Missing Sisters

  She walked up the steps slowly. She’d never felt more in a dream than now, not even when she swam underwater. The whole world seemed to be underwater, or shot through with a new kind of air, or vibrating to an earthquake. “Patty who?”

  “Why’re you talking like that, you practicing for Halloween already?” said the boy. “Guess what. Mommy said we can go to the drive-in tonight and see The Singing Nun.”

  “Great,” said Alice. “Just perfect.”

  The boy looked at her. “You got different clothes,” he said.

  “I got a different name,” she told him.

  “What is it?”

  “Alice. What’s yours?”

  He looked worried. “It’s Garth,” he told her. “Why you doing this?”

  “I’m not doing it,” she said.

  “I mean talking funny and looking funny?”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “What happened to you?”

  “Nothing, I just was playing with the ball.” He reached out and touched Alice’s hair. “How’d you get your hair like that?”

  “It’s a miracle,” she said, because he was starting to look terrified.

  “Cut it out, Miami,” he said. “I don’t like this game.”

  “I’m sorry, Garth. It’s not a game.”

  “Don’t say Gowth.”

  “I can’t help it.” But she didn’t mean to scare him. “Is Miami your sister?”

  “Of course you’re my sister!” Now he was getting mad. “This is dumb. I’m going in.”

  “No, don’t! Please. Stay here with me.”

  “I don’t like you like this,” he said, his lower lip sticking out. “Stop it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Are you bewitched?” he asked, eyes widening.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It feels something like that.”

  “Will you get better if I kiss you?”

  “It don’t work like that this time.” Boy, he was quicker than she was. Alice was exhausted with trying to answer him honestly. Her mind could hardly keep up, much less race ahead and figure out what should happen next. But things seemed to have been taken out of her control now that she was here. She felt as if she might go drifting skyward like a saint in the paintings.

  It had often occurred to her that maybe saints didn’t have as much choice in being saints as all that. How could you stop yourself if you started drifting to heaven in a religious trance? Grab hold of a tree? Think evil thoughts so you would plummet earthward? If you were a saint, you probably didn’t know how to think evil thoughts.

  “Who the—?”

  Alice spun around. There was the girl, standing on the top step, carrying a couple of record albums under her arm. She looked like Alice in the mirror only with shorter hair, and her ears were pierced. “Garth, what’s going on?” shouted the girl. One of the records slipped out of its sleeve and went rolling down the steps the way the beach ball had.

  “I’m going to get Mommy,” said Garth, and shot into the house, the screen door slamming behind him.

  “I don’t believe it,” said the girl.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Alice. “You’re Miami.”

  “Who’re you? What’re you doing here?” She wouldn’t stop shouting.

  “Don’t be so mean,” said Alice. “I just came to look at you.”

  “What’ve you been doing, sucking on ice cubes?”

  “My tongue is too fat for my mouth!” Alice shouted back. “Shut up about it, will you!”

  The girl flinched; her body seemed to jerk from knees to dangling earrings. Alice could tell at once this was a big mistake. She should have written a letter or made a phone call. The girl was having a nervous breakdown. Miami Shaw was having a nervous breakdown. “I’ll go home now,” said Alice. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t you move. I’m calling the cops!” shouted Miami. “Mommy! Mommy!”

  “I’ve got the babies in the sink, can it wait?” came a woman’s voice from far inside the shadowy house. A mother’s voice.

  “There’s a thief pretending to be me! It’s a spy! It’s a secret agent!” shouted Miami. “Call the cops!” She ran into the house and slammed the front door behind her so hard that the glass shattered.

  “I said I’m sorry!” Alice shouted up toward the damaged door. “I’m going now! I won’t come back!”

  “And stay out!” The girl was crying. Really she was being a baby, Alice thought. She turned and walked down the steps to the sidewalk. At the foot of the rickety steps lay the record. It hadn’t broken, miraculously. It was Simon and Garfunkel. Alice carried it back up to lay it on the porch. Maybe Miami would find it and realize it was a peace offering.

