The Secret Language of Sisters

by Luanne Rice

  “It isn’t,” I said. “The doctor who was helping her got a new patient and flew to Canada.”

  “Man, that’s rough,” Slater said.

  “That is rough,” Martha agreed. She took off her glasses and frowned, looking very troubled. I remembered what she’d said the night of the dance: Singers have to sing or they will get sick. And photographers had to take pictures.

  “I’m afraid,” I said. My hands had been in the soil. I brushed tears from my eyes, and I felt grains of dirt sprinkle down my cheeks. Martha knelt beside me, creakily, leaning on Lucan for support. She held my hands.

  “She is strong,” Martha said.

  “Maybe not enough for all of this,” I said. “I told her what I did with her boyfriend.”

  “You did?” Martha asked.

  “Yeah. I thought it would be better to get it out in the open. I was wrong.”

  “No, you weren’t,” Martha said. “She has the right to her feelings about it, but she’ll realize you were mixed up. You both were.” She leaned on my shoulder to get to her feet, touched the top of my head, and walked into the house.

  I glanced at Slater, wondered what he was thinking of all this. His expression was steady, not giving anything away.

  “You mean you and Newton?” he asked finally.

  “What do you know about it?” I asked.

  “The night of the dance, I followed you the way you followed him. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “You saw?” I asked, feeling humiliated. I’d have felt bad if anyone saw, but Slater? I wanted to disappear.

  “Yeah, I was worried about you,” he said.

  “Why didn’t you say something?” I asked. “Give me a hard time?”

  “It wasn’t really my business,” he said. “And why would I give you a hard time?” Then he gave a soft chuckle.

  “What?” I asked, outraged that he’d laugh. “It isn’t funny!”

  “No, it’s not,” he said. “But, Tilly, no one can give you as hard a time as you give yourself. Not even close. You told your sister, that’s what counts.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and the weird thing was, his words calmed me down. And I realized: No one at school was talking about it, which meant Slater hadn’t told anyone. He’d kept my secret, Newton’s and mine.

  Slater reached for the hose he’d been using to water the new plants. He soaked his T-shirt, then wrung it out. He leaned over and used it to wipe my face, clean the dirt and tears off my cheeks.

  He held my gaze, and I stared into his warm brown eyes. He nodded, and I saw him smile. Until that moment, I never knew you could feel a smile, but just then I did, as real as the sun on my skin, the breeze in my hair. I felt Slater’s smile go into my bones, and touch the fear, whisk it away as if it were a feather, and it had just come up against something much greater.

  You’re doing well, Roo. We’re almost done,” Dr. Gold said.

  I stared straight ahead. The radiology department, where I had been brought to have a PET scan, was freezing cold.

  I still couldn’t use mindfulness on my sister and Newton, but it really helped when I was having long, boring tests, when my body felt uncomfortable. I lay on my back as the machine beeped and tilted and took images of my brain. In between scans, I followed the breath in and out of my chest.

  “Funny to think of pictures in this sense, isn’t it? You and I both, in different ways, rely on cameras. And don’t think I’ve forgotten. Tim, Dr. Howarth, left good notes. The software is already in place; it’s just a matter of rigging up the hardware for you to start taking photos again.”

  I couldn’t blame her for not moving faster. I hadn’t been excited about photography since that day Tilly had told me about the kiss, the same day I’d found out Dr. Howarth had left for Toronto. In fact, I’d hardly talked about anything.

  “Girl, you’ve got to fight the plateau,” Christina said later that day, after pushing me back to my room in the wheelchair, loading me into bed, and reconnecting my wire harness to the computer. “The plateau is your enemy.”

  I was hooked up to the laptop. Even though I rarely spoke, they kept me logged in, just in case the spirit moved me. Everyone wanted the spirit to move me, but I had lost something along the way. I didn’t care. I used to want to make everyone happy, do things to please my family and the people around me, but those feelings had slipped away.

