The Language of Sisters: A Novel

by Amy Hatvany

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, no, it’s okay.” She scooped another bit of ice cream into her mouth. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever done, Nicole. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Even on the bad days.” The patter of feet on the back steps interrupted us, and Nova rushed to return our dessert to the freezer.

  Rebecca stomped in through the door, her eyes hawk-like on her mother. “Can I have some ice cream, too, Mom?”

  Nova looked at me like, “See what I mean?” then shook her head at her daughter. “Sorry, honey.”

  “How come you get to have it and I don’t?”

  “That’s the way of the world, my sweet. You can have a yogurt.”

  “I don’t want a yogurt. I want ice cream.” Rebecca stubbornly stomped her sandaled foot. I tried not to laugh out loud.

  “Well, I want to be a size six, but that just ain’t gonna happen, now is it?” Nova reached into the fridge and pulled out a carton of lemon yogurt. “Do you want this?”

  “No!”

  “All right, then. Do you want something else?”

  “Ice cream.”

  “Oh, all right. Fine.” She snatched the container back out from the freezer and handed it to her daughter, along with three spoons. “Take it outside, then, and be sure to share it with your brothers, you hear me? I don’t want to hear any fighting over this or I’m putting it away. Okay?”

  Rebecca lit up on her tiptoes, smiling widely. “Okay, Mama! Thank you!” She rushed over and hugged her mother’s legs in a quick motion before racing back out the door.

  “Way to stand your ground there, Nova,” I teased.

  “Yeah, well, lesson number one of motherhood: choose your battles. This was one I didn’t feel like fighting.”

  “And lesson number two?”

  She reached into the freezer, pulled out another container, and dropped it between us. “Always—and I mean always—have more ice cream.”

  • • •

  Jack Waterson’s office was on the fifteenth floor of the Columbia Tower. At his request, I arrived for our first official appointment with my mother and Jenny in tow. He had already faxed paperwork for my mother and me to sign so he could present our case to Wellman’s lawyers but he wanted to meet Jenny, whom he called his “true client.”

  Mr. Waterson greeted us at the double doors of his private office. A ruddy-skinned man with an average build, he wore a slightly rumpled blue suit with no tie. When he smiled, wiry black brows pushed toward a receding hairline. His handshake was firm and reassuring, and I was heartened by his approach to Jenny, how he carefully rested his fingers on her forearm and said hello. “Please, make yourself comfortable. Can I have my assistant get you anything? Water, coffee?”

  “No, thanks,” Mom and I said at the same time.

  Mr. Waterson settled into the well-padded burgundy leather swivel chair behind his cherrywood desk, resting intertwined fingers on the blotter in front of him. The room was unapologetically male, full of dark wood walls, oil paintings depicting English fox hunt scenes, and the distinctive scent of Old Spice. It encouraged you to sit down with a good cigar and sip a well-aged Scotch.

  “Well,” he began, “thank you for coming. I have good news to begin with. The police believe they have found Mr. Zimmerman’s last residence in Portland. He left there only a week ago. They’re pretty sure he’ll be located soon.”

  “That is good news,” I said, watching Jenny for any reaction to her rapist’s name. I wondered if she knew who he was, if she remembered what he had done to her. Her eyes, however, remained riveted on the deer head mounted above the small brick fireplace on the other side of the room, and I could not tell what she was thinking.

  “Do you have any idea how much time he’ll get?” my mother asked, leaning forward in her chair, her foot wiggling nervously. Since the day of Jenny’s screaming fit she’d reached out more often to my sister but seemed uncomfortable being involved in anything further than giving Jenny a shower or feeding her dinner. I figured she still felt guilty about not fully admitting what she knew my father had done.

  “Unfortunately, no,” Mr. Waterson told us. “There’s just no way to tell ahead of time what a judge will decide about sentencing. It’s a complicated case. Even when they do find him, there’s the matter of proving that it was him who did this to your daughter. Since she can’t be a witness, the prosecutor will have to rely on more technical evidence to back up what we already know circumstantially: that he was the only male with regular, unsupervised access to Jenny at the time she became pregnant.”

