The Sullivan Sisters

by Kathryn Ormsbee

  To Annie and Matt Snow—my favorite Oregonians and the best siblings a girl could ask for

  Today is far from Childhood,

  But up and down the hills,

  I held her hand the tighter—

  Which shortened all the miles.

  —EMILY DICKINSON, “One Sister have I in our house”

  SEVEN YEARS BEFORE

  CAYENNE CASTLE

  The castle was Claire’s idea, to begin with.

  It came to her in drizzly December, four days before Christmas, when she, Eileen, and Murphy were cooped up inside the house.

  Claire was full of plans and, more than that, good ideas for how to see them through.

  “Leenie,” she said, waking her older sister, “let’s build something with all the blankets and all the sheets in the house.”

  Eileen didn’t take time to reply. She threw the comforter off her twin bed, lightning zigzagging across her dark eyes. She was full of vision—a painter of colors and words and feelings. She knew which blankets to pair: Mom’s fuzzy goldenrod quilt next to an evergreen U of O fleece, powder blue sheets knotted atop a peach duvet.

  That morning the castle began to rise, and during its construction, Murphy, the youngest sister, appeared in the den.

  “Whoa,” she said reverently as she beheld the fabric battlements drawn over the sofa, armchairs, and TV. She found an opening between clothespinned sheets and poked her freckled face through.

  “Ta-da!” she cried. “It’s a stage!”

  “Castle,” Claire corrected.

  “It could be both,” said Eileen. She was busy taking out colored ribbons from her craft kit—a birthday gift from Mom—and tying them to blanket tassels for a pop of color.

  Claire, meantime, was tapping her chin, squinting at a blueprint she’d drawn up on notebook paper. “There’s enough material to make it to the hall and still have enough blankets for walls.”

  “Walls?” said Murphy. “Or … stage curtains.”

  She grabbed the Magic Marker from Claire’s hand and, using it as a microphone, announced, “Welcome to the main eveeent!”

  Murphy was full of energy—performing for anyone who would listen and applaud.

  * * *

  The name of the castle came later that day, when Mom called and said she’d have to work late again. She’d been doing that recently: picking up extra shifts at Walgreens and, in her absence, leaving Eileen officially in charge.

  “I wanted to show off the castle,” Murphy pouted, once Eileen was off the phone. “Now Mom won’t be back till after bedtime.”

  “It’s Christmastime,” Claire reminded Murphy, with a sagacious arch of her brow. “You like presents, don’t you? Well, Mom has to work to afford them.”

  Murphy made a face. “I’d rather have Mom.”

  That made Eileen’s insides twist. When Eileen had been Murphy’s age, Leslie Sullivan had spent more time at home, reading books aloud and leading impromptu radio dance parties. Once, when Eileen had been five, Mom had helped her and Claire build a blanket fort like this one. It sucked that Murphy wasn’t old enough to have those memories. Just like it sucked that she had no memories whatsoever of Dad. He’d died before Murphy had been born.

  Dad seemed far away these days, but Eileen liked to think he would approve of the castle. Mom definitely would, when she finally got home from work.

  That morning’s breakfast had been easy to make on their own: bowls of cereal drenched in whole milk. Lunch was trickier, though. Claire stared into the fridge, determining that their best bet was five-day leftover chili. She tugged out the Tupperware, slopped its contents into bowls, and heated the meal in the microwave.

  “It tastes funny,” said Murphy, trying the chili. “Like … swamp!”

  Murphy was a picky eater—she was only seven—and tended to make grandiose statements. When Claire tasted the chili for herself, though, she also made a face. It did taste funny. That wouldn’t do. This crisis required another plan of action.

  From the fridge, Claire tugged out a bag of old shredded cheese. “Toppings,” she said. “That’s the solution.”

  Eileen, meantime, crossed to the pantry. She reached straight for the spice rack, taking down a jar marked CAYENNE PEPPER. A bold choice—one that suited her.

