The Sisters

by Rosalind Noonan

  One night, she admitted she was waiting for her mommy.

  Tamarind had suspected as much, though that didn’t make it any easier to handle the situation. Pete looked up from his laptop and Rima looked over from the couch, where she bobbed her head over Aurora, making silly noises as the baby reached for her face.

  Tamarind tried to be gentle without doting. “Your mommy isn’t coming tonight.”

  “But she promised. She said soon.”

  “Sometimes mommies aren’t able to take care of their children. That’s why you’re living with us.”

  “But I want Mommy,” Ruby said softly.

  “We understand that,” Pete said. He came over and knelt in front of the little girl, her woeful blue eyes shiny with tears as she stared beyond her reflection into the night. “But since your mommy can’t take care of you right now, we figure we’re the next best thing. We’d like to take care of you and your sister. Do you think you could give us a chance?”

  Ruby shrugged. “Maybe.”

  It was such an adult answer—noncommittal and evasive—that Tamarind had to smile. “That sounds hopeful.”

  Pete had offered to give Ruby a ride to bed on his shoulders, and suddenly he was a noisy elephant meandering through the apartment, using one arm as a trunk. Tamarind wanted to warn him to be careful, to hold on to her, but bit back her objections as Rima laughed and Aurora let out an animated squeal as her eyes lit on Ruby smiling down from Pete’s shoulders.

  The paperwork and legalities of adopting abandoned children required Pete and Tamarind to wage a slow and steady uphill battle. Giving up was not an option, but after a while anger burned brighter with each setback. Kaysandra became Tamarind’s new best friend and champion of her girls, dismissing obstacles, saying, “This is nothing,” or, “We can make this go away,” or, “No worries. We got this.”

  And suddenly they were a family, juggling jobs, homework, day care, soccer games, and weekends at the coast just like other young families they knew. And suddenly they were finished with day care and sitters, done with Montessori school, and then all graduated from Bryant Elementary. Aurora was in junior high now, Ruby a sophomore in high school, and Tamarind had taken for granted how full and wonderful her life was until this cancer made her realize that it could end in the blink of an eye.

  It was a good life, and according to the doctor, it looked like she’d be holding on for a little bit longer. She turned her head to scan the dozen or so people, her crazy, loud family, and joy bubbled up inside her. Wanting a better view, she tried to wriggle up higher in the bed, which made her wince. A reminder of what had brought her to this party. There was pain—oh yeah, searing, raw pain when the medications wore thin—but it was the suffering of life, the price all humans paid at one point in order to climb a mountain or birth a baby or sweat off the extra pounds dragging down a weak heart.

  She was going to survive this. And she had so much to live for.

  “How you doing, Tamarind?” Dressed in blue scrubs, the nurse emerged from the group and pulled some equipment closer to the bed. “I’m just here to get your vitals, and then I’ll leave you alone.” Hannah’s dark ponytail bobbed as she glanced back at the crew. “Looks like you’re a pretty popular person.”

  “Some people will do anything for a party,” Tamarind managed to say before the thermometer was popped into her mouth.

  Tears of joy sprang to her eyes at the sight of them all. Aurora showing something on her phone to her aunt Bernadette, her favorite. Ruby and her friend Maxi checking out the flowers on the windowsill. Pete’s mom, Janeece, was admiring the print of Rima’s dress, while Karim and Doc examined unlit cigars, Doc’s evil hobby. Maisie was passing out candy, and Pete and James were sampling them all.

  “You’re doing great,” Hannah said, removing the blood pressure cuff.

  “Do you want some candy?” Tamarind offered. “Before my husband eats it all.”

  “No, thanks. I’m trying to be good, with the holidays coming. I’ll be back later to check on you. I’m on until midnight.”

  “This one’s a trooper,” Kaysandra said, patting Tamarind’s knee through the blanket. “She’s got the McCullum fighting spirit.”

