A Town of Empty Rooms (22 page)

Or where you hoped it could be understood.

Dawn and her mother wandered onto the steel blue carpet of the Waring airport. Serena ran toward them and hugged them.

Dawn had not spoken to her in weeks, but Serena clung to her for a moment, letting her sister's body fall against hers, even though Dawn was much taller.

“I missed you,” said Dawn; Serena could not speak, understanding how much she had missed her sister as well. She pressed her cheek to Dawn's long, dark hair, the same color as her own, listened to her laugh, the same sound as hers; she longed to see her sister, the face and hands and arms that were shaped in a way that was closest to her own. There was the hope that they would be more similar than they were, the stubborn optimism that, because they had just, by a matter of months, missed being each other, they would think and feel the same way. There was the bewilderment, the sense of loss, when each had a thought or feeling that the other could not comprehend.

Serena had imagined they would appear different now, somehow, with their father gone; she was aware of how she and Dawn looked similar with age, how the minute differences in their looks as teenagers were erased by the softness in their waists, the heaviness under their chins, the first gray in their hair.

“You look the same,” said Dawn, with relief. “A child. Twenty-five. We both do.”

She smiled, and she seemed to mean it. Dawn stood, her elbows jutting out as they had when she was a small girl; she had a determined need to see goodness. Their father had loved that about Dawn, the way she mythologized the family, the first-place essay in high school she
wrote about her father, entitled “An International Hero,” in which she described a father so perfect Serena took it as an exercise in art, but which their father happily accepted as biography.

“What a flight,” said her mother. “The turbulence. I thought I would vomit. I snagged some of these on the way out — ” She reached into her purse and brought out several silver foil packets of peanuts.

They retrieved luggage and headed into the low, silvery autumn light. Her mother and sister walked beside her. Serena sensed the similarity of their gait, the way she and her mother paused, every couple steps, to accommodate Dawn, who was slower. It was glorious to walk with them together here, in this town where they had landed; whoever they were, they knew her and she knew them.

Waring was about twenty minutes from the airport, and she drove past the county jail — which was, in a perhaps insensitive gesture to the prisoners, situated directly across the street from the airport terminal — past some dead, gray strawberry fields, the first of a parade of junk food outlets, various billboards hawking “Smithson's BBQ Extravaganza” and the upcoming Camellia Festival, and past a billboard that featured a bearded man and the words:
He loves you.
www.comebacktojesus.org
.

“What is that?” asked Dawn, lifting her sunglasses and blinking.

“This is the Bible Belt,” said Sophie, expertly. “This stuff is everywhere.”

“It's medieval,” said Dawn. “Really.”

“So what kind of job can you get out here?” her mother asked.

Serena tried to think about how to phrase it. “Dan's in promotion,” she said, carefully. “It wasn't so easy to find something . . . I'm working at the Temple.”

They laughed.

“What can you do at the Temple?” asked Dawn. “Do you have some religious power we are not aware of?”

“Does one actually work at a temple?” her mother said. “Or do you just stand up and sit down, stand up and sit down — ”

“Excuse me,” said Serena, gripping the steering wheel, “I work.”

“Doing what?” asked her mother.

She had hoped they would not ask this particular question. “I'm, uh, helping create the Southeast North Carolina Jewish Community
Center,” said Serena, with more enthusiasm than she had intended; suddenly, she wished she had not mentioned it.

There was a heavy and perplexed silence.

“And what is that?” her mother asked.

“Well,” she said. She paused. “It's in the beginning stages.” She braced herself. It was nothing yet, which meant that it could, in fact, be anything. “It's a place, um, eight thousand square feet, twenty-foot glass windows, uh, sanctuary plus library plus bowling alley, et cetera, where, uh, local Jews can congregate and, well, be together — ”

“Why do you want to be around Jews?” asked Dawn.

“I don't really like Jews,” said Sophie. “Except you girls and Aaron, and myself, of course.”

Serena had somehow predicted this response, but still it was unnerving. Her mother often took pleasure in distancing herself from other Jews, always perturbed by this accident of identity, religious or otherwise. Serena turned to look at her mother, who was picking at a fingernail. “Mom! What do you mean by that?”

“I don't really feel a bond. Am I supposed to? Those ladies at the temple you went to. Singing all those songs . . . ”

“Well, you could learn them — ”

“I hated that. Blah, blah. Asking who knows what for help. And the rabbis, all pompous fakes.”

Serena thought of the last board meeting and gripped the steering wheel.

“But you're not Christian,” said Serena.

“God, no,” said her mother.

“And you're not . . . atheist.”

Sophie paused. “Look. I didn't choose any of this. If my actual life had reflected my inner life, I would have been a duchess in France.” Her mother stroked her short gray hair over her ears. “Maybe an elegant Jewish duchess who had escaped the Inquisition. I don't know if I ever felt Jewish, even though everyone in my school thought I was. How does one feel Jewish?” She paused and patted Serena's arm. “But I am glad to hear that you are employed again, sweetheart.”

Serena drove past the main strip mall of Waring. Her mother and sister stared out at the unlikely alliance of Wendy's, Bojangles',
Chick-fil-A, the Greek revival Wrightson-Birch mansion, the collection of churches, the pre–Civil War mansions, the long, muscular branches of the oak trees entwined with Spanish moss like long, silvery hair.

“Mom now has a nice setup behind our house,” said Dawn.