  The new additions made the meal better. Sprinkled on the chili in a low dose, mixed through with old kidney beans and chunky tomatoes, the spice covered the off-ness and brought out the flavors left to be enjoyed. The Sullivan sisters contentedly slurped their chili in the kitchen while, outside, rain pattered against the windows.

  Claire reflected as they ate that they wouldn’t need cheese and spices if Mom were here. Once upon a not-too-distant time, Mom had been just around the corner—in her bedroom, or the kitchen—helping Claire with long division or watching movies, the whole family snug on the couch. Claire could still taste Mom’s signature chicken potpie, a mouthful of crisp peas, tender carrots, flaky crust.

  Mom hadn’t made that pie in months. There hadn’t been time, with the extra night shifts she’d taken on. Rent on the house had gone up last year, and Dad’s medical bills were bigger than ever, thanks to “accrued interest”—two words Claire couldn’t make sense of but knew to be bad. They hung over the house, souring into a fetid smell. As though they were … a curse.

  Curses. They were the dark stuff of fairy tales. But a castle? That was a fairy tale at its finest.

  * * *

  When the sisters returned to the den, surveying their handiwork, Claire said, businesslike, “It needs a name.”

  And the name had been Murphy’s idea.

  “Cayenne Castle!” she shouted with confidence.

  When her sisters agreed to it, Murphy spun a circle and sang an impromptu song: “Cayenne Castle, where dreams come true! If you eat our spice, it’ll make you poo.”

  “Weirdo,” Eileen said, mussing Murphy’s mess of red curls.

  Murphy grinned wide. She liked when her sisters paid attention, even if it was to call her “weirdo.” Mom was usually better about noticing Murphy, though lately she’d nodded distractedly at Murphy’s original songs, saying, “That’s nice, sweetie,” as though she’d heard but hadn’t listened.

  Murphy sure hoped once Christmas was over, and their presents paid for, that Mom would go back to listening.

  The sisters piled into their christened castle, diving into blankets and body pillows. Claire and Eileen shared salacious secrets from fifth and sixth grade, and Murphy watched them admiringly, chin on knees, eating a pudding cup dessert.

  “Hey,” she said, chocolate gloop coating her mouth. “Let’s make Cayenne Castle every year. No matter what, we put up our castle on December twenty-first.”

  Claire and Eileen shared a smirk—an older sister thing. When they nodded at Murphy, she knew they were on her side.

  “Deal,” Eileen said, winking.

  “Deal,” Claire chimed in.

  “Deal,” Murphy concluded, with a pudding-stained grin.

  So, the walls of Cayenne Castle were raised for the first time by a planner, a visionary, and a performer. It was an auspicious beginning, but as is the case with many agreements made in youth, the pact would break.

  If, seven years later, you were to ask the Sullivan sisters why it broke …

  Well, you would get three different answers.

  DECEMBER TWENTY-FIRST

  ONE Eileen

  The letter arrived the morning of December twenty-first.

  Eileen wasn’t expecting mail addressed to her. No packages, because she hadn’t ordered art supplies for two years. No Christmas cards, because who the hell sent those anymore? Extended family members, maybe—grandparents and great-aunts—but Eileen didn’t ha
ve those. She definitely wasn’t expecting a press-and-seal business envelope with a law office for a return address and a red-ink note on the flap that read, OPEN IMMEDIATELY.

  Eileen was affronted. She didn’t take orders, especially not from goddamn attorneys and their red-ink pens. She had a bad history with letters, and she didn’t want to know what this one had to say—whether she opened it immediately or in ten years. So she threw the envelope out, dropping it in the trash can beneath her desk. Then she left the house for her Safeway shift.

  Soon, she’d forgotten about the letter.

  She forgot about a lot of things when she worked, and especially when she drank.

  That was the point of both full-time occupations.

  * * *

  That night, back at home, Eileen was filled throat-high with Jack Daniel’s. She’d ended up horizontal on the floor of her converted-garage bedroom, and that’s how she found herself facing the trash can beneath her desk.

  Music was playing on her boom box, fuzzy through the ancient speakers. “Christmas Wrapping” by the Waitresses had been on repeat for half an hour. It was a terrible song. It was the best song. Eileen hummed along.

