Three Sisters

by Susan Mallery

  “Talk about ugly,” she murmured, returning to her car.

  Not to worry, she told herself. She’d gone over the plans for the remodeling and would be meeting with Zeke first thing Saturday to finalize their contract. Then work would begin.

  In the meantime, she had to get ready for the movers who would arrive in the morning. She’d identified an upstairs bedroom where she would store the majority of her furniture. While the construction was going on, she would live in two small attic bedrooms. They were ugly, but serviceable. The bigger of the two would serve as a living room and pseudo kitchen. If she couldn’t heat it in a toaster oven or microwave, she wasn’t going to cook it.

  The tiny attic bathroom had a shower obviously built for those who didn’t hit the five-foot mark and fixtures dating back to the 1940s, but everything worked. Zeke had promised to rig up a hot water heater right away.

  She had what she would need to survive the three months of construction. Although she’d told Zeke she wanted everything done by early July, in truth she was planning to launch her practice September first, giving her a nice buffer. She’d seen enough shows on HGTV to know there were often problems and time delays in remodelings.

  Andi collected the supplies from the back of her SUV. She needed to clean the room that she would be using for furniture storage, then tackle the bathroom she’d claimed. After that, she was going to reward herself with a pulled-pork sandwich from Arnie’s. Her real estate agent had promised the food was great.

  Andi carefully walked up the front stairs. Two of the eight steps were loose. She put her key in the front door and jiggled to make the lock turn. Then she stepped into the foyer.

  Unlike in Boston’s place, there was no eclectic array of charming furniture, no window coverings and nothing that looked remotely livable. The smell of decay and dirt mingled with the stench of former rodent inhabitants. Wallpaper hung off water-stained walls, and plywood covered several of the living room windows.

  Andi set down her bucket filled with cleaning products and a bag full of rags and paper towels, then put her arms straight out and spun in a circle. Anticipation had her giggling as she faced the three-dimensional disaster that was her new home.

  “You are going to be so happy,” she whispered. “I’m going to make you sparkle.” She grinned. “Well, me and a construction crew. You’ll see. When it’s all done, we’ll both be better.”

  By the time the house was finished, she would be settled here on the island. Her ex-fiancé would be little more than a cautionary tale and she would have the beginnings of a thriving practice. She would no longer be the family screwup or the woman who had been stupid enough to give ten years of her life to a man who had tried to change her before dumping her and marrying someone else two weeks later. She wouldn’t have to worry about not being good enough.

  “We won’t be as perfect as that house on the left, or as artistic as the one on the other side, but we’ll be just right. You’ll see.”

  The words were like a promise. And she’d always been good about keeping her promises.

  Chapter Two

  DEANNA PHILLIPS STARED at the photo. The girl was pretty—maybe twenty-five or twenty-six, with dark hair. It was impossible to see her eye color, because of the pose. The young woman had her arms thrown around a man, her lips pressed to his cheek. He was facing the camera, and the girl was facing him.

  The snapshot had caught a happy moment. The man was smiling, the young woman leaned toward him, her knee bent, one foot raised. Everything about the picture should have been charming. Aspirational, even. Except for the fact that the man in question was Deanna’s husband.

  She stood in the bedroom, listening to the sound of the shower. It was barely after six, but Colin had been up since five. First he went for a run; then he ate breakfast; then he showered. He would be out the door by six-thirty. From there he went to the office and then on the road. Colin traveled for work, and she wouldn’t see him again until the end of the week.

  A thousand thoughts flashed through her mind. He’d cheated. He’d been stupid enough to keep a picture on his phone. He’d cheated. Who else had there been? How many others? He’d cheated. Her stomach pitched and rolled like a ship in a storm. Had she eaten anything, she would have vomited. As it was, she shivered, her skin breaking out in goose bumps, her legs trembling.

  “Get it together,” she whispered. She didn’t have much time. In less than a half hour, she had to get the girls up and ready for school. She was expected at the twins’ classroom that morning. She had to go to work after that. There were a dozen details, a thousand chores and jobs and responsibilities. None of that stopped because Colin had betrayed her in the worst way possible.

  Her eyes burned, but she refused to cry. Tears meant weakness. Still clutching the cell phone, she debated what to do. Confront him? It was the logical decision. She should say something. Only she didn’t know what. She wasn’t ready. Wasn’t—

  The shower went silent as Colin turned off the water. Deanna shivered, then quietly set the phone back on the dresser, next to her husband’s wallet and car keys. She’d only picked it up to check the photos from the last softball game. She’d wanted a couple of pictures to update the family’s Facebook page. What she’d found instead was betrayal.

  She needed time, she realized. Time to sort out what was happening. What it all meant. Her next step. Was there a next step?

  She grabbed her robe and pulled it on, then hurried downstairs to the study. Once there, she turned on her computer. She noticed her fingers trembled as she pushed the button on her laptop. She sat in the big leather chair and wrapped her arms around herself. Her feet were cold, but she wasn’t going to go back to the bedroom for her slippers. She couldn’t. She was going to fly apart, she thought, her teeth chattering. If she wasn’t careful she would explode into a million pieces.

