The Sparrow Sisters (21 page)

Henry sat up and got to his feet. He looked down at the wet print he'd left behind and thought of the chalk outline at a murder scene
. That's it,
he thought,
this feels exactly like a senseless crime.
And then he shuddered.
What if it was?

He rowed back, nodding at the women on the shore, at the tourists, pale and spongy under their umbrellas. He caught a toddler by the arm as she pitched forward over her own bucket. He slid the shell back onto his car and got in, his leg now quivering painfully against the towel on the front seat.

I
T WOULD BE
their last simple evening together but one, Patience and Henry. The heat remained, an unwelcome guest, overstaying dreadfully as the clock slid toward nine. Nettie and Sorrel sat at the kitchen table with their sister as Henry cleared the mostly full plates. Cold lemony chicken, baby greens in a sweet balsamic dressing, the last of Claire Redmond's bread all tumbled into the garbage. The only thing anyone finished was the wine, and Henry already felt a headache lurking in his left temple. He drank everyone's leftover water as he loaded the dishwasher, willing one of the sisters to speak. But it was as if Matty's death had taken their voices, and none of the women could make their way through the close air to relieve the silence. Henry was desperate to reconnect with Patience. Selfishly, he thought about making love to her even though he could see that she was as fragile and desiccated by her tears as the seaweed that lined the beach, as distant as the horizon. He wanted to take her upstairs and spread her naked on the bed,
cover every inch of her with his hands, smooth away the frost of salt left by her weeping.

In fact, he did bring her to her room. He sat on the slipper chair while she brushed her teeth. He even toed off his loafers, hoping his bare feet would be a signal to Patience that he wanted to stay. She came out of the bathroom in a pair of boxer shorts; his, he realized with a hopeful shock, and Henry tried to remember when he'd left them. But Patience crawled into bed and turned away. He went to her and rubbed her back for a moment, waiting for her to turn and invite him in. She didn't, so Henry bent to kiss her neck, his lips warm against her cold skin, and left. The Sisters barely looked up as he passed through the kitchen on his way out. Henry felt adrift, cut loose from the only mooring he had in the town.

R
OB
S
HORT
'
S HOUSE
was hot and close. His windows were shut and cloudy with dust as he sat in the living room staring at the fireplace he hadn't cleaned out since early May. He wondered if he should open the windows, if only to clear the room of his own body odor, but the thought of fresh air actually made Rob shiver. It had been three days since he found Matty in the kitchen, two days since he'd last been outside, one day since he'd shut all the windows and pulled the shades. In a town where more than a few people didn't lock their doors unless they were leaving Granite Point altogether, Rob Short had put the chain across his. He didn't know if he was keeping something in or out. He did know that the looks he got when
he walked to Pete's liquor store were not of sympathy but of dismay.

He had slept very little in the days since he lost Matty. Lost Matty, that's how Rob thought of the death. Annie left him when she took the pills, now Matty had gone, poisoned, Rob was certain, by those Sisters. That wasn't his first idea and of course, he had no real reason to believe it but, given enough time alone, enough liquor and cigarettes (the last things Rob bought on the last day he left his house), enough sadness that so easily distills into anger and then spills over into blame looking for a target, and Rob had no trouble settling on Patience Sparrow. He'd seen the two of them more than once in town, coming out of the bakery, eating popsicles from the drugstore, unloading luscious window boxes for the Main Street shops. Matty hadn't even looked up, this Rob remembered, but Patience had given him a wave and Matty a nudge that Rob was sure now was just laden with judgment. At the time he'd been guiltily grateful that Matty had something to do, someone to be with, as he hurried back into the hardware store and took his place in the little office on the second floor. He'd promised himself that as soon as he cleared the books, adjusted the purchase orders, stopped missing Annie so, he'd find more time for Matty. And Matty would want less time with Patience.

Now, if there was any reason to leave his house, Rob thought, it just might be to make that Sparrow girl face him, see what a truly broken heart looks like. In fact, the more Rob thought
about Patience Sparrow and the way the people in town, especially the women—the flighty girls and the solid moms—respected her, needed her, the angrier he became. He'd come to Granite Point with his new wife; he'd agreed to move to Annie's hometown because he loved her that much and yet he was an outsider. More than fifteen years on and he still felt the curtness of the nods, the cool edge to Matty's teacher's voice, saw the way people looked at him after Annie died, as if he might be a bit poisonous himself.

