Once Lily went silent, Sharon too ceased her abrasive, jeering song. Her arm around Lily’s waist that had been so tight slipped weakly away. She seemed suddenly faint, light-headed; leaning against the back of a chair; Wes leapt up to help her, but Lily was already gripping her sister’s thin shoulders, gently yet firmly. “Sharon? What’s wrong?” Lily asked anxiously. Sharon touched her fingers to her forehead, her eyelids fluttered. She whispered, “No—nothing. Just tired.” But she was more than tired, clearly: the blood had drained from her face, leaving her haggard, aged. Strands of acrid-smelling hair had escaped from her chignon and her breath smelled of wine and cigarettes.
Wes suggested they drive Sharon to the Yewville General emergency room but Sharon, trembling, pressed into Lily’s arms pleading No! no! she was only tired, exhausted, she’d had too much to drink and wanted only to go to bed. Lily helped her walk cautiously from the dining room to the guest room at the rear of the house; Wes and Deedee followed uncertainly, not knowing what to do. “Don’t let them look at me, stare at me,” Sharon begged, clutching at Lily like a child, “—don’t let them touch me, Lily! I’m so afraid.” Lily assured her sister that no one would touch her except Lily herself, if that was what she wanted.
Long ago, when they were girls in Shaheen, sharing a single bedroom in which there were twin beds—how vividly it was returning to Lily, in fleeting patches of memory—she’d sometimes helped Sharon lie down on her bed and try to relax after one of her emotional outbursts (temper tantrums, “nerve-attacks” as their mother called them); their relationship at such times was that of nurse-patient; play of a kind, yet serious play. How startling that strong-willed Rose of Sharon, the master, should be so dependent upon Lily of the Valley, her slave; what pleasure to suddenly reverse their roles. Lily had not known whether even at such times Sharon remained in control; or whether somehow, as if by magic, she, Lily, had seized control.
More briskly than she meant, Lily told Wes and Deedee that everything was under control, and closed the door behind Sharon and herself. She helped Sharon lie down, removed her absurd high-heeled shoes, loosened her clothes. The gold chain lay glaring against Sharon’s just slightly lined throat and though it could have weighed virtually nothing, Lily didn’t like the look of it, and undid the clasp and removed it. Sharon was moaning how dizzy she was, how the room was spinning. Lily went into the adjoining bathroom to soak a washcloth in cold water, and brought it back to press against Sharon’s feverish face. Sharon was trembling almost convulsively. Her teeth chattered. Feebly she clutched at Lily’s hand. “Oh, Lily, forgive me, I’m so—afraid! ‘Starr Bright’ has done things and things have been done to her and—I will have to be punished.” Lily asked, “Shall I call a doctor, Sharon? And make an appointment for the morning?” She meant to be practical, to hide her anxiety; she’d been good at playing nurse, quietly assuming her temporary control. Sharon pleaded, “No! No doctor! No one must know I’m here, Lily, you promised.”
Lily said, stroking her sister’s thin, frantic hands, “Yes, of course I promised! You’re safe with me, Sharon.”
In this way Lily Merrick’s ceremonial dinner welcoming her lost sister Sharon back home was ended.
This talk of Starr Bright what was it but raving drunken nonsense.
After so many years. Lily refused to think of it, erasing her thoughts one by one like spraying a grimy window with cleanser and briskly wiping it clean.
And what did Wes know of Sharon. To speak of Sharon as he did.
Might Sharon have a drug problem? a drinking problem? mental problem? Shouldn’t she see a doctor?
No, Wes knew nothing. A man could know nothing.
But she loved him. Wanted to be fair to him. Conceded yes her sister surely had problems, emotional problems after the way she’d been exploited. Psychological problems, yes possibly. And she’d drunk too much wine at dinner out of nervousness, excitement. Why had he kept filling her glass? You can hardly blame her for that.
Wes, in bed beside Lily. Saying softly Look I don’t blame her, honey, I’m just concerned. For her, and for you.
Waiting for him to fall asleep. His prickling thoughts to shift from her.
Downstairs, was Sharon asleep? Or, like Lily, anxious, awake?
Run to earth.
God’s wrath, and God’s scourge.
In the guest-room bathroom Lily had seen: jars and tubes of cosmetics, lipsticks, a container of “ivory” face powder spilled as if with a shaky hand.
On Sharon’s bedside table, face down, Lily had seen: a book with a cheap soft cover, fake gilt letters HOLY BIBLE.
