Her Sister's Tattoo

by Ellen Meeropol

  “The best thing about visiting day,” Poose said, “is that your family brings all your favorite foods.” The other girls laughed and joked about fried chicken and homemade brownies, but Emma and I were pretty quiet. Our excitement was mixed up with worry.

  We had carefully choreographed where we would each greet our families, and how we would escort them across the grassy field to our staked-out picnic spots on opposite sides of the giant oak. So neither family would catch sight or sound of the other until the perfect time.

  Then there was Oliver sprinting across the field, his arms outstretched, banking into a turn and swooping at me for an exuberant hug. We marched arm in arm, grinning and trying to trip each other, back toward our parents, waiting just a few feet away on the path at the edge of the grass. Esther was so thin. It was hard to look at her. Her head was wrapped in a turquoise scarf, with a fancy knot at her neck. I closed my eyes when I kissed her, then hugged her gingerly, wondering if she was still nauseous and tired all the time.

  “I missed you.” Esther’s voice sounded exactly the same. She smelled the same too, like rain.

  “Me too,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot.” That was certainly true.

  “I want to hear all about camp. Your friends, everything.” Esther stroked my hair and I wondered if the red made her think of Rosa. Did that make her hate my hair or love it?

  “You didn’t get too old for a Molly sandwich, did you?” Jake asked.

  “No way,” I said, but I wondered if maybe I had. Jake hugged my back—that made me the sandwich meat in our childhood game.

  “Enough mushy stuff,” Oliver said. “Let’s eat.”

  I picked up the beach quilt and started walking. “I’ve got the best spot picked out—my favorite place in camp.” I led the family parade to the far side of the white oak, facing the woods and the path down to the lake. Esther pulled paper plates and paisley napkins from the canvas bag, pausing and smiling at me between every handful.

  I wasn’t ready for this. Rachel had always complained a lot about her mom, but I usually liked mine okay. Now I had no clue who Esther really was: my sweet mama, who made paper dolls from scratch? Who was sick and could die? Or a radical rabble-rouser who kept a secret so big it grew into a lie? I didn’t know which, and maybe I wasn’t ready to find out for sure. But it was hard to be around her.

  So I turned to Jake. “Come take a walk with me?”

  “Now?”

  “Just to the lake and back. I want to talk to you.”

  Esther looked hurt but she nodded. “Go ahead, but be back in fifteen minutes or Oliver and I will eat your brownies.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Jake

  A walk to the lake? Uh oh. Molly must have something important to tell him to willingly give up a minute with her mother after being separated for three weeks. Besides, she had that look on her face, that narrowing of her lips they all recognized. Translation: she meant business. Molly had had that expression all her life—as a sleepless infant, a stubborn toddler, a serious child. He could only imagine what was in store when puberty hit full force. He wanted to ask her what was so important but knew his girl well enough to wait for her to speak.

  Their feet crunched on the gravel path, punctuating the silence. Molly swallowed audibly and spoke, not looking at Jake. “I met someone special this summer.”

  “Yeah?” A boy? Wouldn’t Molly be more likely to confide a romance to her mother? He had a bad feeling about this.

  “Her name is Emma Levin.”

  Memories walloped him. Jake concentrated on his feet, inspecting each step as if the pebbles on the path were sharp stilettos over a raging river. Right foot, then left, then right. When he spoke, his own voice sounded as if gravel filled his mouth and his throat. “How did you and . . . Emma figure it out?”

  “There are all these old newspapers in the archive. I was so surprised, so freaked out. Why did I have to hear from Emma? Why didn’t you guys tell me?”

  “I’m not sure I can explain it so you’ll understand.”

  “I’m not a baby.”

  He stared down at his feet. Every step was treacherous. “I know you’re not. But your mother and I have tried to forget. It was a very painful time.”

  “But doesn’t Esther miss Rosa? Why didn’t Mom visit her sister in prison? And what about Emma—were you ever going to tell me I have a cousin? I don’t get it.”

  The path opened out to the lake. Molly walked to the water and sat on the sandy beach. He stood next to her. The wavelets caught the sunlight and tossed it back to the sky.