  “Hold it right there,” said a voice through the screen. Alice froze. “I’m coming out the side door and you, don’t you move a muscle,” said the voice again. “If you know what’s good for you.” So Alice stood still, and in a minute there appeared in the yard a woman in an apron, with two naked baby girls, one under each arm. Garth followed, hugging his beach ball, and Miami came last, scowling and sniffling and rubbing her eyes.

  “I don’t believe it,” said the woman. “Who sent you here? Who are you?”

  “Hello,” said Alice. “How do you do?”

  “Answer me!”

  “My name is Alice Colossus. Nobody sent me here.”

  “Somebody must’ve. You’d better come inside. I don’t believe this. Miami, blow your nose. Nobody on the front porch until I clean up the glass. Is that understood? Round this way, Alice. Is it Alice?”

  “Alice.”

  She was surrounded and ushered into a hall, and up a couple of steps to a kitchen that hadn’t yet been cleared of breakfast dishes. Boy, the sisters wouldn’t think much of this lady’s housekeeping, thought Alice. She sat on a step stool. Miami and Garth sat on an upholstered bench, and the little girls seemed to be trying to scratch each other’s eyes out. The woman put the babies in separate playpens in a glassed-in porch off the kitchen and came back.

  “This is very serious,” she said. “You had better start at the beginning, young lady, and tell me everything.”

  Alice wasn’t sure where the beginning was. But she told the story. The woman kept interrupting to ask nosy questions. Garth sat very still, taking the beach ball plug out with his teeth and putting it back in again with his tongue and lips. Miami stopped crying but sat with her head in her hands. When Alice finished, Miami said to her mother, “Just one question. Does this mean we don’t get to go to The Singing Nun tonight like you promised?”

  “Miami,” said the woman, “don’t push me.”

  The phone rang before that interesting conversation could go any further. Garth twisted away from the table and grabbed the receiver. “Hi, Daddy,” he said. “Good…. Good…. Yeah…. Nothing. Oh, guess what. There’s another Miami, and she’s here. I think she’s staying for lunch.”

  Holding the receiver by its cord, he said, “Mommy, it’s Daddy and he wants to talk to you now.”

  “I’ll bet he does,” said the woman dryly. Alice and Miami both leaned forward to hear what she’d say. “It’s the Twilight Zone around here,” she announced. “Garth was right: There’s a second Miami sitting in the kitchen with the first.”

  Miami and Alice looked at each other. “My hair is neater than yours, and I don’t sound like a broken robot,” said Miami.

  “Mine is longer than yours, and I’m part deaf,” said Alice.

  “No,” said Mrs. Shaw. “It’s not that. Thank God and all the saints. It’s a girl. You’d better come here. She looks like a twin. She just showed up, and she scared the bejazus out of everyone. Her name is Alice, or so she says. Honey, come as quickly as you can.”

  “I never saw The Singing Nun,” said Alice.

  “I can play the song on the piano,” said Miami.

  “The babies are crying,” said Alice. “Shouldn’t y
ou go pick them up?”

  “Oh, let them cry, they’ll only start again as soon as you put them down,” said Miami. “They have one-track minds. You know your speech isn’t so bad once you get used to it.”

  But Alice had gone out onto the porch. The little girls were still damp from being lifted out of their bath. Alice found a towel in a basket of laundry and rubbed them dry, while Miami sat on the beach ball as fast and hard as she could to get all the air out of it and hide it from Garth.

  In the end, Mr. Shaw came home from work early, and Sister John Bosco showed up with Father Laverty in tow. Nobody was in a very happy mood. Miami and Alice sat on the sofa. It had an Indian-print cloth thrown over it to hide where it was ripped (Alice had looked underneath to see). On the wall was a poster with a couple of priest’s hands breaking a loaf of bread and the words in curlicued letters saying, “Where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I.” Father Laverty even knew Mr. Shaw from before. He called him Joe, and Mr. Shaw called Father Laverty Father Kevin.

  “How could you do this to us,” said Sister John Boss in a voice that didn’t seem to expect Alice would have the nerve to answer, and she didn’t. “Do you know they had to page me at Thacher Park? Sister Paul the Hermit was beside herself with worry.”

