Summer with My Sisters

by Holly Chamberlin

  Poppy pulled up the dirt drive and parked in front of the old farmhouse Julie called home. The house had been in Mack’s family for generations and though it clearly needed some repair—a new paint job, for one—it looked sound enough and it certainly had charm. The front porch was right out of a home decorating editorial—white wicker rocking chairs, hanging flowering plants, a brightly colored flag proclaiming “Welcome,” a child’s tricycle. The front door was painted bright red and there was a gleaming brass knocker in the shape of a rooster. Set as it was on several acres of cultivated farmland and backed by fields of wildflowers, Poppy thought the scene before her was as near to idyllic as you might get on this earth.

  Two children came running around the side of the house, laughing and chasing after a beat-up soccer ball. Julie’s son and daughter. Virginia, she thought, would be about eight and Michael about five. Poppy thought again of her own “child”—Violet. She had apologized again to her sister and had gone into the treatment room with Violet and Grimace, though the ferocity with which the cat was clawing at the bars of his carrier had frightened her. (To her great surprise, he was as calm as a Buddha once released.) Really, she had to keep in mind that even though Violet could seem preternaturally mature and self-sufficient, she was only thirteen. She would have to pay closer attention to her youngest sister. After all, her mother had asked her only weeks before she died to look out for Daisy and Violet. If only she had known what that would entail, Poppy thought. If only she had known that Dad would be with us for only another three years.

  Poppy got out of the car just as her old friend was emerging from the house, a smile on her face. Julie was a good deal shorter than Poppy (most women were), and looked to be about seven or eight months pregnant. Her hair, a natural peachy color, was pulled back in a messy ponytail and there was a smudge of what looked like jam on her cheek.

  Poppy smiled. “Putting up preserves?”

  Julie automatically wiped both cheeks with a small towel that hung over her shoulder. “More like peanut butter and jelly for lunch. My kids are addicted to it.”

  Poppy gave her old friend a hug. “It’s good to see you, Julie,” she said. “Number three! When are you due?”

  “End of August, if this one can be patient. The way it dances around . . . Come inside. I’ll make us some tea, unless you’d prefer coffee. Virginia! Tell your brother we’ll be in the kitchen.”

  Poppy watched as Julie’s daughter signed to her brother. Michael had been born deaf; Poppy didn’t know exactly what had caused his deafness and she had always felt it wasn’t her place to ask Julie for details. As long as Michael was happy and healthy . . . Poppy saw him nod and then give the ball a kick that sent it flying through the air.

  “Michael’s got quite a kick for a little guy,” she said, following Julie through a spotlessly clean and impossibly neat living room and into the kitchen. The room was charming: dish towels printed with images of chickens and roosters were placed neatly over the handle of the oven door and on the lip of the sink; several gleaming copper pots hung on a rack to the right of the oven; a bright red enamel kettle was boiling away on the stove; an old scrubbed milk can stood in one corner, from which erupted a spray of dried Bells of Ireland.

  “Where did you learn to be such a good housekeeper?” Poppy asked. “And interior decorator. If we were ever taught housekeeping in school I must have been sick that day.”

  Julie laughed. “My mother. Where else?”

  “I guess I don’t remember my mother doing all that much around the house,” Poppy said, taking a seat at the round wooden table. “She spent a lot of time working in the garden, but otherwise we had a housekeeper. Do you remember her? Mrs. Olds also made a lot of our meals. With both of my parents always working so much and my father on the road so often it made sense. Of course, I never paid any attention to what Mrs. Olds was doing and now I regret it. I’m having to learn everything about keeping a house and a family in good working order all at once.”

  “It’s not rocket science, Poppy,” Julie said. “Mostly it’s common sense and organization.”

  “I’m finding that out,” Poppy admitted. She thought again of Violet and vowed to buy one of those large whiteboards and install it prominently in the kitchen. She would make it a habit to write down every appointment and event her sisters mentioned and to check the board regularly.

  Julie brought the tea and a tin of homemade chocolate chip cookies to the table and sat down across from Poppy.

