The Language of Sisters: A Novel

by Amy Hatvany

  Acknowledgments

  My heartfelt thanks to Victoria Sanders; I absolutely could not conjure a better agent to have in my corner. To Dr. Julie Iverson, for creative brainstorming and technical information about high-risk pregnancies. To my mother, Claudia Weisz, for emotional truth. To Kristin Cleary, for unabashed enthusiasm and raucous laughter; you are truly the sister of my heart.

  Endless gratitude to Greer Hendricks, my lovely, insightful, and talented editor, who helped bring this book back to life. Thanks also to all the other amazing people at Atria who do so much to make my writing dreams come true: Judith Curr, Chris Lloreda, Paul Olsewski, Lisa Sciambra, Cristina Suarez, Hillary Tisman, Sarah Cantin, and Carole Schwindeller.

  And finally, thanks to my husband, Stephan, and my children, Scarlett and Miles, for letting me love you beyond anything I could ever capture on the page.

  ALSO BY AMY HATVANY

  Best Kept Secret

  Outside the Lines

  Questions and Topics for Discussion

  1. Nicole was trained as a therapist but she gave up her practice to become a baker. As a baker, she and her business partner rarely spoke. Conversely, as a therapist speaking was a primary job function. Compare and contrast these two occupations. What does Nicole’s career path tell you about her character?

  2. Returning home after so long brings up complicated feelings for Nicole, yet she barely hesitates when her mother calls with the news about Jenny. Why? Have you ever been placed in a similar situation where an emergency made you reconsider your priorities?

  3. Nicole seems to hear Jenny asking for help in her time of need. Do you believe this unspoken communication can exist between people? Have you ever felt this way with a sibling, partner, or close friend?

  4. Discuss Nicole’s relationship with her mother. How have they both hurt one another? How do you repair this kind of damage in a relationship?

  5. Caring for a severely handicapped person like Jenny is mentally and physically exhausting. How did Nicole find the strength to get through each day?

  6. How could it have helped Joyce, Nicole and Jenny’s mom, to be able to name the disease that was impacting Jenny? What kind of closure could this diagnosis offer?

  7. Caring for a severely handicapped child was too much for Nicole and Jenny’s father. How did he deal with the emotional and logistical burden? Did you feel any sympathy for him? Why or why not?

  8. Nicole misunderstood what happened between her father and sister after his fits of anger. What factors played a part in Nicole’s perception of the situation?

  9. Do you think the Wellman Institute was responsible for Jenny’s rape and resulting pregnancy? How can a large institution prevent such violations from occurring? Did the settlement seem fair?

  10. The decision to keep Jenny’s baby was complicated. What would you have done if you were in Joyce’s place?

  11. Discuss Nova and Jenny’s friendship. Why is Nicole so drawn to Nova’s personality and family?

  12. Compare and contrast Garret and Shane. What is Nicole drawn to in each man? Who do you think is the best match for her?

  13. Several circumstances aligned to support Nicole’s decision to stay in Seattle and adopt Jenny’s baby: her friendship with Nova, her attraction to Garret, and her mended relationship with her mother. If one of these elements had been missing, how could her choice have been different?

  14. Nicole names Jenny’s baby Kyah. The name means “forgiveness.” Who needed to be forgiven in The Language of Sisters? Who needed to forgive? How does the theme of forgiveness play a larger role in the novel?

  Read on for an exclusive first look at Amy Hatvany’s enchanting new novel,

  heart like mine

  Available from Washington Square Press in March 2013

  Grace

  Later, I would look back and wonder what I was doing the exact moment Kelli died.

  When I left the house for work that morning, nothing was different. There was no sense of impending doom, no ominous soundtrack playing in the back of my mind, warning me that my world was about to tilt over. There was only Victor asleep in our bed, and me, as usual, trying my best not to wake him as I kissed him goodbye.

  It was a Friday in late October, and I drove my usual route downtown, taking in the dark silhouette of the Seattle skyline etched against a coral sky. “Good morning,” I said to my assistant, Tanya, after I’d parked the car and entered the building. She was a stunning woman with skin the color of the deepest, richest cocoa who favored brightly hued dresses to show off her abundant curves. “A pre–Weight Watchers Jennifer Hudson,” I told my best friend, Melody, describing Tanya to her after I initially interviewed her for the job.

  “Morning,” she said, so focused on whatever she was doing that she barely looked up from her computer screen. Her long red nails clackety-clacked on her keyboard. Six months ago, Tanya had been living with her two toddlers in one of our safe houses. At the time, she desperately needed to work and I desperately needed an assistant, so we seemed like a perfect match. I’d taken over as CEO of Second Chances the previous fall, honored to take the lead in an organization that began in the early 1990s as a simple 24-hour support line for battered women and had slowly grown into a multifaceted program including crisis response, counseling, temporary housing, and job placement assistance. We’d even opened a thrift shop earlier this year, where our clients had first pick of donated clothes for job interviews and later, when they were ready to go out on their own, entire wardrobes. My job was to make sure that the more practical, administrative aspects of the program like funding and staffing ran smoothly, but the real reason I’d accepted the job was for the privilege of helping women like Tanya rebuild their shattered lives.

