Wind Chime Café

by Brittany Sirlin

Lee

The sound was distant, a soft, silvery tinkling that could only be heard inside the house while everyone still slept. When it was this quiet, the melody of the chimes hanging in the trees beyond the pool could make its way into the kitchen.

Lee froze, she closed her eyes to decipher if what she was hearing was in fact the wind chimes her mother had hung years ago or maybe just the echo of memory as she transitioned from dreaming. Her sisters were still slumbering deeply in the three corners of the upstairs hallway while her own bed lay empty in the fourth. At least it was nearing 5am, an acceptable time for the hum of the Keurig. She padded across the beige tiled floor and over to the coffee corner next to the sink where she sifted through different flavored pods.

“Why are you up?” Her dad asked accusatorily at her back, appearing as if from nowhere in the entryway.

She dropped the dark roast pod and placed a hand on her chest.

“Dad!”

“Sorry,” he whispered and walked toward her. It was rare for him to emerge from his bedroom in only boxers and a t-shirt, the primary covering the dark hairs that blanketed his arms and legs. For all of her forty years, she had mostly awakened to her dad already fully clothed in a button-down shirt, slacks, belt, and loafers, leaving a trail of aftershave and spearmint Listerine on her clothes and in her hair before disappearing off to work or to play a round of golf.

He stepped past the kitchen island and wordlessly pulled her into a hug. His embrace was warm, and she pressed her nose into his shoulder. She was happy he hadn’t dressed yet, he still smelled of his closet, of the oversized t-shirts she wore as a nightgown when she was little. He reached above her to retrieve the 12-cup drip pot from the cabinet, eyed her hand still clasping the pod and said, “Might as well with everyone home,” as explanation.

Lee nodded, “Good idea.”

Not that she would ever admit to any idea of his as being a bad one. That fell to—or rather fell haphazardly from—Lauren. Her younger sister always rolled her eyes too quickly and spoke more harshly than intended, something Lee viewed as an overall strength, unless directed at their father.

“What’s first?” Lee asked, collecting her wavy dark blonde hair into a low bun. There was still so much to pack up and divide amongst the four of them, but Lee wasn’t too concerned about the latter. There was only one thing in the house that she wanted.

“Oh, I figure you girls would start in your bedrooms and make your way downstairs. I think Mom and I made a dent in the basement.”

“I’m impressed.”

She had a flash of the basement as it was when they had first moved in. Her parents had allowed her to use the cement floor as a roller rink on her tenth birthday. There was a cool dampness to the open space and the dim lighting and slim windows near the ceiling did little to enhance the slate floor and empty walls. Nothing her mom couldn’t liven up with a disco ball and boom box. Lee’s friends spoke of that party throughout their teens. Even as adults, whenever they came to her parents’ house to visit with their own kids who would tear through the toy filled bins of the now carpeted basement, it wasn’t uncommon for one of them to say, “Remember that time…” And Lee would smile and nod, because yes of course, she remembered when her mom allowed them to skate in the basement, to contact ghosts on the Ouija board in the attic, to do flips off the diving board, have spaghetti fights when dad was working late, or hang wind chimes behind the pool amidst the pear trees and above a single wrought iron table and chair.

A nearly inaudible ting drew Lee’s gaze from her father to the windows that opened up to the backyard and beyond. To their wind chime café.

The floor of Carrie’s bedroom creaked with her waking.

“Guess we’re not the only ones getting an early start,” he said, jerking his head toward the ceiling. Lee’s older sister was conditioned to an ungodly start from her daily morning commute. It took her under an hour from her Westchester suburb to reach the parking garage two blocks from the hospital on the Upper East Side where she worked in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Her dad extracted a third mug from the cabinet, but Lee knew Carrie wouldn’t come downstairs for another hour at least. That first, her sister’s professionally trained voice would power over the running water of her shower, seep through the floors, and reach them in the kitchen—muffled, but pristine still. As if on cue, there was the high-pitched groan of the water tank shifting from cold to hot, followed by a vibrato that matched Fantine’s.

 I dreamed a dream of time gone by...

“She still sounds good.” Dad pressed his lips into a tight, turned down smile of approval. He was generous with the pride he felt for his daughters and Lee was accustomed to the expression on his face, the way his taut mouth made his chin crinkle accentuating a subtle cleft beneath dark stubble.

