Sisters of Heart and Snow (11 page)

Rachel takes out a large pot and fills it with water, shaking her head all the while. “I knew that woman was a weirdo flake. I never trusted her. Do you have something else lined up? Did you know she would do this?”

Drew shakes her head back. Of course Rachel saw this coming. When Drew first took the job, Rachel had asked dozens of questions. How long had the woman been grooming dogs?
Never
. What was different about this business?
It's cute
.
It's called Dogwarts.
Does she provide benefits?
No
. And on and on until Rachel drove her point like a stake into Drew—that Drew was an ignorant fool who would never succeed at anything. Not that she said that in those words, exactly. Or that Drew had done anything except give her one-word answers and nod. She tried hard not to fight with Rachel.

Drew should have seen the signs. She should have gotten a job that went somewhere ages ago. But there were always the music gigs. And the fact that their father gave her a generous Christmas check every year that filled in the income gaps. Drew had grown comfortable in her stasis.

Tom smiles at her, his eyes crinkling. “Well. You can stay here as long as you want. We have that guest room. We'd love to have you. I feel like we never see you.”

Drew's head lifts. She hadn't considered staying more than a night. Rachel swivels her head to stare at Tom. The Rachel Glare. Tom doesn't backtrack, just lifts his eyebrows back at her sister. Drew stifles a smile. How lucky is her sister that she found a man who will actually stand up to her? Because even though Drew loves Rachel, she has to admit that Rachel can be a teensy bit stubborn. Rachel looks down. “Tom, I've been having trouble with the TV remote in our bedroom. Can you show me?”

Tom shrugs, stands. “Sure.” Rachel's already moving toward the living room.

K
ISO-
F
UKUSHIMA
T
OWN

S
HINANO
P
ROVINCE

H
ONSHU,
J
APAN

Summer 1169

T
omoe weighed each green bean in the palm of her hand for heaviness before attempting to twist it free. If it did not give way immediately, she knew it was not ready. Such fruits were good only when the mother plant released them.

She knelt in the crumbling black earth, feeling in the leaves for the beans she couldn't see. The morning was still cool, the heat not yet oppressive. This was sixteen-year-old Tomoe's favorite time of day, and often she would arise in the first wan light to begin her chores. “Tomoe is more reliable than our rooster,” Kaneto would say. He was the second one awake, going out to oversee the rice paddies. Tomoe always began her work with feeding the chickens and helping her mother start breakfast. Then it was time to wake up the boys. She saved the garden she'd attended as a child for last, weeding and watering, deadheading blossoms and picking ripe vegetables.

This morning, Kanehira and her parents had gone to town, taking eggs and some rice to barter for silk—Chizuru wanted to make them both kimonos. Yoshinaka was already out in their rice fields, supervising the dozen or so workers Kaneto employed.

The
clop-clop
of hooves caused her to look up. Yoshinaka dismounted and came at her, full-force. “Tomoe! You'll never guess.”

Tomoe stood, upsetting her basket of beans all over the ground. She knelt again and picked them up. “What's wrong?” she said, annoyed.

Yoshinaka grinned, his eyes big with excitement. “Come on! I have to show you something.”

She looked at the rows of beans she had not yet touched. “I cannot. I am not done.”

“Tomoe. This is important.” His voice took on an authoritative, deepening tone. Tomoe had overheard Yoshinaka bragging to her brother that he already had hair in places where only men had hair. The thought made her blush. Now Yoshinaka took her hand, his tone softening. “Come with me. Please. I promise you'll like it. And bring that basket.”

She allowed him to lead her to the horse, a sturdy brown mare the boy was riding bareback. An excited, nervous giggle escaped her. Where were they going? Was he trying to get her in some deserted bushes? She trusted him, though. “All right. But can't you give me at least a hint?”

He laced his fingers together to give her a foot boost. “No.” He scrambled up behind her. His growing strength surprised her. She could feel the strong muscles in his thighs, alongside her buttocks, squeezing her into place. Yoshinaka wrapped his arms around her and kicked the mare. She put the basket between her legs and held on to the horse's mane.

The breeze whipped through Tomoe's hair and she enjoyed the sensation on her face. It blew back onto Yoshinaka's face, fanning over his head like a bolt of silk. “It's like I blindfolded you,” she said teasingly.

“I can ride blind,” Yoshinaka said, “but I want you to close your eyes.”

She shut them, her heart fluttering. What was he going to show her? She hoped it wouldn't be a terrible schoolboy prank. That he wasn't taking her to see an animal corpse or something equally disgusting. Sometimes she didn't know if Yoshinaka could tell the difference between her and her brother, his assistant in mayhem.

