The Sandcastle Sister (2 page)

“Listen a minute,” I interrupt her finally. Alarm bells are going off in my head. As the eldest, I know the most about the background of the mother who left us not long after Lily Clarette was born. The sum total of my information doesn’t amount to much, but what little I do have scares me.

“Did you know that Mama had a brother?” Lily Clarette bursts out.

I need some sort of transatlantic reach. I want to grab my sister and turn her squarely in another direction. “Yes, I knew that. Mama’s brother showed up at the farm once when I was little.” I remember the ragged-looking teenage boy with caramel-colored skin and stark hazel-gold eyes. My mother hugged him until I thought he might break. She called him Robby. “He wasn’t there very long before Daddy came home and kicked him out. Mama and Daddy argued over it.” I don’t go into the gory details of my father taking up the long rod and using it to properly subjugate my mother for letting someone into the house without his approval. Lily Clarette doesn’t remember any of that, though the rod didn’t leave the household when my mother did. The rod is part of life among the Brethren Saints. Long rod for major transgressions. Short rod for minor ones.

“His name’s Rob. I sent him a letter.”

“Lily Clarette!” I gasp, and by the railing, Evan glances away from his fans, one eye narrowing warily. I lower my voice, turn a shoulder, and hunch over my chair. “That’s not a good idea. People around the church used to talk about Mama’s family, okay? There was some scary stuff.” I hate acquainting my innocent nineteen-year-old sister with this part of our history, but it’s better than letting her be lured into something she can’t handle.

“I know that, Jennia Beth.” She uses the double name I grew up with. “Folks around the church
still
talk.”

“Then you understand why you should stay away from Mama’s family.”

“Just because I send the man a letter doesn’t mean I’m gonna invite him over for Sun-dey dinner,” she snaps. I’m surprised. That isn’t like Lily Clarette. “Anyhow, he answered me.”

“What did he say?”

“He’s in prison for drugs . . . and for breakin’ into a convenience store.”

I feel sick. “Oh, Lily Clarette, please don’t
 
—”

“Just listen a minute, ’kay?”

“Okay.”
Please, God. Please let this be some sort of strange dream. A nightmare. I wrestle my little sister away from my father’s family, and now she’s in touch with my mother’s? How can this be happening?
“But I don’t like it at all.”

“Did you ever hear that Mama had a sister?”

“No. The only person I ever saw from Mama’s family was the one brother, Robby.”

“The sister was lots younger than Mama and Rob. Her name’s Rebecca Christine. She’s just a few years older than you, really.”

A fist is slowly tightening around my throat. There’s more going on here than Lily Clarette doing a little research for a history project. She’s digging up the family graves, sorting through the bones and the relics. She’s trying to figure out who she is. Who
we
are.

“You learned all this from one letter to this . . . this Rob? Are you even sure you’ve got the right person?” She could be writing to some creep, some con man, pretending to be my mother’s brother.

“Yeah, I’m sure. We talked on the phone a couple times.”

“You’re sharing
phone calls
with this guy?” How much does he know about my sister? Are there return addresses on her letters? There must be. He could track her down . . . or have someone else come for her.

I have to stop this. Now.

“I wrote to a lady I think is Rebecca Christine.” My sister adds fuel to the fire. “Rob didn’t know for sure where she was livin’ now, but he said she works on boats and stuff and lives over on the North Carolina coast somewhere, and this lady I wrote to has a boat shop in Elizabeth City. I found it on the chamber of commerce website. I figure it’s gotta be her.”

“What did she tell you?”

“She didn’t answer. I called and left a message the other day. She didn’t answer that either.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want anything to do with all of this. Or maybe it’s not even
her
. Or maybe this
Rob
is making up the whole thing, just to pull you in.” Has he asked Lily Clarette for money? Care packages? Help getting out of jail?

How long until he’s released? Is that scheduled to happen anytime soon?

“How many Rebecca Christines can there be in North Carolina by the water?” my sister persists.

“More than one, probably.” The name strikes me now.
Rebecca
and
Christine
are the saints’ names of my two middle sisters, Coral Rebecca and Evie Christine.

My mother named my sisters after a sibling she’d left behind when she married my father?

“I’m gonna drive over there and try and find her next week durin’ spring break. I might stop by the prison and see Rob, too. I gotta ask him about something face to face. I need to know if what he told me’s true.”

I have to go home. Now. I have to take control of this before something terrible happens.

My mind begins rushing through flight schedules, international airports, paid vacation days. What will the big boss say about my abandoning Evan for the last leg of his tour?

There’s only Paris left. He can handle Paris without me.

Paris . . . the wedding question. Will Evan think this is just another excuse?

The sapphire ring glitters up at me, asking questions.
What if Evan finally gives up on you? Could this be the breaking straw?

“What? What did Rob tell you, Lily Clarette?” A chill slides through the weave of my sweater and crawls up my arm. I realize there’s a shadow blocking the sun. Evan’s.

“That Mama had a baby when she was thirteen. Rob said Rebecca Christine
isn’t
really Mama’s sister, even though she was raised like it. She’s not our aunt. She’s our
sister
.”

