The Language of Sisters

  “He paced, we argued, he cried, but what I said made an impact on him. He finally said, ‘How do you see it? I don’t want my kids in daycare.’ ”

  “I told him that they would be our kids, not his, that I would financially support the family while he raised the children. He was floored, said he could never be a full-time dad, it would be too boring, that he needed his career, and I said I can’t be a full-time mother, I love my career, too, and I told him I was not going to be the sacrificial lamb and work two full-time jobs.”

  “I think you have to tell him the whole truth, that you want no lambs at all.”

  “If I tell him that, it will end it.”

  I waited. Strangely, when she said that, she put the bag down and took a deep breath.

  “You seem calmer now, Ellie.”

  She closed her eyes. “I am.”

  * * *

  Our parents sat down with us. My mother was wearing a silky red dress, my father in a dress shirt and tie.

  My mother said, “I make food delicious tonight, no? You like the ‘Why Marry So Young, Elvira’? It on the Specials board. Everyone like. I make for you.” To me, she said, “You too thin. But I happy you no hanging around with criminals no more, Toni. Right, Alexei?”

  “That right,” my father said. “Our daughter writes about kitchens and homes and decorations. I see your articles. I like them. But how about coming here to work for us at Svetlana’s? We pay you high salary. Okay?”

  “Thank you, Papa, but no.”

  “And health insurance. And!” My mother held up her finger. “My cuisine, I like that word, free to you. All you want of my cuisine.” She raised her eyebrows, as in, “Can you believe it?”

  “Thank you, Mama, but no.”

  “Ah. Yes, I understand,” my father said. “You a writer. So, my daughters. I no see you this week. Tell me what you do. Start with Monday ... okay, now Tuesday ... what about the Wednesday ...”

  Our parents grilled us on our lives, with love and laughter, then they stood up and announced to the restaurant that we were all going to sing a Russian drinking song together. That was met with enthusiasm. There were a lot of Russians in there. The rest pretended to sing, swinging their wineglasses and beer mugs back and forth.

  * * *

  Keeping The Monsters At Bay: Shopping Defensive Strategies allowed me to buy a pair of tight jeans that were staring at me, begging me to buy them, from a display window downtown.

  I wondered how fast Nick could get them off.

  19

  I read about Tyler Barton’s trial in the paper again. My sister was quoted as saying that justice would be served. She was circumspect and professional, as usual.

  Shamira Connell continued to report on the trial, and the evidence from the crime scenes was nauseating.

  I called Valerie. “One of the reasons I quit my crime and justice job was because of the gruesomeness I’m seeing in this trial, Valerie.”

  “I know. This trial is pushing it for me. I’m thinking I should go and work for Mama and Papa and make desserts all day.”

  “You sound tired.”

  “I am. I need to see the kids. The other night Ailani told me that even though she liked that I put bad guys in jail, she felt as if she didn’t have a mom. And Koa hugged me so tight, he wouldn’t let go. I carried him around for much of the night.”

  “How’s Kai?”

  “Kai’s my man. He works, he takes the kids to school and day care and picks them up. He makes dinner. He leaves dinner for me.”

  “Anything else going on?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I could hear your silence in my head.”

  “That’s new. Hearing my silence.”

  I waited in our silence.

  She sighed, teeny tiny. “One of the Bartons recently swore to kill me. I heard about it an hour ago. It was Leroy, a cousin. They’ve locked him up.”

  “Valerie—” Cold and slithery snake wound around my spine.

  “I know.”

  “I’m worried about you and the kids.”

  “Helps to have a Portland police captain to sleep with each night.”

  We talked, then she had to run off.

  Shamira texted me that night. “Leroy Barton threatened to kill your sister. She knows. Will be in paper tomorrow. When is your mother making those lamb shish kabob things again, do you know?”

  I called my mama, asked her.

  “Tell Shamira I make for her on Saturday.”

  I told Shamira.

  “I can’t wait. Thanks, Toni. Sorry about the death threat for Valerie.”

  * * *

  “My parents are coming to visit this weekend. I’d like you to meet them.”

