The Weird Sisters - Eleanor Brown [35]
She was nearly to the kitchen, guided by the light our mother always left on over the sink, when she heard the sound of the screen door slapping open, and then the rattle of the doorknob. Her heart pounding again from a shot of adrenaline, Rose leaped inside the kitchen door, peering out at the interloper. Outside, a car gunned its engine and tore into the night, the sounds nearly buried under another clap of thunder.
The light from the lamps at the foot of the front steps illuminated Cordy from behind, transforming her into a shadowy outline smelling of rain and wet grass.
“Hey, Rose,” Cordy said, stepping inside as though it were a perfectly natural thing for her to arrive home at two o’clock in the morning, and just as natural for Rose to be standing by the door to greet her. Last time we had seen Cordy, her hair was black and she wore a pleated school uniform skirt with a slew of rotating band T-shirts. Tonight her hair was back to our deep brown. She wore a white peasant top with puffed short sleeves, spattered with thick raindrops, and a swirling patchwork skirt. She held a battered duffel bag in one hand, a guitar case covered with stickers in the other, a neo-hippie sent from Central Casting.
So there it was. We were all home again, just as Rose had wished. And though she’d regret that wish frequently in the future, at least the house wasn’t so still around her.
Rose sighed.
“Hello, Cordy,” Rose said. Cordy kicked the door shut, mindless of the noise, and dropped her bag and the guitar, kicking off her sandals and then stepping over them to give Rose a hug. Rose embraced our youngest sister. She could feel Cordy’s shoulder blades like wings through the thin, wet cotton of her shirt. The smell of her sweat clung to Rose’s nightgown when she pulled back. “I was just about to get something to eat. Are you hungry?”
“Starving,” Cordy agreed, walking into the kitchen. One of our mother’s perpetual cardigans hung over the back of the closest chair, and Cordy grabbed it, pulling it around her body for warmth. “This rain is crazy. We could hardly see on 301.”
“Who drove you?” Rose asked.
“A friend of mine. Max. He’s on his way to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.” The way she said this made it unclear as to whether she meant Max was headed to Cleveland to visit the Cheopsian building, or if she expected he would be inducted one day. Cordy flung open the refrigerator door, her features thin and drawn in the bluish bright of the light inside. “So I said, you know, my sister’s getting hitched, wanna drive me?”
“The wedding’s not until December,” Rose said, pulling down a glass from one of the cabinets and reaching past Cordy into the refrigerator for the milk carton. “You’re about six months too early.”
Cordy peeled back the foil from a white platter and spied a couple of ears of corn. She picked one up and began to eat it, cold. “Do you want me to heat that up for you?” Rose asked.
“No,” Cordy said. There were bits of corn stuck between her teeth, and a piece on the edge of her mouth, and Rose fought the urge to clean it off for her. “I was kind of tired of traveling, you know, and then Mom and everything. I thought maybe I could help.” She shrugged. “Besides, what the hell do I have to do that’s better?” She laughed, and Rose was struck by how bitter it sounded.
“It’s nice to have you home,” Rose said, after a pause. “Bean’s here, too.”
“Mmm. How’s she?” Cordy asked around a mouthful of corn. She ate around the ear in tiny circles—always had, though the rest of the family ate in long lines.
“Don’t know, really. We haven’t talked much. She looks good. As always.”
“Weird, huh?” Cordy finished the ear of corn and held it delicately between two fingers as she walked it over