The Weird Sisters - Eleanor Brown [72]
Impatient, she called again, but it wasn’t even five minutes later and there was still no answer.
More irritated than deflated, Rose checked in on our mother, who was sleeping, and our father, who was working in his study and didn’t even hear her greeting. Cordy was at work, and Bean was out looking for a job again. What was the use of having wonderful news if there was no one to tell it to?
She reached for the phone to call Jonathan again, and then dropped her hand to her side. And then she realized, what if he wasn’t excited for her?
Odds were that he wouldn’t be. He’d said the first time they met that he was a wanderer, and he’d proven that by wandering off when the first opportunity presented itself. And Rose wasn’t a wanderer at all. Jonathan probably would be better off with someone like Cordy, whose feet tapped impatiently when she was in any place for more than a week, it seemed.
This thought made her irrationally jealous, and she nearly laughed at herself.
She’d just have to make him see how perfect it was. Explain it carefully, show him how much sense it made to settle down here when his time at Oxford was done. How important it was that they be close to our parents, and only a brief plane ride from his. It made such good sense, and Jonathan was so logical. He’d see it her way. Of course he would. He had to.
TWELVE
Sunday morning, thunderheads loomed above, thick and rich with rain. Cordy had been up before us all making pancake batter with blueberries purloined from the neighbor’s bushes, their delicate bodies splitting against the wooden spoon, staining the batter with violent violet. Lately she had been a culinary one-woman band, serving up symphonies of simple, delicious food. Even Bean could not resist, but she limited herself to two pancakes, with only the delicate veil of a sneer touching her lips as she watched Cordy, her arms still stick-thin, but her skin blooming pink again, devour an enormous stack until her chin was sticky with syrup.
Our mother ate with us, though she could barely finish one serving, and mostly drank water, complaining of heartburn. After breakfast, without discussion we changed and headed to church together, as we had done every Sunday morning of our childhood. Whenever we came home, our parents just assumed we would join them at church, probably assumed that we were all going regularly even when we weren’t at home. And because it was important to them, because though their faith never came out in bombast or brimstone, it was just as much a part of who they were as the books they read, we always agreed.
Our father and our mother went in the car—she was still too weak to walk even as far as St. Mark’s—but the three of us headed down the path we’d walked a million times, the trail that curved through the silent woods behind the church and spilled out again between the houses of our street. When the path narrowed, we walked in a line, Rose at the head, small puffs of dust bursting from her heels each time she put one comfortable sandal in front of the other. Bean followed behind, her cardigan, ready to preserve the modesty of her haltered vintage dress, swinging from the tips of her fingers, the skirt brushing against her knees. And last, of course, came Cordy, humming to herself and dragging a stick along the bushes lining the inside of the path.
“Who owns this?” Cordy asked, her voice breaking the still of the air.
“The town,” Rose called over her shoulder. A tiny curl had escaped from her taut bun and bounced cheerfully as she strode. Bean watched our older sister’s clunky steps, her hips wide and heavy, weighing her down, and tightened the muscles in her own