They rode for a while. Tomoe could tell by the sounds they moved beyond their fields and into a forest. The sunlight on her face and shoulders disappeared into shadow. She held the coarse horse mane a bit tighter. She could feel Yoshinaka's pulse beating through her light summer robe, into her spine. “Are we almost there?”

The horse stopped abruptly, but Yoshinaka held her still. “We are.” He jumped down, then reached for both of her hands. She landed upright. “Keep your eyes closed.” She heard him moving a branch, the crack of the wood breaking, and felt a sudden shaft of warmth on her torso. They were not in the woods. She heard birds singing, many of them, their song loud as though they were inside an aviary.

“Open your eyes,” he commanded.

She blinked. They were standing before a cherry orchard of about half a dozen trees. Ripe fruit in shades varying from yellowish pink to dark red hung from every branch. This was what the birds sang about; they darted in and out of the trees, gorging themselves on cherries. Tomoe didn't blame them. If she were a bird, she would be here, too. Cherries were her favorite, and they didn't have any trees.

Yoshinaka bowed to her and swept his arm toward the booty. “Welcome to the Minamoto private orchard,” he said. He reached up and plucked off a cherry. It was a brilliant primary red, so crimson it seemed as unreal as if it had fallen out of a painting. “For you.”

She opened her palm for it, but Yoshinaka broke off the stem and placed the fruit on her lower lip. “Open,” he said.

She obeyed, and he let it fall into her mouth. The sweet juices exploded against her tongue, and she couldn't prevent the smile from overtaking her face. She savored the fruit meat, crunching it off the pit and spitting out the seed. Yoshinaka stood watching her with a satisfied smile. He rubbed his hands together.

“See? Worth it,” he said.

She looked around. Beyond the orchard was another field, and behind that a wood. Surely some neighbor had planted these trees. Whose land were they on? Would they get into trouble? “Yoshi,” she said, “whose orchard is this?”

He popped four cherries into his mouth, then grabbed more handfuls, tossing them into her basket. “What does it matter? They are too lazy to pick them. They'll go bad if we don't.”

She pictured arriving back home with a basket full of stolen cherries. Kaneto would have a fit. “You know Father won't like it. It's thievery. And why are you out wandering around instead of supervising?”

“Our workers don't need me to watch every second. Kaneto said so. It makes them feel downtrodden.” Yoshinaka lay down on his side on the flattened green grass, patting a spot beside him. He spat out a pit. “Let's eat them here, and then we won't have to deal with your parents.”

She sank to the ground and accepted the cherries, eating slowly, savoring the sweet, tangy flavor. “We could trade for them,” she suggested.

Yoshinaka exploded, throwing over the basket. “Stop, Tomoe. We don't need to trade. This orchard belongs to the Wada family. And Wada-chan won't care. They'll be happy they didn't go to waste. They have too many other worries.” He turned from her, stepping on the cherries in his haste.

Tomoe watched the cherries rolling away into mud. She looked at Yoshinaka accusingly. “You just wasted these,” she said. She hadn't known, in all their years of being neighbors, that the Wada family had this treasure trove. She would have thought Wada would bring some cherries to her family. How often had she and Chizuru picked eggplant, beans, spinach from their gardens and given them to Wada-san to take home? Nearly daily, in the summer.

Yoshinaka stood, grabbing the basket. “I'll pick more.”

“I've no appetite.” She got to her feet, shaking out the bits of dirt and grass from her
yukata
and pants. “Don't eat yourself sick.”

“Tomoe!” Yoshinaka grabbed her arm. He put his face very close to hers, pressing himself into her side, length to length. “Do you think me a child?”

She stared hard into his eyes, that warm brown-black-red color. A miniature Tomoe reflected back darkly at her. Their breath, through their lips, matched. His pupils dilated and his lips parted, close enough for her to feel the moistness from his mouth. His hand slid off her arm, around her waist, back up to her breast, caressing her. She put her arms around him. A hardness between his legs pressed on her stomach. She gulped. Her heart began beating wildly, sending unfamiliar shoots of warmth all over her body. He was going to kiss her. Perhaps more. Perhaps she hoped he would.

Frightened of her own strong response, she took a step away. He was no child. And he was not her brother. “I have to go finish my chores.”

“Take the horse,” he said, turning away.

