The Children

by Ann Leary

  I heard Sally playing her violin when I started work that morning, but when I finished a couple of hours later, the house was quiet. I wandered downstairs to her room. The door was ajar and I was pleased to see that she was asleep on her bed. She really can get out of control when she doesn’t sleep for a while.

  I went outside to join Joan in the front garden.

  “Sally’s asleep,” I said.

  “I know,” said Joan. She was hosing a tangle of weeds.

  “I was worried, but if she was able to just go off to sleep like that, I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “I put something in her coffee,” Joan said. “Sweetie, move back now. I need to get the irises; they’re starting to come in there near the steps. I don’t want to get you all wet.”

  “What do you mean, you put something in her coffee?”

  “Oh, what’s it called. Chompsapan? Clomazapan? Something like that. I called Jim Alter and he told me to check what meds she had packed. I found them. He told me to give her the clompsapan. Said she could take a double dose.”

  “Clonazepam? He told you to give her clonazepam without her knowing?”

  “Well, I didn’t ask him, but I’m sure he would have agreed.”

  “Agreed with drugging Sally against her will? Joan, that’s so unbelievably sick. Sally’s paranoid enough. She has delusions that people do stuff like this to her. What if she found out you really did that? What if she had gotten in her car and started driving?”

  “I have her keys, Charlotte. I did the right thing. She wouldn’t have taken the medication. She loves it when she’s all high-strung. I just can’t take it. Not now. I mean, think of Spin. Laurel’s just arrived; we don’t want to overwhelm her, especially now that they’re going to be staying here.”

  “Staying here?” This was news.

  “Just for a couple of weeks. They’re having all the dorms and faculty housing painted at Holden. Everybody has to leave campus for the rest of the month.”

  “When did you find this out? When were you going to tell me?”

  “I just found out this morning. Spin called and told me, and I invited them to stay here. They’re moving in tomorrow.”

  “Why don’t they go to Perry’s?” I asked. My heart was racing.

  “They’re going to Perry’s in two weeks, once the little ones are out of school. Perry and Catherine are going to their place in the Hamptons.”

  “Does Sally know?” I asked.

  “I’ll tell her later, when she wakes up.”

  Joan was stooped over in the flower bed now, plucking at weeds. Gardening is one of Joan’s hobbies. This is a family joke, as our gardens are a disaster. She toils out there all spring and summer, yanking at weeds, moving rocks around, digging, mulching, sweating, swatting at mosquitoes, and the beds always look the same—a tangle of old overgrown perennials and masses of weeds.

  “What a mess this place is,” she said, glancing over at Everett’s house. “Why doesn’t Everett do more? He could really do more. I can’t do it all myself. Everett could help.”

  I sat on the porch swing and gazed at Everett’s house. “I can help with the garden,” I said, but I kept swaying on the swing.

  “Well, I can do it, too, but that’s not the point.”

  “What’s the point?”

  “The point is that if he were paying rent, he’d be paying two thousand a month, probably more.”

  I was feeling defensive about Everett. My mother hates it when people help her in the garden. Every time Everett tries, she accuses him of removing the heirloom perennials that she transplanted from her aunt’s garden, or some other nonsense. I didn’t feel like getting into a big thing about it, though.

  Joan grabbed one last weed and thrust it onto the little pile she had created.

  “Can you toss those into the compost heap after dinner?” she asked me. I nodded.

  “Well, I think I’ll go upstairs and die now,” Joan said. It was the old family joke; we never tired of it.

  * * *

  Sally slept for almost twenty-four hours. I wouldn’t give my sister any drug without her knowing it, but I was glad that my mother had. Sometimes, it’s just sleep Sally needs, and then she’s fine. She was wearing a little summer dress and unpacking her giant duffel bag when I peeked into her room. Her phone was attached to a portable speaker. Music was playing.

  “Hey, Sal,” I said.

  “Hey,” she said, smiling. “Man, I really slept.”

  She was back to her old self. What a relief. As she put away her things, I lay on her bed, listening to the music. It was violin and piano. A clear, simple, fluid melody.

