The Space Between Sisters (27 page)

“Of course.”

“Promise me you'll tell someone else about this, too. Someone who knows more about it than I do, like a therapist or a support group leader or something. Because Pops, as much as I wish it were possible, one night of great sex isn't going to resolve all of this for you.”

But it wasn't
just
great sex,
Poppy almost said. And she thought about the tenderness with which she and Sam had made love to each other. And she thought about that moment, right before it was over, when they'd held on to each other, and it was as if they were falling, falling together, falling through space, but then they had landed, softly, right back in his bed. And she thought about afterwards, about the way he'd run his fingers down her back, over and over again, until she'd fallen asleep to this sensation. It was much more than just great sex. It was the beginning of something. But she didn't know how to put this into words for Win. Besides, her practical sister had a point.

“You're right, Win,” she agreed. “I need to find someone—a professional, or a group—to talk to about what happened. I've put this off long enough. Right now, though, all I want to do is get something to eat and crawl into bed.” The combination of sex, and crying, had been cathartic, Poppy thought. Cathartic but exhausting.

Win nodded, seemingly satisfied. But then Poppy saw a tremor go through her again. “You're still angry,” she said.

“I am. At him. And I will be, for a long time. Maybe forever. What he did to you, Poppy, he took so much away from you . . .”

“He did,” Poppy said simply. “But you know what? He's not taking anything more.”

W
ith Labor Day weekend fast approaching, Sam and Linc were working late one night at Birch Tree Bait, inspecting the rental equipment. All of the canoes, kayaks, and life jackets needed to be checked for damage, and, if necessary, repaired before the third-busiest weekend of the summer arrived. Sam didn't mind the work. It was kind of nice, actually, to have a distraction, however small, to take his mind off Poppy. It wasn't that he didn't want to think about her. He did.
All
he wanted to do was think about her and the night they'd spent together that past weekend. But while he was fantasizing about her—the silky little dip at the small of her back, or the slightly sweet, slightly salty taste of her collarbone as he ran his tongue along it, or the sound of her breathing, soft and rhythmic, as she slept beside him—the demands of his life continued unabated. And those demands, which included running a business and raising three children, showed no signs of letting up.

“Look at this, Sam,” Linc said in disbelief, holding up a life vest that had an enormous gouge in it. “Did somebody try to . . .
eat
it?” he asked.

Sam looked up from the kayak hull he was inspecting. “We can't repair that,” he said. “Throw it away.”

Linc sighed with disgust and tossed it aside.
“A little respect, people,”
he mumbled, picking up another life vest. “Oh, guess who I saw last night?” he asked Sam, testing its straps.

“Who?”

“Margot.”

Sam grimaced, slightly. She hadn't been back to Birch Tree Bait since he'd told her he thought they should just be friends. “What was she doing?”

“She was at the Moccasin Bar, just . . .
full on
making out with this guy. I asked someone who he was and they said he was Margot's new boyfriend. He's a ranger. He trains injured falcons in his spare time. Apparently, she met him when he brought one of them over to the museum.”

“Oh, right. Raptor Rapture,” Sam said, moving on to the next kayak on the rack.

“What's that?”

“That's what she called the program the day he visited nature camp.”

“Huh. Well, she certainly looked like she was in rapture last night,” Linc commented.

“Good for her,” Sam said. “I've always liked her. Maybe she'll feel like she can start getting her morning coffee here again.”

“Sam, it was never the coffee she wanted,” Linc said, looking over at him with a mischievous glint in his eye.

Sam ignored him, but a moment later Linc turned suddenly serious. “Can I talk to you?” he asked, coming over to him.

“Sure. What's up?”

“You know our end of summer fishing trip?”

“Uh-huh.” The last two years, Sam and Linc had taken a day
off after Labor Day to fish the Kawishiwi River. They both looked forward to it. It was a full day affair, and afterwards—much to the delight of his kids—Sam invited everyone over to the cabin for a fried walleye dinner. “What about it?” Sam asked, pausing in his work.

“I was wondering if we could make it a little earlier this year,” Linc said hesitantly. “Like tomorrow, for instance; we have a slow day.”

“Why the hurry?” Sam asked. Linc looked away guiltily.

“You're quitting,” Sam said. It was not a question. It was a statement. “So . . . the prodigal son is returning home?”