Rob Short was not yet drunk, but he was in an unreasonable state. He wanted kindness, compassion, pity, even from this town, but no one had come to him, not a single pan of brownies, Pyrex dish of noodle casserole, or fish pie had been left on his doorstep. Nobody had heard him cry or patted his shoulder as he sobbed into closed fists. Clearly Rob Short was outside the sealed circle of Granite Point, no matter how long he lived here or how much he needed to belong. And so, before he let himself think any further, before his anger and resentment dissipated, Rob unchained his front door and headed straight for the Nursery.

T
HE SANDY LITTLE
parking lot already had a few cars scattered so Rob left his at the gate. As he made for the barn where the Sisters worked, his pace picked up, as did his pulse. He unclenched his fists and wiped them on his pants. By the time he stood at the steps, his hands were shaking.

“I know what you did,” Rob said.

The Sisters were ringing up four gallon buckets of sedum, their rubbery leaves green and pillowy. Sorrel turned first, then Nettie, and last Patience, who really wasn't helping at all, just leaning against the worktable as if she couldn't stand on her own. The three women looked at Rob for a long moment, long enough that the small gathering of customers stepped back and looked at Rob too. It took most of them a moment to recognize him. It took Patience only seconds.

“I know what you did,” Rob said again. “I know you hurt my boy and here you are”—he waved at the Nursery, his voice rising—“growing your, your . . .” He trailed off and looked at the people who'd gathered. There was a mother with a baby in a sling across her hip and her husband, who held a bunch of cosmos in his hand, two hearty landscapers who'd come to get the thistle only the Sisters could grow, and Dot Avery, who held in her string bag a carefully wrapped burnet plant for her summer salads. A tourist who had only come to take pictures of the Shakespeare garden so his wife could plant one of her own held up his phone. Behind him the news editor of the
Granite Point Clarion
stood with the red wagon he had been about to fill with on-sale peonies. Ambrose Smith really wished he'd brought his phone; this could be news.

Rob collected himself. Patience pushed off from the table and came to the top of the steps, the sun turning her hair to embers.

“What is it, Rob?” she asked. “What have I grown here that has done anything but make our lives better?”

“You killed Matty,” Rob spat. “You poisoned him with one of your concoctions. My boy is dead, and you just go on as if nothing's wrong. Well,
you're
wrong,” he shouted. “You're the something wrong here!”

Sorrel put her hand on Patience's arm while Nettie tried to shepherd the customers back to their purchases. But Patience wouldn't stay. She took the steps at a run, and Rob backed away.

“I loved Matty,” she said. “We all did. If you're so sure I could hurt him with one of my concoctions,” she spat, “then you'd best leave here before I do something to you!”

There was a collective murmur, and then Nettie hissed, “Excellent, Patience! Now you've done it.”

It was in that moment that Granite Point began to think about the Sparrow Sisters and their nursery in a very different way. As Rob Short stalked back to his car, there was a palpable shift in the air; whether it was Patience gathering her anger or simply the sun slipping behind the thunderheads that had stacked up in what seemed like minutes, it didn't much matter. The gossip would circulate, and the men in town would begin to wonder what exactly their wives kept in the small blue bottles in the pantry. Those men would ponder if they hadn't better keep their women a little closer.

Poor Rob Short nearly ran to his car. Patience moved back inside, neatly stepping on Sorrel's foot.

“For God's sake, Patience,” Sorrel snapped out of pain and fear. “What the hell were you thinking engaging that man?”

“We should have left her at home,” Nettie whispered. “You've just made things so much worse, Patience.”

Patience put her head down on the worktable while the shaken customers paid up and scurried away. It would take mere hours before the idle chatter swelled and turned ugly, racketing from house to house and shop to shop until it reached Chief Kelsey.

I
t was an overcast Wednesday morning, the first bad weather since July fifth. Granite Point was as gray and chilly as its namesake. Chief Kelsey and his deputy stood on the steps of Ivy House and straightened their already tidy uniforms in a bid to put off their next move. The chief had gone to early Mass, and his wife had watched him change into his work clothes with barely disguised dismay. The deputy picked him up in an unmarked sedan and they drove in silence, the dispatch radio turned off.