“The best,” Lee agreed, and meant it.

Singing in the shower had always been a part of Carrie’s morning routine, just as listening to her had been a part of Lee’s—from the ages of ten to sixteen anyhow—back when she would press her ear to the cold tile of their shared bathroom wall and absorb the Broadway tunes. That was before Carrie moved out to attend NYU’s musical theater program where she subsequently switched majors and returned home depleted of energy, and of nutrients, and of song.

Lee had already left for college by then, but she imagined there wasn’t much singing that year. Their youngest two sisters were still living at home at the time since there were only two years between each of the four girls, but they didn’t serve as reliable witnesses to that period of Carrie’s life: Lauren too high to be perceptive, Brooke far too self-conscious to notice anyone else.

Come to think of it, Lee hadn’t had access to Carrie in the intimate way of sharing a bathroom wall since those teenage years. But even fresh out of college, she used to visit Carrie at her first job as a receptionist at a private gym, where she would peer suspiciously at the overzealous trainer who would become her brother-in-law. In their late twenties, she was the one beside Carrie, holding her bloated hand after the birth of her first born. They had always remained close, but the days of being an immediate and convenient touchstone for one another were behind them, frozen within the turquoise speckled tiles of the bathroom.

At least they still had Broadway. Occasionally, the two eldest sisters would meet after Carrie’s shift at the hospital and when Lee could arrange for a babysitter to watch her three kids, assuming her husband wasn’t in Austin, or San Francisco, or potentially Cannes for one tech summit or another. On those nights, they would sit in the darkness of some theater with two double wines in plastic cups, electricity running up and down their arms as they brushed against each other. Then an actress would belt a note neither of them could reach or hold for as long, and they would squeeze each other’s hands as if to say, did you feel that? And yes, they did. They felt it the same way they did when they were little, listening to the soundtrack of The Phantom of the Opera in their father’s car, or the way they did when they were teenagers waiting backstage before Carrie stepped out in leather pedal pushers as Sandy or their mother’s wedding dress as Tzeidle. Mostly though, the moments of music shared between them would always remain here, in this house.

Even now, Lee could still feel the jump in her heart as Carrie’s voice trembled and faded above her head.

Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

A pale orange glow poured in through the windows as the sun reached the tops of the trees that lined the back of the property.

“Remind me,” Lee said. “When’s the final closing?”

She opened the pantry and retrieved the S shaped cookies while she waited for the pot to fill. The dry biscuits weren’t her favorite; they always dissolved too quickly when she dunked them into coffee and left soggy bits at the bottom of her mug, but her mom loved them. Ate one nearly every morning. Or used to. Did she still? The medication always did play tricks on mom’s appetite and certain foods irritated her tongue. Lee remembered this from the first round of chemo twenty-five years ago and was reminded once more when the cancer returned five years ago, and more recently when it refused to stay in its place. But the cookies were bland enough so mom must still be eating them. Right? The not knowing saddened her as she retrieved one from the plastic sleeve.

Dad inspected the empty sink. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.”

“About the closing?”

He nodded, “But I don’t want your sisters to know just yet.”

A door creaked on its hinges above and Dad rearranged his face. The topic temporarily closed.

“We’ll find some time later.”

Footsteps moved across the carpet in small thumps toward the main, spiral staircase.

“Okay,” Lee said with an unconvincing smile. She placed the cookie on a small blue and white dish next to the nearly full pot and left the kitchen, pulled toward the sound of Carrie. Whatever Dad wanted to discuss felt heavy, too serious to take seriously in the way that only Carrie could make feel lighter. Her older sister was good at that, turning a somber situation on its head, finding humor in something that otherwise would have gone unnoticed by Lee and often resulting in cackles between the two of them in the quietest of circumstances. Yes, Carrie would know how to alleviate this day.

The center of the house was awash in rainbows. This had always been her favorite thing…the way the light hit the chandelier and filled the white walls with color. As a little girl, she would pretend to be her favorite child heroine, and turn a crystal in her palm like Pollyanna, controlling the sunbeams that flowed through it.

But Carrie was looking down at the screen in her hands as she descended along the curve of the staircase, oblivious to the miracle surrounding her.

