The Second Sister (32 page)

But that wasn't what happened to Alice, not exactly.

The Alice who disappeared beneath the waters that day was not a saint, but the Alice who awoke and inhabited my sister's body after the accident was, or something near to it.

She was slow and kind and endlessly patient. She struggled and stumbled and made everyone she ever met admire her and feel ashamed of their own pettiness and dissatisfactions. Me most of all.

Alice's unfailingly sweet nature and endless patience, the fact that she never complained or cast a word of blame in my direction even though I know she understood what she was like before and how much the accident triggered by my actions had narrowed her boundaries, were an ongoing reproach to me.

Before she died, Alice accused me of remembering wrong. But the truth is, I didn't want to remember at all. Remembering only reminds me of all the ways I failed her.

I can never forgive myself.

 

Father Damon didn't say a word, not until I finished. Then he took my hand in his. “It's God's place to forgive, Lucy. It is yours to accept that forgiveness.”

“I don't know if I can believe that, Father. It seems like an out, like I'd be letting myself off the hook. If there was just something I could do, some way to make up for—”

He sighed. “Lucy, what penance could anyone require of you that you haven't already laid upon yourself? Almighty God chooses to pardon you; what right have you to reject that pardon?”

He was quiet for a moment, waiting for me to respond, I suppose. When I didn't, he said, “Do you remember the story of the woman caught in adultery in the gospel of John?”

“Not really.”

“The people of the town dragged her out with the intention of stoning her to death,” he said. “This was the legal sentence imposed for that crime. But Jesus put a stop to it, saying that whichever of them was without sin should cast the first stone. One by one, knowing that this was a standard they couldn't meet, the crowd dispersed.

“When they were all gone, Jesus looked at the woman, wanting to know where her accusers had gone. ‘Does no one condemn you?' he asked. When she answered no, he said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go now, and sin no more.' ”

He looked at me with an expression of such compassion that I had to swallow back tears again.

“If Alice didn't accuse you and God doesn't condemn you, why are you standing stubbornly in the same spot, year after year, waiting for your stoning?”

He got up and made the sign of the cross over me, raising his voice so that the sound of it reverberated to the rafters and fell upon me like a hard and cleansing rain.

“Lucy Toomey, go and sin no more! Be joyful! Be grateful! Forgive others as you have been forgiven! Everyone—Peter and Celia and Alice, and even your mother and father. Let the past be past and the dead rest in peace. Live a life that is worthy of this love so freely given,” he commanded, then repeated the words of absolution.

“Amen,” I whispered and wiped my eyes one last time. “Thank you, Father.”

“Lucy? One more thing. Tonight before you go to bed, and every night hereafter, get down on your knees and pray, pour out your heart to God and let him pour out his heart upon you.”

He smiled. “That's not a penance, my child. It's a gift.”

Chapter 42

O
nce again, I didn't sleep much, but not because I was plagued by guilt or sorrow or bad dreams.

After I returned home, I reheated some leftover lasagna and pulled a chair up close to the window so I could eat while looking out at the frozen lake, thinking how beautiful it was in winter, and how it would be even more beautiful with the coming of spring and summer and fall.

After I rinsed my dishes, I bundled back up, went out to the woodpile, and brought in as many logs as I could carry. I started a fire in the fireplace and sat cross-legged in front of it with a glass of wine and a pile of Alice's old sketchbooks, turning the pages very slowly, taking my time, marveling at her talent, missing her terribly, knowing I always would, and thinking.

I closed the last sketchbook just as the last log split in two and fell from the grate, releasing a burst of bright orange sparks that rose into the black recesses of the chimney like a swarm of midnight fireflies. I carried my wineglass back into the kitchen, turning out lights as I went, and rinsed the glass in the sink. The tail of the Felix the Cat wall clock swung from right to left in constant rhythm and the eyes followed along, wide and unblinking, as if it were just as shocked as I was to realize it was almost morning.

After getting into bed, I closed my eyes, ready for sleep, but then remembered what Father Damon had said and rose again to kneel by the bed, saying prayers, giving thanks, asking for pardon and protection and guidance, some kind of sign, that would bring resolution and clarity to the jumbled tug-of-war that was playing out in my mind.

That was all. I got back into bed and fell immediately asleep, waking only five hours later yet feeling refreshed.

