The Sisters spent more days discussing “Sorrel’s Grand Adventure,” as they called it. Everyone weighed in with the pros, no one with a single con. Fiona Hathaway brought over a picture of her brother, Graham, in knickerbockers and a beanie hat, jam on his face and a teddy bear in his hand. “In case you are concerned that he’s a bit grand,” she said. “And to reassure you that he is often silly, in the nicest way.”
Sorrel did not so much make a decision about the trip as get pulled into it by her sisters and friends. Henry Carlyle offered his well-worn Michelin guide to London from 1994, Ben Avellar made Sorrel promise to try eel pie (she would not), Charlotte Mayo gave her a beautiful leather passport case and a packet of wet wipes; Charlotte was a new mother and overly cautious these days. Simon Mayo, who after Patience’s trial found himself unreasonably prone to tears, gave Sorrel a pile of old-fashioned, nearly transparent blue aerograms left over from his postgrad year at Oxford.
“Please keep in touch,” he said with a sniff.
“Oh Simon,” Patience barked. “She’s only going to be gone for a couple of months, and it’s not as if you see each other every day as it is.”
But in a town as small as Granite Point they pretty much did. So now, when all was said and done, and the Sisters were standing together, straight-backed and smelling of cedar closets and lavender, it was a bit of a shock to think that Sorrel would be on her own for the first time, more so as the Sisters leapt into getting her ready for her trip. There was no way around it; Sorrel was flying the nest and as much as her family and friends might wish to keep her close, they also wanted her to find her wings.
LEAVING IS NOT the same as running away, Sorrel thought as she smashed shut the lid of her suitcase. Like her sisters, she was an infrequent traveler so her luggage was not, unlike that of the rest of the world, on wheels. It was, in fact, her mother’s suitcase and was made of leather, worn smooth and shiny not from use but with storage. Sorrel had had a devil of a time finding the thing in the attic and then dragging it down the back stairs and across the hall to her room. She could have asked Patience or Nettie for help, but then she would have had to listen to their opinions again. She realized that a big reason that she had accepted the invitation was that she was tired of being one of three, or just one of the three Sparrow Sisters. Sorrel needed to be herself, just herself, and now she would.
It was the cusp of May, and Sorrel Sparrow had tidied away everything she could at work. The Sparrow Sisters Nursery had suffered that last summer just as much as Patience had. It had taken weeks of cleanup and an awful lot of careful attention for the flowers and fruits, the vegetables and herbs, to recover from the weather and the hurtful feet and hands that had come through tearing and grinding, stomping and ripping until the Nursery looked not so much like a paradise as a dark hell. Now, with the soil steaming in the early morning sunshine, Sorrel moved with the speed of necessity as she set out flats of Shasta daisies, dusted peat moss from the dahlia bulbs before setting them into a bed, mulched the roses and the peonies whose deep red stems were leafing out, their tips hinting at the fat buds to come. The sisters were all gifted gardeners so Sorrel wasn’t terribly worried about her beloved flowers. Patience’s herbs were in fine form, Nettie’s fruits and vegetables were well on their way, and now Sorrel’s blooms would have the best start they could without her capable hands to see them into June. With detailed instructions and many conversations, all that was left was for Sorrel to move forward.
Sorrel’s younger sisters were both in the pleasant middle of relationships that would grow and flourish over time. But that wasn’t what turned Sorrel away from her home. Really, she loved seeing her sisters in love. Their happiness poured a kind of soft golden light over everything they touched, including Sorrel. The way Henry Carlyle and Patience always stood canted toward each other, even as they rose to sing the closing hymn in church on Sundays, made Sorrel smile. And when Nettie put her small hand in Ben Avellar’s great paw, well, that made her laugh with pleasure. Truly, it gave Sorrel some relief to know that her younger sisters were finding their way toward wholeness again. No, Sorrel was not jealous of their newfound happiness. She had always been the sister most capable of taking joy in that of another, of folding that warmth around her like a cloak, snuggling into the feeling that all was well with the people she loved. This place, Granite Point, was graced, that’s what everyone said, and that grace could be found at its most abundant in the Sparrow Sisters Nursery.
Sorrel always thought herself happy in the little village by the sea. She was content among her flowers and specimen trees, the extraordinary roses and lilacs, sweet peas and hydrangeas that bloomed—somehow simultaneously and for months beyond reason—in the Nursery. She found great pleasure in picking the pears, cherries, and apples for Nettie’s tarts, the tender young peas and beans, the lettuce so green it glowed, and the nasturtiums and violas that her sister used in her salads. She was grateful for Patience’s remedies on the rare occasions when she felt ill. But Sorrel’s hands were happiest deep in the soil and curled around the stems of the flowers she grew and arranged. It was said that if Sorrel made your wedding bouquet, the marriage was all but guaranteed happiness. Her overflowing vases at all three churches in town were so fragrant and colorful that congregants often lost interest in the sermons and instead began to dream of their hearts’ desires, of the love they gave away, the moments they treasured most. At the news of her trip, two couples postponed their weddings, and one young family put off a christening so that Sorrel’s flowers could bless the events. As she stood among the chickens listening to their chuckling clucks, she was pressed to imagine a simpler, more solid life. But, after what the girls had begun calling the “darkling summer,” the oldest Sparrow Sister felt the ground had shifted and she was the only one who didn’t have a hand to steady her.
If you had asked Sorrel last spring if she would ever use her long-held, always-current passport to leave Granite Point behind, even temporarily, she might have tried to remember where she’d put the damn thing. But here she was, tucking the frayed lining of her mother’s valise under her clothes, snugging the belt across the trousers and sweaters, wedging her gardening clogs, clapped clean of dirt for once, into the sides of the case. Henry took it downstairs and out to the street before kissing Patience and going back to his patients, and Ben swung it into the truck and covered it with a worn moving blanket. The drive to Boston wasn’t long, and with Patience at the wheel Sorrel was sure to be far too early for her flight. One last glance as the Sisters rounded Calumet Landing, one last breath of sand and sea, and Sorrel was away.