The Secret Language of Sisters

by Luanne Rice

  I glared at her and hoped she felt my total derision. She probably hoped to get on TV.

  Then I walked away, not feeling like myself at all. I went to the table where Em was already sitting.

  “Hey, Tilly. They’re looking for you,” Slater said, coming over. “Out there, by the satellite trucks. You’re the interview they want.”

  “I’m not talking to anyone,” I said.

  “It might be good,” Em said. “You could tell your side of the story.”

  “The only person whose opinion matters is Roo,” I said.

  “It makes our school look so bad,” Em said. “As if we’re Texting Central.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “As if Roo texting me back is the only moment in her life that counts. They should interview people about her photographs, about what a great person she is.”

  Em stared at me so sadly, I felt my face turn beet red. I was being a little pathetic. But it made me sick that every single thing you’d done in life could get erased in a second: And from then on, you’d be remembered for that one instant of bad judgment. Like Roo. From now on, she would be known worldwide as the Texting Teen. And I might as well have been wearing a sign, TEXTING MONSTER, around my neck.

  Roo would get it. That was the crazy part. She would look at Marlene with her flat-ironed hair and fake tan, her bright-red, inch-long nails, and she’d know she was OBVIOUSLY just trying to get on TV.

  Slater stood up to go sit with some of his guy friends. “Keep your head up,” he said to me.

  “You think I should talk to them?”

  “It’s up to you. Only if you have something you want to say.”

  He left, and Nona walked in. TEN was at our usual table. Sitting between them, I stared out the window. The trees behind school were leafing in, tiny green leaves everywhere. Roo and I had grown up sensitive to the rhythms of nature. This was the first year my father wasn’t here to take us looking for signs of spring. I thought of Roo in that hermetically sealed hospital room, and knew she couldn’t feel the season changing. My heart shrank down to the size of a walnut.

  “What are you wearing to the dance?” Nona asked.

  “The dance?” I asked, as if I’d never heard a more foreign term.

  “Yeah, that’s what I said.” She rowed on the crew team, and her asymmetrical hair was turning platinum blond again, from the sun and maybe a little help from some bleach. She wore dangling owl earrings I’d given her for Christmas, and their blue-green eyes matched hers.

  “My mother’s sewing me a long skirt,” Emily said, making a face.

  “Yeah, but she’s awesome,” Nona said. It was true. Emily’s mother was a seamstress; she had a shop called the Golden Scissors, and she made dresses for the wealthy women in town.

  “I know, but homemade clothes?” Em asked.

  “Well, mine will be homemade, too, sort of,” Nona said. “When Althea died, Martha gave my mother a bunch of her dresses. They’re gorgeous, satin trimmed with velvet and lace, all black. A couple had slips to go underneath, black and slinky with rustling petticoats. Old-school but amazing.”

  I nodded. She’d look stunning, like an alluring witch, with an old-fashioned black gown setting off her white-blond hair.

  “How about you, Miss Tilly Mae?” Nona asked. “What are you going to wear?”

  “Me? I’m not going.” The words came out so fast, I barely had time to think over the possibilities. What if Newton was there? What if he asked me to dance? I could still feel him holding my hand. It was my favorite thing to think about. I’d barely been able to sleep last night, thinking about him, and losing sleep with guilt, and thinking about him again: an endless cycle of fantasy and shame.

  “Get out! You have to,” Nona said.

  “Nope,” I said.

  “Tilly, first of all and mainly, it’s to benefit Roo. So you have to go,” Nona said, typical and bossy. “Second of all, this will cheer you up.”

  “It’s been horrible for you,” Em said.

  “Yeah, slightly,” I said, choking on tears. I tried to breathe, to pull myself together. “And besides, as if a dance could cheer me up.”

  “Oh, Tilly,” Nona said, patting my back.

  I folded my arms, put my head down on the table. Peeking under my elbow, I spotted Newton walk into the room, sit alone at a table by the wall. I wanted to go over, see if he was okay. What if he reached across the table, touched my fingers the way he did when were alone in the car? Would the whole school see? My body felt warm just thinking about it, and that made me feel even more horrible.

