Magic hour: a novel (8 page)

Julia glanced out the huge floor-to-ceiling windows and tried to focus on the blue Pacific Ocean, but all she could really see were the yellow balls of paper that cluttered the deck floor.

“Jules? Please?”

“Why not?” Julia finally said.

She had nothing better to do.

FOUR

J
ULIA HADN’T BEEN BACK TO
R
AIN
V
ALLEY IN YEARS, AND NOW SHE
was returning on the wave of failure.

Perhaps she should have stayed in L.A. after all. There, she would have disappeared. Here, she would always be the other Cates girl. (
You know . . . the weird one . . .
) When a girl grew up in the shadow of the Homecoming Queen, there were two possible choices: disappear or make your own reputation. Unfortunately, when you were the tall, scarecrow-thin bookworm in a beloved, gregarious, larger-than-life family, there was no way to do either. From early on, she’d been the square peg, the kid who mediated every playground dispute but never joined in any of the games. The last kid picked for every sport; the girl at home, reading, during the senior prom. She was—or had been—that rarest of birds in a small, blue-collar town: a loner.

Only her mother had believed in a bright future for Julia. In fact, she’d encouraged her daughter to dream big. Unfortunately, her mother hadn’t lived to see Julia’s med school graduation. That loss had always been a sliver under Julia’s skin, a phantom pain that came and went. The closer she got to Rain Valley, the more it was likely to hurt.

She stared out the plane’s small window. Everything was gray, as if a cloud artist had painted the merest of washes over the green landscape. It made her feel lonely, all that gray; as if she, too, might disappear again in the Washington mist. The four white-capped volcanoes that stretched from northern Oregon to Bellingham looked like the spine of some mythic, sleeping beast. She heard the passenger behind her draw in a sharp breath and murmur, “Look, Fred, at that . . . is it Rainier?”

Suddenly she was thinking about the Zunigas and those lost children.
Dead wrong.
It didn’t surprise her. In the past year, everything, every thought and deed, led her back to regret.

Don’t think about that.

She closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing until the emotions subsided. By the time the plane landed she was okay again.

She grabbed her bag from the overhead bin and merged into the line of passengers exiting the plane.

She was almost to the exit door when it happened.

One of the flight attendants recognized her. There was no mistaking the signs—the widening of the eyes, the slowly opening mouth. As Julia passed, she heard the woman whisper, “It’s
her.
That doctor. The one who—”

She kept moving. By the end of the jetway she was almost running. She caught a glimpse of Ellie standing amid the crowd, dressed in her blue uniform, looking stunningly beautiful.

Julia knew she should stop, say hello and pretend everything was all right. That was the smart thing to do. The
fine
thing.

She kept moving, running.

She raced across the crowded concourse hallway toward the ladies’ restroom sign. Ducking in, she disappeared into one of the stalls and slammed the door shut, then sat down on the toilet.

Calm down, Jules. Breathe.

“Are you in here, Julia?” Ellie sounded out of breath and irritated.

Julia released a slow, shaking breath. Having a panic attack was bad; having one in front of her sister was almost unbearable. She got slowly to her feet and opened the door. “I’m here.”

Ellie put her hands on her hips and stared at her. It was a cop-assessing-the-situation look. “I haven’t seen an airport sprint like that since the O.J. commercials.”

“I had to go to the bathroom.”

“You should see a urologist.”

“It’s not that. I . . .” Julia felt like an idiot. “The flight attendant recognized me. She looked at me as if
I
killed those kids.” She felt her cheeks heat up, knowing she should say more. Explain. But her sister couldn’t understand a thing like this. Ellie was like one of those pioneer wives who could give birth in the field and go back to work. Her sister knew little about being fragile.

Ellie’s hard look softened. “Fuck ’em all. You can’t let it get to you.”

