The Language Of Sisters Part 7

"Jackie divorced him. Moved to Palm Beach."

"Why? Was she nuts?"

"Come on now, what about your laundry fanatic?"

I sighed, flopping my head back against the couch. "Who knows?" I could not keep the resignation from my voice.

Nova leaned in, touched my hand. "Okay, chick. Now I mean it. How are you?"

I closed my eyes against the tears that too readily filled them. I shook my head, unable to speak. Nova moved to wrap an arm around me.

"Hey, hey. It's okay. Come on, sweetie." She kissed my forehead, smoothed back the hair from my face. "Look at me."

I shook my head again, fearful of what might come out if I opened my mouth, but desperately relieved someone had finally noticed that I was drowning.

She placed both of her soft hands on my cheeks. "You can talk to me, Nic. Remember? Please, tell me what's going on."

I lifted my eyelids, blinking away the tears. Her familiar blue eyes gazed back at me so fragile and open, ready to accept anything I had to say. I took a deep breath, the tightness in my chest beginning to loosen as the words started to tumble out. I opened my heart and finally, gratefully, told someone the truth.

"Why do you think your mother is acting like that?" Nova asked me as we moved from her living room to the kitchen. We had been blessed by an uninterrupted hour of conversation before Isaac came into the house moaning that his stomach was empty and he might die if he didn't get food pretty soon. I had told Nova everything that had been bubbling within me, starting with the first night my father went into Jenny's room and ending with my mother's odd detachment from us. Nova was shocked by the news of my father, disgusted and sad that I had carried its burden alone for so many years. I felt relieved, as well as thankful that she'd reacted with the love and understanding I'd expect from her.

As Nova pulled out a gla.s.s bowl filled with cooked spaghetti from the refrigerator and set it in the microwave to warm, I slid Jenny's wheelchair up to the light oak farmhouse-style kitchen table, rummaging through my bag to find her bib and vitamins. Nova's kitchen was a rectangular s.p.a.ce edged in long white tile countertops. The walls were painted pale lime green, trimmed in white. The refrigerator was covered in children's art projects: mostly macaroni-glued paintings sprinkled with glitter. By her sink I noticed a mug that proclaimed WELL-BEHAVED WOMEN RARELY MAKE HISTORY.

"I'm not sure," I said. I adjusted Jenny's tray and helped her to take a sip of juice from a specially designed cup with a built-in straw. "I thought that once Jen was home she'd warm back up to the mother she used to be. I was counting on it." I looked at my sister. "What about it, Jen? Do you get what's going on with Mom?"

Jenny blinked once, twice, then closed her eyes to us completely as she continued swallowing her drink.

"Well, if she does, she obviously doesn't want to talk about it," Nova said with a laugh as she tossed b.u.t.ter and Parmesan cheese in with the warmed noodles. "I think you just have to talk to your mom about it. Confront her."

"Ooo, that should be fun," I said mockingly. " 'Gee, Mother, why are you being such a b.i.t.c.h?'"

"It'd probably be a good idea to word it a bit more tactfully than that." Nova stuck her head back into the living room to check on Layla, who was still sleeping peacefully in her swing, then looked at me with sharp eyes. "You're a therapist, right? You'll figure something out."

"I used to be a therapist."

"Close enough. What would you tell a client who was going through this with her mother?"

That was a good question. "You know," I said thoughtfully, looking at her with admiration, "I hadn't thought of it that way. Have you always been this smart?"

She grinned at me. "Of course." Walking over to the back door she yelled, "Kids! Dinner!" She moved to the cupboard next to the sink and grabbed a handful of small plastic plates, setting them haphazardly on the table along with several plastic cups, then filled each plate with little servings of pasta and green beans.

"No silverware?" I inquired.

She shrugged. "They don't use it, so I don't bother. Less to wash this way."

Four small heads popped up the stairs and ran to sit at the table. A dark-haired, fairy-looking child I had not seen before plopped down on the bench next to Jenny's chair. This had to be Lucy. She was small-boned and pale, with her father's pointed ears and a charmingly pretty, lightly freckled face. Her pet.i.te frame was clad in hot pink bike shorts and a bright yellow T-shirt, and on her tiny feet were fluorescent green salt.w.a.ter sandals. I wondered if Garret had picked out this startling ensemble or if Lucy took pride in dressing herself. She didn't speak, but glanced at me with animated hazel eyes before sticking her fingers into the pile of noodles in front of her and holding up her meal to Jenny. "Want some?" she asked my sister, moving her gaze to Jenny's face, then shrugging to me. "She says she doesn't like cheese. It gives her a bellyache."