She did not see him until that evening's meal, when he returned on foot, dirty and sweaty and without the basket. Yoshinaka sat quietly, eating, as Kanehira tried to jostle him out of his dark mood. Always his accusing eyes fixed on Tomoe. She ignored him.

Later, while her parents talked softly by the lamplight and Tomoe unrolled her sleeping mat, there was a knock at the door. Kaneto slid open the door. “Yoshimori! What brings you here at this hour?” Kaneto whispered. Wada said something indecipherable, and her father bowed before closing the door.

“What is it?” Kanehira said, sitting up. Tomoe looked, too. Kaneto held up a gift, wrapped in a bright red square of silk with a small note.

“A note from Wada-chan's mother.
We have been too busy and ill to pick these, but Yoshinaka helped us out today
,” Kaneto read aloud.
“Please accept our gift with our gratitude, as always.”

Chizuru unwrapped the silken knots. “Cherries,” she said, holding aloft a handful. She smiled. “Ah. I had forgotten they had an orchard. Yoshinaka, what a nice thing that was to help.”

Yoshinaka nodded modestly, but stole a glance at Tomoe.

Impulsively, she got up from her futon and ran across the room to give him a quick peck on the cheek. “Very nice,” she whispered.

Yoshinaka's grin broadened. “I know they are Tomoe's favorite fruit,” he said.

 

S
AN
D
IEGO

Present Day

T
om wants to talk sense into me. I already know it. He's the commonsense yang to my emotional yin. His hand feels warm and steady. Tom still has the sandy brown hair he had when we first met; all the men in his family keep their hair. Many are also remarkably long-lived, active into their nineties. Good genes. He'll outlive me. It's why I picked him.

Also, I fell in love with him when he walked into my community college Introductory Biology class. He had the best posture of anyone I'd ever seen, his neck and shoulders strong. Confident. An easy smile, which he was directing at the person behind him. I admired him, feeling my whole body freeze up, my vocal cords included. I'd never talk to him. I'd want to, I already knew. I'd content myself with a semester of staring at the back of his well-trimmed head, with the soft hairs meeting his neck.

Then he tripped on my backpack, which I'd carelessly left too far out in the aisle, the straps a booby trap for passersby. He face-planted with a worrisome crack. The chatter in the room stopped. I froze. I thought he'd yell at me, and rightfully so. I forced my muscles into action and rushed to him though I was shaking in fear. “Oh my God. I'm so sorry. Are you all right?”

From the floor, he lifted an arm. “Don't worry. I'm okay.” He got up and brushed himself off. There was an alarming red mark on his chin.

“I'm so sorry,” I managed again, in a tiny voice. I could feel my eyes tearing up, everyone looking at me.

“No worries. Nothing broken. Probably.” His lively green-brown eyes, the ones our children would inherit, met mine. I was so close I could see tiny dots of blue, deep within the green, the browns underneath that, as if his eyes were soil and grass and sky. Every nerve in my body sang. I took a gasping breath, speechless again, then looked away in embarrassment at my own reaction. He smiled, the kind of smile you'd use to tame a skittish dog. He sat next to me.

There would be jokes about that lethal backpack for years.

I think about that day sometimes. How if I hadn't been so thoughtlessly careless, I would never have met my husband. How so many tiny accidents lead us to who we are. Who we create.

•   •   •

We make it
to the living room, to the bottom of the stairs, before I stop and turn to my husband. “With everything that's happening with Mom, I can't handle another thing,” I say. I run my hands over my hair. I need a shower. My sister's an adult, but she needs as much tending as a guest. “And I'm not ready for a guest. There's a bunch of laundry in the guest room. It needs new sheets. The bathroom's dirty.”

“All of which is no big deal.” We get to the base of the stairs. “She's your sister,” Tom whispers. “She's not just any random person.” This room has a vaulted ceiling and voices echo too much off the hardwood. Over the years, with thin walls and hollow doors, we've perfected both the near-silent fight and the clandestine sex with each other's hands clamped over our mouths. “She can help you with your parents. You just don't like not having total control.”

“Not true,” I protest in a whisper, even as I think,
Yeah, maybe it is a little true
.

Tom knows this. But I'm a planner. He's not. And he's also got a much more generous nature than I do. It's something I work on. This opening up to the world and letting whatever wants to happen, happen.

During our first Thanksgiving together as a proper little family, with six-week-old Quincy, Tom had been gone for a weeklong project and got home on Wednesday. Tom's parents were off visiting one of his brothers, so it was a perfect opportunity for me to practice, screw up, and get it right for other years.