  The computer hummed and chirped as it booted. At last she saw the wallpaper picture come into focus. It showed a perfect family—father, mother, daughters. All blond, attractive, happy. They were on the beach, all wearing ivory sweaters and jeans, a jumble of arms and legs, the twins ducking, the older girls behind them. Colin had his arms around her, Deanna thought. They were laughing. Happy.

  What the hell had happened?

  “Are you all right?”

  She glanced up and saw her husband standing in the doorway. He wore a suit, the dark blue one she had picked out for him. The man had hideous taste in clothing. She didn’t love the tie, but so what? Did that really matter today?

  She studied him, wondering how other women saw him. He was handsome, she acknowledged. Tall, with broad shoulders and blue eyes. He kept himself fit. She’d taken pride in that, in having a husband who still looked great in jeans and a T-shirt. Unlike a lot of men his age, Colin had avoided a beer belly. He would turn forty next year. Was that what the other woman was about? Dealing with middle age?

  “Deanna?”

  She realized he was staring at her. “I’m fine.” She wasn’t sure she would be able to speak, but somehow managed the words.

  He continued watching her, as if expecting more. She licked her lips, unsure what to say. Time, she thought desperately. She really needed time.

  She tucked her hands under the desk so he wouldn’t know she was shaking.

  “My stomach’s bothering me a little this morning. Must have been something I ate.”

  “Are you going to be all right?”

  She wanted to scream at him that of course she wasn’t going to be all right. How could he even ask? He’d taken everything they’d had together and destroyed it. Destroyed her. Everything she’d worked for, everything she wanted was gone. She was going to have to leave him. Become one of those desperate single mothers. Dear God, she had five children. Five daughters. She couldn’t manage that on her own.

  “I’m okay,”
she told him, anything to get him to leave. She had to have time to think, to breathe, to understand. She had to have a moment to stop the bleeding.

  “I’ll be back on Thursday,” he said. “I’m going to be in Portland.”

  He always told her stuff like that. Details. She never listened. She and the girls had their routine. They were used to Colin being gone during the week.

  Now he might be gone forever, she realized. Then what? She worked part-time in a craft store. She taught quilting classes and scrapbooking. Her salary paid for things like vacations and dinner out. She couldn’t support a tank of fish, let alone five girls, on what she made.

  Panic curled through her, twisting around her heart until she thought she would die right there. She forced herself to keep staring at her husband, desperate to remember what normal was.

  “I hope it’s warm,” she said.

  “What?”

  “In Oregon. I hope the weather’s good.”

  He frowned. “Deanna, are you sure you’re all right?”

  She knew trying to smile would be a disaster. “It’s just my tummy. I think I’d better make a run to the bathroom. Drive safe.”

  She rose. Fortunately, he stepped back as she got close and she was able to slip by him without brushing against him. She hurried up the stairs and ran into the bathroom. Once there she clutched the marble vanity and closed her eyes against the pale, stunned face she saw in the mirror.

  * * *

  “Mom, you know I hate this bread. Why do you keep making it?”

  Deanna didn’t bother looking up. She simply placed the sandwich she’d made the night before into the lunch cooler. Baby carrots were next, then the apple and the cookies. Flaxseed, she thought as she picked up the recyclable container filled with small cookies. They were made with flaxseed. Not the girls’ favorite, but healthy.

  “Mom!” Madison stood with her hands on her hips. At twelve she’d already mastered a contemptuous glare that could shrivel the sturdiest of souls.

  Deanna recognized the look and knew the cause, mostly because she’d felt exactly the same way about her mother, all those years ago. The only difference was Deanna’s mother had been a nightmare, while Deanna couldn’t figure out what she’d done to make her oldest daughter loathe her so.

  “Madison, I can’t deal with this today. Please. Just take the sandwich.”

  Her daughter continued to glare at her, then stomped off muttering something that sounded suspiciously like “You’re such a bitch.” But Deanna couldn’t be sure, and this morning that was a battle she couldn’t take on.

  By eight, all five girls were gone. The kitchen was the usual disaster, with bowls in the sink, plates on the breakfast bar and open cereal boxes on the counter. Lucy had left her lunch box by the refrigerator, which meant another stop for Deanna later. And Madison’s coat still hung over the bar-height chair.

  Lucy’s absentmindedness wasn’t anything new and certainly not personal, but the same couldn’t be said for Madison and the jacket. Her oldest had hated the waterproof red coat forty-eight hours after insisting it was perfect and that she had to have it. Since that late September shopping trip, she and Madison had battled about the garment, with her daughter insisting a new one be purchased. Deanna had refused.

  Sometime in October, Colin had said they should get her a new coat—that it wasn’t worth the fight. Lucy liked the red one and would probably be in it by the fall. If Madison wore it all year, it would be too battered to be passed down.

  Just one more time where Colin hadn’t supported her, Deanna thought bitterly. One more example of her husband siding against her with the girls.

