The Story Sisters

  “I had a daughter too,” Pete told her. “Everything went wrong. She overdosed. She was our only child.”

  Annie looked up at him. “I’m sorry. What was her name?”

  “Rebecca.”

  “That’s pretty. I like that.”

  He insisted on driving her home. Nightingale Lane looked deserted after the traffic in Astoria. Annie invited him in for a drink. Grateful, he followed her inside and asked for a whiskey. She looked around until she found some in a kitchen cabinet. It must have been Alan’s a long time ago. She poured herself a glass of Bordeaux. She was glad not to be alone.

  The dog hadn’t barked when they’d come in, so after Annie brought the drinks into the living room, she excused herself and went to look in on Claire. She stood outside the bedroom door. She could make out the faint murmur of words. Claire was talking to Shiloh. It was the first time Annie had heard her speak since the funeral. Her voice was lovely, quiet and measured.

  It had been a horrible day, but Annie was surprised to find that she was glad to be alive. She wanted to be right were she was, in between the moment of hearing Claire’s voice and the instant when she went back downstairs, ready for whatever happened next.

  PETE WAS THERE more often, helping around the house, driving her to doctor’s appointments through the summer and fall, spending more time out in North Point Harbor than he did at his apartment in Westbury. Sometimes he made dinner. He had never cooked for anyone before. When he was married, his wife had done the cooking; and when he was alone, he figured it wasn’t worth the time to cook for one person. He was nervous, fearing he’d burn every meal, but as it turned out, he was a natural. He should have been a chef, Annie told him. Even picky Claire would eat the meals he made: lasagna, mushroom soup, his grandmother’s recipe for stuffed cabbage, a fragrant old-world dish.

  It was there in the kitchen, while Annie cut up a loaf of bread and Claire fixed a salad, the dog stretched out at her feet, that Pete felt he had stumbled into the best part of his life. He didn’t know if he deserved it, but he wasn’t about to turn it down, despite the fact that there wasn’t going to be much time. Maybe that was why it had happened so fast between them. Or maybe he’d been in love with her all along, since that first time she came to his office looking for her daughter.

  He started sleeping on the couch when the weather was bad or when their dinner stretched into the late hours. One night Annie came out from her bedroom wearing a robe.

  “You can’t be comfortable,” she said. He was too tall for the couch. His feet hung off the edge.

  “I am,” he told her. “I’m fine.”

  “Well, I’m not. I’d be better off with you.”

  He’d slept with her every night since, waking early to go back to the couch so Claire wouldn’t know. Annie laughed at him.

  “Do you imagine she’ll think we’re too young to get serious?”

  He was a man used to setting things right, but in this case there was nothing he could fix. He’d done the research, had spent nights searching the Internet. He’d talked to doctors and brought her records to experts in the city for second and third opinions. Sometimes, when he came to the house, having stopped at the market for groceries on his way, he put off going inside. It was the bright hour of before. He wanted to hold on to that for as long as he possibly could. He’d been there once before. He’d lost someone he loved. He knew what happened next. The air was cold; he could feel it in his lungs when he breathed in, little ice crystals. He left the sacks of groceries in the car while he went to the garage for the shovel. He came back and cleared the walk, making a neat path from driveway to back door. His breath billowed into the air. He might have cried if he’d been another man, one who hadn’t buried his daughter, lived a solitary life, fallen in love so late in life.

  By the time he went inside, the eggs he’d bought at the market had frozen in their shells. The world felt enchanted. Perhaps in this snowstorm they would sleep for a hundred years and wake consoled, young again. Annie was at the kitchen table, drinking tea. She had a scarf tied around her head. She’d been watching him through the window. It was growing late and the snow was turning blue in the darkening light. “I should hire someone to shovel the snow,” she said. “You might throw out your back.” Pete had a football injury from high school, but he was shy about it. It had happened so long ago he figured he should be completely healed.

