The Story Sisters

by Alice Hoffman

  Pete had stuck a few spindly tomato plants in the garden this year. Annie was too weak. A real garden was out of the question, even though he’d cleared out all the weeds in the hopes she might rebound. He was carrying her up and down the stairs now. “My hero,” she’d whisper when he did this. She meant it, which made it even worse.

  Pete went up to the Oldsmobile and tapped on the driver’s window. Then he took a step back into the dewy grass. Lorry opened the door, unfolded himself, got out of the car.

  “She said her parents were divorced,” he said accusingly. He had his hands in his pockets. He’d seen Pete come out of the house for the paper and wondered who the hell he was.

  “I’m the new guy,” Pete said. He’d told himself to wait and see, not to jump to conclusions because of what had happened to Rebecca, not to try to beat the shit out of this guy, who was younger and stronger—which was not to say Pete couldn’t still inflict some damage.

  Lorry looked past him. The house down the lane was dark.

  “You’re not going to talk to her mother if that’s what you’re thinking,” Pete told him. “She’s dying.”

  They stood there at the corner, gazing at the Weinsteins’ lawn. It really needed to be reseeded. It was such an eyesore the neighbors were thinking of getting together and lodging a complaint.

  “Elv needs a lawyer,” Lorry said. “Can you take care of that?”

  Pete nodded. He still had friends downtown. He could find out where she was and what she needed.

  “Okay. Good. That’s all I needed to know.” Lorry opened the car door, then hesitated. He took a letter from his coat pocket. “Could you give her this?”

  “Because you’ll be unavailable?” Protecting your own ass, Pete thought, although he didn’t say it. He didn’t have to.

  “Because things are going to be different when she gets out. It’s going to be better.”

  “Yeah, well, I doubt that. But I’ll give her the letter.”

  Lorry lit a cigarette. His hands were shaky. He hadn’t slept for a while. He saw the stop sign on the corner. It was a long time before she told him; even then she refused to give any details.

  “So this is where it happened,” he said thoughtfully. “I’d like to kill that fuck.”

  Pete wished he still smoked. He had wanted to punch Lorry, but that feeling had dropped away into something else. He could tell a man torn apart by love when he saw one.

  “Who does that kind of thing to a little girl?” Lorry fumed. “He’s considered a model citizen because he was a teacher. She calls him Grimin. If she’d told me his name, he’d be dead by now.”

  “I’ll do everything I can for her,” Pete assured him. He kept his thoughts to himself, but his mind started clicking in, the way it always did before he began his research on a particular project.

  “Yeah. Well, that’s good.” Lorry slapped Pete on the back. Pete winced and shifted out of reach. “Bad back?” Lorry asked.

  “It would be better if you were out of her life,” Pete said. “You know that.”

  Pete stood on the corner while Lorry got in his car, made a U-turn, and pulled away. He drove slowly, headlights off, a man used to making a getaway. Pete slipped the letter into the pocket of his bathrobe.

  He fixed some strong coffee, then phoned Natalia and asked her to come out to North Point Harbor to stay with Annie. As soon as she arrived, he headed into the city. He’d made a few calls and was able to act as the family’s representative. Rebecca had been in the holding tank several times, so he had that déjà vu feeling checking in, being taken to the visitors’ room. He’d heard that some people had dreams that felt this real, then they woke up in their own beds, safe and sound.

  When Elv was led in, her eyes flitted over him. She couldn’t conceal her disappointment. They were left alone for ten minutes. They probably wouldn’t even need that.

  “I don’t know you,” she said.

  “I’m the guy who’s going to get you a lawyer. All you have to do is trust me.” Pete introduced himself as a good friend of her mother’s.

  He was a middle-aged guy. Gray hair, worried face, tall. “She sent you?”

  “She’s not well, Elv. She doesn’t know you’re here.” Pete reached into his coat for the letter. “He sent me.”

  Elv looked alive for the first time when he handed the letter over. She tore it open, read it, then sat back in her chair, blinking back tears.

  “He came to the house?”

  Pete nodded.