“Hey,” she croaked, her voice raspy from singing, “take a look at this before I buy it. Can’t tell if I love it or not.”

A splash of red and orange fell diagonally across Carrie’s face, transforming the pale blonde of her hair. Lee waited for her to acknowledge the beauty that engulfed them, but Carrie either didn’t notice or didn’t care to.

Carrie

“I’ll send you the link,” Carrie offered, knowing Lee wouldn’t end up buying anything. It always baffled her how such a fashion obsessed teenager could turn into, well, their mother, and not care to invest in clothing anymore. The opposite was true for herself, she had worked far too hard to become this confident and look this good to not invest in her appearance. She wasn’t about to waste years of barre classes and therapy. Plus, she was savvy as hell when it came to finding the best sales.

Carrie sat on the bottom step and beckoned for Lee to do the same. She angled the phone in her direction to get her opinion on a dress that was just out of her usual price range and a couple hundred beyond Lee’s. It’s not like Lee had to send all three of her kids to private school, but that’s the price you pay for sticking it out in Manhattan. The best decision Carrie and her husband ever made was moving to the suburbs when their eldest was one. Sure, they still experienced financial stress. Would they ever not? But soon she and her sisters would all get their share from the sale of the house.

Carrie gazed longingly at the dress on her phone.

A gift from her parents, she rationalized. The rest, of course, would go to the kids’ sleepaway camp, Hebrew School, after school activities…she knew that her husband would have his own ideas about how to invest it, but surely one or two new things for herself wouldn’t make much of a difference.

“So?” Carrie knocked her knee against Lee’s.

“Pretty.”

A vague annoyance rushed through at her younger sister’s disinterest but was quickly dispelled when Lee leaned her head against her shoulder. Their varying shades of blonde intertwined; Lee’s honey with her ash.

“Dad wants to talk to me about the house,” Lee whispered.

Carrie sat upright, shifting her shoulder from beneath Lee’s cheek.

“About what?”

“I don’t know,” Lee waited a beat, almost expectantly, “but he doesn’t want you guys to know which is very weird, don’t you think?”

It didn’t surprise her that Lee wasn’t keeping this secret to herself. That was never one of her strengths and used to land her either in trouble or in some venomous argument with one of her friends. Carrie was happy she told her, but was also offended and couldn’t find a sarcastic way around it or a movie line to imitate for their amusement.

“Very weird,” was all she could say.

Too weird. Carrie racked her brain for an answer that would suffice. Was something wrong? And if there was, why tell Lee and not her, or Lauren, or Brooke? It didn’t make any sense. She was supposed to be the one her parents talked to about these things, important things. She had always been the first to know when something was up with mom. Mom.

“Oh shit, I left my flat iron on.” She jumped from the bottom step and jogged up the stairs, leaving Lee still sitting at the bottom. Whatever it was that their dad wanted to talk about, she didn’t want it to interfere with the one thing she mentally claimed as hers. Yes, she wanted some money from the sale, and yes, she wanted the Waterford wine glasses, and one or two pieces of Judaica, but there was only one item she felt a sentimental attachment to—which was saying a lot because there was very little that made her sentimental these days. Nostalgia, she concluded, was a menace and a waste of energy.

Carrie entered her room, went so far as to go into the ensuite to turn off the imaginary flat iron. She took a quick inventory of what remained, which wasn’t much. Her bedroom had been incrementally cleared out once she had bought a house. At least her job of packing up was minimal compared to Lee and Brooke who used their childhood bedrooms as storage; Lee because of the space limitations of an apartment, and Brooke because she had moved to Atlanta and kept most of the overflow of hand-me-downs in her bedroom closet.

The wind whistled outside the windows behind her bed and the backyard erupted in a muted melody. Carrie walked to the window and exhaled against the glass. Beautiful. Mom had made it just so beautiful. The garden flaunted its colors. An overabundance of mint leaves, the spattering of cherry tomatoes, and raspberries hidden amongst the greenery. Even at the supermarket, the scent of a ripe tomato on the vine could instantly place her in her mother’s garden, but not this one…the first one, in their old house, in the garden that she, and maybe Lee, could still recall. She doubted Lauren or Brooke remembered pulling carrots from the earth, examining zucchini with tiny, dirt encrusted nails. Carrie loved that house. She turned away from the window, scanned the bedroom she inhabited from the age of thirteen to eighteen. Memories of afternoons spent in the garden were replaced with those of having locked herself inside to study for hours, to change her clothes multiple times before leaving for school, to agonize over her appearance in the full-length mirror, to rehearse over and over for her NYU audition with her stomach in knots from whatever she had eaten to make her parents happy.