"How'd you know that?" I said, a little surprised. I looked at Nova. "She's allergic to dairy."

Lucy shrugged again, her mouth full of wiggling pasta. "She told me."

Nova smiled. "I swear kids are telepathic." She set plain b.u.t.tered noodles on Jenny's tray, along with a pile of steamed green beans. "Lucy, especially."

"Here you go," Lucy singsonged to Jenny as she removed the green beans from her own plate to my sister's tray.

"Uh-uh, Miss Lucy," Nova corrected. "Put those back; they're yours. Jenny already has some."

"But she wanted them," Lucy reasoned.

"Nuh-uh," Isaac piped up from his spot across the table. "You just don't like green beans! You said they taste like p.o.o.p!" All the children t.i.ttered.

"Enough!" Nova barked, clapping her hands together. "Eat and then it's bath time, you hear me?" There was an edge to her voice that must have caught their attention because miraculously the children obeyed.

After dinner, I held Layla while Nova managed to bathe four children, get them into their pajamas and then to bed in less than half an hour. The feather-soft weight of Layla in my arms stirred up unfamiliar feelings. From the beginning of our relationship, Shane had made it clear that he didn't want children and I had thought I felt the same way, but I couldn't believe how precious this child felt to me, how intensely I wanted to inhale her baby smell. It was richer, more intoxicating, than any drug I had ever tried. I immediately thought of Jenny's baby, wondering if I'd ever hold it this way. If anyone would. Would it end up in an orphanage somewhere, or maybe a foster home? Just the idea of abandoning her baby the same way I'd abandoned Jenny wound my stomach into a complicated knot.

I looked at my sister, who sat next to me on the couch, her blue eyes firmly attached to the sight of Layla in my arms. Her expression was tender, and to my surprise she suddenly lurched toward me, letting her lips fall against Layla's tiny head in a wet kiss. I instantly wondered if this meant that she knew of the baby inside her. I hadn't seen her around other babies; I didn't know if this was a typical reaction. She slowly moved her head back and forth in a gesture of affection, then pulled back, smiling softly, as though she harbored a secret. Careful not to disturb Layla's sleep, I looked at her, amazed. I leaned over and brushed my lips across Jenny's forehead. "That was very sweet, Sis," I told her, my chest full of restrained tears.

A moment later, Lucy tiptoed lightly into the living room, Nova following close behind. "She insisted on giving Jenny a kiss good night," my friend explained.

Lucy stepped over to the couch and climbed up on Jenny's other side. I choked up at the sight of this elfin child's lips touching my sister's cheek with such tenderness. She patted Jenny's arm. "Night-night, little girl," she said in a sweetly soft voice as Nova directed her back to Rebecca's bedroom.

"Wow," I said when Nova rejoined us. "What an angel."

"I know," she agreed as she sat in a nearby rocking chair. "Garret's a great father, but I don't think that's all of why she's so sweet, you know? Some kids just have that nature."

Like Jenny, I thought. She's always had the angel in her. Maybe that was why Lucy connected with her so quickly; she recognized a kindred spirit. I considered whether Jenny's baby would carry the same sweet temperament, if it was something that could be pa.s.sed down from mother to child. "Is Lucy a lot like her mother?" I asked Nova as Layla's tiny head turned toward my chest. Her mouth opened, and soft snorting noises began to ripple out.

"Not at all," Nova said. So much for that theory, I thought. Considering my own mother, I should have known better. She certainly hadn't pa.s.sed on any angelic genes to Jenny or, for that matter, to me.

Layla let loose an insistent, high-pitched wail, and Nova stood up, reaching for her child. "She's rooting for the b.o.o.b, hon. Better hand her over." Reluctantly, I did. My arms felt strangely deserted, suddenly anxious for an infant's weight to return and fill them up, as though they had finally discovered what they'd been made for. The sensation was a little bit frightening.

"Why exactly did Jackie leave Garret?" I asked, oddly curious about the man I'd met so briefly.

"You want the short or long version?" Nova inquired as she settled Layla at her chest.

I shrugged and put my arm around Jenny's small shoulders, hugging her to me. "Whichever."

"Well, they moved here just before Jackie was due with Lucy. The woman b.i.t.c.hed about being pregnant a lot." Nova raised her thin blond eyebrows and frowned briefly, considering something before continuing. "Not that I didn't complain when I was pregnant, but this was different. One of the first things she said to me was how she felt like the baby was a parasite. Sucking her dry."