  “So, what is it exactly you do in Boston?” she asked. “Or, I guess, did, unless you’re working from home?”

  “No, I’m taking a hiatus from work.” As succinctly as she could Poppy explained the sort of writing and reporting she had done for the online magazines.

  “It sounds so exciting,” Julie said.

  Poppy laughed. “Not exactly cutting-edge stuff, believe me.” In fact, Poppy thought, Julie’s cheese-making was far more exotic than what she had been doing for the past few years. “Mostly it’s sitting at a computer for so many hours a day you almost forget how to talk to a person face-to-face.”

  “That doesn’t sound very exciting, you’re right. I’ll stick to my curds and whey.”

  Poppy laughed. “What are they, exactly? Other than what Little Miss Muffet was eating when the spider came along.”

  Julie explained. “But enough about dairy products,” she said then, “tell me more about you. Are you seeing anyone special?”

  “No.” Poppy shrugged. “Unlucky in love, I guess.” If never having been in love at all was unlucky, she thought. Maybe it was a sign that she was somehow emotionally deficient. That was a startling thought.

  “Maybe you’ll meet someone here in Yorktide,” Julie suggested.

  “You’ve always been such an optimist! There can’t be many single, eligible men in this little town.”

  Julie grinned. “All it takes is one.”

  “That’s true, but meeting someone is the last thing on my mind. Honestly, I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by—by life.”

  “You’ve been put in a tough position for sure. You know if there’s anything I can do to help, I will.”

  Poppy was genuinely touched by her old friend’s offer of support. “For one,” she said, “you could give me the recipe for these cookies. Better yet, you could make me a batch. If you have time, I mean. I haven’t attempted to bake anything since I last made brownies with my mother and that was from a mix.”

  “Gladly. In the meantime I want you to have these.” Julie went to the fridge and retrieved a round of goat cheese and a wedge of what she described as an alpine type cheese made from cow’s milk. “Fisk Farm’s finest. Wow. Try saying that three times in a row.”

  Poppy smiled. “Thank you, Julie. What do I owe you?”

  “Nothing,” Julie assured her. “Just promise you won’t be a stranger.”

  Poppy promised, said good-bye, and got behind the wheel of the car that had once been her father’s. What choice did she have but to promise? she thought as she drove off. Even if she wanted to disappear into a life of solitude, she doubted it would be possible in a town like Yorktide, where everybody knew everybody and gossip was often more reliable than the newspaper. And maybe—just maybe—that would turn out to be a good thing.

  Chapter 15

  “He did have a flair for the dramatic, your father. Rabelais, no less.”

  Violet and Sheila were visiting the Higgins family plot in Yorktide Memorial Cemetery. Someday, Violet thought, she would be buried there, alongside her parents. She knew for sure that she didn’t want to be cremated. She thought being buried was nicer, with a carpet of green grass over your head and pretty flowers sprouting from your body, like in those lines in Hamlet. She wasn’t sure what her sisters thought about such things. She strongly suspected they wouldn’t be comfortable talking about them.

  Sheila placed the bouquets of wildflowers she and Violet had picked earlier on each of the graves.

  “Do you be
lieve in life after death?” Violet asked.

  Sheila raised an eyebrow. “What a question! I wasn’t sure anyone wondered about such things anymore. But yes, I don’t see why not. Just don’t ask me what it might be like. I don’t know how anyone can presume to know such a thing, or even to hazard a guess.”

  “I think it must be very interesting, whatever it’s like. Life after death. Interesting and beautiful, like a spectacular garden.” But not like that garden in my dream, Violet thought. The one in which she had killed her mother.

  “I certainly hope so,” Sheila replied.

  “Though I doubt it’ll be like those stories about heaven my mother told me she was taught when she was little. People meeting up again with long-dead relatives and friends, like at a big party.”

  “How confusing!” Sheila cried. “I always wondered how you would work things out, meeting former husbands and their new wives or the weird kid in high school who followed you around, desperately wanting to be your friend. Let’s face it, there are some people you just don’t want to meet again, here or there!”