  “Is that you playing?” I asked.

  “Yeah. With a guy I do session work with sometimes.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s this thing I’m working on. I’m trying to write music for this film.”

  “Sally, this is really pretty. What’s the film about?”

  “It’s about … well, it’s an historical thing, set in the West in the 1800s, but not a Western. Sort of a sweet, sad film. I have to watch it again.”

  “I like it,” I said.

  “Can you help me with it?” Sally asked. “I want to add something with the violin. Can you play the piano on this section? I don’t have the music, but I can write it up for you, if you need me to.”

  I listened for a few minutes. “No, I have it,” I said.

  Sally and I had been playing music together since we were children. It was Whit who taught us how to play the piano, then the ukulele, and eventually the banjo. He did this soon after we had moved to Lakeside. He had tried, with limited success, to teach Perry these instruments, but Perry practiced only when he was here, so he never really learned how to play anything. I liked playing the banjo the most, I guess, because I wanted Whit’s approval. I got to be a fast little picker, and Sally and I became competitive about who was faster. One day, Sally heard the song “Orange Blossom Special,” a bluegrass standard, one of Whit’s favorites, and it was then that she became determined to learn the fiddle. “Orange Blossom Special” is written for the fiddle. The tune is meant to sound like the engine of a train getting faster and faster. Whit bought Sally a violin and she became obsessed with it. She made me play along on the banjo while she was practicing. There used to be a video of us from when I was probably no more than six and Sally was seven. Years later, Whit posted the video on his banjo page on YouTube.

  Because I was so small, I used to play sitting on the old sofa in the music room, so that I could rest the weight of the banjo on my crossed legs. Sally stood facing me. She could really “play the hell” out of any tune, as Whit would say. We had over 200,000 views on our “Orange Blossom Special” video, but we had to take it down when Sally started playing professionally, because she was getting creepy, stalkerish comments. Anyway, I played the songs that Whit taught us—mostly bluegrass music, Appalachian music, some folk songs—but Sally played everything—classical music, jazz, Celtic music, old spirituals. She even taught herself how to play pop and hip-hop songs on her violin. (It’s really only called a fiddle when you’re playing bluegrass.)

  One Christmas Eve, when I was around eight, Sally and I played “Ode to Joy” on the banjo and violin for Whit and Joan. It was planned as a surprise; we’d been practicing for weeks. We gave it a lovely Baroque sound, the way Sally had arranged it. Whit wiped away a tear when we were finished. The next day, when Perry and Spin arrived to celebrate Christmas with us, Whit insisted that Sally and I play the melody for them. And we did play it, or at least we tried, but this time, soon after we began, Sally glanced gleefully up at our stepbrothers. I followed her gaze, and we saw Perry’s hate for the first time. Sally messed up her chords. Spin, who was just a little boy, sitting on Joan’s lap, clapped, but I saw Perry give a little smirk. We stopped and then started playing again, together, but then Sally fumbled once more, and, bursting into tears, she thrust the violin at me and refused to finish the song.

>   * * *

  We spent the rest of the morning in the music room, trying to sort out Sally’s composition. I really hadn’t been playing much since Whit died, so I was glad when Joan called us for lunch.

  “Look how nice this is,” Joan said. She was standing over the sink, husking a few ears of corn. “It’s from the farm stand. Can you believe they have corn this early?”

  “It is early,” said Sally. “It must have come from Florida or something.”

  “No, it’s from the farm stand.”

  “You may have bought it at the farm stand, but sometimes they sell produce that they don’t grow themselves. They never have corn until the very end of July,” Sally said, forcing a smile in Joan’s direction.

  “Sometimes the corn comes in early if it’s been a warm spring,” Joan insisted. “It’s been very warm this spring.”

  Why? I thought. Why must they engage each other like this?

  Sally started sorting through a pile of papers on the counter. She turned to me and held up a Christmas catalog, then pointed at the stacks of paper and mouthed, “What the fuck.”

  Sally was right. The clutter had really gotten out of control these past few months. I wandered into the mudroom and grabbed the recycling bin. I tried to be casual when I placed it next to Sally, but Joan saw us.

