The Language of Sisters

  “Me too, Marty.”

  “You’re smart, but you’re not smart enough to know what I want now.”

  I laughed. We were parked alone on a hill, in the dark. “I think I know.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Yes, I do.” I unsnapped my bra and threw it at him.

  “I want chocolate mint ice cream.”

  “Ah. Not this then.” I pulled my shirt open and flashed him.

  “Well.” He pretended to think. Ponder. Analyze. “I’ll have that first, then chocolate mint ice cream.”

  And that’s what we did. I jumped the poor, bald man fighting for his life in the back of our car.

  Marty loved it.

  Me too.

  Then we bought chocolate mint ice cream.

  * * *

  As a joke, I made Ellie a wedding dress out of paper bags for Pillow Talk night. I stapled them together and created a long paper bag train. Valerie and I presented it to her one night at ten o’clock, the soonest that Valerie could meet because of the trial.

  “Very funny,” Ellie said, then put it on. We took pictures. Valerie and I stood beside her as her bridesmaids dressed in black plastic trash bags. We held pillows in front of us as flowers. We are ridiculous, we know this.

  Ellie took one of the bags off to breathe into. “Gino and I had a fight.”

  “What about?” We settled in with our wine and our pillows. I was making a purple peacock pillow. I had made the body of the peacock in green and blue fabric squares, then had gone to the craft store and bought fake peacock feathers.

  Ellie was painting a sunflower in about ten different shades of yellow and gold on a yellow background. Valerie’s pillow was in the shape of a white cat. She would add a multitude of sparkly, shiny buttons for the collar.

  “We fought about a lot, a whole list of problems. He wants to move in with me before the wedding or he wants me to move in with him.”

  “You don’t want to?” Valerie asked.

  “No.” Ellie fiddled with her paper bag dress. Then she started taking the dress apart, bag by bag, and throwing the bags to the ground. I’m not even sure she knew what she was doing. “I don’t mind spending a weekend with him or going on vacation together, but I don’t want him around all the time.”

  “Sheesh, Ellie,” Valerie said. “You’re going to be married. That means you live together.”

  Ellie put a bag over her face. Inhaled. Exhaled.

  “Why don’t you want to live with him?” I put my peacock pillow on my lap. Come on, Ellie. Talk it out. Be brave. See this through. Come to the answer you know is there.

  “Because I’ll feel smothered.”

  Then shut this down. “Do you think you would feel this way with any man?”

  “Probably. I think I’d feel smothered with anyone around all the time, except for you two. I like being alone, a lot. I like working on my pillows, my business. I like going downtown by myself. I like going to movies by myself. That was the other reason for a fight. Gino asked me to go see this action movie and I said I had already seen it and he got his panties in a twist because he wanted to see it with me. That makes me feel as if I can’t even walk out the door and go see a movie without checking with him first. I don’t want, or need, that kind of control in my life, and I won’t ask anyone for permission to do anything.”

  She blew into her bag. “Except, sometimes, Mama ...”

  “What else did you fight about?” Valerie asked.

  “He wants us to live closer to the city to make his commute shorter. I don’t want to move. I have my house and my business in one place, on the river. I like it here. I have a five-second commute. He wants to vacation in America only, saying that we have enough to see here. I want to travel all over the world, as I already have. That his mind is so closed to travel, to other cultures, other people, bothers me. It says something about him that I don’t like.”

  She blew into the bag.

  “Gino loves me. He’s honest, he works hard, he’s reliable, he’s smart and thoughtful.”

  “Seems a little controlling to me,” I said.

  “Maybe he’s just not for you,” Valerie said.

  “He should be, though,” she wailed. “What’s wrong with me?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with you,” I said. “Nothing.”

  It is truly hard to break up with people sometimes. It’s emotional chaos wrapped up in a mental hurricane. And you can’t push anyone else to do it, either. They have to get there themselves.

  Valerie and I sewed as we watched Ellie take the wedding dress apart bag by bag.

