The Geometry of Sisters

by Luanne Rice

  “Took them?” asked Mrs. Nicholson, stepping out of the crowd. She stood above me, her white hair coiffed and gleaming, her cherry red wool dress setting off the luminous pearls around her throat.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Do you mean,” she asked, looking at me intently, as if she was honestly trying to understand, “that you borrowed them?”

  A conundrum. I was quivering, knowing that I could lie and get out of it. Or I could be honest, come clean, continue on with my fresh start in life. I have to admit, the despair over my mother was clouding my mind slightly. “No,” I said. “I took them.”

  To my shock, she looked hurt—as if this was a personal affront.

  “Is that…” she asked, her mouth a straight line. “Is that another way of saying you stole them?”

  “Grandmother!” Lucy said. I looked up, saw her standing on the landing above. She seemed frozen in place.

  “It's okay, Luce,” I said. “She's right.”

  “Goodness, this is a shock,” Mrs. Nicholson said. “A girl right here at Newport Academy admitting to such—”

  “Edie,” Mr. Campbell said, striding up. He seemed out of breath, and I knew he'd been trying to find me after I'd left his office. I couldn't bear to look at him. Even worse, my mother was with him.

  “Stephen,” Mrs. Nicholson said. “What can be done about such behavior? Do you realize this scholarship student has just admitted stealing?”

  “Mrs. Nicholson, try to understand, my daughter has…” my mother said, and Mrs. Nicholson gazed at her with sympathy.

  “I am so sorry, Mrs. Shaw. This must cause you such heartache.”

  “Please, Mrs. Nicholson—” my mother said, but this time it was Mr. Campbell who cut her off.

  “Edie,” he said, “Mrs. Shaw is right—there are extenuating circumstances, which I'll explain to you and the board in private. I know Beck will apologize, and I'm sure an appropriate detention can be imposed. But let me tell you something that will make the board very proud. Beck will be representing Newport Academy at the Mathematical Society's national competition, one of only—”

  “She will not,” Mrs. Nicholson said sadly.

  “Grandmother!” Lucy exclaimed, running down the stairs to stand with me.

  “If only it were possible. But you know we cannot sanction stealing at this school. What kind of message would we send to the other students? It is a crime, and Rebecca should feel fortunate that we don't call the police—we shall do our best to protect her in that sense.”

  Even Angus tried to defend me. “Edie,” he said in his New England growl, “no harm's been done. She said she's sorry. I've got the keys back now, we can move on.”

  “We cannot move on,” she said, sounding almost brokenhearted.

  And suddenly I knew—someone had stolen from her. I didn't know who it was, or what they had taken. But I'd seen that same hurt in the eyes of my friends back in Columbus, hurt and bewildered that I could take their lip gloss, their gum, their fine-point pens.

  “Rebecca will not be going to Boston,” Mrs. Nicholson continued.

  “Beck is going,” Lucy said, arms folded tight across her chest.

  “That is impossible,” Mrs. Nicholson said, her voice cracking. “Because as of this moment, she is expelled.”

  I heard the words, and this is going to sound very strange, but they set me free. They told me what I had to do, where I had to go.

  Where I should have gone all along.

  I heard my mother cry out with protest, heard my friends telling me it would be okay, heard the high heels of Mrs. Nicholson and the other women board members clicking away down the marble hall. I felt my mother coming toward me, but I couldn't face her. My heart clenched as she drew closer. I wanted to scream at her.

  I kissed Redmond on the cheek, shocking both of us. I hugged Lucy as hard as I could, the way I wished I'd hugged Carrie before I saw her that last time. And then I flew out the door to get the money I still had stashed at home. I didn't even glance at my mother. I hoped I'd miss seeing Travis. Goodbyes were impossible, unless you didn't realize you were saying them.

  22SNOW BEGAN TO FALL, GUSTS BLOWING IN OFF the sea.

