hug me, she shook her head. It was her way of reminding me that we were too unalike to be sisters. The years between us had sifted out most of our resemblances. Who illustrated better how two siblings could grow up in the same home, the same family, and yet be so different?
“Hi,” I said. I was afraid to hug her.
She nodded and took my suitcase, as if she thought I was too weak and fragile.
“I can carry it,” I said.
She looked at it in her hands. “This is the one you took when you left.”
“Yes.”
“I promised Mummy I would not ask you mean questions. She wants your visit to go well. It is just a visit, isn’t it? You’re going back to that… place?”
“Yes,” I said. “That place: America.”
“All right,” she said when we got into her car. “I won’t ask questions. You just tell me what you want me to know.”
I never stopped talking during the whole trip, describing everything I could remember, anyone I could remember, from the first day I had arrived in New York. I even told her about Lila Lester, the woman on the plane who worked for a perfume company and gave me a ride to my apartment from the airport.
Sometime on our ride home, I realized she was finding everything I said more fascinating than she wanted. Occasionally, when I described something like my audition at a club or dealing with customers at the Last Diner, she looked at me with what I thought was more envy than disgust. Perhaps because I wanted it to be true, I told myself she was impressed with her younger sister after all. I had done things she could never imagine herself doing.
“You really wanted this career in show business,” she concluded after hearing why I became a surrogate mother.
“Still do. Maybe more than ever.”
When our house came into view, I felt my body tighten and my heart beat faster. The sight of our front door, the memory of when I walked out to the waiting taxi, and my father’s final look of rage all came rushing back.
Julia realized something wasn’t right with me. “Are you all right?”
I nodded because I was afraid to speak. He would burn my letters at the door.
We got out and approached it slowly. Whatever anger Julia had dressed herself in, especially for our confronting each other, dissipated. She looked like she was going to cry for me. She unexpectedly took my hand, and we entered the house. Mummy was waiting in the living room. She looked up at me, and without either of us saying a word, we hugged and began to cry. I thought we’d never stop.
Later, she mentioned how much weight I had gained. I think she was referring mainly to my swollen breasts, but I imagined my face was still fuller. When we had something to eat, I told her some of what I had told Julia on the way home. She listened, looking amazed most of the time. We spoke about everything we could to avoid speaking about my father, but it eventually came to that, to the day he died, to the funeral and after. Julia said she would take me to the cemetery the next day. Mummy thought it best if I went without her.
“You make your own peace in this world,” she said.
There was no doubt in my mind that she had aged years since I had left, probably mostly because of my father’s death. She reminded me of Elizabeth Davenport in that way, but in nothing else. I thought Mummy’s sorrow was more honest and certainly less about herself.
Once, when I was explaining to Leo Abbot why I didn’t want to go home, I referred to Thomas Wolfe’s novel You Can’t Go Home Again. It came to mind when I ventured out of the house and walked the streets I had walked as a child. I found myself wanting to avoid anyone I knew. Besides the questions I wouldn’t answer, I feared the looks of disdain and disapproval. I never thought my hometown would become so forbidding. When I rushed back to the house, I did what I had promised, did it for myself as well, and called Samantha. I could hear how happy she was that I did call. She was crying. She talked about things Ryder had done, his smiles and gestures, and swore to me that he missed me.
“He’s not pleased with his bottle,” she said, and then, practically