The Weird Sisters - Eleanor Brown [16]
Bean ran her own fingers nervously under her chin, which, thankfully, was still firmly hugging her jawline. When had this happened? When had our mother gotten so old? Was it just because she was sick? Or was this happening to all of us, without our noticing?
A rush of fevered guilt swept over her and she gripped the edge of the countertop, willing herself not to faint. There was no use wondering about it—we were all getting old. And while time had been passing her by, Bean had been drowning her youth in a sea of clothes and meaningless men.
“I’m going to change,” she whispered to herself, as if the words had the power to do the hard work for her. Beside her, our mother and Rose chattered away, ignoring her distress. It didn’t matter. Bean had a long road to go before her vow would mean anything anyway. We all did.
Bianca, will you help, please?” our mother asked. She was hunched over, dragging a basket of wet laundry to the back door. The house had a perfectly functional dryer, but our mother insisted, when the weather allowed, on hanging sheets and towels out to dry. We’d put our collective foot down long ago about having our clothes swinging on the line for the neighbors to see, but we hadn’t won the linens battle, so we put up with slightly stiff sheets and towels.
Bean was lying on the couch, her feet hooked along the back, reading a history of World War II with one hand, staining the pages with the juice from the plum she was eating with the other. She’d been home for three days, and had done nothing but sleep and read and eat, and only the fact that our mother didn’t typically keep corn chips and chocolate in the house had kept her from turning her hibernation into a fully bear-like preparation for winter.
“Oh, leave it,” Bean said. She shoved the rest of the plum in her mouth, working the flesh off the pit with her tongue as she got up, wiping her hands on her shorts. “I’ll get it,” she said, mouth full. She was barefoot and bare-legged, her shorts revealing the slight shadow of her last spray tan. There was a dribble of pale juice along the neckline of her tank top.
Our mother pushed open the back door and Bean hoisted the laundry basket up, in one motion stepping out the door and spitting the plum pit toward the garden in a graceful arc.
“Lovely,” our mother said. “Very classy.”
“Hey, maybe you’ll grow a plum bush. Or tree? Do plums grow on trees?”
“Yes, trees. Classy and lacking in horticultural education.”
Bean dropped the basket under the clotheslines, the whites inside jumping and resettling on impact. “I can do this, Mom. You should go inside and rest.”
“All everyone wants me to do is rest,” our mother said. “I feel like I’m on a rest cure in some Victorian novel.” She bent over and shook out a sheet with practiced ease, the damp fabric bursting against the thick air.
“Sorry,” Bean said. “I didn’t know.” She knew she had missed so much of what our mother had been through, that her phone calls hadn’t yielded the entire story, wouldn’t have even if Bean had made them more regularly.
“Get the other end of this, will you?” our mother asked. “It’s not you, Beany, I’m sorry. I do get tired quite a lot, and it’s frustrating not to be able to do all the things I’d like to do.”
“Rose and I can help.” Together Bean and our mother spread the sheet across one line and fastened it with a pair of wooden clothespins.
“You can, but that’s not entirely the point. The point is that I’d like to be doing these things myself, not having you girls do things