  I set down the latte I’d bought for her at the café downstairs so it would be within her reach, then turned and walked into my office, closing the door behind me. I assumed this would be like any other day. I positioned myself at my desk, booted up my computer, and reviewed my calendar. Other than a couple of phone calls, there was only a staff meeting at two o’clock, so I got busy studying the client files Tanya had pulled for me. It was time to decide if these women were ready to make the transition from our safe houses into a place of their own. Leaving the first home where they’d felt protected was often the hardest step for victims of domestic violence; I made sure we held their hand every step of the way.

  I barely looked up from my papers until a few hours later, when my cell phone vibrated in my purse. I reached for it with a skipping, happy feeling in my belly at the sight of Victor’s name on the screen. “Hi, honey,” I said, glancing down at the ring on my finger. He’d only proposed five days ago and I was still unused to the weight of it, still a little stunned that he’d asked me to marry him at all.

  “Can you go pick up the kids from school for me?” Victor asked. His voice was strained and carried an urgency I didn’t recognize.

  “What, I’m your fiancée now, so I don’t even get a hello?” I said, hoping I could tease him out of his seemingly ugly mood. Victor was usually the most easygoing person I knew; I wondered if something had gone wrong at work, if his head chef had called in sick or one of his busers dropped a box of wineglasses. “Is this what it’s going to be like being married to you?”

  “Grace,” he said. “Seriously. I need you to pick them up and take them back to the house. Please.”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, sitting up straight in my chair. Every muscle in my body suddenly tensed, realizing this wasn’t just a case of Victor having a bad day.

  “It’s Kelli. Her friend Diane found her a couple of hours ago. She wasn’t breathing and … ” I heard him swallow once, hard. “She’s dead, Grace. Kelli’s dead.”

  My mouth went dry. Kelli. His ex-wife. Oh, holy shit. All the air pressed out of my lungs; it took a moment for me to be able to speak. “Oh my god, Victor. What happened?”

  “I don’t know the details yet. The medics took her to the ER, and I guess I’
m still listed as her emergency contact on her insurance plan, so they called me. Can you pick up the kids?”

  “Of course.” I stood up, scrambling for my purse. Panic jittered in my chest, picturing their response to this news. Ava, especially, at thirteen, needing her mother so much, and Max, who was only seven and still had to talk with Kelli before he could fall asleep the nights he stayed at our house. Max and Ava, who didn’t yet know that we were engaged. Victor had told Kelli the news earlier in the week, meeting her for a cup of coffee at the restaurant while the kids were still in school. “How’d it go?” I asked when he came home. He pressed his lips together and gave his head a brief shake. “Not great,” he said, and I hadn’t pressed him further.

  “What do you want me to tell them?” I asked him, now, already worried that whatever I said would be wrong.

  “Nothing, yet. I’ll be home as soon as I can, but I have to go to identify her … ” His voice broke, and he cleared it. “Her body.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?” I’d never heard him so upset and felt desperate to do something to comfort him.

  “No, just get the kids. Please. I’ll figure out what to say to them before I get there.”

  We hung up, and I hurried outside my office. Tanya turned her gaze from her computer to me. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Kelli … Victor’s ex.” I exhaled a heavy breath. “She’s dead.”

  Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my god!” she said with her eyes open wide. She dropped her hand back to her lap. “What happened?”

  “We don’t know yet. Victor is on his way to the hospital right now.”

  “Oh my god,” she said again, shaking her head. “I’ll wipe your calendar for next week. The staff meeting can wait.” She paused. “Do you want me to call Stephanie?”

  I nodded, thinking that the best person to cover for me was definitely my predecessor, who’d retired when I accepted the job, but still gave her time to us as a volunteer. “That’d be great. I’m not sure how long I’ll be out. Thank you.”

  “Of course. I’ll call if there’s anything urgent. And let me know if you need anything else.”

  I left the building with my muscles shaking, climbed into my car, and gripped the steering wheel, trying to steady myself before pulling out of the lot. Thoughts spun in my head, trying to imagine what life would be like for Max and Ava after they found out their mother was dead. And for me as the woman who, by default, wound up standing in her place.

  • • •

  The night I met Victor, the idea that I might become the mother to his children was the furthest thing from my mind. In fact, being a mother was pretty much the furthest thing from my mind any night of the week, something I tried to explain to my date as we sat in the bar of Victor’s popular Seattle restaurant, the Loft. At that moment, I didn’t know I was about to meet Victor. I didn’t know that he owned the restaurant or that he was divorced with two kids. All I knew was I needed to find a way to bail on this date before it got any worse. Chad was the college frat boy who’d never grown up, something I hadn’t realized when we’d emailed back and forth on Match.com and then briefly chatted on the phone. On paper, he was jocular, sort of funny, and had that confident, teetering on the edge of cocky demeanor I typically found appealing in a man, so I figured there wouldn’t be much harm in meeting him for a simple drink. Clearly, I had figured wrong.

  “So,” he said after we’d been seated, ordered our drinks, and gone over the usual niceties of how happy we were to finally meet in person. “You don’t want kids?” He leaned back in his chair with an odd smirk on his ruddy face.

