When We Were Sisters (25 page)

30

Robin

On Sunday the Thanksgiving house party broke up with a staggered exodus. Mick and Fiona left first to drive north to Tampa and finalize arrangements for filming there next week. Gizzie and Pat left after lunch. In the late afternoon Kris and our children drove to the airport with Donny, who was heading to New York for a few days.

I am still stunned that my husband traveled all this way to spend less than a day together, and equally as stunned that somehow he managed to get a seat on the same flight home as our children.

We had no real time alone to talk, which seemed okay with him. Maybe he still doesn't know what to say or doesn't want to spoil the reunion, but that kiss and the “I love you” that followed sparked hope that when we do have time and space together again, we will work out whatever we have to.

We also had no chance for anything more intimate, since there are only two queen-size beds in Cecilia's guesthouse. A grumbling Nik moved over to let Kris sleep with him, while Pet and I continued to sleep in the other. He did manage to get me aside before he left and tell me he was going to take off as much of Christmas week as he could. I promised I would get home at the first opportunity. He kissed me goodbye in front of the children, which was the best thing he could have done.

Cecilia and I are scheduled to leave on Tuesday morning, but Sunday evening, while we ate Thanksgiving leftovers in an otherwise-empty house, she suggested a road trip.

“Hal's flying in tomorrow evening to drive us to Tampa on Tuesday. That gives us most of Monday without a chaperone. You still have your rental car. It's about as anonymous as a car gets. Let's see some sights and have lunch out.”

I appreciate how constrained Cecilia's life is, and I know she and Donny argued about protection this weekend. Hal's appearance tomorrow is a compromise. I suspect the other part of the compromise is that she's supposed to stay put between Donny's departure and Hal's arrival.

I answered cautiously, because this
was
Cecilia across the table from me. “Where do you want to go?”

“Somewhere nobody will expect to find me. How does the Everglades sound?”

Even in November it sounded sultry and bug infested, but the idea of sightseeing rather than staying put in the house had appeal. Because of the holiday Sanibel is busy enough with an influx of tourists that Cecilia would probably be recognized and approached if we tried to have lunch or shop in town.

“Are you thinking about one of those airboats through the swamps? Hiking?”

She made a face. “Ginny says Everglades City is a cute little town, and we can take a tour boat from the visitors' center or rent a kayak. It's not the kind of place anyone would expect to find me.”

I knew that last sentence was supposed to make me feel better. “If we keep sneaking away together I may have to take up karate. It might be a while before I'm up to Hal or Donny's level, though.”

“We'll be okay.”

“Hats and sunglasses. I know.”

She smiled, calculating that even I would be smitten and fall under her spell.

The next morning we set off after breakfast. The weather was gorgeous, midseventies, clear, with just enough breeze that the sun felt good. I was sorry I hadn't rented a convertible, but my gray Toyota had a moon roof, and we opened it as wide as it would go.

Once we were off the island heading south, Cecilia seemed to relax. “I'm not looking forward to filming this next part.”

I knew what was planned. Cecilia's mother abandoned her for good in Tampa, and somehow Mick had secured permission to film the apartment where she and her mother had lived. “Lived,” of course, isn't an accurate term. She only rarely speaks about that time in her life, but I do know that when the police arrived in response to a tip, no food or water was in sight. Cecilia had been drinking from a saucepan she kept outside to catch rain.

My sister has always been a survivor.

Cecilia views sympathy as criticism. I phrased my reply carefully. “Reliving that time in your life won't be easy.”

“I barely remember the apartment, if that's what you want to call the rooms we shared with her boyfriends and anybody else who showed up. Mick says a year after the police took me away, somebody bought the building, chased out all the druggies and did minimal renovations. That's the only reason it's still standing. The guy who bought it believed the neighborhood was due for a resurgence, and the building has historical significance. Lucky for Mick it fell on hard times again a few years ago. Whatever I say, at least the place will look authentic.”

“You're sure you want to do this?”

“They say you can't go home again.”

“Was that ever home?”

“I think sometimes you have to at least stroll by so you can move on.”

Her logic was convoluted, but she'd given this the required thought.

How would I feel about revisiting my own past? I made a guess. “I could go back to my grandmother's house, only I would probably have nightmares for a year.”

“This trip may be the stuff of nightmares, but don't you think facing up to them will finally make them go away?”

Most of my recent knowledge of psychology comes from magazines and internet quizzes, but there seem to be two theories on that and I repeated them.

“Some people think if we wallow in the past, eventually it will cease to have power over us. Others say if we just tell the past to take a hike, it will. Maybe not always, but that last one's worked pretty well for me.”

“Really? And you don't think your past is right there guiding every step?”

I know criticism when I hear it. That's one thing I learned from my grandmother. My answer had an edge. “I think if it were, I wouldn't have been able to function, much less make a success of most things I've tried.”

“I'm not saying you're not a success. But don't you worry sometimes that you try so hard to be perfect because of the voices in your head? And maybe I'm really talking about myself, not you. Blocking worked for a long time, but some days now the voices are too loud to ignore.”

Pacified, I wondered why. Cecilia has everything she's ever wanted. She doesn't have a man in her life—at least not that she acknowledges—but has she ever wanted one? Even in high school she kept boys at a distance, and she's never shown any romantic interest in women.

Since she rarely spoke this frankly, I took her words seriously. “When I stopped talking all those years ago someone finally got me into therapy. That made all the difference. Why aren't you seeing somebody? After what you went through in Australia, don't you think that might help?”

“I'm a do-it-yourself kind of woman.”

“No, you just don't let anybody in if you can avoid it.”

“I live in a world where most people can't be trusted. If I don't let them in, when they finally disappoint me, it's no big deal.”

