Practical Magic - Alice Hoffman [73]
In the days that follow, Kylie and Antonia laugh when they meet accidentally, in the hallway or in the kitchen. Neither hogs the bathroom or calls the other names. Every evening after supper, Kylie and Antonia clear the table and wash the dishes together, side by side, without even being asked. On nights when the girls are both at home, Sally can hear them talking to each other. Whenever they think someone might be listening, they stop speaking all at once, and yet it still seems as though they are communicating with each other. Late at night Sally could swear that they tap out secrets on their bedroom walls in Morse code.
“What do you think is going on?” Sally asks Gillian.
“Something weird,” Gillian says.
Just that morning, Gillian noticed that Kylie was wearing one of Antonia’s black T-shirts. “If she catches you wearing that, she’ll tear it right off your back,” Gillian informed Kylie.
“I don’t think so.” Kylie shrugged. “She’s got too many black shirts. And anyway, she gave this one to me.”
“What do you mean by weird?” Sally asks Gillian. She was up half the night making lists of what could be affecting the girls. Cults, sex, criminal activity, a pregnancy scare—she’s been through every possibility in the past few hours.
“Maybe it’s nothing,” Gillian says, not wanting Sally to worry. “Maybe they’re just growing up.”
“What?” Sally says. Just the suggestion makes her feel skittish and upsets her in a way pregnancies and cults simply can’t. This is the possibility she’s avoided considering. She cannot believe Gillian’s talent for always saying the exact wrong thing. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? They’re kids.”
“They’ve got to grow up, eventually,” Gillian says, stumbling in deeper. “Before you know it, they’ll be out of here.”
“Well, thanks for your expert parenting advice.”
Gillian doesn’t catch the sarcasm; now that she’s begun, she has another recommendation for her sister. “You need to stop focusing so much on being just a mom, before you shrivel into dust and we have to sweep you up with a broom. You should start to date. What’s holding you back? Your kids are going out—why not you?”
“Any more words of wisdom?” Sally is such pure ice even Gillian can’t fail to notice she’s getting frozen out.
“Not one.” Gillian backs off now. “Not a syllable.”
Gillian has the urge for a cigarette, then realizes she hasn’t had one in nearly two weeks. The funny thing is, she’s stopped trying to quit. It’s looking at all those illustrations of the human body. It’s seeing those drawings of lungs.
“My girls are babies,” Sally says. “For your information.”
She sounds a little hysterical. For the past sixteen years—except for the one year when Michael died and she went so inside herself she couldn’t find her way out—she has been thinking about her children. Occasionally she has thought about snowstorms and the cost of heat and electricity and the fact that she often gets hives when September closes in and she knows she has to go back to work. But mostly she’s been preoccupied with Antonia and Kylie, with fevers and cramps, with new shoes to buy every six months and making sure everyone gets well-balanced meals and at least eight hours of sleep every night. Without such thoughts, she’s not certain she will continue to exist. Without them, what exactly is she left with?
That night Sally goes to bed and sleeps like a stone, and she doesn’t get up in the morning.
“The flu,” Gillian guesses.
From beneath her quilt, Sally can hear Gillian making coffee. She can hear Antonia talking to Scott on the phone, and Kylie running the shower. All that day, Sally stays where she is. She’s waiting for someone