  I was immediately turned off by the blunt challenge in his tone; every internal red flag I had started waving. My online profile did, in fact, indicate that I was focused on pursuing my career more than motherhood, but it was strange that he would lead with this particular topic. I took a tiny sip of the lemon drop martini our server had just delivered, letting the crunchy bits of sanding sugar that lined the rim of my glass dissolve on my tongue before answering. “It’s not so much that I don’t want them,” I said. “More like I’m not sure I’d be very good as a parent.” I hoped my neutral response would dissuade him from pursuing the subject further.

  “Don’t you like kids?” he asked, tilting his blond head at me.

  “Yes, I like them,” I said, repressing a sigh. It was frustrating how many people seemed to assume that I was heartless or unfeeling because I wasn’t rushing to become a mother. Men who chose a career over fatherhood weren’t automatically considered assholes. They were classified as devil-may-care, George Clooney types. And who didn’t love George?

  “I have a brother who was born when I was thirteen,” I explained to Chad. “And I spent ten years helping to raise him before I finally moved out of my parents’ house, so I sort of learned firsthand that motherhood really isn’t for me.” My decision wasn’t quite as simplistic as I’d made it sound, but I was already scanning the room for my quickest escape, so I didn’t see the sense in delving deeper than that with Chad. The Loft’s bar wasn’t huge, maybe a total of fifteen tables. The only exit was past the hostess, right in his line of sight. If I excused myself to go to the restroom, then tried to sneak out the front door, he’d see. I took another big swallow of my drink, hoping the alcohol would smooth the edges off my growing irritation.

  “Well,” Chad said as he placed his meaty palms flat on our small, wooden table, “I actually believe it’s a woman’s biological responsibility to reproduce. I mean, honestly, if you think about it anthropologically, your body is really just a support system for your uterus.”

  My wrist flicked and the contents of my drink splashed in his face before my mind registered it had given the command. Chad sputtered and wiped at his eyes with the back of his hands as I set the now empty glass on the table and quickly began gathering my things.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” he said, spitting out the words.

  I stood, pulse pounding, holding my black leather clutch up off the table so it wouldn’t get vodka on it. “Nothing,” I said, attempting to take a slow, measured breath. “You, however, might benefit from therapy.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a tall man with closely cropped, dark brown hair striding toward us from behind the bar. He wore a black dress shirt and slacks, both cut to compliment his lanky build.

  Chad stood too, and took a menacing step toward me just as the man in black grabbed him by the arm. “Looks like you spilled your drink,” he said. I immediately liked him for his attempt at diplomacy, despite my certainty that he had witnessed what actually happened. He appeared to be around my age, midthirties, maybe a little bit older. The threads of silver woven through the hair around his temples gave him a distinguished edge, and his olive-toned skin held the slightly weathered look of a little too much time spent in the sun.

  “That bitch threw it in my face!” Chad yelled. Every person who hadn’t been looking in our direction suddenly was. The buzz of conversation ceased, and the only sounds were the low, bass-driven background music piped in through the speakers and Chad’s hoarse, angry breathing.

  The man’s grip tightened on Chad’s arm. “Sir, I have to ask you to refrain from calling this lovely woman names. I’m sure it was an accident.” He looked at me with kind, smoky gray eyes. “Right, miss?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. I threw it at him. He was being an ass. Are you the manager?”

  The man shook his head a little, too, and smiled, revealing white, straight teeth and a cavernous dimple in his left cheek. “The owner, actually. Victor Hansen.” He released his clasp on Chad and held out his hand.

  I gripped it quickly, but firmly; my greet-the-executive, don’t-mess-with-me handshake. “Grace McAllister. Good to meet you. I love this place.”

  “Jesus!” Chad interjected. His face flamed red and bits of saliva shot out from his mouth. “If you two are done with your little schmooze-fest, I’d like to know who’s going to pay for my s
hirt!”

  Victor glanced over at Chad’s late-’90s holdover mustard yellow rayon button-down, reached into his pocket, and offered him a twenty. “This should cover it. Now, why don’t you show some dignity and walk away?”

  Chad looked at the bill in Victor’s hand but didn’t take it, then made a disgusted noise before grabbing his coat off the back of his chair and pushing his way through the bar to the front door, knocking into a few chairs and tables as he went. Outside, he threw a middle finger up in the air behind him as he walked by the window where Victor and I stood.

  “Wow,” Victor said, tucking his money back in his pocket, “I wonder if his mom knows he escaped her basement?”

  I laughed. “Thank you,” I said, reaching into my purse and holding out my credit card. “I’m happy to pay for our drinks.” The other customers stopped looking at us and returned to their own conversations; the comforting background noise of glasses and silverware tinkling filled the air.

  “Oh no,” Victor said, waving my card away. “Those are on me.” He smiled again. “Did you order dinner?”

  “No, thank god. Just a drinks date.” I shook my head. “Evidently, I need to work on my screening process. Maybe I should start asking for men’s relationship résumés, and require at least three glowing references before agreeing to meet.”