by Lisa Unger
“I don’t know,” Finley lied, looking down at her hand. She’d bitten her nails down short, and the black nail polish she wore was chipping. Really, Finley. Get a manicure, her mother’s voice chided.
“Look,” said Jones. He rose slowly, stiffly to his feet and then tested the table; it stayed solidly in place. “Seems like you two need to talk. And I have plenty of work to do on this one, lots of threads to pull, some gaps to squeeze into. Let’s just leave it that when and if there’s something, one of you will get in touch. No pressure.”
Eloise got up to see him out, while Finley nodded mutely and stayed seated.
“Should I leave it?” he asked Eloise, casting an uncertain glance in Finley’s direction.
“Why don’t you?” said Eloise.
He took a little crocheted change purse from his pocket, each row of stitching a different color of the rainbow. There was an applique cat on the front, with the letter A on its belly. Finley found herself reaching for it—even though she didn’t want to—and Jones handed it to her. She held it, staring. There was no denying that the sound was gone, that she felt that wave of relief Eloise had described. But Finley didn’t like being told what to do. She was like her father that way. Once he was expected to do something, once something was demanded of him—he made excuses, weaseled out, or just disappeared altogether.
She gave Jones a lackluster wave good-bye. Listening to him and Eloise talk quietly as they walked down the hall, she dropped her head into her arms. It grew quiet. The front door shut, making the plates in the sideboard rattle like they did. When she lifted her head, the little boy was standing in front of her with his train. She could hear the sound again, but just faintly.
“Not right now,” she said—to the boy, to the sound—rising and walking away. She passed Eloise in the hallway.
“Should we talk?” asked Eloise.
“No,” said Finley, too sharply. She was instantly sorry. More softly: “Later, okay? I have class in an hour.”
Her grandmother put a hand on Finley’s shoulder, then tugged her in close. Finley dropped into her, holding on tight. Amanda was not an affectionate mother, not with Finley. She was far more loving with Alfie. And over the years, as Amanda seemed to want more physical contact with Finley, the girl wanted less from her mother. In fact, now, she just endured Amanda’s embrace, almost shrank from it. But Finley had always been physically close to her grandmother—hugging, holding hands, sitting on her lap when Finley was smaller.
“I don’t think I’m ready for this,” Finley whispered.
Her grandmother released a breath. “I have bad news,” she said. “We almost never feel ready for any of life’s passages. And yet we often must move through them all the same.”
“You make it sound like I don’t have a choice,” she said.
Eloise pulled back and put a palm on each of Finley’s cheeks. “Life is an impossible twist of choice and circumstance, one rarely exists without the other.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
She headed toward the stairs, wanting the conversation to be over, Eloise let her go, didn’t try to hold her back.
“It means that we choose within the context of what happens to us,” she went on, even though Finley was moving away. “We don’t always choose who we are, or what we experience. We just choose what we do with it all.”
It sounded like resignation to Finley, like admitting that she didn’t have any true control over her life. She wasn’t sure she could believe that.
Faith Good stood on the bottom step, staring at the front door. Finley slipped past her quickly because she didn’t like to be close to Faith, her presence leaving a cold spot that leaked into Finley’s bones and that she’d have a hard time shaking all day.
Halfway up the stairs, Finley turned back to Eloise. Her grandmother looked up at her, smiling a little. It was a look that made Finley feel stronger, better. It was a look that said: I know you’ll do the right thing, even if you’re not sure yourself.
“When are you leaving for San Francisco?” Finley asked, a tingle of worry tickling at the back of her mind.
“Not quite yet,” said Eloise.
Finley tried not to show her relief. “You don’t have to stay because of me,” she said. “Really.”
“Oh, I know,” said Eloise easily. She waved a dismissive hand. “I just have a few loose ends I need to tie up.”
Outside, they heard Jones Cooper pull from the drive, his tires crunching on the gravel. Finley continued up the stairs, clutching the little change purse in her hand.