  Her mouth tasted like regurgitated milk. It was gloomy outside—typical Oregon. Mom had left that afternoon for the Bahamas. But none of this bothered Eileen. She was numb to every bad thing. She wiggled her ankles to the beat of the music and, through blurry eyes, read the address of the trashed envelope.

  Ms. Eileen Sullivan.

  The “Ms.” really got to her. Ms. Eileen Sullivan. If those fancy attorneys could see her now.

  Eileen pawed at the rim of the trash can, tipping it over and grabbing the envelope.

  It was already opened, and Eileen didn’t remember doing that. Then again, she did a lot of unmemorable stuff when she was drinking.

  She laughed at the envelope—at the “Ms.”—while tugging the letter out of its torn top.

  Pretty soon, the laughing stopped.

  TWO Claire

  At the same time Eileen was reading the letter, Claire was being rejected from her dream college.

  She stared at her phone and the ugly words written on the admissions portal homepage.

  Maybe my thumb slipped, she thought, or I entered someone else’s password.

  She’d been telling herself that for six days.

  Delusional.

  Ms. Hopkins, Claire’s guidance counselor, had said Yale would be a long shot. But Ms. Hopkins wasn’t familiar with Harper Everly’s YouTube videos. She didn’t know what it meant to be an Exceller. If she did, she wouldn’t be working for the Emmet, Oregon, school district, and she wouldn’t say, “Good grades and letters of rec aren’t enough for places like this.” She wouldn’t bring such negativity into Claire’s life.

  That was what Claire had been telling herself from October to November to December fifteenth, when she’d received the e-mail from Yale, instructing her to check the Internet portal. She’d been so nervous, she’d messed up the password entry twice. That’s why, when she’d finally logged in, she’d thought the rejection was a mistake. She’d told herself it had to be wrong, even the second time she’d checked, and the third.

  And the fiftieth.

  The official letter had arrived in the mail the next day, telling Claire what the Internet had: You’re not good enough.

  Still, Claire logged in to the portal every day, hoping for a change in reality, a discovery that it had been a technical error.

  Doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results—that was the definition of insanity, right?

  Or of perseverance.

  It only took one yes. Harper Everly said that, and Harper’s word was gold.

  She also said, “Don’t plan for failure, or failure is what you’ll get.”

  Harper was confident making that pronouncement, with her glistening teeth and jewel-toned statement necklace. She was confident for a reason: She’d succeeded. She was only twenty, and she had over two million subscribers, plus the resultant commercial sponsorships. She’d been named a “Young Entrepreneur to Watch” by Cosmopolitan, and to top it off, she’d grown up without anything, in a nowheresville town that may as well have been Emmet.

  Harper knew what she was talking about.

  So why was Claire staring at a rejection?

  No.

  Not even waitlisted. A sturdy, solid no.

  How did you reject someone with a perfect 800 on her SAT reading and writing section and a 4.0 GPA? A saint with hundreds of hours of community service and letters of recommendation from her AP teachers, saying what a natural-born leader she was? How did Yale reject Claire Sullivan, a brilliant, well-rounded, blue-collar girl who was also gay? Didn’t they understand she needed a way out? She had to be in a beautiful, broad-minded, intellectually stimulating place. Everything Emmet was not.

  “Fuck you, Yale,” Claire said, hurling her phone from the bed onto the pink shag rug.

  Immediately, she regretted it.

  “Fuck” was an ugly word, used only by Settlers.

  It felt wrong to say, a betrayal.

  But Yale had betrayed Claire first.

  She’d been so sure. If Mom, a Settler, could win a Bahamian cruise through sheer luck, then Claire, a tried-and-true Exceller, would absolutely make it to New England.

  Now there was no New England.

  No snow-blanketed winters or historic gray-stone archways.

  No Socratic dialogues around a crackling fire.

  No Ainsley St. John, and no perfect first kiss.

  Claire lay on the bed, at last allowing the heavy truth to leech into her body, slog through her veins, thunk against her heart.

