The Sparrow Sisters (14 page)

“That cookie looks good,” Henry said.

“Don't touch. That's Matty's,” Patience said as she slid it over the counter.

Henry put up his hands.

“He can have it,” Matty said, his voice so thin and reedy that Henry wanted to lean in to hear him. “He's all right.”

Patience raised her eyebrows, not at Matty but at Henry. “What do you know? I guess you're in with Matty.”

“And you?” Henry took a bite of the cookie. It was buttery, crumbly as shortbread. He could barely taste the lavender, just the smallest whisper beneath the sugar. It was wonderful. He closed his eyes as he chewed.

“Claire Redmond, Baker's Way Bakers,” Patience told him.

Henry nodded. “Unbelievable.”

“I want to swing in the hammock,” Matty said. “You want to talk to her.” He pointed at Henry. He jumped down from the tall stool and left the barn before Henry had a chance to ask him how he knew.

Patience looked a little irritated as she watched Matty go. “He usually has a really reliable shit detector.”

Henry didn't bother to reply, just came around the counter and sat on the stool next to Patience.

“I don't have the time or the patience.” Henry grimaced at
the unintended pun. “I can't wait for you to decide to let me in. I want in, now.”

Patience bit back a snide comment about how he'd already been in, more than once. She was surprised at how easily the real truth spilled out. “You have no idea what you're asking for,” Patience said. “My sisters will tell you, the Sparrows are meant to be alone. People are random, messy. We don't like needing anyone because when we do, it never turns out well.”

“That's a bit overdramatic, don't you think?” Henry asked. “If that were true, you wouldn't have spent the night with me, you wouldn't have let me”—Henry stopped at the image of pure abandonment—“into your bed at all.”

“I needed to touch it,” Patience whispered. This truth telling was careening out of control even if, after last night, she wasn't sure that Henry needed her or the other way around. She reached for his thigh without a thought.

“My leg?” Henry put his hand to his thigh.

“Is it hurting?” Patience asked, resigned to the rising anger she felt in the room.

Henry realized it wasn't. “I'm sitting down.”

“Stand up.”

Henry didn't move.

“Get up, put your weight on it.”

He stood. “I'm having a good day,” Henry said, shrugging.

“Are you?” Patience asked. “Does your leg have good days?”

“No,” Henry admitted. “But I didn't take anything from you.”

But he had. Patience had put a single drop of henbane in
the bottom of the glass and slipped burdock root and comfrey into the lemon water she kept by her bed. Henry had drunk nearly the whole thing, as she knew he would. And, of course, she had touched him. Over and over she had stroked him, her fingers so light that in his sleep he hadn't even stirred.

“Do you want me to believe you made it all better?”

“Believe what you want,” Patience said. “You
are
better.”

“So the only reason you slept with me was to get to my leg?”

Patience looked away. She could hear the snap of their connection breaking, could taste her own panic: sour and metallic.

“Well, fuck you, then.” Henry walked to the door. He knew what he'd said was not only mean but also ludicrous.

“Wait.” Patience came around the counter. Henry backed away.

“What am I, Patience, just another damaged person for your collection? Matty's not enough, you need a new project?” Henry had his back to the door, but he was awfully close to leaving and Patience began to breathe too fast. Spots swam before her eyes like the blotches after a camera flash. She leaned over and put her hands on her knees.

“Patience?” Henry said. He walked back to her. She could see his shoes and had a moment of terrible certainty that she was going to throw up on them.

“I should have had breakfast,” she said, her mouth tight against the nausea.

“Come here,” Henry said and drew her close, rubbing her back and urging her to unfold against him.

“Oh, God, Henry.” Patience thought she might cry. “What if I
do
only want to fix you?”

“Go ahead and try. I dare you,” Henry said.

Matty came to the door and saw Patience with her head bowed into Henry's chest, her arms around his waist. He'd never seen her hold a person the way she held her plants. Patience touched this man with respect and awe, as if he was her remedy. Matty knew Patience didn't ever treat herself, not even last winter when she had the same terrible stomach flu that laid half the town out for a week. It was just before Christmas, and Patience had sat at the Nursery counter in pajamas and a sweater, a cold compress on the back of her neck as she filled her bottles. She'd let Matty make the deliveries, pulling a box of her remedies behind him on his sled. No, Patience had had to fight all alone through the gripping stomach pains and sweats, her hands shaking, a fever blister marring her lip. Matty thought she'd never get better, but she did. So when he saw her fall into Henry, he thought maybe she'd finally found the cure.