  “What? No.” I dropped my fork. Hell no.

  “No?” Nick placed his fork down, too, rather slowly, then put his forearms, tight and musclely, on the table and leaned forward.

  We were eating the taco salad Nick and I had made, together, on his deck. The river wandered by. Dixie the blue heron took off. Mr. and Mrs. Quackenbusch had found me and climbed up on Nick’s deck. The sun was headed down.

  “No, Nick.” I avoided his eyes. He waited for me to get the courage to look at him. I finally made an I-Give-Up sound in my throat, and did, capitulation to the blond giant, whose hair was longer now for his current undercover assignment.

  Meeting parents was too serious, too much. I am not in that type of a relationship with Nick. I still love Marty. I am already betraying Marty by sleeping with Nick. I am sleeping with Nick because I can’t resist him and need sex and he takes away the loneliness and aloneness and I can breathe again and he is kind and interesting and protective and smart and I like him.

  “They’re nice people, Toni.”

  “I don’t want to meet them. All I want to do is eat this taco salad.” He was silent. I tried to eat. Couldn’t. I put my fork down again. “You’re mad.”

  “Yes, I am. It would be a dinner, that’s it.”

  “It’s more than that.” I went from nervous and feeling cornered by the invitation to ticked off. “Hey, Nick, don’t push me.”

  “Don’t push you? We’ve been sleeping together for months. Whether or not you want to admit it, we’re together—”

  “No, we’re not.”

  That one hurt. I could see it in his blue eyes, and I castigated myself for being a mean and gross monster of a woman.

  “We’re not together? We sleep together. We talk. We laugh. We have dinner, but we’re not together.” He leaned back in his chair, jaw tight, shoulders back. “Thanks, Toni. You know how to make me feel special.”

  “I told you from the start what I wanted, and it was not to be a couple. Not a serious relationship.”

  Silence. Cold and simmering.

  “Think about it for five minutes, Toni.”

  “You are really pissing me off, Nick. I said no and you’re not accepting it. Accept no.” I couldn’t meet Nick’s parents, I loved Marty’s parents. They still came over, they called to check up on me, I went to their home, too. They were friends with my parents. They loved the set of bowls I brought them from Zelly Ostrander. I stood up.

  “Really? That’s it? Don’t go, Toni.”

  “I will if I want to. Don’t ever tell me what to do.”

  “You’re going to run off? You don’t like the conversation, so you take off? Fine. We’ll talk about this later.”

  “There you go again.” I threw my napkin down. I tried to throw it to the table, but the wind picked it up and I had to run and chase it down before it went in the water. “Listen to me. I don’t want to talk about it later. I don’t want to talk about it at all.”

  “Damn it, Toni.” He stood up, too.

  “Damn it what?” He was frustrated with me. “I don’t need the stress of any man being frustrated or angry with me. I have been clear about this relationship from the start. You agreed. Now you’re ticked because you thought you could change this around, change me, and have me meet
your parents. I was honest, you weren’t.”

  “I have always been honest with you. Always. And I honestly want you to meet my parents. You said no. Okay. You won’t meet them.”

  “But you’re mad about it.”

  “It’s one dinner.” He spread his arms out. Exasperated. Pained.

  And I am not that brave. Not yet. “It’s not one dinner to me. It means I’m dating someone. It means I’m in a relationship when I’m not.” I thought I was going to cry. “My husband has only been dead for ...”

  Nick towered over me and put his warm hands on my shoulders. “More than two years, babe.”

  “That’s right!” I flung his hands off of me. More than two years already? “It’s only been more than two years!” When I said it out loud, it didn’t sound rational. I decided to bypass that.

  “It’s a long time, honey.”

  “It’s not a long enough long time. I am not dating you, I am not dating anyone. I am not meeting your parents.”

  “You aren’t betraying Marty.”

  I sucked in my breath. He got it. He nailed it. “I am. I’m a terrible, disloyal wife.”

  “You aren’t a terrible wife. You aren’t a disloyal wife.”

