Pete stared at the glove compartment; there were streaks down it, like coffee had been spilled there long ago. “Wow,” he said. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Nothing.” Vicky passed a car, pulled back in to the lane. “Anyway, she took a pill, and then said how panic attacks were— I can’t remember what she said, but she calmed down and made me pull over so we wouldn’t have to drive into the city. But, Pete, that was sad. She’s so small, and she’s— You see her online and—” Vicky fell silent. She sat up straighter and drove with one hand; the other hand was touching her chin; her elbow was on the armrest next to her. They drove along for quite a while.
Finally Vicky said, looking straight ahead at the road, “She’s not coo-coo, Pete. She just couldn’t stand being back here. It was too hard for her.”
On his trips to the soup kitchen in Carlisle with the Guptills, Pete had noticed how they were affectionate toward each other; Shirley would often put her hand on Tommy’s arm as he drove the car. Pete wondered about this, what it would be like to be that free, to touch people so freely. He would have liked—only not really—to put his own hand on his sister’s arm right now, this sister who had put on lipstick to see the famous Lucy. Instead he sat quietly next to her.
Eventually Vicky said, “I never should have mentioned that stuff from the past.”
“No, Vicky. How would you know? And I said the stuff about the clothes.”
As they drove, the sun was glaring to their side. They passed once again the barns with the American flags painted on them, only they were on the other side of them now, and Pete saw once again, from across the road, the huge John Deere place with all its green and yellow machines. He felt awfully safe sitting next to Vicky. He kept wondering how he could tell her this, and he finally said, “Vicky, you’re great.”
She made a sound of disgust and glanced at him, and he said, “No, really, you are. Lucy said to remind you of the Anne-Marie woman.”
“Anna-Marie.” Then Vicky said, “What did she mean by that?”
“I think she meant that you were great too, that’s what I think she was saying.” Pete moved his feet around the cans that were on the floor there.
They drove in silence for many miles. From the corner of his eye, he watched his sister; he thought she was a good driver. He liked her bulkiness, the way she filled her seat and drove with such authority. He wished he could tell her this; he wished he could say something more than that she was great. He finally said, “Vicky, we didn’t turn out so bad, you know.”
She glanced at him and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right,” she said. Then she said, “Well, we’re not out there murdering people, if that’s what you mean.” She gave a brief laugh that seemed to rise up from the deepest part of herself.
Pete wished the ride could go on forever. He wished he could sit there next to his sister while they drove and drove.
But he recognized where they were now; the roads were narrowing. He saw the top of a maple tree that had started to turn pink; he saw the fields that surrounded the Pedersons’ barn. And then finally they were back; Vicky pulled in to the road, and then the driveway, and there in front of them was the tired little house with its blinds open. Vicky turned the car off. After a moment, Pete said, “Hey, Vicky, do you want that rug?”
Vicky pushed her glasses up her nose with a finger placed in the middle of them. “Sure, why not?” she said. But she made no move to get out of the car, and so they gazed at the house, in silence, and sat.
Dottie’s Bed & Breakfast
They were from the East, and their name was Small.
This Dottie always remembered, because the husband was so big, and he wore a look of fixed irritation that must have come, at least partly, Dottie imagined, from a lifetime of responding to comments regarding his name. Which of course Dottie took no part in—not one bit!—at all. Mrs. Small had made the reservation over the telephone, so Dottie knew they weren’t young. Not only Mrs. Small’s voice told her this, but most people did things online now. Dottie was, in fact, a bit older than Mrs. Small, but Dottie had taken to the Internet like a paddlefish waiting for water; she was sorry it hadn’t arrived when she was a younger woman, she was certain she could have been successful at something that made use of her mind more than the renting out of rooms for these past many years. She could have been rich! But Dottie was not a woman to complain, having been taught by her decent Aunt Edna one summer—it seemed like a hundred years ago, and practically was—that a complaining woman was like pushing dirt beneath the fingernails of God, and this was an image Dottie had never been able to fully dislodge. Dottie was a tiny woman, prim, with the good skin of her Midwestern ancestors, and all things considered—and there were many things to consider—she appeared—to herself and to others—to do just fine. In the event, the reservation was made for Mr. and Mrs. Small, and two weeks later a tall—big—white-haired man stepped through the door and said, “We have a reservation for Dr. Richard Small.” Dr. Small’s announcement was apparently large enough to include his wife, who came in right behind him, without any mention of her at all.