  “What kind of technical evidence?” I inquired.

  “DNA, most likely, after the baby is born. If the baby is a match to Mr. Zimmerman, that’ll pretty much end the defense’s case.”

  “I see.” I nodded. “Will we be notified when they find him?”

  “The detectives working the case will call me, and I’ll contact you immediately.” He pushed his round head forward, urging his body to follow. Forearms resting on his desk, he shuffled through a stack of papers. “Now, about the civil case. Negotiations are going well; I started our claim at seven million, and Wellman’s lawyers are up to four already. I’m required to present their offer of this to you, but honestly, I think they’ll go higher.”

  “Four million dollars?” my mother gasped. “They’ve already offered that much even though Mr. Zimmerman hasn’t been proven guilty?”

  “Oh, yes. They know their institution will be held liable no matter who committed the crime. If it was one of their employees, they’re liable. If they let a nonemployee gain access to Jenny, they’re liable. They, as an institution, are guilty, and they know it.”

  “What about their hiring policies?” I asked. “Can we insist on an investigation?”

  “That can be part of the settlement, yes. But I have to say on their behalf, they’ve already stepped up to the plate for it. They hired an outside firm to go over their background check routine. The fact remains, however, that even after close scrutiny, Mr. Zimmerman came up clean. His recommendations as a caregiver were glowing from every other place he worked. Either what happened with Jenny was a first-time occurrence or Mr. Zimmerman was extremely good at hiding his offenses.”

  My blood heated in my veins. “What a bastard.”

  “Well, yes,” Mr. Waterson agreed. “So, I just need you both to sign some more paperwork today and I’ll continue the talks with Wellman. Is there a specific amount you’d like to see Jenny get?”

  “I wouldn’t know what would be realistic to expect,” Mom said. “I just want her to be well taken care of and not have to worry about the cost ever again.”

  Mr. Waterson nodded, gravely. “Of course. Have you been to visit any of the homes my assistant researched?”

  Mom looked at me, and I shook my head. “I’ve called a couple, but their waiting lists are years long. We need something by September, October at the latest.”

  “Oh!” our lawyer exclaimed. “I almost forgot. I know that you, Mrs. Hunter”—waving his hand toward Mom—“are the guardian to Jenny right now, but have you thought about what you’d like to do when you no longer want or are no longer capable of managing her trust?”

  “I’d like Nicole to take over as guardian,” Mom said, glancing at me hesitantly. “If that’s all right with you.”

  I paused for just a moment before speaking. I’d come this far in caring for my sister; it made sense for me to take this next step. “Okay with you, Jen?” I said, reaching out to place my hand on her gnarled fingers.

  “Arrugh,” she said, a positive lilt to the sound. She still stared at the deer head as though it might jump off the wall and come say hello to her.

  I nodded at our lawyer. “Where do I sign?”

  Mr. Waterson smiled with genuine indulgence. “All right, then, we’re all set. I’ll go back to Wellman with an asking price of six million, which I’m pretty sure they’ll agree to. If not, I’ll go to five, assuming, of course, that that amount is accepta
ble to you both.”

  After Mom and I agreed that this was a more than acceptable amount, we signed the necessary paperwork and headed home. The sun was masked by a thin stretch of clouds, though it was still bright enough to demand sunglasses. The heat was a heavy thing, a lid pressing down on the city. A sure sign of an impending storm.

  “He seemed like a trustworthy man,” Mom remarked as we drove up and over the West Seattle Bridge.

  “Not what you’d expect from a lawyer, huh?” I answered.

  She laughed. “Well, my only experience with lawyers was with the ones who managed my divorce, so I guess my frame of reference is a bit limited.”

  “Did Dad make it a difficult process?”