  “Esther was young.” Jake wanted to explain even though he knew it was futile. Sometimes he wasn’t sure he understood anymore. “She felt strongly about the war. When she saw cops beating people, she reacted. She used bad judgment. It was wrong and she told the truth in court. She paid for her mistake.” His voice cracked.

  Molly reached out and almost touched him. Then she pulled her hand back and stuck it in her pocket.

  He teetered on the precipice of a place he did not want to go. He crossed his arms over his chest, felt his own substance, his weight, the thumping of his heart.

  Jake looked at his daughter. “She paid, and the biggest price was her sister’s contempt. Esther was devastated.”

  He couldn’t possibly tell Molly how distraught her mother had been. How sometimes he barely recognized the girl he fell in love with, the one who wanted to experience everything in life and paint every emotion. How much he missed that other Esther. How even her body had changed, become denser. Not just the weight of twenty years; this transformation was on the molecular level. He used to imagine that their cells were best buddies, wordlessly passing adoration back and forth like sodium and potassium through semi-permeable membranes. He blinked a few times, cleared his throat.

  “We moved to Massachusetts to make a new life for ourselves. For you and Oliver. That’s all.”

  “It’s not enough. Not near enough. You should have told me.”

  His arms and legs felt impossibly heavy. He had carried this for so long.

  Molly stood up, turned her back on the lake. “You don’t have anything else to say?”

  “Just that I’m sorry. We probably should have told you, but we don’t talk about this. Some old things are better left in the dark.” He looked past Molly’s shoulder to the surface of the lake.

  “Germs fester in the dark, don’t they? Microbes grow and multiply and make you sick. Isn’t that what you always tell us? Keeping this kind of secret is like lying. You should tell the truth. That’s what you always tell us to do.”

  Maybe she was right. Maybe it was time to let go. Jake closed his eyes. The promise had been there for so long, interwoven in his neurons with the smell of sour milk, with the photograph Esther tried to hide from him in her desk. Maybe he was hiding behind his children.

  “Maybe,” he whispered.

  “You guys sent me here. You set me up.” Molly turned back toward the path. “Now it’s my turn. I’m taking it from here.”

  Jake followed her. What did she mean by that?

  CHAPTER 37

  Molly

  As Jake and I rejoined Esther and Oliver on the picnic quilt, I was unsatisfied, pissed off, and even more determined to make this thing happen.

  Cold cuke soup, curry-fried chicken, potato chips, and freshly sliced tomatoes sprinkled with basil from Esther’s garden were set out in the center of the blanket. All my favorite foods. I reached for a slice of tomato, dripping red splotches of juice across my sneaker. I moved to rub off the stain with the heel of my hand just as Oliver poured a paper cup of lemonade. My elbow hit his hand and made him spill on his T-shirt, so he tossed the rest of the cup on me. At home, that would mean war, but that day I didn’t care, just mopped it up with the paper towel Esther handed me.

  I tried to eat, but the celery stick and cream cheese gummed up my mouth. Dill and worry flavored the soup. If I stood up and turned around, I might be able to see
the other side of the tree, where Emma was supposed to be sitting with her family. I didn’t look.

  Jake handed me a bowl of cucumber soup for Esther.

  “Cukes from your garden?” I asked her.

  “We picked the first ones yesterday. Oliver helped me make the soup.”

  Oliver grinned, opening his mouth to reveal a clump of half-chewed potato chips.

  “Ugh. Where did you find him?”

  Esther patted the blanket next to her and I scooted over. “Tell me about your bunk,” she said. “Your friends.”

  “They’re great.” I rested my head against Esther’s shoulder and looked down at the quilt. I traced the sunburst pattern, my finger wandering from yellow to ochre to sienna to rust, silently echoing the names of the colors in the watercolor set Esther gave me for my tenth birthday. What if Esther was too sick to handle our plan?

  Esther looked up from her soup. “What’s wrong, Mol?”

  I wasn’t ready but I had to say something. So I said the first thing that popped into my head. “I discovered something about you this summer.”

