The Sisters

by Rosalind Noonan

  Ruby hugged her books, tempted to throw one at Aurora. “You are such a moron.”

  “Oh my God! You’re the moron!”

  “Don’t call her that!” Dad snapped, but Mom was standing between them, holding her hands out like a referee separating two brawling players.

  “Okay, we need five minutes of quiet time.” Mom’s dark eyes were fierce; she was in disciplinarian mode. “Both of you, off to your rooms. When you come back for dinner we will speak like civilized people. And no cancer talk until after the dishes are done. We’re going to talk about this and then let it go for the time being. I’m not going to let this disease consume our lives. Now go.”

  It was a relief to escape and think about anything but Mom having cancer. Ruby went down the stairs to the daylight basement, glad that hers was the only bedroom on this level. She dumped her books on the bed, went straight to the shelves Dad had built into the wall for her brightly colored collection, and scooped up her favorites, the family of five baby rubber ducks.

  “She is a moron,” she told the little yellow ducks in her hands before carrying them to the bed. She stretched out on her side and began to arrange the ducks on the comforter in a starburst pattern, as if the five of them were kissing. This was her therapy since she was little, the arrangement of rubber ducks to line up the things that were askew in her world. The ducks soothed her, and something about the hopeful expression in that upturned orange beak brought her comfort. For a time in middle school she’d tried to downplay it, but now that kids were making tons of money selling original Pokémon and Star Wars figures on eBay, her rubber duckies were considered cool.

  “Slightly retro and adorable,” Maxi always said when she gave the purple duck with the blue polka dots a squeeze. Maxi’s favorite.

  Ruby had ducks in various bright colors and identities. Officer Duck, Cowboy Duck, Dr. Duck, Captain Duck. There was a mermaid with a bikini top and a fish tail, a nurse duck, and a queen duck. Maxi had brought back a Statue of Liberty duck from New York City, and a few years ago Delilah had given her a rainbow duck before any of them understood that it stood for LGBTQ freedom. “I just liked the colors,” Del said recently, “but now that I know what it means, I like it even better.”

  Ruby lined up the ducks on the edge of her textbook, and one by one they dropped off the edge into the water. See that? You can swim. You’ll be fine.

  The ducks were confident and supportive, unlike real people. They would never talk about death in front of someone who had gotten a cancer diagnosis.

  Pushing off the bed, she brought over Mama Duck and gathered the little ones around her. Oh, Mama, don’t be sick. Wake up, wake up! Rora is crying.

  Aurora thought Ruby’s ducks were stupid. She didn’t understand why they weren’t in the bathtub and didn’t care that water would make them fill up with yucky black mold. She didn’t understand the comfort the ducks brought Ruby in the ways that she could squeeze them like stress balls or assort them in organized patterns. Aurora didn’t appreciate organization.

  And Aurora didn’t appreciate their parents. Tonight had proven that more than ever to Ruby, who remembered bits and pieces from when she was four years old. She remembered crawling into bed between her parents. She recalled being hoisted in the air and carried around, floating in her father’s arms. Her daddy, who had gotten down on the floor with her and made a game out of counting crackers and Cheerios. Her daddy, who read her books and taught her silly poems. Her daddy, who had been a football star in high school, which Ruby could picture, though it had to be before she was born. Her daddy was magical and ethereal, while Mommy was real, reliable, the everyday parent. Sort of like her current mom and dad. Her original mother used to take her to the duck pond and to some Mexican restaurant for tiny quesadillas and applesauce. Mommy, with her hair that smelled like vanilla cookies and her starry blue eyes and instructions for Ruby. “Say thank you. Don’t forget to brush your teeth. Take care of your sister.”

  Ruby had been old enough to remember, but Aurora was a lost cause. If Aurora had any memory of being left at the fire station on that rainy day, she would be thankful for what she had now. She wouldn’t be manipulating Pete and Tamarind now as if it were their job to smooth over every little bump for her.