  * * *

  We met at Daisy’s houseboat for a meeting on the possible closure of our dock. I wished that Nick were there and not working. I tried not to worry about him. I hoped he was safe. I hoped he wasn’t getting beat up again. I hoped I wasn’t madly and wildly in love with him, because that would be a betrayal.

  Daisy’s light purple houseboat is two stories tall, no interior walls except for bathrooms so that she won’t be reminded of her drunken father who locked her in a closet. Her sons have a housekeeper coming in once a week to clean and organize so it’s immaculate.

  I had had a conversation with Daisy the day before at the end of the dock.

  “Bang, clang, crash, pop, smatter. It’s all”—she made a twirly motion with her pointer finger next to her ear—“noisy. Lots of things going on in there. Like the sea. Mermaids. Mermen. Talking whales. Undersea castles. Fighting sharks.”

  Daisy told me she had walked to downtown Portland that day, and said, “I saw a lot of black people, Africans; brown people, Mexicanos; Yellow people, Japs; Pink people, white trash; and white people, ghosts. They were all nice to me. Nice.” She was wearing a white-and-yellow bikini top under her blue-and-white daisy coat, and when she became hot at Pioneer Square, in the center of town, she took her coat off.

  “Lucky I had my Wednesday bikini on,” she told me.

  It was Tuesday. “That was a stroke of luck.”

  She also told me she had seen a cougar in the trees on the way home from Portland. “He talked to me, but I don’t like cougars, so I threw three rocks at him.”

  Daisy greeted everyone at her home wearing a hat like Marie Antoinette might wear. It was about two feet tall, covered in flowers. The hat tied in a red, fluffy bow under her chin. She was also wearing a sweatshirt with a gray, grinning cat on it. The cat had human teeth.

  Our attorney for the Dock Fight, Heather Dackson, was there. She is a bulldog, complete with a loud mouth and the admirable ability to file and send a mountain of paperwork. It did not appear to be working. Tweedle Dee Dum and Tweedle Dum Dee’s attorneys fired back, and we all received another notice reminding us that we needed to make arrangements to have our houseboats towed.

  “I’ll be honest with you again, as I’ve been before,” Heather said. “I’m fighting for you. I am on your side, but I can’t guarantee a win. This is a neighborhood, but it’s also a private dock. This land was bought decades ago, and the dock was built under different rules and laws then. The Shrocks can choose to not pay for the repairs that are needed, which would render this place unsafe, and it would be closed down for them.”

  Charles and Vanessa had been quoted, and pictured, in the story in the Oregon Standard. They sounded educated, reasonable, and persuasive. The paper had also quoted Beth, who said that it was wrong to destroy someone’s neighborhood. Unfortunately, the reporter had also run into Daisy, who said, “Those (expletive) developers. They want to ruin (expletive) everything. I hope they turn into (expletive) whales and drown in the ocean.”

  Tweedle Dee Dum and Tweedle Dum Dee had been quoted as saying that there were extensive structural, plumbing, and electrical repairs that needed to be made that they could not afford. They said, “We’re sorry that the people in the houseboats are unhappy. We understand. Still, they are all renting slips from us. If you own a home and you want your renters to leave, you have the right to ask them to go. It’s th
e law. We have that right.”

  “I keep telling you,” Lindy said, crossing her legs under her long beige skirt and pushing her glasses up her nose, “don’t worry. You will not lose the dock. You will not have to move your homes down the river. Make no plans to leave. I have them handled. I’m only here for the dinner and hopefully to talk about books if anyone has read anything interesting?”

  “I don’t understand, Lindy,” Beth said. “You keep telling us not to worry. What do you know that we don’t?”

  She waved her hand. “Don’t worry.”

  “I worry,” Charles said.

  “I worry about hauling our houseboat down the river and it breaking in two in the middle of the Willamette,” Jayla said.

  “None of this will happen,” Lindy said. “More wine anyone?”

  Oh yes to that!

  The meeting droned on with the attorney and her legalese, then Daisy stood up and announced, “I see them! Here they come! It’s time to eat a cow and a lobster now!”