  “You’ve kept us hopping, haven’t you, Alice,” said Father Laverty. “I thought your little escapade this winter would get it out of your system.”

  “I have a twin,” said Alice. “Lookit.”

  “So I see,” said Father Laverty. “Hello there, twin.”

  “Do I have a twin?” asked Garth. “When’s he get here?”

  They talked a lot. Father Laverty seemed to know as much about the Sacred Heart Home for Girls as Sister John Boss did, or maybe she was just keeping her mouth shut because she was so angry. Her lips were little purple pads like two well-chewed pieces of grape gum pressed together. Alice wasn’t scared of her, just sorry that she had done a stupid thing by not going to Sister John Bosco first and telling her what had happened at camp.

  So they were related. There wasn’t much doubt. They were both twelve, though they’d been given different birthdays by accident. They had the same color hair, the same color eyes; they were the same height, though Alice was skinnier. They’d both started out life at the Brady Hospital and had spent their early years at Saint Catherine’s Infant Home. Then Alice had had a lung ailment and had gone for treatment somewhere, and Miami had been taken by a family living in the town of Catskill. The family had gotten poor and had a divorce or something, and Miami was adopted by the Shaws when she was six.

  Way back in the olden days, before they could remember, they’d been babies together, lying in next-door cribs, maybe looking at each other the way Fanny and Rachelle looked at each other. It seemed strange to Alice that she couldn’t remember this, because what else so important had ever happened to her in her life?

  Sister John Bosco kept shaking her head. “Alice, when you act impetuously you don’t know the harm you cause.” She spoke crisply. “Father Laverty, I don’t think we should discuss this anymore in front of the children. It’s time to let things settle in a bit. Alice, will you apologize to the Shaws and use the bathroom if you need to.”

  “No!” said Alice.

  “Alice,” said Sister John Bosco, “don’t make this harder on yourself than it need be.”

  She hadn’t realized that she didn’t want to leave. The Shaws looked nice. They were a nice family! Miami was a little mean, but no worse than Naomi Matthews. Garth was cute. The little girls were adorable. Mrs. Shaw looked like a TV mother, though a bit weary around the edges and her dress could use a pressing. Mr. Shaw was handsome and kind. They had a crucifix on the wall of the dining room! What more did Sister John Boss want?

  “Sister John Bosco is right, Alice,” said Mr. Shaw. “It’s been an exhilarating day. There can’t be too many things more surprising than this. But we all need to do some thinking. You’d better get ready to go home.”

  “She can stay here,” said Garth. “She’s nicer than Miami. Let Miami go with you.”

  “Shut up, you little monster,” said Miami hotly.

  “Miami!” said the four adults.

  “Mi-a-mi!” said Garth, mimicking them.

  “This is my home, not hers!” said Miami. “And I don’t want to get cheated out of that movie like I was cheated out of my birthday party!”

  “Say thank you to Mrs. Shaw for being so calm,” said Father Laverty. “It’s a wonder nobody had a heart attack today.”

  “There’s still time,” said Sister John Bosco darkly. “Come along, Alice.”

  Alice stood. For an instant she thought she was going blind as well as partly deaf and dull of tongue. Then, as her eyes began to smart, she realized it was only ordinary tears starting. She let herself be led to the side door and down the rickety steps to the street, with Father Laverty on one side patting her shoulder clumsily, and Sister John Bosco holding her hand as if she were a little child. A woman next door with a garden hose said, “My word, what’s the matter, Miami? Where are they taking you? Hey you, Father, Sister, where you going with our Miami?” But the three of them got in the car without answering and drove away.

  Part Four

  LIFE WOULD BE SO HEAVENLY

  To Miami’s surprise, the trip to the drive-in wasn’t canceled. After a long afternoon, which her parents spent in the kitchen with the door closed, the family went to Carroll’s for hamburgers and to Carvel for soft ice cream, and then headed out on Route 20 to the drive-in. The kids all had to dress in their pajamas before leaving the house, which made it seem like Halloween in the middle of the summer. “Gee, it’s too bad that girl couldn’t stay and come to the movies with us,” said Garth. “I mean, she knows all about nuns.”