  She should have seen this coming a month ago. That was when Claire’s perfect facade of a future had started to crack. She had opened Instagram to find a new post by Ainsley, her arm slung around the shoulder of a beaming blond girl in a baseball cap. The caption read, “♥ my girlfriend.”

  Girlfriend.

  A girlfriend who wasn’t Claire.

  That wasn’t in the plan.

  Still, Claire had told herself, girlfriends were only girlfriends. Not fiancées. Not wives. They would last a few months, or mere days, and Claire could wait that out.

  She’d done what Harper had said and not planned for failure. She’d ignored the Instagram post, because she refused to be worried. She hadn’t applied to a “safety” school, because what was the point? It was single-choice early admission to Yale, or bust. She wouldn’t be caught dead with her name on an application to U of O.

  And now?

  It was too late.

  She wasn’t going to get the girl.

  She wasn’t going to Yale.

  She wasn’t going to college, period.

  Everything Claire had worked for these two years was gone—specks of snow that lived for one moment in her imagination, now dissolved into a useless puddle.

  Claire was a planner, and her plan had failed.

  Not even Harper Everly, with her two million subscribers, could change that.

  THREE Murphy

  At the same time Claire was not getting into college, Murphy was discovering the dead body.

  Unlike, say, hamsters or hedgehogs, pet turtles have remarkably long lifespans; the average is forty years. Siegfried had lived to be thirty, so really, he’d had a decent turtle life. He hadn’t died of natural causes, though. He’d died—Murphy was convinced—because she’d forgotten to feed him.

  She’d been busy lately, with school and drama club.

  She simply hadn’t been thinking.

  She couldn’t remember not feeding him. Only, that was the trouble with turtles: They didn’t remind you when you’d forgotten to fix them dinner. They couldn’t bark or meow or claw at their cages. They simply stayed in their shells, chilling. Hungry. Hungrier. Dead.

  Murphy had read once that turtles could survive for months, even years, without food. That’s why she’d grown lax with feeding in the first
place: Siegfried was cold-blooded, so he could handle a few skipped days. He could deal with dirty, months-old tank water and a blown heat bulb that Murphy hadn’t gotten around to replacing.

  Now, though, it seemed that even the cold-blooded had their limit.

  Murphy wasn’t sure she’d ever forgive herself.

  To make matters worse, she had a dead body on her hands. What was she supposed to do about that? In her fourteen years of life, no one had prepared Murphy for this. Who did she even ask about turtle burials?

  Not Mom. Leslie Sullivan had left that morning for her all-inclusive sweepstakes Bahamian cruise, and she’d told her daughters that once the boat hit the open sea, she’d have no cell phone service and only limited access to expensive Internet.

  Even if Mom had been around to hear the news, would it have bothered her much? Six years ago, when Murphy had asked to take care of the family turtle, Mom had happily moved his tank into Murphy’s room like it was a big relief. She hadn’t even realized that Murphy had changed his old name of “Tortue” until months later, when Murphy had asked her to stop by Petco for Siegfried A. Roy’s food pellets. Mom was always busy working long hours at Walgreens. She didn’t have time to worry about Murphy’s schoolwork, let alone an old turtle.

  That left Eileen and Claire, Murphy’s older sisters, as possible advisors on turtle funeral matters. Eileen, who locked herself in her bedroom, playing loud music and emerging only to sway and slur her words. Claire, who locked herself in her bedroom, emerging only to lecture Murphy about leaving dried oatmeal bowls in the kitchen sink.

  Like Murphy would ask them for help.

  Maybe four years ago, when they’d been nicer and hadn’t shut their doors.

  Not now.

  In Siegfried’s burial, Murphy was alone.

  Tonight, the house was silent, both of Murphy’s sisters barricaded in their rooms. Murphy sat at the family computer in the den. It was a behemoth from the twentieth century, with a broken fan that juddered like a bullet-riddled fighter jet every time it started. As Murphy waited for the hunk of machinery to boot up—ri-tat-tat-tat-ti-tat—she pulled her newest rope trick from her jeans pocket.