The Geometry of Sisters (21 page)

“That was nice,” Stephen said, walking into J.D.'s apartment. “You made her run away.”

“You are an asshole,” J.D. said.

“You're the asshole, my friend.”

“I told both you and Ted I had to do this in my own time.”

“Yeah, well, she moved up the timetable.”

“Yeah, well, you didn't have to bring her here till I told you. Look how it turned out.”

Stephen stared at J.D. He had him on that one. Maura had bolted about as fast as she could. Stephen had seen the devastation in her eyes. He'd felt guilty for bringing her here with so little warning, especially while J.D. and Katharine were keeping to their plan, whatever it was.

“Any word from Katharine?” Stephen asked.

“You're a great guy, and a good friend, but will you mind your own business and teach math?” J.D. asked.

“She was going to see you going to the pool eventually,” Stephen said. “If you really wanted to keep your being here a secret, why do you swim at night, when she'll see the lights?”

“Look, I don't have to swim there.”

“It's good for you. You need the exercise.”

“I can work out fine right here,” J.D. said.

“It makes Angus happy to pick you up and drive you to the pool,” Stephen said. “Hydrotherapy's supposed to be good. So why not let him do that for you?”

“Well, if it makes Angus happy,” J.D. said. He reached over to the desk, picked up a magazine. “He gave me the latest
National Fisherman
. He's got me up in arms about size limits on stripers. You can keep the big ones, have to let the small ones go. But the big ones have the good survival genes, and they're full of mercury anyway. Some guy in the story caught a four-footer. He released him, though.”

“Any four-foot bass gets near the
Patty C
, it's coming aboard,” Stephen said.

“When are you going to change the name?” J.D. asked.

“Never,” Stephen said.

“She's not Patty C anymore,” J.D. said.

“Bad luck to change a boat's name,” Stephen said. “Your sister divorced me, but I still love her boat. You want to come out with me? We'll go after some stripers. There're still a few stragglers, and I heard there was big action on Sunday in the bay, right by the War College. You, Ted, me, a case of beer? What the hell—Angus can come too.”

J.D. shook his head. “Thanks,” he said. “But no.”

“I hear they're still hooking fifty-pounders,” Stephen said. “We catch one of those, we'll see how much you feel like letting it go.”

“I'm done with the water,” J.D. said, glaring at his knees. “Unless it's in a fucking swimming pool.”

“That's ludicrous. Your father and grandfathers would turn in their graves. You have salt water in your veins, J.D. Come on out with me, before the season ends.”

“The season already ended. And if I find out you've told Maura what's going on, I'll be even more pissed.”

“Katharine will tell her.”

“She won't yet. She loves Maura.”

“I know.”

“Just do me a favor,” J.D. said. “Keep Maura away from me. Don't bring her over here again till I work everything out. I'm serious, Steve.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Lines intersected, bisected, divided. Shapes existed in the latticework of three dimensions. Nothing could be added up because quantities were infinite and went on forever. Seeing the way J.D. loved Maura, was trying with everything he had to bring their daughter back to her, was the closest Stephen could come to understanding the riddle of love.

He started to say something more about fishing, but he found that he couldn't. J.D. was one of his best friends. The accident had taken so much from him. He didn't do the things they used to love anymore. But searching with Katharine and Angus seemed to give him more of a reason to live than he'd had in a long time.

Travis was worried about Beck. He knew she felt bad about Ally leaving, and he'd tried to tell his little sister it wasn't her fault. She had listened, nodded, but not said a word—he'd known she hadn't believed him at all. He'd told his mother about it and she said she'd talk to her. But he still felt uneasy.

Leaving History class, he had a free period before football practice, and decided to head over early, to clear his head. The air was cold and wet, but when he got to the field, he saw someone sitting on the bleachers. Walking closer, he saw it was Pell.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi. What are you doing here?”

“I don't know,” she said. “I just felt like coming.”

“It's kind of lousy out,” he said.

