The Geometry of Sisters

by Luanne Rice

  My months of stealing had given me practice in casing various joints. Only this time, I did it in reverse. Instead of waiting for the right moment to grab the goods, I bided my time for the precise opportunity to return them.

  “There's a library, you know,” Logan said as I browsed through the books.

  “I know,” I said, my back to her.

  “What's your name, Becca?” Ty asked.

  “Beck,” I said.

  “You're Travis's sister.”

  “Yeah,” I said, still not turning around. But I knew that made me okay in Ty's eyes. Being my brother's sister had gotten me accepted by a lot of older boys and football players over the years. I was the squirt sister. There was a place for me in their universe. Deal with it, Logan.

  “I just think, if you're looking for a book, there are more choices in the library,” Logan said.

  “Thanks,” I said as I continued to peruse the shelves.

  “This room is more for reading,” she said. “The library is for research.”

  The thing is, in spite of the fact she was chewing face and not reading at all, she was right. Newport Academy had a great library. It was on the front of the building and faced east, over the sea. The tall windows had been specially tinted, to protect the thousands of volumes arranged over two levels, and the whole library was modeled after the Long Room in the Old Library at Trinity College, Dublin. Apparently old James Desmond Blackstone had worked there as a porter when he was a boy shelving books and doing general janitorial duties for the librarians, and to him a grand library like that was the sine qua non of a fine school. He wanted it to happen, and it did.

  But I avoided our school library for the exact reason that others loved it: it faced the water. Water is still my downfall. I avoid it, even the sight of it, whenever possible. That's how I'd come to discover the reading room, this little star sapphire of a chamber. Blue shantung silk on the walls, three tall mahogany bookcases, one with a glass front, a seating area with loveseat and two armchairs, all covered in faded old chintz patterned with blue flowers—thistles and forget-me-nots.

  Set in the middle of the second floor, between the boys' and girls' wings, it has no windows at all. There is a cozy fireplace for warmth, with a white Italian marble mantel carved with lilies; it was one of my favorite places to hide out and commune with trigonometric functions. I waited for Logan and Ty to leave, to get tired of enacting their mad passion with me five feet away.

  Just as an aside: it's kind of weird watching super-attractive people make out. It's like watching a movie, everyone's features so chiseled, and their bodies nothing like yours or mine. Even the spit in the corner of Ty's mouth as he shoved his tongue into Logan's was kind of mesmerizing. I turned away, stared through the glass-paneled doors on the one bookcase.

  There were six shelves. Five were filled with books—obviously the oldest volumes, bound in red or green leather, the titles in delicate gold. The sixth shelf was filled with small objects: a crystal globe, a pressed shamrock, dry and brown, in a small frame, silver-framed photos of distinguished-looking men and women, a framed clipping from the local paper about the swimming pool on the fourth floor, the first of its kind in the whole United States. And two brass mice—I had the third in my pocket.

  A title caught my eye: Rose Hawthorne: A Life.

  I knew nothing of her, whoever she was, and biographies are far from my favorite reading material. I prefer anything on mathematics, books by Bertrand Russell, or even Bishop George Berkeley. But the name shimmered: Hawthorne. Hawthorne House. Carrie, my aunt's scrapbook. So I took the old red leather-bound book down from the center of the shelf.

  Sitting in a chair kitty-corner to Logan and Ty, feeling the fire's warmth on my legs, I read a page. Rose was the second daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Her father had called her “Rosebud.” She had lived from 1851 to 1926. The family had spent time in Italy; she'd had a spiritual conversion, become a Catholic, founded a religious order, and opened a hospital for the poor. She was saintly.

  I was lost in thought. Could there be some connection with the Hawthorne House Aunt Katharine had discovered in Providence? With Carrie? When I looked up, Logan and Ty were gone; they had slipped out without my noticing. But Redmond had come looking for me. He stood in the doorway, his corkscrew red hair zinging all over the place. He looked at me with a goofy grin.

  “Guess what?” he asked.

  “Uh, you have a new freckle?”

