The Sisters

by Rosalind Noonan

Leaving the store, she felt a twinge of sadness for Luna, who would have loved this place with its cheerful signs about “Tween Power” and “Clothes Tweens Love” surrounded by brightly colored hearts and flowers. But Luna had never been inside this store or any store. The house was her home, school, and prison, at least for now.

  But Glory was going to get them out, and this time she was taking her daughter with her.

  She had a plan.

  She’d found a man.

  Their way to freedom.

  CHAPTER 20

  It was her.

  Ruby backed up into the window of Foot Locker and pretended to stare down at her phone as the woman walked by. Dark brown hair tucked behind both ears hung loose over her shoulders. Pinkish skin the color of Ruby’s salt lamp. Blue eyes that gazed right past her, focusing on a distant light in the future. Worn jeans and a black fleece and short black boots that made her resemble every other mom in the mall.

  But no, this one was different.

  She’s mine. My mother.

  Even in the quick glimpse, Ruby saw the resemblance, the features she and Aurora shared with Glory—round, high cheekbones and sapphire eyes. Ruby knew she should stop her, go after her, talk with her. This was Ruby’s big chance. But she couldn’t move. All the questions and insecurities of twelve years seemed to swell up into her throat as she watched the woman walk away.

  “Oh my God.” Desperate to tell someone, she opened the screen on her phone, clicked on recent messages, then paused. It wasn’t really textable information.

  Guess who I ran into at the East Center Mall? My birth mother!

  What a weird thing to text her friends. And Aurora, who was inside Foot Locker buying new cleats . . . should she run in and grab her?

  I just ran into our first mother! Leave the stupid cleats and come on; I’ll show you!

  God, no. Aurora didn’t care about the woman she didn’t remember, and even if sworn to secrecy she would spill the truth to Tamarind and Pete once she realized she could look more loyal and loving than Ruby. When Ruby had been recruited to use her brand-new license to drive her sister to the store for cleats, no one suspected that they would have to make three stops, winding up here, a mall on the east side of Portland, to locate the perfect pair of soccer cleats for Princess Aurora.

  The East Center Mall. What were the chances of finding Glory here?

  Moving into the path in front of the stores, Ruby crept forward, advancing just enough to keep track of Glory as she cut in front of a sunglasses cart and crossed over to the opposite stores. Not wanting to lose sight of her, Ruby crossed behind a jewelry kiosk. When she rounded the kiosk’s corner, there was Glory, just two yards away, smoothing her hair, straightening her jacket, as she stared up at the illuminated sign of the House of Shoes.

  Ruby ducked back, her heart beating way too fast as she peeked out again and saw Glory enter the shoe store. Was she shopping? Or maybe she worked there—

  “Can I help you find something?” the woman from the jewelry shop asked. She had the bored confidence of a twenty-something who felt sure that Ruby wasn’t a buyer but was venturing way too close to the merchandise.

  “No, no, thanks,” Ruby said, edging away from the kiosks and taking up a spot by a fake tree, a safe distance from a gray-haired man with a rolling oxygen tank who sat with a younger woman on the bench.

  Months ago when Ruby had told her friends about her plans to search for her birth mother, they had tried to help her organize the mission. Delilah had pumped Ruby with a million questions and made notes of all the answers as if there were going to be an exam at the end of the interview.

  “So your father died in Alaska, and your birth mother is still living in Portland?” Delilah repeated, tucking her vanilla blond hair behind her ear with her left hand while she wrote with her right. Delilah had three sisters, each with the same pale hair that lots of the girls at school admired.

  “That’s what my parents have told me over the years. The social worker said Glory was local. But that was twelve or so years ago. She might have moved.”

  “If she’s still poor, like you said, she might have moved to a cheaper area, or to another job market,” Maxi pointed out. “Poverty limits people’s options and social mobility.”

  Delilah and Maxi suggested that Ruby dig deep into her memories of her life with Glory. “If you can remember where you lived or places you used to go, maybe we can find someone who knew your birth mother,” Delilah suggested.