*
In her room, instead of getting ready for class, Finley lay down on her bed, looking at the change purse. It was light and insubstantial in her grasp. Eloise might be shunted into a vision by an object; Agatha could absorb all kinds of energy, thoughts, and intuitions that way, too. But Finley had never had that experience. On the other hand, she’d never had an opportunity to try. Most of her childhood, she’d just worked to ignore the people she saw. And it was only recently that she understood that they wanted something from her.
Only The Three Sisters had ever encouraged, sometimes pushed, her to actually do something. The first time, it was Patience, who told her what her grandmother was. That was how Finley learned about Eloise—not from Amanda, not from Eloise herself, and not from accidentally seeing something on television.
Finley had been dreaming about Eloise, who in the dream was eating a pie with a fork, straight from the pan, digging into its middle, leaving a gaping hole that resembled nothing so much as gore spilling from a wound. She didn’t seem to be enjoying the pie at all, her expression grim, her posture hunched.
“Grandma?” asked Finley uncertainly in her dream. “Is that good?”
Instead of answering, Eloise stood and knocked the pie to the floor. Then the old woman dropped to her knees, somehow managing to get the cherry filling on her clothes and in her hair as she struggled to clean it up.
“Grandma,” Finley asked, alarmed. “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to fix the mess I’ve made.”
“Let me help you,” said Finley. She attended a Montessori school, where Finley’s teachers had taught her well how to clean up a mess, demanded that she was responsible for herself. So, she knew what to do. She looked around for a cloth, but there wasn’t one.
“You can’t help me, sweetie,” Eloise said. “You’re far too young.”
“I’m not,” said Finley, a little miffed. “I’m a big girl.”
Finley woke from her dream to see Patience sitting by her bed. Abigail could never be trusted. Sarah seemed unknowable. But Patience almost—almost—seemed like a friend.
“Your grandmother is just like us,” she said. “She sees what other people don’t see. Knows what other people don’t know.”
“That’s not true,” Finley said. It couldn’t be true, could it? Surely her mother would have told her.
“She has a lot to teach you later,” Patience went on. “But tonight she fell and hit her head, and she’s very alone.”
Finley woke her mother that night and demanded that they call Eloise; she’d cried and raged until Amanda finally had no choice.
While Finley talked to Eloise on the phone, Amanda lay on the bed and openly wept. And that was the first time Finley ever felt free to talk about her dreams, the people who came to see her, the things she saw. Eloise listened, and understood, and didn’t have a total freak-out like Amanda did when the topic came up. And it was such a relief to let it out, to not hide it.
“Try not to pay too much attention to the dreams just yet, okay,” Eloise had said when Finley was done. She sounded sad, but strong and sure. “They’re not bad or wrong. Just try to ignore them for now. You can’t do anything for anyone until you’re older.”
Finley didn’t talk about The Three Sisters that night. She wouldn’t share that with Eloise until many years later.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Grandma?” Finley a
sked her mother when the call was over.
“Because I didn’t want this for you,” Amanda said helplessly. “This is my worst nightmare.”
Amanda was in despair, and watching her, Finley felt the first dark flower of rage bloom. She saw too young how powerless her mother was, how inadequate, how weak. Abigail, of course, couldn’t have been more pleased with all the drama this event caused.
“She can’t keep you from this,” Abigail said from the corner of the room. “No one can.”
The second time had been much worse. Finley had been seven years old. Her parents were in a screaming match upstairs, while Finley watched cartoons.
Finley barely heard them; this was happening all the time. Phil and Amanda were either screaming their heads off at each other or making big displays of love and affection, supposedly because her mother had read that it was okay to fight in front of your kids if you showed them when you made up, too. It just made them seem crazy to Finley, and their behavior was very confusing, so she tended to just block them out altogether when things got heated.
It was a particularly bad argument, because Finley had to turn up the television to hear her show better.
Irresponsible. Never here. We’re drowning, Philip.
Overreacting. Controlling bitch. Get off my goddamn back.
