The Sisters Montclair Page 6

Alice’s face clouded. She said, “My sister?”

  “Adeline.”

  She was quiet for a moment, staring. Then she made an impatient gesture with one hand. “Go put it in the bedroom and I’ll ask Sawyer when he comes if he knows who it is.” Alice sat down in a wingback chair near the fireplace and waited for Stella to do as she was told. When she came back, they continued their walk.

  Alice said, “There was this girl in the neighborhood where we lived when I was raising my family. Do you know the house I’m speaking of? It was a big house over on Hammond.”

  “So you didn’t raise your children in this house?”

  Alice stopped and turned her head, giving her a disdainful look. “Of course not,” she snapped. “I had a big house and two servants over on Hammond Road. I didn’t move to this house until after Bill Whittington died. After the children were grown. I’ve lived in this house for ten years.” She shook her head. “Twenty years. Oh I don’t know. A long time.” She started walking again.

  Behind her, Stella said gently, “So there was this girl in your neighborhood?”

  “She was a homely little thing. Pitiful really, for a girl to look like that. The other girls weren’t very nice to her, I’m afraid.”

  “They usually aren’t.”

  “The family’s name was Shufflebottom.”

  “Shufflebottom?”

  Alice chuckled. “When I came home and told Bill Whittington he said, ‘Alice, someone is pulling your leg.’”

  “I can see why he would think that.”

  “But that was their name. The father liked to work in the yard. He was from up there in Yankee Land but despite this he made a good citizen, he sang in the choir and kept his yard nice.”

  She stopped at the desk in the kitchen and picked up the glass of ice water Stella had waiting for her. She drank heavily and then set it down again.

  “They make me drink a lot of water,” Alice said. “They say I have to hydrate.”

  “Well, they say that’s good for you.”

  “It’s ridiculous. Hydrate. Why don’t they just say, Drink some water. And why do you have this napkin resting on the top of my glass?”

  “I was told to do it that way. I was told that was what you wanted.”

  “Well, it’s not.”

  “Okay,” Stella said. “No more napkins then.”

  Alice shoved her walker out in front of her and they moved off into the dining room.

  After a few minutes, Stella said, “So what happened to the Shufflebottom girl?”

  “She was very smart in school. She went away to college and never came back. I don’t know where this story is going. I forgot what I was going to say.”

  “So you never heard from her again? You don’t know what happened to her?”

  “Oh, I know all right. Her mother wrote me a letter. That’s right, now I remember. I’m telling you this because I need to sit in the library after we exercise and write a letter to the poor little Shufflebottom girl’s mother.”

  “Did something happen to the poor little Shufflebottom girl?”

  Alice stopped and looked at her. “What number are we on?”

  “Four.”

  “So I can go through the door?”

  “Yes.”

  The door was a short cut from the butler’s pantry through the dining room that ended the walking for the day.

  “Oh goody,” Alice said. She went through the dining room and into the living room and shuffled off toward the library.

  “So what happened to the poor little Shufflebottom girl?” Stella asked, following her. She felt it was good to keep Alice on topic; she thought it might help to improve her memory.

  “She grew up to work for that group of diplomats in New York that Roosevelt started.”

  “The United Nations?”

  “Yes. That one.”

  “Wow. So her life was a success after all.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say that. She married a black man.”

  Stella was quiet and Alice sighed. “I know, I know,” she said. “It’s a different world.”

  “Yes,” Stella said firmly. “It is. Thank God.”

  They walked a few more feet and then Alice said, “I’ve always been a champion of colored folk.”

  “Have you?” Someone had moved the coffee table. Stella pushed it out of the way with her foot so Alice could get by.

  “I was on the Board of Big Brothers and Big Sisters for over twenty years.”

  “Well, that’s good.”

  “You don’t need to take that tone with me.”

  “What tone?” Stella said mildly.

  She got Alice settled in the wingback chair near the window in the library, setting her walker up against the wall, out of the way.

  “Push that chair over closer to me,” Alice said. “No, not that one. That one,” she said, pointing emphatically. “I use it as a desk.”