“Good riddance,” she whispered as she walked toward the door, closing it gently behind her.

Brooke

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Brooke said to no one, her eyes still closed. The repetitive smack of drawers being shut pulled her from her much needed and, if she might say so herself, much deserved sleep.

“Whoever’s doing that, can you please stop?” she yelled from beneath the lavender comforter.

When the noise persisted, she threw her legs over the side of the bed and reluctantly stood to inspect the commotion. The noise, she knew, was coming from the center room that sat between her bedroom and Carrie’s. She and her sisters had once shared it as a space to watch shows they didn’t want their parents as spectators to. Years later, it was then used as a nursery for whichever of their babies was the youngest and needed a crib, and now mostly as storage for whatever dad had already boxed upstairs.

Brooke opened the double white wooden doors to reveal Carrie inspecting cabinets that had already been emptied.

“What are you doing?” Her annoyance was apparent, but she wanted it to be.

“Sorry, did I wake you?” Carrie asked without turning.

“It’s fine.” She meant it. The hardened tone of before melted away at her sister’s voice. Better to get an early start anyhow and lessen mom and dad’s stress. “What are you looking for?”

“Nothing,” Carrie said too quickly. “Well, not nothing. Maybe stuff I might want to keep, ya know?”

That didn’t surprise her, but Brooke assumed Carrie had already flagged what would go to her. A rush of adrenaline shot through her chest at the realization that the four of them hadn’t really discussed this yet. Her eyes darted to the wall above the grey couch where the picture she had wanted had been on display for the last thirty years. In its place was the faded outline of where it once hung.

Brooke didn’t react, careful not to show her hand too quickly.

“Find anything?” She asked instead.

“Nothing.” Carrie stood, dusted both hands on her thighs and shrugged. “I guess mom and dad are really doing this.”

“Looks like it.”

Brooke pressed her lips together and suppressed the urge to cry. Tears would make Carrie retreat. Instead, she bit the insides of her cheeks and tried to keep her thoughts from spilling out of her mouth. What good would it do? Any time she tried to express an opinion or an emotion, it clashed with her eldest sister’s and ended in an argument. Still, it wasn’t in Brooke’s nature to suppress. Her entire career all boiled down to the importance of healthy communication…even if that meant with oneself. She had lost count of the number of patients she coached through positive self-talk and empathetic conversations with their partners after the loss of a baby or during the grueling months post-partum. But her profession was why she held her tongue in this moment (Carrie would prickle at the insinuation that she was being therapized), it was also the reason Brooke had set her sights on the framed sketch that had apparently been packed away already, or worse, claimed by one of her sisters.

“Okay,” Brooke sighed as closure. A door opened, closed softly down the hall. Lauren. Surely Lauren would know if mom and dad had a plan in mind for who got what. Lauren saw their parents several times a week, nearly every day for the past nine years since she and her husband moved into a house one town away. Brooke turned to exit, an anxious swirl of want and regret seeping into every finger, every toe, through her right ear and then her left. This is how emotion worked for her; it flooded her very being.

The missing sketch flashed behind her closed eyes: the woman’s profile, the fine pencil lines of the tendril hanging from her chignon, the fullness of the baby’s cheek beneath the woman’s breast. Brooke could envision the faded gold frame maybe hanging in her home office, a reminder of why she does what she does. Though, it would make sense for Carrie to want it for that very personal, professional reason as well. Maybe she too had mentally positioned it by her computer at the hospital. Brooke could understand that, wanting to look at something familiar from their home, and at the same time a calming vision after hours spent mixing formula for babies in the NICU.

Brooke glanced once more at Carrie as she checked her phone. There were six years between them. Not so many that childhood memories didn’t overlap, but not so few that they shared the same kinship as Lee and Lauren did, or maybe her middle sisters’ relationship was forged by simply being in the middle as opposed to the twenty-one months they had between them. But they were all adults now, and not only that, she and Carrie both operated daily in the business of trauma. The only difference was, while Brooke embodied it, Carrie sidestepped. But surely, surely the sale of the house was hurting her. It wouldn’t be healthy for Carrie to keep it to herself and here they were, just the two of them, in the early hours of the morning.

