The Sisters Chase

by Sarah Healy

  “What?” gasped Mary. “How?”

  “I told him that he had to go.”

  Mary lowered her chin to her chest and squeezed her eyes tightly, feeling them grow wet, feeling her cheeks burn red. It was as close as Mary Chase came to mourning what she was. “I’m so sorry, Stefan.”

  “There’s no reason to be sorry.”

  She lowered her head to his, brought her hand to the back of his neck. Stefan was goodness and righteousness. Stefan was the light to her dark.

  “He’s flying back to Miami in a couple of days. He’s going to stay in a hotel by the airport until then.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “A car came for him an hour ago.”

  Mary found Stefan’s eyes. “Where’s he getting the money?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said.

  Mary searched Stefan’s face for a sign that he had seen the pictures. “Did he show you the . . .”

  “No,” he answered quickly.

  And Mary became lightheaded with relief. “Thank you,” she said, lowering her lips to his head, breathing the words into his hair.

  They stayed like that for what felt like several minutes, Mary feeling the ebb of adrenaline, feeling the nearness of the escape. Tim was gone. She had outmaneuvered him. She and Hannah were safe.

  And when her limbs could move again, she sat down beside Stefan and he poured her a cup of coffee. Hannah puttered down soon after, asking for orange juice. “I got it, Banana,” Stefan said.

  They watched cartoons that morning, the three of them on the couch, Mary and Stefan’s eyes meeting over Hannah’s head as she giggled. Outside the sun was bright and high and fearless.

  “It’s too beautiful,” Mary said, her head resting against the back of the couch, her gaze rolling toward the window. “I’m going to go get ready. We should go do something.”

  And when she reached the top of the stairs, she looked behind her to see the door to the guest room where Tim had stayed—a white rectangle set against a white wall. She walked toward it, the carpet quieting her footsteps. Inside, the room was empty. The bed was made, the shade pulled up, the closet door closed. All signs of Tim were gone save for a white note folded and left atop the comforter. MARY was written on the front. Inside, it said only YOU’RE WRONG.

  Nineteen

  1983

  Over the next couple of days, Mary felt Tim’s presence in the periphery, lingering just out of sight. He was there when she was alone, as she unloaded the dishwasher, as she lay in bed awake, the words a whisper in her ear. You’re wrong.

  But what was she wrong about? She pressed Stefan for the details of their conversation, but he simply held her, brought her head to his chest. Don’t worry, Mare, he said, though Mary couldn’t see his eyes. And she knew Stefan’s impression of her had started to fray around the edges.

  It was five nights after Tim’s departure that the phone rang. She looked at Stefan, who was lying on the couch reading. Hannah was asleep in bed. Stefan glanced up at her. The phone rarely rang in the condo; no one called Mary save for Stefan and Martina. Without a word, Mary stood, instinct making her alert, tensing her muscles. She went to the kitchen to take the call, stepping out on the deck and closing the door behind her. Pulling up the antenna on the handset, she answered. “Hello.” She already knew it would be him, but for a moment, there was only silence. Until Mary’s own voice spoke to her.

  I’m at the B & M Diner. Right by the Miami Herald. You’re going to meet me here in three hours with ten thousand dollars in cash.

  It took her a moment to realize what she was listening to, how it was possible that she was hearing her voice. Her mind rewound rapidly, her life playing in reverse until she recalled with cinematic clarity the phone call she made from the pay phone on that street in Miami. She remembered Hannah’s face in the window of the diner, she remembered the morning sun’s heat against her skin, and she remembered the Dackard’s answering machine clicking on before Ron answered.

  It was Tim’s voice she heard next. “Remember that, Mary? Gail plays it for Ron sometimes. When he’s acting like a dick. She wouldn’t let me have it at first.” He waited for a moment for Mary to speak, but her voice had left her. “What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?”

  “I can get you money, Tim.”

  Tim snickered. “I don’t need money, Mary.”

  “Your parents kicked you out.”

  “Ron doesn’t call the shots anymore. I’m back in Miami. Gail says hi.”

