Liberty; above Tunis, Chile, Brazil, France, Spain; above the states of the union, the palaces of arts and white gardenia, the Women’s Pavilion (for there, in the distance are the glorifying flags and the palace geometries of Mrs. Gillespie’s monumental Women’s Pavilion)—it would be so much better. Fly, but never fall.
Far to the west rises the tower of George’s Hill, and to the north, the trees and ravines and grass and sky from which this Centennial city has been carved, and when Katherine turns herself and Lottie south, out of the blare of the fat sun, the view is of Elm and of Shantytown beyond, standing on its cheap peg legs. There’s a jam of horses, hackneys, four-in-hands, gigs, streetcars at the corner near the Trans-Continental. There’s a passel of balloons, the coming and going and stopping of seersucker and serge, of uniforms and skullcaps, of licorice-colored satchels and mahogany canes, of a pale wooden crate of bright yellow flowers, an island unto itself. There are two flour-dusted boys carrying sacks of bread, and the carmine flash of a bold silk hat, and the gleam of Tufts, and the sausage man, and Lottie kicks her little feet and punches her fist. She gurgles and squirms. Katherine lifts the child higher in her arms, gives her as much room as she can so that she might see for the both of them, as much space as can be salvaged among the crowds that have gathered here with them, upon the roof of the main building.
Anna’s final thought was of her. Anna’s final word was Katherine.
“Let’s watch,” Katherine whispers in the baby’s ear, “and see what happens,” and while they stand facing south, Katherine turns her head east and looks out upon the spires, rooftops, bridges, and factories of Philadelphia, her city. The redbrick and white lintels and brownstones and green swaths and temples of home. It is flat-roofed, peaked and pompous, congested and incomplete. Katherine’s eyes cannot possibly hold it all, until finally they settle on the dark bracelet of the Schuylkill River, which arrives from the north, pools and calms, before hurrying away with itself. Cure yourself, she thinks. Look away. But she cannot. Winter returns. February 6. The day she lost Anna.
“Katherine, come with us. Please,” Anna is demanding. “It’s the only way.” But Katherine doesn’t turn. It’s so bitter cold outside that ice has crystallized the view from their window, so cold in their room that Katherine has pulled the quilt up past her nose, curled her knees toward her chin. She breathes into her cupped hand, using her lungs like a furnace. She stares through the gray light of the room, toward Anna, who has cast her covers off and who stands before the window in her soft green sleeping gown. She wears her feet bare, and her hair, her fantastically unruly hair, rises out above her head like a woolen muff. Immune to the temperature, she traces Bennett’s name against the glass with a long, pale finger.
“You’ll catch your death of cold,” Katherine scolds, yanking her quilt up higher, toward her ears. “Get back into bed.” Downstairs Jeannie Bea is preparing the morning meal—sausage, it seems; eggs; their father’s coffee. Katherine can smell the butter as it begins to heat, hear the bang of a spoon against a pan, and now she hears Mother down the hall, buttoning herself into her Sunday suit, no doubt. The same forbidding suit each Sunday, the same stiff hat, the same pair of commonsense boots.
“You’re impossible,” Anna says.
“And you’re like a child.”
“Nearly a full moon last night,” Anna says. “Didn’t you see?”
“
I was sleeping,” Katherine says.
“But the moon,” Anna says, “was huge.” She takes two dainty steps toward Katherine’s bed and then yanks the quilt straight down—a sudden draft of cold.
“Anna!” Katherine protests. Her eyes are small, swollen ridges of exhaustion.
Anna crawls in, piling the quilt on top of them both.
“I could sell you,” Katherine says, “as ice.” Despite the abhorrent blast of arctic air, she laughs into her sister’s hair, which has massed itself over her pillow like lost spring vines.
“They could sell you as coal,” says Anna. “Kindling. You’d make someone a fortune.”
“I’ll make my own fortune someday, thank you.”
“Don’t start. You’ll sound like Mother.”
Katherine shudders, and Anna laughs, and for a moment they lie there taking the heat and the cold from each other until finally Katherine’s warmth wins out.