“Oh, wait,” Carrie called as Brooke opened the door.

Her inner dialogue shifted to her sister. Tell me. Ask me.

“What’s the plan for breakfast?”

Brooke swallowed. “Uh.”

She listened to Lauren cross the hall to Lee’s bedroom, “Bagels,” and allowed herself one final glance at the blank space on the wall, “I think.”

Lauren

It happened without thinking, her waking and walking to Lee’s room just as she always had. Maybe muscle memory? Could that be a thing or is that not how that works? Lauren couldn’t be bothered to look it up. All she knew was that it had been 20 years since they had lived together, 17 if they counted the time they were roommates in Australia, and Lee’s bedroom was still her first port of call. She wouldn’t be surprised if they were wearing the same gray, drawstring, college sweats and faded Dave Matthew’s Band t-shirt. Their slim pickings from what remained in their closets mirrored each other’s, but they had always unknowingly dressed alike. It used to be a point of contention. Waking up only to realize that one of them had to change their outfit before school after a round of rock, paper, scissors. But it quickly became humorous with matching maternity clothes and then even intentional with Lauren more recently becoming Lee’s personal shopper.

Lauren didn’t have to call out. She could tell Lee wasn’t in her room. She would have either still been in bed, buried beneath a pale green quilt, or already at work in front of the bathroom mirror tweezing her eyebrows and readying her face for the day. Out of the four upstairs bedrooms, Lee’s had remained the most lived in and full. There were diaries and photos, love notes and mementos that only Lauren had access to. Well, access to upon her sister’s death as she had once been instructed. Otherwise, she cared little for snooping. Lee had always done enough of that for the both of them anyhow. Now though, the room felt scarce. Photo frames of Lee and her husband in front of the Sydney Harbor Bridge had been folded and removed from atop the white oak dresser, thick scrapbooks no longer sat heavy with high school and college memories in the oversized ottoman.

This all seemed wrong. Lauren sat at the edge of the bed, pushed her bare feet into the beige carpet and pressed her elbows into the tops of her thighs. Her thick chestnut hair fell forward from her shoulders. She stared straight ahead at the 16×24 Bat Mitzvah portrait that hung on the wall. What on earth would Lee do with that and besides, where was her sister now? Right now?

Lauren felt alone and that was her most hated sensation. It was why when even at her wits end when her two boys would scream for her in the middle of the night, claw at her body, insist on her presence, she relented and stayed nearby. Lauren recalled the feeling all too well. The memory of being her sons’ ages of 5 and 7 were faded, but the emotion coursed through her veins as if no time had passed since she and her sisters lived in the first house, where she shared a bunk bed with Brooke, and her parents were just down the hall as opposed to all the way downstairs. In that first house, Lauren, like her own boys, demanded her mother’s comfort at night. Not her physical touch, no, that was a different thing. A squirmy, suffocating thing that she never much cared for. All Lauren needed to know was that mom was nearby. Still there? she would call out to the hallway. Still here, her mom would respond from somewhere in the darkness.

And if their mom couldn’t hold up her end of the bargain, Lauren could always climb into bed with Lee. So what if meant nightmares from one of Lee’s stories? At least she wouldn’t be alone. It was why Lauren always knew she would have more than one baby, it was why she sometimes longed for one more still. It was also why she wanted to collect the picture from the middle room as soon as possible. Not that there was any rush, she just wanted it in her possession. That image of mother and child that her own mom had sketched with her skillful hands meant more to her than anyone could even guess. She would never admit that though, not to mom at least who had grown increasingly cynical into her seventies. Painting, shmainting, her mom would say. Was it a painting? No, a sketch. Whatever it was, to Lauren, it was proof of a life fulfilled; it was a reminder that it was okay—more than okay—to just be a mom. Meanwhile, their mom wasn’t just any one thing, though she was always quick to put herself down in such a way. Mom was—is the thing. She’s the garden and the crystals, the wind chimes and the stories, the food and the artwork, the pressed flower petals and origami dollar bills. Mom never had to be, she just had to be there.

