The Story Sisters

“I’ll take care of this,” the third grandson said. This was Philippe, who had once balanced china cups on top of one another in the back room of the shop, carefully constructing a tower, until they’d all come crashing down. He’d made the flyswatter out of a rubber band and marbles. He was full of ideas. People thought he would someday invent a cure for some terrible and debilitating disease. Madame Cohen had specifically told him to carry the dog downstairs for Claire.

The entrance to the room was narrow and Philippe hit his elbows getting in the door. Claire worried that he wouldn’t be able to carry the dog downstairs, but he seemed sure of himself. He carefully picked up the body, which he hoisted over his shoulder. His actions were surprisingly tender for someone so uncoordinated.

“You go first,” Philippe told Claire, not wanting her to see the way a body looked after death, the hardening of the jaw and limbs. “I’ll follow.”

The three brothers buried Shiloh. As medical students they’d seen worse and done worse, but it was still a sad business. Claire’s tears fell down onto the cobblestones. She seemed fierce and unreachable. When the grandsons were done, they stood there uncomfortably for a while, clothes splattered with dirt. They all had lectures to attend, yet they stared at one another, lingering. Their grandmother had forbidden them to be rude, and because they were rude by nature they didn’t know whether or not it was now a proper time to leave. Philippe had been told in no uncertain terms to watch his manners. Natalia came down with glasses and a pitcher of water, which the brothers gulped down, then she discreetly told them they could go.

Philippe went up to Claire, though her silence seemed fearsome. His grandmother had told him not to be tricked by how standoffish she might seem. Claire’s hands were stuffed in her pockets. She had slipped on a pair of dark glasses so no one could see that her eyes were red.

“Heart failure doesn’t feel like anything,” Philippe told her. “Just so you know. He went to sleep and didn’t wake up. No sensation. No pain.”

Claire nodded, grateful for the explanation. When Madame Cohen’s grandsons left, having returned the shovel to the garden shed and repaired the lock, Claire remained in the courtyard. She sat vigil beside the grave until the end of the day, when her grandmother coaxed her back inside.

She returned to work the next day. She didn’t speak much, but she did her job. Then she had tea with Madame Cohen in the back room.

“What did you think of my grandsons?” Madame Cohen asked.

“They were helpful.”

“A pot holder is helpful,” Madame Cohen replied. “Otherwise you’d burn your hand. None of them impressed you?”

“I thought one of them might not manage to carry Shiloh downstairs, but he did.”

“Philippe,” Madame Cohen said. She was glad that he’d done a good job. “Would you like to see him again?”

“Not really.” Claire was always honest with her employer.

Frankly, she didn’t wish to see anyone. After Shiloh’s death, people in the neighborhood became accustomed to seeing her alone. Even the coldest among them worried for her. In the markets, they offered bargains meant only for the best customers. Vendors sent her home with bunches of flowers for her grandmother. In the spice shop, she was plied with candied fruits. A Monsieur Abetan, who had an antiquities shop filled with knick-knacks and junk, gave her an amulet he vowed would bring her luck, but she only stuck the talisman in the top drawer of the bureau in the parlor, where it sat alongside the mints and the toothpicks.

People wondered if Claire had ever fallen in love or walked arm in arm with a friend. She had become a cautionary tale, pitied, whispered about. Some of the older women kept butterfly nets in their shopping bags, ready and able to defend her should a demon happen to appear as she went walking by.

When spring arrived, Claire continued to wear her coat and boots. She was the one person in Paris who dreaded the end of winter. The white flowers blooming on the chestnut tree in her grandmother’s courtyard were anathema to her. They made her think of the lost and the dead. They no longer carried the scent of almonds. Instead, when she breathed in there was the stink of bitterroot, sulfur. She wished for snow, rain, turtle-green skies. She had the feeling children sometimes do when they’re awakened by a nightmare and desperately yearn for someone to tell them their dreamworld doesn’t exist in real life. Claire had always crept into bed with Elv to beg for a story when that happened to her. Once upon a time there was a little girl who needed to go to sleep, Elv would begin, no matter how sleepy she herself was. Nothing could harm her and no one could find her and she was always safe.

SPRING IN NEW York was exceptionally beautiful. The trees in Central Park were a liquid green. When the wind shook the branches, pockets of green showered the ground. There were splotches falling onto the pages of Elv’s book, a crisscross of pollen and print. She was sitting on a bench outside the zoo. She was noticeably pregnant by the end of the season. Women going past often stopped to congratulate her. She smiled, thanked them, then returned her attentions to her book. She was reading about children the same way she had once devoured information about dogs. She knew absolutely nothing about them. They were an utter mystery. How had her mother ever managed the three of them, so close in age? How had she known how to cure a fever, a bee sting, a spider’s bite? How to make a bed, fix a perfect grilled cheese and tomato sandwich, pour a glass of milk without spilling a drop? You’ll understand everything you need to when your child is born, Elv’s ama had written to her. Don’t worry so much. But she hadn’t understood how to be a daughter or a sister or the beloved of a man who couldn’t turn away from his fatal flaw. How could she ever understand a child?