by Karen White
He dropped his gaze, and I began to walk back toward the house, sensing a change in the atmosphere, a growing agitation that vibrated from me like a taut wire that had been pulled too far.
I heard his footsteps behind me. “You can’t ignore me forever, you know.”
I stopped, then whirled around to face him, hearing a loud buzzing near my left ear. “Aren’t you going to ask me if it’s true?”
His eyes were troubled, as if he’d been having the same internal argument for a while, and I found myself holding my breath. “No.” He paused again, and I was sure this time that he was definitely arguing with himself, as if it were important that he knew the truth, just as much as he knew he shouldn’t.
He met my eyes again. “I’d much rather know why you collect antique keys and locks. That’s a lot more relevant to me than something that did or didn’t happen a long time ago.”
I was so surprised by his response that I wasn’t aware at first of the sharp sting on my arm, staring dumbly at the carcass of my attacker as it tumbled to the ground. I remembered my grandfather telling me to always remove the stinger as quickly as possible, because it will continue to pump venom into the skin for as long as ten minutes. But all I could do was stare at the small pink welt and feel sorry for the dead bee.
“Aren’t you going to lick it?”
I shook my head, almost enjoying the pain as just punishment. “Let’s go look at china catalogs. And while you’re doing that, I’ll make some phone calls to the Limoges museums and other collectors I know—including the one you found on the Internet. Unless you’re ready to leave now. I imagine you’ve had enough drama, and I’m happy to continue here on my own.”
My arm throbbed but I ignored it, knowing the pain would eventually fade. It always did.
“You know why I’m here, and I’m prepared to stay for the duration. I’m the stranger on a plane, remember? It’s not my place to pass judgment.”
I studied him in the bright sunshine, noticing how the light turned his hair different shades of gold and reflected off the tips of his unshaven cheeks and jaw, and I wondered where he’d been when he’d received the news that his wife had been killed; if they’d kissed good-bye that morning and said, “I love you,” or if they’d argued. And I realized that my little dramas were tiny blips in the grand scheme of things.
“I search for padlocks because I believe everything has a key. Every question, every relationship. Everything has a lock and a matching key. That’s why, when I find a padlock and a key that fits, I put them in a place of honor in that vitrine you saw in my apartment. I feel like I’ve finally found an answer to what had once been an unanswerable question.”
He smiled and I saw again how beautiful he was. “I was right. That’s a lot more relevant. And very telling.”
I turned back toward the house. “Come on then. Let’s go look at those catalogs.”
He followed me inside while the pain in my arm continued to throb, a reminder of what Maisy had said, and how pride and resentment could poison a relationship between sisters as surely as bee venom could stop a person from breathing.
I awoke to the sound of breaking china, unaware whether it was real or part of my dreams that flittered through my head like a bee, never settling for long. Sitting up abruptly, I was aware of a blanket that I’d last seen on the back of the couch sliding off my shoulders as I blinked my eyes and tried to remember where I was. My lap was covered with books—I was pretty sure they were china catalogs—and I was still fully dressed. I widened my eyes, taking in the moonlit room, the old familiar couch and chairs, the rectangles on the wall that held school photos of Maisy and me.
Catalogs slid to the floor as I stood, then stumbled toward the light switch that I’d been pretty sure I’d left on when I sat down to go through one more pass of the catalogs after dropping James off at his hotel. A cool breeze blew in through the window screen, bringing with it the scent of the bay. I pressed my face against the screen, trying to remember what it was that had awakened me, and wondering whether the bees could smell the pittosporum and roses my grandmother had planted for them. Grandpa had once told me that bees had a sophisticated olfactory system in their antennae instead of noses. I’d been fascinated at how bees navigated without noses, and wondered if, like humans, they just used their consciences to find their way home.
I heard the sound again, that sharp, screeching, shattering noise that at work always put my teeth on edge, because it usually signified that something with meaning and value had just been rendered worthless on both accounts. Realizing it hadn’t been a dream, I quickly made my way toward the dining room.
Maisy sat on the floor next to the china cabinet, a small pile of broken dishes pushed against the wall. Her hair was pulled back in a high ponytail, and she wore her nighttime uniform of T-shirt and boxers, and she was suddenly my little sister again, my shadow, and the one person I loved most in the world. I took a step forward, realizing how much I’d missed her, and how until this moment I’d been unaware of how much I needed her to look at me the way she once had, back when I was the only one who could make things all right instead of turning everything upside down.
She glanced up without surprise, then continued sorting through a stack of plates on her lap. “Don’t worry about the broken ones—it’s just my cheap wedding china.”
I winced inwardly but didn’t respond. That was the thing about sisters: We always knew where to point the arrow. “What are you doing?”
She reached into the open cabinet door and pulled out another stack of plates. “We were looking for the soup cup the first time I searched through here, so now I’m looking for anything I can find in that bee pattern. Because the sooner we find something, the sooner you can leave.”
I bit my lip, knowing it was the only way I was going to keep myself from letting things escalate again. “All right,” I said, sitting next to her without asking permission. “Then I guess I’d better help.” Leaning forward, I opened up another cabinet door. “I can’t imagine I’ll get any more sleep with you crashing around in here.”