Patience answered the door. She was wearing a pale blue cotton sweater over her jeans; her hair was wet and heavy
against her long neck. Sorrel stood at the top of the stairs, and Nettie lingered halfway down the hall from the kitchen. Before the chief spoke, he looked up at Sorrel and winced. Sorrel descended, and both women drew together behind their sister.

“It's Rob Short,” the chief said. “He came to the station.”

Sorrel and Nettie exchanged looks, and Patience shook her head.

“I'm afraid that when he came to the Nursery, I got a little angry,” Patience said. “He accused me of poisoning Matty.”

“See, that's the problem,” Kelsey said. “Once the accusation is out there, once the whispers start . . .” He shrugged. “It's better if we try to nip this thing in the bud.”

The sisters winced, and the chief tried a smile.

“Can we head over to the Nursery and have a look?” he asked.

“Do I have a choice?” Patience asked.

“Of course you do. This isn't a search; it's just a look-see before anyone gets it into their heads to start messing around.”

“As in one of us has something to hide?” Sorrel asked.

“Please, Sorrel,” Kelsey said, holding up his hands. “Why don't you all come?”

Patience looked at her sisters. “We'll come,” she said.

The policemen walked through the gardens, touching plants with questions, and the Sisters answered them. They stopped at the compost pile at the edge of the wildflower meadow. It was steaming slightly, and the chief nodded approvingly.

“This must be your secret,” he said. “I mean, the secret to your stuff, the flowers and vegetables.” Kelsey had stumbled over his comment. After all, he was there to find secrets.

The Sisters trailed after the men; Nettie walked ahead of Patience, a trug in her hand, and Sorrel carried the bamboo rake she'd picked up at the compost heap. Officer Fancy stayed beside Sorrel. Everyone stopped in front of Patience's largest herb bed. To Kelsey they looked like a tableau: villagers with monster and pitchfork.

“Can you point out the plants used for Matty?” Kelsey asked.

Patience stepped carefully between the rows and put her hand on a plant.

“Passiflora,” she said, stroking the heavy flowers, their petals spiky and their stamens rearing out of the deep-purple centers. A huge bee dropped down until it hovered at her fingertips. She didn't move, but Chief Kelsey stood back.

“I'm allergic,” he said and felt for the EpiPen in his pocket.

Patience flicked at the bee with her nail. It swerved away. Patience moved on. “Valerian.” She turned to Nettie and held out her hand. Nettie put a small pair of secateurs into her palm. Patience snipped at the valerian, and went back for the passiflora. Then she knelt down to cut away a small sample from a low-growing flowering plant. “Madagascar periwinkle.” She handed the plants to the chief, who passed them on to his silent deputy. Several more times Patience bent and clipped until the officer had eight clear evidence bags in his arms.

“You know how to use all of these?” Chief Kelsey asked.

“I do,” Patience answered. “And before you ask, some of them can be toxic in the wrong amounts.”

“Patience!” Sorrel snapped.

The chief held up his hand. “I appreciate your cooperation.” He took Patience's elbow as she stepped out of the garden; box leaves and dill clung to her sleeves. “I need to see your work space,” he said.

Officer Fancy led the way back to the shed. “Oh look,” he said. “Monkshood.”

“You're right, Martin,” said Sorrel. “It's only grown for arrangements, like the foxglove. Patience won't touch the stuff.”

The Sisters stood in a line as Kelsey and his deputy, who had, in fact, gone to elementary school with Patience, began rummaging. Chief Kelsey asked Patience what things were as he pulled each drawer out, cleared a space on the counter, and organized the bottles and packets alphabetically. He checked his notepad as he looked at the names on the labels. Finally he swept four items—distillations of Matty's remedies—into his hand and sealed them each into separate evidence bags. He stripped off his gloves and waved Officer Fancy out the door.

“I have to take these to the lab,” Kelsey said. “If they can rule out your remedies, we can all move on.”

“I never made a secret of helping Matty,” Patience said. “I only did it because Rob didn't.”

Kelsey nodded. “He knows that, somewhere, he does.”

