We went room to room, the only sound our dull footsteps and Caroline’s occasional sharp intake of breath as another mess or sign of age came into view. In the kitchen there was a squat white refrigerator with a long silver handle and a walk-in pantry, its shelves lined with scraps of greasy paper, smelling of old bacon and ammonia. In the hall we found one half bath with an unspeakable toilet. In the dining room, cobwebs intricate as chandeliers hung from the ceiling.
We finished our circle and arrived back in the living room.
“Caroline, can the college find you another house?” I asked gently. The kids and Nathan were set to arrive from Austin in two days.
“Oh, no, this is the only one,” she replied. “It’s rent-to-buy. It’s all we can afford.” Her eyes were bright. “But I love it. It’s perfect. That big front window? These original floors?” She rubbed a toe along a floorboard to reveal a grainy, dark wood beneath the dirt. “Let’s get started.”
And so we began to clean with spray bottles and brushes and paper towels, wearing unwieldy yellow gloves and those small paper masks I associated with Asian flus and hypochondriacs. As we worked side by side, I realized how good it felt to have her back. I’d missed Caroline for herself, but what I’d missed more was the idea of us, the four Skinner siblings, together. She was the missing piece of the puzzle of adulthood that I’d been trying for years to put together here in New York with Joe and Renee. Now I could be the quirky aunt to Caroline’s kids, taking them to gallery shows and poetry readings in the city, teaching them to swear, and buying them candy. Renee would be the role model who showed them how to work hard and succeed, who examined their cut knees with professional concern. And Uncle Joe would tell them fart jokes, give them extravagant electronics for their birthdays, teach them to catch and throw. Joe still loved baseball, even if he no longer played, and who knew? Maybe Louis would be a natural. And here in Hamden, Caroline would host family dinners where we’d all gather and make toasts and drink and eat cake and play Scrabble. At last we would be siblings who were no longer children.
I was musing about all this, scrubbing with a hard plastic brush the dried-on something from a corner of the kitchen floor, when Caroline pulled off her paper mask and said,
“Fiona, when was the last time you saw Joe?”
I sat back on my heels. “Well, I . . .” I tried to remember the last time I’d seen our brother. It was a month ago at least. An uptown French place with wicker chairs, stiff white napkins at 11:00 a.m. Sandrine had been there, too.
“I met him for brunch,” I told Caroline. “I can’t really remember when exactly. He’s been so busy with work and wedding stuff.”
“Did you notice anything? I mean, anything off about him?”
I struggled to remember the details of that morning. They’d arrived late, both of them hungover, too thin, undeniably glamorous. They had asked me to write a poem to commemorate their engagement, a poem to be read at the party next week, and I’d said yes. I’d been flattered and immediately nervous. What if they didn’t like it? I had never written a love poem before.
I told Caroline about the poem for Joe and Sandrine. I’d brought a copy with me to Hamden, hoping I could do a test reading for my sister. But Caroline wasn’t interested.
“Fiona. We’re talking about Joe,” she said. “How did he seem?”
“He seemed fine,” I answered. “He’s lost some weight, but he works too hard. You know that.”
“Renee is worried about him. She saw him a couple weeks ago about an irregular heartbeat. She thinks we should all speak to him. Together.”
“Heartbeat—” I began, but just then we heard noise from upstairs, a high-pitched animal sound. Across the ceiling a creak of floorboards traveled from one side of the room to the other. Then the noise stopped.
“What was that?” Caroline whispered.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll go check it out.” I still remembered the ferocity of Caroline’s nightmares, the bruised shadows of sleepless nights beneath her eyes.
But Caroline shook her head. “No, we should both go.”
* * *
As an adolescent Caroline believed what Noni told us about independence and self-reliance and strength. More than anything Caroline did not want to disappoint our mother. But putting Noni’s lessons into action proved more difficult for Caroline than for the rest of us. She could do nothing to impress Noni. It had been clear for so long that Joe and Renee were the impressive ones, and for this Caroline felt a certain jealousy and resentment but also a deep, abiding relief.
What remained for Caroline was to surprise our mother. And she did.
As she moved with Nathan for his summer research opportunities and guest teaching positions, Caroline stayed in school. She studied anthropology, history, art history, biology, Spanish, theater. With each move the transfer of credits became more difficult, the registrars more impatient, the path to an actual degree more complex. Caroline persevered. She was not an academic star, no trophies lined her dresser, but our mother valued tenacity.
And then, back in Kentucky, Caroline became pregnant. She was twenty-one years old. Nathan was three years into his graduate research on Central American tropical frogs. In their rented bungalow, one entire room was devoted to a series of plastic kiddie pools joined together by a complex filtration and pumping system, lit by heat lamps, the temperature maintained at a steamy ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit. Inside this ecosystem lived plant life indigenous to a tropical climate and eight tiny Panamanian golden frogs.
On the day Caroline finally disappointed Noni, she left Nathan at home with the frogs, crouched before the pools, notebook in hand. He nodded absently as she kissed him on the cheek. Caroline was running late for class, again. This one—Ancient Chinese Ceramics—was located across the wide green campus lawn, up a short punishing hill, through a heavy door, inside a room that looked like a doctor’s waiting room or a preflight boarding area: white and gray and brown, full of people who slouched and yawned.
At seven months pregnant, Caroline felt unwieldy as a cello. She was panting slightly, her face hot, as she pushed open the classroom door. The teaching assistant glanced up and then away with a roll of his eyes. Although she knew she had nothing to be ashamed of, Caroline felt ashamed. For being late to class, for being married and pregnant, for being distracted and sleepy, for being herself.
“Ms. Duffy,” the TA said.
“Yes?” answered Caroline as she settled into a chair without a desk; she no longer fit behind a desk.
“Can you please comment on the ceramics of the later Ming years and their use of the symbol of the bee?” A tattoo of a rose crawled up the TA’s neck. He gazed at her with tight, small blue eyes.
“The bee?” she repeated.
The TA nodded. The A/C unit abruptly shut off, plunging the room into silence. Around her, Caroline felt the swollen anticipation of the group, all fifteen, maybe twenty students. Where before they had been inattentive and uninterested, now, with notice of her humiliation, they became alert.
“Um, I don’t know,” Caroline replied.
The TA moved immediately on. “Mr. Purcell?” he asked the boy sitting to Caroline’s right and Robbie Purcell explained to the class the significance of the bee.