  “Oh, I’m sure. I believe in angels, too, but I don’t think they have wings and wear flowing robes. I think they’re more—presences.”

  Sheila looked carefully at Violet. “I didn’t know young girls thought much about . . . presences.”

  “I do.”

  “Do you feel your parents’ presences? That’s hard to say, parents’ presences.”

  “Oh, yes,” Violet said. “Of course I do. For a while after Mom died I actually saw her around the house. But it’s been kind of a long time since that’s happened. I guess she’s moved on. That’s the phrase people use—moved on.”

  “My dear, I never knew you were so—”

  “So what?” Violet asked.

  “So attuned. Have you also seen your father?”

  “No. It’s been four months since he died, so I don’t think I’ll ever be seeing him. But I know he’s around, or that part of him is.”

  “I understand,” Sheila said. “When our cat Jack died—remember him?—I heard him for almost a year afterward. I swear he was still in the house. I’d hear the particular sound of his jumping from the bed and landing on the bare wood floor. I’d hear his unique way of meowing. Ma-Mow! Ma-Mow! Freddie thought I was losing my mind, I’m afraid. There’s not an imaginative bone in that woman’s body.”

  Violet nodded. “Freddie is very earthbound. You have to be earthbound to be a lawyer, I guess. She must be the practical one in your house.”

  “I can be practical, too,” Sheila pointed out. “Don’t forget, I was a very effective administrative assistant for many years. But when I don’t have to be—earthbound—I’m glad. I know you understand.”

  Violet remembered how Poppy had sounded dubious when she told her that Sheila was her friend. As if two people so far apart in age couldn’t understand each other. Couldn’t count on each other. She looked up at Sheila. “You are my friend, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “What a question! Of course I am.”

  “And I’m your friend?”

  Sheila smiled. “Violet, never doubt it for a moment. You’re stuck with me through thick or thin.”

  “Good,” Violet said. And she slipped her hand into Sheila’s, aware that it was the first time she had initiated physical contact with another person since her father had died.

  Chapter 16

  Daisy climbed out of what had once been her father’s car, murmured a hurried thank-you to Poppy, and jogged up the graveled path to the doors of Pine Hill Residence for the Elderly. Three people were coming out of the building as she dashed up the front stairs, a man, a woman, and a girl about Daisy’s age. They had probably just paid a visit to an aged relative, Daisy thought. And the girl looked vaguely familiar . . .

  Ah. She knew what it was. The girl looked a bit like the one Daisy had bumped into in the convenience store the other day, the one wearing the pink hoodie, the one who had seemed nervous or on edge. Well, Daisy supposed that having a stranger almost send you crashing into a shelf of toothpaste could unsettle anyone. She really wished she weren’t so prone to stumbling! Poppy and Violet were both so graceful in their movements. I’m the oddball sister, she thought. The ugly duckling among the swans.

  Daisy waved to the security guard by the front door and signed in at the volunteer station. Then she took the stairs to the second floor, where her favorite residents had a small apartment—one bedroom, one bathroom (complete with several safety bars), an open-plan living/dining area, and a kitchenette. Muriella and Bertie Wilkin had been married for sixty-three years; they were now in their late eighties. Daisy found Muriella sitting comfortably in an armchair, leafing through a magazine about quilting. (Arthritis had forced her to give up her favorite hobby, but she still kept up with the quilting community.) Muriella smiled when she saw Daisy. Though she had told Daisy she had once been five foot seven inches tall it was hard to imagine, seeing her now. Her shoulders were sadly bent and her neck was set forward, giving her, in her own words, “the look of a curious turtle.” But Muriella’s eyes were still bright and she was proud to tell anyone who cared to know that all of her teeth were the originals.

  “How are you today, Mrs. Wilkin?” Daisy asked, kissing the woman on the cheek and taking a seat in the other armchair facing her.

  “Just fine. And how are you? Enjoying the summer when you’re not kindly paying a visit to my old bones?”