And now, what? They were up and moving? It made sense. Of course it did. Her parents shouldn’t remain in a house too big for the two of them, up a driveway too steep for their aging muscles. And it wasn’t like they would be far. If anything, they were moving even closer to where she and her family lived now. Proximity was important. Not that Lee would understand that. Lauren seethed at the thought of her brother in law’s talk of one day moving closer to his family in Australia. Didn’t he get it? They needed each other. They all did, and they were losing the one place that encapsulated that necessity.

Where the hell was everyone? She twirled the ends of her hair and then stood abruptly from the bed. It was too damn quiet in this room!

“Mom!” Lauren called out the open door.

And from down the spiral staircase, a faint but familiar, “I’m here.”

Hannah

“Here!” Hannah tried again knowing her daughters had probably moved on from whatever it was they wanted. But still, she waited, hoped someone would come to her door. They were letting her rest, she knew. They were always letting her rest. Far too careful ever since her diagnosis, or re-diagnosis rather. She listened another beat, just in case one of her girls needed her for one thing or another, but all she heard was the soft music of the wind hitting the chimes in the backyard. She moved from her door to the full-length windows next to her bed and threw open the heavy ivory curtains. There was a flurry of common grackles and catbirds around the feeder that she observed with satisfaction. Would the new owners keep it up? What would happen to her birds? To the cardinals and the bluejays, or even to the stray cats and racoons that she sometimes left little treats for? She chuckled, amused at the thought of the fright the new owners might get from spotting a pair of small, shining eyes in the night. Hannah doubted they were animal people. Too few were these days.

“Morning.”

Hannah turned expecting to see Lauren. It was Laur who called to her before, wasn’t it? It could be hard to tell.

“My Brooke girl,” Hannah cooed. Her baby. Her surprise. Her pain in the ass, beautiful, little gift. She smiled and attempted to tame the cowlick of her pixie cut.

“Did you sleep okay?” Brooke asked and immediately Hannah felt her chest puff. This dynamic of her youngest always inquiring, checking on her mental and physical health…it was not to her liking.

“Fine.” Her tone brisk, but hopefully not hurtful. She knew how sensitive Brooke was to tone. She knew because she, too had always been far too sensitive and prone to fits of tears or rage. Though Hannah prayed every Friday night in front of the Shabbos candles that none of her girls would come to this realization in the same that she had, what they didn’t understand was that not everything had to be so goddamn emotional. Once you lose your hair, your breasts, your privacy… hell, even your appetite on most days…things just don’t hold the weight they once did. Hannah wanted to be sensitive to her daughters’ feelings about selling the house, but it was just a house. She feared her youngest especially wouldn’t see it that way. They always did put too much stock in things, her girls. For that, she blames their friends. And her husband, just a little. Hannah still thought the girls would have been better off in a Jewish private school than where they had attended with its hallways filled with designer backpacks and parking lot glistening with expensive cars.

“Mom?” Brooke stepped further into the bedroom and sat on an upholstered armchair beside the bed. “You know the picture from the middle room? The one you made of the mother breastfeeding her baby?”

“I do.”

“Do you know where it is?”

Had she packed it away? She couldn’t recall. Maybe she had.

“It’s packed.”

“Oh, ok well—”

“Or I don’t know actually. Ask dad.”

“You don’t know?” Brooke inquired with a tilt of her head.

Hannah sighed audibly. She detected the judgment in her daughter’s tone. How many times had she had to turn to Brooke with a stern, now listen to me, little girl?

“No. I don’t. It’s a big house filled with a lot of crap that you and your sisters have taken your sweet time on clearing out so I’m sorry if I can’t locate a single frame for you.”

Why did she do this? It reminded her of the days leading up to when the girls would leave for sleepaway camp or for college. She would push them away even before they left. Not this time. She lurched forward in an attempt to repair.

“Sorry, baby.”

Brooke looked like she had been slapped. Hannah pressed the back of her hand to Brooke’s cheek, soothed the verbal assault. What was so important about that sketch anyways? It wasn’t even one of her better ones. The lines too haphazard, the shading never quite right. She hadn’t planned to put it on display in the new house and maybe she even had packed it away without realizing. She couldn’t be sure, especially after days of carefully wrapping and boxing all of the Swarovski crystal ornaments: ducks, turtles, cats…all of her tiny, magnificent creatures.

