Why not just go ahead and ask Mona to come, too? Tilly proposes. They need to be together and rescue Izzy, get her back on track. Sixty-six and living like a burnt-out hippie in other people’s houses. And now that she might have sold her own, she’ll be even more rootless. She needs grounding, a home, a companion, medication.
Tilly and Antonia try calling Mona to suggest the plan—but their sister is not available to take their call. It’s urgent, Tilly leaves a message. Surely Mona will agree to join them, as she’s the one who has been pushing for an intervention for months. Plus, baby sister does not like being left out.
The small house on Happy Valley Road hums with activity. Tilly and Antonia are a good team, the two middle-sister workhorses, making the spare beds, setting out towels, vacuuming the carpets, interspersing these chores with calls to Izzy, whose phone instantly goes to voicemail, and to Mona—Tilly’s messages increasingly pissy. Kaspar is commissioned to drive over to Caputo’s, where there’s a good wine selection, a large assortment of cheeses, fresh pastas; he’s to take his cell phone along just in case they think of something else they need but have forgotten in their haste.
When Mona finally returns their call, Tilly outlines the plan.
Sorry, Charlie, Mona says. Too last-minute; I can’t just drop everything. Even though she is winding down her practice, she still has some clients. I have a life.
We all do, Tilly rebuts. Bickering ensues. Who has a life, who doesn’t.
Bitch! Tilly finally shouts, and hangs up.
Come on, be fair, Antonia counsels. We sprung it on her. Call her back.
You call her back! Tell her it’s what you want for your birthday.
By now, Antonia is too caught in the strong current of sisterhood to know what she wants. She hits redial on Tilly’s cell. The phone rings once. Bitch, yourself! Mona screams in her ear.
It’s me, Antonia corrects the understandable mistake. Mona bursts out crying. Tilly hung up on her. She’s so unfair. I know, Mo-mo, Antonia soothes the baby sister. It’s just we’re worried and we need you, we miss you, we love you. You catch more flies with sugar than you do with salt, Mami would say. Please come. It’s what I want for my birthday.
Mona grumpily agrees, but with a caveat: she’ll come only if Tilly apologizes first. Another standoff. By the time Antonia has convinced Tilly to go the extra mile—it’s what she wants from Tilly for her birthday—a call comes in from Izzy: she’ll be arriving later than she thought, as she is now pulling a trailer behind her.
A trailer? Tilly is alarmed. Did you buy a motel and a mobile home?
Whatever Izzy’s response, it’s at such a volume that Tilly has to hold the phone away from her ear. She curses, but not loudly and not into the mouthpiece.
Ask her where she is, Antonia mouths.
But Izzy has already hung up. When they try calling her back, the number she called from is not her number. Hi, this is Phil. Leave me a message.
Who the hell is Phil? Tilly records her message: Hey, Phil!—like she knows who he is. We’re calling my sister Izzy. Can you tell her to please call me back?
You’re not going to believe this, Tilly says to Kaspar, as he comes in the door with the commissioned purchases. First, she needs a drink. They clink glasses, standing in the kitchen, shaking their heads in commiseration. Kaspar questions the sisters as if they can divine Izzy’s motives or make sense of her choices. Who would be crazy enough to drive a trailer in March with the weather so unpredictable? Is she moving in or what?
Tilly and Antonia exchange a look. The truth is, it’s a good thing we’re doing this interjection now, Tilly says.
Intervention, Antonia corrects.
Screw you! Tilly glowers, pouring herself another drink. Kaspar purses his lips in disapproval. There’s no call for that, he chides his wife.
Tilly turns away and gives Kaspar a middle finger for only Antonia to see. It’s like Tilly never left high school, Antonia thinks. Just as Izzy never left childhood, and baby Mona never left the womb. And she? What stage in life would her sisters say Antonia is stuck in?
That night, Tilly crawls in bed with Antonia. She uses the remote to turn on the news; both sisters are too agitated to sleep. It’s a habit Antonia has become well-acquainted with in her empty house, turning on the news—in her case the radio—for company, her own sadness put in perspective by the larger sadness of the world.
The screen explodes with the sounds and sights of urgency. A swarm of police cars, wailing ambulances; lights panning the street; people shouting, screaming, calling for help; a breathless reporter is speaking earnestly into a microphone. Another mass shooting, this time in New Zealand.
The horror! the horror! enters the house on Happy Valley Road, making its way into the bedroom on its small, furred feet. The world is crazy. And their sister Izzy has lost her way in it, and they, the sisters, must intervene, get her back on track.
At least she’s not in New Zealand, Tilly tries lamely for humor.
Please turn that off, Antonia pleads.
Tilly acquiesces but not without a jab at Antonia. You always have to get your way.
They lie in the dark, trading stories of the past, trying to track down when it was that they first noted big sister going off the rails.
Remember those fits she used to throw as a little kid? Hitting her head on the floor if you thwarted her? How she used to pull out her hair and had this huge bald spot? Or the time she tried to get a hold of Michelle Obama to offer to design her inauguration gown? Never mind that Izzy couldn’t even sew a button on a blouse. How she fell in love with the worst men and turned away the sweet ones. I like a challenge, she’d say. Like she wasn’t enough of a challenge to herself. Outrageous, hilarious, over the top—they’ve always laughed at Izzy’s antics—but in a certain light, weren’t these signs of a disconnect with reality that, untreated, has now become dangerous to Izzy herself? Antonia talks on and on before she realizes Tilly is snoring.
It’s not like we ever had a choice, Tilly says from inside her dream, apropos of nothing Antonia can figure out.
Antonia’s birthday dawns gray and worrisome. Outside, there’s a chill wind blowing, the chimes are clanging, a jarring sound that goes right through her. They are tolling for Christchurch, Sam, Estela, Mario, Izzy. Not sci-fi, the ringtone du jour, but this clamoring of metal. The din of the inferno.
They haven’t heard from Izzy again, though Antonia expects that, today being her birthday, Izzy will be calling. A date she’s not likely to forget, as it marks the four-week overlap between their two birthdays, when they are the same age. It used to grate on Izzy when they were kids, to be reminded by Antonia: I’m as old as you are! I’m as old as you are! You can’t boss me around! Which is why Antonia’s birthday would have to be engraved in Izzy’s memory. Since as far back as Antonia can remember, Izzy has been the first to call and wake her up on her birthday singing “Las Mañanitas.”
They keep trying her number, but their calls instantly go into voicemail. It might be out of charge, Kaspar suggests, a not unlikely possibility given how remiss Izzy is with practicalities.
So, do we call the police? Tilly asks, curling her upper lip with distaste. The sisters all have an aversion to authority, an immigrant thing, they think, compounded by their hippie pasts.