Summer with My Sisters (18 page)

“A
nd then I have to pick you up?”

Daisy rolled her eyes at her older sister. “Yeah. You know I can’t walk home. It’s almost six miles along Shore Road. There’s no pedestrian walkway. Anyway, why is this suddenly such an issue? You’ve been driving me every Tuesday afternoon since you moved back from Boston.”

“It’s just that I had plans,” Poppy said, leaning back against the kitchen counter.

“What plans?”

“I was going to see a movie at the Leavitt.”

Seriously,
Daisy thought.
A movie trumps my job with old people?
“Why can’t you go to a later show?”

“There’s only one show a day,” Poppy told her, “and today is the last day it’s playing. It’s an Iraqi film, a love story. Allie saw it and she said it’s wonderful. Why can’t you ride your bike to Pine Hill?”

“Because I don’t have a bike,” Daisy said. “I haven’t had a bike since middle school.”

“Why not?”

Daisy gathered what remained of her patience. “Don’t you remember how I was never good on a bike? Don’t you remember when I fell off my tricycle and broke my ankle?”

“I guess I forgot.”

“And then I need to be picked up at four.”

Poppy sighed. “Can’t you get a ride home from someone, one of the other volunteers? I really don’t want to miss this movie. Who knows when it will show up on Netflix.”

“Maybe,” Daisy admitted. “But I can’t be sure anyone else is going to be leaving when my shift is over.”

“There’s no bus?”

Daisy stamped her foot in frustration. “Poppy, where do we live? This is not Boston. You
know
there’s no public transportation. And the trolleys don’t count. They only go to the tourist places and the hotels. You
know
that.”

“Pine Hill doesn’t have a shuttle you could use? Not all of the employees can have a car.”

“Are you trying to drive me crazy? No, Pine Hill doesn’t have a shuttle.”

Poppy stood away from the counter. “Fine, all right, I’ll get my keys.”

The sisters were silent on the drive to the Pine Hill Residence for the Elderly.
Thanks for the major sacrifice,
Daisy thought angrily as she got out of the car. What had come over her sister, anyway? Some weird hormonal episode? Poppy wasn’t usually the perverse and difficult one in the Higgins family.
She
was!

“I’ll have my driver’s permit soon,” Daisy said, leaning in through the window on the passenger’s side. “So you won’t have to waste your precious time.”

“Daisy,” Poppy began, “I didn’t say—”

“And you’ll have to buy me a car. We won’t be able to manage with just one.”

Her sister opened her mouth again, but Daisy abruptly turned and ran up the path to the main building.
Bitch,
she thought. Refusing to let her get a new phone. Making a stink about driving her to work. If she, Daisy, were in charge of the family . . . But that was a ridiculous notion. And a frightening one. And suddenly, Daisy felt bad that she had called her sister a bitch, even if only in her head. Her parents had never, ever used foul language, and Daisy wanted to do her parents proud.

“W
hat have you been up to since I saw you last?” Julie asked when they were settled at Julie’s kitchen table with home-brewed iced tea and home-baked granola bars.

“Contemplating my future,” Poppy told her.
And being an idiot with Daisy.

Julie laughed. “Most people would answer that question by saying something like, working on my garden or playing tennis every afternoon, or even binge-watching
Orange Is the New Black
.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. And? What’s it like, contemplating your future?”

“It’s like struggling through one big jigsaw puzzle with too many missing pieces. Or something like that. I’m not good with metaphors. Or was that a simile?”

“Whatever it was,” Julie said, “contemplating the future sounds tiring. That’s probably why I try not to do it.”

“But you must think about the future to some extent,” Poppy argued. “I mean, like where are the kids going to go to school. And, I don’t know, are you going to grow the cheese business.”

“Sure, but that’s called planning. That’s practical stuff. The existential stuff I leave to people like you. Sorry. That didn’t sound right.”

“No, I know what you mean. People like me who haven’t found their calling. People who still haven’t settled down with a person or a career or better yet, both. People without a vision of what they want their life to look like.”

Julie smiled. “I’m not sure I’d say I had a vision—or a calling, for that matter—but I did always know that I wanted to get married and have kids. There was never a doubt in my mind. And then when I met Mack, well, it was so easy. That sounds smug, but I don’t mean it to. What I mean is, we fell in love and we stayed in love and then we got married. Like I said, easy. I guess I’m pretty lucky.”

“I’ve never been certain about anything,” Poppy said.
A character flaw?

“That’s not true. Back in middle school you told everyone who asked that you were going to be a kindergarten teacher. And then in high school you were totally certain you were going to be a graphic designer.”

