The Sparrow Sisters (5 page)

P
atience washed out the soup bowls, the steam warm and scented with rosemary, her hands slippery with the dish soap she made herself. She rinsed them before reaching for the beer on the draining board. Patience was peeved. Nettie was feeling better, and that was good, wasn't it? The antibiotics had already begun to clear her chest, leaving Nettie limp with relief. Patience and Sorrel felt better too although Patience begrudged her relief; she didn't like to admit that she'd been a little nervous about Nettie's cough as well. It wasn't that she didn't believe in conventional medicine, she just didn't trust it. And she certainly didn't trust the entirely too attractive Henry Carlyle.
He was snooty and nothing but an old stick, Patience thought. Not old, she corrected herself, and shook her head, just stuffy in his funny linen vest and wrinkled shirt. Really, who wore a vest anymore? And his pants; actually, Patience hadn't noticed his legs at all. That he had made Nettie better was good; that Patience had wanted to tuck his shirttail back in was not.

Nettie hadn't told her sister she had an appointment with the new doctor; she knew Patience would have made her try several unpalatable remedies that might well have worked in time. Nettie absolutely believed in Patience, but she'd felt so shaken by her fever that she hadn't had the time or energy to consult her sister. So Patience was, not unreasonably, feeling a little put out. And that feeling had to assert itself somehow.

Grabbing a chunk of Baker's Way bread, dipping it in the softening butter in the dish on the counter, she took her beer onto the front porch. The light was gone from the sky so Patience flipped on the porch lamp and sat in the creaky swing, pushing it into a sway with her bare foot. She watched old Mrs. Avery walk her equally old beagle down Ivy Street toward the harbor. She laughed as Beanie found enough energy to pull his mistress into the elm he had his eye on. Mrs. Avery looked up at Patience and waved.

“It seems your biscuits are working on Beanie's arthritis,” she called out.

“Good,” Patience said. Her gifts weren't restricted to the human population in Granite Point. Patience found that at least some of her remedies worked just as well on their pets.

“I guess you've got something for mine?” Mrs. Avery held up a hand crooked by arthritis.

“You know I do,” Patience answered. “You only have to ask.”

Mrs. Avery shook her head. “I'm seeing that new doctor tomorrow. Wouldn't want him to feel unwelcome.”

Patience sat up taller and stilled the swing.
Unwelcome,
she thought,
I
'll give you unwelcome.
But all she said was, “I hear he's a bit stiff.”

“Really?” Mrs. Avery said, gathering Beanie closer. “I hear he's quite a catch.” She smiled and tilted her head toward Patience. “He won't be single long,” she warned.

“Thanks for the tip,” Patience said with the bite of frost in her voice. “I'll pass it on to my sisters.”

Mrs. Avery moved off, and Patience suddenly found the porch too exposed. Her irritation was fizzing around her along with the gnats. Patience stood quickly, sending the swing into the side of the house with a smack. She didn't want to believe that jealousy had any part in the anxiety that gripped her like a cramp. But, to be honest, Patience hadn't been challenged in at least five years, and she didn't like the feeling. She poured the now-warm beer into the sink and went up to see Nettie.

“How are you, Nettie-Pot?” Patience said as she opened the door.

Sorrel was sitting in the chaise by the window, her long legs tucked up. She turned to Patience, her eyes still holding a hint of hardness.

“Oh.” Patience stepped back. “You already have a nurse.”

“Come on,” Sorrel sighed. “Don't be such a bitch.” It was not lost on Sorrel these days that she had outlived Marigold by some years now. She'd found herself more and more aware of how fragile everything was and if Nettie needed Dr. Carlyle to keep her healthy, to keep her
here,
Sorrel wasn't complaining. In fact, she found herself tense and watchful, so she lingered as Nettie settled in for the night.

Patience crossed to the bed and lay back, her legs dangling over its foot.

“I am not a bitch, Sorrel. Thanks for your support, though.” Her voice dropped. “Ass.”

“Heard that,” Sorrel said from her spot.

Nettie watched her sisters, her chapped lips pulled down in a frown. Her hair seemed alight in the dim bedroom as if her nerves had shot sparks right out of her head. And she
was
nervous. She knew she'd been caught out by Patience, which unsettled everyone. Now, just being in bed, her pajamas damp with breaking fever, made her a wreck.

“Please don't fight,” she said. “This is my fault, I panicked. Henry needn't ever come back.”

