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Julia nodded. Time to change the subject. “So, how are Jake and Elwood? Still go straight for a girl’s crotch?”
“They’re males, aren’t they?” Ellie smiled and Julia was struck by how beautiful her sister still was. Though Ellie was thirty-nine years old, there wasn’t a line around her eyes or a pleating of skin around her mouth. Those startling green eyes shone against the milky purity of her skin. She had strong cheekbones and full, sensuous lips. Even her small-town, poorly layered haircut couldn’t dim her beauty. She was petite and surprisingly curvy, with a smile like a halogen spotlight. No wonder everyone loved her.
“Come on.” Ellie got out of the Suburban and slammed the door shut behind her.
Julia meant to move. Instead she sat there, looking
through the dirty windshield at the house in which she’d grown up. The late afternoon sunlight made everything appear golden and impossibly softened except for the fringe of dark green trees.
This was only the second time she’d been back since her mother’s funeral; then, she’d stayed only as long as she absolutely had to. Medical school had provided an excellent excuse. She’d said I have to get back for tests, and no one questioned her. In retrospect, she should have stayed. That time might have built a bridge between her and her sister, given them a common ground. As it was, however, the opposite had occurred. They had moved through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd separately. No one in Rain Valley had known what to say to Julia in good times; in bad, they were even more confused. All they’d said over and over again was how proud her mother had been of Julia’s education. By the third mention of it, Julia couldn’t stop crying. It hadn’t helped to see how much comfort Ellie got from her friends, while she had stood alone all night, waiting for her father’s attention to turn her way. Of course, she’d been disappointed. He’d been the star that night, the widower laid low by grief. Everyone held him, kissed his cheek, and promised that Brenda was in a better place. Only Julia seemed to see the lie in all of it, the act. When at last her father broke down and wept, everyone except Julia rushed to comfort him. She had seen even as a child what no one else, especially Ellie, ever had: that her father’s selfishness had crushed his wife’s spirit, just as he’d crushed his younger daughter’s. Only Ellie had flourished in the white-hot light of her father’s self-absorption.
Julia reached for the door handle and wrenched it hard, then stepped down. Everything was exactly as it should be in October. Maple trees were dropping their leaves, creating that autumn song that was as familiar to her as the rushing whisper of the nearby river. She heard her mother’s voice in that sound, in the falling leaves and crackling twigs and whispering wind. Softly, she whispered, “Hey, Mom.” Part of her even waited for a reply. But there was only the chattering of the river and the breeze through the leaves.
She followed Ellie across the marshy lawn toward the house.
In the glorious light, the old house appeared to be made of hammered strips of silver. The grayed clapboards shone with a hundred secret colors. White trim, peeled in places to reveal patches of wood, outlined the windows and doors. Rhododendrons the size of house trailers dotted the yard.
Ellie opened the door and led the way inside.
Everything looked as it always had. The same slip-covered furniture—pale beige with pink cabbage roses and faded green leaves—graced the living room. Pine antiques were everywhere—an armoire that was probably still filled with Grandma Whittaker’s doilies and table linens, a dining table scarred by three generations of Cateses and Whittakers, a credenza that was decorated with dusty silk flowers in ceramic vases. French doors flanked a river-rock fireplace; through the silvery glass panes, a ghostly ribbon of river shone in the sunlight. Ellie hadn’t changed a thing. It wasn’t surprising. In Rain Valley things and people either belonged or they didn’t. If they belonged, they were loved and kept forever.
Ellie shut the door. Just as she said, “Brace yourself,” two full-grown golden retrievers came thundering down the stairs. At the bottom, on the slick wooden floors, they skidded together and slid sideways, then found their footing. They barreled across the room and hit Julia like the Seahawks’ front line.
“Jake! Elwood! Down,” Ellie yelled in her best police voice.
The dogs were clearly deaf.
Julia gave them a giant shove and spun away. The dogs turned their lavish attention on Ellie, who threw herself into loving them.
Julia watched the three of them roll around on the floor. “Please tell me they sleep outside.”
Ellie sat up, laughing, and pushed the hair out of her eyes. The dogs licked her cheeks. “Okay, they sleep outside.” At Julia’s relieved sigh, her sister said: “Not! But I’ll keep them out of your room.”
“That’s as good as it’s going to get, I suppose.”
“It is.” Ellie told the dogs to sit. On about the twelfth command they obeyed, but as soon as Ellie looked away, they started to belly crawl toward the door.
“Come on,” Ellie said, leading the way to the stairs.
Julia dragged her suitcase up the narrow, creaking stairway. At the top she turned right and followed her sister down the hallway to their childhood bedroom.
A pair of twin beds, swaddled in pink chiffon, a pair of white-painted French provincial student desks with gold trim, a lime green bean bag chair. Trolls and Barbies lined the white shelving; dozens of blue-and-yellow Nancy Drews reminded her of nights spent reading with a flashlight. A faded, dusty poster of Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones was tacked to the wall.
On her bed, a pair of cats lay sleeping, twined together like a French braid.
“Meet Rocky and Adrienne,” Ellie said as she crossed the room and scooped up the apparently boneless animals. The cats hung lazily from her arms, yawning. She tossed them into the hallway, said, “Go to Mommy’s room,” and then turned to Julia. “The sheets are clean. There are towels in your bathroom. The hot water still takes decades, and don’t flush the toilet before you shower.” Ellie stepped closer. “Thanks, Jules. I really appreciate your coming. I know things have been . . . bad for you lately, and . . . well, thanks.”
Julia looked at her sister. If she’d been another kind of woman, or if they’d been different sisters, she might have admitted: I had no where to go, really. Instead, she said, “No problem,” and tossed her suitcase into the room. “Now tell me why I’m here.”
“Let’s go downstairs. I’ll need a beer for this story.” Ellie started for the stairs, then turned back to Julia. “So will you.”
JULIA SAT IN HER MOTHER’S FAVORITE CHAIR AND LISTENED TO HER SISTER in growing disbelief. “She leaps from branch to branch like a cat? Come on, El. You’re getting caught up in some country myth. It sounds like you’ve found an autistic child who simply wandered away from home and got lost.”
“Max doesn’t think it’s that simple,” Ellie said, sipping her beer. They’d been in the living room for the better part of an hour now. There were papers spread out across the coffee table. Photographs and fingerprint smudge sheets and missing-children reports.
“Who’s Max?”
“He took over Doc Fischer’s practice.”
