The Sunshine Sisters

by Jane Green

  But this knowledge is too weighty for her to carry alone. Greta is sitting there, so serene, so understanding, so warm. Why would she not tell her? Why would she not tell her that she knows this is real? That her mother has spent her entire life craving attention, but now that she has a terminal illness and could command everyone’s attention for quite some time, she is planning something else? She wants her children to help her end her life and seems to think she’s doing some great altruistic final act by bringing her estranged daughters together to reestablish some strong familial bond that never existed in the first place.

  Meanwhile, Nell is the only one who knows. She agreed to pretend everything is normal, not to share the secret, just as her mother wants, but the shock and sadness are welling inside her, a bubble that is threatening to burst in the face of Greta’s sympathy and concern. She doesn’t speak. She can’t speak. She closes her eyes, just for a few seconds, and shakes her head. She feels Greta lay a cool hand on her hand.

  “It’s okay,” Greta croons softly. “It’s going to be okay.”

  And much to her surprise, Nell finds tears trickling down her cheeks. The thing is, it isn’t going to be okay. Or, not the kind of okay where life carries on as it has been before. It isn’t going to be Nell’s mother phoning her and demanding Nell do something for her. It isn’t going to be Nell’s obligatory visits, filled with not so much resentment as weariness.

  Why does it always come down to Nell? Why doesn’t her mother ask anything of anyone else?

  Because Meredith is too far away, and Lizzy doesn’t give a shit. Lizzy is far too busy with her successful supper clubs and her successful TV show and her successful marriage and perfect son to ever take the time to do anything for their mother. So it falls to Nell. Lizzy and Meredith do absolutely nothing. They show up for holidays, spend two or three days with their mother, and sail off into their lives, as if that’s all that is ever required of them.

  And that is all that is ever required of them, because Nell is there, has always been there, to pick up the slack. And because their mother does not want to alienate Lizzy and Meredith further than she already has, when she is upset, with them, or about life in general, the person to whom she complains is Nell.

  And when she is angry, as she so often is, the person on whom she takes it out is Nell.

  And when she is dying, and doing so in her own time frame, on her own terms, the person she chooses to help her with her pain, fear, and sadness is Nell. She’s the strong one. Her sisters can’t deal with it. She needs Nell.

  Usually Nell doesn’t care. Sometimes she is resentful that she has to handle her mother effectively on her own, but mostly she just does it. But today, with the weight of all that she knows, it is too much. As she sits on her office sofa, a kindly hand on her hand, a look of grave concern on the face of the woman sitting beside her, it is unexpectedly too much for Nell to carry on her own. Much to her shame and embarrassment, her body is suddenly racked with sobs, and she is taken into Greta’s arms and held tightly.

  Like a mother would hold a child, she thinks, later, when she is calm again. Like I have held River so many times, when he was small and frail and scared.

  Like I have wanted to be held for years.

  • • •

  She tells Greta everything, astonished at how easy it is, how freely the words flow from her lips. She describes her childhood, her relationship with her sisters, the struggle she has with what she alone now knows, given how hard her mother has always been on her.

  As she talks, it feels less painful. As she talks, and cries, encouraged from time to time by Greta, she is astonished to feel the burden easing. Not disappearing, but she had never realized that the saying was true; a burden shared is truly a burden halved. She had never thought to share her burdens with anyone before. How much easier, she suddenly thinks, my life might have been if I had.

  “I’m so sorry,” she says eventually, embarrassed, blushing at how much she has revealed, at the extraordinary intimacy these walls now contain. “I didn’t mean to say all of that. I don’t even know you. I don’t know where all that came from.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard that it’s almost always easier to reveal your innermost secrets to a stranger? I’m not a stranger, anyway. At least, you don’t feel like a stranger to me.”

  “Not now. Certainly. After the last half hour you probably know me better than just about anyone else in the world.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.” Greta dismisses the idea, but Nell knows it is so. She has never spoken to anyone like this before.