  “What do you know, Nick?” Fury rose, destructive, out of control, the fury that I had felt for so long. The unfairness of Marty’s death. The loss. The endless grief. “You’ve never been married. You’ve never had a spouse die on you. You’ve never watched them get sicker and sicker, thinner and thinner, weaker and weaker, their hair falling out from chemo.

  “You’ve never taken a spouse to the hospital for appointments and treatments and the news is bad at first and it gets worse and worse and they become gray and white and skinny but smile when you’re in the room to be brave and then they start to sleep more and more and they hold your hand and tell you what to do when they’re gone and then someone says you need hospice and you know you don’t need hospice because the person you love more than anyone is going to get better but then he doesn’t and hospice comes in to help because you can’t lift them anymore, can’t turn them, can’t take care of all the horrible stuff that happens when someone is dying, and then they can’t get out of bed, and you cry and laugh together and say I love you and then they die.

  “They die and they die forever. You, Nick, have never been through that, but I have and that is why I am not going to meet your parents because you and I are not dating.”

  “Toni—”

  “Don’t Toni me!” I raged. “And don’t follow me home.” I put my hands on his chest and I shoved him to make sure he knew what I was talking about. He is built like steel, so he didn’t move. “Don’t follow me.” I burst into tears. “Don’t come after me. Don’t call me.”

  “Toni.” His face softened. I thought there were tears in those light blue eyes, but I couldn’t see through mine. “Babe, please stay, I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you, ever. I never want to make you cry—”

  “Screw it, Nick. I don’t need this, and I don’t need you.”

  I swear I could see the color running straight out of his face, but because I’m an awful monster of a person, I didn’t stay around to find out. I turned and left and I slammed his door, then I slammed mine and I went up to the wheelhouse and I curled up on my red bench and I cried until my insides turned inside out.

  * * *

  I saw Nick’s parents on the dock when they came to visit Nick that weekend. His father was a tall, solidly built Mexican American man with black and white hair. He wore jeans and cowboy boots. His Italian American mother was smaller, curvy, lots of black hair, a colorful dress, a huge smile. I watched them from inside of my tugboat, still as a rock, my sneaky binoculars up.

  They hugged Nick. They were happy together. I heard them out on his back deck, chatting, laughing. They went out together on Sanchez One while I was alone in my tugboat, alone on this lonely blue-and-gray river, except for Dixie the blue heron, who seemed to stare at me from across the water.

  I did not go and have dinner with Nick’s father and mother.

  That would have been wrong.

  Right? I asked myself. Right?

  * * *

  Three days later Nick left for work. He had mentioned that he was going on a “trip.” I didn’t know where he was going, but I had the impression it was Mexico.

  Good, I told myself, sniffling, when I heard his footsteps on the dock. I’m glad he’s gone. I don’t need someone pressuring me. I don’t need Nick telling me to meet his parents. I don’t need Nick trying to change me or us. Not that there is an us anymore. No, there was not a Nick and Toni, and there never was.

  When Nick comes back, I told myself, I’m going to break up with him. Not that we have a relationship that needs to be “broken up,” but I’m going to tell him that we’re not sleeping together anymore, no sitting on his deck, no dinners, no reading the same book and talking about it, nothing. I blew my nose.

  I would ignore him, and we were all getting kicked off the dock anyhow, so I wouldn’t have to see him anymore. I wouldn’t have to “talk about it later” when he mentioned meeting his parents or going on “real” dates.

  I wiped my eyes.

  I wouldn’t have to see all that blond hair and those light blue eyes and that mouth. And I wouldn’t have to get naked with that overgrown body at night or walk home at one in the morning or talk to him about our jobs or why he likes boating or my mixed-up family or watch him make homemade pizza or grill me a steak or kiss him good-bye or laugh or get closer and closer to him.

  It would be a relief.

  We would be all done and I wouldn’t have to think about being brave.

  I couldn’t sleep that night until the sun came up.

  * * *

  “Sister,” Dmitry drawled.

  “Brother,” I said back, holding my phone. It was early, seven o’clock, but I had decided to go to bed because I was miserable. I pulled my white comforter up to my chin.