  “Garth,” said everybody.

  “Well, what?” he said.

  “Grow up,” said Miami.

  “That’ll do,” said Mrs. Shaw.

  “Put a lid on it, Garth, it’s been a long day,” said Mr. Shaw.

  “Sheez,” he said. “I only said—”

  “Garth said sheez,” said Miami. Sheez was uncomfortably close to Jesus, which would be taking the Lord’s name in vain.

  “I said cheese,” said Garth, and started to cry.

  “Now let’s just enjoy ourselves, shall we,” said Mr. Shaw in a testy way. “Garth. Nobody’s yelling at you.”

  “Certainly not me,” said Miami. “I’m only reporting basic truth.”

  “Do I have to pull the car over and deliver a few spankings back there?” asked Mrs. Shaw, who was driving.

  The sheer unlikeliness of a remark like that shut Garth and Miami up. Mrs. Shaw was the spirit of Catholic niceness most of the time.

  In the next couple of days, though, the atmosphere at home was strained, to say the least. It seemed off-limits even to mention that somebody looking mighty like Miami had showed up out of nowhere. Miami spent a lot of time in her tower room, which was almost unbearably hot. She had to keep very still, except for smushing flies with a newspaper. Otherwise she was so warm she could hardly breathe.

  She sat and looked out the window. She hadn’t told her friend Patty Geoghagen about Alice Colossus, because Patty had just left for a vacation to visit her aunt in Ithaca. She had started to tell Billy O’Hara when she ran into him at the Price Chopper, but it seemed too farfetched a story to be believed among the frozen peas and pizzas. If her parents weren’t ever going to bring it up again, what was the point?

  “Hey, Miami,” said Garth.

  She jumped. “What’re you doing in the attic? You’re not allowed,” she hissed.

  “Can I come up?”

  “No.”

  “Well, come down then.”

  “What for?”

  “I want to talk to you.”

  She came down the ladder. “If I ever catch you up there, so help me, you’ll be minced meat, buddy.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said. “Miami, I got an id
ea.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s ask Mommy and Daddy to adopt that other girl.”

  “You mean Alice,” she said. “My sister.”

  “Well, if she’s your sister, she’s my sister,” said Garth.

  Miami didn’t argue that one. He was probably right. He went on. “Don’t you think that’s a good idea? She could sleep in your bedroom.”

  “I don’t know,” said Miami.

  “Why not? It’s simple. Let’s go ask them.”

  Miami wasn’t sure she wanted Alice around. It was too creepy. The other family she’d been in for a while, the Dillons, had been given to lopsided emotions, veering from weepy embraces to loud fights and beatings. Miami thought the Shaws were a lot more comfortable. Who knew if another girl wouldn’t change the pattern of things?

  But suppose she’d been Alice, and Alice had been she? Wouldn’t she want the girl who had the family to fight for getting her into it? Not even knowing Alice yet, Miami felt a dull requirement to be good to her. “Okay,” she told Garth. “I guess we can try.”

  She waited until evening. Following fried-egg sandwiches came homemade Popsicles made of frozen Kool-Aid; it seemed a good time. “By the way,” she said, making a show of sharing her Popsicle with disgusting Fanny, who was intent on slobbering all over it, “why don’t we adopt that girl Alice?”

  “Good idea,” said Garth loudly. “Let’s vote.”

  “Not so fast,” said Mrs. Shaw.

  “All in favor, say aye,” said Miami. She raised Fanny’s pudgy fist and squealed an aye as if from her. Garth followed suit with, Rachelle. At least Mr. and Mrs. Shaw smiled at this, which was a start.

  They continued the conversation as they did some evening yard work.

  “So whaddya think about my idea?” said Miami.

  “My idea,” said Garth.

  “Look, kids,” said Mr. Shaw. “This is hard to say. But there are so many more things to think about than you realize. How much it costs to run a family of four kids already. You know how much we love you. That’s why we adopted all of you. But there are laws about adoption. And it seems to be the right time to tell you that it looks like you might have a new brother or sister in a few months anyway. Well, after Christmas.”