  “Can I get you anything else?”

  “No. I’ll just sit here and write my letter. I’ll ring you when I need you.” She picked up a little gold bell on the table beside her, and then set it down again.

  “Okay,” Stella said. She stopped at the bookcase on her way out, perusing the titles. The library was filled with good books, volumes on history and biography and literature by writers like Tolstoy and E.L. Doctorow.

  “I don’t know who’s been moving things around in here,” Alice said.

  “It wasn’t me,” Stella said.

  “Someone’s moved everything around and now I can’t find anything.”

  Stella took down a collection of Flannery O’Connor short stories. “Do you mind if I read this?” she said.

  “Help yourself.” Alice rummaged around on the chair beside her, which was stacked with envelopes and stamps and engraved note cards. She stopped suddenly and looked up at Stella, her expression curious, intent. “Do you have a young man?” she said.

  “I suppose so. Yes.”

  “Do you love him?”

  Stella opened the book and began to flip through the pages. “He’s all right.”

  “Not exactly a ringing endorsement.”

  “I’m only twenty-one.”

  “That’s old enough to know whether or not you love someone.”

  Stella looked up from the book. They stared at each other in silence and then Alice said, “Will you marry him?”

  “I’m not marrying anyone. I’m never getting married.”

  Alice snorted and turned back to her letter. “I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that one,” she said.

  After supper, Stella finished washing up and had just settled down for more reading in the sunroom when Alice rang the bell. When she appeared in the bedroom doorway, Alice looked up at her and said, “Do you know how to put me to bed?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I did it last night.”

  “You did? Oh, all right then.” The old woman seemed bewildered, frail, her white hair standing up around her head like whipped egg whites. Alice’s frailty affected Stella, made her feel oddly tender. It must be terrible for an intelligent woman, a reader, to lose her memory the way Alice seemed to have lost hers. Although it wasn’t a permanent loss. Memory seemed to come and go, flowing and ebbing like waves on a beach. Sometimes she was sharp and quick and lucid; her stories of the past, down to the minutest detail, were proof of that.

  Stella brought the walker and Alice went into the bathroom to brush her teeth. Wheel of Fortune blared on the television.

  And her stories weren’t lies, like some old people told, they weren’t made up, because she told the same ones over and over again, and the details were always the same. So she was remembering events as they actually happened; she wasn’t making stuff up.

  As she came hobbling out of the bathroom, Alice said, “I’ll wear something else tomorrow.” She sat down on the edge of the bed. “Turn on that light. No, that one on the wall. Okay, now open the closet door.”

  Stella did as she instructed, sliding th
e door open. A long line of neatly-ironed pastel knit dresses hung on hangers.

  “Okay, now grab that blue one. No, not that one, the blue one.”

  “This one?”

  “No. The blue one! The blue one!”

  “I’m not sure where you’re pointing.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sakes,” Alice said.

  Stella pulled out a pale lavender dress with large buttons down the front. “This one?”

  “Yes. That one. Now, put it over the chair. And take this one and put it in the hamper to be cleaned. Elaine will be so happy because now I won’t be wearing a dress with germs on it. That girl drives me crazy with her phobia about germs.”

  Alice stood unsteadily and pulled her dress up around her hips and Stella hurried over to help her. After Alice was dressed in her cotton knit nightgown (My K-Mart special, she called it) and settled in bed, Stella rubbed oil on her arms and legs. Alice was quiet through most of this, staring at the TV. When she had finished, Stella went into the bathroom to wash her hands, and when she came back out, Alice was staring at the silver framed photograph on the nightstand.

  “What’s that doing in here?” she said.

  “You told me to put it there. This afternoon when we were walking.”

  “I did?”

  “Yes. Do you know who is in the picture?”

  Alice gave her a scornful look. “Of course I do,” she said. “That’s my sister, Adeline. My sister Adeline and two of her daughters.”

  Stella put the cap back on the baby oil. “I thought it might be.”