“Something like that,” Linc mumbled. He looked like a kid who had to tell the teacher he hadn't done his homework, as opposed to, say, a young man who was about to return to the East Coast and take his place at the head of his family's financial services company.

“I knew this was coming,” Sam said. “I just didn't know it was coming so soon.”

“It's not soon enough for my parents,” Linc said ruefully. “They think I've wasted the last few years of my life.”

“I'll bet they do,” Sam said, though, from his perspective, nothing could have been further from the truth. Not all the work Linc had done at Birch Tree Bait had been fascinating, of course, and that included inspecting life vests. And the pay, well, the pay hadn't been great, either, at least not compared to a job on Wall Street. But when Sam thought of all the time Linc had been able to spend outdoors, hunting and fishing, kayaking and mountain biking, snowmobiling and ATVing, he couldn't help but wonder if these last years wouldn't end up being the happiest of Linc's life. The ones he remembered long after he'd forgotten everything else.

“You're going to be hard to replace,” Sam said. “You know that, don't you?”

“
Hard
to replace?” Linc objected, and he was back to his grinning, confident self. “I'd say
impossible
is more like it.”

“You're probably right. Will you stay through Labor Day, though?”

“'Course. And Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“I'll miss this,” he said, making a gesture that Sam knew was meant to include all of Birch Tree Bait, and all of the people who worked there or, like Byron, just spent time there. “But my parents are right. I can't spend the rest of my life living in a fishing lodge and cooking my meals on a hot plate. It's time,” he added, though without any real conviction.

“I know,” Sam said. “And I understand. Your parents are counting on you, and you don't want to let them down. I'd say that's pretty much the definition of being a good son.”

“Maybe,” Linc acknowledged. “But I haven't quite thrown in the towel yet. I made a deal with them. I told them I would try it for one year. If I hate it, I'm going to go back to school. Not for business, but for forestry management. And with their blessing, too, or so they say. Anyway, that was the best compromise I could come up with.” He smiled, wryly.

“I think that's fair,” Sam said, already missing Linc. And then, to lighten the mood, he said, “Let's take a break and grab a couple of beers. The rest of this stuff can wait.”

Five minutes later, they were sitting at Birch Tree Bait's coffee counter drinking their beers. “I wonder if they serve Pabst Blue Ribbon at the country club,” Linc said, sipping his tallboy. (They'd both agreed that, under the circumstances, a twelve-ouncer probably wasn't going to cut it tonight.)

“I doubt very much that they do,” Sam said, taking a long drink from his PBR. “Linc,” he said, putting his can down. “How the hell am I going to tell my boys you're leaving?”

“I don't know,” Linc said, looking depressed. “I can't believe I'm not going to be seeing them every day. Seriously, they'll probably grow, like, six inches over the next year.”

“At least,” Sam said. “You're going to come back and visit, aren't you?”

“Oh, yeah. Every summer. I'm going to be able to use the family cabin again.”

“Cabin?” Sam snorted, since this particular cabin was at least five thousand square feet.

“Anyway.” Linc shrugged. “I'm glad we finished the tree house.” The tree house in question was a summer-long project that Sam and Linc had been working on back at Sam's cabin. They'd hammered the last nail in the week before.

“You know,” Sam said, “the boys are practically living in that tree now.”

“I'm jealous,” Linc said. And Sam knew he was only half joking. He asked Linc then whether or not he'd told Bryon and Justine about his leaving. He hadn't. And Linc was worried about how both of them would take it. They sipped their beers in silence for a little while, and Sam's mind drifted back to Poppy. It wasn't enough just to think about her, he realized, he wanted to talk about her, too.

“By the way,” he said to Linc, “I've started seeing Poppy. It's still new. Very new.”

Linc raised his eyebrows. “We wondered about that. But, after she left . . .”

“Yeah, I know. She gave me a call last weekend, though. She was in a bit of a bind. And then, well, one thing led to another . . .”

“It usually does.” Linc grinned. “I think that's great, though, Sam, I really do.” He took a slug of his beer. “You think she'll be hanging around here?”

“I hope so.”

“'Cause some of the regulars were saying how they missed her,” Linc said. “Apparently, when she was working here, some of them were making up excuses to come in so they could just, you know, look at her.”

