The Beautiful Daughters

by Nicole Baart

  “It’s not easy to cook for one,” Sam admitted.

  “No,” Adri agreed. “It’s not.” There was a beat or two of silence, but Adri had opened the tap and she was ready, if not eager, to watch the drops accumulate. “I love the kids I work with. They are sweet and funny and smart. They’re going to change the world.”

  “I think you’re changing the world.”

  Adri didn’t know what to say, so she stroked Mateo and didn’t say anything at all.

  “What’s the best part?” Sam prompted after a few moments.

  “I like evenings best,” Adri said slowly. “When I hit the compound and the day is behind me. It’s not that I don’t love the kids or the clinics or really all the aspects of my job, but everything comes at me so fast sometimes, I feel like I can only experience it in retrospect. I sit on the beach or I go swimming and I think about the details of my day. Who said what and why. Which medications we could really use. Why I don’t trust the new community leader appointed to handle the co-op.” Adri ducked under Mateo’s head and started brushing soft circles just beneath his chin. “I guess it’s crazy that I like thinking about my days better than I like living them.”

  Sam was staring at her. “I understand,” he said. “Truly I do.”

  “But all the self-help books tell you to live in the moment.” Adri peeked over Mateo’s neck and offered her dad a shy smile. “Aren’t you going to tell me the same thing?”

  Sam went back to brushing Farah. “Oh, I don’t know. Living in the moment is great, but there’s something uniquely powerful about the contemplative life. I think if we slowed down enough to think about what we say, consider the consequences of our actions and reactions, the world would be a better place.”

  Adri knew he wasn’t alluding to past events, but his words felt like an indictment all the same. Her father had inadvertently summed up the halves of her existence: the euphoric Tilt-A-Whirl of her life before, the thoughtful plod of her days after. But she hadn’t been quieted by a deep desire to center herself, to abide in the heart of her own story. Instead, Adri had been extinguished. Brought to the very brink of it all and thrust over the side. The hush wasn’t so much peaceful as it was ghostly. She could hear the whisper of every lament in the silence.

  “Dad?” Adri said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Sam didn’t ask what for. He just smiled sadly. Said, “So am I, baby. So am I.”

  6

  When sam finally turned his truck down the gravel drive that led to maple acres, the sun had already begun to set. Adri’s hair smelled of dust and horses, and there were dark crescents of grime beneath her fingernails. Jet lag ringed her head like an ill-fitting hat. She was weary and dehydrated, desperate for a drink of water, or better yet, a swim in a warm ocean. But she was agonizingly landlocked, and it made her feel panicky and claustrophobic. Better to focus on other things. Like the shiny trailer that sat askew on her father’s front lawn and the logo splashed across the side that claimed brothers construction was “the best in the business.”

  “Will’s here?” Adri asked, her voice catching. It had been three years since she had seen her twin, too. A detail that hurt so much she preferred to ignore it.

  “Will did the afternoon milking for me,” Sam said. “With Jackson. Nora is visiting her parents in Minnesota for a week, so Jackson is a bachelor again. Will’s loving it.”

  Adri detected amusement in her dad’s voice and decided not to comment. Back when the world had been a very different place, William and Jackson had been inseparable. Only one person could coax them apart, and only because Will had been in love with her. Of course, his infatuation had never amounted to much. Everyone had been in love with Harper.

  But Adri wasn’t thinking about Harper. She was thinking about Will. Sitting up a little straighter on the bench seat, Adri reached for the visor and flipped it down. No mirror. Instead she ran her fingers along her hairline, smoothing strays and removing a wayward piece of straw. She wished for a tube of lip gloss, but the only makeup she owned was tucked away in the carry-on that Beckett was currently using as a pillow.

  “You look pretty,” her dad said. Not fine or nice or good. He had never been the sort to hand out halfhearted praise.

  “It’s been a long time since someone has called me that,” Adri laughed.