Cooking your first Thanksgiving turkey is a huge milestone. Making sure it's not disgustingly dry. Defrosting it for the right number of hours. And this was before the Internet was in full swing—you couldn't easily Google recipes. You had to have a book, or know how to do it.

Growing up, Thanksgiving was barely a blip on my family's radar. If we had no guests that year, we'd eat take-out—Killian installed in front of the television, watching football, Drew and me in the kitchen, my mother someplace else in the house. If Killian wanted guests, if he had some out-of-towners to impress, we'd hire someone to come in with a full dinner and present the turkey on a rented silver platter.

I wanted to make my new family's traditions special. Perfect. One day, Drew would be out of that house and I could invite her to mine, I thought.

So, the whole week Tom was gone, with my two-month-old in tow, I prepared. First I got one of those complete Thanksgiving recipe magazines they sell by the checkout stand. I bought every food I could think of—yams and marshmallows, potatoes and cream, Italian bread and seasonings, pastry crust and canned pumpkin.

By the time Wednesday night rolled around, when Tom was due to be home, I'd called it quits. Quincy had a cold. In three days I'd probably slept for three hours, sucking yellow-green snot out of her nostrils and sitting up with her in a steamy bathroom. Our apartment was scattered with burp cloths and laundry, and the turkey floated in a pool of ice water in the sink. Dirty dishes were stacked on the counter—I had no dishwasher.

I sat on the couch, topless, my stuffy-nosed baby on a semicircular Boppy pillow, and tried to get her to latch on. Quincy kept bawling because she couldn't breathe through her nose and therefore couldn't nurse well. It was this domestic scene that met Tom when he sauntered through the door, followed closely by a lanky man who smelled strongly of cigarette smoke. “Rachel, this is Larry. His family's in North Dakota. I invited him here for the holiday. He can sleep on the couch.” Tom spoke before he really looked. I reached for a blanket, but it was too late. Tom turned beet red.

Larry averted his eyes. “Hello,” I said through gritted teeth, resisting the urge to throw the pacifier at a hundred miles an hour at my husband's face. What was I going to say?
Fuck off, Tom, you're too fucking nice, bringing people without families to our home?
I couldn't.

“Sorry to intrude,” Larry said, keeping his gaze away. “I thought Tom cleared it with you.”

This made me feel worse. It wasn't Larry's fault that Tom didn't think this through. Or call. A call would've been nice. Now Larry would think I was a horrible wife, a lame cook, an incompetent mother. He and Tom would sit and watch football and I'd have to clean up everything, take care of the baby, and cook a meal that was looking further out of my grasp every second. “I'm just . . . surprised, is all.”

Tom picked up Quincy, cooed at her, kissed her face. “Little girl. I missed you.”

“She's sick.” I reattached the hooks on my nursing bra and slid on my T-shirt and offered a real smile to Larry, who had produced a six-pack of Corona that neither Tom nor I was old enough to buy.

Larry excused himself to wash up, and I beckoned Tom close to me. “Next time you bring someone home like this, I'd like a warning. I don't like surprises,” I whispered. “How am I going to entertain him? This house is a mess.”

“Everything in life is a surprise,” he whispered back, pointing to Quincy. He kissed my head. “Don't worry. I'll take care of everything.”

I moved my head away. “Whatever.” I hadn't met a man who could cook a meal or was willing to clean up. I stood up, aware of the fact that I couldn't remember the last time I showered. I decided not to worry about judgment. That's all women do, worry about who's going to think what about them. As though Larry was going to report back to the Mothering Authorities, and a contingent of Good Wives would show up at my door and give me demerits. I was too tired to care anymore. Let Tom deal with it. “I'm going to bed.”

I stayed asleep until the next morning. My first full eight hours since Quincy was born. Larry, it turned out, knew how to cook a turkey. Tom mashed the potatoes and steamed some vegetables and bought a frozen pie. All I had to do was put on some cleanish clothes and show up at the table. To our first holiday meal, which kind of turned out perfect. I didn't really need or want to cook up a huge Norman Rockwell feast. What I really needed was exactly what I got—time to sleep. Somebody else to cook and do dishes.

That was when I figured out that although my husband didn't do things exactly the way I did them, his intentions were generally good. Which forgives a lot. And that sometimes he knows what I need before I do. Difficult as that is for me to admit.

Now I wonder if by inviting Drew to stay with us, he's seeing something I don't. It really would be nice to have Drew here when I woke up in the morning. We haven't been in the same house like that in eighteen years. We've never gone on vacation together. When she comes on the holidays, she stays somewhere else and visits me and our parents separately.