I peered into the dark recess, noticing that there was very little in the way of cups or plates or even serving pieces in this section, but it was more of a repository for the things Birdie and our grandfather didn’t have a place for. “We should probably look again in Birdie’s closet, since that’s where I remember seeing the soup cup.”
She didn’t even look up from her sorting pile. “I’ll try to get to it tomorrow when she’s awake. I didn’t think the middle of the night would be a good time to disturb her.”
I returned to the open cabinet. Liberally scattered within the stacks of old bills, birthday cards, theater programs, and receipts were photographs of random vintages. Knowing these would probably be another minefield for Maisy and me, I quietly made a stack as I discovered each one, planning to go through them later.
We pretended to be absorbed in what we were doing, that we were each alone in the room, although I found myself stealing glances at Maisy, noticing the subtle changes that happen during absences. Her hair was just as dark, her eyes the same pale gray—two things she’d received from her father, and which I’d coveted since I was old enough to notice that she had something I didn’t. But she seemed stronger somehow, as if she’d been forced to develop muscles to confront life. I thought about what Aunt Marlene had said: how I was smarter than Birdie because I knew when to bend in the wind. I thought maybe Maisy had simply learned how to be tougher so she could face the wind head-on.
She didn’t look at me, but I felt her awareness like a ladyfish senses the shadow of a heron on the water’s surface. Even as a girl, Maisy was much better at pretending than I was. Most likely because I’d been subjected to Birdie’s mood swings four years longer than my sister, so I’d already been exhausted by my efforts to capture Birdie’s attention and had simply succumbed to the need to scream and cry and g
enerally misbehave. I remembered our grandmother remarking on how calm and sweet Maisy was, how content to stare out from her bassinet at the world. I threw a fit when I heard that, too. Because they should have known that Maisy was content because I was there to make her happy, to give her attention so she wouldn’t miss it.
A color photograph slid off a stack of yellowed linen napkins. It showed Maisy and me, about six and ten years old, sitting astride purple Nessie at Marlene’s Marvelous Marbles before the statue had been moved to Marlene’s front yard, me with bloodied knees and Maisy with a worried look on her face. She was up there only because I’d put her there and then made Aunt Marlene take the photo to prove to the bullies in her class that she wasn’t a baby. I remembered that she fell off right after the photo was taken. I was about to show the photograph to Maisy but stopped, a sudden thought occurring to me.
“Did Aunt Marlene call? I don’t want her to be worried that I’m not there.”
“No, she didn’t. She’s used to you not coming home at night, I guess.”
She went back to her sorting without glancing at me to see whether her arrow had hit the target. I watched her for a moment, something the girl I’d been would have said waiting on my tongue, but I held back, the memory of the blanket falling from my shoulders coming back to me, a nudge as to who had placed it there. The years between us were like rocks from an avalanche, heavy and forbidding and seemingly impenetrable. But my name would always be the first word my sister had uttered.
I began shifting through a stack of napkins, some of them paper, a few of them cotton, but a good number of them fine lace and linen. There’d been a time when my mother had liked to entertain, enjoyed setting the table with her mother’s mismatched china and silver and crystal, liked to play hostess to friends and neighbors. Maisy and I would watch from between the spindles of the stairway, hearing brief snatches of conversation, noticing how our mother was the most beautiful woman in the room. I remembered thinking that she always had a look of desperation about her, that she was playing some part in a play and was afraid of being unmasked. Maisy said she looked that way because it must be hard to be that beautiful, to never want to appear to be less than perfect. I wanted to tell her that she was wrong, because Maisy was just as beautiful and still could act normal. I didn’t tell her because Maisy wouldn’t have believed me.
I slid out a crocheted place mat—one of my short-lived hobbies, which had lasted just long enough to make a lone place mat—and an old dark brown folder came out with it. It felt soft under my fingers, like book pages left outside in the humidity, and had something written in faded ink on the front. I squinted, barely making out my grandfather’s name, Ned Campbell Bloodworth. A string wrapped around a small cardboard circle on the front snapped as I began to unravel it, allowing me to lift up the flap and peer inside.
“What is it?”
I hid my smile, not wanting to acknowledge that my sister had been watching me as closely as I’d been watching her. I looked at the small pile of papers, trying to register what I was looking at. “Seems to be Grandpa’s military records from World War Two.” I slid the top page over to her. “This is his honorable discharge in 1945.”
I flipped through the remaining pages, a couple of typed letters on official-looking letterhead. A stiff manila card was wedged near the bottom, and I pulled it out. “And here’s his medical record.” I glanced at it briefly, noting that his height—six foot four—and the color of his eyes—light blue—were still the same, although his shoulders had rounded over the years. His hair had been brown, though, a surprise to me, since I’d only ever remembered it being gray.
She held the paper in her hand carefully. “I forget sometimes that he was a veteran. It all seems so long ago. I just . . .” She paused. “I just don’t think of him as a ninety-four-year-old man. That he won’t be here forever.”
I wanted to say, “Me, too,” but I’d lost that right. I’d left him behind along with everything else. She handed the card back to me and I returned it to the folder.