Heathrow Airport is a madhouse, travelers with luggage whizzing by, flight delays flashing on overhead screens, cell phones ringing, ticket agents calling, “Next, please. Next in line, step up.” Voices, shuffling feet, luggage wheels, and conveyors mingle in a deafening hum of white noise.

Outside the glass, it’s a dank, foggy London evening. The lonely, mournful kind that’s perfect for curling up by the fire with a cup of tea and someone special. I feel hollow and guilty, leaving Evan here like this. Alone.

“I’m sorry.” My eyes sting as he sets down the bags and sighs, looking as miserable as the wet London weather.

“I know.” He hasn’t complained about this. Not once. He’s been a trooper through all the scrambling around, the looking for flights, the mad dash to Heathrow so I could catch the most direct one.

He hasn’t once argued about abruptly ending the talk of Paris in the springtime.

Yet disappointment radiates from him like heat from an ember
 
—invisible evidence of something smoldering. Does he really understand?

All those women following him around today . . . the superfans. There will be just as many in Paris. . . .

He whisks a glance toward the lines nearby. We both know I need to get in one,
now
, if I’m going to make my overnight flight across the ocean. “I really don’t like the idea of your doing this alone.”

“I’m not going there to join in on Lily Clarette’s crazy plan. I’m going there to talk some sense into her. It’s a bad idea. I can feel it.”

“Me too,” he agrees. “Call me when you land in the US.”

“I will.”

“And when you get off the commuter flight to Greenville too.”

“Okay.” Evan has already made arrangements for his farm manager in Looking Glass Gap to take a car over to the airport. It’ll be waiting when I get there.

His hand cups my face, his long fingers sliding into my hair. I lean into his palm. A lump rises in my throat, so that I can’t speak. Instead, I grab handfuls of his nicely pressed shirt. It’s a casual blue color that matches his eyes.

Someone bumps me from behind, and I barely even feel it. Neither of us looks away. Evan’s voice is soft and intimate, almost a whisper against my hair. “I didn’t realize how much I’d gotten used to having you around.”

“Me either.” As happens so often, he has mirrored my thoughts. After weeks of nonstop interaction on this European leg of the tour
 
—planes, trains, automobiles, and appearances
 
—it has just hit me that tomorrow morning I won’t glance across the table over coffee and scones and find him there, giving me
that look
. “I love you, you know, Evan. I really do.”

Does he know? Does he believe it? Does he understand how much I want to figure out how to love someone the
right
way, even though it scares me to death?

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Yes to what?” Is he teasing or serious? I can’t tell.

“The question I asked in Bath . . . and in Rome . . . and in Florence.” He lists the cities of our discontent
 
—the ones where he suggested something impulsive, but fear held me rooted right where I was. “Don’t go falling for some mountain man while you’re up there in Cullowhee with your sister.” A smirk and a wink tantalize me.

“I’ve already fallen for a mountain man.” It’s a bad time to be heating up the conversation, but I can’t help it. I tug the handfuls of his shirt like I’m threatening him. “You watch out for those Paris women, mister.”

“Those Paris women can’t hold a candle.” He kisses me long, then turns me toward the terminal, holding me by the shoulders as if he’s bracing me up. “Go. Before I change my mind.”

Fifteen hours, two connections, and one parking lot shuttle later, I’m calling Evan from the driver’s seat of a red Jaguar F-type convertible. His drowsy hello makes me laugh. I know that sleep-deprived voice. The man is a night owl. I can’t count how many times, while working with him on edits for
The Story Keeper
, I paced the floor, waiting until what I thought was a decent hour of the morning to call him, only to discover that he was still out cold, having worked most of the night.

“Hi, sleepyhead. I just wanted you to know I made it to Greenville. This is some car, by the way. I thought you’d have Mike bring me one of the SUVs.”

I actually wish he had. The Jaguar intimidates me a bit. I know this car is Evan’s pride and joy.

He yawns, and I drink in the cozy sound of it. I try to imagine what it would be like to wake up with someone morning after morning after morning . . . every morning for the rest of my life. “I thought the car would be a nice surprise.”

A warm feeling sprinkles in. Suddenly I’m no longer tired, sore, and neck-stiff from plane sleeping. I feel giddy and light-headed. “It was. Thanks.”

The line goes quiet, and I wonder if he’s fallen asleep. “Evan?”

“What? Huh?” The words are thick and slow. “Sorry. Late night.”

The jaws of insecurity bite down hard, teeth sinking in. He didn’t have a book event last night. I purposely sent a quick text instead of calling when my first flight landed
 
—the layover was short, and besides, I didn’t want to disturb him if he was sleeping in. Apparently he might’ve still been up. Why? “You made it to Paris okay?”

“More or less. Can’t remember what time the train got in. Had something on my mind, anyway, so I stayed up overnight and worked on it. Just crashed a few hours ago.”