  Maxi had helped by coming up with an article from a science magazine about long-term memories and how childhood memories faded like old photographs, though some details remained strong.

  “You’re telling me to remember things I’ve worked hard to forget.” It wasn’t that the time before Mom and Dad, Tamarind and Pete, had been terrible. It was the way it had ended, with Mommy taking her and Rory to the firehouse and promising, promising that she’d be back soon.

  “Just try. Think back to the earliest things you can remember. Things you liked to do. Things you hated.”

  Ruby had promised to think about it, but it was a struggle to get beyond the wall of her memory. She remembered sitting in the apartment waiting for Daddy to come in the door. She remembered how Mommy didn’t have time to play once Aurora was born. Mostly she recalled the crushing disappointment of waiting for “soon” to happen. She had bought the package on “soon.” After Glory had dumped them at the fire station, Ruby kept insisting to social workers and psychologists that her mommy would be back soon. It still broke her heart that her younger self had believed that. So instead of details leading to her mother, Ruby mostly remembered what a stupid little kid she’d been.

  Until one day, as she was walking to school, a memory sparked when she passed a small playground where a young mom was there with her two kids—a baby in a stroller, and a little boy in a sandbox, who had lined up a dozen Matchbox cars and was running them down a sand hill.

  The playground . . . Glory used to take them to a playground next to a school and a park with a duck pond. Aurora had still been a lump in the stroller, but Ruby had liked the swings. And she had organized the toys left in the sandbox and sometimes collected rocks and leaves. And they had watched the ducks in the park but couldn’t feed them because that made them mean. Ruby could picture that little playground by the school.

  Her school.

  And her teacher . . . Ruby had both feared and adored the woman with flowered dresses and a kind smile. Preschool had been a succession of tasks, from art time to reading time to nap time to recess, but those patterned grooves had been reassuring for Ruby. What had been the teacher’s name? Miss Annie? Miss Mandy. That sounded right, but Ruby didn’t think she’d ever known the woman’s last name.

  The plan had been to check out small preschools in East Portland to see if Ruby recognized any of them. “From there, maybe we can find the house you used to live in?” Maxi had suggested. They had been set to start once Ruby turned sixteen and got her license in March, since it was hard to get to East Portland from their suburb south of the city without a car. But things had gotten in the way. Homework and papers for all of them. Ruby and Maxi went to Salem for Model United Nations and volunteered at the dog rescue. Delilah played basketball in the spring league. Life got in the way.

  But now, with Glory just yards away, talking to some man in the shoe store, the search had just kick-started itself.

  The shoe store’s glass window featured some low displays of shoes and sale signs that allowed Ruby to see inside, which was good, because Ruby would have definitely been noticed in the nearly empty store. How long had Glory been sitting there beside the man, both of them facing away from the door? He had slicked-back hair and wore a shirt and tie, and though Ruby couldn’t see his face, she did notice the way he gently brushed Glory’s hair away from her eyes. Their hands touched, linking fingers, and then there was a quick kiss before they both stood up, as if to end the visit. Glory began to leave the store.

  Fro
m observing the silent scene, Ruby could tell that they liked each other. He was her boyfriend or maybe her husband. It seemed weird, but she shouldn’t be surprised that Glory’s life would have changed over the past decade. In a way the most surprising thing was that her location hadn’t changed; she was still here in Portland, probably living in the same neighborhood where Ruby had started school.

  Inside the store Glory lifted a hand to say good-bye. Time to hide. Stepping back behind the potted tree, Ruby waited for Glory to exit the store, again walking quickly with a purpose.

  Ruby followed, not too close, and rode up the escalator behind her.

  At the top, Glory headed straight for the food court, where diners were sparse. Too late for lunch, too early for dinner. Mostly stragglers, some employees on break, sat sipping or munching and staring at their cell phones. But over by the window two large booths held a bunch of women, who waved Glory over when they saw her.

  So, she had friends.

  Pausing behind a bussing station with napkins and packets of ketchup and mustard, Ruby shuddered as the group in the food court aligned itself to a memory. Like a new photo being imposed over an old faded one, she saw a younger version of herself trundling into the food court with Glory.