  “Come with us after school,” Emily said.

  “I’m going straight home.”

  “We need a little excursion.”

  I didn’t say yes, I didn’t say no. I was thinking of how I could use a little excursion, a break from hospitals and guilt.

  So after school, TEN skipped getting on the bus. We walked in a big half circle around the parking lot to avoid the TV trucks and cut through the woods into town. Black Hall had a charming main street lined with sea captains’ houses and a few quirky boutiques.

  We went to Ruby’s for lemonade and homemade granola bars, to fortify ourselves. Then we stopped into the Golden Scissors to say hi to Emily’s mom and eventually headed to Looking East, a store with lots of cool things.

  Em and Nona tried on dresses, bracelets, necklaces, and hats. Shopping felt wrong and dumb to me. What did clothes matter when my sister was paralyzed?

  Emily always went for the proper, preppy stuff—pink, yellow, and green, with stripes or checks or big bright flowers. Nona liked anything black, especially leather. She found a vintage motorcycle jacket and tried it on.

  “This would look pretty cool over Althea’s dress,” she said, studying herself in the mirror.

  “It’s totally you,” I said.

  “And this is so you,” she said, lunging for the rack and grabbing an off-white slip dress to hold up in front of me. It had skinny straps with delicate amber-colored lace and tiny copper seed-pearl rosettes embroidered around the hem and down the deep V in front. It was really beautiful, and I felt a little faint to imagine Newton seeing me in it.

  “I’m not getting anything. I told you, I’m not going,” I said, pushing it away. “Besides, it looks like underwear.”

  “That’s the point!” Nona said.

  “It’s a little racy,” Emily said, doubt in her voice.

  “Tilly, it’s pretty. Come on.”

  “I’m waiting outside,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach. I sat on a bench till they finished. I didn’t feel like part of TEN anymore. The things they did barely concerned me. My world had changed so drastically, and Newton was the only one who really understood.

  Even worse, I found myself having almost constant fantasies about him—my sister’s boyfriend.

  I was officially the world’s worst person.

  Christina moved me from my bed to the wheelchair with a tall, straight back. I felt like such a lump, unable to help at all, and I was afraid she would drop me.

  “I’ve got you, I’ve got you, don’t worry,” she said. She was small, but very strong. She tied me in with straps; I felt them compress my chest, and heard the buckles clink.

  She pushed me around the halls, no particular destination. My heart raced; I felt anxious being out of my room for the first time. I was both thrilled to leave those familiar four walls and anxious to return to my only sanctuary. I’d felt safe in there.

  We passed the nurses’ station and other patients’ rooms. It was hard to see because I had no peripheral vision, but Christina tilted my chair each way so I could get as full a picture as possible of my corridor.

  When we got to the solarium, Christina pushed me over to a table. She pulled a chair up next to me, then went to get herself a glass of water from the fountain. Because my range of vision wasn’t great, I was stuck staring at an empty table. But when Christina returned, she pointed me toward two other disabled patients, in wheelchairs across t
he room.

  “They’re really nice,” Christina said. “I want to introduce you. Is that okay?”

  I very purposely did not look up. Christina raised the board, but I made no indication that I wanted to talk.

  “Morgan is twenty-four years old, Christina said. “She had a stroke in her eighth month of pregnancy. And Dani, the woman she’s sitting with, is thirty-one. She’s in the army and suffered severe burns and a traumatic brain injury in Afghanistan.”

  I stared at the two women in wheelchairs, my eyes flooding. Get me out of here, I thought. I am not ready for this. I looked at Morgan’s slumped-over posture, and all I could think about was Did she have the baby? Was it okay? Will she recover? And Dani looked almost as if she were wearing a mask. Her entire face had been rebuilt. She had no hair.