  Mary was silent. She could picture Tim’s face, his thin-lipped sneer.

  “Anyway, I’m going to give Patrick a call tomorrow. He gave me his number, remember? So my dad could call him about his company.” Tim was smart to go directly to Patrick. He knew that Stefan could be manipulated by Mary. But not his father.

  “Tim—”

  “And you thought all I had was pictures.” His voice was venom when he spoke again. “You thought you were so fucking smart, Mary. You thought you had everyone fooled. I knew the whole time what you were doing. I knew the whole fucking time. I was watching you, Mary. I was watching you.” And whether he was there or not, Mary pictured Tim crouched outside Ron Dackard’s office that night, peering through the slit in the doorway. “Everyone’s gonna know what you are,” he said.

  Then the phone went dead.

  She stood outside for several minutes staring at the empty illuminated decks of her neighbors against the indigo sky, their duplicative sameness like a hall of mirrors. She felt her heartbeat start to quicken, her breath turn shallow as she looked at them. There was no variation in their presentation, no exit. No egress. The Kellys would know what she had done. Tim had won. By the time she went back inside, that certitude had burrowed inside her like ice into rock—a trickle finding its way into a fissure then expanding.

  In the living room, Stefan was still on the couch. “Who was that?” he asked, a book on his chest, the room illuminated only by the lamp beside him.

  She looked at him for a moment, at the solidity of his form, then she crawled on top of him, rising up the length of his body on the couch. “That was nobody,” she answered. “Just someone selling something.” He dropped the book to the floor and moved his hand to her lower back.

  Mary angled her head to look at his face. “Stef,” she said. “Can we go to the boat tomorrow?”

  Stefan’s hand slid up Mary’s back into the tangle of her hair. “Sure. We can do that.”

  “Let’s go all day. Let’s go early then spend the night.”

  “We can do that,” he said, not understanding what he was saying. Not knowing what would come next.

  Twenty

  1983

  The sun hadn’t yet reached center sky when the Blazer beat over the crushed gravel of the long road that led to the marina. The truck crested a hill and the ocean burst into view, its waters dotted with white boats, its shoreline anchored with tastefully grand homes.

  “Look at how pretty it is here,” said Mary, as her eyes lingered over the sapphire blue bay, her elbow resting on the open window. She felt the sun on her skin, felt it warming her hair. “It’s like a fairy tale.”

  Mary slid the Blazer into the spot next to Stefan’s and looked out through the windshield. Stefan was on the boat already, his feet moving nimbly over the vessel as he prepared for a day at sea. He lifted his hand and waved at the girls, and Mary gave him a radiant flash of a smile, raising her slender arm in the air to return the gesture. Then she turned to Hannah. “Come on,” she said. “It’s going to be such a pretty day.”

  She walked around to the back of the Blazer and opened the tailgate, pulling out a small tote bag that sat next to large overstuffed black duffel bag whose presence was like a vacuum, something with the power to devour. She wondered when Tim would call Patrick. The onslaught of the truths would be like relentless waves, knocking and knocking and knocking her down the moment she found her feet to stand back up.

  “Hannah Banana!” she heard
Stefan call from the boat. “I need some help over here!”

  Mary slammed the tailgate, letting her fingers linger on the metal. “Go help him, Bunny,” she urged.

  If there was a day made for sailing, it was this one. The wind blew steady and sure from a cloudless sky. Mary closed her eyes and turned her face toward the sun, feeling the spray from the shimmering sea as the boat charged through it. And she realized how much she relished this distance from land. How much she loved the boundlessness of water.

  “If I died today, I would die happy,” said Mary, her eyes still closed, the skin of her bare back sticking against the cushion of the seat.

  In front of her, Stefan stood at the wheel. “Don’t say that, Mare.”

  “I’m just saying that I love this.” She opened her eyes and reached for him, the flash of his figure against the sea and sun.

  Stefan looked back at her, then his eyes moved to Hannah. “You think you can be the captain for a second, Banana?”