I began flipping through the remaining napkins and place mats, searching between them to see whether anything might be hiding. “Maybe we’ll find Birdie’s birth certificate, so we’ll know how old she really is.”
Maisy tried to suppress a giggle. It had been our quest as girls to guess Birdie’s real age, since our direct questions received only a scolding about how impolite it was to ask a lady about her age. Despite our constant nagging to divulge Birdie’s secret, Grandpa would tell us only that she was born during the war. That narrowed it down somewhat, but never quite satisfied our search for the truth. It was one of a thousand little things that Maisy and I had shared, each connection like the seemingly indestructible sand fortresses we’d build on the beach, each wave a tiny hurt that eroded it bit by bit.
She placed a broken honey jar near me and I noticed the smattering of freckles on her forearm. As children, Birdie had kept us out of the sun, saying it was bad for the skin and we’d end up looking like Aunt Marlene. I wasn’t convinced that was a bad thing, but following Birdie’s rules was always a lot easier than breaking them.
“You don’t wear long sleeves all the time and even in the summer?” I asked half joking.
Half of her mouth turned up. “No. I haven’t done that for years. But I still wear a hat when I’m outdoors. I guess we should both thank Birdie for saving our skin.”
“Remember that time I deliberately got the worst sunburn of my life just to make her mad?”
Maisy laughed out loud. “Just to get out of a beauty pageant. You cried all night because it hurt so bad.”
I smiled, remembering. “And you stayed in my room and put aloe lotion on my back, even though Birdie told you not to because it served me right.”
Our eyes met and our smiles faded, almost as if our cheeks couldn’t withstand the burden of the years between.
“I guess I should be glad she never thought I was pretty enough to enter any of those beauty competitions.” Maisy turned away, then stood to gain access to the deep drawers at the top of the chest.
I fingered the crocheted place mat on my lap, the mention of Birdie reminding me of something I’d been meaning to ask. “Has Becky told you that she has conversations with Birdie?”
Maisy looked annoyed. “Of course not. Birdie hasn’t uttered a word in years. Just hums or sings those silly show tunes.” She frowned. “Why?”
“Because at the hospital, Becky said Birdie had told her something.”
“Told her what?” I had Maisy’s full attention now.
I hesitated for a moment, not sure whether I should tell her. I took a deep breath. “That Birdie wanted me to stay. And that she needed my help.”
Maisy shook her head. “Becky has a vivid imagination—she’s definitely Birdie’s granddaughter. But that’s it. She would have told me if Birdie had said something to her. She’s probably just looking for reasons to get you to stay.” She avoided my eyes and began restacking teacups.
I resumed emptying the cabinet I’d started with, finding more photos to add to the stack, and four mismatched salad plates from various patterns. I had inherited our grandmother’s love for garage sales and junk stores, so the mass quantities of random items didn’t surprise me, and certainly explained why there would be just an odd piece from the bee-pattern china.
I was vaguely aware that Maisy had stilled, but I didn’t look up at her until I heard a choking noise in the back of her throat. I scrambled to my feet. “Are you all right?” I was about to pat her on her back when I saw the small lace baby’s bonnet in her hand, the pink ribbon threaded through the brim and meant to fasten under a tiny chin, as bright as it had been the day I’d purchased it.
“Oh, Maisy,” I whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” As if those words could ever atone for a single act. As if “I’m sorry” could be more than a Band-Aid on a widening crack in a dam. As
if those two words could bridge the chasm between sisters.
Maisy stared at the bonnet without saying anything, her quiet sobs worse than any screaming grief. But she’d already done that.
I stepped toward her, wanting to hug her and help her hurts go away, just as I’d done when we were little. But she moved away from me, swatting at me with the bonnet, letting it fall to the ground as if it didn’t mean anything. She shook her head, her face contorted with pain, the pride and resentment that we’d honed to shiny perfection looming between us.
“Go away, Georgia. Just go away. We don’t need you here. I can handle all this on my own, just like I’ve been doing.”
I lifted my arms as if to encompass her marriage, Birdie, our grandfather, as if that one gesture could really include all that clearly wasn’t all right. “Maisy, look around you. Please—let me help you.”
“You of all people should know better than to ask me that. No, thank you.” She brushed by me and ran up the stairs.
“Maisy, please stop.” We used to be allies. With a sick feeling I went to follow her, and even made it to the top of the stairs before stopping. Birdie was silhouetted in the light from her open doorway, her head turned in the direction of Maisy’s door that had just been slammed shut.
“Birdie?”
She turned her head, and for a moment I knew she was seeing me, really seeing me. I took a step toward her to determine whether it was only a trick of the light.
She backed away into her room and slowly shut the door, leaving me in the darkened hallway. I stood there listening to her humming, something low and toneless, as the house settled itself in its spot alongside the bay. I tried to tell myself that I’d imagined what I’d seen, that it had been an illusion. But as I turned and made my way down the stairs, I couldn’t completely dismiss the thought that when Birdie had turned to me, her expression had reminded me of Maisy’s as she’d held the baby’s bonnet. I was heartened somewhat by the knowledge that Birdie was still capable of emotion.