  How could Christina think that I’d want to hang out with these poor women? How could she assume we’d have so much in common just because we’d had brain injuries? I could barely handle my own situation. I felt horrible, but I couldn’t bear seeing them anymore, and I wanted to get back to my room.

  “So you’re not ready to meet them?” Christina asked gently, watching my face.

  I stared straight ahead, cold as stone.

  After a while, she wheeled me back to my room and put me back to bed. She held up the board, and I asked,

  Morgan’s baby?

  “A little girl, Chloe. She’s perfectly fine, and Morgan’s husband brings her in often.”

  Dani?

  “She is a wonderful person, Roo. It’s taking time, but she is getting better. It’s hard after what she’s been through, but she’s moving forward. She has a very positive attitude.”

  I felt so down, so unable to see the good. I wondered, could you only be a wonderful person if you had a positive attitude? Because just then that felt impossible to me. If I could have closed my eyes, to shut Christina and the world out, I would have.

  Finally, Christina got the hint. She covered me up, gave my shoulders a gentle You can do it shake, and left the room.

  I felt more depressed than ever. I got confused by time in here; it was hard to keep track of the hours and days, without school, work, schedules, deadlines, and plans. It was easier to just sleep.

  I drifted in and out, dreaming of my father. We were sailing, in search of deeply diving humpback whales. I held the tiller with both hands, to keep the boat from heeling over, capsizing in the wild wind. I felt so strong and powerful. My father sat across the cockpit, scanning the ocean for danger.

  We had been seeing whales, bright-blue mammals, not the realistic gray with white flukes, but azure as a September sky. They had disappeared, and now the sea was writhing with orange sea monsters. They had beady black eyes and fangs, and my father was gesturing, trying to help me steer through them.

  I tried to call out to him, but my voice wouldn’t work. No matter how loudly I yelled, he couldn’t hear me because the words were trapped in my throat. I looked down into the waves and saw one of the monsters looked like Tilly.

  I woke up, panicked. And Newton was sitting by my bed. Alone. No sign of Tilly, or my mother, or anyone. The machines beeped. Light streamed through the window, letting me know it was still daytime.

  “Hi,” he said, leaning toward me to offer the letter board.

  I just stared from my bed. I didn’t want to talk to him. I felt shaken by my dream; having bad thoughts about Tilly upset me.

  “I needed to be alone with you,” he said. “There’s always someone here.”

  I listened, quivering inside.

  “It’s hard,” he said. “And I feel like an idiot, saying that. I look at you, all you’re going through. Who am I to complain about anything?”

  My mouth made that awful wide-open yawning sound that came from nowhere; I had no control over most of the noises emanating from my body. But I saw Newton stop, frown, try to decipher the meaning, the expression on my face.

  “I’m sorry, Roo. Did you say something? Could you try again, could we use the board?”

  He waited for me to say something, but I felt too frozen and furious, too betrayed. My chest hurt, as if someone were standing on it. After the way he was acting with Tilly, how could I trust him? Only Dr. Howarth, Tim, knew how I really felt.

  “You don’t want to talk to me?” he asked, offering the board.

  Tired, I spelled.

  “Okay,” he said. We sat in silence. Christina came in to check my IV and replenish the saline solution.

  “You’re Newton, right?” she asked.

  “Yes, nice to meet you.”

  “I’m Christina. I recognize you from the pictures.” She gestured at the wall, a photo of Newton in a kayak, wearing sunglasses and a big khaki canvas hat, holding up the ten-pound bluefish he’d just caught, smiling like the happiest boy in the world. “I like that one best. Looks like you ate well that night.”

  “It was a great day,” he said, looking at me.

  “I can tell,” she said. “Okay, good night, you two. See you Sunday, Roo. I’m off the next two days.”

  She left, partly closing the door behind her. Sounds from the hall were muffled. Newton and I were alone again.

  “Do you remember that day?” he asked. “How we cleaned the fish, and cooked it over a fire, and how we said we were going to go camping together this summer? And how we were going to have beach picnics together for the rest of our lives?”

  I looked up. Yes. But I wanted to say: Don’t do this.