  Elv turned her head. A sob escaped.

  “What happened on the corner?” Pete asked.

  Elv turned back to him frowning. “Just because you’re helping me, don’t think you know me.”

  “Maybe I do,” Pete said.

  “You’ll have to trust me on this one.” Elv folded the letter and slipped it into her sleeve. She would read it over again and again until the ink disappeared. “You don’t.”

  ON THE DAY of the hearing, Pete claimed a space in the back row of the courtroom. He’d confided in Natalia and she had insisted on attending. A nurse had been hired to spend the morning with Annie. Natalia had taken a taxi downtown to meet Pete. She was flustered. He’d had to help her up the steps to the courthouse.

  “I wish I could take her place,” Natalia said. She’d never been to court before and was overdressed. She wore her black Chanel coat, high heels, a pearl necklace. She took a handkerchief from her purse.

  Pete patted her arm. He wasn’t sure if she meant Annie or Elv or both.

  “She has an excellent lawyer,” he said. “Sam Carlyle.” The DA himself had recommended him. “We’ll hope for the best.”

  When the matron walked Elv into the courtroom, Elv noticed Pete in the last row. He was tall and easy to spot. Then she spied her ama. Quickly she turned away, flushed with shame. Elv knew she looked wretched. No wonder her grandmother appeared to be stunned. The detox had been hard. She’d actually wanted to die, but she kept Lorry in her mind, a fierce ray of light, the one thing no one could take away.

  Seeing Natalia in court made everything worse. Elv felt a burning inside her chest, behind her eyes. She had begun to dream about the garden at home, the trellis where the sweet peas twined. She longed for the stories her mother would tell. She wanted to go back to a place that didn’t exist anymore. Now she scanned the court for Lorry and was relieved to find he wasn’t there. He might have tried something foolish, rushed the bench, tried to carry her off. In his letter he’d written he was going out to make his fortune. For every day that she was away, he would be working toward their future together. He would come back for her then. All she had to do was wait and he’d be there.

  Elv hung her head while the charges against her were read. Her lawyer pled guilty and asked for leniency on a charge of grand larceny that could potentially carry fifteen years. She was young, he told the judge. Just a girl. She had made a mistake, but she was a worthwhile, intelligent young woman from a good family. Look, Your Honor, there is her grandmother in the last row. Elv turned to glance over her shoulder. Her grandmother stood up. Elv recognized the black cashmere coat as one she had often tried on to model in front of the big gold-framed mirror on Eighty-ninth Street. It was the sort of coat Audrey Hepburn might have worn. When her grandmother waved, Elv waved back. She felt something in her breaking.

  “Ama,” she called.

  The bailiff asked Elv to be quiet and not to speak out of turn. Of course she complied. She turned to face the bench. She never looked at her grandmother again. Everyone could hear Natalia crying, and perhaps that was why the judge said he would consider Elv’s attorney’s request of leniency.

  PETE KEPT IN touch with his old buddies in the system. He checked the newspaper every day. He and Natalia had decided to keep the situation not only from Annie, but from Claire as well. But Claire happened to spy Pete tossing the newspaper in the trash can on the day after the initial hearing. On her way to school, she went to ferret the paper out from the trash. She slipp
ed it into her backpack, then ran for the school bus. Even nice days made Claire think about the cemetery. That’s why she usually wore a scarf. She’d visit Meg after school and it always seemed cold there. The trees along the cemetery paths had leaves that curled up and turned black at the edges. The grass was so tall Claire had the urge to lie down in it and gaze at the world from that position until at last she closed her eyes.

  The bus to the Graves Academy stopped on the corner. When it arrived, Claire got on. She nodded to some of the girls she knew, then went to the back, where she always sat. She unfolded the paper and found the small article in the metro section. A suspect had been charged in a scam in Astoria that had tried to bilk people out of their life savings. There was a murky photograph of a woman with long dark hair. Claire had newsprint on her hands. The papers all referred to Elv as Elisabeth Story, so it didn’t even seem like the same person.

