The Silent Sister(24)

When the camera closed in tight on Lisa’s face, I leaned forward and saw the long fair lashes above her closed eyes, the delicate crease between her eyebrows, as if the music pained her. I wished so much that Danny was watching the tape with me. That I had someone to share the emotions with.

I made it through the first movement of the concerto before I needed to turn off the tape. I sat in front of the TV, crying until I could cry no more, overwhelmed with grief for the sister I’d never gotten to know. It had only been a couple of hours since I’d started watching the tapes, but it may as well have been a month for how changed I felt. Even though I’d never had the chance to know her, she’d been such an influence on my life and I was full of love for her. Yet I realized now that I’d made her up. I’d had to imagine what she’d been like because I had no way of knowing. Now suddenly, I’d seen her face. I saw how hard she worked. She’d been just a kid. Practically a baby in that first tape and a young and hopeful teenager in the second. All anyone would be able to see as they watched her perform was the skill and perfection; no one could see the toll her career was taking on her heart and soul.

What was it that caused her to break apart? That conductor—had he demanded perfection of her? Had my parents? Had the fame been too much for her? I ran my fingers through my hair, my tears falling all over again. I wished I could hug her! Hold her tight. I wished I could tell her she didn’t need to be perfect; she only needed to be Lisa. I wanted to reach inside those tapes and tell that delicate young angel to hold on. Someday, I would promise her, it will be all right.





11.



“You’ll be shocked what people will buy at an estate sale,” Jeannie said as we poked through the items in my mother’s china cabinet in the dining room. In my hand, I held an old green bowl that had clearly been broken in two and glued back together “Christine will want you to leave everything just as it is.”

“Even broken dishes?” I asked, holding the bowl so she could see the crack.

“Absolutely,” she said. “Artists use them to make jewelry and all sorts of things you can’t imagine. So we want to leave everything in place. You don’t need those boxes.” She pointed to the three empty boxes I’d found in the basement. My plan had been to fill them with things to donate, but Jeannie had a different idea. “I do want to get a closer look at the collections and figure out what sort of appraisers we need to call,” she said. “If there are any things you want to keep—items with sentimental value, for example—just set them aside. We can make a place for them in your father’s upstairs office. For now, you can clean out those cabinets in the living room where he kept all his paperwork.” She took the green bowl from my hand and put it back in the china cabinet. “Let’s go take a look in there,” she said, and I followed her into the living room. She stood in the middle of the room, hands on her hips, and both of us faced the ten built-in cabinets that ran the entire length of the living room beneath the windows. “I know he would just stuff insurance forms and all sort of things in there that can probably just be shredded. That can be your job.”

“All right.” I dreaded even opening those cabinets. I’d seen how Daddy crammed papers into them with as little care as if he was tossing them in the trash.

“Look at those hydrangeas!” Jeannie took a step toward the windows that overlooked the side yard. “How your father loved them,” she said. “I wish he could have had one more summer. He was looking forward to it. His favorite season.”

I hadn’t known that about my father and it irked me that she did. But I was determined to be nice to her today. I really needed her help.

“What the hell…?” She suddenly noticed that the sliding glass doors were missing from the pipe collection. “Where’s the glass?”

I thought of making something up, but decided to tell her the truth. “Danny was over the other night and he got upset about something and threw a beer bottle at them,” I said.

“That’s terrible!” she said. “Your father always insisted Danny wasn’t violent.”

“He’s not.” I remembered Danny saying he’d put on his PTSD act for Jeannie, whatever that meant. “He was just angry. He’d never hurt a person.”

“Are you very close to him?”

“I was when we were young. He was more withdrawn as he got older and we didn’t talk as much. He became more like my father, I guess. Very introverted.” I missed the Danny I’d grown up with.

“I don’t think of your father as all that introverted,” Jeannie said.

I worked hard to produce a smile. I was sick of her thinking she knew Daddy so much better than I did. “I guess we experienced him differently,” I said.

“Oh, well.” She smiled. “We both know he was a good man, and that’s what counts.”

I nodded. I would let it go at that.

Jeannie walked over to the pipes and lifted one of them from its ledge in the display case. “I’ve always been drawn to this one,” she said. The barrel of the pipe was carved in the shape of a bird’s head, complete with ruffled feathers and green beads for eyes. I noticed a serious tremor in her hands as she held the pipe. Was she nervous or ill? Whatever the cause, seeing that small weakness in her made me feel slightly sympathetic toward her. You never knew what demons people were dealing with.