  The stroller. Ruby used to stand on the back of the stroller, clinging with gritted teeth when they hit a bump.

  Ruby liked the Mexican place because the meal came with applesauce. She still liked applesauce.

  And the women had clustered in a group, just as they were now. With one woman in a wheelchair, a vinyl chair with big wheels.

  Ruby wasn’t sure how to absorb what she was seeing. So Glory had been involved with these women, for twelve years? Were they some kind of club?

  The women had been nice to Ruby, doting, buying her ice cream and frozen yogurt. But she hadn’t trusted them. When she and Mommy got to the food court, Mommy didn’t pay attention to Ruby anymore, except to correct her.

  “Did you say ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ Ruby?”

  “You need to be polite to Mommy’s friends.”

  Now that seemed ridiculous. She’d been four years old! What kid that age had perfect manners?

  Suddenly angry, she glared at Glory, who was folding up the plastic bag with her purchase, her head lowered. Somber and silent as she took a seat with her friends. A band of women . . . like overage sorority sisters.

  This is what you left us for? A flock of mall queens and a shoe salesman?

  Ruby hated that this woman could hold any power over her, but Glory was a mighty figure in her world.

  Why? Why didn’t you come back for me?

  She would get her answer. Not today, with Aurora texting her, wondering where she was. But soon, when things with Mom settled down, she would find Glory and confront her. Finally, she was going to get her answer.

  CHAPTER 21

  Tamarind lifted her margarita to the woman who had done so much to help her fulfill her dreams. “Here’s to life, love, and good health.”

  “I’ll drink to that, girl.” Kaysandra clinked glasses with her and leaned forward with a conspiratorial look. “So how are you really doing? Are you scared about the surgery?”

  “Hell, yeah.” Tamarind took a sip of her drink, staring at a colorful sombrero on the wall of Tio Pedro’s Mexican restaurant as the sweet liquid went down. “Staring down the barrel of a gun at the big C, part of me is shaking in my boots. The other part is just trying to hold on to my family and pretend it’s going to be fine. Necessary denial.”

  “That’s good. At least we know you’re not delusional.”

  Tamarind smiled and took another sip. After a day at the office with her coworkers tiptoeing around her, she was glad to be relaxing with someone who wasn’t afraid to fling out the truth. There was no manual on how to tell people you had cancer, no greeting card to announce it gracefully, and though Tamarind knew everyone handled things differently, she just wanted the information out there so she could move ahead without feeling she was hiding something. Transparency was important to her, but not everyone could handle the truth so well. “I put the word out at work today, just so everyone would know what was going on with me.”

  “How’d that go?”

  “A mixed reaction. Carla in Accounting couldn’t stop crying, which was awkward. I barely know her.”

  “Chances are, she’s battled cancer in some way, maybe lost a loved one or a friend.” Kaysandra reached for a tortilla chip. “She’s probably scared.”

  “She’s not alone. Fear is a real pain in the ass.” That morning while the shower was heating up Tamarind had stepped up to the bathroom mirror and taken an honest look at her tall, broad-shouldered body. For so many years she had struggled to come to terms with this body. Her light brown skin that made her not black and not white. Her height that made her feel graceless as she towered over her mother and most of the other girls her age in school. Her flat butt and small breasts. It had taken her nearly three decades to love and appreciate this body, to come to terms with who she was, and now that she was going to lose her breasts she wondered if she’d have to redefine herself, or was her soul big enough and strong enough to overlook those physical changes?

  “I shouldn’t complain,” Tamarind said. “I’ve got one of the best surgeons in Portland. He’s got the hands of an angel—that’s what my gynecologist says. They’ve got this reconstructive surgery thing down. At last, I’m going to get a perfect set of breasts. Here’s to that.” She lifted her glass in a small toast and drank deeply.

  “Good on you for looking at the plusses. Did you try the salsa? I can’t stop eating these chips.” Kaysandra pushed the bowl away, then grabbed one more corn chip. “So what are you afraid of? Something specific, or more a general feeling of dread?”

  “I have a list. First, I’m worried about the anesthesia, about going to sleep and never waking up.”