  On the day the sentencing was announced, Claire got up early and went to collect the paper before Pete could. He came downstairs to fix the coffee and saw her out there on the porch, hunched over, reading. It was barely a paragraph; that was all the attention the crime warranted. The weather was warmer by then. It was the sort of spring day Claire hated. Bumblebees rumbled around what was left of the garden.

  Pete came out to sit beside her. Annie had taken a turn for the worse, so he hadn’t kept up with the case the way he might have. “What did the judge give her?”

  “Three to five years.” Claire threw the paper in the trash. “Meg’s the one who got the death penalty.”

  “It was an accident,” Pete said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  Claire had to collect herself. She wasn’t going to feel sorry for her sister. She wasn’t going to think of Elv going to jail, or the way those men had grabbed her at Westfield, or how fast she’d walked along Nightingale Lane on the bad day, as if a demon was right behind her. She’d slowed down once she’d grabbed Claire’s hand and they started home. She’d known Claire couldn’t keep up.

  “Let’s make tomato soup,” Pete suggested. There were some store-bought tomatoes in the fridge and a container of cream. Annie had all but stopped eating. Maybe soup would bring back her appetite.

  Claire nodded. “She’d like that.” As they went inside she blurted, “I’m glad you didn’t tell Mom about Elv. She would have felt bad for her.”

  “Love is like a spyglass,” Pete said. “Your mom told me that.”

  “Oh yeah?” Claire said. “Well, I think it’s like a pack of lies.”

  “How do they get lies into a pack? Is there some kind of machine that does it?”

  Claire laughed.

  “You can look at it from a distance, that’s what your mother told me, and maybe it seems far away. But it’s still there. It’s still the same.”

  HE BROUGHT LUNCH up on a tray when the soup was ready. Annie had been making a list inside her head of all the tasks that needed to be completed after she was gone. Someone had to sell the house, convince Claire to go to college, make a vet appointment for Shiloh to have his rabies shot. The gutters needed to be cleaned, the mail stopped, the taxes paid. She was too tired to write this all down, but she kept on thinking about all the things she wouldn’t have time to do. She thought and thought until she only cared about one last thing.

  “I got the good rye bread,” Pete said of the toast he’d fixed to go along with the bowl of soup. “The kind you like. With seeds.”

  Annie took his hand once the tray was set down. Her fierce expression surprised him. “You’ve already done so much for me. Is it too much if I ask you to keep watch over her?”

  “Claire’s fine. She’s downstairs studying.”

  “Yes, Claire. But that’s not what I mean.”

  Pete sat on the side of the bed. He knew exactly what she meant. He wished he never had to leave this room and that he and Annie had met years ago. He wished he could somehow let Claire know this was what love was. The ability to ask for something. The desire to give someone what they asked for.

  “I intend to,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about Elv.”

  CLAIRE WAS GRADUATING from the Graves Academy with high honors. That morning the home health aide said she wasn’t certain Annie would make it through the day. Claire had wanted to forgo the whole thing, skip graduation and stay at her mother’s side, but her grandmother said absolutely not. Annie wanted to see her in her white cap and gown. She had been living for this day. Claire finally put on her graduation outfit. She went up to her mother’s room. The curtains were drawn. On impulse, Claire had thrown up the skirt of her gown, kicking like a Rockette, and they’d all laughed, even Annie. “Oh, hurray!” Annie had cried in a small, delighted voice.

  Pete went to graduation with Elise and Mary Fox. He stayed on his cell phone the entire time. Sitting on a chair set up in the soccer field, he felt like one of those commentators in a basketball game, giving the play-by-play. “The headmaster is on the stage,” he reported.

  “Tell them he’s fat and sweaty,” Mary Fox chimed in.

  “The faculty are all lined up in a row,” Elise added. “It’s crowded as all get out.”

  Natalia had been living with them for the past few weeks. Now she was in bed with Annie, holding the phone up so Annie could listen. When the headmaster announced Claire’s name, they cheered. They pretended they weren’t crying. It had all been so exhausting, holding on for this moment. After a while, Natalia felt as if the air was too close. Annie’s breathing was labored. “I think I should get the doctor.”

