ALSO BY MARGARET DILLOWAY
How to Be an American Housewife
The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
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Copyright © 2015 by Margaret Dilloway
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The author gratefully acknowledges permission to quote lines from “Around the time Naishi died, snow fell, then melted away,” by Izumi Shikibu, from The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono No Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan, by Jane Hirshfield, translation copyright © 1990 by Jane Hirshfield. Used by permission of Vintage Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Any third-party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Random House LLC for permission.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dilloway, Margaret.
Sisters of heart and snow / Margaret Dilloway.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-698-16071-2
1. Sisters—Fiction. 2. Domestic fiction. I. Title.
PS3604.I4627S57 2015 2014040675
813'.6—dc23
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
CONTENTS
Also by Margaret Dilloway
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
For Cadillac
In a realm of his own.
Why did you vanish
into empty sky?
Even the fragile snow
when it falls,
falls in this world.
—IZUMI SHIKIBU (CA. 974–CA. 1034)
Some Warriors look fierce, but are mild. Some seem timid, but are vicious. Look beyond appearances; position yourself for the advantage.
—DENG MING-DAO
Obedience: Yoshinaka’s Mistress Tomoe, from the series The Eight Virtues by Utagawa Yoshikazu
Photograph © 2015 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Tomoe held the round bronze mirror with steady hands, fighting her nervous pulse. A warrior stared back at her, in full battle dress. The close-fitting wrapped jacket and ankle-length pants worn under her armor, her hitatare, were fuchsia silk, embroidered in a repeating light pink depiction of the Minamoto crest, bamboo leaves fanning above a gentian flower. Over this she wore her armor, a crimson damask cover hiding the sturdy bamboo plates.
A bronze crown of intricate scrollwork served as her helmet, with long red tassels dangling near each high cheekbone. Her full lower lip and pronounced Cupid’s-bow mouth stood out crimson in her pale face.
Behind her, Yamabuki’s dark eyes shone like wet pearls. If Tomoe’s skin could be called pale, then Yamabuki’s was white, luminescent as sea life in the deepest waters. Yamabuki’s hair was black, too, but shot through with silver and white strands.
Yamabuki worked through Tomoe’s thick long hair with a tortoiseshell comb and fragrant camellia oil, her small hands working quickly to undo the knots. “There. You are ready, my captain. Your hair is so well oiled, a typhoon cannot disturb it.”
Tomoe’s throat went dry. Yamabuki had begun as her rival, but soon she found that she needed Yamabuki as much as Yamabuki needed her. Tomoe the warrior, Yamabuki the poet. The strong and the gentle. Two sides of one coin. Now she could no more imagine her world without Yamabuki than she could imagine cutting off her own arm.
Yamabuki blinked rapidly and Tomoe grasped the other woman’s hand. “And you? Are you prepared?”
“As ready as I need to be. What can I do? Offer the enemy some tea? Play him some music?” Yamabuki stood and retrieved Tomoe’s short sword from the corner. The tiny woman staggered under its weight. Tomoe watched her, knowing Yamabuki would refuse any offers of help. “I do not understand how you can carry this, much less fight with it.”
Tomoe took the sword. Their fingers touched. Tomoe’s insides seized, and she took a deep breath to steady herself. “I should stay here and protect you.”
“No.” Yamabuki retrieved the quiver of arrows and bow next. “You must go.” For a moment, she looked again like the girl she had been on her arrival. A wobbly newborn chick finding its way among piebald eagles. “I will be all right.”
There was a saying for a dear female friend you held as close as a relative. Sister of heart.
Unlike Yamabuki, Tomoe had never been good at putting what she felt into words. Instead, she retrieved her naginata, a small sword attached to a long pole, from its place in a corner of the room. With a bow, she presented it to Yamabuki. The woman didn’t move. “Take it.” How Tomoe wished Yamabuki would heft up the naginata and arc it through the air with a shout. Stab at something. But the woman could barely wrap her tiny fingers around the pole.
“Arigato.” Yamabuki inclined her head toward Tomoe, and laid the naginata carefully on the floor. “And I have something for you,” Yamabuki added, reaching into her pocket. It was a piece of braided red cord, hung on bright blue fabric. A good-luck amulet. “An omamori. To protect you.”
Outside, the army chanted for her. “Tomoe, Tomoe!” The drums and horns sounded and the men stomped their feet on the ground, banging swords against metal. Tomoe felt the vibrations in her eardrums, in her heart.
Yamabuki took a step back and bowed deeply. Tomoe bowed in return. Both filled with unspoken words that would always remain so.