"Yikes," I said, pulling Jenny's hands gently down from her mouth, where she had been gnawing on them. Did my sister feel anything like that about the baby inside her? Maybe this was all too much for her to handle; maybe we were making a huge mistake letting her go through with the pregnancy if seemingly normal women like Jackie had such a difficult time with the changes in their bodies. It was too late now, of course. There was no turning back. I let my sister lean more tightly against my chest, where she rubbed her face and blinked heavily. It was getting close to her bedtime as well.

"Yeah, yikes," Nova agreed, bobbing her head. "I think all mothers go through some degree of that feeling, but it didn't leave Jackie, you know? Even after Lucy got here. And it wasn't like she was a difficult baby. She was sweet then, too. You should have seen Garret with her. He used to strap her in the front pack and take her everywhere he went, even the restaurant." She shrugged and set her feet up on the coffee table, crossing one ankle over the other, careful not to disturb Layla. "I just think Jackie couldn't handle what being a mother demanded of her. She stuck around for a couple of years, then left. Garret took over, and Lucy's a fabulous four-year-old."

I was silent, considering how overwhelmed I had felt the past few weeks, caring for Jenny-the guilt that filled me every time I allowed myself to feel even an ounce of resentment toward this person who could not help needing me so much. How my mother must have felt at some point every day of the fifteen years she cared for Jenny at home. It dawned on me that perhaps she was keeping herself distant from caring for Jenny now so she wouldn't have to go back to those feelings. I said as much to Nova.

"That could be," she agreed. "But still. She's Jenny's mother. I have a hard time understanding how she could just turn her feelings off like that." Looking down at Layla with a tender expression, she ran a light hand over her baby's head. "I know I couldn't."

"It's possible," I said softly, nuzzling my face into Jenny's hair so Nova would not see the guilty tears that filled my eyes, but the cracks in my voice betrayed me. "I did it for ten years. I basically pretended my sister didn't exist. What kind of person does that make me?" I lifted my gaze to Nova, whose eyes overflowed with compa.s.sion.

"The kind of person who made a mistake, Nicole. It makes you human. At least you're here, doing something about it. You're trying to make up for your mistakes. Your mother isn't."

The back of my neck bristled at the sound of disgust in Nova's last words, and I felt the odd urge to defend my mother. "Maybe. But she's at least visited Jenny over the years. She's been here. I haven't."

Nova carefully switched Layla to her other breast and set her feet back on the floor before speaking. "There's a difference between being there physically and being there emotionally, don't you think? Being physically in the house with you two hasn't meant s.h.i.t so far. I still think you have to talk to her."

Her words stood in front of me like a brick wall I didn't have the strength to climb. It was easy for Nova to say I should just talk to my mother; she wasn't the one who'd have to do it. I knew the conversation would bring up truths I hadn't had the courage to tell Nova-truths that would knock on doors to rooms I wasn't sure I was ready to enter. Doors that, once opened, could never be closed again.

When my mother had come home from her trip to Portland, I could not find the words to tell her how my father had gone into Jenny's room. She guessed correctly about the mark on my sister's face, and while I hid with Jenny in her bedroom, our parents screamed at each other in the kitchen.

"I can't believe you hit her! You b.a.s.t.a.r.d! What kind of a father are you?" I imagined my mother standing in front of him, fists clenched, her thin body shaking, her face scarlet with anger. I knew my father's hair would be standing out from his head in fiery licks of red and gold, stretched to their limit by his angry, raking fingers. His sapphire eyes would flash in warning, daring Mom to make him angry enough to flee the house. I wrapped an arm around my sister, whose pale skin only made the angry bruise on her cheek look worse.

"The kind who thinks his daughter needs to be in an inst.i.tution!" he said loudly. "I've told you a hundred times, Joyce, we can't handle her here." The defensive note in my father's voice twisted my stomach into a thick knot. He knew what he had done. He knew what kind of man he was. I hugged Jenny tighter to me. I wanted to envelop her, to cover her tiny body with my own and never let anyone hurt her again. And yet I knew that no matter how hard I tried, I'd fail. My inability to protect her left an atrocious taste in my mouth, as though I'd been chewing tinfoil.

Scared.

"Me, too," I whispered in her ear.