  Greta looks at Nell again, curiously. “Is that true?”

  “Would you think less of me if I said it was?” Nell asks, reluctantly.

  “It wouldn’t change my opinion at all. You clearly needed to let some of this out. I’m only glad I was here.”

  “I’m so sorry. I feel . . . embarrassed. I’ve never been good at talking about emotions.”

  “Why not? How does it make you feel?”

  Nell thinks for a moment. “Vulnerable.”

  Greta laughs. “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “Isn’t it?”

  Greta shakes her head. “Allowing ourselves to show our vulnerability is how we make human connections. If we’re not showing other people our true selves, our weaknesses and flaws, how can we ever allow ourselves to be known?”

  “I’m not sure I’ve ever wanted to be known.”

  “Then you’re missing out on ninety percent of what this life has to offer.” Greta shrugs lightly. “Being known is about connecting with people. I believe we’re put on this earth to connect. Without it, life would be terribly lonely.”

  Yes, thinks Nell. It is terribly lonely. And she is shocked that she is finally able to admit that.

  “At times like this we’re supposed to be at our most vulnerable, and we are not supposed to be lonely. Your mother is dying,” she says gently. “And choosing to do so on her own terms. I think she must be an incredibly brave woman. But it is always hardest on the ones the dying leave behind.”

  “But it shouldn’t be hardest on me,” Nell finds herself saying. “On any of us. We’ve all had such a difficult relationship with her. And with each other. We’ve never been a close family. I don’t understand why I’m finding this so painful.”

  “That’s why,” Greta says simply with a smile. “It’s harder when love isn’t easy. Which doesn’t mean the love isn’t there. And it doesn’t mean you can’t now say the things that were never said long ago. It’s not too late, Nell. Not yet.”

  “How do you know so much?” Nell says quickly, trying to change the subject because otherwise she might cry again. “Are you a therapist? I don’t know anything about you.”

  “I have a degree in social work,” says Greta. “Now I work with an organization that sponsors therapeutic retreats. I’m not practicing as a therapist, but I’m well versed in talking to people who are going through major issues in their life. I’m a good listener.”

  “And a good cook,” says Nell. “Kind of the perfect woman! Is there anything you can’t do?”

  “Tons!” Greta says with a laugh. “I’m not even going to get started or you’ll never look at me in the same light again. But since you don’t want me making lunch for everyone, maybe we could do something else. I wanted to find some time to visit Westport. Do you want to go there for lunch? It would be nice to get to know each other away from everyone.”

  “I would love to,” says Nell. “I have some work stuff to do, but lunch sounds great.”

  “Meet you in the kitchen at quarter to one?”

  “It’s a date,” says Nell, flushing. That’s not what she meant.

  • • •

  After her talk with Greta, Nell feels much better. The cloud is still in her head, but it’s not quite so dense. She realizes she can avoid her sisters this afterno
on, surely, and then her mother can tell them tonight. Nell doesn’t want to carry this burden alone. What she hasn’t yet said to Greta, what she might not say to her, or indeed anyone else, is that mixed in with the sadness is relief.

  Nell sits at her desk and turns back to her computer. Sighing, she finds herself typing “Greta Whitstable” into Google. She doesn’t find much. A Facebook page, limited profile. A laughing picture. Freckles. Nell didn’t notice before and unconsciously traces the bridge of her own nose. I always wanted freckles, she thinks, as there is a loud knock on the door and, startled, feeling guilty, she clicks the window closed.

  It’s River. “Daisy and I are going to Ronron’s. Shall we take her some muffins?”

  “She’d love that,” says Nell, although she has no idea what her mother is eating these days, whether any of her rules about food persist now that she is ill. She thinks of everything her mother has done over the years to stay skinny enough to look good on camera: the Scarsdale diet, the grapefruit diet, the cabbage soup diet, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, the Atkins diet, paleo, vegetarian, vegan, juice fasts, the Master Cleanse. Urgh. The Master Cleanse. That one was the worst. Her mother persuaded Meredith to try it and Meredith threw up after the first salt flush. Carbohydrates haven’t crossed the threshold of her mother’s house in years. None of it matters now. River should take her muffins.

