The Geometry of Sisters (17 page)

Ally's words and Beck's total silence scalded Travis. He stepped into Beck's room, saw Ally glaring at her with rage. Beck pulled her legs up and sat huddled on her desk chair, head down on the tops of her knees. Travis walked past Ally, put his hand on his sister's shoulders.

“Carrie wouldn't be ashamed of you,” he said. “And neither am I. I never could be, Beck.”

“I was trying to get her to see that lying and stealing never works,” Ally said.

“Neither does being a bitch to my sister,” he said.

“It's incredible,” she said, backing away. “I don't even know you anymore. You can't see the truth when it's right in front of you. Thanks for having me fly all the way out here just so you could break up with me. I'm calling my father. I want to go home today.”

“Ally,” Travis began, still gripping Beck's shoulder.

“You think your family is so perfect? One sister's a liar, the other was pregnant. That's what everyone's saying, you know? Carrie was pregnant. And she never even had the decency to ask what Justin wanted to do about it.”

“There's no proof any of that is true,” Travis said, shocked that Ally would say it. He knew what Beck thought, but he'd never repeated it to anyone. He stared down at his sister.

“You're right—it came from her,” Ally said. “Carrie told her a secret, and Beck blabbed it all over town.”

“Beck?” he asked.

“I don't know what she's talking about,” Beck mumbled.

“Lying again,” Ally said.

Travis stood by his sister, staring at Ally. She was striking out at Beck to get at him. Maybe she even thought that if he turned against Beck he'd turn back to her. But what she didn't understand was that Travis never could. What was left of Travis's family meant everything to him. Ally kept talking but Travis blocked out her voice and thought of his two sisters, of how close they had been.

And of how no one knew Carrie's secrets better than Beck.

9
AND I HATE ALLY, BUT SHE'S RIGHT, AND IT'S true: the rumors about Carrie being pregnant started with me. I couldn't keep my mouth shut. I told my two best friends. No one but me saw the way she kept holding her stomach that last day on the lake, gripping her belly and rocking back and forth as if she had a baby inside.

I had to tell someone.

I held my worries in as long as I could, but they leaked out sideways. That day at the lake, when they were searching for Carrie and my father, I remember asking my mother, “Is Carrie pregnant?” She said no, and a whole bunch of reasons why not, but nothing she said chased away what I'd seen in my sister.

I couldn't stop thinking about it, but I never asked my mother again. Because after Carrie ran away from the hospital, we all fell apart. But she knew something was wrong with me, because I couldn't hide it. I wore Carrie's secret on my face. It was like being haunted, but not by a ghost: by an idea. By the idea that my older sister was going to have a baby.

Telling your best friends is so much easier. Because you're all teenage girls and you think about sex, it's everywhere right in front of you, but your mother's your mother and your brother is a boy and there you go. They love your sister as much as you do. They don't even have to idealize her because she's already ideal. It just
killed me to think of her keeping a secret like that. So I told my so-called best friends. I thought I could trust them.

Maybe ghosts are easier. Lucy is right, our fathers are nearby and all we have to do is find the right formula to see them again. I want my father. I want him to be here with us, to talk to Travis and let him know I didn't mean to ruin things with Ally. It's true, I saw him looking at Pell. Ally was letting me sit with her at the game, and I didn't want to hurt her feelings. And I wanted to protect my brother. Travis says he isn't mad at me. I guess I'm just mad at myself.

My father would understand. If he were here, he'd put his arm around my shoulder and say, “Hey take a ride with me.” He'd invent some errand—go to the hardware store, or to stock up on weekly specials at the grocery store, or check out the sporting goods department at the Wal-Mart out on Connell Highway.

I want my father for Travis, and I want him for me. I'd ask him about Carrie. About what they talked about in the canoe that day. I hope that wasn't them yelling; I hope it was just the wind that I heard.

My father was the sweetest, nicest father. He was easy, he was calm. Back when things were perfect, I'd see him staring at my mother as if she made him so happy he thought he was dreaming. I almost expected to see him pinch himself. And late at night, after homework when we were all watching TV, she'd look at him with that sleepy, it's-been-a-long-day-but-I-love-my-life way. She was a housewife, but she liked it.

Dad would be lying on the couch, very often with Desdemona curled up right on his chest. She only did that with gentle people, trust me. We had a good family.

Once I asked my mom if her dad was like ours; if he was good, nice, kind, easy. I'd expected her to say yes—because, honestly, I couldn't imagine any other way. But she'd shaken her head. “He was different,” she said. “He never seemed to want to be home.”

A dad not wanting to be home? What did that even mean?

It made me sad for her and my aunt. I never met my grand parents; they died before I was born. But I felt sorry for them, that they hadn't had the kind of family we did. I know Carrie felt that way too. We were lucky.

Our dad cared about everyone and everything, especially all of us. So I imagine him taking Carrie out for that paddle, trying to soothe whatever was bothering her. It had to be the storm I heard. I tell myself that even though I know it's not true. They were fighting, and it sounded violent. I heard Carrie crying.

I don't feel like myself. Or at least, I don't feel like the Beck I used to be. The one out in Columbus before my family disappeared. We used to have fun. I used to wake up in the morning without a stomachache. I never used to steal.

Lucy says people only see the obvious. The things right in front of them, in front of their faces. But what about the small, dissolving, invisible traces of people we love? When someone dies or goes away, do we feel differently about them? No. If anything, we love them more.