It was Abigail she saw first—wild auburn hair, deep-set dark eyes, wide mouth. Then Patience, who stood quietly by the window, almost disappearing into the light. She looked outside at the milky, rainy sky that was the same color as her skin. Sarah sat on the hearth smiling, full of mischief. Abigail was the most powerful, and Patience was the sweetest. Sarah was the easiest to be around because she never asked anything of Finley.
They hate each other, Abigail said without saying.
“I know,” said Finley. She did know that. Her parents might have loved each other once, but no more. It was clear; their terrible energy together was a noxious gas in the house making them all sick.
Make them shut up, said Abigail.
Finley looked at her, finally turning away from her cartoon—what had it been? The X-Men. Finley had always been obsessed with superheroes—cartoons, comics, and movies. She loved the idea of the ordinary person turned into something extraordinary by fateful accident or terrible design. Secret identities, crime fighting, supervillains all in the brightest colors and most outrageous costumes. Way cooler than anything her friends were into—My Little Pony, American Girl dolls—yuck.
Finley’s eyes fell on her father’s cigarette lighter, which he left around everywhere, even as he tried to pretend he’d quit smoking at Finley’s behest. She wasn’t fooled, of course, because he always smelled of cigarettes beneath an obnoxious layer of Stimorol gum and Acqua Di Gio.
The lighter rested on top of the pile of bills that had started the fight in the first place. His cell phone bill, his American Express, the Mercedes payment, whatever else. Abigail just looked at it, and Finley found herself looking at the lighter.
Abigail didn’t make her do it. Finley wanted to do it. In fact, just minutes before she’d been looking at the offending paper, the pile of which her mother had been waving at her father in anger, and wished she could just set them on fire. Abigail just gave her permission to do what she already wanted to do.
Little Finley got up from the couch and picked up the papers. Then she took the lighter and after a few tries managed to get the small blue flame to flicker out. Then she held it to the curled corners of the bills.
First, they just turned a little brown, the metal flint of the lighter growing hot against her thumb. Then there was a twist of gray smoke. Soon a dancing orange flame began to eat away at the papers in her hand. She let the lighter drop and stared. It was mesmerizing, hypnotic to watch the flames grow, the papers disappear into ash. It wasn’t until she felt the heat on her face that she snapped out of it, realizing what she’d done. She dropped the papers in fear, where they scattered on the coffee table, still burning, quickly setting the magazines beneath them on fire, too. She watched as the flames spread. The Three Sisters were gone.
Finley started to scream for her parents, and they came racing down the stairs just as the smoke detectors began to wail. Her father quickly put out the flames with a towel from the kitchen, while Amanda shuttled Finley from the house, then held on to her tight, weeping in the front yard.
I’m sorry, she just kept whispering. I’m sorry, Finley.
Though Finley was frightened and sorry for what she had done, she also acknowledged that she had, in fact, shut them up. There wasn’t another harsh word spoken between Phil and Amanda for the rest of the afternoon. They behaved like two chastened children, tiptoeing around each other, being extra gentle with Finley. She didn’t even quite get why they were being so nice.
That night while Amanda lay next to Finley in bed, stories read, lights low, she asked: “Why, Finley? Why did you do that, honey? Didn’t you know how dangerous it was? You could have been burned, or worse.”
Finley told her mother about The Three Sisters. Amanda already knew what Finley was, of course.
“Don’t worry, baby,” her mother whispered that night in bed. She was quietly crying again, holding on to Finley. “We’re going to get you the help that you need.”
And Finley felt deeply relieved. But that was before she knew what her mother meant—which was that she’d spend the next year seeing a kid shrink.
*
Now, in her grandmother’s house, Finley held on to the little change purse and closed her eyes to see what she could see.
SEVEN
Kristi was so easy. It was, by far, the thing Wolf Gleason had liked best about her. And he, even now, liked a good many things about her: those wide, always surprised blue eyes; her round, bouncy ass; her teardrop breasts. Not necessarily in that order. He’d never seen Kristi without her nails done—a perfect French manicure and pedicure. Not just a bikini wax, a Brazilian—now that took guts.