"You mean you can't handle her," my mother hissed. "If anyone has the right to lose it with her it's me, Mark. I'm the one who spends every waking minute with her. I dress her and feed her and wash the s.h.i.t from her body every day. I deal with her screaming and you just run away. You haven't earned the right to be at the end of your rope."

And yet when the next screaming fit came, and the next and the next, so did my father's frustration. It flew from his fists to my sister's body with terrifying ease and intensity. Our mother reached out to protect her each time, but did nothing to prevent him from doing it again. "Get us out of here!" I longed to scream. "Get us away from him! Don't you know what he's doing?" Each night after he lost control of his fists, I heard my father slip into Jenny's room, the low murmur of his voice mixing in dark harmony with the aching squeak of her bed. I tried to work up the courage to tell, to make it all stop, but I could not. My voice was a tangled fishing net in my throat, silencing me. I punished my cowardice by forcing myself to peek out the door as he went into Jenny's room, to bear witness to what I did not have the strength to end.

One night when I was fifteen, after a particularly bad screaming episode, I slowly opened my door to see him move into her room. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a different shadow flash in the doorway that led to the kitchen. It was the slight form of my mother hiding behind the corner, the ruffled edge of her white nightgown giving her presence away. In the reflection of the light of the full moon, I saw her eyes shiny with tears, watching her husband sneak into her helpless daughter's room. She knew.

How could she know and do nothing to stop it? My own fury rose up in me then, stronger and fiercer than anything I had ever felt. It oozed into the s.p.a.ce around my heart like wet cement, hardening with each breath, forming walls that anesthetized me, completely paralyzing my ability to feel. Walls that two years later allowed me to walk out the doors of Wellman, leaving my sister at the mercy of strangers; walls that had kept me from her for a decade; walls that I knew would have to crumble if I was ever going to find the strength to forgive.

After our conversation the morning of Jenny's first appointment with Dr. Fisher, I had left Shane several bright-sounding messages on our machine in San Francisco, all of which he had ignored. The morning he finally called, I had just settled Jenny in front of a videotape of baby animals and was trying to straighten up the house and get lunch ready for us both. Nova was expecting us that afternoon; she had rummaged through her maternity wardrobe and wanted to see if anything she had might fit Jenny. I thought the call would probably be from her.

"Hey, babe," Shane said when I answered the phone in the hallway by my bedroom. Instead of waiting for me to respond, he immediately continued. "I'm really sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you, but I've been waiting to hear from the lawyers I called up there. A guy named Jack Waterson is going to get ahold of you, okay? I talked to quite a few lawyers, and if I were you, I'd go with him."

"What did he say when you told him about it?" I inquired, keeping my tone tight so he'd know I was angry. I couldn't believe he was being so casual with me. He hadn't called me once since I'd been in Seattle. I could see him in his office, standing by his perfectly organized filing cabinet, tapping his shiny Kenneth Cole loafer against the hardwood floor. His hair would be slicked back, his face freshly shaven, and his suit pressed as smooth as b.u.t.ter. It struck me how easily his life moved forward without me there, how little my absence affected him. Did I mean anything to him at all?

"He said it sounded like a pretty straightforward case," Shane answered. "Wellman will probably settle to avoid the publicity."

I poked at the already chipping baseboard with the tip of my shoe; a few flecks of paint fell to the rug. "What about an investigation of their hiring policies?"

"I don't know. You'll have to ask Jack about that. He's checking out what's going on with the criminal prosecution, too. Has anyone from the Seattle PD contacted you?"

"I called them a few days ago, but the detective working on the case didn't have much to say. They're still looking for the guy."

"He's probably long gone."

"Gee, honey, you think so?" I stopped picking at the wall and stood straight. I heard Jenny giggle in the living room as "Old MacDonald" began to play on her video; I wished I were with her instead of having this conversation.

Shane's breath was heavy in my ear before he spoke. "Have I done something wrong, Nicole? Where's this att.i.tude coming from?"

"My att.i.tude? What about yours? You haven't returned any of my calls. It's been two weeks."

"I was waiting until I had something to tell you about a lawyer."

"You can't just call to see how I'm doing?"

"I'm busy, Nic." He was obviously annoyed. Too bad. I wasn't going to let him off the hook.

"Busy with what?" I demanded.

He sighed. "I've got like ten cases going on at once down here. The D.A. is riding my a.s.s like you wouldn't believe. It's an election year. I'm sorry, okay? I know you're going through a rough time." His voice softened a bit with those last words, and I felt a small twinge of compa.s.sion rise up in my chest.