When I pushed back the quilts and looked out the window, I saw that more snow had fallen while I slept, covering the muddy tracks in the driveway, leaving every surface clean, smooth, and glittering, as if the entire world were making a fresh start.

 

Lunch with Maeve—I mean Jennifer—was wonderful. And kind of miraculous.

I was anxious on the drive to the restaurant, so much so that I actually felt a little nauseous. There was so much that could go wrong here. It was bound to be an emotional meeting for her. Surely she had been disappointed, even grief stricken, to have discovered her birth mother's identity only to be told that Alice had died only weeks before. She might be teary. She might ask questions I wouldn't know how to answer. She might have been raised in an unhappy home, or spent her whole life feeling unloved, unworthy, abandoned—not every adoption story turns out happily, does it? She might feel angry, bitter, resentful. She might be looking to lash out at someone. I didn't mind that so much—I could take it—but I was so afraid I wouldn't know what to say, how to comfort her. After the confrontation with Celia and then with Peter, I just didn't think I could handle one more emotional scene. And it was obvious that I was no good at all in those kinds of situations.

Driving past the sign to Bailey's Harbor, it occurred to me that I should have brought someone with me. Maybe Father Damon? He'd been a priest for something like forty years; by this time he had to know what to say in every situation, no matter how emotional. For a moment, I thought about turning the car around, driving back to Nilson's Bay, and begging him to come with me, but that would take at least twenty-five minutes and I was already five minutes late. Damn. Why hadn't I thought of bringing the priest before?

I found a parking space down the block, turned the key off in the ignition, and sat there for a few seconds, breathing deeply, trying to calm the butterflies in my stomach. It didn't really help. I was so nervous that I almost got to the door of the restaurant before realizing I'd left the bag with Alice's sketchbooks and had to go all the way back to the car to get them. While I was there, I grabbed a stack of paper napkins I had stowed in the glove compartment, thinking that, if things did get emotional and Jennifer started to cry, I could at least hand her something to wipe her eyes.

Arriving at the door a second time, I felt another jolt of panic as I realized that I had no idea what Jennifer looked like. Judging from the number of cars parked on the street, the restaurant was crowded. How would I know her?

As it turned out, the restaurant was only moderately full, but the bar, which stands at the front of the old building, was doing a brisk business, hosting a company Christmas party. I walked past the big aquarium by the door, pushing my way through clusters of chattering coworkers enjoying holiday cheer and trays of appetizers, until I reached the reservation desk in the restaurant.

“Reservation for Toomey,” I told the woman at the desk. “Sorry, I'm a little late. Has my guest arrived?”

She ran her finger down a list of names and frowned. “Toomey?” I nodded in confirmation. “Oh, wait. Your guest arrived a few minutes ago, but she didn't want to sit down without you. She said she'd wait for you out front.”

I looked back over my shoulder, scanning the crowded room, half of whom were youngish-looking women. “Any idea which one? We've never met before.”

“Over there,” the hostess said, pointing in the direction of the fish tank. “The girl in the denim jacket.”

“Thanks.”

I pushed my way back through the scrum of bodies, murmuring apologies, until I saw a woman with shoulder-length brown hair, wearing a jean jacket, standing with her back to me, bending down and staring at the fish. I must have walked right past her before. I took a deep breath and tapped her on the shoulder.

“Jennifer?”

She straightened up and turned around. Her eyes, bright blue, were set a little wider than mine, and her nose was just a little shorter.

“Lucy?”

When I nodded, her full lower lip bowed into a smile, revealing two dimples in her apple-round cheeks. I started to cry.

She was Maeve. She was Jennifer. She was the girl in the sketchbooks, Alice's little girl.

 

Though I hadn't been quite willing to admit it, a part of me had worried that I wouldn't like my niece. I mean, just because we shared some similar DNA didn't necessarily mean we would be in sympathy. She might have been sullen, or spoiled, or silly, or shallow, or just plain uninteresting. But I needn't have worried.

Jennifer was bright and lively and openhearted and looked miraculously, amazingly, exactly like the girl in Alice's drawings. Exactly.