  “Well, that’s a shame. It’s true. But even if it wasn’t true, it doesn’t matter.” Sam pulled up beside the trailer and put the truck in park. Switched off the engine. “Will still loves you, honey.”

  Her father had carved right to the heart of it. That was exactly what she feared: that after all this time, after enduring the sort of unforgivable neglect that she had inflicted on him, her brother, her twin, her Will wouldn’t love her the way he used to. Wouldn’t grab her knee when she sat down because he knew it would elicit a scream from his insanely ticklish sister or give her that look across a crowded room that said simply, “I know.” I know exactly what you’re thinking and how you’re feeling. I feel the same way. How could she bear it if he was indifferent? Or worse, if William tried to be the brother he had always been and his efforts were stale and insincere?

  “It’s been a long time, Dad,” Adri said.

  “Some things never change.” Sam wasn’t one for platitudes, but this particular cliché was a warm blanket for Adri, something she pulled tight around her shoulders as she opened the truck door and slid out.

  Adri stood with her arms across her chest, hugging her shoulders, and watched while Sam dropped the tailgate to grab her bags and let Beckett out. Her back was to the house because she couldn’t quite bring herself to look at it straight on, to make note of the places where paint was peeling off of the narrow board siding or how the screen door of her youth had been replaced by a newer, rip-free model. She knew every square inch of that house, from the stair that creaked no matter how many times her father tried to fix it, to the hairline crack in the attic window where Harper had once thrown stones in the middle of the night to wake Adri. Such an exercise in futility. The window didn’t even open into Adri’s bedroom.

  Beckett seemed to sense Adri’s discomfort. Stretching lazily, he made his way over to her and pressed his head into the palm of her hand. But before she could settle in for a quick, comforting ear rub, she heard the front door slam.

  “Adrienne Claire.”

  She turned slowly on her heel to see Will leaning up against a porch column, regarding her with the same forced nonchalance that she was attempting to portray. It only took her a second to drink him in: tall, tanned, and slim like her father. But his shoulders had filled out in the years since Brothers Construction bought their first Yellow Pages ad, and his T-shirt was tight against his arms.

  “William Jude.” Adri laughed suddenly, a bright sound that brimmed from somewhere deep inside and caused her brother’s eyes to flash with relief. And then joy. He bounded off the porch, skipping most of the steps, and ran across the lawn to scoop Adri up in a hug.

  It felt normal, so perfectly right and good to see Will, to wrap her arms around her brother without any of the hesitation, the reservation that had held her back for so long. But it was a brief moment of peace. There was much between them, and while Adri longed to pretend that everything was as it should be, the delight she felt at their reunion was quickly dampened by the understanding that nothing at all had changed. She kept secrets, so did he. There were ghosts in the spaces between them, whispering over his shoulder and hinting at all the things she had worked hard to hide. Will didn’t blame her for what had happened, but he should have.

  Adri swallowed hard and pulled away, tried to cling to the moment of elation that had made her believe that maybe everything could be as it had been. “So,” she said, and was happy to hear that her voice was calm and even. “When did you go all bodybuilder on me?” Adri squeezed his biceps as he let her go.


  “Hey, now.” Will slapped her hands away. “Inappropriate touch. I don’t let strangers touch me like that.”

  “Strangers?” The word stung, even if it was obvious Will was teasing her.

  “No letters, no phone calls, no visits . . .”

  “I write, I call, and I’ve visited a couple times—just not recently. When are you going to visit me?”

  Will gave her a wicked look. “When you invite me and mean it.”

  “Ouch.” But it was true. Adri had asked him to come to Africa many times, but she had always harbored a private hope that he wouldn’t accept her invitation. “What makes you think I don’t want you to come?”

  “Because it’s your secret place.” Will draped his arm around her shoulders and steered her toward the house. “You might as well string a sign across all of West Africa: Adri’s Hideout. No boys allowed.”

  “I like boys.”

  “Just not this one.”

  She shoved him away. “Whatever. Maybe I’m protecting you. Maybe I think you won’t like it there.”

