The Almost Sisters(22)
She didn’t sound as aggrieved as she had on the drive, probably because she’d hung around outside with the Darian boys until their cell phones had beeped to call them home. That was new and yet the same; Birchville was so small, so known and safe, that kids still roamed at will.
When I was Lav’s age, most of my summer friends’ mothers hollered their names in long pig calls to retrieve them. The well-off ones sent their housekeepers out to do it. Birchie rang a distinctive brass bell from the porch. It could be heard from anyplace on the square, and woe betide me if I did not come at once. Birchie rang it herself; she was above pig calls, and she hadn’t kept a housekeeper since her father died. She was famous for it. She’d come home from Charleston in mourning clothes, but a week later she’d traded them for bridal white and married her greengrocer, Floyd Briggs. Then she’d offered Vina, Wattie’s mother, a fat pension so she could retire. Vina had worked for the Birches from sunup to suppertime, six days a week, for most of her life. She’d more than earned it.
Birchie “did for herself” after that, even the year she was pregnant. Her father had been a proud man, more revered than beloved. He’d been “Mr. Birch”—never “Ellis”—to every single person in town. My grandmother wanted it known that the new reigning Birch was not too uppity to keep her own floors clean.
In recent years I’d insisted on hiring a rotating cast of local girls to help her with the heavy work and laundry, but she still cooked and kept her garden. Although now, having seen her planting Tic Tacs, I guessed Wattie was doing more and more of those things.
“We’ll need to stay a week or two at least,” I told Lavender. I wasn’t sure of anything, including how bad off Birchie truly was. How long could they have been lying to me?
On the way through the parlor, my Rachel-sharpened gaze caught on the two upholstered chairs, sitting side by side facing out the big front window, so close their arms touched. It made me stop short, noticing the Victorian love seats, facing each other in front of the fireplace.
Lavender rammed into my back.
“What?” she said, but she didn’t look up from her phone.
“Nothing,” I said. The love seat on the left had matching tables at each end, one stacked with Birchie’s bookmarked Phyllis Tickle book and several novels, the other holding Wattie’s giant King James Bible and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Nearby the tiny round coffee table on the wide end of the wraparound porch had its two chairs pulled around to one side, backs against the wall of the house, ostensibly so they could both have a clear view of the square.
All the furniture in the house had been reangled and rearranged so Birchie and Wattie could sit like honeymooners crowding in on one side of a restaurant booth. It hadn’t always been that way. It had happened in gradual steps, though, so I hadn’t noticed from visit to visit. These days, even when they were standing, Wattie’s bad knees and Birchie’s poor vision kept them arm in arm, giving Wattie near-constant access to the best of Birchie’s two good ears. How deeply did the Lewy bodies have their hooked claws in Birchie’s brain?
I took a long, slow breath, trying to lower my heart rate. My pregnancy handbook had a judgey tone and quite a lot to say about the effect of stress upon poor Digby. I doubted it would recommend barraging him with oscillating grief and anger hormones.
We went into the kitchen through the dining-room door. Birchie and Wattie were at the stove, loading up the plates. By the back door, a recessed nook held a narrow rectangular table. It was set for dinner, telling me the same story as all the other furniture: I always sat on the built-in bench seat under the window, while Birchie and Wattie sat side by side, looking out over their backyard garden. But not this time.
I deliberately pulled out Wattie’s chair for Lavender, saying, “You hungry? You can sit right here.”
So much for peace and sweetness. Rachel was right; I needed my eyes to be opened. I needed to see how much of Birchie was still present, without her co-conspirator’s whispered assists.
Lavender plopped into the chair, eyes still on her screen. She reached blindly for the glass already set beside the plate and took a big slurp. Her eyes widened, and she finally looked up from her phone, startled and so horrified I thought she might spit it right back out.
As soon as she could swallow, she stage-whispered, “Oh my God, what is that?”
“Tea,” I said. Rachel brewed tea strong and served it sugarless, spiced with so much cinnamon and lemon it was practically an astringent. Lav gave me a look of such pure disbelief that I amended it. “Sweet tea.”
Birchie and Wattie came over, each carrying two loaded plates. Birchie came right to her usual spot, setting the plates and sitting without seeming to notice Lavender, but Wattie stopped short as she clocked my teenager-assisted coup. She gave me a long, reproachful look as she set her plates. I dropped my gaze. Wattie’s part in this cover-up was not purely altruistic. Her own sons had wanted her to move into assisted living when her driver’s license got revoked. She’d moved in with Birchie instead, a compromise that could work only as long as both of them stayed healthy.
“Bow your heads,” Wattie said, sliding in onto the bench beside me.
Lav reflexively stuffed her phone into her back pocket. Rachel didn’t allow phones at the table. We joined hands as Wattie launched into the blessing.
Wattie’s husband had been Redemption Baptist’s preacher for decades, and Wattie was as devout as they came. She settled in to thank God in great detail for food and family, safe travels, and the beauty of the day. All her words were aimed directly heavenward, not at me, but at the same time she had my hand in a grip so tight it qualified as a pinching. She was ill with me for giving Lav her seat, all right, and that in and of itself said quite a bit about how much cover Birchie needed these days.