The Geometry of Sisters (35 page)

But J.D. was Carrie's father. She had traveled all the way to Rhode Island from the lake, just to stand by his bedside and make sure he survived. She'd taken that risk for him, and he was going to do whatever it took to help his daughter find her way home. He'd do it for Maura.

Dell Harwood was the key. He was sure of that, and wheelchair or not, he was going to do what it took. Treading water, he listened for the elevator. It creaked upward, and the doors opened. He heard them close behind Maura. He didn't want to leave the water, where he'd been with her, but he hauled himself out of the pool. He had to move now, and fast. Maura was hanging on, but he saw what this was doing to her.

And J.D. couldn't live with that. Not one minute more than necessary.

21
SEEING MY MOTHER FALL APART AFTER THE COM-petition threw me for the biggest loop ever. My mother is so strong. Even at my father's funeral, she held me and Travis together, helped us know we could go on. I've never seen her the way she was on Thayer Street, wild and crying, so pale I thought she might dissolve. It scared me.

For comfort I sat in the reading room by the fire. Outside a storm was building, snow and wind—a blizzard. I had homework to do, plenty of it. Plus, having made it through the regional maths, I now had nationals coming up before Christmas break. Redmond was excited. He'd shown me Providence, and now we were going to Boston. I felt as if he was on a tour-guide roll—but how could he best Carrie Tower? That is the best landmark I've ever seen.

In spite of all that schoolwork, I couldn't concentrate. Maybe it was seeing my mother so devastated, perhaps it was the fact I'd been in Providence and, although I did feel close to Carrie, I didn't honestly see her. Not the way I'd hoped or even expected. I swear, I thought she'd be standing right there; but she wasn't.

My hand goes to the shelf, pulls down a book. I hold it, feeling the history flow into my skin. Sisters who lost each other pull me like a magnet. I've had it in my family for so long: my mother and Aunt Katharine, now me and Carrie. I guess that's why I feel such a connection with Mary and Beatrice, why the only thing I can imagine reading right now was written by Mary.

Mary's journal is written with blue ink, in beautiful penmanship, with flourishes. The book is bound in faded and tattered red leather; the word
Diary
was once embossed in gold, but the letters have faded. Mary's handwriting—and later, Beatrice's—outlasted the gold leaf.

Mary started this diary, and Beatrice finished it. That's how it is with sisters. They'd probably have fought like mad, during life, if one caught the other even touching it. But after Mary's death, Beatrice must have come upon her book—just as I have. She must have read Mary's words—just as I have. And then added some of her own thoughts …

It's cold outside. The wind is circling down the chimney, making sparks fly. The fire feels cozy, but outside the storm is picking up. I don't like storms; they remind me of the people taken from me.

My heart is beating fast. I try to calm down, tell myself I'm with the Langley sisters. This is my favorite place in the school. Blackstone Hall has thick walls to keep the storm out, and Redmond is beside me. And reading this diary, now I know why it's on the shelf right beside the book about Rose Hawthorne. I've solved one mystery….

Turns out Rose Hawthorne ran a cancer hospital in New York, back in the days when people thought the disease was contagious. She was a nun, and Beatrice went to work with her, to honor her and Mary's mother, who died of cancer. Beatrice sounds so kind, caring, and good.

When I read her entries in Mary's diary, written after the accident, I love her so much I can't stand it. As an older sister, she reminds me of Carrie. But as someone who's lost a sister, she reminds me of me.

Here's Beatrice right after Mary died:

Sitting here in the reading room, holding this diary, I feel what Lucy and I have felt all along: it's the small things that count. Things you might barely notice. Rose Hawthorne; was Hawthorne
House named for her? Maybe those young girls wouldn't talk to Aunt Katharine or my mother. But I bet they'd talk to me. I think I have to go there. I turn to Mary's diary again, to the words of Beatrice—another sister listening, hoping.

Knowing she would see her sister again—because she had to.

And so would I.

Stephen sat in his small office, fresh from the triumph of Providence, looking over the schedule for Boston's math competition later that month. He had arranged for another large van, made room reservations at the Back Bay Inn, and found a place to take everyone for dinner. Redmond and Lucy were going along to support Beck. Maura too. Stephen thought of how traumatized she'd been in Providence, thinking she'd spotted Carrie.

Stephen stared at the inn's website. He'd never been there, but it looked warm and inviting: a townhouse on Newbury Street, fireplaces in the rooms. When he and Patricia had gone to Boston, she'd always wanted to stay at the Ritz. She'd liked the grand old elegant brick hotel overlooking the Public Garden; they'd have drinks at the dark Ritz bar, then dinner in the sweeping dining room with chandeliers and blue glasses. He'd wanted the opposite of that for this trip. As he thought about it, he realized he wanted the opposite of it for Maura.

“Hey,” came the low voice.

