“How long will that take?”
“Based on my calculations, I’ll have a new one by the time I’m forty-seven,” he jokes, and I laugh again. “Just kidding. Not too long, though it’ll pretty much destroy my savings account. And my non-savings account. And the quarters I find in my car seats.” He talks fast, as if he doesn’t like the chance of silence creeping into the conversation.
“Well, um… let me know if there’s anything I can do to help,” I say. “Beyond, you know—the CPR.”
“What if you were to go get lunch with me?”
The door bangs. Anne and Jane stumble in, tripping over their own feet, lips red and dresses short. They’re laughing loudly till they see me waving my arms, trying to make them shut up.
“How would that help?” I ask, distracted as Anne and Jane mouth “Who is it?” almost simultaneously.
“Well, for starters, it would absolve me of the incredible guilt I’m feeling for thanking someone who saved my life over the phone. If I’m not focusing on guilt, I’ll work harder. I’ll make more money. I’ll get a guitar sooner. Doves will fly free, and soldiers will lay down their guns.”
“I don’t know….” I say. Not that I don’t want to see him, actually—I just feel like I’m dealing with enough at the moment, without adding him to the picture.
“It’s the guy! The one she saved!” Jane deduces excitedly.
“Who was that?” Jude asks.
“My sister,” I explain.
“Well, bring her, too, then,” he says, and I cringe. “That way if I turn out to be weird, you have backup.”
“No, that’s not it—”
“Then come on. Lunch. Please? I’ll buy. Well, obviously I’ll buy, since it’s a ‘thanks for saving me’ lunch, but… yeah.”
“There’re two of them.”
“Lunches?”
“Sisters.”
“Bring them both,” Jude suggests. I wish he knew exactly what he was saying. Anne is thrown over the couch, ear pressed as close to the phone as she can get without touching her bare arm to mine. She giggles loudly.
“Okay, right, where and when?” I say, grimacing. I just want to get off the phone.
“Maybe Wednesday? Have you ever been to that Thai place in the Landing?”
“We love it!” Anne says, and Jane laughs as she grabs Diet Cokes from the refrigerator for both of them.
“Okay. Then… Wednesday. One o’clock?”
“We’ll be there. Thanks. Bye,” I say unceremoniously, and hang up while glaring at my sisters.
“Oh, come on, Celia, we were just playing,” Jane says, opening the soda can. She’s drunk, or close to it.
“Besides, that conversation sounds like you didn’t see him today. Where were you?” Anne asks. She’s grinning, but there’s a sharpness to her words.
I shake my head at her. “I was out. Without you.”
“Clearly, but where—”
“I didn’t ask the two of you where you were when you came in,” I point out, rising and pocketing my phone.
“Yeah, but that’s because we were together,” Anne says.
We’re stronger together.
I was strong on my own. For the first time.
“I was out,” I say, and turn away from them. I walk to my tiny bedroom, shut the door briskly—I can practically feel the two of them exchanging irritated looks on the other side. They don’t like this; they don’t like me being away from them, they don’t like me keeping secrets. Who am I to argue? Jane knows my present, Anne knows my future. They know best, not from experience or wisdom, but from power.
We’re stronger together, and no matter what happened today, I’ll be weak if we’re broken apart.
CHAPTER TEN
Lo
My sisters are mostly as I left them—the old ones still staring at nothing, the rest in clusters of three and four by the Glasgow, passing time slowly. Key is with the old ones, staring like they do, even though she is not truly old yet—she just wants to be, desperately. She’s been talking about becoming an angel since the day we met and watches the old ones with reverence, admiration, like they’ve achieved something where she’s failed. Molly is still by herself. It’s not natural for us to be alone before we’re old, I think, before realizing that I’m alone, too. And part of me wants to stay that way, but another part of me longs to join the others…. I’ve already forgotten a few of Naida’s memories, though…. Maybe if I’m alone, I’ll be able to hold on to more of them.
I slink around the ship, settle with my back against the exterior wall. Its name is written above me, almost faded entirely by the water. Glasgow isn’t its full name—there are words that came before it, but all we can read is of Glasgow. I reach up, trace my fingers over the name on the slick wood. Just as I do so, a shadow flickers by me. I turn to see Molly passing, keeping her eyes firmly on her destination. There’s more to Molly’s name, too. I am still my sisters, they are me, but Molly and I are different. We both remember…. Maybe I could talk to her; we could tell each other our memories. Maybe she could help me hold on to mine, and I could help her hold on to hers.
I swim after her, around the hull, into the belly of the ship. I realize where she’s going—one of the back bedrooms. She cuts down a hallway, around an overturned piece of furniture covered in seaweed. Walls, walls everywhere—she passes through a larger room adorned with a chandelier; light fingers its way in from a crack in the ceiling and makes the chandelier’s glass cast tiny rainbows on the floor. I haven’t been this far inside the Glasgow in ages. Molly disappears through a doorway, into the dark. I pause for a moment, follow—
Molly’s face is in front of mine, eyes dark, sharp—I cry out in surprise. She looks less human than before, more like a sea creature whose home I’ve disturbed. She pushes toward me, forcing me to swim backward until my shoulder blades hit the remains of a picture frame on the wall behind me.
I remember… I remember a picture frame, the sort that you put things in. There was a white dress behind it, a baby’s dress. My name was below. No, not my name, Naida’s name. I squint my eyes shut, try to see more of the memory, the lace on the dress’s sleeves, but it’s gone almost immediately. I wish I could reach out for Celia, have her remind me—