Three Sisters. Сьюзен Мэллери
another stop for Deanna later. And Madison’s coat still hung over the bar-height chair.
Lucy’s absentmindedness wasn’t anything new and certainly not personal, but the same couldn’t be said for Madison and the jacket. Her oldest had hated the waterproof red coat forty-eight hours after insisting it was perfect and that she had to have it. Since that late September shopping trip, she and Madison had battled about the garment, with her daughter insisting a new one be purchased. Deanna had refused.
Sometime in October, Colin had said they should get her a new coat—that it wasn’t worth the fight. Lucy liked the red one and would probably be in it by the fall. If Madison wore it all year, it would be too battered to be passed down.
Just one more time where Colin hadn’t supported her, Deanna thought bitterly. One more example of her husband siding against her with the girls.
Deanna crossed to the sink and turned on the water. She waited until it was the right temperature, then carefully pumped the soap three times and began to wash her hands. Over and around, again and again. The familiar feel of warm water and slick soap comforted her. She knew she couldn’t let herself continue for too long. That if she wasn’t careful, she would go too far. Because of that, long before she was ready, she rinsed, then opened the drawer by the sink and pulled out one of her cotton towels and dried her hands.
She walked out of the kitchen without looking back. She would deal with the mess later. But instead of climbing to the second story and the master bedroom, she sank onto the bottom stair and dropped her head into her hands. Anger blended with fear and the sharp taste of humiliation. She’d done her best to be nothing like her mother, yet some lessons couldn’t be unlearned. The familiar question of “What will the neighbors think?” lodged in her brain and refused to budge.
Everyone would talk. Everyone would wonder how long the affair had been going on. Everyone would assume he’d been cheating for years. After all, Colin’s job was on the road. While she would get the sympathy, the solicitous attention of their friends, the other wives would take a step back. They wouldn’t want a divorced woman hanging around. The husbands would look at her and wonder what she’d done to make Colin stray. Then they would ask her husband for the wheres and hows, living vicariously through his adventures.
Deanna longed to crawl back in bed and restart the morning. If only she hadn’t gone looking for that picture, she thought. Then she wouldn’t have to know. But time could not be turned back, and she had to deal with the reality of Colin’s treachery.
She stared down at the wedding ring set on her left hand. The large center stone glinted, even in the dim light. She was so careful to get the rings cleaned every three months, have the prongs checked to make sure nothing was loose. She’d been so careful about so many things. She’d been a fool.
Deanna tugged the ring off her finger and threw it across the hallway. It bounced against the wall and rolled to the center of the polished hardwood. Then she covered her face with her hands and gave in to tears.
* * *
Boston King arranged the tulips on the small hand-painted table she’d brought in from the spare bedroom. The top of the table was white, the legs a pale green. Years ago, she’d stenciled tulips around the sides, a perfect echo of the flowers she now moved around, trying to find the right air of casual disarray.
She positioned a long dark green leaf, shifted a petal, moved the yellow tulip closer to the pink one. When she was pleased with what she’d done, she picked up the whole table and carried it so that it sat in a shaft of bright sunlight. Then she settled on her stool, picked up her pad and began to sketch.
She moved quickly, confidently. Her mind cleared as she focused on shapes, contrasts and lines, no longer seeing an object, but instead the parts. Pieces of the whole, she thought with a smile. She remembered one of her teachers who would remind her, “We view the world on a molecular level. The building blocks, not the end results.”
The first of the flowers grew on the page. Impulsively, she reached for a piece of chalk, thinking she could capture the purity of the yellow petal. As she guided it to the paper, her charm bracelet provided a familiar melody. Her eyes drifted closed, then open again.
Gray. She’d picked the gray, not the yellow. The darker of her grays, nearly black, but not quite. The piece was stubby and worn, but sharp. She always kept it sharp. Then her hand was moving again, faster than before, the lines so comfortable, her movements almost habitual.
What had been a flower became something much more beautiful, much more precious. A few more strokes and she was staring at the face of an infant. Liam, she thought, running her hand across the picture, smudging and softening the defined lines until they were as sleepy as the boy.
She drew in a few details of background, then studied the result. Yes, she’d captured him, the curve of his cheek, the promise of love in his half-closed eyes. Her best boy.
She put her initials and the date in the bottom right-hand corner of the paper, then tore it from the pad and set it on top of the others already there. After picking up her mug of white tea, she walked to the window and stared out at the rear garden.
Spruce trees lined the edge of the property. In front of them, Pacific wax myrtle swayed in the afternoon breeze. They’d all survived last winter’s big windstorm. The last of her tulips danced, their promise of spring already met. Over the next week or so, she would plant the rest of her garden. She enjoyed the fresh vegetables, although she didn’t share her neighbor Deanna’s rabid obsession with growing her own food whenever possible.
She was aware of the silence, feeling rather than hearing the steady beating of her own heart. That’s what she experienced these days. Silence. Not quiet. Quiet had a restful quality. In quiet, she could find peace. In silence, there was only an absence of sound.
She turned and walked to the front of the house. The big moving van in Andi’s driveway rumbled to life. It had been there since early morning. Zeke had told her about Andi’s plans to store most of her furniture in an upstairs bedroom and live in the attic during the remodeling. Boston didn’t envy the movers the work of hauling heavy furniture up the narrow stairs.
As if her thoughts had conjured him, her husband drove his battered red pickup around the retreating moving truck and up toward their house. She watched him park, then get out and walk toward the side entrance.
He moved as easily and gracefully as he had the first time she’d seen him. She’d been all of fifteen—a new sophomore at the mainland high school. It had been the first week of classes and she’d clung to her friends like a motherless monkey abandoned in the jungle. He’d been a senior. Handsome. Sexy. On the football team. Despite the heat of the September afternoon, he’d proudly worn his letterman jacket.
She’d taken one look at him and had fallen deeply in love. She’d known in that instant that he was the one. He liked to tease that it had taken him longer. That it was only after he’d been talking to her for ten minutes that he’d accepted his fate.
They’d been together ever since. Married when she was twenty and he was twenty-two. Their love had never wavered and they’d been so happy together that they’d put off starting a family. She had her career to establish, and he’d been busy with his business. There had been the world to see. Their lives had been perfect.
“Hey, babe,” Zeke called as he walked in the kitchen door. “Our neighbor moved in.”
“I saw.”
He came out of the kitchen and walked toward her, his brown eyes affectionate, as always, but now also wary. Because in the past six months, they’d seemed to stumble more than they got it right.
It all came down to blame, she thought, tightening her hold on her mug of tea. In their heads they knew neither was at fault, but in their hearts... Well, she couldn’t speak to his heart, but hers had turned into a void. Lately she’d started to wonder if it was possible for love to live in a black hole.
“Her remodeling is going to have a serious effect on our bottom line this year,” Zeke said. “You be friendly,