  “Put it out in the living room,” Alice said. “It doesn’t belong in here.”

  After she’d gotten Alice settled in bed watching Jeopardy, Stella walked out into the sunroom to find Adeline sitting in a chair, flipping through a magazine. Stella was so startled she jumped, putting a hand to her throat.

  Adeline glanced at her and then back at the magazine. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “I didn’t hear you come in,” Stella said, slowly advancing into the room.

  “You might want to lock that front door,” Adeline said.

  “I thought it was locked.”

  “Apparently not.”

  Stella was quiet a moment, staring at the older woman who continued to flip casually through The New Yorker. “Do you want me to tell Alice you’re here?”

  “No, I’m having lunch with her tomorrow. I’ll talk to her then.” Adeline wore a pair of tailored pants and a white ruffled blouse. She looked very stylish. “I just came by to check on things.” She closed the magazine on her lap. “How is she?”

  “She’s fine.” Stella stood by one of the chairs, not certain whether she should sit or continue standing. Adeline made her nervous. “A little forgetful today.”

  “Aren’t we all sometimes?” Her tone was sharp but her expression was bland, impassive.

  “Yes.” Stella had the feeling that Adeline had stopped by hoping to catch her in some transgression; eating food out of the refrigerator or loading valuables into her purse. Some offense that would lead to a swift and certain firing.

  “The other girl will be here soon?” Adeline said.

  “Yes. At eight o’clock.”

  “So how was your first week?”

  “It was good. I enjoy Alice’s company.”

  Adeline seemed surprised. “Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “How unusual. She goes through caregivers fairly quickly. Some don’t even last the first day.”

  Stella gave a careless shrug. “I’m tougher than that,” she said.

  “Obviously.”

  Outside the windows, the lights of the valley glimmered in the darkness. Deep within the house, a sound caught Stella’s attention, the soft bang of a closing door. She turned her head to listen.

  Adeline said, “Any problems to relate?”

  “Well.” Stella hesitated, unsure whether she should mention it. Adeline was staring at her, her expression cool, unreadable. Stella took a deep breath and went on. “She has nightmares. When she naps in the afternoons. I heard her on the monitor.” She should just shut up. The woman was looking at her in the same way people in authority often looked at her. Hostility mixed with distrust. Underlying it all, fear. She should just shut up but Adeline’s expression made her bold.

  “Someone named Laura,” she said evenly. “She has nightmares about someone named Laura.”

  Adeline’s expression changed; a flicker of something and then a sphinx-like composure descending. She picked up the magazine on her lap and opened it again.

  “You must be mistaken,” she said coldly.

  Four

  On Friday morning Stella missed her nine o’clock class. She lay in bed long after Josh had left for work, imagining how angry he’d be if he came in and found her still in bed. She was not allowed to sleep in if he wasn’t. It was an unspoken rule in the house. And it was not a class she could afford to miss, either. Stella knew this, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to rise and get dressed and jump on her bike and pedal to campus. She lay in bed with her arms behind her head, watching as the sunlight pushed between the broken slats of the mini-blinds and climbed the walls.

  It was going to be one of her dark days. She could feel despair like a hard lump in her stomach, a lump that would swell and spread gradually through her chest until it nearly choked her. She would carry it around for days, feeling weighed down, oppressed, marked by a secret shame. Josh had no patience with her moods; he took it as a personal affront, an indication he was doing something wrong. Not feeding her enough, not providing a safe roof over her head, not making her cry out in bed. She hid it from him as best she could.

  On Friday night when he came home she had managed to rise and dress herself and mop the kitchen floor. A pot of chili bubbled on the stove.

  “What’s this?” he said, lifting the lid of the pot and sniffing.

  “Cincinnati Chili.”

  “Smells good.” He sat down at the table and waited for her to fix him a bowl. She took a cold beer out of the refrigerator and set it down on the table in front of him.

  He looked at her. “Aren’t you eating?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  He drank thirstily and then set the beer down and began to eat. She sat across from him with one knee drawn up, smoking a cigarette and staring out the window at the darkening sky.