“I like the fog.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “It makes me feel enclosed. As if I'm being held or something.”

“Held by a big wet blanket?”

She laughed. He climbed the bleachers and sat next to her. This was the same seat she'd occupied during the St. George's game. He'd played so well that day. Everyone thought it was because Ally was here, and he'd never tell anyone it was because every time he looked into the stands he saw Pell on her feet, cheering for him, smiling at him.

“I haven't seen you much lately,” she said. “Since your girlfriend was here.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I've been kind of busy.”

“Schoolwork and football,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“How's Beck?”

He shrugged and looked at his feet. “You probably see her more than I do. She's never around. I think she's hanging out with your sister a lot. Did you give Lucy back her earring?”

Pell nodded. “She hadn't even missed it.”

“I hope she doesn't find out. What I really hope is that Beck gets it all under control. She lost a lot of friends back home, taking their stuff.”

“They didn't understand that she'd lost so much,” Pell said. “She was just borrowing their things.”

“You're right, they didn't get that,” he said, thinking of Ally, of the scorn and rage he'd heard in her voice, attacking Beck.

“They will someday,” Pell said in a low voice. “When someone they love dies. Or goes away.”

“I wouldn't wish that on anyone,” Travis said.

“Everyone goes through loss,” Pell said. “Sooner or later. It just happened to us when we were young.”

Travis nodded. He glanced over at Pell. Her straight black hair
fell across one blue eye. He wanted to push it back, see her gazing straight at him. She cared about her sister as much as he did about Beck, as much as he did about Carrie. He wanted to tell her what it was like to fall out of love with a girl who connected him with his missing sister, but he had a huge lump in his throat.

“So,” she said. “Ally's back in Ohio?”

He nodded.

“When is she coming back?”

“I'm not sure she is,” he said.

“I'm sorry,” Pell said.

“She knew Carrie,” he said. “They were friends. My sister wants to be a photographer. She has this theory about herself, about high school girls being really powerful but not believing it. So she tries to show it in her pictures. She took a lot of Ally.”

“So Ally's a connection to Carrie,” she said. “I know how good it is to have that. Stephen, Ted, and J.D.—Mr. Campbell, Mr. Shannon, and J. D. Blackstone—were my dad's best friends. I couldn't live without them. I see them every day. Well, except for J.D.”

“Why, where is he?”

“In Newport. I visit, but he doesn't let Lucy see him much. He thinks it will upset her.”

“Why would it?”

“Because she—we—got our hopes up, that he would be better, and he's not.”

“What do you mean?”

“He's paralyzed. Lucy and I love him no matter what. But he had surgery that was supposed to connect some very tiny nerve endings, an operation that had never been done before.”

She paused, as if picturing J.D.

“He's completely dauntless,” she continued. “He could have died. As it was, he got a staph infection, and they put him into a coma. He had to stay completely immobile for weeks. That whole time, we were worried he wouldn't come out of it.”

“But he did?”

“Yes, but the surgery didn't work. He believes there's still a chance, that the cells could regenerate, that connections could have been made that haven't quite taken yet. The doctors don't say it, but he does. That's why he doesn't want us to see him. He worries because we went through so many ups and downs with our father's illness. He wants to spare us that. And I think he feels he let us down.”

“But you don't…”

“Of course not!” she said.

“How did he get paralyzed?”

“Oh,” she said. “He was in love. A long time ago. He tried to climb up to a place he'd gone with her, that had been important to them; a bridge, where they'd been together. And he fell….” She closed her eyes.

“I'm sorry,” Travis said.

“Thank you,” she said. “My grandmother said people thought he'd tried to kill himself. The woman had broken up with him, so he tried to commit suicide. But I know that wasn't true; it was an accident.”

“Did he ever talk to you about it?”

She shook her head. “Not about the accident. But he'd talk some about the woman. He never stopped loving her. He told me that one night they'd stood on the bridge, looking out over Narragansett Bay, and they'd seen a lighthouse, and it always reminded him of their time together. So he built one for her. A beacon.”