  We exchanged confused glances until the doorbell rang and Daisy opened the door, her Marie Antoinette hat wobbling.

  Four people, dressed in black, carrying huge foil containers, walked in. Caterers. They smiled.

  “Lobster feed!” Daisy yelled, forming her hands into two pronged lobster claws and snapping them together. “Come and get ’em. They were alive an hour ago, but they were conked and thunked, boiled and oiled, and now we eat!”

  I couldn’t believe it. Charles’s mouth was hanging open. Jayla said, “Oh, this is going to be delicious.” Lindy said, “I can smell the butter and garlic sauce.”

  We ate on Daisy’s deck.

  She sang “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver, which we all sang along to, and “Memory” from Cats.

  “Memory” made us all choke up. Then she taught us a drinking song, and we laughed again.

  I missed Nick. I hoped he was on some back country roads and would be here soon so we could make some memories.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes after I got home, Nick knocked on my door.

  “Care for a houseboat date?”

  “Yes.”

  I walked straight into his hug, then pulled back and studied him, head to foot.

  “What?” he asked, smiling.

  “I’m making sure you’re not hurt.”

  “I’m not hurt, baby.” We walked down to his houseboat.

  Daisy pounded on the door and yelled out, “Pistol Man, are you home?”

  We both laughed.

  “Hello, Daisy, come on in,” Nick said.

  “I brought you a lobster and a cow,” she said, handing him a foil-wrapped box. “Mr. Pistol in His Pants. Have you had dinner?”

  “No, not yet. Come eat with us.” Nick is so kind to Daisy.

  “I can’t,” Daisy said, adjusting her Marie Antoinette hat. “I have to make another hat. It’s going to be a hat with a whale on it, the one I’m going to wear when I ride with the whales, and hello to you again, Toni, kayak lady. I’ll sing to you when you cry in your kayak again.”

  I gave Daisy a hug, feeling so emotional. This would not end well for Daisy. She was losing her mind, but not her heart.

  “What?” Daisy shouted. “Why are you crying? Cheer her up, Mr. Pistol in His Pants. Take out your pistol and whip it around.”

  She turned and left, singing a song unfamiliar to me about pistol-packing, ball-racking barroom-brawling buddies.

  “Would you like me to take my pistol out now and whip it around?”

  “You bet, Pistol Man.”

  * * *

  “Did Dmitry talk to you about the locket he saw in his dream?”

  My parents, seated across from me at an upstairs table at Svetlana’s Kitchen, froze.

  “A locket?” My mother swore under her breath in French.

  My father put a hand to the bridge of his crooked nose, then sunk back in his seat.

  I let them sit in the locket problem for a while, exchanging troubled glances.

  Charlie was playing T chaikovsky downstairs, but he had come upstairs to give me a hug. Ralph came over to say hello, then saluted me and went back to his room. I could tell he was upset. Ralph was not having an easy day, my mother told me. He’d heard a car backfire and he’d hidden under a table, after grabbing two waitresses and pulling them down with him. They were truly flattered that he had, in his own mind, risked his life to save theirs. Ralph and Charlie are very endearing people.

  “Do you have a gold, heart-shaped locket, Mama?”

  “No.” Her hands twisted in her lap. She switched to Russian. “I do not.”

  “Dmitry thinks it’s from his past.” I switched to Russian, too. “He’s going to ask you about it.”

  “I never meant harm,” my father whispered, also speaking in Russian.

  “I know, my love.” My mother patted his hand. “I know you didn’t.”

  “He has never rested,” my father said. “Never. Even as a boy. Walking away. Leaving. Searching. Lost.”

  “You have to tell Dmitry what you know about his past,” I said. “You must.”

  “Dmitry and I, we have always had tension, stress, distrust between us.” My father laced his fingers together, blinking rapidly. “From the time he was a little boy, he has not liked me. I don’t blame him. I know why. He remembers more than he knows. He knows who I am. Deep in his soul, he knows what I did.”

  What? What was all this? “Papa, what are you talking about?”

  “I am talking about a tragedy. His tragedy. A crime on top of other crimes. Revenge and punishment. Evil.”