  Kaysandra and her husband, Ed, closed in to chat with the nurse, buttering her up to ease the offense of flouting the hospital rules of allowing only two visitors at a time in ICU.

  Hannah smiled, insisting that she didn’t work for Security, so emptying out the room wasn’t her job. “Just ring the call button if you need me,” Hannah said before slipping out of the crowded room.

  Pete came over and put a box of candy on the table. “Save this for later, babe. It’s supposed to be for you.” He rubbed his jaw. “I think I cracked a tooth on that peanut brittle. But it was worth it. Damn good.”

  “We’ll get your tooth fixed,” Tamarind choked out, suddenly aware she was full-fledged crying.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, what’s up?” Pete lifted her hand, leaning close. “Are you in pain?”

  “Tears of joy. I’m just so relieved to be okay, and to have everyone here. I’m so happy, Pete. So lucky to have our family.”

  “These crazy people are making you happy?” He kissed her hand, smiling. “Well, either you have a lunatic family that loves you, or you’re still on the good drugs.”

  CHAPTER 25

  “I feel a little bad, doing this while your mom is in the hospital,” Maxi said as they waited for a light to turn green. They had driven to the East Center Mall from the hospital and started cruising down nearby streets in search of Ruby’s former home.

  “Don’t guilt me, Maxi. We’ve already been through this, and you know this is the best way to keep it from my mom, who would only be hurt by it. And when else would we get a chance to go off together, no questions asked by either of our moms? This is the perfect time. I need the distraction, and since I saw Glory at East Center a few weeks ago, I know this is the right mall.”

  “How come we never shop here?”

  “It’s too far. And you know they’ve had those shootings.”

  Maxi opened her mouth in a wide O of shock. “You’re serious?”

  “They were gang related,” Ruby said, working hard to keep her own resolve from chipping away. “We’re good. It’s daytime. I’ll protect you.”

  “Why doesn’t that make me feel better?”

  They had driven in loops around the East Center Mall in search of the two-story house with a gated fence around the front yard. Ruby remembered funny things about the house where they had lived on the first floor. The morning light in the bedroom window that made the yellow wall shine. The fat rhododendrons that dangled at the front window, reminding her of a lamb’s head, scaring her when they jiggled against the glass in the breeze at night.

  “It’s walking distance to the mall; I know it is. How hard could it be to find it?” Ruby asked in frustration when the road from the mall parking lot had sent them on a loop toward the interstate. When Maxi stopped short at a red light, Ruby lost it. “Oh my God, can we get off this road?”

  “I’m trying. Don’t make me crash.”

  “Sorry, I just want to find this place.”

  “Can’t we just go look for her at the mall?” Maxi asked.

  “I’m not sure she’s there every day, and I want to find her house.” Our house. Somehow, returning to the Cape Cod–style home was going to bring her closer to the little girl she used to be, closer to her biological parents. Especially to Winston Noland. She knew that he had died in Alaska. That probably added to Glory’s reasons for giving Aurora and her up for adoption. But she wanted to be in a place where she could remember what it felt like to be his little girl.

  “At least it’s not raining,” Ruby said as they took a wide curve on the dry roadway. She couldn’t imagine trying to scout out the neighborhood in a dense November rain.

  At last Maxi found a place to turn around, and they headed back toward the mall. They had spent another twenty minutes rolling slowly
down residential streets when Ruby spotted it—the house with the dormers. Sunlight gleamed on the metal gate of the picket fence, as if it were a signpost. “There . . . I think that’s it.”

  Maxi pulled up across the street and they both turned to stare at the tired but sturdy house. The olive green shutters, the patch of green lawn, the small painted porch where she had danced as she waited for Mommy to load the stroller. The fat leaves of mature rhododendrons blocked the bottoms of the front windows, though their summer blossoms had gone to seed.

  “That’s it,” she breathed. “We lived on the ground floor—Glory might still rent it—and there was an old woman who lived upstairs. I think she owned the house. She kind of scared me, but then a lot of things scared me back then.”