What Matty saw was the blossoming of Patience Sparrow. He listened to them talk; to Patience as she spoke of her confusion, how she couldn't control how she felt about Henry and how much that irritated her, how quickly she'd given herself over. He heard Henry's rumbly laugh and it made him want to sit near enough to feel it too.

“Tell me what you're afraid of,” Henry asked Patience. Matty was surprised; he didn't think Patience was afraid of anything at all.

“I don't know,” Patience answered. “I'm probably afraid that you'll figure me out and decide I'm full of shit.”

“Well, are you?” Henry asked.

“Some people think I am.”

“And some think you make magic.”

“Then they're the ones who are full of it.”

Henry laughed again. He couldn't remember the last time he'd just done that, laughed without trying.

“So what've you fixed lately?” he asked.

“Oh, the usual: insomnia, acne, heartbreak, Lyme disease.”

“You can cure heartbreak?”

“Sometimes all it takes is a tincture and some talk.” Patience looked at Henry. “You don't want to know how I cure Lyme disease?”

“
I
can treat Lyme,” Henry said. “I was told only time could mend a broken heart.”

Matty sank to his haunches outside the door. He didn't know what Lyme was, but he saw the symptoms of a broken heart every day. If only his father believed in Patience the way Henry was starting to. Matty thought that if Patience fixed his dad, then his dad could fix Matty. He would ask her and if she didn't help his father, he would.

H
enry came to Ben daily for about a week. He taught him how to carefully cover the wire in his thumb with thin surgical tape. As he cleaned the tiny hole and made sure Ben wasn't doing anything stupid like helping his friends haul traps, Henry heard more chapters in the Sparrow Sisters' story. It turned out that Ben Avellar had decided to become an unofficial Granite Point historian. He now knew more about the town and its denizens than the town clerk did.

“So have you made progress with Patience?” Ben asked one afternoon when he'd taken Henry to Calumet Beach to watch the tide go out. The water receded so quickly that hermit
crabs were left to scuttle, panicky and confused, looking for a hidey-hole. When the tide was dead low, the blue sky and the yellow sun blended with the sand and the sea until it looked like one mirrored expanse. The water reflected the sky in the tidal pools, and dunes met the clouds where the eelgrass grew. Henry was disoriented by the sight; he felt unsure which way was up. In that uncertain moment he admitted to Ben that he had fallen hard for Patience.

“Does she feel the same?” Ben asked.

“Who can tell?” Henry said. “It could just be a summer thing to her.”

“Oh, Patience doesn't do that anymore,” Ben said. “She hasn't been with anybody really since just after college. At least no one has seen anything.”

“An invisible lover?” Henry laughed, but it wasn't funny. If there was anybody capable of living an entire life unseen, it was Patience.

“At least Patience sees you. It's like I'm invisible to Nettie,” Ben said later back at his house. He poured tomato soup into mugs with his left hand. He was getting better—more soup made it into the mug than onto the counter.

“You're not invisible, Ben. She sees you,” Henry said. “I don't think she knows that you see her.”

“Really?”

“The night of the Mayos' party Nettie seemed worried about you.”

“Did she now?” Ben smiled. “Was I still in the hospital?”

“Yeah, I took Patience to the party.”

Henry still shivered when he thought about that night. He hadn't been back to Ivy House since. But he had been with Patience nearly every night. They met at the Nursery after Sorrel and Nettie went home. Henry couldn't say what made him return there again and again but he did, as soon as Sally left the office each evening. Once they'd made love in the small orchid greenhouse. It was so humid he'd been sweating before he even touched her. They'd fallen into a raised bed of soft moss that Patience used to pot the orchids. Henry washed the deep green stains from her knees as they sat drinking cold water from the sink in the barn. A nail head had scraped down the back of her calf leaving a long thin scratch. He'd cleaned it, her leg in his lap, her toes scrabbling against his jeans while he dabbed alcohol along the wound. Patience herself had given Henry a salve to stanch the trickle of blood, the smell of yarrow and periwinkle as strange to him as the intense yearning he felt for Patience. Of course, the salve didn't work, and a tiny thread of deep red dried where it reached her ankle.