  River hesitates, then walks in, reaches down, and puts his arms around his mother, enveloping her in a hug, in a way he hasn’t done in years. Her little boy, now so big, so grown-up. Sometimes she looks at him and is amazed that he is hers, that she held him as a baby, that she managed to produce a boy as handsome and kind and clever and perfect as he. Nell lights up in his arms.

  “I love you, Mom,” he says, and Nell smiles, losing herself in love for her son. He is the only person she has ever been able to love completely, wholly, and unconditionally.

  It has always been easy, because she is his mother. She has never had to be vulnerable with him. She hasn’t been vulnerable with anyone since Lewis let her down, since she realized her mother would never put her first. The whole idea of vulnerability feels new to her. Could she love someone as completely as River, but on a more equal level? The idea intrigues her, surprises her. What surprises her more is that for the first time, she is thinking she might like to try.

  • • •

  “Hello?”

  Nell has been counting down the minutes to meet Greta in the kitchen, when she hears Lizzy’s voice. She wasn’t expecting her back so soon and walks reluctantly to the kitchen from the office to see Lizzy standing by the counter, helping herself to the grapes in the fruit bowl, as if she lived there. Nell smiles. It’s a blessing and a curse, this ability of her sister’s to make herself at home anywhere. Nell wishes she were more comfortable in the world, even though nothing would make her want to swap lives with Lizzy.

  “Hi. Where’s Meredith?” Nell asks.

  “I dropped her back at Mom’s. She was feeling guilty.”

  Nell laughs and shakes her head. “Poor Meredith. I can’t believe she’s almost forty and still bound by what other people think of her.”

  “I know.” Lizzy rolls her eyes. “I still can’t believe she’s planning on marrying the Dreadful Derek. Do you think she’ll go through with it?”

  “I don’t know, but you can’t say anything. She’ll just resent you if you do, and it won’t help her at all. We all have to make our own mistakes.”

  “You don’t have to remind me. I plan on saying nothing.” Lizzy pulls out a chair and sits down, putting her feet up on another chair as she munches through the grapes, looking around the kitchen.

  “I never thought I’d say this, but it is really nice to be out here. I feel peaceful here in a way I haven’t for a really long time.”

  Nell smiles. “You’re finally coming back to your suburban roots?”

  “This is hardly suburban. This is country. Except it’s close to everything. You really lucked out, getting this farm as a gift.”

  Nell is cautious. “I did, but it wasn’t exactly a gift. It was an inheritance. It’s also a lot of hard work. It’s not like I can sit back and let it take care of itself.”

  “I know that. I can see the work you put in. And all the employees you have to manage.” She pauses. “I know I shouldn’t bring this up, but it’s really a shame you don’t think about doing farm dinners.”

  “Your supper club, you mean.”

  “My supper clubs, yes. And dinners on the farm. People pay a fortune now to sit in a meadow at an old trestle table. You could make proper money.”

  Nell looks at her sister closely, feigning disinterest, although “making proper money” is what she needs right now. “Making proper money” would mean she could stop hiding the pile of financial papers on her desk under a magazine.

  “How much money, do you think?” Nell tries to sound as if she doesn’t much care, as if the farm’s future isn’t reliant on making, somehow, proper money.

  “Look, I don’t really take care of the business end; Sean does that. But I can tell you that we run two to three supper clubs a week that range in size from a minimum of fifty, to three hundred if we’re doing it on a farm. People pay up to five hundred dollars a head in the city, usually two hundred fifty elsewhere . . .”

  “Two hundred and fifty dollars a head? Are they crazy?” Nell isn’t aware that she is shrieking, even as she does the math. “You get seventy-five thousand dollars for one night?”