  Daisy laughed. “I’m trying to. What would you like to do today? We could go sit on the back porch, but I have to warn you, it’s pretty humid out there.”

  Muriella pretended to shudder. “The humidity always did wreak havoc with my hair. No, let’s stay here.”

  “Where’s Mr. Wilkin?” Daisy asked.

  “In the lounge down the hall, playing checkers with that cheat, whatever his name is. I always forget.”

  Daisy laughed. “Does he—whoever he is—really cheat at checkers? I didn’t know that was possible.”

  “Tom must—that’s his name, Tom—because Bertie loses a dollar to him every time they play and let me tell you, Bertie never lost a legitimate game of checkers in his life.”

  “Do you want to report Tom to the staff?” Daisy asked. She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about turning in a senior citizen, but the Wilkins were on a very fixed budget. A dollar here and there could really add up.

  Muriella laughed. “Oh, no, that’s the last thing I want to do. Bertie loves complaining about Tom and his underhanded ways. If Tom was made to be law-abiding, Bertie would be very annoyed indeed.”

  “Okay,” Daisy said. “I’ll keep my mouth shut.” And then she got up from the chair and began to pace around the room.

  “You’ve been thinking,” Muriella noted. “Would you like to tell me what about?”

  “Yes,” Daisy said. “I would. The other day I read an article online about couples who have been married for fifty, even sixty or seventy years, dying on the same day or just about. They just can’t live without each other. It’s like they became one person somewhere along the line.” Daisy came to a sudden halt and whirled to face Mrs. Wilkin. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she cried. “I shouldn’t be talking about dying. I told myself not to and then I totally forgot!!”

  Muriella laughed. “Why shouldn’t you talk about dying? I do know that I’m going to die, and quite possibly some time very soon.”

  Daisy hurried over to Mrs. Wilkin and put a hand on her arm. “But I shouldn’t be reminding you of it.”

  “Mortality, my child, is not something I’m likely to forget for more than a moment at a time.”

  “I guess,” Daisy said, and sank back into her chair. “So . . . do you think that you and Mr. Wilkin will die one soon after the other?”

  Muriella shrugged. “Impossible to say. But for myself, I suspect that if my beloved passes before I do, I won’t much want to stay around. Not that I would take any measures to end my life. My religion forbids it and since it won’t be lo
ng before I meet my Maker I don’t want to start sinning now.”

  “No, of course not,” Daisy said. “You know, Mrs. Wilkin, I really believe that my father died of a broken heart. I think he died because my mother had died. Not right away. He had my sisters and me to take care of. But I think that after a few years without my mother he just couldn’t go on any longer.”

  Muriella leaned forward in her chair. “I do hope you don’t spend too much time dwelling on such things,” she said. “You’re too young to be morbid.”

  “Oh, I don’t think I’m being morbid,” Daisy said quickly. “I mean, I hate the fact that my father is gone, but it is kind of wonderful to think that people can love each other so much they can’t live without each other. That they’re together again, forever.”

  “And there,” Muriella said, sitting back, “you veer a little too close to the morbidly romantic, my child. Suicide pacts and whatnot. Romeo and Juliet. Better to look at those widows and widowers who were able to live on and rebuild a life while honoring the spouse’s memory.”

  “Yes,” Daisy said. She wasn’t sure she agreed with Mrs. Wilkin, but she didn’t want her friend to be worrying about her any more than she might already be. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “Now, I think you need some cheering up. What do you say we go down to the café for an ice cream?”

  Daisy smiled. “I’m supposed to be the one cheering you up.”

  “A relationship works both ways, my dear. And one is happiest when one feels needed.”

  “That’s true,” Daisy agreed. And it made me so happy to take care of Dad. . . . “How are your children?” Daisy asked as she offered a hand to Mrs. Wilkin and helped her out of her armchair.

  “Causing their parents chest pains.” Mrs. Wilkin peered up at Daisy. “You would think that after sixty or so years Bertie and I would be free of worry about our children. But sometimes, it doesn’t work that way.”