The Story Sisters

It had to be her. It was always her.

“You have to stay away from me,” she told her mother.

“Elv,” Annie said, distraught.

“This is just going to make you sicker. I can’t be who you want me to be. Claire hates me, and I’ll just disappoint you. Don’t you see that? You have to let me go.”

“I don’t think I can.”

Elv turned away. “Don’t you think I wish it had been me? I can wish it from now until the end of time, but I can’t change it. I can’t bring Meg back.”

Elv was like a flower. She was closing up, the way flowers did at night, petal by petal. She lit her cigarette and exhaled a thin stream of smoke. “Just go.”

“Come home,” Annie said. She went to hug Elv, but Elv shifted out of her embrace. “You just have to get in the car with me. That’s all.”

“Walk away, Mom. I mean it. Forget about me.” Elv pulled herself together. She could do that when she needed to. She could hurt someone almost as much as she could hurt herself. “I don’t want to come back. I don’t even want to see you. Get out!” She went to the door and opened it. “If you come here again, I’ll call the police. I’ll say you’re harassing me. I don’t want you here. Forget you ever knew me.”

Annie went out into the hall. She heard the door close behind her. She’d done everything wrong. Elv was right. She had wished that Meg had been the one to survive. It was her deepest, most shameful secret; at least she had thought it had been a secret. But Elv knew she had been forsaken, and now it was too late. Elv was lost to her.

Annie noticed a figure at the end of the hall, wary, waiting for her to depart. That man had known she was there all along. He hadn’t come charging in, demanding she stay away from Elv the way Annie imagined he would. He didn’t have to. She belonged to him now.

Annie forgot where she had parked her car. She walked down the street, confused. The two old ladies she’d asked for help were gone. A horn honked and she looked up. Pete Smith was parked on the corner. He signaled her over. Annie went to get into the Volvo. It was a relief to sit down, not to have to drive anywhere or think or be responsible.

“I didn’t have any other appointments.” Pete pulled into traffic. “I figured I might as well take a ride.”

“My car’s here,” Annie protested when he started to drive away.

“I’ll get it for you tomorrow. I’ll take the bus in.”

“You didn’t tell me she was a heroin addict,” Annie said accusingly.

“Annie, you knew,” Pete said. “You were just hoping you were wrong.”

She leaned her head against the seat and closed her eyes. They got off the highway and stopped at the diner. Pete ordered the Spanish omelet. Annie had coffee and grilled cheese, but this time she also ordered apple pie. “What the hell,” she said. “I won’t be able to eat tomorrow,” she explained. “I have chemo.”

“Every other Tuesday.” Pete Smith was an excellent researcher. He managed to convince people to tell him things they wouldn’t dare admit to anyone else. Plus he had learned how to get into hospital records, a fairly simple thing to do once you understood the system.

“Do you have a file on me, too? You seem to know everything. You don’t know how much I weigh, do you?”

Pete laughed and shook his head. “No.”

“Do you know this is a wig?”

He had to admit that he did.

Annie touched her head. “Is it a bad one?” That would be the kind of thing no one would tell you. But Pete Smith would.

“It’s a fine wig,” he said.

Annie leaned her elbows on the table. “Do you follow everyone who hires you?”

“Just you,” he said, making his intentions clear.

The tables around them were crowded, but they didn’t seem to care.

“You must be dumber than you appear,” Annie remarked. “Look at my life. It’s a disaster.”

“I had a daughter too,” Pete told her. “Everything went wrong. She overdosed. She was our only child.”

Annie looked up at him. “I’m sorry. What was her name?”

“Rebecca.”

“That’s pretty. I like that.”

He insisted on driving her home. Nightingale Lane looked deserted after the traffic in Astoria. Annie invited him in for a drink. Grateful, he followed her inside and asked for a whiskey. She looked around until she found some in a kitchen cabinet. It must have been Alan’s a long time ago. She poured herself a glass of Bordeaux. She was glad not to be alone.

The dog hadn’t barked when they’d come in, so after Annie brought the drinks into the living room, she excused herself and went to look in on Claire. She stood outside the bedroom door. She could make out the faint murmur of words. Claire was talking to Shiloh. It was the first time Annie had heard her speak since the funeral. Her voice was lovely, quiet and measured.

It had been a horrible day, but Annie was surprised to find that she was glad to be alive. She wanted to be right were she was, in between the moment of hearing Claire’s voice and the instant when she went back downstairs, ready for whatever happened next.

PETE WAS THERE more often, helping around the house, driving her to doctor’s appointments through the summer and fall, spending more time out in North Point Harbor than he did at his apartment in Westbury. Sometimes he made dinner. He had never cooked for anyone before. When he was married, his wife had done the cooking; and when he was alone, he figured it wasn’t worth the time to cook for one person. He was nervous, fearing he’d burn every meal, but as it turned out, he was a natural. He should have been a chef, Annie told him. Even picky Claire would eat the meals he made: lasagna, mushroom soup, his grandmother’s recipe for stuffed cabbage, a fragrant old-world dish.