  “I enjoy doing it.” Pete took off his jacket and his gloves, then went to the sink to run his hands under a stream of warm water. He could barely feel his fingers. He still kept an eye on Elv, even though Annie had told him he didn’t have to. He didn’t like what he saw. She and that boyfriend of hers had gone on a spree of robberies. Pete had followed them out from Astoria to Great Neck one night, then had parked a block down when they pulled over on a quiet street filled with grand houses. Lorry got out, wearing a black coat and cap. He slipped his hands into his pockets and shifted down the lane. Elv watched him from the driver’s seat, rapt. The whole time he was gone she barely moved, until at last he came ambling back, a duffel bag swung over his shoulder. They’d sped off, not even noticing the Volvo on the corner, in a world of their own.

  Pete decided to make chicken and dumplings, a somewhat complicated recipe. He wanted to take his time, use it for simple things. He tested the dumplings on Claire, who was always so picky. “Delish,” she said, then surprised him by asking for more.

  It seemed impossible that Pete would know how to make such a dense, homey dish. Nobody cooked like that anymore. Claire fed tidbits to her dog as she studied for a history exam.

  “How did you know how to make those?” Annie asked Pete when they sat down to dinner. “Are you sure you’re not a gourmet chef posing as a detective in order to sleep with various dying women?”

  “It’s just flour and water.” There was a dusting of flour on his hands. “Annie,” he said sadly.

  Annie wrapped her arms around him. She couldn’t understand how a man like Pete could get involved with a woman in her situation. She hadn’t yet told Claire what the doctors had said on her last visit. She wasn’t having chemo anymore. There was no further treatment. All she asked was to last until Claire’s high school graduation. She didn’t think beyond that. As for Pete, he wasn’t thinking beyond the current evening.

  The snow had slowed down. It was just flurrying. There was a shimmering cast to the drifts, as if sugar had been sprinkled over them. Pete wondered if the endings of things gathered in the corners of a room, hanging down like a spider’s web, waiting.

  “What?” Annie took note when he grimaced. “You did hurt your back!”

  Pete insisted that shoveling snow was good exercise, but in fact his back was killing him. That night he couldn’t sleep. He thought about Elv in that fast car, about his daughter slamming out of the house the last time he saw her, shouting “Go to hell” when all he’d wanted was to bring her back to life. He thought about the fact that Annie rarely complained or took her pain killers. She wanted to be in the here and now, she’d told him. She wasn’t going anywhere just yet.

  Restless, Pete went downstairs for a glass of water. Claire was in the kitchen, submerged in a textbook. Shiloh was stretched out under the table. Claire still spoke infrequently, choosing her words carefully. Although she was a top student, she had decided not to take any college placement tests. She wasn’t interested in the future. She dreaded change of any sort and was dismayed when faced with too many choices. Every day after school she went to the cemetery. While other girls were meeting boyfriends, going to dances, working on the school newspaper, Claire was walking through the wrought-iron gates.

  She wasn’t afraid of the dead. She’d grown accustomed to being there alone. Tall pine trees loomed, and the path was often slippery with mud. Each time she went, she left a stone behind. There was one for every day her sister had been gone. Meg’s belongings had been moved out of the bedroom. There was only one bed in the attic now. But Claire had kept a box of her
sister’s possessions: a collection of Dickens novels, the battered copy of To the Lighthouse without its cover, velvet headbands, the boots Meg had been wearing that day. There were shards of glass embedded in the leather, as if sharp slices of the sky had fallen to earth. Claire still carried the piece of paper with the word orange written on it. She’d taken it out of Meg’s pocket before the hospital disposed of her clothes.

  When Pete came into the kitchen that night, Claire looked up, surprised to see him awake at this late hour. She herself got by on five hours of sleep. She was such a light sleeper a single bird settling on the branch of the hawthorn tree could wake her and make her sit up in bed.

  “Can’t sleep?” Claire’s voice, unused for so long, was soft and flat. You had to listen carefully or it faded into empty space.

  “Sleep is overrated.”

  “Couldn’t agree more.” Claire went back to her reading.

