The Sisters

A STORY

by GAY GAER

ONLY on the second slamming of a door did Laurie look up from her book. The lamp glow misted her eyes for a moment, then she saw the livid face in the hall, severed from the room by the darkness, with the glass-bright eyes which she met, and then her eyes returned to the page. While the heels cut up the stairs and overhead, her eyes fastened to the line, over and over the words “together" and “the”: “together the.” With a wrench she looked up from the words, and Alison, across the room, looked up, too, and their eyes reflected the glassiness and went back to their books. Then the heels descended, heavily, and the door slammed, the outside door, and after that they looked up again.

Alison spoke first, as always. “Wonder where she’s gone at this hour.”

“She just came in.”

“ You know she can’t stop for a moment never could, except maybe with him. But then she never said how it was with him.”

“No, she never did. did she? Her letters never mentioned him much until he died, and she wanted to come.”

Alison’s eyes sidled across the line before her, and she frowned, flicked the page.

“ We don’t see her, except like this. I was going to talk to her last night . . . she’ll wear herself out.”

“She locked her door last night.”

“I know.”

Laurie, hugging her arms, bent close to the page, where line fused against line into a gray-black. When she looked up, Alison’s cigarette was on the edge of the coffee table, smoke clouding smooth through the holder, leaving a damp shine on the table.

“ Alison.”

Alison picked up the holder and puffed.

“Alison, shall I cover Sandra? It’s getting late.”

Alison puffed, her eyes moving along the page.

“You’re going to drop ashes all over the floor!” Laurie moved to the cage where Sandra perched, yellow and lifeless, on the bar. She stuck her finger through the wire and Sandra gave it a weak peck. ” Poor old thing.”

Then the cover slipped into place, started the cage swinging round and back and round and back, while the fluttering of wings settled inside, and Laurie’s eyes followed the less and less of the swing until the clock’s chime broke it, and she took the slick magazine from the table near the window and let the pages crackle fast into place, not looking at them. Across the street the houses were blank, and there were no cars between the leafless trees. Laurie slid the window up a crack and the moist air barely ruffled the curtains. Alison ground her cigarette, still reading, until the pale crumbs of tobacco jotted the crystal tray. She flicked a page and started. Her eyes met Laurie’s.

“ Must be rats.”

“ 1 guess so.”

Their eyes held a moment, then Alison looked back at the book. “Muggy,” she mumbled.

“You’re smoking too much!”

“I know, I know. . . .” Then Alison saw Laurie’s pursed face. “Oh, my God,”she laughed, “here we are acting just like skittery young girls.”

Laurie rose on ihe immediate levity of it, slamming the magazine down onto the seat, “ I’m going to get my hot milk,” she said. “It’s getting late.

Alison shoved her book into place on the shelf and stretched back, yawning. “Guess Hope’ll be late again.”

“As always.”

“Maybe that’s why she’s always been so thin — not enough sleep. ‘

“She’s thinner now.”

“Oh, she was a scrawny little kid. You remember how Mother had to force her and coddle her.”

“Mother never learned.” Laurie’s mouth was tight. “I wonder if Hope’ll have Sunday breakfast with us this time.”

“ Probably.”

“She could at least tell us.”

“Well, I’ll set the place anyway.”

“I’m going to get my milk.” Laurie went through the dining room to the kitchen, and from the kitchen her voice rang sharp, “Alison!” She strode back to where Alison sprawled in the chair. “ Look, she forgot them, left them on the sink.” She held out the rings to Alison. “They might have gone down the drain!”

“Same Hope.” Alison smiled back the twenty years to the time Hope had worn Alison’s opal to the parly, and had not found it until two years later, in the herb cupboard, of all places. “Same Hope, losing things.”

“Really, Alison! She’s not a child any more she’s thirty-one.”

“I know. Why don’t you put them back where you found them? She’ll look for them.”

“I’ll put them in her jewel box.” Laurie dropped the rings in the jar on ihe mantel with all the odds and ends to go upstairs the safely pins from under the couch, the paper clips, the flowers off a hat from the day of the welcoming tea for Hope, when Hope wore a swealer and skirt and low-heeled shoes and refused to drink any tea.

Alison locked the kitchen windows, while Laurie sipped the tepid drink, her eyes, above the brim of the glass, fastened on the clock, round and round with the second hand, a minute after one; two, three. . . .

Alison said, “Hope fed up with her job yet?”

“She was bored the first week.”

“Maybe she’ll go back to the city, then.”

“She’ll probably get married again, but at any rate she won’t want to stay here.”

“I guess. She wants the excitement of a city, not an office in the daytime and books at night.”

Laurie rinsed the glass a number of times, and they moved back to the living room, Alison turning off the lights after Laurie, who said, “Shouldn’t we wait a few more minutes? One of us really ought to talk to her . . . and find out if she’ll have breakfast.”

“She won’t be in.”

But the outside door slammed, and the inner door, and the heels cut swiftly up the stairs. A car roared out between the trees. There was the running of water upstairs, and a door pulled to.

“I’ll start your bath,” Alison said. Upstairs there was no light under Hope’s door.