  “Please do NOT throw away my mail; I haven’t gone through it yet,” she snapped. And then: “It said ‘local corn’ on the sign, Sally. I don’t think the Hansens would lie about what they sell.”

  Sally dropped the papers on the counter and said, carefully, through gritted teeth, “But they didn’t say it was theirs. Local could mean New Jersey. Pennsylvania even. They’d have corn there by now.”

  Joan placed both hands on the countertop and took a deep, dramatic breath. “I’m sure you’re right,” she said, surrendering.

  Sally had gone over to look out the window. Joan turned to give me her imploring look, as if to say, Are you listening to this? Then she said, “Now, what’s going on with the orchestra? Will you be touring this summer, Sal?”

  “They will. I was actually hoping that maybe I could spend a little time out here.”

  “That would be nice,” Joan said. She had moved on from the corn and was washing lettuce. “The lettuce is from the farm stand, too,” she said cheerfully, “but now you have me thinking that they had it flown in from New Zealand.”

  She placed the lettuce on a plate and started dabbing the leaves with what appeared to be part of an old bath towel.

  “I’m not going on tour with the orchestra; I’m taking a leave,” Sally said. She was now checking expiration dates on the many vitamin and mineral supplements that Joanie likes to keep on our windowsills.

  Joan said, “Is that right. Starting when?”

  “Well, pretty soon,” said Sally. “Actually, now. Jesus Christ, this vitamin E is from 2004. This has to go, Joan. I keep telling you, this stuff goes bad if you leave it in the hot sun.”

  “Might as well have a little holiday while the weather’s nice, huh?” Joan said. “And don’t you dare throw any of those away, Sally. I mean it now. How’s your roommate? Ellie?”

  “Ella. It was Ella. I’m not really living there anymore.”

  Joan turned and looked at her. “Where have you been living?”

  “I’ve been living there, in the Chelsea apartment, with Ella. Until now. Now I’m living, well, here.”

  “Oh, Sally.”

  “Just for now.”

  Joan exhaled slowly. Her back was turned to me, but I could imagine her rolling her eyes. She reminded Sally that she’d spent every moment of her teen years griping about Harwich and how she couldn’t wait to leave it “for the real world.” “And now you’ve spent most of your adult life returning. Again and again.” She turned her attention to me. “And Charlotte, honey, now that we’re on the subject, the same goes for you, too. It’s time you got your own place. I mean, I know you love Harwich, you could get a place here in town. It would just be … healthier for you to be on your own.”

  “I don’t love Harwich,” I said. How could she even have thought that?

  “No one’s forcing either of you to stay.”

  “I’m not here to stay,” Sally said. “I’m just visiting. Jesus Christ, I’ll leave today if you want. And why shouldn’t Charlotte stay here? This house has eight bedrooms. I can’t even imagine what Whit would think if he heard you say that.”

  “I hate this town,” I repeated. “And Joan, I’ve told you before, I’ll pay you rent. I make plenty of money.”

  “No, no,” Joan said. “I don’t want your money. Let’s just drop this.”

  She placed tuna sandwiches on the table, and I grabbed one and started eating.

  “Sally, eat,” I said. “Sit down and eat.”

  The not eating is also part of it. She’ll stop eating if she’s getting sick.

  “Sally,” Joan said, “Perry and Catherine are staying at the Lockwoods’ this weekend. They’re stopping for a drink on their way back to the city.”

  “Okay, when?” asked Sally.

  “I think around three-thirty or four. Also, did Charlotte mention that Spin and Laurel will be staying here for a couple of weeks?”

  “No,” Sally said.

  Joan explained about Laurel and Spin. Unlike me, Sally appeared to be delighted with this news. “I want to get to know her better,” she said.

  “Good,” said Joan. “But listen, can you girls swap out the storm windows for the screens? I have to run to the store to get the burgers and everything. It’s been getting warmer at night. Everett said he’d do it yesterday, but he ended up working on somebody’s stone wall.”