  “I got the word from Mr. Campbell. I can go to Providence with the math team.”

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I can carry your books for you.”

  “I have to tell you something,” I heard myself say. “My sister is in Providence. She ran away a year ago. I haven't seen her since then. I don't even care about math anymore. I just want to find my sister.”

  “Thanks for telling me that,” Redmond said. “It…”

  He turned so red, he matched the fire. I waited for him to finish.

  “It makes me feel close to you,” he said.

  “Me too,” I said. “Close to you.”

  I smiled at him and put the Rose Hawthorne biography back on the shelf. Next to it was another book, a smaller one I hadn't noticed before. Its cover was tattered and the words Love and Sorrow were written on it in ink, in a delicate script. The words might have been written just for me, to describe the way I felt.

  That's when Redmond held my hand. Just held it, standing there by the fire, thinking of going to Providence.

  20MAURA AND KATHARINE GOT TOGETHER EVERY night after work. The first few nights after Thanks giving they huddled at the kitchen table, talking about Carrie and what they could do. Together they went through the details, Katharine using the notebook to remind her of everything she'd learned.

  They talked to Tim Marcus, who said he'd finally gotten the eBay guy to tell him what they already knew: that he had sent the lot of western postcards to a postbox in Providence, Rhode Island.

  They cooked dinner together. Chopping vegetables, seasoning the sauce, setting the table. Travis and Beck pulled up chairs to the kitchen table, asked everything about Carrie. Maura filled them in the best she could, leaving out the parts about J.D. Katharine told them about her drives through Fox Point, the people she'd talked to and given Carrie's picture to.

  Maura loved watching her kids interact with her sister. It seemed both so simple and so extraordinary. Why had this seemed so hard? How could they have messed up so many years? It was difficult for Maura to not blame herself, think of ways she might have made things better, reached out, invited Katharine to more family events—holidays, graduations, spring concerts. She'd catch herself feeling the old bitterness, regretting her own actions, wishing Katharine hadn't shut her out for so long, wishing she herself hadn't made so many mistakes.

  And then she figured it out. The morning of Beck's math competition, when they were all getting in the van to go to Providence, Maura caught sight of J.D. He had wheeled himself out onto the sidewalk to watch them go. Maura raised her hand to wave, turned to Katharine to make sure she saw him, and caught sight of the look in her sister's eyes.

  Katharine was gazing at J.D., not with the warmth of friendship, but with the longing of a woman in love. That glimmer came back, the one Maura had felt on the phone eighteen years ago, when she'd wondered if both she and Katharine were in love with the same man. Everything clicked into place. The truth was right there in her sister's face; Maura stared for a few seconds, and then she had to look away.

  Okay, this is how being completely distracted by my sister helped me to win the competition. The first thing is, I didn't care. I really didn't give anything close to a crap about winning. All I wanted to do was drive north, enter the city, and find Carrie. I know that sounds naive, but that's how we're connected. I felt as if I were within a certain distance from my sister, our DNA would start vibrating. We'd be like tuning forks, responding to each other.

  Mr. Campbell chartered a big va
n, and we all piled in. My mother, brother, aunt, and a bunch of kids from school, including Redmond. Lucy and Pell couldn't come; they both wanted to, but their grandmother presided over some annual December tea and expected them to be there. That's okay. Although I'm not sure Travis felt the same way; I think he wished Pell were coming.

  Redmond and I sat in the back seat. Up front my mother and aunt sat together. I liked watching their heads close together, whispering. I stared, and tried to make sense of something. I'd gotten a strange tuning-fork feeling about them just as we'd all boarded the van—and it seemed to have something to do with that guy in the wheelchair, on the sidewalk in front of Blackstone Hall.

  Maybe it was a sister thing, the quivery vibration I picked up from my mother and aunt. They were both looking at the guy, as if they knew him from a long time ago. Something about him made them both sad. I stared at the backs of their heads, just waiting for the troubled feeling to go away. And it did—once the van drove out the gates and headed for the bridge.