  “Papa, please, you’ve lost me.”

  “I have lost myself. I love Dmitry. He is my son.” He pounded his chest. “Mine. Ours. I love him. His past will never be erased though, will it, Svetlana? I thought it would, but no, it won’t. It will be worse when he knows.”

  “Healing will come from this, Alexei.”

  “He’s blocked it out,” my father continued, lost in the misery of the past. “A wall. But brick by brick, the wall is coming down. Crumble by crumble. The locket now. Already the rocking horse, the blue door, a vegetable garden, a white dog. Soon the wall will open, like his mind, wider and wider still.”

  “Then help him, Papa,” I begged. “Tell him what happened. Tell me how you got Dmitry. You said it was an orphanage. I know that’s not true.”

  He shook his head. “Not an orphanage.”

  “Then where, Papa? Where did Dmitry come from?”

  “I cannot say. Not yet. I will tell him, you are right, Antonia, he should know. When Dmitry is here, after the wedding, we will tell him his own life story. It will cause him deep pain and anguish. He will wish he could go back to not knowing. He will hate me.”

  “He will not hate you,” my mother said.

  “He will. He remembers, somewhere. In that head of his, he is brilliant. He was young, but it’s there. He talks about a shadow. The shadow comes out and plays with him, teases him mercilessly, then it hides away, waiting. I know who that shadow is.”

  My mother reached for my father, both arms around him. “You did what you had to do, Alexei. There was no choice. We had no choice.”

  “I chose what I thought was best for him at that time. We didn’t have much time, do you remember, Svetlana?”

  She shook her head. “No time at all.”

  “What Dmitry saw has never left him. It has followed him from Moscow, hanging on to him, haunting him, hurting him. But it is time. Time for the truth. Time to tell my son why he entered this family with blood on him.”

  I sat back in my chair, weak.

  Charlie had moved on to Mozart. Ralph smiled and went downstairs to clean the kitchen.

  What other secrets were my parents hiding?

  * * *

  When Marty couldn’t work anymore, we settled in at home, and I took a leave away from the paper. We kayaked, so gently, and at the end with friends, because Marty needed help getting in and out of the ka
yak. On our last kayak trip, he laughed and said to them, all doctors, “Good thing you boys are finally doing something worthwhile” and “I’ve always wanted you guys to carry me, as if I’m your King. I finally got my wish. If only I had my crown with me.”

  His poker group came once a week, not once a month. He spent time with his parents. Both of them looked close to dissolving from pain. He hugged my parents, my sisters and brother, who had flown in several times from around the world to see Marty. He hugged my uncles and aunts and cousins, and they blubbered and cried all over him. We had his best friends over, from high school, college, medical school. Who he wanted, I called, they came. We laughed and sang songs.

  He invited the Kozlovsky family, and his parents, over for dinner. My parents brought his favorite Russian dishes. After dinner, Marty said, “I want all of you to know that I love you.”

  He was bald and thin, weak, but still smiling, so brave.

  “We love you, too, Marty.” Everyone said it, some with ragged voices.

  “I would like you all to do one very important thing for me.”

  “Anything ... name it, son ... I’ll do it ... Yes.”

  He put his arm around me. “Take care of Toni.”

  I don’t think there was anyone in that room who didn’t cry.

  * * *

  And then, at the end, it was only us, and his parents.

  Marty and I cried, but he was never angry. Never bitter and furious and scared, like me, as he had warned me not to become, though his life was ending so much sooner than it should have.

  One morning, as we watched the sun come up, because Marty told me he wanted to watch sunrises and sunsets as much as possible, he said, “I will miss you, honey. I already do.”

  I tried to be brave. I was falling apart. “That’s how I feel. I already miss you, Marty. I’m so sorry this happened to you. To us. To your parents ...”

  “Me too, but I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else in place of me.”

  “I love you so much, Marty.”

  “And I, you, Toni. You are my life. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

  There was no hope then. He had done surgery. Chemo. Radiation. Two failed clinical trials. He was on hospice care.