Leaning over, Mary brought the water to her face with her hands, rubbing off the dirt, rubbing off the ten or so days it had been since she last had a bath. She tasted the salt of her skin in the water, felt her sweat-starched hairline.
After the girls were out, they put on the cleanest clothes they could find in their bags. Then Hannah lay on the bed watching cartoons, the water from her damp hair seeping into the white pillowcase. Mary pulled out the newspaper with the ads that she had circled and began making phone calls. Hello, I’m interested in the apartment I saw listed in the Observer. Sometimes they would ask where she was employed. One landlord asked her if she was married. Mary always had an answer. I’m a student at the university. My fiancé is in the service.
Finally, she put the phone down. “We’ve got some good places to look at tomorrow,” she said, as she pulled her own damp hair into a ponytail. Then she slid in bed next to Hannah, and Hannah tossed her skinny legs over one of Mary’s thighs.
Mary smoothed back her sister’s hair, which was curling as it dried. “Do you want me to tell you a story?” asked Mary.
“Yeah,” said Hannah, turning away from the TV.
Mary stood and pressed the button to turn it off, then got back into bed with Hannah, their cheeks resting on the same pillow as they faced each other. And Mary told Hannah a story about the princesses who boarded a white ship and set sail over a silver sparkling sea to the green isles. But when they had almost reached their destination, a great tentacle burst out of the water.
“At first, the princesses didn’t know what it was. They heard only the rush of water. Then they saw it, rising up, its slick skin shining in the moonlight. But then it turned to the princesses, and it looked to them like a thousand eyes.”
“Oh, my gosh,” said Hannah, the covers drawn up to her chin, her words a gasp.
“And then as fast as the strike of a snake, it lunged for Princess Hannah,” said Mary, her words building momentum. “But Princess Mary grabbed Hannah and pulled her out of the way, and the girls raced below deck, the tentacle following them. Princess Mary beat it back with her fists, and Princess Hannah used an old candlestick as they fought to get the hatch closed. And when at last they turned the lock, they fell to the ship’s damp floor, their hearts pounding.”
“Did it come back?” asked Hannah.
“I don’t know,” said Mary, as her eyebrows darted up. “We’re going to have to find out.” Then she kissed Hannah’s forehead. “But it didn’t come back that night.”
The girls slept beside each other while the second bed lay empty. They were unaccustomed to space, unaccustomed to distance from each other’s breath. Hannah fell asleep first, as usual. As Hannah lay with her jaw slack and her mouth open, Mary thought. She thought about a white boat on silver water and a night long ago. She thought about the stone house on Northton Avenue and its wide green lawn. She thought about the people who lived there and who they were. And she thought about how she would cross a vast sea to get inside.
Ten
1982
The windows of the day care that Hannah attended after school were obscured by snowflake chains and construction-paper Santas. But as Mary walked quickly up the concrete path in the cold early-evening dark, she could see her sister at a table drawing by herself as the single worker who was left busied herself with straightening and cleaning and preparing to close. It had been several months since the Chase girls had arrived in Northton, and they had settled into what many would call a life.
Mary paused outside the day care and watched her sister in the illuminated room, which was supposed to be bright and cheery but always struck Mary as the type of place that no one would be if they really had a choice, like a nursing home. Like an institution. Mary saw Hannah’s gaze turn her way as if sensing her presence, so Mary waved, then took a few brisk steps before reaching the glass front door. She pushed it open, and with a screech of chair on tile, Hannah rushed to her, wrapping her arms around Mary’s legs and pressing her face into her thighs. They stood there for a moment, their breath rising and falling in unison. “Hey, Bunny,” Mary said, rubbing the back of Hannah’s head. “How was school?”
Hannah leaned her head back and looked up at her sister, her expression full of mischief and news. “Guess who came to our class?”
“Who?”
“Santa.”
“Santa?” asked Mary. Hannah’s teacher had sent a note home saying that the class would be receiving a special visitor the day before Christmas vacation; Mary had assumed that one of the parents had volunteered to dress up.
Hannah nodded. “Uh-huh,” she said. “He came and we all got to tell him what we wanted for Christmas.”
“What did you ask for?”
“A horse,” she said. “But don’t worry. Mrs. Murphy already told me that Santa doesn’t bring horses.” Hannah’s voice was light and unperturbed, but Mary felt herself tense. Mary didn’t like Mrs. Murphy. She didn’t like her imperious air. She didn’t like that she had called her in soon after Hannah had begun kindergarten to talk about what she referred to as “Hannah’s lack of social skills.”
“She hardly knows how to play with the other children,” Mrs. Murphy had said, her shoulders back, her torso resting atop her round bottom. “And her lisp just makes matters worse.”
Mary looked at her with cold steady eyes. She had known that Hannah was having trouble with some of the other little girls in the class. “Her lisp?” she said.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Murphy. “She has a defect in the pronunciation of the s and z—”
“I know what a lisp is,” interrupted Mary. Mrs. Murphy bristled, but Mary continued to stare, her black hair falling past her shoulders, her eyes flashing yellow.
After that meeting, while the Chase girls were taking their evening bath, Mary leaned back against the tub in their apartment’s tiny bathroom and tilted her head, watching her sister as she dunked an old Barbie under the water. Hannah looked up at Mary with her wide earnest eyes. “She’s a really good swimmer,” Hannah said.
“Bunny,” Mary had said. “You’re going to start getting some extra help at school. With saying certain sounds.”
Hannah’s face became still and suspicious. “What sounds?”
And so twice a week, instead of going to recess, Hannah was taken to the speech therapist’s office where she practiced her sibilant s’s. And though the instruction was helping, Mary hated Mrs. Murphy for hearing Hannah’s lisp. For hearing it when she didn’t.
Mary pulled Hannah’s project from her cubby. “Don’t listen to Mrs. Murphy,” said Mary. “Santa may not be able to bring you a horse this year, but I bet you’ll get one someday.”
“Either a horse or a cat,” said Hannah.
Mary smiled. “A horse or a cat,” she repeated.