“Henry?” both sisters said.

“Dr. Carlyle, jeez!” Nettie all but shrieked. “He's just young and cute, you know, like our age. It's weird calling him ‘Doctor' after all the years with old Dr. Higgins.”

Sorrel leaned back in the chaise and took a long look at Patience.

“What do you think, P?” she asked, their spat forgotten.
“Does young—like us—
Dr.
Carlyle”— she looked at Nettie—“seem like someone to keep tabs on?”

“Well, you guys aren't so young.” The Sisters harrumphed. “Kidding,” Patience said and patted Nettie's foot under the covers. “He didn't do it for me. His jaw's horribly square, and his eyelashes are way too long for a guy.”

“Ha!” Nettie said, pointing at Patience. “You saw the lashes too!”

“Please, no man needs lashes like that.” Patience sat up. “And another thing, what was all that stuck-up crap about my remedies?” She slid her voice into a soft growl on the word “remedies.” Henry Carlyle's voice had been low and a little rough, as if he hadn't spoken for a while, or had spoken too much. Patience had just the tea for that.

“What did you expect?” Sorrel said. “He doesn't know us, he doesn't know this town.” She picked up her cup and headed for the door. “No matter how skilled you are, or how beloved”— and here Sorrel stood to twine her fingers through Patience's hair—“you can't cure everyone. We need Henry Carlyle.” Patience brought her own hands up to meet Sorrel's and squeezed.

Once Patience was alone in her room she allowed herself to replay Sorrel's remark. Why did they need Dr. Carlyle? Was someone sick with more than bronchitis? No, she would feel that. Patience shivered and curled into her pillow. Naked, as she always was in bed, she considered digging out a tee shirt, but she was too lazy to get up. She stretched out again, run
ning her legs back and forth along the sheets, trying to work up enough friction to generate some heat.

“Shit!” she said and threw herself onto her stomach. Sleep didn't come for nearly an hour, but Patience willed her body to sink into stillness. She could be patient.

T
HE LAST MORNING
that Nettie spent at home was overcast and humid, heat clinging to the screen door along with the dew. Patience made coffee, pouring it into a heavy mug. She was surprised that Nettie had spent five days in the house, not even once venturing out to the backyard. Nettie almost never spent a whole day, let alone nearly a week, inside, and it worried Patience. Perhaps Nettie was really as delicate as she seemed. Patience looked at the garden, her hand on the screen doorknob but chose instead to leave Ivy House altogether. Walking barefoot down the rumpled sidewalk, elm roots heaving against the red brick, she headed toward Baker's Way Bakers. Even though Patience hadn't a penny in her jeans pockets, she knew Claire Redmond or her daughter Ryder would spot her a muffin.

A full block before she could even see the blue-and-white sign, Patience smelled the shop, and she lifted her chin and closed her eyes. If she had to, Patience could follow the scented wave like a cartoon character floating inches off the sidewalk. She was not alone. Already there was a clump of customers milling around the shop.

Claire was at the counter, and one look at Patience sent her to the ovens. She lifted out a pan of cinnamon muffins. Jug
gling one to a cutting board, she slathered it with salt-speckled Normandy butter and wrapped it in a piece of parchment paper.

“I'd love to know why you need this, P,” she said.

Patience just rolled her eyes. “How are the headaches?” she asked.

“Gone.” Claire was beaming. “Now I just have to convince Ryder to come on a college trip and the stress will be gone, too.”

“Maybe she just wants to stay here, like me.”

Claire's face fell before she could catch it, but Patience just waved and left, the muffin already at her lips, butter shiny on her chin. She stopped at the bench outside and spread the parchment onto her lap. She wedged a chunk into her mouth with a sigh and leaned back, her long legs splayed.

“That looks wonderful,” Henry Carlyle said and instantly wanted to suture his lips shut.

Patience sat up and frowned, crumbs still at the corners of her mouth.

“Right, that came out all wrong,” Henry said.

Patience snorted. “Yeah, well, you're good at that.”

“That's not fair.” Henry felt his jaw seize and his voice narrow. He shook his head. “We need to start over.”

“Do we?” Patience took another bite. She looked at Henry again. “That clenchy thing you do will ruin your teeth,” she said.

