Authors: Sarah Pekkanen
“You know what?” she said. “This is the most beautiful kitchen I’ve ever seen, and I feel like cooking. Who wants to help?”
“Sure,” Tina said. She reached into a bowl of herbs and took out a pinch. “Parsley,” she said, sniffing. “I can’t remember the last time I cooked with fresh parsley. Looks like all we need is a loaf of bread and we can assemble these suckers.”
“You know what he was going to make?” Dwight asked, wrinkling his forehead.
“Breakfast casseroles,” Tina said, sniffing the contents of another bowl. “Mmm . . . dried mustard. You layer in the ingredients, and let them blend together overnight. My mom used to make them every Christmas. Dwight, do you want to beat the eggs?”
“Um, sure?” Dwight said. He opened a few drawers, finally finding the one containing teaspoons. Tina stifled a smile, removed the teaspoon from his hand, and replaced it with a whisk. Allie began greasing the casserole pans with butter as Tina soaked the bread in a mixture of milk and eggs.
“Oh, I miss cooking.” Tina sighed. “After this I’ll rummage through the fridge and see what I can put together for dinner tomorrow night.”
“I’ll help,” Allie said. “It’s Dwight’s birthday. We’ll make him something delicious.”
“That’s right!” Tina said. “I make an awesome birthday cake. Well, if you like Batman themes.”
Dwight laughed. “I’ve never had a superhero cake, but I always secretly wanted one.”
“Just for that, you might get Robin on your cake, too,” Tina said. “I only do that trick for special occasions. I’ll just need extra icing, but we can make that. This kitchen seems to be stocked with everything.”
“Mind if I grab a glass of wine?” Gary asked, selecting a bottle of red from the counter and examining the label.
“Why don’t you pour us all a glass?” Tina asked. She watched as Gary lifted the wine bottle with his long, thin fingers and suddenly felt grateful for Gio. She got annoyed with her husband so often lately, but she loved him deeply. She loved the way he wrestled with the kids and put a blanket over his head and chased them through the house, pretending to be a monster. She loved the way his eyes told her she was beautiful, even when she had baby spit-up on her shirt. The way he always wanted her.
This vacation had given her the gift of a glimpse into their shared future: lazy mornings when she and Gio would linger in bed; evenings when they’d finally sit down together to a real dinner, times when they’d watch the sunset and realize their hands had found each other’s.
If they could just make it through the next few years, she thought as she blended the spices into the egg mixture. When Sammy was in full-day kindergarten, she could go back to work. The wonderful thing about nursing was that she could do three twelve-hour shifts a week—maybe even overnight shifts, from seven p.m. to seven a.m.—and it would count as full-time. The extra income would be such a relief. And, thought Tina, so would it be to get to talk to adults again, to engage her brain, to wear work clothes. She and Gio just had to keep
scrambling until then, and try to avoid murdering each other in the process.
“So where is Savannah?” Gary asked. “Does anyone know?”
“I, ah, think she’s down on the beach with the guys,” Allie said. “Ryan and Gio were going to take a walk. She probably joined them.”
“Maybe I should go look for them,” Gary said.
Tina looked down at his shiny wingtips. “Might want to change your shoes first.”
“Oh, she’ll probably be back any minute,” Allie said. “And I don’t know which way they went . . . You might miss her.”
Gary shrugged and poured another inch of wine into his glass. “She told me to be here at ten, so . . .”
And you vowed to her that you wouldn’t screw other women,
Tina thought.
So you both made oopsies!
“ . . . knew we’d find it . . . right where I thought . . .” Gio’s muted voice filtered into the room.
“Guys?” Tina called out. “We’re in the kitchen!”
The door swung open a moment later, and Gio and Ryan came in. Ryan was holding something aloft in his right hand.
“We got the watch!” he said. “They just left it there on the sand, right where I threw it.”
“Well, congratulations,” Allie said in a tight voice, but her comment was almost lost in the guys’ exclamations of surprise upon spotting Gary.
“Hey!” Gio almost shouted, just as Ryan said, “You made it.”
Gary nodded. “That I did,” he said. “It only took two flights and a thousand bucks.”
“Can I give you a tip?” Tina said. “You probably shouldn’t complain about that to Savannah.”
