Two Sisters

by Jeffrey Anderson

haven’t got around to it yet.

  From there we headed toward the mainland across the sound. And while flying over all that water I got to thinking about you. Maybe it was the disconnect I’d sensed between what I saw from the air and knew on the ground or the strange stillness I felt despite the roar of the plane’s engine and the wind racing past. Whatever the reason, I tapped Josh on the shoulder and asked if he could fly me home—I meant for a quick visit then back again to work that night. At first he didn’t understand, with all the noise. Then, after the third try when he did understand, he laughed and said we’d run out of fuel about halfway there. That didn’t sound good. So I shrugged and sat back in the seat. It was just a crazy whim. He took me for an hour-long tour of the coast, including a swing over Bogue Beach and The Pier. It may have been deserted when you and Paul were there, but it was wall-to-wall last Saturday, including on The Pier. It made me glad for the empty beaches of Shawnituck.

  Then we ended up back at the airstrip and he helped me down and I thanked him for the wonderful flight. O.K., so maybe I did give him a thank you kiss but it was just on the cheek. Then he headed off to do whatever you do to a plane after a flight and I walked back to town and got ready for work. Mrs. Polly had asked me to help out with lunch if I was available, and lucky I did since they were swarmed.

  But on my walk back, and with the thrill and the revelations brought on by my first flight, I thought a lot about your letter and realized that I’m facing many of the same questions. You’re just better at thinking about them than I ever will be. I take it as it comes and follow my gut. Well, a few inches up from my gut, meaning my heart. Or maybe sometimes my heart and sometimes my gut, depending on the situation. But unlike you, I don’t use my head, or sometimes after the fact but then it’s too late. That’s where you come in. You have to be my head to balance out those other parts. I concluded that I miss you as much as you miss me. I’m just too busy to know it.

  Speaking of busy, did you read about how the fireworks truck blew up? Fortunately, it was parked in the ferry lot so only a handful of cars got burned up and not the whole village. But you would’ve thought we were in the middle of World War Three, with all the artillery shells and whistlers shooting off. Old timers said it reminded them of the early days of World War Two when German subs would sink merchant ships off the coast and there’d be fires and explosions in the night. Well, these explosions were in broad daylight and right here in the village and nobody quite knew what was going on. Eventually, Bill and Dave Hammond with the town’s one fire truck got there and put out the fires once all the shells had finished exploding. Now there’s a gutted panel truck and several burned up cars and a circle of melted asphalt in the ferry parking lot, but at least nobody got hurt.

  Needless to say, the island’s annual fireworks display got cancelled. But several high school kids, including Onion’s brother Jamie, went door to door asking residents for any fireworks they might have stored from years past and were waiting for a special occasion. They gathered up a pretty decent mix (all illegal under state laws, of course, but Sam Saunders our one full-time cop turned a blind eye) and those kids set them off at Harbor Beach after dark yesterday and we all cheered as if it was the best fireworks display we’d ever seen. The exploding truck reminded everyone of just how vulnerable we are, especially out here on the island.

  Speaking of Onion (I was, somewhere in there), he can’t wait to meet you. And he said “If she wants to invite a friend, he can stay in the motel’s ‘guest suite’.” That’s a store room off of the kitchen they turned into a bedroom with a cot and small dresser for kids and family friends. There’s no bathroom but the employee washroom is just down the hall. Anyway, with Onion’s generous offer (O.K., maybe I prodded him a little bit) I was thinking you should ask Paul to join us out here, maybe for that last weekend. With the free room and free restaurant food (we’ll let him bus a few tables to make it official) it wouldn’t cost much—just ferry fare out and back and whatever incidentals he purchases. It could be your farewell outing before college.

  See, I’m looking out for you lovebirds. And if he drives down and leaves his car at the mainland dock, you can go back together, saving Momma a trip. Now I’m beginning to sound like you, planning everyone’s life. What’s happening to me?

  Maybe I’ll go find Mitchell and engage in a little mindless spontaneous fun. What’s the use of being young and free if you can’t do that?