  Not Ruby. She loved her parents. She knew Mom and Dad loved her and she was grateful to be their daughter. Even if she was curious about the woman who had left her behind, she wasn’t going to jeopardize her parents’ happiness by making them pay some investigator to find her birth mother.

  Without much time before dinner, Ruby called her smartest friend, Maxi. Maxine Ellison Cohen was Jewish and kind of wild but nerdy, too. She didn’t fit the normal profile for West Green High, either, which made it easy for Ruby to be friends with her. Back in junior high they’d been the outliers who’d been chosen last for dodgeball in PE class. More recently, some kids gave them props for varying from the white-bread path. Some kids thought it was cool to be Indian, mixed race, or Jewish, cool to be different, which Ruby thought was a little weird. Designer genetics? It wasn’t as if she or her friends had any choice in the matter.

  “Wassup?” Maxi asked.

  “Hey. Can you send me a picture of your algebra homework?”

  “You mean, like, the answers?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sure, but I can explain it to you if you want. I thought you got this chapter?”

  “I’m just too distracted right now. We had a bomb drop here.” Ruby wanted to hold back, but if she didn’t tell Maxi, her head would explode. “Don’t say a word to anyone, but my mom has cancer and she needs surgery.”

  “Oh my God. Ruby! I’m so sorry.”

  “I know. Don’t tell a soul, because I wasn’t supposed to tell you.”

  “I won’t tell anyone, I swear. That’s awful. Is she okay? I mean—”

  “She said they got it early and that’s good. I don’t know.” Her parents weren’t beyond lying to keep things calm. Reframing the truth, her history teacher called it.

  “Well, that’s something. So I guess you didn’t tell her about the search.”

  “I didn’t. I can’t. How can I? This is no time to be stabbing her in the back.”

  “You wouldn’t be stabbing her in the back. The search doesn’t involve Tamarind and Pete.”

  “The search is going to hurt them both, and I can’t take that chance right now.”

  Ruby remembered exactly how the idea of searching for her biological mother had started. It was one of those drowsy late-night sleepover conversations with her friends.

  When Delilah was annoyed with her parents and wished she were secretly adopted and had cool movie star parents, the whole adoption issue had been cracked open. “Do you think about your biological mother?” Delilah asked. “I mean, maybe she rocks it like Pink. Or maybe she’s really in touch with her inner self like Selena Gomez. You must wonder about that all the time.”

  “Sometimes. My aunt Kaysandra says I suffered from separation anxiety when the social workers got me. I was convinced my mother would come back.”

  “Aw . . . that just breaks my heart.”

  Ruby shrugged. Most times she felt that she’d left that sad little girl behind. “But I realized how lucky I am. I’ve got a great mother and father. I’m luckier than a lot of kids. And from the stuff that I remember, I think my birth mom was kind of sad. Definitely poor. At least that’s what my aunt Kaysandra says. She helped my parents with the adoption.” A social worker, Aunt Kaysandra had always been the person Ruby went to when she had questions about what had happened back then. “It was so hard for you. Do you remember how torn up you were about it, sweet pea?” Ruby usually shrugged those questions off, though she soaked up any information she could get on her birth parents. Somehow, it was easier sharing her memories with her friends.

  “What else do you remember about your birth mother?” asked Maxi.

  “It’s embarrassing, but I remember stupid things, like feeding the ducks at th
e pond or playing with Cheerios on my father’s nightstand. Aurora was just a baby, so she’s got no memory, but I was four, so I remember . . . images. Like old photos that keep fading every year.”

  “That is so intense,” Delilah said. “Do you remember what your mother looked like?”

  “Blue eyes, and she was white, with shiny dark hair. She seemed so brave, pushing my sister and me all around the neighborhood in a stroller. We went everywhere with her, and that made me feel so grown-up, like I was her best friend.”

  “That’s so sweet that you felt close to her,” Delilah said.

  “What about your dad?” asked Maxi.

