Emily sat in front, and Jess struggled to unstrap and move two child-safety seats, so she could squeeze in back. The car was overheated, and the windows were locked. She rested her forehead on the glass and stared out at the crumbling brick buildings advertising steakhouses and bars in chipped paint. Growing up, she hadn’t noticed how old and dirty everything looked, but she saw it now. The decrepitude back east!
“Why is there so much traffic?” Jess asked. “Is it the Big Dig?”
“The traffic is entirely random,” Richard replied. Tall, gray-haired, clean-shaven, he had a quiet face, a recessive chin, eyes the color of a cloudy sky. He had attended MIT for college and for graduate school, and stayed to teach. On his right hand he wore an MIT insignia ring engraved with a beaver symbolizing industry. “Dad!” Jess burst out once when she was in high school and Richard had told her the drama club was a total waste of time, “of course you think that. You wear a brass rat.”
But Richard wore his ring with pride. He considered MIT one of the great places on earth, and he was immensely proud that Emily had attended. As for Jess—what fights they’d had. Richard insisting Jess apply, even though she had no chance, and no interest. Bad enough that he’d forced her to take AP Calculus. That had been humiliating, but her MIT interview had been a joke.
“So,” said the kindly Institute alumnus who had volunteered to meet with Jess. “When you were a kid, did you ever blow up chemistry experiments in the basement?”
“No,” Jess answered truthfully.
“Chart clouds in the skies?”
“No.”
“Take apart the family computer?”
“Never once,” said Jess.
Her father used to storm at her, “You have a perfectly good aptitude for math, but you won’t apply yourself.”
“I’m not good at it!” she’d insisted.
“You’re not interested,” he’d shot back.
“That too!”
This was after Emily left home, and before Heidi. Sweet-natured and playful when Jess was younger, Richard became a fretful, controlling single parent. Outgoing and confident as a little girl, Jess took to her room to read Yeats and count the days until her high-school graduation. Looking back, she realized that Richard had been counting too. They had both been waiting. For what? For life, for love, for liberty. They’d lived for the future and dreaded it as well, and when they’d battled, they’d fought desperately because they only had each other. They’d known they were the last members of their family.
“What’s new?” Emily asked her father.
“Nothing as exciting as your news,” Richard said. “I had a grant rejected. Mrs. Weldon died. Her place is on the market.”
“The house behind you?” asked Emily.
“It’s a double lot. A developer is looking at it.”
“Is that bad?” Jess piped up from the backseat.
“It’s bad if they build five houses and start a subdivision. There’s supposedly a nonprofit looking at the place as well, to start a religious child-care center.”
“You could send the girls,” Jess said.
Richard didn’t answer. He hated anything religious, particularly involving children. A single bumper sticker adorned his car: WHAT SCHOOLS NEED IS A MOMENT OF SCIENCE.
“Just kidding,” Jess said
It took almost an hour to reach downtown Canaan, which consisted of a real-estate agency, an ice-cream shop, a dry cleaner’s, and a traffic light. South of Main Street, Canaan’s winding roads and cul-de-sacs were named for Emerson, Alcott, Thoreau. North of Main, Richard’s Colonial stood on Highland. The land here did rise slightly, and for this reason Richard rarely had to use the sump pump in the basement. He had done his homework, and he knew to avoid low-lying Hawthorne, Peabody, and especially Alcott. The town’s Transcendentalists traversed a floodplain.
Heidi welcomed the travelers with her finger to her lips, and Jess and Emily tiptoed inside, trying not to slam the screen door and wake the girls.
“Come into the kitchen,” Heidi whispered. Meticulous, earnest, Heidi had cut her hair to shoulder length and donned large eyeglasses. There was a solidity about her now that she’d become a mother. She wore black jeans and talked about language acquisition. She collected the children’s finger paintings in large artist portfolios.
It went without saying (they never said it) that Heidi was accomplished. Her work in databases was “very interesting” according to Richard, and he would know. Heidi had been his graduate student. There was external evidence as well. Heidi taught at Brown. Her position there had prompted the move to Canaan, halfway between Cambridge and Providence.
“How was your flight?” Heidi asked.
“Fine,” said Emily.
“Awful,” said Jess.
“She’s sick,” Emily explained.
Jess thought she caught the aggravation in Heidi’s eyes—Oh, great, now we’ll all catch this bug—before the concerned questions, “Would you like a cup of tea? Do you need cold medicine?”
Richard carried in a load of bags. “You left the car door open,” he told Jess.
“I did not. I closed my door.” Already, Jess had reverted to her sixteen-year-old self. Amazing.
“Only you were sitting in the backseat,” Richard corrected her. “Therefore you left the door open.”
“Richard,” said Heidi. “What’s the difference? It’s a door. It doesn’t matter.”
Late that night Emily lay awake in the guest room. She hadn’t seen Jonathan in almost three weeks, and while everyone agreed that she should visit Canaan first, the last night apart was almost unbearable. She could not stop thinking about being with him again. She imagined his hands on her shoulders. “Look how tight you got.” He would rub until she relaxed, until her whole body relaxed into his arms. They would kiss playfully at first….
“Emily, are you asleep?” Jess whispered from the other bed.
“Almost.”
“Why is it so cold in here?”
“It’s not cold at all. It’s so warm. It’s stuffy.”
“I’m shivering,” said Jess.
Emily kicked off her covers and got out of bed. “You must have a fever.” She felt Jess’s forehead. “You’re burning! Where do you think Dad keeps the thermometer?”
“It’s just a cold,” Jess said.
“Wait a second.” Emily padded out to the bathroom and returned with medicine and water. “Take these.” Jess struggled up in bed to swallow the pills. “Okay, now rest.” Emily tucked the blankets around her and sat on the edge of the bed.
Their mother had told Emily quite seriously to watch her sister. She had told Emily in the hospital. Jess wasn’t allowed in the room at that point, and Emily was only just old enough. “Look after her,” Gillian said. “Do not let her jump in the street. You have to watch her. She doesn’t pay attention. And remember she can’t swim yet, even though she thinks she can. Remind your father about lessons.”
“I’m fine,” Jess said drowsily. “Go back to bed.”
“I will,” said Emily, but she stayed. Long after Jess drifted off, Emily sat up thinking on her sister’s bed. What would her mother say now, if she had lived to see this year? This wonderful year. I have embarked, she told her mother softly. I have embarked on my career. I have someone, she told her mother. I’m in love with Jonathan. And she wished for some sign that Gillian was listening. She longed for some sense, even the faintest echo, of her mother in the house. But there were no photographs of Gillian on the walls and none of her possessions in the closets. Richard had sold Gillian’s piano. He’d offered to ship it out to California, but neither Jess nor Emily played. Emily had quit her lessons at “Streets of Laredo” and Jess only got as far as “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic.” They had Gillian’s jewelry, but she hadn’t collected much. She had never liked necklaces or earrings. In fact, she’d never pierced her ears. She’d preferred a rosebush or two for her birthday, or a standing mixer.