  When Beck didn't come home for dinner, Travis really began to worry—not just about her, but about their mother. She was a whole new kind of frantic he'd never seen before—even worse than the way she'd been in Providence, even more upset than at the lake. The day they waited on the shore of Lake Michigan, there'd been some hope. Everyone said his father and Carrie might have swum to safety. So it was tense, but there wasn't dread, at least not in the first few hours.

  Now it was as if his mother assumed the worst. She'd lived through the hell of his father dying and Carrie disappearing, and now Beck had run away. Because of the special circumstances—the fact Beck had gotten caught stealing again, after having a history of that, and especially because she'd received psychological counseling for it back in Ohio—the police took this seriously.

  They considered Beck a troubled teenager who might try something desperate. Travis stood in the kitchen staring at his mother. She sat at the table like a zombie, clutching the smelly, sweaty hoodie Beck had left on the floor of her room, as if she were a psychic or bloodhound and could pick up a nearly lost scent.

  “Mom, what can I do?” he asked.

  She just closed her eyes, squeezed them tight, as if she wished he would go away too. He moved closer, stood right beside her.

  “Where would she go, honey?”

  “Maybe to Aunt Katharine's?” Travis said, although he didn't believe it.

  “No, Katharine says she hasn't shown up. She's waiting there, just in case.”

  Travis stood there, fidgeting, afraid to ask what he wanted to know. “Mom, what upset Beck so much? I know how much the Boston trip meant to her; I didn't see her, but it seems like more than that.”

  His mother started to speak. He steeled himself, knowing that she had a lot to tell him. He couldn't bear to put her through it.

  “Carrie wasn't Dad's daughter, was she?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “Who told you?”

  “Beck,” he said, showing her the note his sister had left under his pillow. It had been scrawled, her neat mathematician handwriting reverting back to her little girl's scribble.

  “I'm sorry I didn't tell you,” his mother said.

  And he saw a horrible shiver go through her, and she put her head down on the table and started to weep. Travis wanted to hug her, or at least say something, but he couldn't. She wanted to shut him out, be alone. He felt terrible, but he couldn't watch her like this, and he knew there was nothing he could do.

  She didn't look up, and he couldn't speak, so he grabbed his jacket and ran outside. The cold, damp air filled his lungs as he started to jog across campus. Halfway to Blackstone Hall, he saw the slim figure coming toward him. His heart jumped at the sight of Pell, even as he changed course to avoid her. He felt too churned up and confused.

  “Travis!” she called. He was running toward the field, and she called him again. “Travis, please wait!”

  He slowed down in spite of himself, turned to walk slowly in her direction. The snow had stopped for the moment, and a layer of thin cloud drifted across the dark sky, shading the stars. He shivered, feeling chilled. The bare branches of the oaks and maples scraped the sky, and he heard the wind rustle through the pines.

  “I had to find you,” she said. “Is there any word from Beck?”

  “No,” he said, standing still and stiff.

  She touched his arm, worry in her blue eyes. He tried to look away. He'd been in the library, but had heard about what happened.

  “I'm so sorry,” she said. “I'm always apologizing to you for her.”

  “Your grandmother?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Beck brought it on herself,” he said. “She'd be the first to say so.”

  “What my grandmother did was terrible, to humiliate Beck
that way.”

  Travis didn't speak. He didn't want to defend his sister for stealing, but Pell was right: to have that old lady cut her down in front of the whole school… It reminded him of Columbus, when people had started whispering about Beck, then openly talking about her, then laughing at her, making fun of her. When she was obviously so troubled, when her stealing was such a shameful symptom of everything else that had gone wrong with their family.

  “I know what it's like,” Pell said in a low voice.

  “What?”

  “To love someone so much, to worry about them so much it makes you sick, and to see them sabotaging themselves every step of the way.”

  “Who?”

  “My mother,” Pell said.

  “What did she do?”

  “She left,” Pell said.

  Travis was silent, waiting.