“Oh,” said Serena, both grateful and envious. “Why didn't you want your other house?”

Sophie was quiet. “I was living there and then I was not,” she said, staring out the window. Serena glanced at her mother; she had the same frozen, frightened expression that Zeb wore when he contemplated walking into school. The gold lettering on her shirt glittered in the November sunlight.

“Where are you going?” asked Serena.

“Paris!” said Dawn, brightening.

“We're going to the red carpet,” her mother said.

It appeared that Dawn had just put together the biggest group of donors yet to raise money to combat genocide in Darfur. The event was to be held at a four-star hotel in Paris.

“It will be a whirlwind trip,” said Sophie. “I plan to window shop in the Champs-Elysées and sit in a café and eat some chocolate mousse — ”

Dawn glanced over at her mother and began twirling her hair. “Paris is cold this time of year,” said Dawn. “No one would want to sit in a café — ”

“I can't wait,” said Sophie. “I can order in French, and people will not look at me strangely — ”

“Mom,” said Dawn, and Serena could detect a subterranean edge in her voice, a tone she could not identify. “Don't you want to see Serena's house? How much longer, Serena?”

Serena stopped the car. “Here,” she said.

They looked at the house. She had swept the porch, but she had not noticed the streaks of blue mold on the front and side of the house; she had not really seen the weedy front yard, either. Forrest's front area was in full display, trimmed and aglow with autumn flowers, and she suddenly understood why they spent so much time and life force tending to their square of dirt. Their gardens were an attempt to explain something hopeful about themselves. It made it seem that they lived beside sane and pleasant neighbors; as long as Forrest didn't come out, anyway, they were safe.

Her mother and Dawn looked around, concerned. “Where?” asked Dawn, a little worriedly.

“We're here!” said Serena.

She opened the car door.

She remembered, from her last visit, Dawn's home, the three-story brick colonial in Encino with the small in-law apartment in the back. It was the sort of house where there was no sign of the children in the common areas, where the rooms seemed to be furnished in one swoop, an Ethan Allen or Macy's salesperson's vision of what a room should be. There were photos of the family, all professionally taken, hanging in tasteful black frames on the walls, as though the home was a museum.

There was no identity expressed in her own house except, Serena thought, one of panic. There was a musty aqua couch from Goodwill, some plastic chairs they had picked up at Walmart, a card table they were using in the dining room. “Well,” she said, walking them through, flipping on an electric switch that spat and buzzed dangerously, “here we are.”

There were just three of them, walking through this little house in a strange land. They disappeared into the kitchen in front of her, and Serena had the sudden thought that they had vanished completely. She stepped in and there they were, filling the kitchen, but she was frighteningly aware of how any of them could disappear.

“Well, so here we are,” she said. Her mother looked pale; Serena did not know if this was from jet lag or disappointment. “Can I get anyone anything?” she said. “Uh. Coffee, tea — ”

They all wandered through her kitchen as though seeking warmth. She gave them each cups of tea, and they sipped it at the table, looking around.

“I'm a little tired. I would like to lie down,” her mother said.

She took her mother into her bedroom and set her up on their bed. She pulled a blanket over her mother. Sophie looked small, her shoulders thin, as she stretched out on the bed. Serena put her palm on her mother's forehead. Her mother flinched.

“Rest,” said Serena.

SHE WENT INTO THE LIVING room. Dawn was standing by the window. She turned around and walked carefully to Serena and gripped her arm. Serena remembered the sensation of Dawn's fingers on her arm when Dawn began to learn to walk again after her illness, after Dawn's leg was paralyzed when she was six years old. Serena was eight years old and did not quite know what to do to help her, but she remembered the way her sister's fingers pressed into her arm as the two made a slow circle around the backyard. A few weeks before, Dawn had raced her through this yard; now she needed help to make her way across it. Serena saw Dawn's arm against her own, both of them the light caramel color of their mother, and for a moment she could not distinguish between them. It was a mere accident of time that they were not each other, and she sensed the varieties of fortune and misfortune that could come to them, and their helplessness in the face of this.

Now Dawn had taken off her sunglasses, and her eyes were a little red. “I need to talk to you,” said Dawn.

They went onto the porch. There was one plastic chair on the porch, and Dawn sat on it; Serena stood on the soft wood, which felt unstable beneath her feet.

“It's been a hard year,” said Dawn.

Serena nodded.

“You know. I have worked hard. I have set up Mom in the back. We're glad she's there, glad we can take care of her.” Serena looked away, for Dawn did not need to say the next thing — she was not the fool that her older sister was, she had not committed any criminal actions, and she had the income and room to care for their mother.

“I've been looking forward to this weekend. I have earned it. We are going to stop genocide, once and for all! Through education and food subsidies. Dad would be happy.”

There was an edge in her voice as she said “earned,” as though some wages, monetary or spiritual, had recently been diminished. Serena had the sense that Dawn wanted her to say something approving, so she said, “That's good.”

“Anyway,” said Dawn, “I planned this event and bought Mom tickets, but something's come up.” She put her sunglasses on again. “So. Um. Well, this time, I'd like her to stay here.”

Serena looked at her. “What?” she said, softly.

“Just for the weekend. You'll have a good time. You can show her around the town, maybe get some, uh, barbecue — ”

There was always between them the wariness of being ordered by the other, as though each one's status in the family was somehow so precarious it was important not to let any guard slip. “But — look at her outfit! She wants to go!” Serena said.