Sam frowned. “Linc, the way she looks . . . that's not all of who she is. That's not even the
biggest
part of who she is. She's . . .” He paused.
What was she?
Well, she was a lot of things, some of them contradictory. She was vulnerable, for instance, but, at the same time, she was tough, too. She'd been hurt, obviously, but she was also a survivor. And despite having had some darkness in her life, she carried with her a brightness, a lightness, and a sunniness that Sam felt irresistibly drawn to.

“Sam, it's okay, I get it,” Linc said. “You think she's special. And obviously, she is. You wouldn't be with her if she wasn't. You know what?” he added. “I think this calls for a toast.”

“What are we drinking to?”

“To . . . another great summer.”

“I'll drink to that,” Sam said, raising his can.

W
hen Sam opened the front door for Poppy the next morning, the sun—a smudge of tangerine on the horizon—was just beginning to rise, and a tattered white mist still hung over the lake. “Hey,” he said, pulling her into his arms, and nuzzling her neck with his lips. “Thank you for coming so early.”

“Mmm, you're welcome,” she said, wrapping her arms around him. “Where are the kids?” She looked over his shoulder into the cabin.

“They're still asleep,” he said, only letting go of her long enough to close the front door. “Which means I have you all to myself for a few minutes.” He kissed her then, a kiss that was made no less pleasurable by the scratchiness of his razor-stubbled chin. She liked this Sam, she decided, this early morning Sam. This sleepy, unshaved, coffee scented Sam. She liked him
a lot
. Then again, she had yet to meet a side of Sam she
didn't
like a lot.

She sighed, happily, her body folded into his. But a moment later, as he was reaching his hands under her sweater and stroking her back, she came to her senses. “We should stop now,” she said.

“You're right. We should stop while we still can.” But he didn't
stop. Instead, he asked, “Will you remind me why we ever got out of bed that day?”

“Because you have other responsibilities?” she suggested.

“Oh, right. Speaking of those . . . I better get going,” he said, reluctantly. “Linc's waiting for me outside Birch Tree Bait.” He reached for a sweatshirt hanging on one of the hooks beside the front door. He pulled it on and then pulled a fleece vest on over it. “By the way,” he said, taking a baseball cap from another hook. “I might be out of network on the river today. I don't always get cell coverage there. And Alicia's in court. But I'll check my messages whenever I can, all right?”

She nodded, suddenly nervous. She hadn't felt this way the first time she'd babysat for him. Then it had seemed fun. Kind of like a lark. Now, it felt . . . weightier, more serious. After all, her role in Sam's children's lives was going to change, wasn't it? Or at least it would as soon as he told them about her.
About them
. She wondered if he'd done that yet, and she asked him now.

“No, I haven't told them yet,” he said, as he tugged his baseball cap on. “I haven't had time. I mean, I
have
had time, but the time has never been right. I'm going to do it soon, though. I promise.” He studied her more closely. “You're not . . . worried about today, are you? About being with them?”

She nodded, a little sheepishly. “I want them to like me,” she admitted.

“Are you kidding? They
already
love you. Well,
Cassie
loves you. The boys will come to love you.”

“I hope so,” she said, but Sam didn't give her time to think any more about this now.

“I've got to get my gear in the truck,” he said, giving her a good-bye kiss and opening the front door. “Make yourself comfortable here. The kids should sleep for a couple more hours,
and then it's cereal for breakfast, and hot dogs for lunch. Cassie has some things planned for the two of you, and the boys should be fine with minimal supervision, especially now that I've confiscated the last of their firecrackers. They'll probably want to spend most of their time in the tree house, anyway.”

“Can they go up there alone?”

Sam nodded. “You'll be able to see them from the kitchen window.” He started to leave, then stopped. “Oh, by the way, I told Cassie she could watch
Frozen
again this morning,” he said. “I think she's trying to reach the one-thousandth viewing mark.” He started to leave and then came back to kiss her one more time. “You look beautiful in the morning,” he said. And then he left.