  Christina’s words made me curious, though. She was a thirty-three-year-old African American nurse who had joined the army when she was twenty-one. She’d served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and she was on this floor because she’d had a lot of experience with TBI—traumatic brain injury. I thought of those women Christina had shown me, Morgan and Dani. Dani had been in Afghanistan, too.

  What is the plateau? I asked, the first sentence I’d spoken in three days.

  “It’s when things are ‘good enough.’ When you’re treading water. Not going back, but not moving forward, either. You do your physical therapy, you do your eye exercises, whatever the protocol. But you’re not into it.”

  I didn’t respond. I knew what she was saying, but I didn’t want to get into any discussion that might encourage a pep talk.

  “You’re not into it, are you?” she asked.

  Not really.

  “What can we do to change that?”

  I’m okay.

  She laughed, snorting air in exaggerated disbelief. “Right! And I’m Princess Kate. The difference is, you can change your status. I’m never going to be royal.”

  I’ll call you Princess Christina if you want.

  She squeezed my shoulder and chuckled. “That would be nice. But what are we going to do about you?”

  I’m kind of tired.

  “That’s because you’re down. I understand, Roo. But only you can bring yourself up. You know?”

  Yes.

  “One-word answer, that’s great. You want to hear about this guy I knew in Fallujah? He hit an IED in his jeep, got thrown clear but hit his head. His brain got trashed, Roo. Mush in his skull. Not like you; you came out of your accident sharp as before. Now I know you’re sick of hearing this, maybe, but that’s a gift.”

  I know, I said, just to make her shut up. I didn’t want to hear about it.

  “‘Disabled’ doesn’t have to mean down for the count,” she said.

  Okay, I said.

  “Not okay,” she said. “I’m going to piss you off right now, I hope. If I do, it means I’ve done my job. But you’re throwing it away, Roo. That plateau you’re on? It can change real fast. It can turn into downhill. I’ve seen it. You don’t use it, you lose it. You’ve got to challenge yourself. Do the CBI games.”

  CBI games? I was going to get high honors this semester and shoot for the stars college-wise. Now my greatest challenge was playing glorified video games, because that’s what they were. There was one like Tetris, only instead of using a keyboard, I used my mind. In another, I had to escape from zombies and try to capture them. The one I hated most had bright-pink birds that looked like nothing you’d ever find in nature, flying through a department store, filling baskets with as many products as they could collect in their beaks in as short a time as possible. I wouldn’t have played it in real life, and I felt worse than disheartened to have to play it here.

  “Use it or lose it, Roo,” she said. “Remember that. You can hate me, but this is tough love.”

  I turned off my computer and disappeared into myself. Christina had been my friend, and now she was attacking me. Tough love, who needed it? A year ago I’d had all the love in the world: My father was still alive, my parents were together, I was madly in love with my boyfriend, and my sister was my best friend.

  Now I had a nurse acting as if she was still in the army and I was just someone to be ordered around. I felt Christina’s hand on my cheek. She stroked it gently, whispered in my ear.

  “I’m sorry, honey. I don’t always know when to stop. I saw some bad things, they stick in my head. I want only the b
est for you. I’m sorry for pushing.”

  Apology not accepted, I wanted to say. At the same time, I wished I could move my arm so I could hold her hand. Caress it, tell her she was a good nurse, she was making a difference, I could feel the love she had for me, and for the patients she had met in Iraq. She carried the war with her.

  I fell asleep.

  When I woke up, I felt a cold nose on my cheek, where Christina’s hand had been. It was a dream of snow falling, maybe. But I opened my eyes and came face-to-face with a big, lolling tongue.

  “Roo? Do you remember us?” came the voice of someone standing behind the big, friendly dog. “This is Lucan. I got permission to bring him to your room, to visit you. It’s me, Martha Muirhead.”

  My heart sped up to see them, especially Lucan. He nuzzled against my arm in such a friendly way. I remembered the terrible thump when my car hit him, and I felt so grateful that he was up and walking, that he was still alive.