  I'd brought a few pictures of my sister, and I showed them to Redmond as the van sped north. He stared at them, not asking what he was looking at. Finally he raised his big brown eyes, gave me a quizzical gaze.

  “That's your sister,” he said.

  “How can you tell?” Most people don't think we look that much alike.

  “I'd know your sister anywhere,” he said.

  “I told you about her, that she ran away.”

  “I remember.”

  “And that we think she's in Providence,” I said.

  Redmond nodded and I turned to the window.

  As we drove along, I watched intently. I wasn't sure how long it took to get to Providence, and I wanted to be ready to spot Carrie the minute we got within territory.

  “Why would she be there?” he asked after a while.

  I'd been wondering that myself. I knew Carrie better than anyone. If she'd come to Rhode Island to see Aunt Katharine, I could understand. But my aunt's farm was in Portsmouth, closer to Newport than Providence. So Carrie must have had some other reason. It hurt and confused me, to tell you the truth. To think of my sister having that big a secret.

  “I don't know,” I said. “But I swear, I think I'm going to see her today.”

  “Then I think that too,” he said.

  “Do you really?” I asked. I appreciated his support, but what I really wanted was to know if he had a real sense of it or not. Redmond, for as much as I tease him, is full of intuition and insight about people and situations. I see him watching me, and this is going to sound strange, but I know he gets me. After such a short time, he really does. He would be a good psychologist or psychic.

  “I want it because you do,” he said. “Because I know how much you want to see her.”

  “Will you help me?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said, eyes gleaming as if I'd just made him a Knight of the Round Table.

  He took the photos from me, bending to look at them with such rapt attention he didn't even notice the big blue bug, a huge royal blue cockroach on top of a building and a favorite Rhode Island landmark, when we passed by.

  The van drove us to Brown University, parked in front of the Rockefeller Library. “That's called ‘the Rock,’” Redmond told me, pointing at the library. Then as we crossed the street, “Those are the Van Wickle Gates.” Massive wrought-iron gates guarding the campus; we walked through, across the tree-shaded green toward a row of graceful buildings. Redmond grabbed my arm, pointed off to the right. I spotted a bell tower rising from the northwest corner of the green.

  “That's Carrie Tower,” he said.

  I thought he was kidding me, and wasn't sure how to take it. But he was looking so serious.

  “Really?”

  He nodded, and we pulled away from the Newport Academy pack to go closer. Made of red brick, decorated with stonework, classically adorned with carved fruit, urns, and shields, the tower looked about ninety feet tall. At the top was a clock.

  “It was built for Carrie Brown,” Redmond said. “She was the granddaughter of Nicholas Brown, namesake of the university.”

  “What happened to her?” I asked.

  “She died,” he said, pointing. And then I saw the words inscribed on the base: Love Is Strong as Death.

  I touched them with my fingertips. I thought of my father, and I felt Carrie, my sister, with me. Closing my eyes, I felt the warm mud of the lake bank, the sun on my face, the happiness of being beside her. We were about to get in that canoe. This clock tower would turn back time, and my father would be alive, and Carrie would be with us now.

  She was with me now. I felt it, so surely, when I opened my eyes I was sure I'd see her standing right there. Students walked past, on their way to classes. Redmond gazed at me with huge brown eyes. My mother called my name. I left my hand on the letters as long as I could. I wanted Carrie to see the words, know that they were true. Love is strong as death. If Carrie knew that, if she really felt it, wouldn't she come home? Wouldn't she know that we grieved our father's drowning, but that our love for her, for them both, was giving us life, keeping us going?

  “I need you, Carrie,” I whispered.

  My mother walked over, put her arm around me. I pointed at the words written in stone. I felt her gaze at them, take them in. Then she led me toward Mr. Campbell and the rest of the group. Redmond walked alongside. We hurried through the campus, down the hill. I heard Mr. Campbell say the driver should have dropped us off closer, but I was glad he hadn't. I'd gotten to see Carrie Tower.