“Mother’s going to insist on church,” Katherine says. “I’ve heard her getting ready.”
“We’ll go, and I’ll be perfectly well behaved,” Anna says. “I’ll sing the hymns, say my hellos. Give a nod to Alan Carver.”
“Your Mr. Carver’s found his match,” Katherine reminds her, though of course she doesn’t need to, of course it was scandalous the way Anna carried on, flouting the poor man at every turn until finally—it took a laughably long time—he dispensed with her, too, showing up at the Academy one evening with Sophia Crawford on his arm—Sophia, with her leonine face and unavoidably colossal nose.
“Poor Sophia,” Anna says, but Katherine knows she doesn’t mean it.
“Mother will want us home for Sunday lunch,” Katherine cautions. “Mrs. Gillespie herself is coming for tea. Or so Mother hopes. She’s in a buzz about it. She’s made her plans.”
“We’ll be home for Sunday lunch. Bennett can’t even get away until late afternoon. Before sunset. That’s what he said. ‘I’ll meet you there sometime before sunset.’ ” When, Katherine wonders, had these particular plans been set? These lovers’ promises? She thinks of the last time she saw them out on Walnut Street together—their hats pulled low across their faces, their heads bent against the wind. To anyone but Katherine they would have seemed anonymous, indistinguishable from the rest of the passersby in a city where winter had finally come, after so many days of a strange January thaw. Two people in a hurry on a Friday afternoon, taking care not to be seen. Katherine tried desperately not to see them. She doesn’t want to see them now, but still: she’s been invited to the river.
“What will you tell them this time? What excuse will you give?” Katherine props herself up on one elbow and looks down on Anna, who schemes with her eyes closed and seems blissfully unconcerned with the secret she’s perpetuated, the lies she’s grown so expert at telling. Into the cave of the quilt the cold air flows, and now Katherine settles down again, pulling the quilt over both their heads and huffing warmth into her hands. Anna murmurs.
“We’ll make it mysterious,” she says. “On purpose. Make Mother think that our going out has to do with her birthday.”
“That’s not for two weeks!”
“Well. One has to plan.”
“You’re awful.”
“Come on, Katherine. Please. It’s the first time the river’s been frozen all winter.”
“Mother doesn’t care about her birthday,” Katherine interrupts. “It’s not a very reliable plan.”
“You come up with something, then.”
“Why should I?”
“Because I’m irresistible, that’s why.”
“So you’ve said. A million times.”
“Because the river’s frozen and the moon is so full. Because you love to skate even more than I do. Because you’re good at it.”
“Not skating alone. I’m not good at that.”
“But you won’t be alone, Katherine. Bennett will be there. Me too.”
Katherine can’t help it: she groans. “You must be kidding, Anna. I’m always alone when you’re with Bennett.”
“Oh, Katherine!” And now Anna is up on one elbow, looking genuinely aggrieved. “I thought—”
“We said we wouldn’t talk about it anymore, and honestly, I don’t want to.” Katherine turns toward the wall and brings her knees back up toward her chin, remembering Cape May and the months after Cape May, the week neither spoke to each other. Anna had never confessed about Bennett to Father; in the end, after making her promise, she’d refused. Katherine had threatened; she had ridiculed. She had called her sister a narcissist, a burden, and that’s when Anna had left her, in the park, one afternoon. “I don’t need you,” Anna’d growled, and that was it, and from then on, for days, she behaved as if she didn’t—making her own plans and telling her own lies, taking her own risks, which she would not speak of later. Telling Katherine nothing, for Katherine had lost her.
Katherine was the one, as it turned out, who was in desperate need of a sister, the one who could not survive without. By October, Katherine understood that she had this choice: either settle her debts with her sister, or lose her altogether. There could be no more fighting about Bennett. No more accusations, either way. Katherine would not press against promises once made. She would leave Anna and her lies and her Bennett be, for the return of at least some fraction of Anna’s heart.
It was colder, Katherine realized, on her left side, facing the thick plaster wall. It was always colder, turned away. Now beyond them, in the hall, she hears their mother’s boots stomp by. There’s the bristle of suit skirts, a pedantic sigh.