  See you soon (but not soon enough)—

  Brooke

  Leah stood on the empty dock looking out across the gray harbor as the ferry disappeared beyond the breakwater. A heavy mist trapped between fog and drizzle made her hair hang straight and damp on her shoulders and gave a sheen to her hard-sided suitcase. The ride out had been a little choppy but otherwise quiet, with only two cars and no other walk-on passengers. They’d unloaded quickly and reloaded with a full boat of homeward-bound weekenders. It was Sunday evening.

  Leah had hoped for the familiar face (and cute butt) of Mitchell as her ferry attendant, so was disappointed and a little unsettled when a grizzle-faced, gap-toothed old timer leered at her as she boarded and exited. The only good news there was that he had disappeared for the entire crossing and she was free to read her book in the empty and tiny passenger lounge. Now with the ferry gone out of sight, she gazed at the cottages rimming the small harbor, looking hazy and surreal in the dim light.

  Suddenly Brooke’s face then whole body was directly in front of her. At least she remembered not to startle a deaf girl by grabbing her from behind.

  “I hate it when the ferry is early,” Brooke said with just the slightest narrowing of her eyes.

  Leah looked at her watch. The ferry had not been early.

  “Come on, Lee. Don’t be like that.” Brooke made a little pouty face. “Give your big Sis a hug.”

  Leah smiled. Forgiving Brooke was a well-honed skill that came back quickly despite recent disuse, like riding a bicycle. She opened her arms and folded her shorter sister into a wide embrace. Brooke’s hair was different, dirty blond with lighter streaks and cut in a short bob that stopped above her shoulders. And she smelled different, almost tangy, in what might have been the odor of a new shampoo or body lotion or something from the restaurant. But she felt the same, her face pressed against Leah’s shoulder, her arms hugging in gentle spasms. Leah couldn’t help but wonder if that embrace would always feel the same.

  Brooke stepped back. “Welcome to Shawnituck! What do you think?”

  Leah responded with just facial gestures—About the island or you?

  Brooke said, “I meant the island; but, well, both.”

  The island looks quaint and rustic. She gestured toward the cottages with lights winking on though sunset was still hours away, and the plank road receding in the mist as it wound from the ferry slip into town. You even imported an English fog!

  Brooke laughed. “Anything for my sister!”

  Leah faced her sister. And you seem—. She paused a moment, trying to properly capture a complex reaction. She finally gestured with a quick spiral of her right hand starting near her waist and flying upward past her face, out into the misty sky. The sign might have translated as wild or free, depending on the context. For Leah at that moment, it meant both.

  Brooke grinned and nodded. “Exactly.” For her the sign meant a version of free to be me, to which she silently added at last.

  Then Leah suddenly placed Brooke’s unfamiliar scent. It wasn’t shampoo or lotion or restaurant odors. It was a boy, just one she’d never smelled before. Her eyes grew wide and jerked upward in an old familiar code.

  Brooke recognized the sign. “Onion wanted to come, but he had to work.”

  Leah nodded. That is O.K. I will meet him soon enough.

  “Yes. But for now it’s just us.” She reached down to grab the suitcase, but it was heavier than she expected and her wet hand slipped off the wet handle. “Geez, Lee; what you got in there?”

  Leah laughed. Lots of
books, for when you are working.

  “Still my Leah.”

  Leah nodded then grabbed the suitcase. By now they were both quite wet, but it hardly mattered. The evening air was warm, and the two sisters were back together.

  To Leah Greta’s cottage seemed like something off a stage set—cozy and dry and charming with its plank wood walls hung with all manner of paintings, photos, and seaside detritus (a battered buoy, a stingray’s spike), but somehow detached from the modern world. For that matter, the whole island seemed separate from the world she knew. In their fifteen-minute walk through the village, they’d not passed a single moving car and only a handful of pedestrians scurrying to dinner or closing up shops. And though Leah’s world was always soundless, this place felt soundless; and she wasn’t completely comfortable with the impression.

  Once inside (Leah noted the door hadn’t been locked—of course) Brooke grabbed the suitcase and led Leah to the small bedroom at the front of the house. “Greta changed the sheets and said she safely hid ‘all items that might tarnish Leah’s lofty impression of her aunt!’ I can’t imagine what she meant by that, since my impression was always that she was down to earth and one of us. But maybe she thinks you see her differently. Anyway, this is your room for the