“So why aren't you looking for the real cause?” Nettie said in a voice more suited to Sorrel.

“We are.” Chief Kelsey left.

The women stood in the shed looking at the mess. It wasn't that the two policemen had ripped through the place; it was that no one but the Sisters had ever touched the surfaces, the ball of twine, the row of scissors over the sink. To Patience it all felt contaminated. She expected to be able to see handprints, as if a black light had been used to show up bacteria. And that's how it was now. Her world was poisoned.

The Sparrow Sisters Nursery was open that day. It had to be. Weekends often saved the quiet weeks, even in summer but the Sisters couldn't take a chance with another empty till. It was bad enough that two days had been lost to Patience's grief. And that the town noticed. Sorrel and Nettie tried to convince their sister to go home; she looked wrung out and felt worse. Her bloodshot eye had paled to an unsettling pink, so she wore sunglasses to hide it as well as the puffy purple shadows across her cheeks. She made her way to the greenhouses after the three of them cleaned up the shed. The sun still hid behind low clouds; it would rain later. She walked past the Kousa dogwoods, their blossoms already so limp with humidity that they no longer resembled a blood-tipped cross but more a victim of crucifixion, petals bowed in defeat. The snapdragons struggled, the weight of the moisture in the cupped flowers so heavy their mouths gaped and tiny gnats drowned in them.

When Patience was wrapped up in a problem, she wasn't always terribly welcoming to customers. On this day her sisters were certain she could easily drive them off, so they were
relieved when she drifted away. They might have been less so if they had seen her lie down under the Meyer lemon tree in the farthest greenhouse. They would have been very worried had they seen the wrinkled lemons that fell, already gray with mold, around her.

Henry Carlyle invited Sam over for coffee. He knew that Sam had a line on how Patience worked, something Henry could not yet claim. The doctor was eager to find his role again after Matty's death and Patience's collapse. He was no longer the capable professional nor the lover who had blurred her edges until Patience was soft with pleasure. He certainly could not claim to be her best friend. That was something he'd hoped to become over the warm weeks. Henry had dared to picture a life with Patience beyond summer. He had a vivid vision of them through the seasons, the peaks of Thanksgiving and Christmas, the valleys of February and March, the long lazy plateaus of September and October. He'd jinxed everything by imagining a year from now, when three hundred plus days had filtered their messy meeting into a fond, distant memory.

Now the two men stood at Henry's kitchen counter, their coffee gone cold, the muffins from Baker's Way Bakers untouched. They faced the kitchen as if waiting to be served at a bar.

“So, have you seen her today?” Henry asked.

Sam shook his head. “Chief Kelsey called last night. He says I should keep away for a day or two. He's had a look around the Nursery, took some samples.”

“This is beginning to sound ominous,” Henry said. “They've got to be doing a tox screen.”

“Yeah, and they're looking for Patience's stuff.”

“For God's sake.” Henry stood and poured out his coffee. “Half this town is full of her stuff.”

“True, but half this town did not just drop dead.”

Sam and Henry knew that they shouldn't be seen together outside of work either, which made Henry feel particularly alone. Ben had gone out on a charter boat for some extra cash. That left exactly one person who might be glad to see him: Patience. But when Henry called Ivy House, no one answered, and Patience no longer had a cell phone. It didn't occur to him that she'd be at the Nursery, although it should have. In Henry's mind Patience was as alone as he. She was still incapacitated, hobbled in the aftermath. He didn't realize that being around her plants was the very thing for that. He didn't yet know that those plants were already failing her.

Finally, Henry left the apartment vaguely exhausted by his uselessness. He went to see Sally Tabor and her new baby.
Nothing better than a days-old infant to settle existential anxiety,
he thought. He drove over after picking out a cashmere baby blanket at the linen shop. He knew he was spending too much, but when he noticed that the other customers fell silent as the proprietor (and a patient) greeted him, Henry simply paid for the thing he held in his hands and left. Any sweetness he had begun to take from living in a small town turned sour. His hand trembled as he signed his name, making it more illegible than ever.

Sally answered the door. She grabbed his arm and pulled him into the house before he said a word. Henry handed her the blanket in an overly festooned gift bag, and she patted him in thanks.