Julia wished she could do that, but she’d always needed to be accepted. As a shrink, she knew the hows and whys of her need—how her popular, in-the-spotlight family had somehow made her feel marginalized and unimportant, how her father’s withheld love had made her believe she was unlovable—but knowledge didn’t soften the need. She wasn’t even sure how it had come to matter so much. All she knew was that her profession, her ability to help people, had filled the frightened place inside of her with joy, and now she was scared again. “It’s not that easy for me. You can’t understand.”

Ellie leaned against the pale green tile wall. “Because you think I’m only slightly smarter than an earthworm or because I have nothing in my life worth losing?”

Julia wished suddenly that she had a better memory reservoir. Surely there were times when they’d played together, she and Ellie, when they’d counted secrets instead of slights, when laughter had followed their conversations instead of awkward pauses. But if all that had happened, Julia didn’t recall it. What she remembered was being the “smart” sister, the “weird” one who grew too tall in a petite family and wanted things no one else understood. The mushroom in a family of orchids. She’d always been able to say the right things to strangers, but the wrong thing to her sister. She sighed. “Let’s not do this, El.”

“You’re right. Come on.”

Before Julia could answer, Ellie headed out of the bathroom. Julia had no choice but to follow.

At the car—an ugly white Suburban with wood-grain door panels—Ellie stopped at the back door just long enough to toss her purse in, then she strode around to the driver’s side.

Julia struggled with her suitcase. It took her two tries to stow it. She slammed the back door shut, then went to the passenger side and climbed into the front seat.

Ellie backed the car out of the stall and headed for the exit. The minute the engine roared to life, the stereo came on. Some guy with a twangy voice was singing about the pocket of a clown.

Neither one of them said anything. As the landscape changed, going from city gray to country green, Julia began to feel like an idiot for sparring with her sister. How was it that, even after all these distant and separate years, they immediately fell into their childhood roles? One look at each other and they were adolescents again.

They were
family,
as specious as that connection sometimes felt, and they ought to be able to get along. Besides, she was a psychiatrist, for God’s sake, a specialist in interpersonal dynamics, and here she was acting like the younger sister who wasn’t invited to play with the big kids.

“Why don’t you tell me why I’m here,” she finally said.

“I’ll tell you at the house. I have a lot of photographs to show you. I’m afraid you won’t believe me otherwise.”

Julia glanced at her. “So it
is
a rescue mission. There’s no real reason I’m here.”

“Oh, there’s a reason. We have a little girl who needs help. But it’s . . . complicated.”

Julia didn’t know if she believed that, but she knew that Ellie did things in her own way and in her own time. There was no point in asking further questions. The better course of action was a neutral topic. Small talk. “How’s your friend Penelope?”

“She’s good. Raising teenagers is killing her, though.” Ellie immediately winced, as if realizing she shouldn’t have paired teenager and killing in the same sentence. “Sorry.”

“Don’t sweat it, El. Teenagers are difficult. How old are they?”

“A fourteen-year-old boy and a sixteen-year-old girl.”

“Tough ages.”

Ellie smiled. “The girl—Tara—keeps wanting to pierce body parts and get tattoos. It’s making Pea’s husband insane.”

“And Penelope? How’s she handling it?”

“Great. Well . . . unless you consider her weight gain. In the past year, she’s gone on every diet known to man. Last week she started smoking. She says it’s how the stars do it.”

“That and throwing up,” Julia said.

Ellie nodded. “How’s Philip?”

Julia was surprised by the swift pain that came with his name. If only she could say:
He stopped loving me.
Maybe Ellie could get her to laugh about her broken heart. As a shrink, she knew it would be a good move, that kind of honesty. It might open a door that had been closed for most of their lives. Instead, she said, “We broke up last year. I’m too busy—I mean, I
was
too busy—for love.”

Ellie laughed at that. “Too busy for love. Are you crazy?”

For the next two hours they alternated between meaningless conversation and meaningful silences. Julia worked hard to find questions that brought them together and stayed away from answers that caused separation. They barely mentioned their father, and stayed away from memories of Mom.