  “She left us,” Pell said. “Left my sister and me with our father while she moved to Italy. She lives there now, on Capri.”

  “Why should you worry about her?” he asked. “It sounds as if she's not worthy of your feelings.”

  “She's our mother,” Pell said quietly. “We love her.”

  “Even though she basically abandoned you?”

  Pell nodded. “She suffers for it. We almost can't bear to see how hurt she is. It comes through in her letters. The birthday cards she sends us.”

  “But she's the one hurting you!”

  “I know,” Pell said, taking his hand. “That's what I'm saying. Hurt is such a big circle. You can't tell where it begins or ends, who started it, who caused it. It's just there.”

  “And Beck…”

  Pell nodded. “It doesn't matter if she stole—I mean, it does. But what counts right now is that she's suffering. She may have brought some of it on herself, but I know she didn't mean to hurt anyone. Lucy said she was trying to give back the keys.”

  Travis had been upset over what Pell's grandmother had done, but suddenly the blame melted away, and he slipped his arms around her. He started to kiss her, but she pulled back—very gently, but leaving no doubt.

  Travis blinked, the cold wind blowing off the open water, stinging his eyes with salt.

  “She'll come back,” Pell whispered. “She loves you too much not to.”

  “How do you know?” he asked.

  “That she'll come back, or that she loves you?”

  “Both,” he said.

  “Because how could she not?” Pell asked, staring up into his eyes. “Because you're you.”

  “But you just pushed me away.”

  She gazed at him for a long moment, still and grave. He wanted her to smile, at least slightly, to let him know he hadn't made a fool of himself.

  “There's been so much,” she said. “For you to handle.”

  “Me?”

  She nodded, her blue eyes wide open. “Losing your father, moving here… I went through similar things. My mother left when I was six, my father died when I was thirteen. I know that you're reeling.”

  He felt his shoulders relax. Until she'd said it, he hadn't realized he was.

  “Even Ally,” she said. “Breaking up with her… I know it's hard. It's a big change.”

  “It is,” he said.

  “Right now you need to find Beck,” she said.

  “But…”

  She shook her head, her eyes clear and sad. “That's all that matters. Bringing your family back together. I know… from my own.”

  “Is that the way you see life?” he asked. “People who love each other that much have to be together?”

  A troubled look crossed her eyes.

  “What's the matter?” he asked.

  “It's almost as if you read my mind,” she said. “I'm thinking about my mother. I miss her. And so does Lucy.”

  “You wish she was here?” he asked.

  “More than anything,” Pell said.

  He nodded, understanding. “I have something to tell you.” When she didn't reply, he swallowed hard. He'd been coming up with this plan for a while, starting at that game when her grandmother had made her points about the scholarships. “I'm starting a job,” he said. “As soon as vacation begins. And I'll keep it up spring semester too. I told you I was going to pay back that scholarship.”

  “Travis, you don't need to,” she said.

  “But I do,” he said fiercely. Pell's strength inspired his own. She was exceptional, unlike any girl he'd ever met. They stood still in the middle of the green, darkness all around, a storm blowing in. His sisters were gone, and his mother despaired, and Pell had pushed him away. But he stood beside her, feeling closer than he'd ever felt to anyone, and watched the snow start to fall again, harder than before.

  The visit had not exactly been unexpected. From the moment the aunt had shown up looking for Carrie, Dell knew it was just a matter of time before someone would come looking and refuse to be turned back, refuse to hear the word “confidentiality.”

  So she'd been waiting for the phone to ring, expecting a private investigator, or the aunt, or even Carrie's mother. What she hadn't expected was for the man in the wheelchair to come at the start of what they were saying was going to be the worst snowstorm in the last ten years. Dell had shut down the diner. She'd packed coolers with food for Hawthorne House, and was just about to lock up and head over when she saw him there, snow falling all around, right in the middle of the sidewalk.

  “Dell,” he said.