Lucy says that Einstein had it almost right with
E = mc
²
. Except it's not matter, it's love. Lucy says, “Love is neither created nor destroyed.” And she hears Mary's ghost, and I've heard it too, so that must mean something. To us it means we have to find a way to break through to our dads.

We need their help.

The game had nearly killed Carrie.

She had never felt anything like it, not even on the lake with her father. Being so close to the people she loved, watching them from a distance. No one knew her, so she could hide, and there was so much excitement and activity, she just stayed on the edges, keeping her family in sight.

Watching Travis play made her feel thrilled, so happy, to see what a great player he had become. She knew how good that must make him feel; football had always been her brother's passion. And seeing Beck in the stands with prissy Ally—it made her laugh. She wished she could have heard what Beck had to say about that. She had to fight the impulse to make her way under the bleachers, grab her sister's ankle, get her to meet her down below.

But the hardest part was seeing her mother. Standing behind the parking lot, hiding in a grove of pine trees, Carrie had thought she was invisible. Her stomach growled from the smell of food grilling, cider mulling. She hadn't eaten since breakfast, and the bus ride had been longer than she'd expected. Every penny counted, so she couldn't even buy popcorn or a hot dog.

She saw a group with a big box overflowing with sandwiches. They ate and drank, and when they were done, they just left the box in the parking lot and made their way back toward the field. Carrie was so hungry. She was starving for her family. She'd fed Gracie her bottle, feeling almost weak in the knees. Spotting those sandwiches, she knew if she ate one she'd feel better; it would make the longing for her family seem more bearable. So she inched out of the pine trees, just in time to see her mother.

She was talking to a man across the parking lot, staring straight at her. Carrie's eyes locked with hers. She nearly yelled “Mom!” She was sure her mother had recognized her. But the sun was behind her; it must have been in her mother's eyes, the way she put her hand up to her forehead, seeming to squint into the bright light. Carrie ducked back into the shadows and took the moment to zoom her camera, snap a picture. That's when Gracie must have dropped her pacifier; but at least Carrie had a photo.

She stared at it now, on the screen of her digital camera: a close-up of her mother's face. Her hazel eyes, so full of stress and worried exhaustion, fine lines in her skin, but still that pretty, warm, loving face Carrie knew so well. Carrie traced the picture with her finger, the way
she used to touch her mother's cheeks when she was little. Had Carrie put those lines on her mother's face? Had she caused the stress?

She knew she had. Being so close but so far away was like purgatory. Why couldn't she have taken a few steps into the light instead of shrinking back into the shade, walked toward her mother, placed Gracie right into her arms? The possibility had been right there. Carrie closed her eyes and could almost feel her mother hugging her now.

It seemed like a strange miracle, that they would all end up in Rhode Island. Carrie had come to help J.D. She'd thought that if she could keep him from dying, she might be able to forgive what she'd let happen at the lake. She'd never heard of J. D. Blackstone until the day the man she'd always thought of as her father died.

It felt crazy, but she knew it was an act of love—standing by a stranger's bed, watching over the nurses, and doctors, and people coming and going. She had no practical help to offer, just a need to be there, to lend strength with her presence. He was asleep, didn't even know she was there. Except that one time, when she stood in the shadows, and she saw him open his eyes and stare at her. Was he really awake? He didn't speak, and neither did she.

One day a nurse noticed her and asked why she was there. She wished she could take back that answer. Another time a different nurse noticed her, asked her when she was due, whether she was having a boy or a girl, if it was her first. They talked about babies for a while; that actually comforted Carrie. It was how she'd have liked to talk to her mother and Beck.

At the same time, she couldn't imagine that. It was as if she was living a second life—her first life had been as a daughter and sister. Her family had been Andy and Maura, Travis and Beck Shaw. She'd been an honors student. She'd never imagined breaking any serious rules, hurting anyone she loved.

Her second life was as a pregnant runaway. She had killed—not really, but for all practical purposes—the man she'd always thought
was her father. They'd fought, and told each other the truth. The canoe had tipped in the storm, during their fight—and Carrie knew it had been her fault. She'd been so upset, she'd made it capsize.

It hurt to remember. She had loved her father—Andy—so much. She could hardly stand life without him; what must it be like for her mother, Travis, and Beck? How could she have left her brother and sister without their father?

He'd never watch Travis play football again. He'd never see Beck bring home A's on her math tests.

Beck. Carrie had held her little sister's hand, walking to school. They'd stayed on the sidewalk for part of the walk, cut through backyards on another. Beck had talked the whole time, nonstop, just going on and on as the sisters clasped hands and walked along.

The feeling of her sister's hand in hers filled her now, rocked her back and forth. Dell was coming to pick up Grace and take her to childcare. Carrie lifted her baby and kissed her tiny fingers. She whispered a story about Beck, her incredible aunt, and wondered if they would ever meet.

She showed Gracie the picture of her mother. Gracie gurgled and laughed, and Carrie saw her mother in her daughter's face, but nothing of Andy Shaw. Carrie closed her eyes, thinking of how she'd let him slip beneath the surface of the lake, of how he'd loved her her whole life, and she'd just let him die.

Her mother had gotten pregnant before she was married, pregnant with Carrie. Carrie had such love and compassion for her mother. But she had kept the secret all this time, Carrie's lifetime plus nine months.
Like mother
, like daughter, Andy Shaw had said, and it was true. Some things couldn't be fixed or even talked about, not even in a family where everyone used to love each other.