“Hey you.” Tom clamps his arms around my waist, his hand interlocking his wrist. This is what he does, when we fight. He pulls me in so close that I can't get away, puts his mouth right next to my ear so my skin's a quilt of tingles. “You have to give her a chance,” he murmurs. “She's a good person.”

“I know she's a good person. I practically raised her.” I think about the easy camaraderie Tom has with his two brothers. They tease each other mercilessly and nobody ever has hard feelings over it, the way Drew and I always do. Tom says they've done this since childhood. Maybe boys are different.

“Rachel.” Tom leans into me. “The past is past. You have to let go and move forward. Time is a gift. That's why it's called the present.”

For a second I'm about to compliment him on his depth. Then I have to laugh. I recognize the line. “You got that from
Kung Fu Panda
.” One of Chase's favorites. We've probably watched it fifty times. “You need to come up with your own stuff.”

“It doesn't matter. It's true.” He circles his arms behind my back, pulls me into him forcefully. As if we're doing a tango. “Do you know you look hot when you're angry?”

“So that's why you want me all the time.” I put my arms around his neck and lean against him. “Okay. I'll see if she wants to stay.”

“You're sisters. She's family. You need to be close.” He tweaks my nose. “I know things, Rachel.”

I roll my eyes. “You try.”

“Such a bad attitude.” Tom smacks my bottom.

I yelp and laugh and glance guiltily into the kitchen. Drew's bent over her phone, her hair hiding her face. Her long legs are all angles on the stool. As if she feels my gaze, she lifts her head and meets my eyes, and I feel that electric jolt of surprise and warmth. Like I did when she was a newborn. “Hey,” she says. “I found a translator. Goes to UCSD. Hopefully he's not a serial killer.”

“Great,” I say.

Tom holds my hand. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Help me get dinner on the table.” I let go of my husband and go into the kitchen.

•   •   •

Drew knows that Rachel's telling Tom
that he shouldn't have invited her. Drew's inadvertently started a battle. “I don't actually think I can stay,” Drew says when Rachel returns. This is why it's better for Drew to keep her mouth shut. “I've got stuff to take care of at home, too. Like finding a new job.”

“No. I don't mind if you stay,” says Rachel, just as quickly, and one of those fake smiles Drew hates stretches her sister's face. “Stay as long as you like. I can use the help. Really.”

Drew gets up and opens the Crock-Pot lid, considering. Chunks of onion float around juicy meatballs. Drew inhales. This is Tom's mother's recipe, Drew knows—she's had it before, and it's the best red sauce she's ever had. Fresh herbs float in the pot. The meatballs are not uniformly shaped. Homemade. When did her sister have time?

She takes a spoon out of the drawer (of course the utensil drawer is next to the dishwasher—unlike Drew's kitchen, Rachel's kitchen makes sense) and scoops out a meatball. It's juicy and tender and—surprise—has a morsel of creamy mozzarella hiding in the middle. She closes her eyes, suddenly famished, and has to stop herself from scooping out another one—she could eat this whole pot, no problem. The last time Drew had Italian, it was a can of Chef Boyardee she got on sale for a dollar. Yeah, she's definitely staying for dinner. She can go home after that.

“Can you make the salad?” Rachel nods at the refrigerator.

Drew opens the doors. The veggie drawer's stuffed. Two kinds of lettuce, something called “Power Mix” (prewashed three times, it proclaims), carrots, fresh herbs, broccoli, cucumbers. Drew usually gets the premade salads where you just have to open the bag, add the dressing. “With everything?”

“Whatever you like.” Rachel puts a wooden cutting board on the island.

Drew hopes she can meet Rachel's unspoken standards. Or, worse, for Rachel to pretend that she liked the salad when in fact she hated it. When they were little, Rachel detested raw tomato. She'll leave those out, just in case. It's salad, Drew thinks. Not some huge symbol of their relationship. When their mother made salad, she put all the ingredients in different little bowls, so people could add what they wanted. “So, mixed in? Not like Mom?”

“We eat everything.” Rachel hands her a chef's knife. “Go crazy.”

Drew washes a cucumber and finds the peeler. It's all so cozy here. So different from anyplace Drew's ever lived. Until Rachel left, Drew hadn't noticed the tension of her family. There was always Rachel, the buffer, capturing her parents' attention.

Rachel had been a swimmer for as long as Drew could remember. If music was Drew's special talent, her passion, swimming was Rachel's. She started at the community pool swim team, then joined competitive leagues. Rachel scooped up all the awards from early on.