The Geometry of Sisters (9 page)

Maura knew the kids were getting hungry. When they got close to Brick Market, she found a parking spot. They walked along the street, stopping to look at menus posted in restaurant entrances. Maura and Travis let Beck choose—the Black Duck, a sandwich and burger place.

Entering the restaurant, Beck seemed calmer, at ease. Travis liked the ship's lanterns and big leather menus. Maura smiled, told them they could order whatever they wanted, listened while Travis read the legend of the
Black Duck
, a rumrunner's boat that used to sneak into hidden coves.

But part of Maura had stayed behind on that seawall, where she'd been young and so had J.D., gazing at the bridge and knowing she wanted him to show her everything, everything.

5
ME AGAIN—BECK HERE.
You're wondering why I haven't gone home to Ohio yet. Well, so am I. My mother's trying hard. I don't want her to fall apart, and that's what might happen if I left. We don't have much money, but she took me and Travis out to dinner last night. He was missing Ally, and I … well, I'm back doing what I shouldn't. Fun fact: I'm a thief.

I tell myself to keep walking, stick my hands in my pockets, and it's as if they have minds of their own. They reach, grab, hide. Things disappear in this life, you know? Try not to let it happen to you, try really hard.

This school is a nightmare. Not only is it surrounded by the ocean, the main building has a pool on the fourth floor. That's what all the kids say, although no one is allowed to swim in it. From the girls' wing, you can smell faint chlorine. They're all whispering about it—it's just been filled again this year, after being empty forever. Some kids swear they've seen a man going up to swim—the joke is that it's the ghost of James Desmond Blackstone. And the truth is, I saw him too—but he's no ghost. I'll tell you in a minute.

Lucy and I were studying in her dorm room two nights ago; we both like math—and working together. Surprise, surprise. Lucy wanted the window open, even though the evening had turned chilly, and I could hear waves rolling in and smashing the rocks on the shore. It started me hyperventilating. Lucy thought I was shivering
because I was cold, so we went next door to Pell's room—she has a fireplace—and Pell had the dorm mother light the fire.

But that just made things worse, because I could hear water moving, the sound of someone swimming—upstairs, overhead. Can you imagine sleeping under a pool? All that water sloshing? What if the pipes burst, or the tiles cracked, and the ceiling caved in? You'd drown.

I kept looking up. Pell asked why. I said I didn't like the sound. Pell said she let the watery music lull her to sleep, thinking of the two sisters long ago who loved each other: Mary Langley and her sister, Beatrice, who came here to visit after Mary died.

That was a dagger in my heart, I won't lie to you. I pretended to be tired, and said good night in a friendly way. Inside, I was on fire. My father is dead, and Carrie, my Carrie. Lucy has Pell, this Mary apparently has Beatrice, but where is my sister?

I went downstairs. On the way out I headed for the security desk to ask Angus how dangerous it was. What if the weight of water really
did
crash through the ceiling? I wanted to know that Lucy, Pell, and the other girls would be safe. Angus is gruff, but I like him. He's an outcast too, but you can tell he cares about the school. I got to his desk, and this is so weird: the elevator doors were just closing behind him, and I swear I saw someone in a wheelchair in there.

“Who's that?” I asked.

“Who's what?” he asked. “I didn't see anyone.”

“I saw someone in there. In a wheelchair.”

“Haven't you heard about the ghost of James Desmond Blackstone?” he asked me, arching his eyebrows. “Everyone knows James Desmond loved a good swim.”

“Ghosts don't swim,” I said.

“Are you sure about that?” he asked. “You're new to Newport Academy—this is the cool school with the ghost pool.”

“That's what I want to ask you about. What if the water damages the ceiling? Could it pour down into the dorm rooms?”

Angus shook his head. “Mary wouldn't allow it.”

“You don't really believe that.”

“Of course I do. Everyone knows about Mary. You'll hear the stories about Mary Langley and her pool the longer you stay.”

“
If
I stay,” I muttered, walking away.

A ghost's pool. Right. Mary Langley whoever she was. She had a sister too. Beatrice. Lucky ghosts. Even they have each other.

Things to hold on to—that's what you need. Hold tight, stay safe… Because you never know what's going to be yanked away from you. I used to say that my sister was like having a permanent best friend. But then I found out nothing is permanent.

You have to hold on to your sister, hold on to your friends.

My friends are back home. Many wrote me off, hating me, calling me
klepto
. But the ones who stuck with me were loyal and true, and I felt so grateful that they still loved me. To think of life in Columbus going on without me is a little like imagining what will happen after you die: people can survive you being gone, and that is an ugly fact. It makes me want to grab what I can, what is here and now. Even china pineapples. And brass mice—I have one of those now too, from the display case in the library.

After dinner last night, Amy called to say Megan has taken my place both on the bus and in homeroom. It's not even an alphabetical thing—like her name comes next in line and she'd naturally just slot into my spots. No—it was willful. Megan wanted to sit there, and she took the seats. Megan was one of the people who talked about me most, called me a thief to my face. What kills me most of all is that Amy and Ellie didn't kick her out.

Amy sounded mad, like “that bitch is trying to take over,” especially on the bus. But the thing is, the seat Megan took is right next to Amy. And did Amy move or in any other way protest? No. And I
asked, believe me. Is this how it goes? Megan's their new friend, they've embraced her as if she never talked badly about me, and here I am making new friends with Lucy and Camilla.

But that's nothing like missing Carrie. We were each other's other half. I don't really exist without her. You love a person, and you can't imagine life without them. But suddenly something happens, and they're gone, and you just keep breathing, eating, sleeping, waking up.

Her photographs are here, and she's not.