  “Why? Because it’s so different?” Will ran a hand through his ginger hair and Adri was struck for the thousandth time by how beautiful it was. How red. Her brother would be a wonder in Africa.

  “Well, it is.”

  “Got a banana tree in your yard?” Will asked.

  “You know I do.”

  “Well, we have an apple tree in ours. And a peach, a plum, and two pears, a boy and a girl. Just like us, little sis. See? Not so different after all. Actually, I think we’re more exotic.”

  “You make it sound simple,” Adri said. She was too tired to argue, too awed by her small family to engage in the sort of verbal sparring that Will adored. So she gave in. “Come. Please.”

  Will studied her for a moment, his dark eyes narrowing to seek out the place where she couldn’t hide from him. She didn’t know whether to blush or be annoyed. “You know,” he said after a long moment. “I think you might actually mean it this time. Can we climb Kilimanjaro?”

  “That’s on the other side of the continent, you twit.”

  The porch door slammed a second time and Adri looked up to see Jackson emerge from the house. “Ah,” he said, settling his hands on his hips as he observed their reunion. “Sibling love.”

  “Or rivalry.” Sam brushed past Adri and handed her bags to Jackson. “Put those in her room, would you? I’m going to walk through the barns before supper.”

  “Will do, Sam. I’m just going to give this world traveler a proper hello first.” Jackson put Adri’s bags by the door, then met her at the bottom of the stairs for yet another hug. But this time, Adri was aware of the phantoms that slid among their tangled arms. “We’ve missed you,” he said into her hair while they embraced. “We’re all glad you’re home.”

  Ignoring the knot in her throat, Adri forced a laugh. “Bunch of guys like you, of course you’re glad I’m home. You probably expect me to do your cooking and cleaning and—”

  “Laundry,” Will cut in. “Don’t forget the laundry. You know how I hate folding socks. Of course, you’ll have to commute between our houses.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Jackson said, ignoring his business partner and friend. “Will’s very domesticated. Your dad taught him well.”

  “Well, isn’t that a fine little twist of fate.” Adri grinned. “William makes a great housewife and I don’t lift a finger.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ma Sarah does my laundry and people from the community often bring me meals. I mostly sit on the beach.”

  Jackson gave her a sideways look, and Adri couldn’t help but admire his blue-jean eyes and the way the sun still sprinkled freckles across his nose. He had always been the serious one of the group. Soft-spoken and studious and so very smart. Jackson saw everything. He understood things that the others couldn’t, simply because he took the time. Adri had always admired him for it. And in the end, it was Jackson she feared the most. She was afraid that he could see through her with a glance.

  “I don’t believe you,” he said eventually. “You work your fingers to the bone. It’s written all over your face.”

  “Are you saying I have wrinkles?” Adri asked. But she knew that wasn’t what he meant.

  “No. You’re as lovely as always.” And he kissed her sweetly on the cheek.

  “Hey, congratulations,” Adri said, catching his hand before he turned to go back into the house. “On your marriage. And the baby.”

  “Thanks.” Jackson smiled, and something in his eyes flamed a little brighter. “It’s been a hard pregnancy, but Nora’s strong . . .”

  “She’s a good girl,” Adri said.

  “The best.”

  While Sam checked the barns, Will and Jackson took over the kitchen. After downing a couple glasses of water from the tap, a luxury she certainly wasn’t used to, Adri realized that she was famished. She couldn’t remember eating much of anything on the planes, though she had vague memories of pretzels and peanuts and some unidentifiable snack mix that reminded her of caraway seed. So Will pried off the cap of a bottle of his latest brew, an amber ale that smelled like heaven to Adri, and sat her down at the kitchen table with a view of the counter where they were working. Jackson cut multicolored peppers and a fat, red onion into bite-size chunks and drizzled them with olive oil, and Will sprinkled their father’s homemade rub onto thinly sliced rib eyes that he would later flash on the grill. The Vogts liked their meat medium rare. Or they used to. Adri could hardly remember what a steak tasted like, much less how she liked it cooked.