Gary looked taken aback, and Tina felt a little thrill of victory. As angry as she’d been at Savannah earlier this week, their
bond had only gotten stronger since then. Savannah had made her laugh, had gotten her to dance, and encouraged her to feel young again. It would have been a different trip without her—not as much fun.
“Is she coming?” Gary asked, looking at Gio.
“Are you asking me?” Gio replied, a furrow forming between his eyebrows.
“Wait, I’m confused . . . wasn’t she with you?”
“Nope.”
“But I thought you said . . .” Gary looked at Allie, who suddenly seemed very busy examining the contents of her wineglass.
“Gary, why don’t you pour the guys a drink?” Tina said. “Allie, can you come here for a second?”
She pulled Allie into the living room. “What the hell’s going on?” she hissed.
“Savannah’s having sex with that guy from the catamaran right now,” Allie whispered.
“What?”
Tina stared at her, then burst into laughter. “When did she tell you she was going to do that?”
“Right before she left,” Allie said. “You were asleep.”
“So what should we do with Gary?” Tina asked.
“I guess just let him wait for her,” Allie said.
“Okay,” Tina said. “So . . . we’ll go finish making breakfast. Oh, and congrats on not bursting into laughter when Gary asked if Savannah was coming.”
“Tina!” Allie squealed and whacked her friend on the bottom.
“This is going to be good,” Tina said, heading back into the kitchen. She looked at Allie and smiled. “And to think the Weather Channel said we weren’t going to get a hurricane here.”
AFTER PAULINE’S TRIP TO
Buy Buy Baby, she’d discovered the spot she’d vacated in the hospital’s parking lot was still open, so she’d reclaimed it. Her arms laden with bags, she’d retraced her route through the lobby.
Her worst fear—that Therese would have drawn her final breath while Pauline was gone—wasn’t realized. Nothing in the room had changed, except that Carlos had left.
“Pauline?” her mother said, getting to her feet as Pauline hurried into the room with the bags. “Where did you— What’s all this?”
“I wanted to do something for her,” Pauline whispered as she placed the bags on a table. She looked at her mother, willing her to understand. “I just . . . I wanted to make her happy . . .”
Her mother sat back down and watched as Pauline unloaded the CD player and CDs. She unwrapped the packaging on a CD, using her nails to tear apart the plastic, then inserted it into the disc holder and plugged in the machine. A sweet, acoustic version of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” filled the room.
Pauline found the soft pink teddy bear at the bottom of one of the bags and approached the bed. Had she ever touched her
sister before? she wondered. She must have, but she couldn’t recall a single instance. She’d always felt as if a glass wall was separating them. Now she lifted Therese’s arm, surprised at how warm her skin felt, and carefully tucked the teddy bear beneath it.
She reached for the pink bottle of Johnson’s baby lotion and squeezed some between her hands, then rubbed them together briskly to warm the lotion. She started with Therese’s left arm, the one she had already touched. She rubbed gently, holding her sister’s forearm with one hand and massaging in the lotion with the other. She hoped Therese could feel her touch and was comforted by it, but she wasn’t sure: Therese didn’t move or open her eyes.
Her skin was so perfect, Pauline thought. Of course, she had never burned it on a hot stove while cooking pasta or scratched it while falling off a bike. She’d never sunbathed on the beach with a group of girlfriends, giggling and confessing the names of their crushes.
Pauline heard a rustling noise behind her, and she looked back to see her mother moving aside a bag to get to the stack of blankets on the table. Her mother chose a pink, silky throw and untied the ribbon that made it look like a present.
“Here,” her mother said, coming over to stand next to Pauline. “Let’s cover her with this.”
Together they removed the awful hospital blanket, and Pauline’s mother tucked it in a corner of the room.
“Did you want to hang this up?” her mother said, walking back over to the table and holding up the mobile.
“If we can find a place,” Pauline said.
“There,” Pauline’s mother said, pointing to the open bathroom door. “We can use the hook for the robes.”
The little room felt so much nicer now, Pauline thought as
she straightened the line holding one of the mobile’s dangling wooden animals. The colors, the music . . . It didn’t matter whether Therese opened her eyes; she still deserved this.