“Here,” she said, handing him another cup of coffee. “Sit, talk, you look like hell.”

Sally knew everything, how the police had been to the Nursery before nine in the morning, how word of Rob Short's confrontation had gone round, how the husbands and boyfriends were asking their partners a lot of questions about Patience Sparrow. Henry tried to stand, wanting to go to Patience, to keep her from all the ugliness, but Sally pushed him down.

“Leave it. Just stay here for a minute,” she said. “You can't run off every time Patience riles up the town.”

Henry fell back against the sofa and closed his eyes. He heard the uniquely stomach-dropping sound of the new baby crying through the monitor on the coffee table and felt the cushion shift as Sally got up to go to her daughter. He listened as her voice softened, the cooing and rustling as she lifted Katherine into her arms.

“You did this.”

Henry opened one eye to see a jammy face inches from his own.

“You made that baby,” the little boy said as he put a sticky hand on Henry's knee and shoved, hard.

“Technically I just delivered . . .” Henry stopped. “Hello,”
he said. “You must be . . .” He realized he didn't know who this kid might be since he didn't know there were any other Tabor kids until the last one arrived.

“I'm Declan, and now I'm not the baby anymore.” Declan frowned as Henry peeled his hand away.

“Well, you're a big brother, which is much more interesting.”

“No it's not.”

“Sure it is,” Henry said. “You can teach Katherine all the important stuff.”

“Like?”

“Tree climbing, baseball, fishing, taking out the garbage.” Henry thought he'd never sounded so inane.

“I'd rather put
her
in the garbage.” Declan ran out of the room.

Sally came back with the baby, and Henry smiled. It was awfully hard to be out of sorts around a baby. Sally handed her off to him without hesitation, and Henry protested that he hadn't washed up.

“Oh, quit,” Sally said. “You think she's not going to eat a little dirt around here?”

Henry brought the baby's head to his nose and inhaled.

“I know.” Sally smiled. “Best smell in the world.”

“What's going to happen now?” Henry asked.

“You don't mean after Katherine spits up on your shoulder, right.”

Henry looked at Sally. She was exhausted, he could see that, but it was the kind of tired that came from something good, it
was the sum of something, not the terrible emptiness that defined Patience now. Loss only looked like exhaustion.

“So, according to”—Sally chuckled—“you know I want to say scuttlebutt”—she adjusted her gaping shirt—“the news is that Kelsey himself went to the Nursery, which could be a good thing.”

“Or?” Henry shifted the baby to his shoulder and rubbed her back in small circles, just as he had with Patience. He was rewarded with a breathy, milky burp.

“Or it could be that this is getting ugly.”

“It's already ugly, Sally. Matty's dead, and Patience blames herself.”

“Right, but when Rob Short blames her and the police listen, then it's really ugly.” Sally took the baby and called out. Warren came in from the kitchen and gently gathered Katherine. Before retreating, he thanked Henry with tears in his eyes for delivering his wife.

“He is such a softy,” Sally said. “He wanted to come see you after we got home, but then . . .” She shrugged.

“What if the police question you?” Henry asked.

“I'll tell them the truth. Patience has helped me through more than just pregnancies. She's treated most of Granite Point; I think she's treated some of the guys on the force. Who do you think could throw the first stone?”

As it turned out, any number of people had stones in their pockets.

T
HE AUTOPSY ON
Matty Short was conducted in Hayward. The results showed that Matty's heart had simply stopped, a fact the medical examiner was hesitant to accept. How could an otherwise healthy heart have broken? The toxicology report wouldn't come through for some days. Chief Kelsey interviewed Henry, and Matty's patient file was taken away. Even though he hadn't treated the boy, Henry Carlyle was the doctor of record. He so wished that he had been the doctor in fact. Sam was questioned again to determine exactly what he saw when he arrived at the Short house. Rob Short was visited at his home where he was found drunk and disoriented in the kitchen where Matty died. He continued to insist that Patience had poisoned his son even after he was reassured that his statement was already on file and told that this kind of talk wouldn't help the investigation. He followed the policemen around until they got to Matty's room. He couldn't bring himself to go in and looked away as the two men sifted through the clothes in the bureau and the books and papers on his little table. It never occurred to any of them to look under his mattress.