“Girls,” their mother calls. “We’re leaving by nine.”
“I was only saying that you’re not alone,” Anna whispers. “And you brought it up, besides.” She touches a hand to Katherine’s right shoulder and applies pressure. Katherine succumbs—turns and falls, lies flat on her back, her eyes on the small gas lamp by the door frame.
“We’re not talking about it,” Katherine whispers back. “I’m not, anyway.” Anna sighs. She relaxes back down to the pillow so that her hair spills out in most directions—long, loose, unmanageable curls. Lengths of it graze across Katherine’s cheek. She brushes them aside.
“Girls!” It’s their mother again, calling up to them from the base of the stairs, then calling out to Jeannie Bea. “Mrs. Gillespie,” she says, then something about cheese.
“You’re probably right,” Katherine says after a while, “about the river. It could be the last freezing all winter.”
“You’ll go then?” Beneath the quilt Anna reaches for Katherine’s hand and squeezes it tight.
“I will, but no lies.”
Anna waits.
“We’ll just tell Mother the truth, is all. We’ll say we’re going to the river to skate. If Bennett comes, well then, he comes. But at first it will only be us.”
“Oh,” Anna says, “that’s lovely.” She kisses Katherine on the cheek. “Maybe you’ll teach me one of your tricks.”
“My tricks,” Katherine echoes, and she feels herself grow warm with pride.
“Girls!” Their mother’s voice trumpets up the stairs.
“Katherine? Anna?” Now their father joins in, and if they’re not careful, Jeannie Bea will be next, carrying their generously peppered eggs to them on two white, gleaming dishes.
“Coming!” Anna answers. She yanks at the quilt, and the cold scorches them both. Scorches Katherine, anyway. Anna’s too intoxicated with the promise of the coming afternoon to notice.
* * * *
Before they even see the Schuylkill they hear the skaters’ shouts. Their father has sent them off with George, his favorite hansom driver, and with a dark horse named Hank who blows dragon steam through his nostrils. The horse kicks at the stony streets whenever George tries to rein him in. He pulls hard against the turns, throwing the twins against each other. Under a wool blanket they sit, their steel skating blades clinking steadily upon their laps. Mrs. Gillespie had remained long after she had finished her s
econd cup of ginger tea and the wedge of Brie that Jeannie Bea had baked beneath crumbles of cinnamon sugar. The talk had been of monies raised, of a building in progress, of regrets over the choice of architect, of priorities, and their mother had been (Anna was the one to say so) extraordinarily pleased with herself. “Look at her,” Anna had insisted behind her hand. “It’s as if she has found her first friend.”
“Be home before dark.” That was their mother’s final instruction before they left for their skating afternoon, though she barely turned her head so as not to disturb the tea with her venerable guest, who was, by the way, not distinguished in person—not, at least, in Anna’s whispered estimation. She had mock-curtsied, Anna had—in the hall, spreading all her skirts, unseen by anyone but Katherine or Jeannie Bea, who had covered her smile with a long-practiced hand.
You’re terrible, Katherine had meant to tell her, but now their father was there by the door, holding out to each a muff, which he promptly hung about their necks, Anna’s first. “I’ve asked George to wait and bring you back,” he told them. “But don’t take advantage of him. Please. It’s frigid cold. It’s Sunday. Let him come home before dark.”
Anna had stretched onto her toes to kiss their father high on the cheek. She had fit her gloved hands inside the flecked muff, then pulled them out again so that she might carry her own pair of blades, which Katherine had collected from the closet. “Thank you, Father,” she said, and meant it, and Katherine found herself yearning again that there had never been a Bennett—for her own sake, for the protection of their father, and for the sake of honesty.
They were gone after that—tucked in behind George and his impatient Hank, watching the familiar streets through the small squares of glass. Past the square. Up north. Toward Spring Garden Street. Out west. The streets being more or less empty, for it was Sunday and cold, and it was that hour in between things, when people sat with their Bibles on their laps, or the news in their hands, or their schoolbooks beside the gas lamps in their parlors. When people sat after a Sunday meal, a hymn in their heads.