  Hannah stood and cautiously made her way up to Stefan. “Here you go,” he said, holding the wheel steady as she put her hands on it. “Just like that. Nothing to it.”

  Stefan sat down next to Mary, keeping his eyes on Hannah as the thrill of being at the helm of a boat turned her face to sunlight as she glanced back to Mary and Stefan to make sure they were watching her.

  They stayed at sea until the sun started to sink below the sky, throwing its arms up into pools of color. The boat slid into its slip just as the last bit of light was wrung from the day. That night, the three of them sat with their legs splayed open on the bow of the boat, eating bread and cheese and tomatoes and green beans, snapping off the tops and throwing them into the water. Stefan opened up the lid of his red cooler, tossing Hannah a Coke and Mary a beer. “Can I have a soda instead?” asked Mary, as she passed it back.

  And when the sky was an inky blue, Mary and Hannah lay with their heads on Stefan’s stomach as they looked up at the pavé stars.

  “You can see why humans used to believe in deities,” said Stefan.

  “Used to?” said Mary. She remembered driving through those small southern towns, watching women in pastel dresses and men in light gray suits funnel into morning services, fanning themselves with the photocopied program while greeting one another. “Lots of people still do,” said Mary.

  “What’s a deity?” asked Hannah.

  Mary rolled her head toward Hannah and found her eyes. “A god,” she said. “Something all-powerful.” Mary shifted, brought her hands beneath her cheek.

  Stefan and Mary waited until Hannah was asleep in the berth, wrapped inside a thin towel in the cool evening air, before they laid a blanket below them and had sex under the stars, their bodies moving and churning like the sea, their breaths like waves. And when they were finished, Stefan’s fingers ran through strands of Mary’s hair as they talked about a past and future that didn’t exist. Mary would start taking classes at the state university in the fall. She’d study art. They’d spend Christmas in Paris. Mary loved it there. She had been once.

  And when Stefan drifted into easy sleep, his back against the hard boat, his head resting on a foam cushion, Mary stood up, her body bare under the moon. She walked to the railing of the boat and rested her forearms against it, staring at the dead-calm water, at the boats that swayed silently in the night. And she thought about what lay before her and what lay behind. She thought about the road and the ruin. Then she walked back over to Stefan and pulled on his shorts, rolling them over and over again at the waist until they held, feeling the weight of his wallet against her hip. And she pulled on his T-shirt, breathing in his scent as it passed her nose. Then, with silent steps, she descended the stairs below deck. For a moment, all she did was look at her sister.

  “Bunny,” she finally whispered, squeezing her sister’s toes. “Bunny.”

  And Hannah sat up, one eye open, one eye still stuck with sleep. “What?” came Hannah’s quiet, disoriented voice.

  Mary let out a low shush. “Shhhh . . . We have to be so quiet, Bunny.”

  “What is it?”

  “We have to go,” said Mary, her voice as low and smooth as a horizon.

  “Why?”

  Mary extended her arm to Hannah. “It’s time.”

  Hannah blinked and let her gaze fall to the sheet. Then she looked back to Mary. “Is Stefan going to come?” she asked.

  The sisters’ gazes hung together like garland. “Not yet,” Mary finally answered. “But he’ll meet us soon.” She then extended her hand out to Hannah. “Come on.”

  The girls walked silently from the boat, the rock of the boat hiding their footsteps, the night a cloak of cover. Neither spoke a word as they went, but Hannah slowed as she passed Stefan and looked down on him as if she were passing a casket.

  Mary took the step from boat to dock first, then she turned to reach across for Hannah. “You’re such a good girl,” said Mary, as she helped her down. “Such a good girl.” Then Mary bent down so that her eyes met Hannah’s. “Go to the truck,” she said, with a smile, her black hair blending into the dark, the moon behind her head like a crown. Then she held out the keys and dropped them into Hannah’s hand. “Start it up. I’ll meet you there.”

  Mary watched as Hannah headed for the Blazer, her small tired feet shuffling along the dock. Then Mary turned back to the boat and, with a swift, elegant pull, was back on board. From the pocket of the shorts she was wearing, she pulled Stefan’s wallet, removed eighty dollars in cash, then dropped it on the deck beside his feet. Then she dropped to her knees and, with careful, graceful movements, crawled over his body.