  “Not really. He agreed to alimony and continued support of Jenny’s care, which is more than I expected.” She sighed, crinkling her almond eyes as she changed lanes to take the Admiral Way exit. “I’ve called him several times, you know, to tell him about what’s happened, but he’s never answered.”

  “What a surprise,” I remarked blandly.

  “Anyway!” Mom said brightly, obviously wanting to change the subject. “Can you believe what we’ll be getting for Jenny? Five million dollars! Less than that, of course, after Mr. Waterson’s fees, but how wonderful it will be to not have to worry about the cost of her care!”

  I sighed. “Yeah, it’s wonderful.” What wasn’t so wonderful was the task that lay ahead of me now. It was time to find Jenny a new place to live.

  • • •

  The drive to the home in La Conner would take over an hour from Nova’s house, so by nine in the morning she, Star, and I had strapped Jenny and Layla into their respective car seats in Nova’s minivan, leaving Ryan with his other children for the day. We last saw him loosely tied to the red cedar in their front yard with Rebecca leading her brothers in a war dance around their smiling prisoner. Since Mom had to work, I had asked Nova and Star to come along with me for moral support. I also wanted to bring Jenny, to gauge her reaction to this home as best I could.

  The Sunshine House was the last on the short list Mr. Waterson had given us. There was a larger home in Spokane with an opening, but a six-hour drive was farther away than Mom wanted her, so I hadn’t even bothered going to visit it. Despite the bits of help Mom was providing with Jenny at home, she was still leaving the search for a new placement up to me. She asked only that Jenny be as close as possible to home. “I trust you,” she had said. “You’ll find something.”

  I resented having this daunting task left entirely up to me; part of me wanted to demand that she just keep Jenny with her at home. Money wouldn’t be an issue; she could quit her job at the bank. Then the rational side of my brain pointed out that taking care of Jenny wasn’t just a financial matter. It was an emotional and physical drain, and as I’d realized before, my mother had already gone through the complicated process of disentangling herself from enmeshment with Jenny; I doubted she wanted to go through it again.

  I took on the search for Jenny’s new home with deliberate intent. Earlier in the week I had visited the one residence on the list that was within the Seattle city limits. It had seemed the most promising; when the director gave me the historic Fremont District address I felt hopeful, picturing a quaint home trimmed in black filigree ironwork, a yard edged with antique roses and towering, century-old rhododendrons. I was not far off in my physical estimate. When I pulled up in front of the home, I was immediately drawn to its Victorian style. What a perfect place for Jenny, I thought as I entered through gleaming white French doors. The walls in the entryway were bright but classy, with a mural depicting a field of wildflowers. The furniture was all plush and clean, the windows open to let a fresh breeze blow through the gauzy white drapes.

  I stepped a short distance into the living room, where the flash of cartoons played noisily on the large television set, around which sat three wheelchair-bound individuals, their eyes glazed and empty, their hands twisted together like tree roots. One girl had a small patch of macaroni and cheese upon her chest waiting to be wiped up. Unable to help myself, I went over to her and picked the noodles off, setting them on top of the television. I smoothed her light brown hair back from her face, and one side of her sagging mouth lifted into the hint of a smile.

  “Excuse me, can I help you with somethin’?” a loud voice boomed from across the room.

  I whipped around to face a large black woman with an abundance of long beaded braids. “I’m Nicole Hunter,” I stated firmly. “I spoke with Ms. Perlman about the placement opening?”

  “Ms. Perlman’s the director. She don’t come in ’cept on Monday mornings.” She pointed to the discarded pasta. “What’s that up there?”

  I straightened my spine. “This girl had it on her shirt.”

  The woman nodded and came toward us. She pulled a rag from her pants pocket and wiped the girl’s face with what seemed to me a rough motion.

  “So,” I said, anxious to get on with things, “Ms. Perlman told me I could visit anytime.”