  Deanna crossed to the sink and turned on the water. She waited until it was the right temperature, then carefully pumped the soap three times and began to wash her hands. Over and around, again and again. The familiar feel of warm water and slick soap comforted her. She knew she couldn’t let herself continue for too long. That if she wasn’t careful, she would go too far. Because of that, long before she was ready, she rinsed, then opened the drawer by the sink and pulled out one of her cotton towels and dried her hands.

  She walked out of the kitchen without looking back. She would deal with the mess later. But instead of climbing to the second story and the master bedroom, she sank onto the bottom stair and dropped her head into her hands. Anger blended with fear and the sharp taste of humiliation. She’d done her best to be nothing like her mother, yet some lessons couldn’t be unlearned. The familiar question of “What will the neighbors think?” lodged in her brain and refused to budge.

  Everyone would talk. Everyone would wonder how long the affair had been going on. Everyone would assume he’d been cheating for years. After all, Colin’s job was on the road. While she would get the sympathy, the solicitous attention of their friends, the other wives would take a step back. They wouldn’t want a divorced woman hanging around. The husbands would look at her and wonder what she’d done to make Colin stray. Then they would ask her husband for the wheres and hows, living vicariously through his adventures.

  Deanna longed to crawl back in bed and restart the morning. If only she hadn’t gone looking for that picture, she thought. Then she wouldn’t have to know. But time could not be turned back, and she had to deal with the reality of Colin’s treachery.

  She stared down at the wedding ring set on her left hand. The large center stone glinted, even in the dim light. She was so careful to get the rings cleaned every three months, have the prongs checked to make sure nothing was loose. She’d been so careful about so many things. She’d been a fool.

  Deanna tugged the ring off her finger and threw it across the hallway. It bounced against the wall and rolled to the center of the polished hardwood. Then she covered her face with her hands and gave in to tears.

  * * *

  Boston King arranged the tulips on the small hand-painted table she’d brought in from the spare bedroom. The top of the table was white, the legs a pale green. Years ago, she’d stenciled tulips around the sides, a perfect echo of the flowers she now moved around, trying to find the right air of casual disarray.

  She positioned a long dark green leaf, shifted a petal, moved the yellow tulip closer to the pink one. When she was pleased with what she’d done, she picked up the whole table and carried it so that it sat in a shaft of bright sunlight. Then she settled on her stool, picked up her pad and began to sketch.

  She moved quickly, confidently. Her mind cleared as she focused on shapes, contrasts and lines, no longer seeing an object, but instead the parts. Pieces of the whole, she thought with a smile. She remembered one of her teachers who would remind her, “We view the world on a molecular level. The building blocks, not the end results.”

  The first of the flowers grew on the page. Impulsively, she reached for a piece of chalk, thinking she could capture the purity of the yellow petal. As she guided it to the paper, her charm bracelet provided a familiar melody. Her eyes drifted closed, then open again.

  Gray. She’d picked the gray, not the yellow. The darker of her grays, nearly black, but not quite. The piece was stubby and worn, but sharp. She always kept it sharp. Then her hand was moving again, faster than before, the lines so comfortable, her movements almost habitual.

  What had been a flower became something much more beautiful, much more precious. A few more strokes and she was staring at the face of an infant. Liam, she thought, running her hand across the picture, smudging and softening the defined lines until they were as sleepy as the boy.

  She drew in a few details of background, then studied the result. Yes, she’d captured him, the curve of his cheek, the promise of love in his half-closed eyes. Her best boy.

  She put her initials and the date in the bottom right-hand corner of the paper, then tore it from the pad and set it on top of the others already there. After picking up her mug of whi
te tea, she walked to the window and stared out at the rear garden.

  Spruce trees lined the edge of the property. In front of them, Pacific wax myrtle swayed in the afternoon breeze. They’d all survived last winter’s big windstorm. The last of her tulips danced, their promise of spring already met. Over the next week or so, she would plant the rest of her garden. She enjoyed the fresh vegetables, although she didn’t share her neighbor Deanna’s rabid obsession with growing her own food whenever possible.

  She was aware of the silence, feeling rather than hearing the steady beating of her own heart. That’s what she experienced these days. Silence. Not quiet. Quiet had a restful quality. In quiet, she could find peace. In silence, there was only an absence of sound.

  She turned and walked to the front of the house. The big moving van in Andi’s driveway rumbled to life. It had been there since early morning. Zeke had told her about Andi’s plans to store most of her furniture in an upstairs bedroom and live in the attic during the remodeling. Boston didn’t envy the movers the work of hauling heavy furniture up the narrow stairs.

  As if her thoughts had conjured him, her husband drove his battered red pickup around the retreating moving truck and up toward their house. She watched him park, then get out and walk toward the side entrance.

  He moved as easily and gracefully as he had the first time she’d seen him. She’d been all of fifteen—a new sophomore at the mainland high school. It had been the first week of classes and she’d clung to her friends like a motherless monkey abandoned in the jungle. He’d been a senior. Handsome. Sexy. On the football team. Despite the heat of the September afternoon, he’d proudly worn his letterman jacket.

  She’d taken one look at him and had fallen deeply in love. She’d known in that instant that he was the one. He liked to tease that it had taken him longer. That it was only after he’d been talking to her for ten minutes that he’d accepted his fate.