One
SAN DIEGO
Present Day
People in my family are pathologically incapable of asking anyone for help. It’s probably the only tradition we have. Call it pride or stubbornness or fear of rejection, even—each of us is our own island. No matter what anybody’s going through, we pretend everything’s fine, just
fine, thanks for asking, and we soldier on.
Take my mother. My mother never asked me or my sister for anything. Not for help with the dishes or cooking. Not for a Christmas or birthday present. Not even for a simple hug.
But I always believed that my mother had deeper needs. Wants she would not express out loud, even when she could still communicate. Maybe even desires I was afraid to ask her about, in case I couldn’t help her.
Except for today. Today she broke through her cocoon and, finally, now of all times, asked.
I’ll do anything I can to help her. I wish she’d always known that.
I put one hand on top of the other, palms down, and rock the soles of my feet back and forth into the smooth concrete pool deck. Goggles and earplugs and nose plugs and swim cap and plain black Speedo racerback swimsuit all in place.
You wouldn’t know it, but there was once a day when I could have handily beat every single person standing on the pool deck next to me. That sleek woman to my right. The barrel-chested old man in the unfortunate Speedo to my left. Even the twenty-year-old man already kicking through the water. In fact, there’s still a plaque in the La Jolla High gym that bears my name. Rachel Snow, 100-Meter Freestyle record. Still unbroken, says a handwritten note below it. That was who I used to be. Unbroken.
The noon sun covers me in a prickly blanket. It’s October, and still oven-warm here in San Diego. Only a few people are in the public pool in the middle of the weekday, parents splashing in the shallow end with their toddlers. Later, it’ll be filled with water polo teams and after-school swim clubs.
Usually swimming clears my head, but not today. My brain turns over and over what happened this morning, when I visited my mother in the nursing home. I shake my shoulders loose, take a deep breath in. One, two, three. I release it, take another, stare at the shimmering blue-white water. Yes, there it is. That particular ache I get whenever I think about Mom.
We had a good visit today. Not because my mother knew who I was, but because we had a nice time together. Being quiet. Looking at foam on the waves and cloud formations in the sky. This was a beautiful facility, situated as it is right by the Pacific, and its expense matches its views—and my father can afford it without a single sacrifice.
My mother and I ate ginger and lemon crème cookies, dipping them into our decaf black tea. She ate a whole sleeve. Probably not on her approved diet list, but really, if I were in my mom’s situation, I’d be eating a daily pound of See’s. You might as well enjoy the time you have left. The truth is, she’s never going to get better.
After we finished our snack, Mom continued staring out the window. I sat in another slipcovered armchair next to hers.
Mom’s coarse black hair, white at the roots, was standing up, and I reached over to smooth it down. “Hikari Sato.” My voice was so loud I hurt my own ears. Most of the time, people ask me to repeat myself. Mom didn’t turn at the sound of her name. I wondered what she was thinking about. If she remembered her husband, my father.
I haven’t seen or talked to him since I was sixteen. I’d become a problem child, breaking the rules, acting the wrong way, and my father had abruptly told me to get out, forbade my mother to see me. I’ve heard, since then, of other parents doing the same for various reasons—often because they disapprove of their child’s partner or lifestyle or sexual orientation. Some people have an unshakable internal morality. As far as he’s concerned, he has only one daughter now, Drew. I’m not sure I’ll ever talk to him again. If you can say anything about Killian Snow, it’s that he will never give up.
“Hey.” Mom took my hand in her paper-dry one. “Look out there.” She pointed to the parking lot below, where a man shimmied out of his wetsuit, his surfboard leaning against the open trunk of his sedan, having finished some morning surfing. His broad shoulders glistened with salt water. “Check out that surfer. He’s changing. I can see everything. Back and front.” She giggled, a throaty, mischievous sound, then leaned over and rapped on the window. “Woo!” she shouted like a teenager, and he looked up, searching for the source. “That cold water didn’t hurt him any.”
“Mom!” I giggled, too, my laugh echoing hers perfectly. A flush rose up my neck. The man waved, believing it was me yelling, not the tiny innocent-looking Japanese woman sitting next to me. Oh well. I leaned back out of sight and checked the time. “I have to go, okay?” I stand, kiss the top of her head. “I’ll see you next week.”
“Wait.” Mom grabbed my upper arm, hyperalert. Wrinkles suddenly cracked across her face like riverbeds on a relief map, cutting across the high mountains of her cheekbones. “Wait, wait.” She yanked with sudden Hulk-like strength on my arm, and I sat right back down.
Mom wanted something.
I gently pried her hand off my arm, no small feat. “What is it, Mom? What do you need?” I thought perhaps she’d ask me for a box of her favorite cookies, Mallomars, or maybe even tell me to bring my twenty-year-old daughter, Quincy, and my fourteen-year-old son, Chase, around next time.