Henry rubbed his chin and made an effort to open his mouth. He saw the butter on Patience's upper lip and before he let himself think about it, he reached his hand out, inches from
her mouth, then couldn't bring himself to touch her. With a jolt he saw his fingers tremble. Patience didn't pull away. In fact she'd closed her eyes. Shock, and something like anticipation, was all over her face.

“Help,” she whispered.

Henry spun awkwardly on his heel and, forgetting completely that he'd meant to buy something at the bakery, he turned back to his office.

Patience dropped the muffin in her lap. She stared at the still-warm cake for a full minute. Then she ate it.

H
ENRY TOOK THE
ten minutes he still had before Sally arrived to pace and thump his fist on the exam table, wrinkling the paper and setting up an ache that traveled all the way to his shoulder. He'd rowed for over an hour at first light and had been enjoying the pleasant soreness in his thighs and back. Now it just felt like pain. He couldn't imagine why Patience brought out his worst, or why he cared. It had been so long since he wanted someone to like him that he almost didn't recognize the feeling. He ripped the paper from the table and spooled out a new strip. He heard Sally click-clack through the front door and in minutes Henry smelled coffee. Grabbing the charts off his desk without even looking at the names, Henry walked out to the waiting room.

“Hey, Dr. Carlyle,” Sally said handing him her mug. He waved her off and poured his own.

“Tell me about the Sparrow Sisters,” he said abruptly.

“Oh, well, um.” Sally shuffled the papers on her desk. “Let's see, the Sparrows are one of the founding families. They were whalers, magistrates, soldiers, doctors, vicars; you name it. Thaddeus and Honor Sparrow were the most extraordinary couple, like a storybook, and the girls were everything to them. But Honor died with Patience, and Thaddeus lost it. There were a couple of years there when we didn't think the Sisters would make it either. There used to be four of them, all with garden names like Nettie, but Marigold died. I don't think Sorrel ever got over that. There are only the three.” Sally paused for breath.

“And now?” Henry said.

“They own the Sparrow Sisters Nursery on Calumet. It's pretty amazing: everything and anything grows. Even when the weather turns, the Sisters manage to produce. Even in the winter there's stuff around.”

As Sally talked, Henry saw that a patient had come through the front door and was now standing uncertainly in the waiting room. He nodded at the man and held up one finger as he pulled Sally gently away from the front counter.

“What else?” he asked.

It was as Frank said: the Sparrow Sisters Nursery had quite a reputation. Sally told Henry about the Nursery that was now a landmark in the town. The plants that grew in tidy rows, the orchids that swayed delicately in the beautiful glass greenhouses, and the herbs and vegetables sown in knot gardens around the land were much in demand. Sorrel had planted
a dense little Shakespeare garden as a tribute to her reading habits. The lavender, rosemary, roses and honeysuckle, clematis and pansies, creeping thyme and sage were not for sale in that garden, but Sorrel would re-create versions of it for clients whose big houses on the water needed the stamp of culture, even if their owners had little idea what their lovely gardens meant. In fact, it was the summer people who sustained the business, as they did the town. As much as the Sisters disliked the brassy, noisy women who came, checkbooks open, they knew that without them and their shiny SUVs and brand new surfboards, the Nursery and the town might well struggle.

“You wouldn't believe what the Sisters have done with the land,” Sally said. “People used to talk about how much they can grow, how long they grow it. Nobody much cares anymore about their methods, just what they can buy.”

The Sparrow Sisters' roses still bloomed on New Year's Day, their scent rich and warm even when snow weighed their petals closed. When customers came down the rutted road to the small eighteenth-century barn where the sisters worked, they marveled at the jasmine that twined through the split-rail fence, the perfume so intense they could feel it in their mouths. As they paid for their purchases, they wondered (vaguely, it must be said, for the people of Granite Point knew not to think too hard about the Sisters) how it was that clematis and honeysuckle climbed the barn in November and the morning glories bloomed all day. The fruit trees were so fecund that the peaches hung on the low branches, surrounded by more blos
soms, apples and pears ripened in June and stayed sweet and fresh into December. Their Italian fig trees were heavy with purple teardrop fruit only weeks after they were planted. If you wanted a tomato so ripe the juice seemed to move beneath the skin, you needed only to pick up a punnet at the Nursery. In time, despite its air of enchantment, the Sparrow Sisters Nursery was considered simply a part of Granite Point. The Sisters themselves had been merely a curiosity until Patience found her gift. Then the town quite openly bragged about its not so very secret ingredients.