  When her mouth was above his, she breathed his name. Stefan. His eyes opened and she smiled.

  “Hey, baby,” he said, bringing his hand to her back, letting it rub up and down the thin T-shirt that he didn’t realize was his.

  “I need you to do something for me.” she said.

  He looked at her. “Hmmm?” he asked, his mind still thick with sleep.

  “There’s a letter in the bottom of your bag,” she said. “You have to read it.” Mary watched as consciousness started to fill Stefan’s eyes. “And no matter what else you hear about me, know that what it says is true.” She took his hand, then released it just as quickly. “I’ll call you soon. I promise.”

  Stefan started to sit up, but Mary’s movements were too quick, too stealthy. By the time he stood, she was off the boat. By the time he was off the boat, she was in the Blazer. She heard her name echo through the dark. Mary!

  She flipped on the headlights, and Stefan’s form became flooded in light. Her eyes met his through the vast night between them for just a moment before she jerked the truck into reverse, the tires spitting rocks in their haste. And as she pulled quickly away from the marina, looking only once in the rearview mirror, she said to Hannah, “Hey, Bunny, why don’t you try to fall back asleep, okay?”

  Twenty-one

  1983

  Mary drove quickly that night, feeling the comfort of the vibrations as the truck raced over smooth black roads like a horse lunging south. The dashboard glowed with its soft light, and Hannah was asleep beside her, her head on Mary’s lap. Mary drove for twenty-four hours straight, from night into day into night again, radio stations coming in and then fading out as she crossed the territory of their signals. When she or Hannah had to go to the bathroom, she’d pull to the side of the road, and they’d squat next to the car, watching the streams of urine pool on the asphalt between their feet. And when they were hungry, they’d find a gas station or a diner or a drive-through. And the hours that passed on that trip felt like something other than measures of time. Each was a decade. Each was an instant. Each seemed to take them somewhere more profound than down the road.

  They reached Bardavista just before midnight. And as they crossed the endless bridge that connected the barrier island to the mainland, Mary stared out to the black water looking for the glow of shrimp boats as they floated, their trawlers extended out l
ike wings.

  They took the single-lane road as far as they could. When they reached Ft. Rillieux, Mary put the truck in park and shut off the engine. If a vehicle could collapse from exhaustion, the Blazer would have. It would have gasped out a final roar and rolled on its side.

  “We’re here,” said Mary.

  Hannah lifted her head from her sister’s lap and sat up. She could only make out the curve of the dunes, the swaying strands of seagrass. “Where?”

  Mary smiled and looked at her sister. “The end of the earth.” She then gently poked Hannah’s rib. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s sleep on the beach.”

  Hannah crossed her arms over her chest. “How?” she asked, the word short and challenging. “We don’t have anything to sleep on.”

  Again, Mary smiled. “Yes, we do.”

  The large black duffel contained their sleeping bags, their tent, and little else. Mary pitched it in the dark, her fingers running down the lengths of pole, finding the channels in the fabric as if from muscle memory. Hannah stood with her sleeping bag clutched to her chest as she watched Mary complete the setup.

  “Remember when we bought this?” asked Mary, offering the memory a small sad smile.

  Hannah nodded. “Before the swamp,” she said.

  “That swamp’s not too far,” she said. Then she nodded toward the Gulf, only apparent through the steady metronomic beat of its waves. “Remember how we threw the flowers into the water here?” she asked. “For Mom?”

  Hannah looked out in the dark toward the sea, but not at it, saying nothing. And Mary’s fingers paused their work while she watched her. “This is where you were born, Bunny.”

  “I don’t remember it.”

  As soon as the tent was up, the girls crawled inside wordlessly, laying their sleeping bags on the sides they always slept on. As the wind lapped the tent with warm humid air, their bodies instinctively curved into each other. And Mary found a depth of sleep she had never known before and would never know again.