STARR BRIGHT WILL BE WITH YOU SOON. STARR BRIGHT WILL BE WITH YOU SOON. STARR BRIGHT WILL BE WITH YOU SOON!
Beside the sleeping lightly snoring man who was her husband Lily lay part awake part dreaming in dread and anticipation.
III
YEWVILLE RESIDENT FOUND DEAD IN CAR POLICE INVESTIGATE APPARENT SUICIDE
YEWVILLE, N.Y. (April 4) Stanley Reigel, 39, of 542 Brisbane Street, South Yewville, was found dead early Tuesday morning in his car parked in an empty lot of the Buffalo & Chautauqua Railroad yard.
Mr. Reigel, owner of Reigel Plumbing, was said by his wife Constance to have failed to come home after working late at his office Monday evening. He had informed her he would not be home for dinner because of “emergency bookkeeping matters” and when he failed to return home by 11 P.M. Mrs. Reigel made several calls to his office as well as to friends and acquaintances. At approximately midnight Mrs. Reigel and 16-year-old Benjamin, the couple’s son, drove to Reigel Plumbing on Huron Road to find no one there.
At 6:45 A.M. Tuesday morning, Mr. Reigel’s 1996 Ford Cutlass was discovered by Leo Mark, security guard for the Buffalo & Chautauqua Railroad, in a secluded area of the railroad yard. Mr. Reigel’s body was in the backseat.
A preliminary examination determined that death appeared to have been caused by severe slashings of Mr. Reigel’s wrists and forearms. An alleged “suicide document” is in the custody of Yewville police.
There are no indications of robbery.
Relatives of Mr. Reigel claim that he had no reason to take his own life. Eden County coroner Bill Early will be conducting an autopsy today. Anyone with information to aid in the police investigation is requested to call (716) 687-9592.
1
The Broken Bowl
Now the house at 183 Washington Street seemed, in Lily’s eyes, to glow with a secret interior light. When she drove home and turned her car in the driveway she felt her pulse quicken.
She’d long been accustomed, during the day, to returning to an empty, rather lonely house. Wes was at work, Deedee at school. But now Sharon was visiting: Lily had only to enter the kitchen breathless and call out, “Sharon? I’m home.”
Yes we’ve always been close. My twin sister Sharon and me.
Even with thousands of miles separating us. Even those years she was lost to me.
It was the second week of Sharon’s visit. Time had passed with magical swiftness.
Lily had pleaded with Sharon not to continue on to New York just yet. Not in her shaky condition. Not with her migraine headaches, nausea and depressed appetite. It was obvious she needed rest and calm; she needed to gain at least fifteen pounds; to regain her old vigor and spirit. (Of the person who was “stalking” her—whatever danger he represented—Sharon declined to speak any further.) Apologetically she said, “Oh, Lily, I don’t want to presume upon your hospitality—yours, and Wes’s. Are you sure he doesn’t mind if I stay a little longer?” and Lily said adamantly, squeezing her sister’s hand, “Of course Wes doesn’t mind! Hasn’t he told you so, himself?”
Though Wes, being Wes, a naturally reticent if strong-willed man, was difficult to read. Having a stranger in his household clearly made him uneasy and self-conscious; equally clearly, he liked Sharon, whom he saw for only a small period of time each day, in the evening, and whom by accident he called “Sherrill” more than once—to his acute embarrassm
ent. Sharon laughed nervously but assured him she didn’t mind—“There are people who know me only as ‘Sherrill’ and not all of these people have been cruel to me. In fact, some have been kind.”
Though he didn’t tell her so himself—he left such issues to Lily, of course—Wes persisted in thinking that Sharon should see a doctor. Or a therapist of some sort. He’d had some experience with alcoholism—drug addiction—in Vietnam and elsewhere—and he knew the symptoms, he said.
Lily and Sharon quarreled—almost—about whether Lily should arrange for Sharon to be examined by a doctor. “You seem to be running a chronic fever,” Lily scolded, “and I hear you coughing in the mornings. You might have a respiratory ailment that could be cured with antibiotics.” Sharon said, with a little-girl air of pleading, “Lily, it’s just these damned cigarettes. I’m trying to quit, I promise.” Lily said, “But you scarcely eat. You say you’re not hungry,” and Sharon said, backing off, “No doctors! I can’t bear being poked, prodded, pierced by any man, M.D. or otherwise—I’m terrified of needles.” Lily said, “What about a woman doctor, then? I’ve heard of a new woman gynecologist who’s said to be wonderful, very gentle. I would switch to her myself except I feel loyal to—” and Sharon said, sharply, “Damn it, Lily, no. It isn’t like when we were girls, I’m not your slave now to be commanded.”