“I’m sorry I woke you up. Go back to sleep. Get rested for your event this evening. Don’t sleep through it, okay? If you’re AWOL, my name will be mud for leaving you there.” It’s easier to talk business, but what I really want to say is,
I miss you. I miss you already.

“Yeah, yeah,” he drones.

“Evan, I’m serious. Set an alarm or something. Now you’re scaring me.” The editor-slash-handler in me takes over.

I hear bedsprings squeaking, imagine him settling in at some swanky but charmingly antique Paris hotel. He loves places with history, so that’s what the publicist has booked for the most part. “You just take care of my baby. You. Not the car.”

I stop with some quip halfway to my mouth, choke up a bit. Can all of this really be happening to me?
Me?

Evan Hall is the kind of dream that doesn’t come to girls from the deep hollers of Lane’s Hill.

It’s
I love you, I love you,
and a good-bye. Then I’m off to Cullowhee to find my little sister and stop a collision of past and present that’s more likely to bring about disaster than anything else.

The drive in the thick morning fog takes longer than it should. On the way to Cullowhee, I wind along through the rustling river valleys and over the craggy peaks of Appalachia. I mentally review all the good reasons my sister should
not
be involved in this thing she has planned. As always, the Blue Ridge swallows me whole. The mountains are quiet and bare, still wearing their winter cloaks of brown. Only the pines add color. This early in the year, even the redbuds and dogwoods haven’t bloomed. Here and there, a few wild daffodils offer splashes of paint along the roadsides. The rivers are swollen with snowmelt, icy water bubbling beneath fog.

Memories ferry me along, the way the currents would carry a leaf, tossing it, tipping it over, swirling it round and round and round until it’s drenched and shapeless. I think about Mama, though on the plane last night, I vowed that I wouldn’t go there, even in the private darkness of my own mind.

It’s time to give up wondering about her,
I’ve told myself over and over.
You can’t blame her for what she did. She had no resources, no one to rely on or ask for help. No one who wouldn’t take her to the elders of the Brethren Saints to cleanse the devil from her . . .

It’s not like anybody would have helped her get treatment
 
—recognized the symptoms of postpartum depression in danger of becoming postpartum psychosis. By leaving, she probably saved all of you . . . and herself.

She wasn’t in any shape to take six kids with her. . . .

I’ve accepted this rationalization
 
—for her disappearance and for the fact that we never heard from her again and have no idea where she went after she left us. We don’t even know whether she could be out there somewhere yet. We probably never will. None of us have ever had the courage to dig very far into it.

Until Lily Clarette. Studious, plucky, incredibly smart Lily Clarette. The one who loves science and now plans to become a pharmacist, so she can graduate and move back to Looking Glass Gap to keep the old Mountain Leaf Pharmacy open. It’s the only pharmaceutical outlet left within an hour’s drive, and locals need it to be there. Lily Clarette wants to be the one to save the day.

It figures she’d also be the one to attempt dissection of our past. She wants to know the truth, and she’s not afraid to go after it, even if the truth may hurt. Even if the truth may be that, after Mama left us, she formed another life, a good life somewhere else, and never gave us another thought.

Apparently she’d done it once before
 
—left a baby behind. She gave that child to her parents to raise and kept it a secret when she married my father. A child born out of wedlock would have made her unacceptable as a potential bride for my father. It was trouble enough that she didn’t come from the Brethren Saints, but merely joined in order to marry.

Could there be more half siblings who were born after Lily Clarette? Others out there who’ve never been told about us? Does this mystery half sister, this Rebecca Christine, know what happened to my mother? Did Mama go back to Rebecca Christine when she abandoned us?

In truth, if this woman was raised by Mama’s family, or anyone close to them, chances are she’s as much a mess as my mother was. If our situation was bad growing up, my mother’s upbringing was absolutely unthinkable.

I lose track of the road and suddenly realize I’m taking a switchback curve way too fast. Evan’s words whisper through the cab.
Take care of my baby. . . .

Fortunately, the Jaguar is as nimble as its namesake. It hugs the pavement as trees rush by, and I take my foot off the gas and focus on the way ahead, not what lies behind. Around the bend, a black bear prowls by the mailbox of a sagging trailer house. I slow as I pass, feeling vulnerable in the tiny convertible. The bear could rip the top off this tin can in a heartbeat, but I creep along nonetheless, in case the animal startles and bolts into the road. I can just imagine telling Evan I ran his man-toy into a black bear.

“Yeah, that’s the kind of thing that can test a relationship,” I joke, grabbing my phone and pausing long enough to snap a photo for Evan. I can already see a caption in my head:
He said your car tasted delicious.

Evan’s deep laugh rumbles through my thoughts, and I chuckle along, deciding I’ll send the text later in the day, so as not to wake him again. Before long, I’m almost to Cullowhee, anyway, and my tired mind refuses to call up the layout of Western Carolina University, where Lily Clarette is taking basics before hopefully transferring to the pre-pharmacy program at Clemson.

Rather than wandering around, looking for flags, stadium lights, and the clock tower, I let the GPS guide me in, then find visitor parking and call my sister to surprise her with the fact that I’m no longer half a world away.