September's heat lingered into the first week of October, making the kids restless and yearning to be outside. Maura was impressed with their ability to concentrate and read, connect with the material she assigned them. She was teaching four English classes: Composition, English Lit, and for AP students, the Art of Fiction, and Russian Literature. Each required extensive writing on the part of the students.

Maura had bought blue notebooks for everyone, passed them out the first day, and told her students to write about their lives, just as her favorite professor had done.

The Art of Fiction caught her every time. Fiction existed in life as well as literature: the ways people deceived themselves and those they loved most. Not always out of malice, but out of love and mysterious desperation. Maura understood that to her bones.

Every story she assigned, each time she read about a family and the way it worked, the way people wove fictions into their lives and relationships, the more haunted she felt about her own life.

People pretended. They fell in love inconveniently, tried to escape the consequences. They betrayed the ones they held most dear, struggled to hide the truth, hoping no one found out. They stole each other's loves, tried not to be caught, not to be punished. But what good were lies, when you had to live with them every day?

Carrie, more than anyone, had borne the weight of what Maura had and hadn't been able to admit to herself. It was as if Carrie had always known.

As a baby she'd gaze into Maura's face, as if trying to tell her it was all okay. And Maura had lied to herself, all through Carrie's growing up, that the truth didn't matter, wouldn't change anything. But it had mattered.

Overwhelmed with work, trying to find her bearings, Maura had put off calling Katharine all through September. But teaching this class had only heightened her feelings, made them almost unbearable. She could lie to everyone else, even herself, but not her sister. She had never been able to: between her and Katharine, their emotions had all been right out in the open.

She had taken another late-night drive, north to Portsmouth, past Katharine's farm. She'd seen the big yellow house, the old barn where Katharine did her work, and the enormous metal sculptures roaming the hayfields, extinct beasts brought back to life.

Slowing down on the country road, she had almost stopped. The house lights were out—was Katharine home? Maura imagined her sister asleep. She could let herself in the rickety back door. That's how it used to be—Katharine had always expected Maura to walk in.

Today at lunch, Maura went to a corner of the teachers' dining room and dialed her sister's phone number. The machine answered: “You've reached Katharine. Leave me a message.” And Maura did: “Hi, it's me. Maura. I'd … like to speak to you. Please call.” She left the number of her cell phone, knowing Katharine already had it, as well as the number at the carriage house; she wondered what her sister would think about the 401 area code.

Something happens to sisters who've stopped talking to each other for any stretch of time. Once it has happened—once the pattern has been set, and months and years go by, they get used to it. The unthinkable becomes thinkable. They imagine they can live
without each other—because that's what they're doing. Even if they make up, get back together, at the first sign of strife, they might revert to not speaking.

The initial break is so wrong, such a crime against nature and love. They might tell themselves it's justified, that she did such-and-such, that she deserves so-and-so. Everyone knows that we're most hurt by the ones we love most. Drastic measures, turned backs, the buttoning of lips, the childish pronouncements—“I'll never speak to you again!”—might feel momentarily satisfying and righteous.

But it burns deep. And if it lasts long, watch out. For every day sisters don't talk to each other, a day is taken from the end of their lives. It's that destructive. Their lives are shorter, because their anguish and bitterness destroys them from the inside out. It eats away at their veins, weakens the walls of their hearts.

Maura felt all that, sitting at the cafeteria table. She reached up, placed her hand on her chest, needing to see if her heart was really beating. How had this happened? How could such a rift have formed between her and Katharine? She felt trapped by the situation the two of them had created so recklessly. Something else: did it contribute to Carrie staying away? Had she learned from her mother and aunt how not to talk to her family?

When Maura looked up, she saw Amy Bramwell, a biology teacher, standing by the table with her brown bag.

“Are you finished with your call?” she asked. “I don't want to disturb you if you're not…”

“Please,” Maura said, clearing space on the table.

“Lunch hour's when I always catch up on the million things I have to do,” Amy said, unwrapping her sandwich. Maura nodded; her pulse had spiked at the sound of Katharine's voice, and it still wasn't back to normal.

Stephen Campbell walked in with Ted Shannon. Maura's gaze
followed them as they headed across the room. Was it her imagination, or was Stephen watching her out of the corner of his eye?

“He was asking about you,” Amy said.

“Who?”

“Stephen.”

“Our paths keep crossing,” Maura said. “At very odd times.”

“Really?” Amy asked.

Maura nodded. “We're both night owls, and for a while I kept seeing him out by the cliff.”

“He's a pensive sort,” Amy said.

“What's his story?”

“Oh, he grew up in Newport and went here as a kid. He and Ted were in the same class,” Amy said. “They were really good friends with Taylor Davis.”

“Why does that name sound familiar?”

“He was Pell and Lucy Davis's father.”

Maura nodded.

“Anyway, Taylor was a wonderful guy, from everything I've heard,” Amy said. “He came from Michigan, went to the academy, met the daughter of a socialite—in fact, the über-socialite, Edie Nicholson—and never quite fit into Newport life. He played football at Brown, and saw Lyra when she was home from Vassar. When he went back to Michigan, he took Lyra with him.”

“I did that,” Maura said. “Moved from the East Coast to the Midwest…”

“Yes, but you weren't debutante of the year, with all that goes with it. Lyra didn't take to the move,” Amy said. “She married Taylor, had two daughters before she realized she wasn't cut out for that life. She left him with the kids, came back east, wound up moving to Italy, I think.”

“But the girls board here?”

“Yes,” Amy said. “They have to. Taylor died a few years ago.”

“How awful,” Maura said. “Do they ever see their mother?”

“No,” Amy said. “And they don't talk about her.”