  The woman looked skeptical. “Is that right?” But after a brief pause, a small light went off in her eyes. “Wait a minute. I think she might have said somethin’ ’bout your comin’. You got a sister?”

  “Yes.” I glanced down a hall that seemed to lead to the kitchen. “Are you the only staff person at the moment?”

  “Yup. My name’s Irene.” She checked on the girls in their chairs, wiping the drool from one’s chin and sniffing another’s lap for evidence of the need for a diaper change. Apparently satisfied with their respective states, she turned back to me. “Let me show you around.”

  I followed Irene through the house. There were three bedrooms with two hospital beds in each tight space; two of the beds were occupied with the curled, silent figures of the other residents. The walls were painted white with a few colorful Sesame Street posters tacked here and there in the hallway. The one bathroom was clean but crowded, and the kitchen was a skinny rectangle, its countertops scattered with unwashed dishes. There was a chart on the refrigerator marking the residents’ medications as well as a sparse schedule of planned activities, which I noticed hadn’t been updated since the month of May.

  Everything was clean enough, but I got such a feeling of emptiness as I looked around. There were no family pictures, no evidence of any of the girls’ personalities. Despite its warm exterior, the house seemed to lack a heart. Also, with room for six residents, it seemed to lack sufficient staff.

  “Irene?” I called out.

  She lumbered into the kitchen. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Are you a registered nurse?”

  “A nurse’s aide, ma’am.”

  “How many people are employed here?”

  She lifted her chin and counted silently to herself. “Six, altogether, including me.”

  “And how often are you alone with all of the residents?”

  “Just during the lunch break for the rest of the staff.”

  “Every day?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I see.”

  “This here’s a hard job, takin’ care of these girls. Hard to find good people for the pay.” She sounded defensive.

  “I’m sure.” I held my hand out for her to shake. “Well, thank you. I’ve seen all I need to.”

  “Should I tell Ms. Perlman that you’ll be callin’?”

  I turned down the hallway to the front door. “No, Irene. I wouldn’t tell her that.”

  I’d wept a little when I told Mom about the house, knowing it was on par with most of what was out there. “It was just so impersonal,” I said dejectedly. “I’m afraid it’d remind Jenny of Wellman.” After this, Mom couldn’t meet my gaze; the guilt she felt for putting Jenny in a place where she’d ended up getting raped stifled the air between us. I wondered if that was the only abuse she felt guilty about.

  That night I had dreamed of my niece in an institution like Wellman, lying helplessly alone in a metal-barred crib, crying out for someone to hold
her, nurses rushing past, too overwhelmed by the weight of their profession to stop and give comfort.

  I saw myself standing next to the crib as this infant wept—her tiny form a dark-haired, blue-eyed miniature copy of my angel sister. Her petal pink lips moved in slow motion, forming a word that my heart immediately recognized. “Mama,” she cried, her eyes glued to me, as though she had finally given me my rightful name. But when I reached my arms out to lift her to my chest, an unseen hand dragged me away.

  I was unable to touch her, unable to claim this child who so obviously needed me. With this image I awoke, and my heart ached with such great force, such intense longing, that I was afraid it might fall right out of my chest. The dream stuck with me on our journey to La Conner, to the home that I hadn’t visited first because of the drive.

  “Now, this place has a staff nurse, right?” Star inquired as we drove along, the morning light bouncing off the many silver strands that hung around her neck. She wore a loose dress the color of flax and a bright red pair of Birkenstock sandals. Her toenails were painted fluorescent blue.

  “Three, actually,” I replied, scanning the map for the exit to Anacortes the home’s director had told me to take. “One of them is always there. Plus there are five part-time aides, so with only three residents, the ratio is pretty good.” I folded the map. “I think we’re supposed to get off here.”

  “Do they have an opening for Jenny?” Nova asked as she signaled to leave the freeway.

  “No, but one of the current residents is in the hospital right now, not doing so well. Her doctors aren’t very optimistic. I feel terrible checking the place out on the chance that she might not make it, but—”