Her hair was a perfect white-blonde frame around her heart-shaped face. She wasn’t beautiful precisely—her nose was just the tiniest bit crooked. Her face, in fact, was weak—one of those faces that is pretty only in youth, plump and dewy with health. Once time and gravity got to work, there was no strong scaffolding underneath to fight the sag, the inevitable lines and wrinkles. Her body was nice, soft—muscles not too ripped by countless desperate hours at the gym. But she wasn’t hot—not like boyhood fantasy hot. Few women were, off the pages of a magazine; there were always physical flaws in real life. But Kristi was the kind of girl who knew how to take care of and maximize the gifts nature had bestowed on her, however fleeting they may be.
The other thing he’d liked about her (at first) was that she was perfectly sunny all the time. Merri (contrary to her name) could give Sartre a run for his money—hell is other people and all of that. But Kristi was always bright-eyed, continually looking for the silver lining, the best in people and situations. She relaxed Wolf. She rolled his joint for him and held it to his lips—literally and figuratively. She got on top and rode him until he quivered beneath her, spent and gorgeously exhausted. She giggled when she laughed, light and mellifluous. She liked Hello Kitty. She didn’t mind that he was into porn. In fact, she watched it with him. To his delight, it turned her on.
“Be careful,” his buddy Blake had warned. “Those are the girls who always turn.”
Wolf figured Blake—always the straight arrow all through Regis, at Columbia, now partner at a big law firm, faithful husband, perfect dad to two girls—was maybe just a little jealous. Blake and his wife Claire had been together since high school (she was a Chapin girl whose daddy had founded Blake’s firm), so he had to be at least a little curious, especially since Claire didn’t exactly impress Wolf as the kind of girl that would get wild at all in the bedroom. (Of course, Blake would never talk about anything like that, got all prudish when the topic even came up.)
Though Wolf had to admit that Blake didn’t exactly seem jealous. Pitying woul
d be a better description of his attitude. Anyway, Blake had been right. Wolf should have listened. His lifelong friend was an uncanny judge of character.
Wolf glanced at the clock. It was 2:35 in the afternoon. He had to leave in exactly fifteen minutes to pick up Jackson from school. Last year, Jackson was raging that Merri wouldn’t let him take the subway home. Everybody takes the subway, Mom! You’re turning me into a freak show! Now, the poor kid wouldn’t go anywhere without one of them. He was as fragile a person as Wolf had ever seen. And Wolf would be there on time to get his kid, who needed him. He wasn’t going to let anyone else down. Ever.
“Look, Kris,” he said, trying not to sneak another peek at the clock. “Can’t we talk about this later?”
“Later when?”
She sat on the red felt bar stool, leaning on the quartz countertop. Her face was blotchy and red from crying. She held a tissue, regularly dabbing the corner of each eye in a practiced effort to keep her mascara and eyeliner from running. He moved toward the door, hoping she’d take the hint and follow.
“I have to get Jackson,” he said. “This is not a good time to talk.”
She subtly—almost imperceptibly—rolled her eyes. He was trying not to hate her.
“I need to know when, Wolf,” she said. “It’s been almost a year. I’ve been patient. Most women wouldn’t have waited around this long.”
There was a wide, unbridgeable gully between them. Why didn’t she see it? Did he have to spell it out for her? Maybe he did. He had been sleeping with Kristi for a year and a half. It had started a few months before they lost Abbey and had, in spite of his desire to end it, dragged on after. And the longer he was with her, the less knowable she seemed. The less he wanted to know her. Beneath that well-coiffed, (once) sunshiny exterior—what was really there? What moved her? Inspired her? Frightened her? What did she love? Hate? How many times had he heard her say blandly, “Wow, that’s awesome.” Or, all pouty: “That’s so not-awesome.” Had she ever been truly awed by anything? He didn’t know.