  “That one’s a piece of cake. These anesthesiologists put people to sleep all day, every day. They know their stuff. I’ve been under so many times. Don’t you worry about that part.”

  “Then there’s the question of the cancer spreading. What if it takes me down systematically so that I spend the rest of my life being a burden on Pete and the girls?”

  “A scary thought.” Kaysandra nodded, dipping another chip in salsa. “But you know, you’re lucky you’ve got people who love you who want to take care of you. They want to share your life, whatever shape that takes. And you’d do the same for Pete or your girls. We’re blessed, girl. But I don’t blame you for worrying. Sometimes you’ve got to think through all the angles.”

  “And what about my girls? What about the effects of my illness on their stability? What if they have to live the rest of their lives without a mother?” Tamarind rubbed her thumb over the cold frost on her glass as she imagined her girls forging ahead without her. “Aurora took the news really hard. She’s been quick to cry and voice her fears since I broke the news a few days ago. Aurora has always been that way, emotional and unfiltered, but at least she’s expressing herself. Ruby is another story. She seems calm and competent, a tough soldier, but you know she must be hurting inside.”

  “Ruby can be hard to read.” Kaysandra frowned as she rubbed salt from her fingertips. “Those quiet, independent ones, you never know what’s going on in their heads. And Ruby has those abandonment issues. I know she hasn’t acted out for years, but she was so crushed when her mama left her. Those things can play out later, yes, but Ruby has a strong support system. She’s got parents who love her, a good sister, and close friends. I know she seems closed off, but I got my eye on that girl and she’s learned how to vent in her own way. She’s doing fine, but when things go wrong, she’s got a safety net.”

  “You’re part of the safety net, too.” The margarita was working with Kaysandra to warm her to the prospect of hope. Their family would come through this, scarred and reconfigured, but united in love. The stubbornness of the woman sitting across from her who had once anno
yed her to no end now held her upright like the frame of a house. “Pete and I have talked, and if something happens to me, he knows he could work with you raising these girls.”

  Kaysandra’s eyes, usually so smoky and confident, became earnest and shiny with tears. “It’s not going to come to that, Tamarind, but I’m honored, and you know I’ll always be there for the whole damn crew.”

  Tamarind reached over and squeezed her arm. “You know we love you.”

  “Love you more.”

  “And please, if the worst-case scenario happens, promise me you’ll keep my girls away from motorcycles and blue eye shadow.”

  Kaysandra bit back a smile. “That goes without saying.”

  CHAPTER 22

  The music from Rachel’s cello rose through the air like an eagle, wide wings flapping, beating to a peak where it leveled and soared high in the sky. It told a story, maybe a frightening story of flying through a furious storm, but it made Luna want to keep her eyes closed to fly along with the giant bird. She didn’t want to be reminded that she was in the sitting room, gathered with Leo and the sisters for one of Rachel’s Sunday evening recitals. The music could make her forget she was stuck in the house, but only for a minute.

  She peeked at the group to make sure no one was staring at her. No one was. Lips moving and eyes closed, Georgina was off in her mumble world. Kimani swayed her head in time to the music while Sienna sat picking at her cuticles. Leo sat back with a gentle smile, but his eyes swept the room, always in control. Laura and Julia stared at Rachel as if they could burn her with a hot look. Probably jealous, or maybe they couldn’t understand the music. Sitting next to Luna, Mama had her hands clasped as she looked down at her lap. Maybe falling asleep? She was always tired now, all because of her secrets. Luna wished they could hold hands, but Leo wouldn’t allow it, so Luna closed her eyes again and tried to get away in her mind.

  Even though she’d made a promise to Mama, Luna couldn’t stop thinking of her next chance to hang out with Hazel. Rachel’s recitals were nice, and community time was one of the best things that happened here in the house. Leo always reminded the sisters how lucky they were to have classic literature to read and DVDs of so many movies to enjoy together. Sometimes Natalie recited poems, but they were stories of death and dried-up blood and shells and bones. But Luna didn’t want to sit with the sisters. Old women and crazy birds.