Lily stared at Sharon. She was seated at her potter’s wheel, in her workroom—Sharon in a chenille robe, barefoot, her damp hair wrapped in a towel, had come in to watch her work—but her hands and feet had ceased their motion. Her heart beat steadily, calmly.
“What? What did you say?”
Sharon said peevishly, “I’m not your slave, ‘Lily of the Valley,’ you’re not my master, to tell me what’s good for me—to command me at your whim.”
But you commanded me. You were Rose of Sharon my master, I was Lily of the Valley your slave.
Sharon fumbled in the pocket of the robe, drawing out a pack of cigarettes. She was trembling but defiant; on the verge of an emotional outburst; it would be dangerous to push her, to upset her any further. So Lily bit her lip and suppressed her words and after a tense moment Sharon came to take her hand, her hand that was damp with clay, and, in an impulsive childlike gesture, in that way that endeared her to all the Merricks, she raised it to press against her own cheek—which was indeed hot, feverish. “Lily, don’t be angry! Everyone can’t be strong, like you.”
One evening Wes returned home with a mysterious purchase, showered and came downstairs to dinner wearing a new shirt—a white cotton dress shirt with French cuffs. And the platinum-gold and pearl cuff links engraved “W M” Sharon had given him.
Lily laughed, and kissed him on the cheek. “Honey, what a surprise! You look so handsome.”
Sharon was delighted, too. And Deedee, who said teasingly, “Wow. Daddy is becoming style-conscious.”
Wes, blushing, admired the cuff links, holding out his wrists so that they glinted in the cheery bright light of the kitchen. He complained of spending ten minutes getting the damned things through the slits in the cuffs—“But it’s worth it, I suppose.”
Lily was surprised, well Lily had always been surprised, by her sister’s unpredictable behavior. Her unpredictable nature.
You would expect the convalescing “Sherrill” to be self-pitying and self-absorbed and oblivious of the tasks of running a household, such mundane chores as cleaning up after meals, running and emptying the dishwasher, keeping the downstairs rooms clear of accumulating debris like newspapers, spot vacuuming—but there was Sharon, sometimes wearing dark glasses, her hair hidden by a scarf, her face quite pale and resolute, throwing herself into housework; nerved-up, breathless, embarrassed if Lily or Wes should discover her, for instance, vacuuming the living-room rug, or, so strangely, as Lily discovered her one afternoon, on her hands and knees in the kitchen, scrubbing the floor with a hand sponge (when of course Lily had a sponge mop, clearly visible in the kitchen closet)—“I hope you won’t mind, Lily, I just thought I’d help you out a little.”
Lily was amazed. For Sharon had also scrubbed the sinks and the counters and the stove top and the oven with steel wool; she had sponged the interior of the refrigerator; loaded and unloaded the dishwasher; trimmed Lily’s raggedy spider plants hanging above the windowsills. She wore Lily’s loose floppy yellow rubber gloves but even so her carefully manicured nails had been cracked and broken. Her skin was sallow, even sickly, but glowing with satisfaction, pride. Lily thought But my kitchen wasn’t dirty! She said, “Sharon, thank you. But—should you be exhausting yourself? I thought you were going to relax today.”
“Oh, no, I’m a dancer—I mean, I was. I need to move. I need to know I’m alive. And I don’t want to be a burden on you and Wes, please.” This, from Sharon who as a girl had hated all household tasks, had performed them hastily and carelessly, with a look of being tortured; who, as an eighteen-year-old model, living in Manhattan in an apartment with maid service, had boasted to her sister back home in Shaheen that she never made her bed, never troubled to hang a towel evenly, or to pick up a plate after herself. Heaven! she’d laughingly described it.
Lily said, not knowing what she meant exactly, “But, Sharon—are you sure?”
Sharon laughed and said, “Sure about what? That I don’t want to be a burden on the Merricks, or that I’m alive?”
A vague thought troubled Lily, a ridiculous thought never to be shared with another living being: that Sharon’s eagerness to please was a mimicry, almost a parody of—well, Lily herself. Lily Merrick at the community college volunteering for committees which other, more seasoned and better-paid (male) faculty members avoided; Lily Merrick at PTA meetings, faithfully attending for a decade, resolutely smiling, good-natured, dependable; Lily Merrick who could be relied upon when others were too busy with their more important lives. Wes remarked of Sharon, after she’d volunteered to help him with his home office-work (Wes declined, of course: he didn’t want anyone in his desk or files), “Your sister really isn’t anything like I’d expected, you know? I’m wondering if you hadn’t misrepresented her a bit, I don’t mean consciously, but—unconsciously.” Lily smarted, thinking But you haven’t met “Sherrill” yet! Wait till you meet her. She said, “Well, but Sharon is older now, Wes. And she wants to make a good impression on you.”