Poppy closed the door behind him and watched through the window as he went into the garage, got a fishing rod and tackle box out, and put them in his truck. Then, he got into his pickup and, with a wave to her, drove away. She stood there for a moment, staring after him, missing him already. She looked at her watch, did a calculation. She would see him again in six hours, maybe less. So why did it feel like an eternity now? She sighed, amazed that, one by one, all of the clichés she'd ever heard about love were proving true. Had she really thought she would be exempt from all of that? she wondered now. Yes, she had. In some very fundamental way, she had. How wrong she had been. And how glad she was that she had been wrong, she thought with a little smile. It was scary. It was nerve racking. It was frustrating—how long would it be before they got to spend a whole night together again? But most of all, it was wonderful.

She left the window, finally. The house was so quiet that as she padded through the living room, she could hear her Converse sneakers squeaking on the hardwood floor. She went into the
kitchen, poured herself a cup of coffee, and, when she opened the refrigerator in search of some half-and-half, ended up lingering there for a moment, curious about its contents. There was very little evidence of Sam in here, she decided. The half-and-half, a bottle of white wine, some spicy brown mustard—everything else in it was for children. Chocolate milk, juice boxes, squeezable tubes of yogurt, strawberry jelly, ketchup. She checked the freezer. More of the same. Chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs, Popsicles, frozen peas.

As she left the kitchen for the living room she mused that the whole house was like the refrigerator. The whole house was for children. Wherever she looked, there was evidence of children living here, children having fun here . . . children
being children
here. There, on the dining table, was an unfinished game of Chutes and Ladders. And there, on the couch, was a well worn copy of
The Phantom Tollbooth
. And there, in an open cupboard built into the wall beside the back door, were baseball mitts, bicycle helmets, and soccer balls.

Oddly enough, Poppy thought, settling into an oversized leather chair in the living room, she felt comfortable here. In fact, with the exception of Win's cabin, she felt more comfortable here than she'd ever felt anywhere else before. It was strange. Not only did she not have any children of her own, but, unlike Win, she hadn't spent a lot of time with other people's children, either. Well, unless she counted Cassie. But as she sipped her coffee and looked around the room, she knew she could be happy here. Knew she was, in fact,
already
happy here.

But she caught herself.
One step at a time, Poppy. You and Sam haven't even been on an official first date yet . . . It's a little soon to be moving in with him and his children.
So, to distract herself, she reached into the nearby magazine basket and tried
to find something to read.
Ah, here's Sam,
she thought.
In this basket.
She sifted through copies of
Field & Stream
,
Outdoor Life
, and
Freshwater Fishing
. She ended up flipping through the first one and she was so relaxed as she did so that when she heard someone say,
“Poppy?”
right beside her elbow, she let out a little yelp.

“Cassie, oh my God. You scared me, honey. Where did you come from?”

“From upstairs,” Cassie said seriously. “I'm sorry I scared you. My dad says I have quiet feet.”

“You have
very
quiet feet,” Poppy agreed, laughing. “But why are you up so early, honey?”

Cassie smiled. She still looked sleepy. She was wearing her nightgown, and an imprint of the covers was still on her cheek, but her gray-blue eyes were shining with excitement. “I woke up on purpose. My dad told me you were going to be here this morning, so last night, before I went to sleep, I told my brain to wake me up early, and it
did
. It listened.”

“Well, that's because you have a very good brain.” Poppy smiled.

“Can I . . . ?” Cassie asked, indicating her lap.

“Of course,” Poppy said, and Cassie crawled into her lap and hugged her. Poppy hugged her back, shocked by how much she had missed her. Had she ever missed anyone this much? Only Win, she decided. Win and Sam and now Sasquatch.

“Poppy? I'm glad you're back,” Cassie said.

“Thanks, kiddo,” Poppy said, cheerfully, but Cassie's choice of words made something catch in her throat. She
was
back. And it felt
so right
. Still, she wondered what Sam had told Cassie, first about why Poppy would be missing from her life, and then about why she would be coming back into it. She made a mental note
to ask him. In the meantime, she hoped Cassie didn't ask her any questions she didn't know how to answer.

“Poppy?” Cassie said.

“Uh-huh,” Poppy said, suddenly nervous.

“Can we watch
Frozen
?”

T
he morning passed at a desultory but pleasant pace. When the twins finally came downstairs, looking as sleep-creased and adorable as their sister had looked, they had cereal at the kitchen table. Then, while Hunter and Tim played with their Legos, Cassie dragged Poppy up to her bedroom—a little island of femininity in an otherwise masculine sea—to play with her dolls. This time she introduced Poppy to all of them, except for one, whom she pointedly ignored.