Poppy was stunned. “Really? I can barely remember those days and they weren’t so long ago
.
”
A kindergarten teacher? A graphic designer? Who was that girl?

“A lot of tough stuff has happened to you since then.”

Suddenly, Poppy felt embarrassed. She feared that Julie would find her annoyingly self-obsessed if she kept going on in this way. “How are your parents, Julie?” she asked. “I’m sorry I haven’t asked before now.”

“They’re good. Mom’s still working at the Beachplum, you know, that motel along Route 1 in Wells. I wish she would quit—she’s too old to be cleaning up other people’s messes—but she says she likes to keep busy so . . . And Dad spends most of his time making these fancy birdhouses.”

“Like the one out there?” Poppy asked, pointing to a yellow and green construction hanging from the branch of an apple tree in Julie’s side yard.

“That’s one of Dad’s, yes. He’s pretty talented, I think. He’s been selling his birdhouses at a few of the shops in town and in Ogunquit.”

“I guess building birdhouses makes sense after all those years in construction! Please give them both my love. They must be thrilled about the new grandchild.”

“Dad’s convinced it’s a boy,” Julie said. “Mom’s convinced it’s a girl. Well, one of them has to be right!”

“You mean you don’t know the sex of the baby?” Poppy asked. She had always imagined she would want to know the sex of her unborn child as soon as possible.

“Mack and I like to be surprised,” Julie explained. “Though after Virginia was born, I really had my fingers crossed for a boy. To have at least one of each seemed perfect. And then came Michael.”

“So the third one is the icing on the cake,” Poppy said. “He—or she—is under no pressure.”

Julia laughed. “You could put it that way.”

At that moment Virginia and Michael came dashing through the kitchen, the phone on the counter rang, and the oven timer went off. “Don’t run in the house,” Julie said, as she picked up the receiver with one hand and turned off the timer with her other. “Hello?” she said into the phone as she removed a pound cake from the oven. “Yes, we’ll be there. Thanks.”

Julie came back to the table and lowered herself into her chair. “Sorry. That was my ob-gyn’s office confirming my next appointment. Just a checkup.”

“How do you do it?” Poppy asked.

Julie laughed. “Do what?”

“All this. Everything. The kids, the farm, the house, a husband, a new baby on the way . . .”

“Don’t forget the cheese-making! Really, Poppy, it’s just life. My life. I just live it.”

“You chose it,” Poppy argued. “That’s why it’s easy for you to live it, even when it’s chaotic. But what happens when your life isn’t of your own choosing, the big parts of it anyway, like where you live or the job you have to take. How do you live a life you didn’t ask for?”

“There are always some parts of life you didn’t ask for. Do you think I wanted my son to be born deaf? Life isn’t always a bed of roses.”

“Oh, I know,” Poppy said. “I guess I’m being self-pitying again. A self-pitying wretch. And no one likes one of those.”

“I like you, Poppy. And you’re not a wretch of any sort. Your problem is that you think too much.”

Poppy laughed. “How do you
not
think too much?”

“Once you have kids you’ll find out! Most of the time, you just have to do something right then and there because it’s what’s called for. No time for debate.”

“
If
I ever have kids of my own. Looking out for Daisy and Violet is exhausting enough to put me off the idea for good. It seems I’ll be buying Daisy a car before long. And then there’s her college applications to get through and figuring out financing. . . And then there’s Violet, who’s told me she’s not sure she wants to go to college!”

“Don’t worry. It will be totally different once you’re married and have someone to help you make the big decisions.”

“If I ever get married!”

“You will.”

Poppy shrugged.

“There
is
Jon Gascoyne . . .”

“Jon? I doubt he has any interest in me. He’s never asked me out.” He had only taken her to his family’s restaurant, where he had introduced her to his father, and he had brought her lobsters and he had sorted out the problem with the lawn mower and he had said nice things about her parents.

Oh,
Poppy thought now.
Why haven’t I seen . . .

“Dating—candlelight dinners and all the artificial fuss—isn’t Jon’s way,” Julie was saying. “He’s the kind of guy who wants to get to know a woman in natural, day-to-day situations.”

Poppy smiled. “But all the ‘artificial fuss’ can be fun.”
Not necessary,
she added.
But fun
.

“I know. I vaguely remember the dates Mack and I used to go on. Not that he had much money to take me anyplace fancy. But getting dressed up was enjoyable. Look, all I’m saying about Jon Gascoyne is that he’s—he’s an intentional guy. He doesn’t waste his time. His taking you to lunch at The Friendly Lobsterman—don’t look so surprised, everyone knows about that—had a purpose behind it, mark my words.”