After a moment's pause I returned the apology. "I'm sorry, too." I fought the tears that thickened the muscles in my neck and twisted the springing, beige phone cord around my index finger. "I just miss you. I miss Moochie and Sunday mornings in bed with the paper. I never thought ... I guess I thought I knew what it took to take care of my sister by watching my mother do it, but actually doing it-"

"Exactly why we don't want kids," he interrupted.

In protest, the memory of Layla in my arms the other evening immediately filled my mind, but I didn't say anything, trying to maintain the fragile reconnection Shane and I had made.

He spoke again, apparently finishing his last thought. "Especially if your sister's problems are hereditary. There is no way in h.e.l.l I'd be up for that."

I tried to digest this statement without choking on it. My voice cracked and I cleared my throat. "I've got to go, Shane. Jenny needs to eat. Thanks for your help on this."

"Sure. Sorry it took me so long. I'll try to be better about calling."

I hung up and went back into the living room. Jenny rocked in time with the video's music while I paced back and forth in front of the fireplace, unsure why I was so angry. I agreed with Shane, or at least I thought I did.

One of the reasons I figured I wouldn't have children was my fear of ending up with a handicapped baby. A baby like Jenny. I was terrified of it. Terrified of landing in the life I had watched my mother live, giving up my freedom, growing so completely enmeshed with another human being that my own ident.i.ty became a hazy memory.

It suddenly struck me that perhaps this was why Mom hadn't wanted Jenny to come home. Maybe, after ten years of being away from it, the fear of landing back in that life was enough to keep her from being the mother she used to be. She was terrified of losing herself again.

I stopped my pacing, unsure what my mother might be feeling and even less sure what was going on with me. I dropped to the couch, clutching a pillow to my chest, one question stacked precariously on top of another. Was I changing my mind? Did I want to be a mother? What was I now? What had I been in San Francisco? A failed therapist? A pastry chef? A pet owner? The girlfriend of a man who seemed to love his career more than he loved me? Was this the valuable ident.i.ty I'd lose?

I pulled the pillow over my face and screamed my frustration into it. Feeling a little better after the outburst, I tossed the pillow to the end of the couch and looked over to the recliner at Jenny's swelling, pregnant body. Oblivious to my emotional turmoil, she was happily gnawing on her fingers, her dark hair pulled back from her face with a silver barrette, her bright eyes glued to the frolicking farm animals on the screen.

Not for the first time, I considered why I had been avoiding calling Social Services to ask about placement for her baby. I knew I'd have to eventually, but something was keeping me from it. I suspected it was the same something that made me want to strangle Shane for not being desperate to have a baby with me. G.o.d, I was confused.

I stood up and walked over to my sister, kneeling down in front of her in order to see her eyes. I took her hands from her mouth and held them in mine. "Am I going crazy, Jen?" I asked her, afraid she might just answer me.

"Arhemmm," she murmured, leaning to one side so she could see around me to the television.

"Thanks," I said wryly. "That was very helpful." I glanced at the clock and went back through the kitchen and into the hallway. I dialed the bakery, hoping Barry hadn't gone home yet. Our brief conversation reminded me that there were happy aspects of my life over the past ten years, and I experienced a brief stab of homesickness. An ache for the ease of my routine, the comfort I found in my relationship with Shane, even if we didn't share a terribly deep, emotional connection. I missed the deliberately nurtured lack of complication in my life. I realized that in San Francisco, my life had been held together by the powerful adhesive of denial. Here, with my sister and mother in the house where the hardest part of my life had occurred, the illusion of contentment I had created was fading fast, leaving nothing but the raw nerves of reality in my path.

After a quick lunch, Jenny and I headed over to Nova's for the afternoon. As her kids napped and she and I worked in concert in her living room trying different maternity outfits on Jenny, I told her about Shane's apparent lack of concern for what was going on in my life.

"He's only called you once?" she said, obviously trying to hold back a look of shock from her face. "That sucks." She squatted down in front of Jenny to roll up the legs on a pair of too-long maternity jeans. Most of Nova's outfits were way too big for my sister, but as long as the legs and sleeves were rolled up, a few of the knit ensembles seemed to be working well enough on Jenny's smaller-boned frame. The month away from Wellman's starchy menu had served her well; though she hadn't lost any weight, her flesh had relinquished the puffy look of an unhealthy diet. The shadow of the angel I knew in childhood had become more apparent.