  “And my stomach’s acting up,” Pete explained. He didn’t mind how quiet Claire was. He’d lived alone for a very long time. At one point he’d gotten so accustomed to silence that the sound of his own voice startled him. He took some Maalox from the cabinet, then sat at the table and gazed at Claire’s notes. “The Russian Revolution. Interesting time.”

  “People dying for nothing. Isn’t that what history is?”

  “Nope. History is about love and honor and making mistakes.”

  Claire smiled. She knew that Pete slept with her mother. The blankets and pillows left on the couch were for her benefit. “You’re a romantic,” she said.

  Pete went to the window. The walk he’d shoveled was already being covered by white drifts. In the morning, he would have to clear it all over again. The truth of it was, despite his bad back, he really didn’t mind. Claire was a smart girl. She was absolutely right. He still wanted to believe that people could survive their misfortunes. He believed that was all anyone had.

  Thief

  I didn’t let him in the door until he promised he wouldn’t take anything precious. He crossed his heart. He wanted comfort, nothing more. Robbery was tiring work. He slept in a corner, curled up. When he awoke he was famished. I cooked him eggs and toast. I kept an eye on him. He kept his hands to himself. The silver candlesticks were still on the table. The pearl brooch was at my throat.

  He made a list of all the things he’d taken. He wanted redemption and faith and I offered him both. When daylight came I asked him to stay. I could see from his face this had happened to him before. Women wanted to rob him of the life he led, the road, the dark night, the open windows, the stars. The whole world belonged to him. When he left he swore he’d be back. It didn’t matter. He’d already taken everything I had.

  IT WAS A GOOD PLAN, BUT PLANS FALL APART. ONCE ONE THING goes wrong, everything else can easily unwind and there you are, left with nothing but the hole you’ve fallen into. It was supposed to be safe. They would talk people into handing over their money. Lorry liked to do things that way, use charm rather than force, tell folks what they wanted to hear. People would sign away their savings of their own free will. No more breaking into houses, ferreting around in people’s closets, running risks. They’d had several close calls out on Long Island. One had been particularly nerve-racking. Lorry said it was a sign for them to find a new direction. They’d been casing a house in Roslyn for several days, and when the family went out, Lorry got out of the car. He stretched his back, then slipped around to a window left ajar. People were trusting, especially in the suburbs. They wanted to believe they were safe from harm, when it was everywhere, unavoidable, no matter how protected you thought you were. Lorry hoisted himself inside. He was on his way to the bedroom in search of the wife’s jewelry when he unexpectedly came upon an eight-year-old boy, left at home. They faced each other in the hall in pure silence. The boy seemed terrified. Then Lorry had said he was there to fix the TV. He said it so matter-of-factly that the boy led him to the den. Lorry told Elv the kid been left home alone as a punishment for bad grades at school. Lorry fixed him a bowl of cereal before he left with the flat-screen TV.

  It was Mr. Ortiz who did them in. He was smarter than Elv had guessed. It was almost as if he was a spider spinning his own trap and Elv had dropped right into it. When he notified the authorities, they sent a policewoman who pretended to be his wife. She could have been an actress on Broadway. She was that good. She shrugged and gestured to make it clear she didn’t speak English, so Elv didn’t mind if she sat with them at the kitchen table. But she understood everything. She was wired to tape the conversation and smiling when Mr. Ortiz signed his bank account over to Elv so she could invest it for him. In earlier meetings Elv had explained how he could double his money and not have to pay taxes. She would handle everything. She would give him an official receipt. The water there is so blue you’ll cry when you see it. All your tears will remind you of your childhood and how free you were before you came to New York and had to navigate the concrete and the dark tunnels and the avenues where nobody cares about you. The banks want to rip you off taxes are chipping away at all you worked so hard and long to save.

  Lorry had made up the brochure. He’d done a good job. And anyway, people rarely did more than glance at the figures. They looked at the photographs of the condos in the Dominican Republic and they got all excited about getting in on the ground floor. Lorry had successfully used this scam three times. A couple of thousand dollars wasn’t going to kill anyone. The old people had seemed so hungry for company it was as if he and Elv were doing them a service, telling a few stories over coffee and cookies. For you, we’ll make an exception. For you, we have a special deal.