They came to the Rain Valley exit and turned off the highway. On the long, winding forest road that led to childhood, Julia found herself tensing up. Here, amidst the towering trees, she started to feel small again. Insignificant.

“I was going to sell the place, move closer to town, but every time I get close to listing it, I find another repair that needs to be done,” Ellie said on the way out of town. “I don’t need a shrink to tell me I’m afraid to leave it.”

“It’s just a house, El.”

“I guess that’s how we’re different, Jules. To you, it’s three bedrooms, two baths, and a kitchen-dining-living room. To me, it’s the best childhood ever. It’s where I caught dragonflies in a glass jar and let my little sister braid my hair with flowers.” Her voice dropped a little. She gave Julia a meaningful look, then turned onto their driveway. “It’s where my parents loved each other for almost three decades.”

Julia wouldn’t let herself disagree with that, although they both knew it was a lie. A fable. “So, quit threatening to sell it. Admit that it’s where you want to be. Hand the memories down to your own kids.”

“As you may have noticed, I don’t have kids. But thanks for pointing it out.” Ellie drove into the yard and stopped hard. “We’re here.”

Julia realized she had said the wrong thing again. “You don’t need a husband, you know. Especially not the kind
you
pick,” she said. “You can have a baby on your own.”

Ellie turned to look at her. “That might be how it is in the big city, but not here, and not for me. I want it all—the husband, the baby, the golden retriever.” She smiled. “Actually, I’ve got the dogs. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention my husbands again.”

Julia nodded. Time to change the subject. “So, how are Jake and Elwood? Still go straight for a girl’s crotch?”

“They’re males, aren’t they?” Ellie smiled and Julia was struck by how beautiful her sister still was. Though Ellie was thirty-nine years old, there wasn’t a line around her eyes or a pleating of skin around her mouth. Those startling green eyes shone against the milky purity of her skin. She had strong cheekbones and full, sensuous lips. Even her small-town, poorly layered haircut couldn’t dim her beauty. She was petite and surprisingly curvy, with a smile like a halogen spotlight. No wonder everyone loved her.

“Come on.” Ellie got out of the Suburban and slammed the door shut behind her.

Julia meant to move. Instead she sat there, looking through the dirty windshield at the house in which she’d grown up. The late afternoon sunlight made everything appear golden and impossibly softened except for the fringe of dark green trees.

This was only the second time she’d been back since her mother’s funeral; then, she’d stayed only as long as she absolutely had to. Medical school had provided an excellent excuse. She’d said
I have to get back for tests,
and no one questioned her. In retrospect, she should have stayed. That time might have built a bridge between her and her sister, given them a common ground. As it was, however, the opposite had occurred. They had moved through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd separately. No one in Rain Valley had known what to say to Julia in good times; in bad, they were even more confused. All they’d said over and over again was how proud her mother had been of Julia’s education. By the third mention of it, Julia couldn’t stop crying. It hadn’t helped to see how much comfort Ellie got from her friends, while she had stood alone all night, waiting for her father’s attention to turn her way. Of course, she’d been disappointed. He’d been the star that night, the widower laid low by grief. Everyone held him, kissed his cheek, and promised that Brenda was in a better place. Only Julia seemed to see the lie in all of it, the act. When at last her father broke down and wept, everyone except Julia rushed to comfort him. She had seen even as a child what no one else, especially Ellie, ever had: that her father’s selfishness had crushed his wife’s spirit, just as he’d crushed his younger daughter’s. Only Ellie had flourished in the white-hot light of her father’s self-absorption.

Julia reached for the door handle and wrenched it hard, then stepped down. Everything was exactly as it should be in October. Maple trees were dropping their leaves, creating that autumn song that was as familiar to her as the rushing whisper of the nearby river. She heard her mother’s voice in that sound, in the falling leaves and crackling twigs and whispering wind. Softly, she whispered, “Hey, Mom.” Part of her even waited for a reply. But there was only the chattering of the river and the breeze through the leaves.