  “Wow.”

  Ruby nodded. “Wow.”

  “So do you think your mother still lives there?”

  “I guess we need to find out.”

  Maxi’s dark eyes flared with excitement. “Are we going to the door? Oh my God, this is so out of the box. Delilah’s going to be pissed that she’s missing out.”

  “She probably won’t even answer the door,” Ruby muttered as she pushed open the car door and went to the sidewalk. Now that she was here, standing in front of the place of her fuzzy memories, the whole mission to find Glory seemed doomed. Best-case scenario, if she found her birth mother, what could Glory possibly do or say to make her feel better?

  I was wrong to leave you and your sister behind.

  My greatest regret in life is giving you up.

  I’m so proud of what you’ve become.

  Would any of those words be a salve to the malady that had brought her here? Ruby wished she could contain the curiosity that drove this search. She was usually such a rational person, but this was one part of her she couldn’t understand or explain. Sort of like a bee sting that felt itchy, but then it hurt worse when you scratched it. She knew she was headed toward pain, but she couldn’t stop the forward momentum.

  The gate creaked as she pushed it open.

  “Sort of like a horror movie.” Maxi stayed close, her voice low.

  They pushed forward through a yard that was green and claustrophobic. Thick cedars grew tall along the fence line on one side, overtaking the passage to the side of the house. The walkway and flower beds were lined by bushy plants—clumps of spider grass, dry heather, and lavender—that made Ruby think of aliens lurking, waiting for their moment to rise up and strike.

  As the girls stepped under the awning of the cement porch, Maxi pointed to the NO SOLICITATIONS sign.

  “We’re in trouble.”

  “No,” Ruby insisted. “We’re not selling anything.”

  They decided to ring both bells, for upstairs and downstairs. There was no answer, of course, but Ruby could see into part of the downstairs living room. No one seemed to be home, but the little coffee table seemed familiar. She wished she could jump off the porch and press into the bushes for a better look through the window, but that would just be weird.

  After a few minutes, Maxi sighed. “Nobody home.” “Figures.” After one last try of the doorbells, they went back down the walk and pushed through the gate. “She probably doesn’t live here anymore,” Ruby said, looking back at the house.

  “Or maybe she’s at work. A lot of people aren’t home during the day.”

  Looking beyond her friend, Ruby noticed a motion at the house as the front door was tugged open, a face appearing in the passage. It was an older woman, the age of Ruby’s grandmothers, with short gray hair styled in a big puff around her head.

  “No solicitations, girls,” she said, moving down the walk with a slight limp. “We’re not buying or signing anything.”

  “Sorry to disturb you, ma’am,” Maxi said, “but we’re not selling anything.”

  “We’re looking for someone who lived here,” Ruby said. “Maybe she still does. Glory Noland?”

  The woman shooed them away from the gate, and Ruby stepped back, deflated, thinking it was over until she realized the woman was just checking her mail. “What do you want with Glory?” she asked, opening the door of the curbside box.

  “It’s nothing bad,” Maxi insisted.

  “She’s my birth mother,” Ruby said, getting to the core of the issue. “I used to live here.”

  “Is that so?” The woman tucked letters and flyers under one arm and peered at Ruby, as if seeing her for the first time. “Ah, I see it. Those blue eyes, and your father’s cheekbones. You must be the older daughter. That was a long time ago, but I remember. You were little at the time.”

  “I was four when I was adopted.”

  The woman grunted. “Never understood that. She was a good mother till then. Got you and your sister out of the house every day, and she was patient. I never heard her raise her voice and I heard most everything. But when your father died, I guess it was too much.”

  “So you’re the landlady?” Ruby asked. “The owner of the house.”

  “Ellen Carlucci. And your name is, no, don’t tell me. Rosie?”

  “Ruby.”