  Lorry didn’t want Elv to do it, but she pleaded with him. She hated being a burden, never doing her share. She was using every day and that was expensive. She was going to quit as soon as she got all of the bad things out of her head, but that hadn’t happened. She remembered precisely the way the car had been flying, the way he’d locked the door and taken off his belt. She thought she was a good judge of character until she picked Mr. Ortiz. She’d grabbed a few groceries in the market, then walked up to him on line. He looked kindhearted. An easy mark. She ruefully told him she had no cash with her, could she borrow a twenty and return it to him the next day? Her mother was ill and she’d left her purse behind during a visit to her sickbed. The old man didn’t mind a pretty girl coming to his apartment, having a cup of coffee with him, bringing him pastries when she returned the twenty she’d borrowed, telling him she knew of a way for a person to double his savings if he was smart enough to answer the door when opportunity knocked. She had just made a similar investment on her mother’s behalf. She played it slow and safe, even though Lorry told her to hurry up; give someone time and they’d figure out the con. Even a fool could recognize a lie if you gave him the chance to consider his options.

  On the day Mr. Ortiz signed the papers and handed over the check, the woman playing the part of his wife called down to her partner on the street. Elv was arrested as soon as she exited the building. Her natural instinct was to flee, which she tried to do, and to fight when the officer grabbed her. After that, they had her for resisting arrest, which meant no bail. She didn’t say anything, just as Lorry had instructed. She didn’t even tell them her name. Lorry didn’t know where she was for several days. He waited for hours on a bench outside the old man’s apartment, panicked when he saw Ortiz going for a walk with his cronies. When Elv didn’t show up back at the apartment, he searched Astoria, then went to the Island and drove around North Point Harbor. There were no calls to his cell phone, no messages from Elv’s family. At last he received a letter. She’d had to detox at the city jail. She’d been so sick they’d finally taken her to the infirmary. The most they would give her was Tylenol and Valium, finally doling out thorazine to make sure she didn’t have seizures. They’d gotten her name out of her, but no address. She said she’d been living on the street.

  Don’t come here, she wrote. I don’t want you to see me this way.
r />   The truth of it was, she didn’t want suspicion to fall Lorry’s way. Did she have a partner? she’d been asked when they took her down to the station. She would never lead them to Lorry. She was familiar with iron, bread, water, ropes. They couldn’t scare her. They took her clothes, her ring, her purse. She ignored everyone in the dining hall; those who called her names and those who tried to befriend her were equally invisible. She did what she’d done in Westfield. She behaved. She did as she’d done in that man’s basement. She looked for her escape. Waited till she could run.

  She wanted Lorry to get out of Astoria, make himself scarce. I can do this, she wrote. I’ve done it before.

  Lorry packed up the apartment. He threw away anything that could be used as evidence and anything that might tie them together. He got in his car and drove back to North Point Harbor, then parked across from the Weinsteins’ house. It was dawn and quiet. It was dead in town. He smoked several cigarettes, considered how stupid people were, including himself as perhaps the biggest idiot of them all, then did what he always did. He came up with a plan. Pete saw the car when he went out to retrieve the newspaper in the morning. He recognized it, so he tucked the paper under his arm. If it was Lorry, he wanted to break his head. If Elv was alone in the car, he wanted to lead her right to her mother, the most precious gift he could give Annie.

  He walked down Nightingale Lane in his pajama pants and bathrobe. It was still dark, but the horizon was turning a clear eggshell blue. Birds had begun to call. The car had tinted windows, so he didn’t know whether or not Elv was inside. It was a piece of crap car, an Oldsmobile. It probably had a terrible safety record. It was spring, a season Pete had come to hate, just as Claire and Annie hated it. He hated the gnats and the humidity and the birds chirping all the time. He’d hated the way the trees looked so hopeful and green when he drove Annie to the cemetery to visit Meg and then, just the week before, to pick out a plot for herself. She’d been lucky enough to get the one right next to her daughter. She’d actually seemed overjoyed by her good fortune.