  We found Kassar House, where the Department of Mathematics was located, at the corner of Thayer and George streets. By this time, all I could think about was Carrie. I heard Mr. Campbell giving me a pep talk, felt my mother's arm around my shoulders, saw Travis give me a thumbs-up, but my heart and mind were occupied by my sister. I glanced at Redmond, saw him looking around. Good. He'd memorized her face and was on the plan.

  I went inside. The event was held in the Foxboro Auditorium in the Gould Laboratory, and the seats were filled with teachers and supporters, students from other schools. The competition organizer escorted us to our places and introduced us to the crowd. He gave the rules. Ten questions, one hour.

  Here's what I did: I raced through and got everything right. Trigonometry and simple linear algebra is nothing compared with ideas of love being stronger than death. I'd already proved that, so why mess around with the easy stuff? I won that competition just so I could get the hell out of that auditorium, back on the streets of Providence, to feel close to Carrie again. I wanted to run to the tower. While everyone in my group had lunch at the place Mr. Campbell had found, I wanted to return with Redmond to the tower. I wanted Carrie to be hiding behind it, about to step out into my arms.

  Of course, I knew what was happening.

  The magic Lucy and I had started, calling for our fathers, was working overtime. Now, with the help of the right angle created by the height of Carrie Tower, and the calculus of longing, and the geometry of love, I had conjured my sister. She might not really be there, I mean in a physical manifestation, but she was there in spirit.

  Just like Mary and Beatrice, just like my father and Lucy's, the essence of my sister was always with me. Love, baby—stronger than death or running away. With me, in my heart, of me always. My sister. She helped me win the competition.

  I did it for her.

  On Carrie's days off, she sometimes took Gracie walking around the campus of Brown University. Her parents had both been teachers, and she'd grown up near Ohio State, and she found comfort in academic surroundings. On one of her walks she'd discovered Carrie Tower. The inscription had hit her so powerfully, it sometimes felt engraved on her heart. She'd walk around the tower and think of her dad. Think of how she'd let him down, how she wished she could have saved him.

  This early December day she bundled up Gracie, pushed her in the stroller Dell had given her up Waterman Street, straight toward the campus. The air was cold, wind blowi
ng off the water, and people had started to decorate the colonial houses for Christmas. Evergreen wreaths and garlands filled the air with pine scent.

  Carrie's heart felt heavy. She thought of her family, how they had always celebrated the holidays. Their decorations hadn't been fancy or extravagant, just special little touches to fill the house with cheer and light. Her mother had a box of ornaments, passed down from her grandmother, that her aunt had sent long ago. Early each December, her mother would pull them out, let the girls and Travis decorate the house. Carrie remembered placing two china carol singers on the mantel, seeing her mother start to cry. They reminded her of Aunt Katharine, of when they were young.

  Carrie pushed Gracie along, wondering whether her mother had found Aunt Katharine again. They were both here in Rhode Island, so wouldn't they have done that? But proximity wasn't the same as closeness. Families got destroyed by simple hurts, broken hearts, things too terrible to understand or talk about. It was times like this that Carrie took a cynical view of the words Love Is Strong as Death. No. Sometimes love wasn't strong enough at all.

  Gracie was asleep. This often happened on their long walks. Lulled by the movement, she drifted off. Carrie pushed the stroller gently, trying not to hit any bumps. She got to the tower, stood in its lee, let it block the wind. She looked up toward the clock. Time was passing so fast. She wanted her family.

  Moving along, she headed toward Thayer Street. The college kids were getting ready for exams, finishing their papers before heading home for the holidays. She felt excitement in the air, a sense of hurry and purpose. Glancing down at her sleeping baby, she felt as far from a college kid as she could get.

  But she did feel pressure in her chest, almost as if she had a big test hanging over her head. She felt as if she needed to cram, study all night, finish her work so she could get home. It reminded her of high school, when her biggest worry had been to pass exams and write good term papers, make her parents proud. Her parents would never be proud of her again. Her father was dead, and what would her mother think of the part Carrie had played in that?