  Esther’s spoon froze midway between bowl and mouth. Her eyes were deep as midnight and I couldn’t read them.

  “I learned that you’re an artist. That you designed the cranes. I love them and I’m so proud of you.”

  Esther smiled and I relaxed. The chatter continued as we ate. Everyone had questions about camp, about friends, about swimming. Esther touched me a lot, patting my arm or lifting the damp hair off the back of my neck and blowing a soft wind onto my skin. I let her, even though I wanted to say, “Stop treating me like a baby.” Even though I wanted to blurt out the truth. When Oliver went to play soccer with some boys from the next blanket, I almost stopped him, so he could meet Rosa too. But I changed my mind and let him go.

  When there was a lull in the conversation, I scooted up the hill between my family and Emma’s. I stood up and stretched against the tree trunk, pretending to do some oddball yoga pose but really spying on Emma’s family on the other side. It was pretty easy to figure out who was who. Emma was cuddled up next to a dark-skinned man whose frizzy hair seemed to meander off his head into his beard. That must be her father, Allen. Emma had never said he was black, but now her super-tan skin made sense. Her dad was talking and poking the air with his finger in a serious way. A woman with reddish curls—Red Rosa, of course—was mimicking his gesture and laughing, with her mouth open so you could see all her teeth.

  Emma saw me and raised her eyebrows.

  “I’m not sure about this.” I mouthed the words in exaggerated silent diction.

  “What?” Emma mouthed back, her face scrunched up and perplexed.

  I scooted closer and whispered, “I’m scared.”

  At the sound, Rosa glanced up from her conversation. She looked at me, then at Emma. Squinted at me again for a long moment. I imagined she was trying to bring twelve years into focus. She turned to Emma, mouth open, wordless. Then back to me.

  I crossed the pinky and ring fingers of my left hand in the secret ritual Rachel and I made up when we were little and trying to be brave. I kissed the tip of my pinky finger four times and blew the last kiss to the sky for good luck. I wanted to cry, or run away, but I didn’t. I stood up.

  Rosa got up too. Her hair flared out, an explosion of rusty red. Behind her on the Heart, the cranes shimmered in the sunshine.

  Rosa and I faced each other. I opened my arms to her.

  “Hi, Aunt Rosa,” I said. “I’m Molly.”

  It felt like a long time before she responded. Like a breath held underwater across the length of the pond and back. Then Rosa’s long legs covered the distance between us in two giant steps.

  Rosa gathered a handful of my curls in each hand. “You’ve got my hair.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I paused to gather my courage before continuing. “And Esther’s here. She’s sick.”

  Rosa stood motionless, then turned to Esther, who stood behind me, one hand covering her mouth and the other braced against the tree trunk. The sisters stood motionless for a long moment, staring at each other, and then both held out their arms and embraced. Esther buried her face in Rosa’s hair. Rosa pushed back the bandana and touched Esther’s bare scalp. Allen and Jake shook hands and then they hugged too. The four of them stood together in a tight circle.

  “I wrote you letters,” Esther said. “So many letters. I never mailed them.”

  “Me too.” Rosa smiled. “I did the same thing.”

  “I kept them in my pen pal box, hidden away.”

  “I used to be so envious of that box.”

  “I was so afraid I’d never see you again.”

  “Same here.” Rosa brushed a tear from her cheek.

  “I’ve gone over those days, over and over, in my head. Agonized about what was right. Maybe I shouldn’t have testified.”

  Rosa nodded. “I’ve agonized too. I didn’t understand how torn you felt about Molly until after Emma was born.”

  “I wanted to get in touch with you. But I felt so bad, so guilty. I couldn’t do anything.” Esther squeezed her eyes closed. “I was paralyzed.”

  “But you did something about it. You sent Molly here.”

  Esther nodded. “Jake didn’t want me to, and I was scared. But yes, I hoped.”

  “I can’t believe it took a couple of kids . . .” Rosa buried the rest of her words in Esther’s neck.