“It’s okay,” Brooke forgave her because of course she did, because she was now the most intuitive out of the whole lot of them.

“Hannah!” Her husband barked from down the hall. “Bagels!”

Michael

“Come on,” Michael muffled under his breath at the sight of the bare table. You would think after thirty years of living in this house, after some 1,500 Sunday morning bagels, his wife and daughters would know the routine. They all had their roles; his to get the food, theirs to set the table.

He placed the brown paper bag on the green granite island at the center of the kitchen and inhaled the warm steam that escaped the bag, garlic and sesame, toasted caraway and other aromatics. The stillness of the early morning was replaced with footsteps, a running faucet, the clatter of someone packing upstairs.

“Girls! Guys? Come on down,” he called out. The bagels were fresh, still warm. To toast them would be a crime, but to let them go cold, even more so. He felt anxious with each passing second and moved swiftly to pour orange juice from the carton into a pitcher, to remove the lids from cream cheese, and delicately fork the thin oily strips of lox onto a platter. He set aside plates and cutlery specifically for this final Sunday morning breakfast and was prepared to hand wash and pack it all away once the six of them had finished. Hannah would find it insufferable, he knew, and was sure to make some comment about paper plates, but this was better. This was right. This was how his mom would have done it. His mind wandered to both his parents much more frequently these days, not that they weren’t always present in some hidden corner, but ever since retirement? Well, the memory of his parents, their health, their daily routine, it both soothed and terrified him. They aged well, his mom especially, but with each transition: the sale of his childhood home, his father’s retirement, they slowly slipped from the role of caretaker to dependent. Michael wasn’t ready for that. Would never be ready for that. But what worried him most was that his daughters wouldn’t be either.

He set down the same blue and white plates they had always used for breakfast, along with the matching mugs. The coffee pot was now full and filled the kitchen with its vibrant promise of a productive day. Lauren and Lee appeared from wherever they had been conspiring. He could see by Lee’s eager grin that she had already confided in Lauren what he mentioned to her early that morning. It didn’t bother him much, he assumed whatever was shared with Lee was passed along to Lauren, and vice versa.

“Where’s mom’s sketch from the middle room?” Lauren blurted.

“Her…oh you mean the one she did in college?” He stalled.

“I always thought it was a self-portrait with one of us,” Lee said.

“No,” Carrie answered confidently from the stairwell, assuming her role as the one who knows mom best. She walked past them and grabbed a mug from the table.

“Well then when did she make it?” Lauren asked.

“I don’t know, but it’s not a self-portrait.” Carrie lifted the coffee pot and began to pour.

“Mom!” Lauren yelled.

Hannah covered her ears as she approached the center island with Brooke. “I’m right here, what do you want?”

“The sketch of mother and child, is it a self-portrait?”

“Why all the sudden interest? How about, mom when did you do that realist, charcoal of Cousin Bruce? Or any of the still life flower pieces? None of it is very good, but I think we should hang on to the cow skull, don’t you, Michael?”

“Already bubble wrapped and ready to go.”

“Can I have the one from upstairs then?” Lauren asked.

“It’s not there,” Brooke answered firmly.

Michael felt something pass between the four girls. An eyeing of one another. It felt unusual. As sisters, they had never been competitive, never argued over who was better at what—they each had plenty of their own interests—or even over boyfriends—they each had plenty of those, too. Now, however, there was something of a silent standstill in the kitchen.

“Actually,” Carrie started, and he noticed the other three straighten, “I wanted it for my office. Is that okay? It’s not a big deal, but it just makes sense.”

“Makes sense how?” Lauren wasn’t ready to give in the way Carrie assumed she would. “Aren’t you literally in the business of formula and bottle feeding?”

“There’s actually a lot of breast milk involved and besides, I’m in the business of motherhood.”

“So am I,” Brooke was red, holding back plenty of what she wanted to say.

“That’s so unfair,” Lee placed a hand at Lauren’s back, something only Michael could see from where he stood, “we all are,” she added gently. “Besides, mom said I could have it when they moved, right mom?”

