“Oh, Cait. I didn’t know you lost your adoptive mom. I’m so sorry.” Abby hugged her. “You were so young. Do you remember her?”
“Sometimes I think I do,” Cait said. “But I was so little, I have no idea if they’re real memories or something I dreamed up from the pictures I have.”
Abby’s heart ached for her. “I understand what you mean. Do you think your father didn’t want to keep sending the pictures because it made him sad about losing your mom?”
She shrugged. “He’s kind of a dick. He refused to talk about her and moved us from Rhode Island, where we were living, to Connecticut.”
Abby sighed. “God, that sucks.” She looked at Deirdra and said, “You should apologize to Cait for what you said about her being better off not knowing Mom. She grew up without a mother, and that had to hurt to hear.”
“I already did,” Deirdra said.
“Good.” Abby was grateful that her sister’s disdain for their mother hadn’t marred her heart irreparably. She looked through some of the pictures of baby Cait, with her chubby little legs and big green eyes that weren’t quite as wary as they were now. “You were an adorable baby, which isn’t surprising, given how beautiful you are.”
Cait looked down bashfully, with an appreciative smile.
“Abby, why do you think Mom didn’t tell us that she sketched? She was good,” Deirdra said. “She probably could have made a living off her artistic talents.”
“Maybe because it appears she only sketched Cait. And if that was the case, then I’m sure it wasn’t something she wanted to bring up with us. What would she say? Hey, girls, you have a sister out there? Remember, Shelley said Mom was forced to give up Cait. I’m sure Mom missed her every day and felt guilty about the whole situation.” She handed Cait the sketchbook and said, “That’s your proof of how much our mother loved you, right there. That and the fact that she brought us all together. Did you guys read your letters from Mom? Maybe she explains some of this.” Abby hadn’t read hers yet. As much as she wanted to, it was the one special thing that her mother had given solely to her, and once she read it, there would be no more secret messages. She wasn’t ready to be done yet.
“No, and I won’t for a while,” Deirdra said. “Have you read yours?”
“Not yet, but I will.”
“Me too.” Cait ran her fingers over the sketchbook and said, “I must have gotten my ability to draw from her.”
“That’s true! And you got her green eyes, her cheekbones, her height, and her figure. Did you design your tattoos?” Abby asked.
“Most of them, and I tattooed the ones I could reach.” She ran her hand down her arm, then crossed it over her middle.
“What do they represent?” Abby asked. Her tattoos were unlike anything Abby had ever seen. They were a mash-up of buildings and trees, animals, shapes, webs, and shades of color, all beautiful in their uniqueness.
“Lots of different things. Things I’ve gone through, friends I’ve had. Do either of you have any tattoos?”
“I do,” Deirdra said.
“You do not,” Abby said, peering into the hope chest at the hidden pieces of her mother’s life.
“Want to bet?” Deirdra challenged. “I got one when I was in Atlantic City with Sutton a couple of years ago.”
“And you never told me? Let me see it.” Abby scooted closer to Deirdra. “Where is it?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
“God, you’re such a brat. Why bring it up? Just to torture me?” Abby asked.
Deirdra glanced at Cait and said, “It’s fun torturing her, isn’t it?”
Cait leaned closer to Abby and whispered, “She doesn’t really have one.”
“Oh my gosh! Seriously? You two are already ganging up on me? Dee, you’re such a bad influence. You didn’t even give her a few days to settle in.”
Cait bit her lower lip, and Abby gasped. “It was your idea?”
“I’ve never had sisters to joke around with,” Cait said. “Deirdra said you wouldn’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad. I’m pleasantly surprised, actually. I want you to feel like part of the family.”
“She doesn’t ever get mad at anything,” Deirdra said. “Mom never told us she was sick, and that pisses me off to no end, but Abby rationalizes it all.”
“I was more hurt than mad. I think she had her reasons,” Abby insisted. “Plus, mad is so ugly. I hate being mad as much as I dislike the word hate.”
Deirdra proceeded to spout off a laundry list of things she thought should anger Abby and didn’t. “What gets your panties in a knot, Cait?”
“I don’t know,” Cait said as she gathered all of the sketchbooks into a pile. “Jerks. People who judge others when they shouldn’t. I work with this girl at the tattoo shop, Aria. She’s got social anxiety, and sometimes people treat her like she’s invisible, or worse, they treat her like she’s got a disease. That really pisses me off.”
“Mean people suck,” Deirdra said. “Do you like where you work and the people you work with?”
“I love them.” She said it so easily, it seemed at odds with how wary she appeared. “They’re like family to me.”
“How long have you worked there?” Abby asked.
“Several years,” Cait said as she picked up the pile of sketchbooks to put into the hope chest.
“You can have those sketchbooks and the letters and pictures,” Abby offered. “Right, Dee?”
Deirdra pushed to her feet and said, “Cait can have all of Mom’s stuff as far as I’m concerned.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to keep some of her sketches?” Cait asked Abby.
“I’m sure. I never even knew she could draw, and those are pieces of your life. I’m starting to think Mom loved so hard, that every time she lost someone, she lost a piece of herself.”
“That’s a thing,” Cait said. “My boss, Tank, lost a piece of himself when his younger sister died.”
“That’s horrible.” Abby didn’t even want to imagine how hard it would be to lose Deirdra or Cait, even after knowing Cait for only a couple of days. “I wonder what else is hidden among Mom’s things.”
“We didn’t find anything else interesting in the hope chest,” Deirdra said.
Abby went to the closet, her mother’s bohemian-style clothes bringing back a mix of good and bad memories. The wide-legged pants she wore to Abby’s second-grade play, the long batik dress she wore on so many strolls through town, Abby could practically still see it swishing around her legs. The floral sundress Abby and Deirdra had nearly ripped trying to get it off their mother one night when she was drunk. She leafed through batik skirts and funky pants, dresses of varying lengths, all splashed with multiple colors, and withdrew her mother’s favorite dress, with a yellow bodice and a long, flowing patchwork skirt and held it out for her sisters to see. “Dee, remember Mom dancing in this that night down on the beach when we cooked lobster over the fire?”