  “He’s not so clear. I kind of remember him as one big laughing hug. He was a big guy, like a football player, but he would get down on the floor and play with me. He used to recite poems. Silly poems, like Shel Silverstein’s stuff and that Lewis Carroll poem.” Back in middle school when Ruby was practicing kicking on goal with her friends, she had begun to recite a silly poem she knew from childhood:

  “’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

  All mimsy were the borogoves,

  And the mome raths outgrabe.”

  Delilah had chuckled, saying that she didn’t know what the heck Ruby was talking about, but it made her feel “mimsy.” Maxi had recognized the first stanza from Lewis Carroll’s poem “Jabberwocky”—totally impressed that Ruby could recite the entire piece. Her voice became a low growl as she clawed at the air, reciting the lines:

  “ ‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!’ ”

  Had she learned it in school? No. It came from her daddy. The man who went away somewhere to work in Alaska. And Ruby kept waiting for him to come home. But he never did.

  Waiting. Waiting. So patient. Mommy had promised that he would be home soon.

  Soon.

  Mommy also said she would be right back when she left Ruby and Rory at the fire station.

  Right back.

  Ruby was too embarrassed to admit that she remembered the fire station. It was such a pitiful memory. The giant table. The men, with their dusting of mustaches and distant smiles. They gave her ice cream, an orange Creamsicle. A dreamsicle, that was what her real mom, Tamarind, called it. As if ice cream on a stick could transport you to your destiny. Well, in a way, that day at the firehouse, it had.

  Last year, the prospect of the girls getting their driver’s licenses seemed to open up a new chance for Ruby to dig into her roots without upsetting her parents. Her friends were convinced they could make it a secret mission, and they were eager to help her find her biological mother.

  “We’ll help you,” they insisted. And Ruby secretly delighted in the chance to find out more, just as long as no one said anything to Tamarind and Pete.

  “Yo.” Maxi’s voice brought her back. “You still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “Right now my mom is all I can think about. I mean Tamarind, not the other mom.”

  “I knew that.”

  “So I don’t know about the search. Maybe I’ll do it without telling them. I’m sixteen. They don’t have to know everything I’m doing.”

  Dad called her up to dinner. “I gotta go. Send me the homework.”

  “So you’re giving up the search?”

  “For now.” Someday she would find her birth mother, Glory. And if her parents found out about it?

  She would figure out a way to reframe her story.

  CHAPTER 18

  The footsteps on the attic stairs were light and cautious, the sound of a person not wanting to bother anyone else in the house. The familiar pattern, the step and step, step and step, was Mama’s sound, the plodding climb she had to make because of her bad left knee.

  Taking no chances, Luna switched off her flashlight and shoved it, along with her book, down into the sleeping bag as the lock was popped open and watery silver cut a swathe through the small attic cubby. Light washed over the plywood walls and floor, the corner bucket, the dusty boxes she had stacked in a peak like a capital A as a memorial to Annabelle. She was relieved to see the silhouette of Glory, a blanket swaddled around her shoulders like a shawl over her nightgown and bare legs.

  An angel with long brown hair—that was her mother.

  “Mama, it’s getting cold up here. I guess fall is really—”

  “Hush, now. We don’t want Leo to hear that I’m letting you out.”

  “But he’s asleep,” Luna said. His room was two levels down; he wouldn’t hear them even if he was awake. And the sisters had probably gone to bed, too.

  “The walls have ears, and I don’t want to give him reason to punish you again. Come on, love bug. Let’s get you downstairs to our room. Not a word till then.”

  In the shadowy light of a hanging bulb, they walked down the wood stairs, taking care to keep their footsteps soft, “like you’re walking through balloons,” Mama always said.

  As they crept through the quiet house, Luna opened her left palm and smiled at the secret message Hazel had drawn there in purple ink. Purple, like Harold’s crayon.

  I love you, with a drawing of a heart for the word “love.”

  Luna pressed her fist to her chest, hoping that it didn’t wash off too soon. Even with all the trouble she’d gotten in for pushing through the hole in the fence to go next door, this secret message made it worth it.