Her mouth opened, forming words I couldn’t catch, her voice raspy and low. Like she couldn’t quite expel the syllables hard enough.
“Say it again.” I leaned closer, trying to make out her meaning.
Mom cupped my chin with her hand. “Rachel.” Her eyes met mine, purposefully now, not with the usual randomness, as if my eyes were another piece of furniture in the room. “Rachel, Rachel.”
Mom was back. If only for a moment.
“Mom?” I leaned forward, my mouth going dry. “What is it you need? Tell me. I’ll help you.” Tell me. Make up for all the other times you didn’t ask. Or when I couldn’t help.
Mom took a gigantic gulp of air, as if she’d been diving hundreds of feet under water. “Hon, hon,” she whispered in Japanese.
I didn’t speak the language. “Hon?” I whispered back, though I wasn’t sure why we were whispering. We were all alone in the calm, white room. The plastic vertical blinds rattled in the breeze. Mom blinked and screwed up her face like she’d tasted something sour. “Sewing room,” she said finally, with tremendous effort, in English. “Drew knows. Drew will help.”
My little sister. Not that she’s been little for a long time. Younger, I corrected myself. I will always be younger than you, Drew liked to say. “What does hon mean, Mom?”
Mom took her hand out of mine and stared back out the window, at the ocean waves pounding. Another car pulled into the surfer’s vacated spot. I bent into her face, searched her gaze for a sign she knew me. But it was like looking at the blank dark screen of a laptop. Only my own reflection.
• • •
Now I hesitate on the pool deck, straighten, crack my shoulder and stretch it out, considering my mother’s request. Small pins of pain shoot up across my back, to my spine. Hon. I had looked up the word. Hon means “book.”
My mother wants me to get a book.
From her sewing room? Or what used to be her sewing room? And Drew, of all people, knows? As far as I know, my sister’s never set foot in that room. That was Mom’s sacred space. I’m going to have to call my little sister. Which means bumping up our phone calls from birthday-and-holiday-only to an out-of-the-ordinary one.
I imagine Drew’s voice, smooth as melted sugar, coating over her real emotions. It used to be so easy, second nature, to tell what my sister was thinking. Now there’s a thick invisible wall between us, and it’s like we’re little girls again, our beds on each side of the wall, tapping and hoping the other will hear, after the other one’s already deep asleep.
Drew coming home from the hospital is one of my very first memories. I was four when Drew was born. I wasn’t too excited about having a baby in the house. I didn’t even like baby dolls.
Mom told me to sit quietly on the couch. She put Drew in my lap. “Hold her while I get her bottle ready,” she instructed me. “Do not move.” Drew lay perfectly still, wrapped up li
ke a sausage in her blanket. I thought Mom had tricked me, brought me a heavy doll. I stared at her. She slept, immobile. Boring. She smelled like sour milk. Her head was pointy, her face wrinkled and homely.
I poked her in the cheek with my finger, dimpling the soft skin like dough. I poked her again, a little harder. “Wake up.”
Drew opened her eyes and stared right at me. Her eyes were the deepest gray-brown then, like polished obsidian mixed with dark chocolate. Her stubborn little arm busted free and her tiny hand clutched my finger.
My heart stuttered. “Hello,” I whispered, and I swore to God she smiled, though everyone said newborns couldn’t. I kissed the spots where I’d poked her. That night, I slept in her room, on the floor next to her crib, until Mom caught me and made me go back to my own bed.
It was my sister who taught me how to love.
“Feel like a race, Rachel?” the sleek woman to my right says. Shelley, another mother who swims laps here regularly. She pulls her dark goggles down over her tanned face and white swim cap and stretches her wide, muscular shoulders. “It’ll be good for both of us.”
My own shoulder gives a twinge of anticipatory pain. “That’s okay. You go on with your bad self.”
She sticks out her lips. “You’re no fun.”
“I know, I know.” I wave her off and she dives in. Wet blanket. Hey, somebody’s got to be the sensible one, even if it’s not much fun sometimes. I bend over again, grabbing for the water, diving in without a splash. Perfect, even when nobody cares.
Water has its own time. Inside, under the water, you can’t hear anything but muffled sounds from the people onshore. Bubbles and sloshing from whoever or whatever’s in there with you. Nothing to look at but the white lines painted on the bottom of the pool.
Usually I don’t think of anything at all while I swim, which is why I love it so much. Even with my bum shoulder, which still flares up like a barometer on thunderous days.
But today. Today I do my usual crawl, two strokes and then a breath, two strokes and then a breath, my big feet like turtle fins propelling me along. I look down at the white lines and instead I see the familiar faces of my mother, my sister, and my daughter. The three women closest to me.
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