  “I’m ravenous,” she admitted after gulping quick swallows of the beer. She could practically feel her heart rate slow.

  Almost as soon as the words were out of her mouth, Will tossed her a bag of Cheetos from the cupboard. “A little appetizer for you.”

  “I’ll probably get sick,” Adri confessed.

  “Nah. You always had a stomach of steel.”

  Adri didn’t remind him that that was a lifetime ago. Long before her first bout of C. diff and countless other nameless illnesses that had dropped her average weight a good ten pounds. But in the warmth of the kitchen, with Will and Jackson making entertaining small talk to ease her transition into a life that was so foreign it seemed surreal, none of that seemed to matter. Adri ate Cheetos, drank beer, and looked forward to that first bite of steak with all the anticipation of a girl waking up on Christmas morning. She even let herself forget, if only for an hour or two, that they weren’t friends so much as accomplices. That the bond they shared was born of a love spoiled with time, a ripe fruit in the sun.

  The house was silent when Adri woke, and it took her a few disoriented minutes to remember where she was and why. Sunlight filtered in through the sheer curtains of her childhood bedroom and danced on the quilt that she had pulled all the way up to her nose. There were yellowing posters on the walls, half-used bottles of perfume on the dresser, a handful of careworn stuffed animals in a basket by the door. Adri looked around slowly, taking everything in as if she was seeing it for the very first time. She tried not to read her youthful excesses in terms of her current life, but it was hard not to see the closet that was still crammed with her clothes as anything other than gluttonous. Though she hated the sanctimonious attitude of some of the aid workers she knew, it was almost impossible not to feel at least a twinge of guilt.

  Adri moaned as she got out of bed. “I am that girl,” she whispered to herself. “That smug, holier-than-thou prick I’ve always hated.” And then she went straight to the bathroom and threw up.

  A shower and a cold drink of water did much to right what was wrong, and by the time Adri realized that it was nearly ten o’clock in the morning, she was at least somewhat ready to face her day. When her dad came into the kitchen smelling of cows and what he affably called money, she was scrambling eggs for him. />
  “Good morning.” He smiled, looking somewhat surprised to see her up and about.

  “What’s that look for?”

  “Will carried you to bed last night, sweetheart. I think his home brew did you in. I guess I didn’t expect to see you up. At least, not up and making breakfast.”

  “Brunch,” Adri corrected him. “And you think one beer did me in? A more likely culprit is the steak. I can’t remember the last time I ate red meat. Or blame it on jet lag. Not counting last night, I think I slept a grand total of five hours in two days.”

  “That’s unconscionable.”

  “Tell me about it. Go shower up and we’ll have a bite to eat.”

  The eggs went down much better than her feast the night before, and while they ate, Sam answered all of Adri’s questions. He explained how Will was living in a spec house Brothers had built when construction jobs dried up last winter. That the boys, as he liked to call them, routinely helped him out on the farm and looked after Victoria as much as she would let them before she passed away. And Sam shared his great relief that Will’s most recent girlfriend had dumped him and moved to Cleveland.

  “That bad?”

  “I’m not sure the two of you could have existed in the same family,” Sam said. “Be very, very grateful that Miss Marietta decided she could do better than your brother.”

  “She couldn’t,” Adri said vehemently. But even as she said so, it struck her that it didn’t really matter who Will dated and eventually decided to marry. She was hardly a part of her own family anyway.

  “Oh, I know that. But I’m glad that she didn’t think so.”

  They washed the dishes side by side at the farmhouse sink, an enormous, porcelain rarity that Sam used to bathe Will and Adri in together when they were still young enough to have rolls of baby fat between their elbows and wrists. “You don’t remember that, do you?” Sam asked as Adri plunged her hands into the deep bubbles, but she was sure that she did indeed remember every detail. The scent of baby soap on her skin, the way that Will’s red curls formed perfect ringlets on his forehead. But maybe her father had just told the story so many times that Adri had adopted the memory as her own.