  It was so unfair that she had to be punished, locked in the attic just for visiting her friend. Hazel Hanson didn’t get punished for having friends. She got to see her friends every day at school, which Luna imagined to be a magical place chock-full of friends, where you could hold hands and learn together all day long. “I wish I could go to school,” she always told Hazel.

  “But homeschooling works better for some kids,” Hazel’s mom had said. She said it was definitely working for Luna, who had read all the Harry Potter books herself. “You have excellent reading skills,” Hazel’s mom had told Luna one day when the Hansons’ cable went out and they had chosen to read a book together for fun. That had made Luna glow inside. But still, she would rather go to school and make lots of friends.

  Once inside their room, Mama placed the rolled-up towel under the door to muffle their voices. Sitting cross-legged, they faced each other on Mama’s bed by the window that overlooked the backyard with its two tall yew trees and sagging lawn. Leo’s room was at the front of the house, on the other side, but they had made a habit of whispering to each other when they were alone.

  Mama leaned forward and took her hands. “My brave girl, are you all right?”

  Luna nodded. The attic was less terrible now that there was a sleeping bag, a light, and a book to read. If she was stuck up there during the day, she could clean off a spot on the grimy little window and watch for Hazel, coming home from school, so easy to spot in her cherry red rain slicker. Luna could do some of her normal stuff up there in the attic, but she didn’t like being punished. “It’s so unfair,” she whispered.

  “When we got back to the house and Leo told me you were locked in the attic, I was just sick about it. I knew it was serious when he wouldn’t let you out for dinner. Tell me what happened.” Mama had been out of the house, working at the hotel with most of the other sisters.

  “I was in the backyard and I heard Hazel on the swings. That creaky sound. I peeked through the loose board and she asked me if I wanted to come over.”

  “That loose board that you removed?”

  “It was already rotten. And I had done all my reading and writing assignments. So I squeezed through the fence and we hung out.” Hazel had taught her to say “hung out” instead of “visited,” the way the sisters talked about getting together. Plus she’d seen it on a bunch of shows she got to watch at Hazel’s house. Kids’ shows. Hanging out at Hazel’s was like time traveling to the planet of Happy. When Luna said that in front of Hazel’s mother,
Nicole said that it was “just about the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard.” And she had a big smile that made Luna feel warm inside. “Why does Leo get so mad when I go over there?” Luna asked her mother.

  “It’s against the rules, and Leo was upset when he couldn’t find you.”

  “He should just let me go and he doesn’t need to worry. Hazel’s my friend.” Luna loved Hazel. Every time they saw each other Hazel gave her a hug, and when they had to part Hazel said, “Love you!” That was what good friends did. “Hazel’s mother said I’m welcome anytime. She wants to meet you, Mama. Won’t you come over and talk to her sometime? I think maybe she would help us.”

  “No, Luna, this cannot happen. You can’t go over there.”

  “Why not?”

  “You are not to leave this house, ever.” Mama’s mouth stretched in a frown and little creases appeared in her forehead. Her mad look.

  “Why can’t I hang out with Hazel, Mama? Girls my age like to hang out and have friends.” Luna had seen enough of Nickelodeon to know that much.

  “Who takes care of us?”

  “Leo.”

  “That’s right. He feeds us and gives us a place to live. He’s our protector, and we need to follow his rules. For now.”

  “But Mama—”

  “I can’t stop him from locking you in the attic. I can only . . .” Tears were in Mama’s eyes as she pressed a hand to her mouth. “I think of Annabelle, and I can’t help—”

  “That’s not going to happen to me,” Luna assured her. She’d been little when Annabelle died and it was a foggy memory, though sometimes she talked to her ghost in the attic. Luna didn’t really believe in ghosts, but when there was no one else around to talk to, a ghost was a good listener. “Leo doesn’t understand how important friends are. That’s why he doesn’t have any friends.”

  “He has the sisters.”

  “That’s different.” Luna couldn’t say how, except that the sisters only pretended to like one another.