  “Joan, all the upstairs windows? That’ll take us all day,” I said. “I put the screens in the attic windows last week; it took hours. The storm windows are so old. They weigh a ton.”

  “Just do the ones in Spin’s room, Sal’s room, and mine. We’ll all be sweltering tonight if we can’t open the windows.”

  * * *

  We started on the windows in Joan’s room and then moved on to Spin’s, which is just at the corner where the two oversized wings of the house intersect. The first level of Lakeside is clad in fieldstone, but the second and third stories are covered with scallop-shaped wood shingles that have, remarkably, survived a century of driving lake rains and snowstorms. Sally and I admired once again the craftsmanship that had gone into the design and placement of the shingles. When we were young, we used to climb out there on the porch roof, right at the corner where we now stood, and pretend that we were on the bow of a glorious schooner and that the lake below was a sea filled with sharks, pirates, and treasures. One afternoon, Whit wandered out of his workshop and saw us up there.

  “HEY!” he had shouted, and Sally and I started pushing each other to be the first to climb back in through the windows. “Girls, it’s okay. Quit shoving,” he had said. “My sister and I played up there when we were kids, too. Just watch out for loose shingles. I’ve got a guy coming out to re-shingle the whole roof. He’s a roofer from New Hampshire and he wants one of my banjos.”

  People used to joke that Whit Whitman stopped paying for things the minute he came into his money. Everybody likes to barter, but Whit thrilled at any opportunity to swap services for goods, or vice versa. He seemed to experience physical pain when he had to reach into his deep pockets for the things that could only be acquired with cash—things like heating oil, electricity, and food. He and Joan scrimped on these luxuries as much as possible, but they had to accommodate us kids to a certain extent—we insisted on using electrical lighting rather than flashlights when moving around the house at night, for example. Whenever he could, though, Whit bartered. He traded music lessons for auto repairs, garden vegetables for old tools, old banjos for new tools. He occasionally traded his expensive custom banjos for major equipment or household renovations. He had never paid Everett or his father, Bud, a penny for their work as caretakers. He never needed to, as they liv
ed in a lovely lakeside cottage and the work they did around the estate was in exchange for their rent.

  Whit did pay us kids for chores. He paid Sally, mostly, because she always outbid the rest of us. Yes, that’s right: Whit had us bid for household jobs, as if we were contractors. He wanted to teach us about how a free economy works. When we were kids, Sally’s desire to win at everything, her hypercompetitive drive, made her the hardest worker in the house—and the most poorly compensated. On a typical summer morning, Whit would announce at breakfast that the vegetable garden needed weeding. He’d ask if anybody wanted to make a little cash.

  Perry would usually start out by saying, “I’ll do it for, I guess, ten bucks.”

  I would underbid just a hair. “Nine-fifty,” I’d say.

  “Five dollars!” Sally would call out defiantly.

  Perry and I always laughed at her. “You’re doing it again, Sally,” I’d tell her. “Remember when you got paid two dollars for cleaning out the entire attic?”

  “Yeah, well, you guys got nothing,” she countered.

  “Now, that’s what I call a good work ethic,” Whit said, winking at Sally. His praise buoyed her through the beginning of the weeding. It wasn’t until the second or third hour of toiling in the heat and mosquitoes, while Perry and I sailed back and forth in front of the beach, taunting her from the boat, that she saw her mistake. Next time, she would let one of us be the “winner.”

  Now Sally said, placing a storm window carefully on the roof, “The last time I did this, Whit paid me a dollar a window.”

  “Did he help you? I remember that he’d help with heavy stuff like this if he was home,” I said.

  “Whit was always home, Charlotte.” She laughed.

  It was true. Whit was always home. He was always busy. And he made a lot of noise. I can’t remember a quiet afternoon, ever, when Whit was alive. He would listen to bluegrass while working in his shed, and the breeze usually carried the frenetic sound of the fiddles and banjos up to the house and out across the lake. The neighbors would often comment on how extraordinary it was that the music carried so far, and he took their comments at face value, rather than wonder why they were delivered in such terse tones.