  She might have been the only person in the world I wanted to talk to. I turned on my computer. While it went through the clicks and whirs of powering up, I felt Lucan lick my hand. Martha stood within my field of vision. She was fine-boned with pale skin, big blue eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, and white hair pinned up in a bun. Her dress was dark indigo, and she wore a black shawl with scalloped edges draped over her shoulders.

  “May I sit down?” Martha asked.

  I looked up, and although I assume she didn’t have experience with locked-in patients, she seemed to understand that I was saying yes, and she pulled the chair closer to my bedside and sat. Lucan stood alert, and now his head was rested on my knee.

  “It is so good to see you,” she said. “I have wanted to visit every single day, but I knew you needed time to heal.”

  Like Lucan, I said, now that the computer was up and running. The digital voice came through the speakers.

  “Exactly like Lucan,” she said easily, as if talking to a computer was the most natural thing.

  How is he?

  “He is doing so well. He had a broken leg, but the cast came off in April, and he is just fine now.”

  I am so sorry I hit him.

  “I know you are, Roo. You said so that day. I knew then what a special, luminous girl you are. I’ll never forget that moment when we talked.”

  I could picture it. I was hanging upside down in the mangled car, held in by my seat belt. I could hear the creek rushing below me, and feel hot blood running into my eyes. I had never hit an animal before, and my heart was broken because I thought I had killed Lucan. I saw Martha clamber down the snowy marsh bank, slog through the water to get to me.

  “With all you were going through, you cared only about others.”

  Lucan.

  “And your sister,” Martha said.

  Tilly. My heart closed at the mention of her name.

  “Yes, dear. Tilly. She’s come to visit me a few times. Has she told you?”

  Not really.

  “The two of you remind me of Althea and me. She was my younger sister. The way you were so concerned about Tilly, wanted to make sure she was okay, that she didn’t blame herself. Oh, that touched me, Roo. It helped me.”

  Helped you, how?

  “I felt responsible for my sister’s death. She had been sick for a year, and on the last night of her life, she wanted to go into the garden to see the moon. She was an artist, like you, and I thought it would be so good for her. So I helped her to walk outside.”

  That sounds beautiful.

  “The moon was magical. She gazed up at it; we both did. The moon always made us young again, Roo. It would cast a spell on us, and the years would fall away. We sang together, making up songs. We would remember childhood times, and growing up—dancing by the light of the moon, swimming in the moonlight, always singing. We even had nicknames: I was Luna, and she was Willoughby Moon.”

  She must have loved you taking her out that night.

  “She did. But it was a mistake. The air was too humid, and she couldn’t breathe. She was okay at first, but when her lungs failed, it happened all at once. It was terrible.”

  You didn’t know. You tried to give her something she would love.

  “Yes, that’s true. I trained with a doctor. I learned principles of Tibetan medicine, the use of herbs. The way the body’s organs work. I went to Tibet and learned acupressure. That’s why I blamed myself for so long, Roo.”

  But why? You just wanted her to see the moon.

  “I practiced healing. I helped many people, but I couldn’t help my sister. Do you know what she told me just before she died?”

  What?

  “‘I’m so lucky to have spent my life with a sister like you.’”

  She loved you, I said.

  “Yes. Our mother used to say, ‘You’ll have many friends in life, but only one sister.’ She was right. You know that, you feel the same way, don’t you?”

  Althea never hurt you.

  “Oh, yes, she did. She married my first boyfriend.”

  WHAT?

  “His name was Charles. We all went to Black Hall High together, just like you and Tilly and Newton.”

  My heart ached, hearing his name. How did she know about Newton?

  “Charles invited me to the Hamburg Fair when I was fifteen. He was a year older. He picked me up in his parents’ car, and we drove up the river to the fairgrounds. He bought me kettle corn, and we watched the horse pull and the wood-carving competition, and he won me a stuffed bear. He kissed me on the Ferris wheel. My first kiss.”

  You fell in love with him?

