The Weird Sisters - Eleanor Brown [131]
“Well then, to work?” our father asked, emerging from the kitchen. He was in uniform—short-sleeved shirt, tie, shapeless gray slacks. This is what he had worn for time immemorial, whether he was going to the office or not, and this is what he would wear until the end of days.
“I’m going by the post office first,” Bean said.
“I’ll walk with you,” our father said. “Just a moment.”
Bean sighed, the letter weighing even heavier in her purse. Just a letter to some friends in the city. Just a note to say hello, don’t sue me, here’s some money, I’ll get the rest to you as soon as I can. You know, the usual.
She heard his footsteps on the stairs and they headed out the door together, the squeak of the spring on the screen door announcing their departure. Outside, sprinklers hissed in the grass of a neighbor’s yard. She could hear some kids playing baseball, the crack of a bat and the shouts as they ran. Woven through it all, the hum of the insects and the peaceful morning greetings of the birds. The sounds of home.
“I hear you’re considering taking over for Mrs. Landrige,” our father said, without preamble. He slipped his hands in his pockets, his steps slow and measured beside hers. Had he always moved so slowly, or was this the evolution of age? The sixth age shifts into the lean and slippered pantaloon, with spectacles on nose and pouch on side . . .
“Considering it,” Bean said. “I’d have to go back to school.”
He nodded. “Not so difficult.” Though the streets were silent, Bean looked left, right, checking for traffic before they crossed the street. She could feel the burgeoning heat of the pavement through the thin soles of her shoes.
“Do you think I should?”
Surprised, our father looked over at her, pulling his gaze away from the ground. “You were always so determined to get out of here,” he said. “I’ll admit to wondering why you came back.” He raised a hand, greeting Mrs. Wallace, who was out front gardening. She nodded back, dug her trowel into the ground, loosened a clump of wide-mouthed petunias.
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” she said. “I just . . . It wasn’t right for me anymore.”
“The lottery of my destiny bars me the right of voluntary choosing,” he said. “Portia.”
Sometimes we had the overwhelming urge to grab our father by the shoulders and shake him until the meaning of his obtuse quotations fell from his mouth like loosened teeth.
“Mmm,” she said instead.
“Having you home would be nice,” he said. “Not that you need to stay with us permanently, though it has been tremendously helpful having you girls here right now. And to become a librarian! Not what we might have expected, but that may be better. A good, steady occupation. Knowing I loved my books, he furnish’d me from mine own library with volumes . . .”
“. . . that I prize above my dukedom,” Bean finished with him.
He smiled at that. “Tempest was always one of your favorites.”
“The lost island. Like Swiss Family Robinson.”
“You’ve always been so good with people, Bianca. This might be an opportunity for you. Though I fear you will find the social life of Barnwell . . . lacking.”
“I suppose I’m too old to date those handsome college boys,” she mused. They turned onto Main, strolled past the Beanery. Inside, Bean could see Cordy’s braid bouncing as she worked behind the counter. Something inside her withered. Is this what we’d become? We’d inherited our father’s genius to squander it on food service and academic peripateticism and librarianship? Life wasn’t supposed to be like this. Life was supposed to be martinis and slick advertising campaigns in slick offices with slick men by her side. Not stupid, frumpy Barnwell and its narrow alley of possibilities.
“Have you talked to Father Aidan?” he asked. She clenched her teeth. Had he heard? Aidan wouldn’t have said anything, would he?
“Sure,” she said, coolly. “We’ve hung out a few times.”
“No, I mean as a priest.”
Bean paused to look in the window of the hardware store. Long