  I realized I was trembling. I grabbed Emma’s hand and squeezed so hard it must have hurt, but she squeezed back, just as hard. We couldn’t believe our crazy plan was working. We pulled Emma’s family blanket over the hill next to ours and gathered all the food in the middle. Emma and I sat close together at the edge of the blankets. I passed her some of Jake’s special chicken. “Taste this.”

  Emma took a tiny bite and offered me a piece of bread stuffed with cheese. We grinned at each other, but neither of us could eat. We leaned against each other, our bare shoulders finally connecting our families.

  “Great soup,” Rosa said to Esther.

  “From my garden.”

  Rosa shook her head. “I can’t believe you grow veggies.”

  “I live in the country,” Esther said. “I can’t believe you live in New York.”

  Rosa smiled. “Me neither.”

  Jake sat next to Emma’s dad and pointed out Oliver running across the soccer field. “That’s my son,” Jake said. “Oliver.”

  Allen smiled. “My nephew. He’s pretty fast.”

  “We watched your release on television,” Esther said. “I hoped you’d contact me.”

  “I was so disoriented,” Rosa said. “Nine years inside is a long time.”

  Esther hugged her sister. “Oh, Rosa. Too long.”

  “It gave me time to think about things.”

  “You didn’t need that much time,” Allen said.

  “Still,” Jake said, “I guess nine years isn’t too bad. Considering.”

  “Considering?” Allen bristled. He looked like the porcupine that had chewed the rotting wood of our back porch until it sagged and buckled. “What does that mean?”

  “You know, the bombing charges.” Jake moved closer to Esther on the blanket.

  “Those charges were lies,” Allen said. “Rosa didn’t bomb anything.”

  “We know that.” Esther touched Rosa’s arm.

  “Why didn’t you defend yourself against them?” Jake asked.

  Allen shook his head. “How do you defend yourself when the FBI manufactures evidence?”

  Rosa’s neck turned red and blotchy. “My only choice would have been to betray my friends, the people who helped me. I couldn’t do that.” Allen moved close to her side.

  Esther’s face collapsed. “Like I did, you mean?”

  Jake put his arm around Esther’s shoulder and whispered into her bandana.

  Rosa waved Allen back and took Esther’s face between her hands. “You know, you broke my heart.”

  “If you had forgiven me,
I wouldn’t have said that stuff at the second trial.” A tear snaked down Esther’s cheek, plummeting into a dark circle on her T-shirt.

  Emma and I just sat there, next to each other, our arms pressed together. Watching and listening. Silent. Whatever made us think we could fix this adult-sized mess? I should have known better. My head and limbs and chest felt like stone, sinking in the thick mud at the edge of the pond, the quicksand of the grown-ups’ words. I wished I could turn into Sadie and soar into the sky and leave the sorrow below, but I had no wings.

  Jake stepped between the sisters, facing Rosa. “You broke Esther’s heart, too, those things you said. And your choice—so principled— meant you went to prison and abandoned your daughter.”

  “Finking on your sister is better?” Allen jabbed his finger at Jake.

  “Allen’s right,” Rosa said quietly. “What kind of example does that set for your kids?” Rosa paused for a moment while she looked at me. “Or did you ever tell them?”

  Esther stepped out from behind Jake. She was silent.

  “I thought so,” Rosa said.

  I couldn’t look at Emma. Couldn’t reach out to touch my mother. Couldn’t think about anything except the piece of cheese bread on the paper plate in front of me. Then Rosa and Allen pulled away their blanket, spilling the lemonade.

  Emma got up then, ungluing her arm from mine. She helped pack up their picnic basket and the three of them walked toward the parking lot. Emma turned back once to look at me, her face frozen.

  When they left, I suddenly became conscious of the hush around us, of all the stares of other campers and their families. My face burned with shame but my parents didn’t appear to notice. Esther’s head fell into her hands; she didn’t readjust the scarf that slipped off her naked scalp, even when it fell onto the grass. Jake snatched up the fabric, stuffed the picnic leftovers into the bag, and gathered Oliver from the soccer field. He kissed me goodbye and guided Esther with her bald head to the car.