I waved goodbye to Erin, and we began the long trudge home. The further we walked, the hotter we got. The sun beat on our heads and shoulders, and our clothes stuck to us. Even wading in the lake didn’t cool us off.
Before we’d gone halfway, Emma asked me to carry her.
“You promised you’d walk,” I reminded her.
“I’m tired,” Emma said, close to tears.
“Okay, but just a little way.” I picked her up and carried her piggyback style. “Thank goodness you’re a little skinny old thing,” I told her.
“I’m just a bag of bones,” Emma whispered into my ear. After that, she was so quiet I suspected she’d fallen asleep, worn out from the walk. I was pretty tired myself.
When we were almost home, I thought I saw Sissy watching us from a stone jetty poking out into the lake. I didn’t wave. Neither did she. She just stood there as still as a heron waiting for a fish. But she was very far away, small in the distance. I could have been mistaken.
At any rate, I was glad Emma didn’t see her.
8
In the end, I carried Emma as far as the studio. I lowered her to the ground and woke her up. “You’ll have to climb the steps yourself.”
The studio door opened, and Dulcie rushed out as if she’d been waiting for us. “Where have you been? You’ve been gone for ages!”
“We walked to Webster’s Cove,” I told her. “Emma wanted to find Sissy’s house.”
Emma threw her arms around Dulcie and burst into tears. “We didn’t see Sissy anywhere, and I got so tired and hot.”
“We stopped at Smoochie’s,” I told Dulcie. “The girl who works there, Erin, didn’t know Sissy, but she said her mother knows you and Mom. She used to play with you when she was little.”
“What was her name?”
“Jeanine something—I forget.”
Most people would have paused to think about the name. Not Dulcie. Her answer was quick and sharp. “I don’t remember her.”
“But she remembers you.”
Dulcie frowned and shook her head. “Next time you sashay off to Webster’s Cove, please let me know.”
I wanted to ask if she had a memory problem, but the grumpy look on her face silenced me.
“It’s past time for lunch. Emma must be starved.” Dulcie loped up the steps, and Emma and I followed, too tired to keep up with her long legs.
After we ate, Dulcie returned to the studio, and Emma settled down on the couch beside me.
“Will you read this to me?” Emma held up The Moffats. “I want to know about Rufus M.”
Like most of the things in the cottage, the book was old. The cover was faded, and the pages had a soft, pulpy feel. My grandmother had scrawled her name on the title page, followed by the date June 5, 1945. Under it, Dulcie had written her name and June 2, 1977. Mom added her name the next year. It looked as if another name had been scribbled there, but someone had erased it. All that remained were a few faint pencil marks, impossible to read.
By the time I finished the first chapter, Emma was fast asleep. I lay on my side next to her, tired from our long walk. A fly buzzed against the window screen. The lake lapped the shore. After resting for a while, I went to my room and put on my bathing suit. Leaving Emma to her nap, I ran down the steps to the lake.
Before I waded into the water, I stopped by the studio. Dulcie was sitting on a stool, staring at an unfinished painting, another canvas washed with blues and grays and green. “Where’s Emma?” she asked.
“Asleep. Is it okay if I go for a swim?”
Dulcie hesitated. For a moment I was afraid she’d say no. Mom would have. “Promise to stay out of deep water, and be careful.” She dipped her brush into blue paint. “Be back in a half-hour or so.”
I leaned against the door for a moment and watched Dulcie go to work on the painting. She was soon absorbed in adding daubs of dark blues and blacks.
Completely forgotten, I slipped outside and walked down to the lake. The water was so clear, I could see my toes and the pebbles on the bottom as if I were looking through glass. Schools of silver minnows darted in and out of clumps of grass, turning this way and that in perfect unison, tickling my legs as they swam past.
I waded through knee-deep water, watching the minnows. Every now and then I glimpsed bigger fish—trout, maybe—but they disappeared before I got a good look at them. Seagulls dipped and circled overhead, and the pine forest behind me rang with the cries of crows. The trees made the air smell like Christmas.
I was enjoying myself until I saw Sissy at the end of our stretch of sandy beach. Unaware I was near, she bent over a pile of sand, patiently shaping it into a castle with turrets. I watched her for a few moments, glad Emma was safely at home.
When Sissy began to dig a moat, I splashed out of the water. “Well, well, where have you been?”
She looked up, startled. “What’s it to you?”
“Nothing,” I said. “It’s not like I missed you or anything.”
Sissy frowned, her eyes narrowed against the sun. “Where’s Emma?”
“Taking a nap.” I sat down, scooped up a handful of sand, and watched it trickle slowly through my fingers.
“It’s boring to sleep.” Sissy went on digging her moat as if it was a lot more interesting than I was. She was wearing the same faded bathing suit. One strap slipped off her shoulder, and she pulled it back in place.
“Emma was pretty tired.” I scooped up another handful of sand. “We walked all the way to Webster’s Cove and back this morning.”
“Why did you go there?”
“Emma was looking for your house. She thought—”
Sissy shook her head. “I don’t live in Webster’s Cove.”
“Where do you live, then?”
Sissy pointed in the opposite direction. “That way.”
“The other day you pointed toward the Cove.”
She smiled an odd little smile, more of a smirk, actually, and began to make a road to the castle with beach stones. She placed each one carefully. “Maybe I don’t like unexpected company.”
Maybe I don’t, either, I thought. Especially when it’s you. Out loud, I asked, “What’s your last name?”
Sissy smoothed her castle’s walls, stroking the sand with both hands as if it were a cat. I could see the little knobs of her spine under her skin and the sharp jut of her shoulder blades. She was definitely ignoring me—which annoyed me.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
No answer.
“What’s your father do?”
Still no answer.
“My dad’s a math professor at the university. He—”
Sissy shrugged as if she didn’t care what my father did.
I made a path with bits of broken shells and pebbles. “I’m just trying to be friendly.”
“No, you’re not. You’re being nosy.” Her face hidden by her hair, Sissy decorated her castle with bits of driftwood.
What could I say? She was right. I wasn’t being friendly—I wanted to know more about her.
After a while, Sissy brushed her hair to the side and looked at me. “Emma says Dulcie’s an artist. Is she good?”