  “Like a ton of bricks. We dated all through high school. After graduation, things changed. I went to Sarah Lawrence, and he went to UConn. He studied engineering, and I studied poetry. I began to feel hemmed in by him, and he sensed it. It hurt him badly when I told him I thought we should break up.”

  I nearly did that with Newton, I thought. When I thought I’d be fast-tracking it to Yale.

  “He was so sad. He’d go home to Black Hall on weekends, just hoping I’d be there, too. But I was in New York City every weekend. I couldn’t get enough of it—jazz at the Village Vanguard and Blue Note, art exhibits at the Whitney and MoMA, poetry readings at coffeehouses and drinks at the Cedar Tavern. I started meditating and met a Buddhist monk who told me to visit Tibet, and I went there for a year and studied with a healer.”

  Meanwhile, Charles …

  “Yes, Charles kept hoping I would return. He would go to my house to see my parents, and often Althea would be there. She went to Connecticut College to study art, and she’d often return home to sketch the river, or sculpt in the barn or her little studio by the river. Her greatest inspiration was always Black Hall. Like yours,” she said, glancing around the room at my photos.

  There’s no place more beautiful, I said.

  “Althea missed me, too,” Martha said. “I think it started with them consoling each other.”

  Did you still love him? I asked, my pulse racing.

  “I’m not sure,” Martha said. “It got all mixed up in my mind, for a while, with jealousy and resentment. They married right after Althea’s graduation.”

  Did you ever forgive them?

  “It took a while. A few years, honestly. Wasted years, I think now, when I could have been spending time with my sister. Now that that’s impossible, I think back on all the missed moments. They stayed together until Charles died—by then, we were all friends again. I would go to their house in New London, where Althea taught sculpture at the college, for holidays. After he died, she moved back into our family house, where I’d been living for a while.”

  You came home to each other.

  “We did. And we had wonderful years.”

  Luna and Willoughby Moon.

  She nodded, smiling. “Do you and Tilly have nicknames?”

  Well, Tilly and Roo. She’s Mathilda Mae and I’m Ruth Ann, officially. But things aren’t good with us. The texts, and the accident. And … I hesitated,
but I needed to talk, to tell this woman who knew us both, who knew how it felt to be betrayed by her sister. She kissed Newton, I said.

  “I know, Roo. She came to my house that night. She was devastated. I am glad she told you, though. And I’ll tell you what I said to her. Things between you can’t be broken.”

  But they are.

  “No. Damaged maybe. You’re very hurt by the two people you love most. Even now, when I think of Althea and Charles, it feels like being stabbed. But things worked out. We both had to want that, and we tried and kept trying. That’s the only way. She feels terrible about what she’s done to you. If she could undo it, she would. She needs you.”

  I’m not sure of that.

  “I’m positive of it. You have particular strength, an inner guidance system. I saw it that day in the marsh, and I feel it even more now. Tilly looks up to you, just like the moon rising in the east, every single night, even behind the clouds. She counts on you being there.”

  Not anymore.

  “More than ever. You two speak the same language. Remember that.”

  I thought back to a night when Tilly and I were in middle school, when we’d greeted the moon by doing cartwheels the whole length of the beach. We didn’t say a word out loud; we were dizzy with happiness. That night, cartwheels and the moon had served as our language.

  “Roo, here’s the secret of life,” Martha said. “You get to be a sister only because you have Tilly. Without each other, that goes away. You’re still beautiful and talented, but you’re not a sister. It’s the alchemy of sisters, Roo.”

  She inched to the edge of her seat, as if about to stand.

  “I think Lucan needs to stretch his legs,” she said. “And we had better let you rest. We’re happy we visited. May we come again?”

  Please, I said.

  “As Tilly knows—in fact, she’s working on it—I am planning an exhibit of Althea’s sculptures. It will be held on the summer solstice. I would be so thrilled if you would let me show some of your photographs, too.”

  My heart jumped—she was inviting me to be in an exhibit! I would be honored.

  “That’s wonderful. You choose the ones you want to send, and I will arrange to have them picked up.”