“Starting with your mother.”

She was silent so long I thought she was angry, but when she spoke her voice was soft.

“There's such a long history, I don't know when it started. Maribeth. The men she brought home. I had to find a place to hide in every building or house we lived in. First thing I did every time we moved. Just in case.”

I took my hand off the steering wheel and grasped hers a moment. “Are you going to say that on film?”

“I don't know. I don't know what will happen when we go back to that place.”

“I'm glad I'll be with you.”

For the rest of the trip, by unspoken mutual consent, we chatted about the photos I'd taken, about the new album she wants to record and about my family's visit. I told her that Pet was now Petra.

“Whether she's Pet or Petra, she'll always stand out among the Emmas and Madisons.” As she spoke Cecilia tucked her hair under a cap that said Jean's Bait and Tackle and detailed a tarpon midleap. The opening in the back had a ready-made brown ponytail threaded through it.

She glanced at herself in the sun visor mirror and straightened the cap. “Do you know why you gave your all-American children Czech names?”

“Because I wanted them to feel connected to the roots they do have. I don't know anything about my own background, but Kris knows everything about his.”

“That answer came easily.”

“I gave their names a lot of thought. I have this crazy sister who thinks names are important. I learned from the best.”

She looked delighted that I had paid attention.

Everglades City sits, not surprisingly, at the edge of the Everglades National Park, and a hop, skip and jump from Big Cypress National Preserve. It's a different view of Florida, not immune to wacky souvenirs and wackier characters, but also a sanctuary of sorts for what's left of Florida's wilderness. As we drove in I saw that the town itself was small and picturesque, a fishing and boating community flanked with quaint seafood restaurants along the Barron River, which flows into Chokoloskee Bay. I wondered how long it would stay this way.

I parked on what looked like a main street and we got out. Cecilia had continued her transformation with molded gray sun goggles embedded with crystals at the temples. Not exactly what people here might buy at the local drugstore. She saw my head cocked in examination.

“Too much?”

“You think?”

“They're gray.”

“They're also worth more than the locals make in a week. Keep the hat, lose the glasses.”

She dug through a canvas bag that probably cost more than the glasses but had the grace not to flaunt it. She gestured to the new pair once they were in place. Square tortoiseshell frames and impenetrable black lenses, as if she'd picked them up on the set of
Mad Men
. For all I know she may have done a guest appearance.

I gave her a thumbs-up. “If we're lucky, somebody will think you picked those up at an estate sale.”

“Do I look like me?”

She wore an oversize T-shirt and baggy cargo shorts with a million pockets. She still looked gorgeous. “How would I know? You always look like you to me.”

“It's too early for lunch. What shall we do?”

We took a short stroll around town, picked out vacation homes we wouldn't mind owning—dangerous to do with my sister, since on vacation she buys real estate like most people buy sunscreen. Then we returned to the car and drove to the Gulf Coast Visitor Center to see if we could hop a tour boat for a closer view of the Everglades and the Ten Thousand Islands.

Two hours later, we disembarked after viewing too many manatees and dolphins to count, and an entire spoil island covered with white pelicans. The crew had tossed admiring glances at Cecilia—and even a few at me—but not as if they recognized her.

“I checked out places for lunch,” she said after deciding that climbing the observation tower wasn't in our best interests.

I rested fingertips on my forehead and closed my eyes. “My psychic vibes tell me every joint in town specializes in seafood.”

“The place we're going makes its own veggie burgers.”

“Which I won't be eating.”

“At least
I
don't have to spend long periods of time trying to choose between oysters and shrimp.”

“No problem,” I said as we got back in the car. “I'll have both.”

Captain Henry's reminded me of every coastal seafood restaurant I've ever visited, happily dilapidated and adorned with colorful weathered buoys, mounted swordfish and other local artifacts. We were too late to get a seat on the river, but one row back we still had a good view of the heavily forested bank across the water and tall palms against an impossibly blue sky. Boats cruised by on their way out of port, some rigged for commercial fishing, some for recreation. An osprey nest topped a channel marker, and one of its architects dived for fish.

The restaurant wasn't crowded. A young man brought us ice water, menus and place settings, and took our orders for sweet tea, an addiction neither of us has outgrown. He promised our server would be with us right away.

“This is nice.” I turned to my sister. “A good idea.”

“I'm glad you think so.”

“What made you choose this one? Only place with veggie burgers or the view?”

She didn't have time to answer. A woman came to our table and smiled at both of us. A quick glance suggested she might be in her fifties, but she was slender, tanned and pretty in white knit Capris and a polo shirt with Captain Henry's embroidered in red. Her hair was short and brown, with enough blond that I guessed highlights were her solution to going gray, one I might try myself in a few years.

She must have given her opening spiel a million times, because she fell into it as if by habit. “Welcome to Captain Henry's. I'm Al. I thought you might want to know the day's specials before you get too far into the menu.”

I smiled up at her, and suddenly
her
smile faltered. She fell silent and stared at me.

“I'm a vegetarian,” Cecilia said, as if nothing unusual was happening. “Actually a vegan. Can I get the veggie burger without cheese? And is there anything else I ought to know about the menu before I order?”

Al looked like a woman searching her memory banks, and I wondered if she had recognized Cecilia and was trying to figure out how to respond.

“I'm sorry?” She glanced at Cecilia. “What did you ask?”

Cecilia repeated her question.

“I'll be sure there's no cheese on the burger. And we make our own here. There's nothing about it or the fries you'll object to.”

Cecilia gave a nod. Al turned back to me and cleared her throat. “Would you like to hear the specials?”

Something was happening here. She looked as if she wanted to cry.

“I think I would like fried shrimp and oysters, if you have them. I haven't had a chance to look.”