When Lily was home, in her workroom, Sharon frequently drifted in; wanting to watch Lily sculpting her pots; hoping she wasn’t intruding. (Of course she was, to a degree; for Lily required solitude to do her best work.) Lily assured her sister she was welcome so long as she didn’t smoke, though, invariably, after perhaps twenty minutes, out would come the pack of cigarettes from a pocket, and the little silver lighter with its mysterious engraved initials—not “S.D.” but “P.B.,” Lily had noticed. Lily would say, reluctantly, for she hated to be a scold, “Sharon, can you open a window, at least?” and Sharon would say, startled, as if, staring at Lily’s swift-moving hands, she had no idea she’d lit a cigarette and sucked in and exhaled a luxuriant cloud of bluish-toxic smoke, “Oh—what? God, I’m sorry” hurrying to a window to open it, the damned cigarette gripped between her teeth.
No wonder you cough, no wonder you’re sick, why are you poisoning yourself?
Like her admiration for Lily’s married, maternal life generally, Sharon’s admiration for Lily’s work was enthusiastic, and seemed to be genuine. As she wandered about the workroom she frequently touched things—pots, vases, bowls. Some of these objects hadn’t quite turned out as Lily had wished and a few were frankly misshapen, but Sharon had a kind word for all, as if she distrusted her judgment about such things or, more probably, felt that Lily, always the less secure of the two sisters, required indiscriminate encouragement. “Of course you’re attractive, for God’s sake,” Sharon used to say, when they were in high school, “—we’re twins, don’t forget.” It was meant to be a playful exaggeration of Sharon’s own vanity, but clearly she was serious too. One day in Lily’s workroom Sharon l
ifted Lily’s most recent finished work, a heavy, glazed, earthen-hued bowl of about eight inches in diameter and five inches deep, a bowl Lily was hopeful about showing to a local gallery owner; Sharon turned it in her hands, a cigarette awkwardly burning between two fingers, as if it were a puzzle, and Lily at her potter’s wheel, but no longer working, stared at her thinking Don’t drop it, please! Sharon said, “Now, this is really beautiful, Lily. I hope you get a good price for it—one hundred dollars at least.” Lily, who’d been hoping so, too, said, “Well. We’ll see.” Still Sharon turned it in her hands, peering at it, at eye level. Lily felt perspiration break out in tiny pinpoints all over her body. Sharon was saying that Lily’s “talent for art” hadn’t shown itself when they were girls, had it? and Lily pointed out that in their high school art class she’d done a number of charcoal drawings and watercolors and clay sculptures that their teacher had liked very much; she’d done illustrations for the school newspaper; she’d won a class day prize as “most promising artist”—but, still, Sharon shook her head, mystified. Lily knew that Sharon was recalling how their teacher had asked her to pose for the charcoal life-drawing sessons; how tranquil and aloof she’d seemed, and how beautiful she’d been, seated there on a stool at the front of the room, their teacher Mr. Hanson sketching her, himself. Twenty-five students, girls and boys of widely varying ability, staring at her, trying to capture her face, hair, shoulders in mere charcoal, on thick white paper. Sharon said, “I guess I don’t remember. Are you sure?”
At last setting the bowl back down, carefully, onto a table. So Lily sighed with relief, thinking herself a bit ridiculous.
Lily offered to teach Sharon how to pot, but Sharon quickly demurred, saying you had to be “centered,” didn’t you, to be a potter?—“And I’m anything but.” Lily said, “But maybe it would help you. It’s calming, it’s a meditation.” Sharon laughed nervously, and prowled about the workroom, murmuring, “I read the Bible, and I pray. That’s my ‘meditation.’” It was a brightly glaring April day; not warm, but blindingly sunny; fearing migraine, Sharon wore smoke-tinted glasses even in the house, yet still flinched away from the windows. Her hair was skinned back behind her ears and in the unsparing light she looked both her age and exotic, with a model’s gaunt hauteur. Lily stared thinking how strange, her sister’s beauty was returning as if indeed she’d been convalescing in Yewville, absorbing nourishment and strength. Biding her time before moving on.