Pauline walked back to the bed and reached for Therese’s arm again. She looked up in surprise when her mother picked up the bottle of lotion Pauline had left at the foot of the bed and began working on Therese’s other arm.
“I didn’t know you went to see her last month,” Pauline said after a moment. “I would have come with you.”
Her mother smoothed the lotion up and down Therese’s arm, her movements gentle and rhythmic.
“You and Dwight haven’t been married that long . . . I felt you should be focusing on your new husband. That’s why I didn’t mention it.”
“Did you visit her other times, too?” Pauline asked.
“Every week,” her mother said. “More than that, lately.”
“I should have, too,” Pauline said. Her throat felt so tight it was hard to get out the words. She couldn’t help feeling betrayed that her mother hadn’t told her. “How hard would it have been? The facility’s only a half hour drive away.”
“Darling,” her mother said. “This is exactly what I didn’t want. For you to feel guilty or weighed down by responsibility.”
“It’s just . . . things have been so busy since I married Dwight,” Pauline said. “Parties and charity balls and then there’s the house to run . . .” Her voice trailed off. It sounded awful, when she put it like that.
“Pauline,” her mother said, “you and Dwight have done so much for Therese.”
“It’s just money,” Pauline said. She looked down at her sister again. “I didn’t try to do anything else. I never even tried to
know
her.”
There was a pause, then her mother said, “Yes, you did.”
Pauline looked up. “What do you mean?”
“You did try to know her . . . back when we first told you about Therese. Darling, don’t you remember?”
Pauline wrinkled her brow. “You and Dad sat me down on the couch in the living room and told me I had a sister . . . And afterward, we all went out to dinner at my favorite restaurant.”
“No.” Her mother shook her head. “We didn’t go out to dinner that night.”
“Really?” Pauline said. She remembered the talk so clearly, but her memory ended with her standing up from the couch. “What happened, then?”
“After we told you, you disappeared into your room. You didn’t ask questions or show any interest. I assumed you were processing things in your own way. You were only a child, but such a serious one. You always seemed older than your years. But then you came out and you asked me to follow you back into your room. You had . . .”
Her mother dipped her head and swallowed hard before she continued. “You had made a little bed for Therese next to your own, with blankets and pillows. You told me she could come back and live with us . . . that you’d take care of her.”
Pauline stared at her mother. “I did?”
“We had to give her up,” her mother said. “You must know we couldn’t have given her the kind of care she needed. Not without sacrificing your life.”
“Mine?”
Pauline asked. Her head spun; she’d thought her parents had chosen to send Therese away because they couldn’t handle her. But her mother was saying they’d done it, at least partly, to protect Pauline.
“Think about what it would have been like,” her mother said. “For her and for us . . . it was better this way.”
Pauline nodded because her mother’s sad eyes revealed her need for affirmation, but she couldn’t help wishing she didn’t
feel as if her parents had chosen her over Therese. She knew that wasn’t all of it; her parents would have been exhausted, trying to care for her sister. They would have needed a live-in nurse. And when friends or neighbors came over and saw Therese . . . well, Pauline couldn’t pretend that she wouldn’t have been embarrassed as a teenager. All of their lives would have been so different.
Therese began coughing again, and the raspy sound startled Pauline so much that she nearly dropped her sister’s arm. Pauline’s mother reached for the oxygen, but it didn’t seem to help as much; the coughing continued for another thirty seconds, and the sound was different—harsher.
Pauline didn’t realize she’d begun to sing until her mother’s head jerked up to look at her.
“ ‘Hush, little baby, don’t say a word, Papa’s gonna buy you a mockingbird,’ ” Pauline sang along with the CD. She sang about all the things one could buy that wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference to Therese. She kept singing for a long time, through the entire stack of CDs, while she rubbed Therese’s legs and brushed her fine blond hair, and by the second song, her mother had joined in.
When Therese died in the dark, quiet hours just before dawn, her mother and sister were both holding her hands, whispering that they loved her.
AHHHHHH, SAVANNAH THOUGHT AS
she walked down the moonlit beach toward the staircase leading to the house. Her body was so loose-limbed and relaxed that she felt as if she were floating a few feet aboveground. Could that be due to the great sex, or to the fact that Mr. Red Bathing Suit had pulled out a ziplock bag and lit up a joint for them to share?