The Almost Sisters(89)
My hands were shaking, so it was hard to get the bottle open. I got the cap off and managed to spill a blue cotton-candy-colored pill into my palm. One cup of lemonade was still miraculously upright, sitting half empty in front of Wattie’s usual chair. I set the amber bottle down, wiped my eyes, and got the cup.
I came around the table and said, “Birchie? I have your pill. Okay?”
After a long moment, Birchie said, “Well, all right.”
Sel was still holding her, but he released her wrist. I handed her the pill, and she put it in her mouth, then drank some of Wattie’s lemonade, swallowing it. Sel’s grip had loosened, and her feet were on the floor. She stood swaying slightly in his arms, her blue-button eyes gone blank and her mouth crumpling in on itself. She looked like she was a thousand years old, her white hair streaming all down her shoulders in a tangle of thin ribbons. I set the glass back on the table, and when I looked up, Birchie was blinking at me, confused but smiling.
“Leia! Honey, when did you get here?” Her eyebrows knit in mild concern. “I don’t think I got the turkey. Wattie, did we get the turkey?”
“I got it, not to worry. A nice fat Thomas he is, too,” Wattie said, and then to Sel, “You can let her go now.”
He didn’t let her go so much as hand her to me. I turned, winding one arm around her waist, supporting her. I kept her near the wall as we walked, keeping myself between her bare feet and the broken pitcher. I glanced at the portrait of Ellis Birch as we passed by, and it wasn’t fixable. One eye had been ripped away down to bare canvas. The other looked as if a tiny Wolverine had slashed it.
I asked Sel quietly, over my shoulder, “Can you see to Wattie’s arm? Frank brought the kit.”
“Yeah. Let’s—” Sel began.
“Shhh, Mr. Martin,” Wattie interrupted, not loud but very firm. Wattie could speak Unbrookable Mother even at low volume. It was a nice trick. “Wait just a minute. If she hears you, sees you, it might set her off again.”
I was whispering to Birchie, walking her away, “Do you want your nap? Do you want to come lie down with me? We’ll go upstairs and turn the ceiling fan on, and you can have a nice rest in the cool.”
“That sounds lovely, sugar,” Birchie said.
We made our slow and careful way up the stairs, to Birchie’s room, and I closed the door. I moved the shams and peeled the covers down. My adrenaline had faded, and every single piece of me felt like sea glass, sanded away and worn. Even Digby, making little turns deep inside me, felt smooth-edged and slow.
Birchie sat yawning on the edge of the bed, and I brushed her tumbled hair out gently and then braided it for her. She was as placid as a sleepy child. By the time I had her tucked in, the lamps off, and the ceiling fan going in a lazy whirl, her eyelids were heavy from exhaustion and the Valium.
I kicked my own shoes off and lay down beside her on top of the covers. I was exhausted. I’d been up all night, chasing Lavender, calling Batman, fretting, but there was no way I would fall asleep. I was too anxious. Wattie was hurt—worse, Birchie had hurt her. Frank’s news must be very bad, to set her off like that. Had Tackrey gotten the court order? I needed to get back downstairs and find out. Not to mention I’d abandoned Batman. Wattie would want to take his measure, plus Rachel could come back any second. I couldn’t leave him unsupervised and unprotected with those two women. Even so, I wanted the Valium to take full effect before I left my grandmother. I waited quietly, gently rubbing her back until her breathing eased and became regular.
I thought, I’d better wait another minute, be sure she’s . . . and that was the last thing I remembered thinking.
21
When I woke up, the room was nearly dark. Evening sunshine glowed faint orange at the edges of the damask drapes. Birchie was gone from the bed. I got up and went to the top of the stairs. I wanted to go straight down to find out exactly how bad Frank’s news had been, but I heard Batman’s voice in the hum of conversation in the parlor.
That made me pause and then go back up the hall, into the guest bathroom. I didn’t want to talk to Batman while my teeth had this post-nap hairy feeling. I’d moved my toothbrush and other toiletries to the downstairs bathroom, though. I thought about stealth-using Rachel’s, but if she ever found out, it would put her directly into therapy. I used one of her flossers and gargled a shot of her Listerine instead. My eyes looked tired and puffy, but it felt too obvious and girly to stand here primping, borrowing her tinted moisturizer and brown mascara and lip gloss like a belle whose beau had come a-courting. I compromised by stealing a dab of her million-dollar eye cream and running her brush through my tangled hair.
Downstairs, empty cake plates dotted the side tables; I’d slept all the way through supper. Birchie and Wattie sat side by side on one of the love seats. Wattie had a fresh white bandage on her arm. Lavender sat close to Batman on the other seat, proud again, almost proprietary, which made me suspect that the afternoon had gone well. She was repleased with herself for finding him, stutter and all.
Jake and Rachel, clearly not love-seat material, had taken the chairs facing the fireplace. There was a good two feet of cool air between them. Still, they were both in the same room with their daughter. Until I’d stepped in all entitled and unasked, they’d had a buffer zone of four full states. It felt like I’d won a prize for jackassery and given it to Lavender. When I looked at Jake, I felt oddly proud and almost proprietary right back. It was a bizarre thing to feel about Jake Jacoby, of all people.