Poppy didn’t know quite how she felt about this. If Julie was right and Jon really was courting her in this slow and old-fashioned way . . . But he hadn’t even touched her, not once. She tried now to remember if their hands had ever accidentally made contact, when she was handing him a glass of lemonade, when he was giving her a bag of squirming lobsters, the time they had eaten lunch at his family’s restaurant and she had so wanted to place her hand over his. No, she thought. She would have remembered something so . . .

But if he
was
interested in her, why didn’t he come right out and tell her? Like her ex-boyfriend in Boston, Ian, had. Like all of her ex-boyfriends had. “I’m into you,” they had announced. No slow, old-fashioned approach. Just a statement of fact. A statement of desire. But what would she say to Jon if he did declare himself? (She felt slightly ridiculous using that term, but . . .) She liked Jon, she found him attractive and kind and smart and fun, but . . . In spite of all the good things in her life—the house and her sisters and good friends like Freddie, Sheila, Allie, even Julie—life still felt so precarious.

“Poppy? You look like you’re a million miles away.”

“Sorry. I was just thinking. Anyway, Jon knows I have no intention of sticking around once Violet turns eighteen. I doubt he’d want to pursue a relationship with someone who’s already told him she’s leaving town in a few years. He made it pretty clear to me when we first met that his future is in Yorktide.”

“Hmm.”

“What do you mean by ‘hmm’?”

“I mean nothing by it. Anyway, the pound cake should be cooled by now. How about a slice?”

E
vie looked at her image in the mirror by the front door and adjusted the tortoiseshell sunglasses Daisy had given her the day before. Evie had lost her one pair and Daisy had insisted she take hers. She had been so nonchalant about it, too. “I have, like, a bazillion pairs, no worries.” Would she have said something else if she knew the truth? Would she have seen giving Evie a pair of her sunglasses as an act of charity, not as an act of friendship? Would knowing that Evie was a homeless runaway change the way Daisy felt about her? Of course it would.

Evie took off the sunglasses and put them on the little table under the mirror. It was so much worse once having had stuff and then losing it all, than never having had stuff to begin with. Now, when things in the Lost and Found box at The Clamshell went unclaimed after a week, Evie took them before any of the other employees could, even if it was something for which she didn’t have an immediate need. You never knew when a hair band or a sun visor or a half-used bottle of sunblock might come in handy. In such a short space of time she had gone from being a kid whose every need and most desires were met by adults to a person who had to think hard to anticipate every possible necessity—forget about desires—and, in spite of her inexperience, find some way to meet those necessities. She wasn’t even sure a sixteen-year-old brain was physically
able
to function like an adult’s!

Still, she couldn’t afford to feel sorry for herself. Other people had it worse than she did. Look at all those people in parts of the world that were torn apart by war every few years. Her situation was heaven compared to theirs and she had to remember that. Because if she did succumb to self-pity she was afraid she would start to make big mistakes and poor judgments, and worst of all, be found out. And what then? Be sent back to her aunt and uncle? Be put into foster care? Be returned to her father, wherever he was?

Evie sank onto the couch. At least Nico had a television and complete with Roku, too, so she was able to pass the time after work and before she went to bed watching old French language movies and reruns of
Psych
. It was great good luck, given Nico’s limited book collection and the fact that Evie had no access to the Internet unless she used the computer in the public library, but there was a strict limit to the time you were allowed and it wasn’t like the library was just next door to The Clamshell. And even if it were right next door she wouldn’t be able to check out books or DVDs because she didn’t have a library card! Without Nico’s television she thought she might go mad, alone with her own thoughts.

Though it wasn’t her habit she clicked through to the local news station, which was in the middle of a weather report. More clear and sunny skies. At least that was good news as Evie didn’t have an umbrella and she hadn’t seen one in Nico’s hall closet, where things like umbrellas were usually kept. And then, the anchor introduced a report on the homeless population in Maine and suddenly Evie was watching a social worker from a shelter in Portland explain to the reporter that homelessness could happen to anyone. “Bad luck,” she said, “some terrible misfortune, a sudden economic collapse, and the next thing you know you’re on a downward slope.”

Evie swallowed hard. A car accident that killed your mother. Your father’s subsequent addiction to prescription painkillers. Distant family that didn’t really want you around. She reached for the remote on the couch beside her—she couldn’t bear to watch this report!—and then withdrew her hand.

The reporter now sat down at a cafeteria-style table next to a woman Evie thought might be about Mr. Woolrich’s age.

“I have nothing to hide, not anymore,” the woman said abruptly, before the reporter could ask her a question. “But I’m not going to give my real name. Let’s say that I’m called—Marion.”

Another person who had been forced to leave behind her real name, Evie thought.
Another person like me.