  “Things have changed. It’s obvious,” he said. “And we have to figure it out. We have to adjust, Roo. I’m the same as I was before.”

  I’m not.

  “And inside, you are. I know you must be upset, scared, frustrated. All those things and a million more. I didn’t feel too great meeting Dr. Whatever-His-Name; he seemed a little possessive of you. But he’s helping you, and I can’t wait for that computer to be online. I can’t wait to sit here and talk for hours, the way we did out there. The important things don’t change, Roo.” He stopped, so choked up he couldn’t go on.

  I was, too. Just hearing him talk this way was beautiful, but it also broke my heart. We had been so great.

  “I know you wanted to break up,” he said.

  He stared at me, waiting for me to look up, to agree with him. But I didn’t. I just listened.

  “I DON’T want to break up, Roo,” he said slowly. “We’ve seen a lot of meteor showers, and I want us to see more. As long as there are shooting stars in the sky, I’ll be here with you. We’re going to cook on the beach until we get old, I swear we will. You’re my life, Roo.”

  I couldn’t let his words in. They were too painful, because they reminded me of how we were, how I was. I couldn’t stand thinking of myself that way, because it was over.

  You shouldn’t have, I said.

  “Shouldn’t have what?” he asked.

  Tilly!

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “What about her?”

  Was he serious? I scoured his face for signs of a guilty conscience, but he really looked confused. He had never lied to me, tried to trick me before. But nothing in this world seemed trustworthy anymore.

  I saw you holding hands.

  “You’re being ridiculous.”

  Just say you don’t want me.

  “Roo, that’s crazy. Weren’t you listening to everything I just said? I think it’s you who doesn’t want me!”

  Besides, his name is Dr. Howarth.

  “Dr. Howarth?” he asked. “Excuse me?”

  You said whatever his name. It’s Howarth.

  “Really, Roo? Is this a bad joke? What do Tilly and Dr. Howarth have to do with us? Didn’t you hear what I said about you, about how I feel?”

  The door opened, and Dr. Howarth walked in.

  “Was someone taking my name in vain?” he asked, then laughed and approached my bed. “Hello, Newton. How are you doing, Roo?”

  Fine, I spelled.

  “I do
n’t mean to interrupt,” he said. “But we are getting so close to hooking you up to the computer, Roo. I’d like to run some tests on the sensor, if you can spare the time.”

  “I’ll leave,” Newton said.

  “Sorry, Newton,” Dr. Howarth said. “I know it’s a long drive back to Connecticut for you. If I didn’t absolutely need her right this minute, I would postpone the test.”

  “Roo comes first,” Newton said, his voice flat. “Whatever she needs.”

  He unfolded himself and stood, gathered his jacket and backpack together. He paused by my bedside, gazed into my face. I had the feeling he could look right into my eyes and see that I was beyond hurt, furious. I was done with him, it was time to break up—if he wouldn’t do it, I would.

  But here’s the paradox: When he walked out the door, I wanted to call him back. I wished I could undo the knot in my mind, in my heart. I felt like a tangled ball of nerve endings. I wanted everything bad to disappear, and the magical threads that had always held Newton and me together to come back.

  “That was lovely, what he said about cooking on the beach,” Dr. Howarth said.

  I felt startled to know he had overheard us, upset that our privacy had been invaded.

  You’re my life, Newton had said.

  For so long I had known that was true, and he had been mine. But I wasn’t an idiot. One thing about loving science: It makes a person practical. Newton was saying he loved me, but love was a feeling, not an immutable fact, and I’d seen him and Tilly. She was my sister, the closest he could come to being with the old me, the way I used to be.

  Dr. Howarth stood beside my bed, removing my bandage and examining the incision that hid the chip buried in my skull. I felt the heat of the bright lamp on my scalp. A tear squeezed from my eye, and Dr. Howarth wiped it away with his fingers.

  “It’s okay to cry, Roo,” he said. “It’s very hard to let go of things we love most, to accept that life changes.”