Looking up, Stephen saw J.D. in his wheelchair just outside the office door.

“Hey!” Stephen said. “Are you here for the board meeting?”

“I'm skipping it,” J.D. said.

“Really?” As great-grandson of James Desmond Blackstone, J.D. was a trustee of the Blackstone Foundation, which administered many charitable works. The academy was a beneficiary, and J.D. sat on the school's board.

“Yeah. This is it,” J.D. said. “Angus is taking me to Providence.”

Stephen stared at him. He pictured Maura falling apart the other day, and shook his head. “Can you ease up?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You're getting Maura's hopes up for nothing. Jesus, J.D. Do you have any idea what she's going through? All of them, actually. Beck, Travis. Beck has another huge competition coming up.”

“I know,” J.D. said.

“Maura told you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, when her mother's all stirred up, that can't be good for Beck. She needs this, J.D. Let Maura get through the holidays, will you? Let them all settle in here to Newport without you upsetting everyone. Maura thought she saw Carrie in the crowd—she practically lost it.”

“Wouldn't you?” J.D. asked. “If your daughter ran away from you?”

“Look,” Stephen said. “Maybe you mean well, but you're not helping.”

“I'm Carrie's father,” J.D. said, his voice rising. “And I'm going to find her!”

Stephen heard shuffling in the hall. He went to the door, saw Beck turning around, heading back the way she'd come. His heart nearly stopped, and he reached for her, touching her shoulder.

“Beck,” he said.

She followed him into his office, as if pulled by a magnet. She stared at J.D., all the color drained from her face. Had she heard?

“Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Campbell. I'll come back later,” she said.

“No, Beck,” he said. “It's okay. We were just talking about you. This is J. D. Blackstone. J.D., meet Beck Shaw.”

“Hi, Beck,” J.D. said, nearly as pale as she was.

“I saw you,” Beck said, staring at the wheelchair. “Outside
Blackstone Hall, the day we went to Providence for the competition.”

“I saw you too. Congratulations …”

“Are you the man who swims in Mary's pool?”

“That's me,” J.D. said.

“My mom…” Beck began, a small frown on her face. “She always looks up there. And I think she swam there the other day. She came home with wet hair…. Was she swimming with you?”

J.D. nodded. The look in his eyes was pure love; he looked uplifted, transformed from the lonely, ruined person who'd barely left Ted's guesthouse a few months ago. Stephen was one of his best friends, and he'd wanted him to get better, but right now he felt like grabbing Beck and leaving the room.

“Are you getting ready for Boston?” Stephen asked, to change the subject.

“Huh?” Beck asked, still frowning, distracted.

“The national competition,” Stephen said, tilting his computer screen toward her. “This is where we're all staying.” She barely glanced at the image of the brick townhouse.

“You're going to win,” J.D. said.

“Thanks,” she said, staring at him. Stephen saw her eyes boring in, felt her agitation start to shimmer. Had she heard what J.D. had said, or was this something else?

Stephen put his hand on her shoulder.

“I'm very proud of Beck. She has a talent for the abstract,” he said. “She sees beyond, and always chooses the most direct route. To arrive at something we take for granted, volumes of work have to be done first. Like a poem: a few lines of terse verse but the poet has already filtered out the extraneous. Beck knows that math helps us describe nature in a precise, universal language. Right, Beck?”

She must have felt him pulling her back into the room, almost as if she were a wildly veering kite and he held the string, down from whatever emotions were rattling her into the stratosphere.

“Forces of gravity, speed of light, you mean?” she asked.

“Yes,” Stephen said. “Architectural angles …”

She nodded, her breathing shallow and skin even paler than before.

“Exactly,” J.D. said. “I used formulas to build the lighthouse.” The words came out of his mouth, and Stephen wanted to punch him.

“I knew a lighthouse,” Beck said, sounding like a sleepwalker. “On the lake where my sister disappeared. It hadn't been there until the summer before. But I stood on the banks with my mother and brother, and while the searchers looked for Carrie and my father, I stared at that tower. I thought of angles. Geometry, lines from the top of the tower down to the lake. I imagined them as lifelines, things for my sister and father to grab onto.”

“That's what I wanted,” J.D. said, his voice gravelly and his eyes suddenly brimming with tears.

“I heard what you said,” Beck said. “When I was out in the hall.”

J.D. nodded. “I built that lighthouse for your sister. I wanted to save them.”

“Enough,” Stephen said, standing between his old friend and Beck. “Stop it.”

“Stop the truth?” Beck asked. “That's a mathematical impossibility.”

Stephen tightened his arm around Beck's shoulder, but she tore away. He heard her pounding down the corridor as he looked after her.

He turned to J.D., fury in his eyes.

“Why did you do that?” he asked.

“Christ, I'm so sorry,” J.D. said, putting his head in his hands.