Sisterhood Everlasting - Ann Brashares [81]
Her bapi had died long ago. Most of his stuff had been cleaned out and given away years before. But when she wandered into his closet she found a pair of silver cuff links in the shape of lions in the back of a drawer. She also saw, still pinned to the wall, two small drawings she had made that first summer, one of a church in the village and another of the fishing boats in Ammoudi. She remembered showing them to Bapi when she’d first made them, and his wordless appreciation. She’d left them in her room when she’d gone back to the States. It felt self-important or presumptuous of her to have given them to him, but she was moved that he had liked them enough to keep them and hang them in his closet. She was moved at the idea that he would have looked at them and thought of her when she wasn’t there.
She sat on the windowsill of her bedroom and looked out at the sparkling blue water of the Caldera. The lost city of Atlantis was supposed to be under there. She imagined Tibby under there. She imagined the Traveling Pants under there. She imagined the ring that Kostos had bought for her when he still thought he loved her under there.
Her vision of the world under the water represented a beautiful stillness, a version of heaven. It was the lost city of Lena, her alternate universe, the life she yearned for but didn’t get to have.
Later in the week, after a few morning hours in the creek, Bridget and Bailey found a bunch of wooden boards in the shed and tried to construct a tree house in a bush. After an hour it collapsed, which seemed to both of them much more entertaining than its staying intact. They built it again and again, shoddier each time, and laughed when it fell down.
That same evening, Brian worked late, and after dinner Bridget and Bailey went out to the back steps to watch the last of the sun fading away and the sky turning dark. They saw two bats, and then in the gloaming, the first zap of a firefly. Bridget shouted like a two-year-old and pointed. “Lightning bug! Did you see it? The light flash in the air?”
Bailey watched the air with suspicion and interest. Bridget could see her trying the words out in her mouth before she said them aloud. Even at this tiny age she was like her mother in not wanting to get out in front of something before she had a feel for it.
“Let’s get a jar and we’ll catch one,” Bridget said excitedly. She ran into the kitchen with Bailey following. She found a glass jar on a high shelf. Bailey watched in wonder as she jammed a few holes in the lid with the point of a sharp knife. Bridget vaguely wondered how many decent knives she’d ruined over the years in this enterprise.
Bailey followed her back out to the yard. Standing on the grass in the falling dark, Bailey looked tentative. Bridget wondered if she’d been outside at night much.
“Let’s pick a few blades of grass and put them in the jar to make it a nice home for when we catch one,” she said ambitiously. “Here, like this.” She plucked a blade of grass, unscrewed the lid, and put it in the jar.
This Bailey could do. She leaned down and plucked the blades one at a time and carefully put each one in the jar. It was hard to get her to stop.
“I see one,” Bridget said. “Look.” She pointed there and there and there. Bailey stood frozen in her white pajamas and bare feet in the middle of the grass. Her eyes were large and attentive.
“Watch this,” Bridget said, putting the jar down. She chased a bug and grabbed it out of the air with cupped hands. She brought it back to Bailey, kneeled down, and opened her hands slowly. Bailey was eager to see but didn’t want to get too close. “See it?” Bridget said when the bug’s posterior lit up.
“See it,” Bailey said, awed.
Bridget let it go and Bailey followed it with her eyes. Then Bailey started jumping around. “Catch! Catch!” she yelled.
Bridget ran around the lawn. Bailey ran around too, but in aimless excitement. “Got it!” Bridget cried when she caught another one.
Bailey rushed over. This time she peered down very close