  “No. All of our costs come out of that. The food, the staff, the rentals. But we do make a nice profit. We could make more”—she stares at her sister—“if we partnered with a farm, thereby cutting our costs significantly. If we had a supplier who would give us food at wholesale, we could probably split the profits with them.” She shrugs as she pops another grape into her mouth.

  “I’d have to see the numbers.”

  Lizzy sits up straight. “I can show them to you.”

  “How often would you do it?”

  Lizzy shakes her head. “I have no idea. I haven’t thought about this since you said you definitely wouldn’t do it. I’d have to talk to Sean, but my dream would be to actually have a base on a farm, maybe even a restaurant of our own . . . We could continue doing outside dinners as special events during the summer.”

  “We don’t have a restaurant space,” says Nell. “Nor do we have the funds to build one. We have the coffee shop, but that isn’t big enough . . .”

  “No, but there is the big hay barn.” Lizzy has spent the past hour walking the farm, looking at all the outbuildings, the cogs in her brain turning and turning as she thought it through. “That could be repurposed. We could put a kitchen in the back space, eventually. We’re used to setting up catering kitchens for the farm dinners . . . That would work temporarily.”

  Nell pictures the barn. It is enormous, too big for the amount of hay they harvest. They do a hay bale maze every fall for the local children to try to make use of it, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world to move the hay to a smaller barn. A smaller barn would be much cheaper to build than a restaurant space. And she gets how her old barn would help keep the rustic feel of Lizzy’s pop-up dinners.

  She focuses her attention back to Lizzy, who is looking at her expectantly. “You actually think people would come to Easton, Connecticut, for dinner in a barn?”

  “They travel all over New Jersey, Dutchess County, and Westchester for them.”

  Nell continues to look skeptical. “And you would commute in from Brooklyn?”

  “Yes. I guess so. I don’t know. I have no idea how it would work. But if you’re serious, we can really talk about it. Maybe . . .” She pauses. “Maybe I would sell the place in Brooklyn and move out here permanently.”

  “You don’t mean live on the farm!” A look of visible horror crosses Nell’s face. “Because I don’
t see how that would work.”

  Lizzy laughs. “No, don’t worry. The farm is clearly yours. But maybe I could buy something in Easton. Or Redding. Somewhere like that. Maybe Connor could grow up surrounded by nature and animals. He could ride bikes with friends and pick apples fresh out of the orchard.”

  “You know you’re completely romanticizing life out here.”

  “Yeah, but it’s more fun that way. I could get a car and driver for when I’m filming.” She laughs. “Seriously, though, that hay barn could be repurposed, couldn’t it? You see it, don’t you? We could even do a trial run this summer and see how it goes. People could sit on the hay bales as seats! They would love that.”

  “People would pay two hundred and fifty dollars to sit on hay bales and eat in a dirty barn?” Nell starts to laugh.

  “Oh, Nell. You have no idea. We’re giving them an experience. We could even eventually have a small shop here, selling my product line. Remember when you used to work here as a teenager and sell my pestos? We could do it again, only bigger! Nell, we could be partners. I have to figure it out with Sean, but I bet he’d go for it. Everyone in the suburbs wants the New York rooftop, but everyone in the city wants the orchards and barns.”

  “Well, the one thing we can give them is orchards and barns. And hay bales.” Nell smiles. Seventy-five thousand dollars in one night, she keeps thinking. Even if they kept a quarter of that, it might get her out of the hole. Even if she didn’t do it permanently, but let Lizzy hold the dinners this summer, with her catering kitchen, and tables in the orchard, just a handful of them, then maybe Nell could wake up in the morning able to breathe, without the albatross of financial fear hanging around her neck.

  “Shall we go out for lunch and talk about this more?” Lizzy’s eyes are bright with excitement. Nell had forgotten this about her, how she loves a project, how part of the reason she is as successful as she is now is not just that she’s a talented cook, that she’s photogenic, or that she’s easy and relaxed on camera, but also because she is a doer—she makes shit happen. Probably the best thing Nell can say about her sister Lizzy is that she has never been afraid of hard work.