  He sang a few lines from a song he wrote about a brother with three sisters. It was funny, loving, filled with rhymes.

  “I’ve been thinking about you, Toni.”

  “That translates into, ‘I’m worried about you,’ and I know it, Dmitry.”

  “True. I do worry about you. How are you feeling about Marty?”

  “Miss him. Always will.”

  “And the new man?”

  “Disaster.”

  “Tell me.”

  Dmitry listens. He listens so well. He’s compassionate, thoughtful. But emotional. I could hear him quietly crying.

  “Okay, I can’t talk about him anymore, Dmitry. This is too upsetting, for you and for me.”

  “I’m sorry for crying, Toni. I can’t help it. I can’t stand when you’re upset. I’m sorry about Marty, I’m sorry about Nick. Okay. Getting control of myself. Did you get the baskets I sent you?”

  “I did. Thank you so much.” They were colorful wicker baskets from Mexico. I loved them. I love baskets for organizing things in my closet, and he knew it. I like to have my socks, underwear, bras, all in the right place. I like to see them in their piles so I know I don’t have only four pairs of socks and six underwear, like in Moscow.

  “I sent Ellie fabric, you the baskets, and Valerie a purse.”

  “You know us too well, Dmitry.”

  “I also wrote a poem about sisters and I put it on my blog.”

  “I saw it and I loved it.” The poem was titled “The Loves Of My Life Are My Sisters.” “You know Mama named a dessert special after it. She made Bird’s Milk Cake with these huge melted marshmallows and the whole thing was smothered in chocolate. It was called ‘My Dmitry Loves His Sisters.’ She put the poem on everyone’s table. Everyone loved the poem and the dessert, line out the door. I had two servings.”

  “I miss Mama’s cooking.”

  Dmitry asked about the whole family—how was everyone?

  Dmitry traveled the world, but in his head he never left our family.

>   “I love you so much, Toni.”

  “You too.”

  * * *

  I fielded several calls over the next week. They all had the same question. “I heard about the ‘My Dmitry Loves His Sisters’ dessert. Do you know when your mother’s going to make that again? I heard it’s so delicious that people cry.”

  * * *

  The next neighborhood meeting was on my tugboat. There were many neighbors there, so we spilled out onto the dock. Nick was not there. He was still gone. I tried not to think of Nick working with creepy and dangerous drug dealers and getting hurt, because we were broken up anyhow and I did not want to cry again.

  I served beef pies wrapped in light, puffy pastries that my mother made at the restaurant. She calls them Beefy Russians. I also brought her Moscow Mushroom soup, bread, and peppermint ice cream because I felt like eating peppermint. I served beer and wine to loosen everyone up.

  We ate first, chatted, and laughed.

  Heather Dackson arrived and presented. She talked about the meetings she’d had, the lawsuit she’d filed, the city’s response, and Tweedle Dee Dum and Tweedle Dum Dee, who she called “Orangutans. No brains. Greed running through their veins.”

  Daisy stood up and said, in all seriousness, “I think we’re going to have to hire a killer.”

  “Uh, no.” I reached over and patted her arm. She was wearing pink pants, red cowboy boots, and a red tunic with daisies. She was also wearing a yellow hat with a rim of pink daisies. In the middle of the hat was a blue plastic frog. “Herbie,” she told us when she walked in, pointing at the frog. “He talks too much.”

  It was sad, truly, when she started talking about Herbie. I saw Charles’s and Vanessa’s faces. I saw Lindy, Beth, and Jayla’s. Daisy’s mind was slipping, a tiny slice more, each day. It was excruciating to watch.

  “My sons know a lot of criminals,” Daisy said. “I’ll tell them. They’re coming for dinner tomorrow night and we’ll be eating frogs. But not Herbie.” She pointed to Herbie again. “He talks too much.”

  “I don’t think we should hire a killer at this point,” I said. “Let’s wait on that.”

  “Don’t wait too long. The best killers have a long frog waiting list.”

  “We won’t, but for right now, we’ll sit on it,” I said.