  “Don’t,” Annie murmured. She wanted to close her eyes, but instead, she struggled to listen to the rest of the graduation ceremony. It all poured into the room, the applause and the excitement. They could hear a marching band. Natalia wrapped her arms around her daughter. She sang the lullaby she’d sung a long time ago. Annie was surprised to find that she remembered the words. She remembered her parents’ bedroom in Paris, the orange light seeping in around the white window shades. There was the scent of chestnut blossoms and the sound of leaves rustling in a slow, green rhythm. Sleep, my darling child. Sleep through nights and days. I’ll be here to watch over you.

  PETE AND CLAIRE left the school grounds as soon as Claire received her degree. They left Elise and Mary Fox and ran for the parking lot, which was cluttered with cars, many of which had streamers dangling from the bumpers and antennas. Congratulations. Best of luck. Claire threw her diploma in the backseat and tore off her cap. Everything was green in the fields surrounding the school. The other students’ parents were still in the soccer field, cheering. There was a series of awards, including one meant for Claire from the English Department. Mary would accept on her behalf. The head of the department, Miss Jarrett, read a poem Claire had written during the time she stopped speaking. Claire couldn’t have cared less about the award. Her poem was about the sixteenth-century Golden Book in Venice, in which all of the maestros of glassmaking were listed by name. She described the ways in which glass could shatter. Rocks, storms, hail, carelessness, slingshots. In the end there’d been too many to list.

  Pete broke the speed limit on the way home. As they raced through town, Claire buzzed the window down and leaned outside. Her face was streaming with tears. It made sense for Pete to drive on the bay road, even though they usually avoided the corner where it happened. It was the fastest way home.

  Claire’s back was to him, but Pete knew she was crying. He reached to pat her shoulder. A soft cry escaped from Claire’s mouth.

  “She made it till today,” Pete reminded her.

  When they got to the house, Claire ran inside to see her mother. She hadn’t been the smartest or the most beautiful, but she had graduated and that had mattered to Annie. Pete stepped into the kitchen. Natalia had heard the car and had come downstairs so Claire could have some time alone with her mother. She handed Pete a cup of coffee. He and Annie had talked about everything, but they weren’t finished.

  When Natalia went back to Annie’s
room, Pete said he would be right up. He stayed in the kitchen with the dog for a while. He covered his face and wept. When he was done, he patted Shiloh’s head. This wasn’t his house or his family or his dog, but it was his sorrow. The phone rang. It seemed ridiculously loud. The kitchen clock was ticking. It wasn’t the sort of day anyone would remember. Just an average June day. Pete blew his nose on a napkin. Maybe it was the ex-husband telephoning. He hadn’t been able to attend Claire’s graduation because there was also a graduation at his own high school. Just as well; nobody wanted him. Pete didn’t care to talk to him either, but when the phone continued to ring he had little choice but to answer, if only to quiet the damned thing.

  He grabbed the receiver and said, “Hello,” feeling awkward.

  “Who is this?” A woman’s voice.

  For a brief alarming moment Pete thought it was his daughter, Rebecca, calling from the beyond. Then he understood.

  “It’s Pete, Elv.”

  Elv paused, then went on. “They let me have a phone call. I knew it was graduation day. Claire probably wouldn’t want to talk to me.”

  “She’s upstairs with your mother.”

  “You don’t think my mother would want to talk to me, do you?”

  Pete gazed out at the tree in the yard. Annie had told him Elv used to sit up there like a nymph, even in the rain. “I think she would. But she’s not capable. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Pete asked.

  “If I could talk to her once, I could tell her how sorry I am.”

  Pete said he was going to look in on her mother and that he’d tell her. When he went back up, Claire was curled up in a chair in the corner. Her graduation gown was rolled in a ball, tossed on the carpet. Pete hung it over the back of a chair. He went to the bedside. He didn’t know if Annie recognized him or not, but he leaned in close to tell her she didn’t have to worry about Elv anymore. She was the way she used to be, the girl in the garden with the long black hair.