“A lighthouse? Wow—he built it himself?”

“No, he couldn't. But he still owns an ironworking company, and he had his guys build it for her, near a place she would go.”

“She must have loved that.”

Pell smiled sadly. “She doesn't even know.”

“He sounds badass.”

“He is. My father always said he never did anything small, and
he never held back. He loved him for it and believed he, and we, could do anything. J.D. went out to that lake with the workers, oversaw the project himself for an entire year.”

Travis stared at Pell. Now he had to push her hair back, just brush it behind her ears, so he could see both eyes. Their bright blueness was so startling, especially in the fog.

“He was in love,” he said, and the words coming out of his own lips made his skin tingle.

Pell nodded. “Why isn't Ally coming back?” she asked after a minute.

“She said some things,” he said. “To Beck. I… couldn't let her do that. I took Beck's side.”

“You had to,” Pell said. “Beck is your sister.”

“But Ally was Carrie's friend.”

“You could let Ally know,” Pell said, staring at him. “That you forgive her. Tell her to come back.”

But Travis wasn't thinking of Ally; he didn't want her back. Sitting so close to Pell, he felt the warmth of her body through their coats, through the cold fog. He felt as if he had a fever. He'd always been loyal. Even now, having these thoughts, he felt as if he was letting someone down. Ally, Carrie? He wasn't even sure.

The class bell rang in Blackstone Hall, and the rest of the team headed toward the field. Their shapes were hulking and blurry in the fog. Travis hoped they wouldn't see him sitting there. He wished they'd just pass by on their way to the field house, leave him sitting with Pell, thinking about the kind of beacon a person could use to tell someone he was thinking of her, only her.

12
FOG BROUGHT COZINESS TO NEWPORT ACADEMY. Heat rumbled through the ancient pipes, making them rattle and hiss. The windows were shut tight against the cold, damp air, and everyone wore thick wool sweaters. Beck stayed close to Lucy, and one late afternoon they went to Pell's room to work on their math formulas by the fireplace.

Seeing Pell at her desk, Lucy sprawled nearby on the floor by the fire, made Beck's throat ache. She watched Lucy absently kicking the rungs beneath Pell's chair, saw Pell reach down and gently stop the kicks with a hand around Lucy's ankle.

“Okay” Lucy was saying to Beck, pushing her paper closer. Beck glanced down, saw a series of six thick, fat columns about a half-inch wide. “Limits and infinity, right? That's what we're dealing with. These big, ugly, clunky columns are limits.”

“And these,” Beck said as beside them she drew six elegant, thin lines, “are infinity.”

Everything clicked together in her mind. Mr. Campbell had shown them new formulas that seemed almost magical to Beck. He'd spoken of infinite divisibility, a theory that went beyond classical geometry. He had them read George Berkeley's
The Analyst: A Discourse Addressed to an Infidel Mathematician
, told them that Berkeley had lived and worked in Middletown, right near Third Beach.

She'd read the book with the cats on her bed. The text was wild,
strange, about math but somehow not. It seemed to be all about small, smaller, invisible. Beck worked as she read, examining how a tangent drawn to a parabola was performed by “evanescent increments.” How could you not love that?

She read: “When
x
by flowing becomes
x + 0
, then
xx + 2 x0 + 00:
and the area
ABC
becomes
ADH
, and the increment of
xx
will be equal to
BDHC
, the increment of the area to
BCFD + CFH
.”

The concepts and equations boggled her thoughts, but the odd and amazing part was, her
pencil
understood it right away—she wrote the notations, and her mind saw the
puzzle
and began moving the parts around. As long as she didn't worry, didn't tell herself it was too complicated, her hand moved swiftly over the page, working out the formula. It was like hearing a new language for the first time and being able to speak it fluently—as if she'd known it in another life. The language was geometry, and it brought her closer to Lucy and, somehow, to Carrie.