Just last night she'd finally come to him, using the back door so that she didn't have to walk through the office, wouldn't smell the medicinal fog that hung in the waiting room. He'd been dictating his notes and looked up to see her standing outside his window. She was wearing one of her mother's dresses, the skirt held out in front of her, filled with blackberries from the bush he didn't even know he had. Under her arm was a quilt, already stained purple from the berries. He'd taken her
up to the little apartment, suddenly self-conscious as she trailed her fingers over his books, horrified when she moved a stack of medical journals onto the floor and found his Purple Heart, his Commendation Medal. She'd said nothing, just looked at him and slid the journals back over the small box, which had broken open in the move. She brought the quilt, strewn with violets and ivy like her curtains, and they'd gone into his little garden to eat the blackberries. Henry took her into his arms and laid her down, licking the berry juice from her throat until she giggled so hard she hit his head with her chin. And not once did she ask if his leg hurt him.

But it did. His leg hurt whenever he left her. And now, sitting with Ben at his tiny kitchen table, he felt a hot spike of pain that couldn't be ignored.

“You know the town is talking,” Ben said a few days later. They were back at the beach, the ocean this time. It was a place that drew them both, Henry because the water gave him peace and Ben because he couldn't stay away from the fish he couldn't catch.

Henry had to shake his head to clear it of Patience. “The summer people are here. They'll lose interest in us by August.” He sounded hopeful.

“Maybe,” Ben said. “Sometimes we need a new story about the same old people.”

“Terrific.” Henry nodded.

“For instance,” Ben said, “Granite Point was first settled in 1653 by farmers from Plymouth.”

“I saw the monument.”

“Yeah, well, the Sparrows were in that bunch.” Ben leaned in to Henry, as if there were eavesdroppers amongst the sandpipers. “But they weren't farmers.”

“No?”

“Well, they were farmers, I guess, because everybody had to eat, but they were also the first lawyers, judges, doctors, shipbuilders, and captains. The Sparrows ran the town for years. They were never challenged.”

“Sally said as much.” Henry wanted more. “Where are you going with this?”

“There was one power struggle, before Ivy House went up, long before Clarissa wrote her book.” Ben warmed to his story, his lumpy hand waving as he talked. “George Sparrow's great-great-great-great-grandmother had a run-in with the church, 1691; that's what the inscription is for, the one on the village green. It was before she was a Sparrow. She was the center of Granite Point's very own witch hunt. I guess she and her sisters could be pretty wild, no mother, a Puritan dad. Maybe they just liked to poke at, you know, authority, but Eliza got in real trouble. There's a little section at the library about it.”

Henry wasn't surprised that Patience came from a long line of “pokers.” The inscription Ben pointed out was on the gazebo. Henry had never noticed it. It was hard to see beneath the wisteria dripping in swags from every corner. Something about ever innocent, Henry read.

“Two sisters and the father died of scarlet fever,” Ben said.
“Practically the whole town was sick, and a lot of them died. Eliza Howard was the only survivor in her family. First the minister took her in, but she kept running away. Once they found her surrounded by stranded pilot whales near the spit. The story in the town records is that somehow Eliza got them all back into the ocean, all but one. Eventually, she was sent to live with her uncle, and that's when a whole bunch of bad luck hit the town. It was the usual stuff: failed crops, storms. In fact, the town green was a swamp for months.”

“That's what you get when you mess with a witch.” Henry laughed. “When will they learn?”

Ben laughed too. “I know, I'm careful never to poke a Sparrow. So Eliza was accused of witchcraft after her uncle died of scarlet fever too. She was tried right in town, but she escaped hanging; somebody paid off the judge and the minister—that's the story anyway. It hardly mattered that she was found innocent officially; the people had turned against her anyway. I'd guess being cut off from everyone she knew is what broke Eliza.”

Did everyone go against her?” Henry asked.

“Maybe not, because everything went back to normal in town eventually, except that now Granite Point had its own crazy lady. Eliza built the first house—the one the Sisters use for the Nursery now—out on Calumet Landing. She was like a hermit. She planted the original gardens out there, lived through the terrible winter of 1693 on her own. The whole town was afraid of her and expected her to die alone. But Nicholas Sparrow found her and married her.”

“At least there was a happy ending,” Henry said.

“Yeah, and there's a kind of balance in the whole thing,” Ben said. “The Sparrow Sisters Nursery is on the original land, and Patience is a healer too.”

“Ah,” Henry said, “the old ‘there are no accidents in the universe.'” And he was right: the Sisters had turned their bitter history into a place of sweetness.

“So,” Ben said, “even though there are only the three left, the Sparrow women are still pretty powerful. I mean, it's their birthright.” Ben had the grace to look a little embarrassed.

“Are you telling me to be careful around Patience?”

“I think we both need to be careful around all of them. They're a package deal, and if one hurts, they all do.”