Michael peered at his wife, then at Lee. It was too hard to tell if this was the truth, Lee had a penchant for fibbing and was prone to twist information to her benefit. Guilt pressed heavily on his chest and his stomach turned at the scent of red onions. This was not how this was supposed to go. If they were already fighting over a picture, what would happen when he spoke to Lee about the house?

“Let’s settle this after breakfast. Plenty of time to figure out who gets what. It’s not going anywhere.”

We’re not going anywhere. Plenty of time. But isn’t that why he felt an ounce of relief when the sale didn’t go through? Isn’t that why he wanted Lee to consider moving her family from the city? So that they could keep the house, so that they could all have more time. That’s not the solution, he realized that now. It was just a thought, and not a bad one at that. He often wondered when his second born would wake up and desire comfort and stability as opposed to living in limbo, always wondering if she would continue to spend a fortune in Manhattan or move across the world and visit once a year. No. That wouldn’t do. He had her answer right here, but—he glanced at Lee across the table as they all sat with the bagel of their choice in front of them—she would want the house just as much as she would not.

A cruel luxury indeed.

Better to not even give it as an option. There would be more buyers. There would be more time.

“Does anyone want anything from the garage fridge?”

The second fridge which he once stocked religiously with diet coke and cream soda for his daughters, Gatorade and juice boxes for his ten grandkids, Corona and Peroni for his sons in law, was now scant with a single carton of creamer and a pack of ginger ale for himself.

“Dad, we have everything we need,” Brooke said, her green eyes illuminating under the hanging light fixture. She placed a hand on his arm. “Sit.”

“How about some of that creamer you like, Brookey? I’ll be right back.” His departure brought with it five sets of imploring eyes, but he didn’t dare turn. They had a long day ahead and he needed to keep his composure. His strength allowed them to be vulnerable. A tight embrace and reassuring farewell before any one of his girls left home always resulted in pent up tears released into the fabric of one of his shirts. If he came undone now, what would that mean for them?

He flicked the switch of the garage light and the muted yellow revealed cardboard boxes lined up next to his and Hannah’s cars. He knew exactly which of the fifty or so brown packages he wanted and tore at the duct tape upon retrieving it from the pile. The woman in the frame didn’t look back at him, she never did, her eyes were fixed downward at the infant she was nursing, whose gaze was lifted to its mother’s. Michael gently brushed his thumb along the length of the woman’s slender neck, over the curve of her breast, to the full cheek of the baby. Where did it all go? His young wife with her long auburn hair, his little girls all innocent and wide-eyed shades of blue, and brown, and green? They all sat waiting for him in the kitchen, but my god when did they get here, to this point? When did he get here? He could still play 18-holes on a scorching summer morning, could still run a 10-minute mile, could still lift the heavy boxes and even heavier grandkids. So why did it feel like he was relinquishing some degree of agency by leaving this house?

The trees swayed with vigor, shaking leaves from their branches as they succumbed to the weight of the wind and flew past the narrow windows of the garage. He closed the box and shut his eyes, listened to the rattle of the heavy door on its hinges, the muffled laughter from the kitchen, the music from the backyard. This was not the finale; it was the overture to a new chapter. He filled his lungs and stood at the thought. The overture, yes. He would tell his daughters just that when he went inside. Still, he understood they were grieving. More so, he knew why they all wanted the very same item. It was the same reason he was going to pluck a wind chime off the pear trees even though he had never sat down in what his wife and girls referred to as the wind chime café. It was why toddlers, and the elderly, and the plants in the garden all bent toward his wife trying to capture some warmth, some light. They all wanted a piece of her. So did he, and Carrie, and Lee, and Lauren, and Brooke.

It wasn’t the house, or the sketch they were afraid of not having in their possession. He would confess to keeping the picture they all staked their claim to, of course he would. But maybe not just yet.

There would be time to figure out what goes to whom, time for all of that, but not now, not yet.

BIO

Brittany Sirlin is an educator, writer, and mother of three living in New York, New York. She has a Bachelor of Science in secondary education for English Language Arts from Penn State University and a Masters in Literacy from Hofstra University. Brittany is an English Language Arts teacher and freelance writer who is currently working on a women’s fiction novel and other shorter works of fiction. Her first published work, Playing Dead was released in March 2023 in an anthology titled Our Magical Pandemic. Brittany has also been published in Kveller and in Mutha Magazine.