  “How do you know my name?” she asked.

  “I looked into everything about you and this place,” he said. “I know the work you've done to help young women. And I want to thank you.”

  “Thank me?” she asked suspiciously, snow blowing sideways off the bay. “What for?”

  “For taking care of my daughter.”

  She turned back to the door, made sure it was double-locked, started carrying the last cooler toward the parking lot.

  “I'll help you with that,” he said.

  She gave him a pitying look. Was he kidding? She was strong, able-bodied, and he was in a wheelchair. But he reached out, took the heavy cooler from her arms, held it on his lap. But he didn't move. Just stared up at her, snow falling in those hot blue eyes.

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  “Look,” she said. “You have no idea how many people have come here trying to get information out of me. I don't know you. I have no idea what kind of father you are. I trust the girls. They know who loves them, who they can turn to. If it's you, she'll return to you. If not, that's her choice.”

  “Her mother loves her,” he said.

  “Same goes for her mother,” Dell said. “If your daughter wants to talk to her, that's up to her.”

  The man balanced the cooler on his knees, started to dig into his pockets. Was he going to pull out money? If so, it wouldn't be the first time someone had tried a bribe. Dell was ready to yank the big Styrofoam box away from him, hurry to her car. She didn't need this, especially since the storm was getting worse and her feet were frozen.

  He didn't hand her money. He handed her what looked like a medical form. Folded up, creased almost to the point of tearing, a pink carbon copy. He gestured for her to open it, and even though it was the last thing she wanted to do, her curiosity got the better of her.

  “Line thirty,” he said.

  She found it, read the words, saw that the patient had died.

  “That's me,” he said.

  “You died?” she asked. Was this a joke?

  “Yes,” he said. “I was in the hospital, got a staph infection. The kind that comes on fast, attacks every organ, kills people within twenty-four hours of getting it. That happened to me.”

  “But you're here.”

  “I know,” he said. “Because she brought me back to life.”

  “She?”

  “My daughter,” he said. “Carrie Shaw. She came all the way to Rhode Island from Lake Michigan, after going through the worst trauma you can think of….” He trailed off, then continu
ed. “She stood by my bedside, and I saw her. I did. I was clinically dead—in a coma, my heart stopped.”

  “But it started again,” Dell said, still holding the paper.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Because she was there.”

  “She saved you. That's what you believe.”

  “That's what I know.”

  Dell stared at him, holding the big container of food for the girls. She saw his eyes glittering in the streetlight. She'd left the Christmas lights on in the diner, even though it was closed, and they flashed red and green in the snow.

  It was getting close to that time of year where Dell couldn't stand all the families being apart. She knew that people did awful things to each other. She'd heard about almost unimaginable cruelty done to her girls. She knew about betrayals, the most hurtful things you could think of. But she'd look at the young women, at the loneliness in their eyes, at the way they'd cradle their babies, as if wishing someone could hold them with such warmth and love, and she'd wish they all had homes to go to. And she'd seen something else in Carrie: a real and serious love for her family.

  “Once a girl leaves Hawthorne House…” she said finally, “confidentiality doesn't really mean the same thing.”

  “No,” he said.

  “So I'm thinking,” she said. “That what you're saying here is that your daughter saved your life. And you want to help her get on with hers.”

  “Yes,” he said. “That's exactly what I'm saying.”

  Dell wrote down the address of the pink rooming house. She handed him the paper, along with his hospital record, and tried to take the cooler from him. He wouldn't let her. He insisted on carrying it to her car. That might have been absurd, but he had help— his driver came out of the van, the same husky guy she'd seen with him on Thanksgiving, when they'd shown up at the diner.

  Carrie had hidden from them. That might have given Dell pause, to realize that the girl didn't want to be found. But Dell remembered the way Carrie had cried after they'd left, as if her heart was breaking all over again.

  “Thanks,” Dell said, when the men had helped her load the groceries into her car.