Henry looked at Ben with new respect. He had gotten to the heart of the Sparrow Sisters' mystery while Henry was still trying to find his way around Granite Point.

They made an unlikely pair, Ben and Henry, as they walked the docks and checked the boat or ate dinner at Doyle's bar. Long after Ben could manage with his thumb, Henry sought out his company. Days and days went by in a smudgy haze as Henry worked and waited to be with Patience. Summer had settled over Granite Point and even with all the activity, time moved slowly. The days were long; most were sunny and hot, which made for a great start to the season. The nights could be hot too, and Henry began to regret not putting in an air conditioner, especially when he was alone in his bed. He chafed against the secret he kept. Instead of a private thrill, Henry was
filled with sadness that Patience didn't want anyone to know about them, not openly anyway. He flailed and tossed, sleep just out of reach. The sheets twisted around him when he did drift off, and he woke bound into an uncomfortable coil, his body half off the mattress, the quilt Patience had left a lumpy wad under his hips.

Henry rose early, too breathless to lie flat anymore, and walked the still-quiet streets until the rest of the town began to stir. Sometimes he rowed across the calm water of Frost Fish Cove or swam out to the Laney's Pond marker and back, more than a mile. But soon the town was so busy that people spilled into the water, even at dawn. Granite Point had changed with high summer, and Henry was finding it harder to remember why he thought he could stay separate here.

Henry first noticed that the population began to swell on the weekends. The exodus from Boston and New York kicked up on Friday afternoons so that by dinnertime the sidewalks were clotted with strollers and couples pausing at every shop window, drifting toward Baker's Way Bakers as if in a dream. Everyone stayed open later now, the bookstore, the pharmacy, the coffee shop, the linen shop that made Henry want to lie down every time he passed the display. The benches outside Doyle's weren't home to many smokers anymore; customers waiting for a table had colonized them. Henry knew it was good for the town, this tide of cash and commotion, but he missed the quiet. It was good for his practice too. The people who had second homes also had second doctors. The vacation
ers with only two weeks to spend were damned if they'd spend them with a sick child. His appointment book was inky with ear infections, sunburns, surf rash, and stomach bugs. Because of this, it took Charlotte Mayo nearly three weeks to get a full half hour with him.

“I take it you've familiarized yourself with my file,” Charlotte said when Henry didn't smile as he greeted her.

“I have, Mrs. Mayo.”

“Charlotte, please,” she said. “You've been to my home.”

Henry sat at his desk with Charlotte. It seemed unnecessary to perform an examination. Dr. Higgins and several fertility experts had tested and treated Charlotte for all the most likely causes: fibroids, endometriosis, cystic ovaries, and hormone issues. He'd seen the reports that showed she was ovulating, that her eggs were healthy, that Simon's sperm motility wasn't a problem. In fact, there didn't really seem to
be
a problem.

“Charlotte,” Henry began.

Charlotte held up her hand. “Don't,” she said, and Henry heard the steel in her voice. “Don't tell me there's nothing you can do.”

“There is nothing medically wrong with either of you. If you were to begin fertility treatment, IVF, for instance, I wouldn't be comfortable. Treating you with drugs designed to increase egg production when it's clear that's not the problem . . .” He trailed off. “Adoption? Surrogacy?”

“Please.” Charlotte rolled her eyes. “A no-Mayo Mayo?”

Henry laughed and apologized.

“Use your imagination along with that Yale degree,” Charlotte said. “I'm open to just about anything short of a witch's brew.”

Henry looked at her file again. “You're forty.”

“Not until Labor Day, ironically.” Charlotte pointed at the file.

“Right, thirty-nine, so it's not too late. On the other hand, it's not ideal.”

“If things were ideal, I would not be here.”

Henry thought—surprisingly these days—before he spoke next. He didn't want to offend Charlotte Mayo; she could be helpful, and he respected her desire to have a family. But he couldn't resist pushing her just a little.

“Have you considered alternative therapies, at least to address your state of mind?” he asked. “There have been a number of studies that suggest anxiety, depression, stress can all suppress fertility.”

“Fringe therapy.” Charlotte had already begun to gather her things. “Next you'll recommend Patience Sparrow.”

“I . . .” Henry shut his mouth when he saw Charlotte narrow her eyes at him.

“Well, there it is,” she said. “I'd heard rumors, but I didn't believe them. You and Patience Sparrow.” Charlotte stood. “You had better be cautious around that family. Those women have an unnatural hold over this town. What I said about witch's brew? I meant it.”