  “I was close.” Ellen hobbled into the yard and closed the gate behind her, immune to the squealing metal.

  “So Glory doesn’t live here anymore?” asked Maxi.

  Ellen shook her head. “She packed her clothes and hurried out of here after she gave up you and your sister. Left every stick of furniture, so I had to rent it furnished for a while. She owed me a month’s rent, too, but I didn’t go after her for it. Glory had enough problems. You know, when your parents first came to me, I was one of the few people in this neighborhood who would rent to a mixed-race couple. I thought, Here’s a couple that needs a break, so I gave it to them. And they were good tenants until your father died. After that, I guess she just couldn’t cope on her own.”

  Ruby’s fingertips followed the peaks at the top of the picket fence. “Do you know where she went from here?” she asked.

  “I don’t have a forwarding address. She was out of here in a flash, and I ended up getting most of my information from Social Services. They came around here trying to clear up loose ends so you could be adopted after Glory disappeared. But I know she hooked up with that cult group led by Leo what’s-his-name. Well, I’d call them a cult, but some folks say he’s just a generous man helping out women in need. He and his sister own a hotel near the mall, and a lot of their staff are broken-down women who can’t make it at anything except cleaning rooms. Maybe it’s all charitable. I mean, it’s not like he’s trying to shove some religion down their throat. They’re not exactly Bhagwan followers. But personally I wouldn’t want to be beholden to any man. I’m no fan of the mall, but last time I was there, couple of years ago, I saw them buzzing around the food court and my radar went up. Way too cheerful, that band of sisters.”

  “The sisters,” Ruby said, remembering. “That’s what they used to call themselves, the women who met at the food court when I was little. Is that who you’re talking about?”

  “Probably. My friend Carol works at the mall. She chats with them when she’s on break. Says they’re delightful. But I have my doubts. I was never a joiner.”

  “Do these women live at the hotel?” Ruby asked.

  “No. There’s some kind of a group home, a house not far from here. But the other side of the mall, thank God. I don’t think I could stand having a cult in my neighborhood.”

  “So maybe we’ll check the mall,” Maxi said.

  “Thanks for your help, Ms. Carlucci,” Ruby said, realizing she did recall being scared by a younger version of the woman before her. But back then, Ruby lived in a small world, uncomfortable with anyone beyond the small scope of her parents.

  Ellen Carlucci nodded. “You seem like a good girl. Don’t get mixed up with those people.”

  “We won’t,” Ruby promised as she and Maxi got back into the car.

  “A cult.” The situation made Ruby uncomfortable. “It’s too weird.”

  “Right? I’ve never heard
of this group. But a lot of people throw the word ‘cult’ around. Some people think sororities and fraternities are cults. Let’s not judge.”

  “But I remember those women. It’s definitely weird.” Ruby pressed her fingertips to her temples. “I had to have the one mother who leaves her kids to join a cult. Maybe we shouldn’t go—”

  “Are you kidding me? It’s right down the road, and we’ve got a hot lead. We are so going.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Luna peered through the crack in the back fence, searching for signs of her friend at the house that sat catty-corner to theirs. “Hazel, where are you?” she said quietly, noting that Hazel’s drapes were closed and her mom’s car was gone from the driveway. Maybe she was still in school. Luna usually didn’t come into the backyard until after three, but today she’d been impatient and annoyed, driven out of the house by Sienna and Leo, who were having an angry game of chase through the kitchen and up the stairs.

  “I wish you were home.” Luna sighed and looked at the workbook in her hands. Oh, well. With the sun out, it wasn’t too cold. She decided to sit at the splintered picnic table at the back of the yard and do her assignments while she waited for Hazel. She opened the book to where the pencil was tucked inside and frowned. Long division. The opposite of multiplication. She understood how to do it, but it was so boring. Even interesting things could be boring when you couldn’t share them with a friend.

  The back door banged open and Sienna stepped out onto the porch. “Just leave me alone!”