“Is there something wrong with this one?” Poppy asked, finally, going to pick her up.

Cassie frowned, and then gave her head a little shake. But then she leaned over, cupped her hands around Poppy's ear, and whispered, “She doesn't like me.”

“Why not?” Poppy whispered back.

“Because I don't play with her as much as the other dolls, and she's mad at me. Look,” she whispered, “she's giving me a dirty look.”

Poppy looked at the doll. She was smiling, placidly, at no one in particular. Still, Cassie's relationships with her dolls were obviously more complicated than Poppy had imagined.

“Cassie,” she whispered back. “Why don't we just put her in a closet if she makes you uncomfortable?”

Cassie shook her head emphatically. “
No.
Then she'd
really
be mad at me.”

Poppy, careful not to smile, put the doll back on the shelf.
But as the noon hour approached she insisted that the kids all get dressed, and, by the time they'd done this and Poppy had tried out three different hairstyles on Cassie, they were all hungry again. After lunch, there was a general debate about what to do next. Poppy had brought a bathing suit, fully expecting to take everyone swimming, but the day remained cool and overcast. Cassie wanted to stay inside and draw and the twins wanted to play in the tree house, a ten-foot-by-ten-foot pine structure nestled in the lower branches of a sprawling oak tree in the front yard.

“Your brothers don't talk very much, do they?” Poppy commented, sitting across the kitchen table from Cassie and watching out the window as Hunter climbed the last few rungs of the tree house ladder. She'd hardly been able to get a word out of either of them all morning.

“Mostly they talk to each other,” Cassie said, concentrating on her drawing.

Poppy considered this. She knew next to nothing about little boys. “What do they like to do?” she asked. “I mean, other than play with Legos?”

Cassie hesitated. “Can you keep a secret?”

“I think so,” Poppy said. God knew she'd kept one of her own long enough.

“Sometimes,” Cassie said, “when my dad's not around, my brothers blow things up.”

“Blow things up?”

Cassie nodded. “With firecrackers. I've seen them do it. Out in the woods. But I haven't told anyone. I'm not a tattletale,” she added, proudly.

“What . . . what kinds of things do they blow up?” Poppy asked.

Cassie shrugged. “Plastic bottles. Apples. Stuff like that. Once
they blew up a whole bag of flour. Everything in the forest around it was white afterwards.”

“I'll bet it was,” Poppy said. She looked out the kitchen window as Tim scrambled up the tree house ladder.

“My dad says my brothers are part monkey,” Cassie commented, watching Tim. “I could go up there, too, if I wanted to. But I don't want to. I'm
not
part monkey,” she added, seriously.

“Neither am I,” Poppy said. “I'm afraid of heights.”

“You are?”

Poppy nodded. “When I was younger, my sister used to try to get me to jump off the boathouse roof at my grandparents' cabin. I was too scared, though. But you know what?” she said. “It looked like fun. Sometimes, watching her, I was a little jealous.”

“You were jealous of your sister?” Cassie asked, fascinated. She loved it when Poppy talked about her and Win.

“Oh, definitely,” Poppy said, smiling.

Cassie smiled back at her, and then, shyly, edged her drawing across the table to her. “Do you think this is good enough to put on the refrigerator, Poppy?”

Poppy looked down at the drawing. It was of her and Cassie, both of them twirling batons. Cassie was wearing the costume she'd worn to the recital, and her hair was in a little bun, and Poppy was wearing the blouse and jeans she had on now, and her long hair was spilling across the page in a tidal wave of bright yellow magic marker.

“This is
definitely
good enough to put on the fridge,” she told Cassie. “But do you think I could put it on
my
fridge? Just for a little while?”

“Really?” Cassie said, her eyes wide.

“Really. I mean, if that's all right with you.”

“It is.”

“Good,” Poppy said. “It'll be on loan to me, then. Don't let me forget it when I go home.”

Cassie started to say something, but Poppy didn't hear it, because at that moment Tim, who was coming down the tree house ladder, slipped and fell to the ground. He yelped. Poppy was on her feet and out the kitchen door before he could even pick himself up.

“You okay, Tim?” she asked, hurrying over to him. Inwardly she was relieved; he hadn't fallen far and he hadn't hit his head.