2

LAURIE carried the eggs, in their silver tray and herb-sprinkled, into the dining room, mellowed and set for leisure; not the room of quick breakfasts before work, but the rolls steaming and coffee poured round, poured even for the third place, set this way for four Sundays, and each time taken from the table just as it had been put down. Alison’s face peered from behind a sheaf of newspapers. She shuttled a batch of the papers across to Laurie, who served with the large silver ladle. Alison’s dark head and Laurie’s gray poked in and out among the pages until it came time to exchange them again, and Laurie reached for the coffee by the third place and poured it back into the pot. The papers rustled, dropping into piles beside the table. The clock over the sideboard chimed, and the cuckoo came and disappeared, and it chimed again, and almost all the papers were in the piles beside the table, and the sun came in the side window instead of the back. Then brisk heels came down the stairs, and Sandra chirruped as the steps muted on the living-room rug. And Hope whispered: “Disgusting bird . . . ought to have its neck rung.” And the heels clacked into the dining room.

“Hi,” said Hope. “I just thought I’d say hello before I’m picked up for breakfast. How do you like my new suit ?”

“It’s very smart,” Alison replied. “Won’t you have some coffee before you go?”

“No, thanks, Ali. They always have such a big breakfast. It’s the couple Don and I often had Sunday breakfast with.”

“How is it they’re here?”

“Visiting. They thought it would be nice to have Sunday the way we used to, the four of us. They asked about you — asked if you wanted to come, but I thought it’d probably be loo late for you . . . and then all our foolishness, singing and all, I suppose we should have grown out of it by now.”

“1 dare say . . .” Laurie started.

“Well, it’s a little late for breakfast, Alison said. “But give them our best.”

“Of course.”

Hope squeezed between Laurie and the sideboard on her way into the kitchen, heels clacking on the heavy boards, then back to the dining room, where she leaned on the door frame.

“I feel so dizzy. I don’t know what it is, but every now and then I feel so dizzy.” She went to the chair between them, where her place was set, and sat limply while Alison pulled down the shade to keep oul the glare.

“Have you seen a doctor about these spells?” asked Alison.

“Oh, no, no. They’re really nothing. I’m all right.”She straightened up. “But I can’t figure out where I left my rings. I thought they were on the sink.”

“They were,” Laurie said. “I found them last night and put them in the jar to take upstairs . . . they’re in the jar on the mantel.”

“And you didn’t even bother to tell me?”

“I’m sorry, I forgot. I intended to take up the jar last night.”

“So you didn’t tell me, as though they were just a couple of your pins or something!”

Hope went into the living room, and the doorbell clanged, and her voice mingled with a man’s — mutter, then laughing, until the door closed, shutting them off.

“I would have taken them up tonight.”

“Of course.”

“I don’t understand her any more, telling us that way we were invited, not even bringing her friend in to meet us. She could at least have asked us.”

“I know, she could have.”

“And you’d think she wouldn’t want to sec them like that, not right away.”

“Maybe not.”Alison rose, piling dishes along one arm, and Laurie, mouth set tight, followed with the silver tray.

Even when Alison, washing, splashed the dishes carelessly in the pan Laurie said nothing. When six came and the cuckoo had vanished, and they cleared again, Laurie said nothing. Then Mrs. Colby, from across the street, came in to see Hope, and left, and they washed the last of the tea things, and went into the living room to read in the easy light. Laurie’s hand moved in and out, crocheting, eyes on the magazine in her lap, and then Alison yawned sonorously and put down her book.

“Shall I start your milk?”

“All right. I’ll cover Sandra.”

The outer door banged, and the inner. Hope stood in the hall, her eyes bright in her white face.

“Hello.”

“Did you have a nice time?" Alison asked.

“Yes, wonderful. We sat around the table until just a short while ago.”

“What?”

“We always took the whole day . . . singing and the newspapers. Don was a whiz on the crossword puzzles . . . not just breakfast.”

Alison went into the kitchen and returned with the milk. “Have some hot milk?” she laughed. “It’s supposed to be good for your soul.”

“Ugh! No, thanks. I’m going to bed.” Hope went to the jar on the mantel, spilled the contents on the marble ledge, and took the rings. “Good night,” she said.

“Good night.”

The heels cut fast up the stairs, and a door closed behind her. Laurie put the pins and flowers back into the jar, and Alison turned off the lights.

Alison was in bed by the time Laurie was ready to hang her stockings up in the bathroom. Hope’s underwear was on the sink in wet clots. Laurie took the underwear in a clammy pile and opened Hope’s door a crack. Hope sat on the bed smoking, reading a letter by the cockeyed lamp above her, in the midst of the disorder of the bed. She looked up when the creak of Laurie’s weight on the sill had broken the privacy of the room. And Laurie was waiting with the wet bundle, her face pursed and her eyes pointing out each article of clutter, Hope’s shoes on the bed, and the broken ash tray.

“I wish you wouldn’t leave your wet clothes on the sink.”

“I’m sorry.”

“After all, Hope, at home there were people to pick up after you.”

“I understand. You don’t have to lecture me.”

“I’m not lecturing! I just want you to coöperate a little. You are living with two people, you know.”

“I won’t forget again.”

“I know ... I didn’t mean to sound nasty.”

“Then leave me alone. You’re not my mother.”

“No, she’d give in to you.”

“She would have the decency to leave a person alone.”Hope’s eyes were wet and the lashes stuck to her cheeks.

Laurie moved toward her, watching the wetness grow on her cheeks, and the pump of her breathing. “Hope.”

“Good night, Laurie.”

“Hope, can’t 1 even talk to you?”

“Good night, Laurie. I know I shouldn’t have come.”

As Laurie tiptoed down (he hall, Hope’s door banged behind her, and there was the sound of the key in the lock.

“Hope’s crying.”she told Alison. “I only told her to hang her underwear.”

“She’ll be all right. It’s the pace she goes at.”

“But why does she snub us?”

“I don’t think it was a snub.”

“I guess I should have brought them up. . .”

“Maybe so.”