The Bookstore Sisters(5)

“Fine,” Isabel said—that was just as well with her. “Don’t expect me to like you either.”

Once they reached Shore Road, Isabel unclasped Hank’s leash. And after one wild foray into the marsh, where he frightened the geese into taking to the air, honking and squawking, he returned to follow Violet, who appeared to pay him no attention, although she petted his head once or twice.

“My mother’s been in the hospital in Portland,” Violet told Isabel. “She fell down the stairs and broke her leg and had to have surgery, and she can’t walk for six more weeks, and so she can’t run the shop.”

“I don’t care about the shop,” Isabel said, but she was shocked to hear the news about her sister. “How is her leg?”

“She’s improving, but we’ve been closed for a month.” Violet threw Isabel a look of contempt. “That’s why I wrote to you. I thought you owed her something. I hope you can cook, because I can’t. And there’s a week’s worth of laundry. My mother always did all of that, but I guess you knew that. She told me she did that for you, too, when you didn’t have a mother.”

Isabel felt her heart beating too fast, but Violet didn’t stop charging forward, and Isabel had no choice but to hurry to catch up with her, dragging along her suitcase and the ridiculously large bag of dog food. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” she said.

“You should have known, but I can already tell you don’t care about those sorts of things.”

“What sorts of things?” They were passing by the landscape Isabel had painted time and time again in New York City. The marsh was so green and familiar it made her feel like crying, something she hadn’t done for years.

“Things like family and loyalty,” Violet said. “You’re probably dishonest as well.”

“You’re pretty rude,” Isabel said. “Maybe you inherited that from me.”

“I doubt it,” Violet said. “I’m nothing like you.”

They went on in silence along the marsh. Isabel remembered walking along this road with her mother and sister, looking for sea lavender to twist into wreaths. She remembered climbing a tree with Sophie in a hidden grove in the marsh so they could sit in a heron’s nest and pretend they were birds. This place is secret, Sophie had told Isabel. You can only show it to someone you love.

At last, they reached Main Street, passing the post office and the market and the Cricket Shop, which sold clothes that were only slightly out of fashion, finally turning the corner onto Center Street, and there was the bookstore. The front door was still blue, and the roses that had no name still bloomed in early June. All the same, the bookstore beside the cottage looked dark and haunted. The curtains were drawn, and flies were caught behind the screens. They went into the cottage, with Hank running on ahead, plowing through the door and racing into the parlor. The house was definitely smaller than Isabel had remembered.

“What on earth is going on?” she heard her sister shout, and then there was a peal of laughter when Hank raced ahead of them. By the time Isabel and Violet entered the room, Hank was sitting on the couch beside Sophie. She was delighted with him, even though her leg was in a huge cast, her foot propped up on a stool.

“Where did you find this beast?” Sophie said warmly as she scratched the dog’s head. When she glanced up and saw Isabel, she stopped talking.

“Are you calling me a beast?” Isabel joked, but the joke fell flat.

“She’s come to help,” Violet explained.

“She would never come and help,” Sophie said.

“Well, I wrote to her,” Violet said. “And now she’s here.”

“You should never have done that,” Sophie told her daughter. “You know we don’t speak.”

They were talking about Isabel as if she weren’t even in the room, and Isabel supposed she deserved that. She’d been something of a ghost all these years, so she couldn’t quite expect to be treated like a person.

Sophie was still beautiful, but she was wearing a gray nightgown Isabel thought she recognized from their youth, and she seemed twenty pounds lighter, so thin her eyes appeared even larger and darker than usual. “I hate to tell you this,” Sophie said to her daughter, “but you can’t make things that have gone wrong right again.”

“Actually, that’s not true,” Violet contradicted. “If you couldn’t, then nobody would go to a doctor or have surgery, and you’ve done so, and you’ll be right again in six weeks.” Violet looked back and forth at the way the sisters were staring at each other, as if they were strangers. “I see,” Violet said, now understanding her mother’s meaning. “You mean Isabel can’t be made right again.”

It was bad enough to be judged by one person, and somewhat overwhelming to be judged by two, especially when one wasn’t much more than eleven.

“I guess you were a lousy sister,” Violet said. “I’m a lousy person, but I’m a great daughter.”

Sophie grinned, and anyone could see who the light of her life was. “You are not lousy at anything.”

“Isabel is staying,” Violet said. “Lousy or not, we need her.”

“I’ll sleep in my old room,” Isabel suggested. She had the rising desire to prove her niece wrong.