The reporter asked Marion to share her story and briefly, Marion did. She had once been married to an affluent man, but he had turned out to be a crook, and not a very successful one at that. He lost most of their money and had been sent to jail on charges of corruption. Marion had been forced to sell what was left of their estate and then to repeatedly downscale until there was nothing at all remaining of her once easy and comfortable lifestyle.

“The shame was awful,” she said. “I thought I would die of it. At times, I wanted to die.”

“But you survived,” the reporter said.

Marion laughed. “And this is what I’m reduced to. Once, if you can believe it, I would give dinner parties for twenty with caviar and champagne to start and handmade chocolates and expensive brandy to finish the night. I loved the fact that I could be so openhanded and generous. And now, I’m lucky to keep aside an extra package of crackers to offer to a fellow . . . A fellow woman without a home.”

The reporter then asked if Marion had turned to her family for help when things began to go sour.

“There wasn’t anyone by then,” Marion replied. “My parents were long gone and I’d had no children. I’d lost touch with my sister when I married. We’d had a falling-out. She thought I was making a mistake marrying the man I did. Well, in the end she was right.”

The reporter asked about friends, and still Evie watched and listened.

Marion laughed bitterly. “Friends might be happy to put you up for a night or two, but who is going to adopt to what amounts to a sixty-three-year-old dependent? Or give money to you when it’s clear you’re always going to need more, and more? Even if you were always generous with them in the past . . . No. When you’re destitute, you have no friends. Not anymore.”

The reporter then asked Marion how she felt about the shelters she frequented.

“The shelters I’m forced to frequent, you mean. I know I should be grateful and I am of course, but . . . There can be trouble. I woke in the middle of the night one day last week to find a man groping at me . . .” The woman turned away from the probing eye of the camera for a moment. “The staff does their best,” she went on when she had recovered her composure. “They’re angels. But they can’t do everything that’s needed.”

Evie still desperately wanted to turn off the TV, but she couldn’t make her finger hit the power button on the remote. She had to know more. Like probing a wound. Like seeing into her own dismal future.

The reporter thanked Marion and moved on to a man sitting at an adjacent table. His name was Tommy. He told her that he had grown up in a family that had been homeless on and off for years. When he was seventeen, he had left his parents and struck out on his own. Evie couldn’t at all guess how old he was. He had no top teeth. He was very skinny and there were dark bags under his eyes. He was wearing a Boston Red Sox T-shirt.

“It’s a cycle,” Tommy was telling the reporter. “What they call a vicious cycle. My mother and father had nothing, no money, no education, no one to help them out when they lost jobs, which they did when they was drinking. Now I got nothing. No way out. That’s what I tell anyone who asks me. No way out.”

“How old are you, Tommy?” the reporter asked.

“I was twenty-eight last month.”

Evie was shocked. So young, so deteriorated, so without hope. Finally, finally, she felt able to press the power button on the remote and the screen went blank. She sank farther into the couch and thought of her father, wherever he was. A man who had lost everything. A man who might, like Marion, be ashamed. A man who might, like Tommy, be caught in a vicious cycle. And there it was in Evie’s heart, a glimmer of sympathy for what her father had suffered, for what he might be suffering now.

The police had investigated the accident that had killed her mother and had concluded beyond a shadow of a doubt that her father was innocent. The medical staff attending to her father had assured her time and again that he wasn’t to blame, that it had all been just a terrible accident, a mischance. “These things happen,” one nurse had murmured over and over as Evie stood staring down at her father in his bed. “No one is to blame.”

But Evie hadn’t believed any of them. She had felt she couldn’t afford to believe them though now, at this great distance, alone in a stranger’s house, Evie wondered if it had been wrong not to believe in her father’s innocence. But if he was indeed innocent, why had he allowed himself to get addicted to those painkillers, to lose his job, his house, his daughter! Guilt. His guilt had driven him to it. His guilt for having killed his wife. Or his
belief
that he had killed his wife, no matter what the authorities said?

Guilt. Innocence. Evie clutched her head in both hands. What if some day she saw her father on a TV show like the one she had just watched? What if some day she had no other choice but to take refuge in a shelter and what if her father was staying at the same one? “Hi, Dad, what a coincidence!” The thought made her feel sick.

Evie ran up to her temporary bedroom, jammed the chair under the doorknob, and, clutching Ben, she burrowed down under the covers on the bed. She wasn’t sure how long she could go on like this. Maybe she should just give up and go back to her aunt and uncle’s house. Of course, they might not take her in; they were probably really mad at her for running off. But if they did take her in it would only be for two years, until she turned eighteen, and then . . . And then she would be right back to where she was now. Alone.