  “Did you make cornbread?” he said.

  She got up and went to the cupboard and took down a box of saltines and set it on the table.

  “You know I like cornbread with my chili.”

  She thought, I mopped the fucking floor. I didn’t have time to make cornbread. She said, “Sorry.” She didn’t have time to fight with him, a fight that, once begun, might go on for days. She had too much work to catch up on. She slid back into her chair.

  He stared at her a minute and then went back to eating.

  “We’re going out,” he said. “Macklin’s having a bonfire.”

  “I don’t feel like a party tonight.”

  “You never feel like a party.”

  “I’m tired.”

  “It’s Friday night.”

  “I need to study. I’m behind in most of my classes.”

  “Go on. Get showered and change your clothes.” He didn’t look at her again but there was no mistaking his tone. His jaw jutted obstinately over his bowl; a stubborn expression settled on his face.

  She sighed and stubbed out her cigarette.

  “I told Macklin we’d bring the beer,” he said.

  Macklin and Jessica lived a few miles from them in a neighborhood of small Victorian cottages fallen on hard times. The house needed a fresh coat of paint but it sat on a large lot with a wide patchy lawn surrounded by a picket fence. A huge oak spread its branches protectively over the house. At the top of its tall crown, a rude tree house had been built using scrap lumber and a series of climbing ropes and ladders, so that the entire structure look
ed like something built by the Lost Boys in Neverland. The house was haunted by the spirit of an old man who had hung himself from the tree, the neighbors told Macklin and Jessica on the day they moved in and began the tree house, and Stella did not like going over there. It was always dirty and it smelled of dog, and there was an air of sadness and loss about the place that affected her deeply.

  But Macklin and Jessica were two of Josh’s oldest friends, they had all three gone to high school together, and so there was nothing for it. The bonfire was in full swing by the time they arrived. A ring of lawn chairs had been drawn up around the fire pit in the side yard and the night sky was cold and bright with stars and a thin sliver of moon.

  “All right! The beer’s here!” Macklin shouted when he saw them coming across the lawn dragging the cooler behind them. There were perhaps a dozen people gathered around the fire smoking weed and passing a bottle of Jack Daniels between them. Someone played an acoustic guitar. Stella greeted those she knew and then grabbed a can of PBR from the cooler and walked over to the far side of the fire. She sat down with her back against the ancient oak, watching the others. The firelight cast fantastic shadows in the branches of the old tree.

  She put her head back and closed her eyes. An image of Alice Whittington came stubbornly into view. An image of Alice as a girl, attractive and well-dressed, climbing on the train and heading for New York, unaware that she would soon have lunch with Eleanor Roosevelt. Why did some peoples’ lives turn out like that, magical and unexpected, almost as if their fate was nothing more than some marvelous movie script? While others struggled to escape their destiny, feeling it always at their backs like a cold wind.

  She opened her eyes. Sparks drifted like fire flies on the cool night air.

  Karma. What a joke. There was no rhyme or reason to anything that happened, no order to the universe, only chaos. The sooner she accepted this and moved on with her life, the better off she’d be.

  When she first left home, she had fallen in with a group of Birmingham street kids down on Third Avenue. On cold winter nights they would stand around a burn barrel trying to keep warm and telling their stories. It had seemed romantic to her, at first, the nomadic life, huddling like gypsies around fires at night, bellies empty, stories waiting to be told. But the romance had quickly paled. She found she had no stomach for panhandling, for running from the cops, for fighting off junkies. The drugs scared her, the ease with which you could fall into addiction, the things people would do for a fix. She knew that once she went down that road there would be no turning back, and she felt there were other quicker ways to end herself. She fell in with two rough girls from Chicago, Sam and Rocha, who took her under their wings. Rocha was small and feminine with short spiky blonde hair, and Sam was not. She had scars on her neck that she never spoke of and she carried a switchblade in her boot. At night they slept under bridges or in abandoned houses in Norwood, and during the day they hung out with other kids at Linn Park, raiding restaurant dumpsters for food.