The Last Romantics(32)
*
With the cats finally out of the way, we moved our cleaning operation upstairs. We scrubbed and wiped and swept up the cat hair, the droppings, the dust, the worst of the linoleum stains in the bathroom. We threw away the kittens’ newspaper nest. The October sun through clean windows made the bedrooms glow as though a giant candle burned somewhere within the walls.
“I’ll sew some curtains, maybe paint a mural for the girls,” mused Caroline as we stood in a doorway surveying our work. I narrowed my eyes, and yes, I could see it, Caroline’s vision. The forever house.
And then Caroline declared it enough, sufficient for today. She would spend the night at Noni’s, then return tomorrow to oversee the cleaning service she’d decided to hire. They’d descend in the morning with power vacuums and a team of ten. The house wouldn’t be perfect before her family arrived, but it would be clean. It would be enough.
It was late afternoon when we emerged outside again. Sun slanting through orange leaves, a deeper chill in the air.
“Thanks,” Caroline said. “I appreciate you coming, Fiona. And just watch Joe at the party, okay? See what you think. Talk to Renee. I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t need any help. Maybe he’s okay.” Caroline shrugged. “Wait—I haven’t even asked you about work or your poetry or anything.”
“All fine,” I said. I smiled at my sister. “All great.”
Caroline nodded absently. “Good,” she said without looking at me. “And do you need any, you know, money or anything?”
“Funding for the arts?” I said, and shook my head quickly. “Nope. Thanks, Caroline.” I was a socialist at heart and took my siblings’ money as I imagined the executive director of ClimateSenseNow! accepted donations from guilt-ridden corporate CEOs. We all valued the same ideals; we just had different ways of expressing those values. But her assumption that I needed cash, her reluctance at offering it, embarrassed me. I knew that my siblings saw me as irresponsible, but wasn’t I here today, helping her? Didn’t that count for something?
I peered into the back of the car; the cat’s body was splayed, limbs at odd angles, motionless.
“Still out cold,” I said.
“I can’t keep them,” Caroline replied. “You’re right, it’s too much. Let’s do a shelter.”
“Are you sure?”
Caroline nodded. “They won’t die. I’m sure they’ll find nice homes. They look like high-class cats. People are bound to see their potential.”
“I think that’s the best thing,” I said. “There’s a place in Milford. We can make it there before six o’clock.”
Caroline hesitated. “Fiona, can you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Can you take them to the shelter? I can’t. I know I won’t go through with it.”
“How? I don’t have a car. I’d have to leave you here.”
“No. Take them with you to the city. On the train. They’ll be knocked out for a few more hours. I’ll give you money for a cab from the station. You can go straight to a shelter. Okay?”
What Caroline was suggesting struck me as slightly preposterous—me, on a Metro-North commuter train on a weekday afternoon, rush hour, with a box full of kittens and their fat, mean, drugged-out mom—but I didn’t want Caroline to change her mind. My sister needed someone to help her, and that someone was me.
“Okay,” I shrugged. “I’ll do it.”
“And one more thing,” Caroline said with a sly smile. “Will you read me the poem you wrote for Joe and Sandrine?”
“Really?” I said. Earlier in the day, she’d been so dismissive. Plus, as far as I knew, Caroline had never read a poem in her life, let alone one of mine. “Isn’t it late? Don’t you have to get going?”
“No, not yet,” she said. “I can’t come to Joe’s party, you know that. I want to hear it.”
A breeze came up and blew hair around my face. I felt a tremor of self-consciousness and embarrassment, residue of my adolescence and all its awkward wishing. It seemed ridiculous that I would still yearn for my siblings’ approval, but here it was.
“You look amazing,” Caroline said gazing up at me. “Have I told you that? So strong and beautiful. Please read the poem. Honestly. I’d love to hear it.”
“Okay.”
I pulled the scribbled sheet of paper from my purse and stood before Caroline. She sat unsteadily on the front steps of the house, wood creaking as she tried to find a comfortable spot. Here was her family’s new home: its sweeping wide porch, the delicate molding on the railings, the paint flaking but the exact shade of purple found on the inside lip of a seashell. The peaked roof of the tower, its shingles shaped like half-moons, pierced the blue sky.
“Caroline, it does look like a castle,” I said. “Really.”
She stopped her fidgeting. “I’m ready. Read to me.”
“This is called ‘He and She,’” I began.
While I read the poem, a crow squawked only once and the wind quieted down so that Caroline heard every word. At the end my sister clapped wildly and said, “It’s wonderful, Fiona. Joe will love it.”
Chapter 6