And I don't mean that she just looked like that now, as a young woman of eighteen, no. Alice had captured her perfectly at every stage of her life. I knew because Jennifer had thought to bring along some scrapbooks of her own life, with pictures of her adoptive family, their tidy little home in a suburb of Minneapolis, their vacations to Florida and San Francisco and, yes, even to Door County, her graduation from nursery school, from kindergarten, from middle school, from high school, pictures with her friends, her little sister, her dog and cats, her classmates, her church camp counselors, swim coaches, and piano teachers, and pictures of birthday party after birthday party.

The locations and settings in Alice's sketches were different from those photographs, but in each year of life, Alice had captured her perfectly and imagined her happy. And she was.

“How did she do it?” Jennifer asked, her voice nearly breathless with wonder as she flipped slowly through page after page of Alice's sketches. “They look just like me! How did she know?”

I wiped my eyes with the last of the paper napkins I'd brought from the car before putting it in my pocket with its sodden companions.

“Because you were never far from her heart,” I said, sniffling. “Come on out to my car. There's something else I want to give you.”

Even though I was a complete wreck, going through a whole pile of paper napkins during lunch, Jennifer had done a pretty good job keeping a handle on her emotions. But when I opened the back of the car and started pulling out quilt after quilt, she lost it. So did I. Again. I should have brought more napkins.

“She made these for me? All of them?” Her disbelieving eyes swam with tears.

“One for every year of your life,” I said. “Because there was never a year, or a time, not even for a moment, not even when she had to give you up, that she didn't love you.”

We hugged and cried and hugged some more, but it was all right. We had good reason to cry, to shed happy tears and sad.

The time went too quickly. Jennifer had to drive back to Minneapolis to help her mother with Christmas preparations, but we promised to keep in touch and see each other again soon. We got out our phones and took a series of “selfies” to mark the day; then I helped load the quilts into Jennifer's car.

“Alice would be so proud of you,” I said as we hugged good-bye for the fifth time. “So proud. I'm proud of you too.”

Jennifer tipped her head to one side, smiled and bit her lower lip simultaneously, just the way Alice used to when she felt embarrassed but also a little pleased.

Jennifer got into her car and I stepped up onto the curb to watch her drive away, but when she turned on the motor I remembered something.

“Hold on! Wait!” I cried, leaping forward and banging on the window, which Jennifer quickly rolled down. “You told me you've been accepted to Kenyon in the fall, but you didn't tell me what you're going to study.”

“Environmental studies with a minor in biology. But what I'd really like to do is be a wildlife photographer. It just seems like the perfect combination of the things I love best: animals and art. I know it's a long shot,” she said with a giggle. “There just aren't that many wildlife photographers out there, but the world needs at least a few, right? I can't see any reason why I shouldn't be one of them.”

“Neither can I. Bye-bye, Jennifer.”

“Bye, Lucy.” She shifted the car into drive and started to press the button to roll up the automatic window, but stopped herself. “Hey, do you mind if I call you Aunt Lucy?”

“I'd like that,” I said.

She grinned. “Okay! And, also . . . Aunt Lucy, I was wondering . . .”

She stopped and ducked her head, suddenly bashful.

“What?”

“Never mind,” she said. “It was kind of a dumb idea.”

“Go ahead,” I urged. “I want to know.”

She hesitated. “Well, I was wondering if—and it's totally okay if the answer is no,” she assured me, her expression wide-eyed and earnest. “I mean, you barely know me and it's kind of an imposition, but . . . do you think that maybe, during summer vacation, I could come up and stay with you for a day or two? I'd just really like to see where you and my mother grew up.”

I never saw that coming. For an instant, her question stopped me dead in my tracks, but only for an instant. Almost as soon as the words were out of her mouth, I knew what the answer was, for Jennifer and for me.

“Nothing could make me happier,” I told her.

I was never more sincere.

 

I stood waving my arm high over my head until Jennifer's car turned the corner and disappeared. As soon as it did, I got into my car and pulled my phone from my purse. Now that I knew what I needed to do, I saw no point in putting it off, not any of it.

I took a deep, decisive breath, hit the correct listing on my screen, and asked the operator to put me through. It didn't take long.

“Lucy? I didn't expect to hear from you until after Christmas. Are you all right?”

“I am, Mr. President-elect. In fact, I'm better than I've been in a long, long time. But, sir? There is something I need to tell you.”