The Four Seasons

Birdie put her face in her palms. “Please tell me there’s a casket for my sister tomorrow.”

“Of course there is. You ordered an oak casket, and though it was lovely, it cost two thousand dollars. I found one almost identical for nine hundred dollars.” Her pride couldn’t be disguised.

“Mom,” Hannah said in that teenage know-it-all voice, “you can buy anything on the Internet these days.”

Rose shrugged. “I’m on the computer a lot for my word processing job. When I need a break I surf the Net. It’s fun, relaxing. In fact, it’s how I keep in touch with the world out there. I find it absolutely fascinating. When I’m on the Net, I feel so connected.”

Hannah waggled her brows. “Are you doing those chat rooms?”

Rose didn’t answer, but she could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks.

“Oh, no,” Birdie groaned. “You are, aren’t you.”

“What if I am?” Rose laughed lightly but her color heightened.

“You do know there are a lot of creeps out there that prey on lonely women like yourself.”

“They’re not all creeps. There are some very nice people looking for someone to talk to.”

Birdie released a short, sarcastic laugh.

“Lots of people are in chat rooms,” Hannah said in Rose’s defense.

“Not you, too, I hope,” Birdie replied with narrowed eyes.

“Sure I am.”

Birdie leaned back against the counter. “Good God, is there anything else I don’t know? My sister and my child are hanging out in chat rooms, we’ve got some casket coming in the mail and, as far as I’m concerned, we’re having a damn picnic in the house tomorrow.”

Dennis stuck his head around the corner. “Hey, in case you’re interested, there’s a chauffeur at the door.”

3

BIRDIE AND ROSE LOOKED AT each other for a brief instant, then in a flash, Rose darted from the table and tore off to open the front door as eager as a nine-year-old girl. A tall, blond man with a bodybuilder’s physique squeezed into a black suit smiled uncertainly.

“Excuse me, ma’am, but is this the Season residence?”

Rose looked beyond the man’s massive shoulders into the darkness but didn’t see her sister. Only the sleek red lights that trimmed the limo were visible along the curb. A shiver of worry shot through her as she nodded.

The chauffeur pinched back a smile and said, “My passenger told me to tell you to meet her in the side yard.”

Rose wasn’t sure she’d heard right. Behind her, Birdie stepped forward to ask in her imperious voice, “Where is Miss Season?”

The chauffeur cleared his throat and leaned forward in a confidential manner. “In the side yard. She should really come inside. She’s…well, she’s had a bit too much to drink.”

Rose heard Birdie mutter an oath. Dennis stepped forward and shook the chauffeur’s hand in a man-to-man manner. “Why don’t you bring her luggage right inside.” He looked over his shoulder, jerking his head at Birdie.

“Come on, Rose, let’s go get her,” Birdie said. They hurried into their coats and out the door into the night. Hannah was right behind them.

The snow had finally stopped and the full moon was as white as a large plate in the inky black sky. The light illuminated the clean, virginal snow in breathtaking beauty. Rose had always felt a particular thrill stepping into a stretch of new snow, akin to being an explorer discovering uncharted territory. Ahead, the path of her sisters’ deep footprints in the nearly foot-deep snow were the only marks scarring the frosty white. She followed them, trying to step in their prints, with a curious excitement in her chest. Around the wide front porch she could hear high-pitched laughing and shrieking.

Turning the corner, she saw in the moonlight a flash of vivid red hair and lush black mink against a sea of white. Blinking in the cold air, she moved closer. Birdie was standing a few feet away from the blur of motion, her hands on her hips. Rose saw Jillian lying in the snow, laughing with delight, as her mink-clad arms and her long, slender legs in dainty spiked heels moved back and forth, carving out a snow angel.

“Jilly!” Rose cried out with joy.

Jilly stopped laughing, cocked her head up and waved her arm, beckoning Rose closer.

“Rosie!” she shouted. “Look at all this snow! Isn’t it beautiful? I haven’t seen snow like this since we were kids. It’s so damn wonderful. Come on, Rosie! Birdie! Remember how we used to make snow angels? Look, I’ve made two already!”

Sure enough, Rose spied two snow angel outlines looking somewhat ethereal and magical in the moonlight. Rose ran to Jilly’s side, bubbling with anticipation. Except, she couldn’t remember how to make the angel. Suddenly Hannah appeared beside her, grinning with delight.

“So cool,” she exclaimed joyously. Spreading her arms out, she simply fell back into the soft snow, then began to thrash her arms up and down in an arc.

“Hannah, get out of there!” Birdie called, exasperated. “Oh, no, Rose, don’t you dare. Rose!”

With a squeal, Rose shut her eyes, spread out her arms and fell back. It was deliriously delicious, like free-falling, then finding herself deeply enveloped in the snow, face up to the moonlight.

“Aw, come on, Birdie, you ol’ stick in the mud,” Jilly called out. “Nobody’s looking.”

Birdie stood a few feet away, feeling every inch of the distance.

“Jilly, you’ll catch your death of cold,” she scolded. “You all will. No boots, no gloves, no hats. You’re all behaving like children. Jilly, come on, give me your hand.”

Jilly lifted her hand as gracefully as a queen’s. When Birdie stepped forward to take it, Jilly whipped up her other hand, clasped Birdie’s tightly and pulled her down with a laugh. Birdie shouted in surprise and tumbled face first into the snow beside her sister.

The snow was icy on her cheeks but nothing was hurt, except maybe her pride. The sound of hilarious laughter filled her ears. Birdie sputtered and felt ready to throttle her older sister, who was obviously drunk. She could smell the Scotch mixed with perfume. She struggled to raise herself to her knees and wipe the snow off her cheeks, scowling, ready to light into her sister.

But then she saw Jilly’s face, inches from her own, lit up with laughter. Birdie could only stare into that beautiful face, beautiful not for the reasons fashion magazines had clamored for her picture, but because it was the face she remembered from their childhood. Jilly’s eyes were bright with a childlike joy and that incomparable pleasure of just being alive that she hadn’t seen in her since they were kids. Birdie wasn’t sure if Jilly was happy, or merely drunk.

“Missed you, sis,” Jilly said soberly, still looking into her eyes with a wistfulness that was endearing. She reached up to swipe away a chunk of snow from Birdie’s collar. “You always made the best snow angels, remember? The snow was just like this, too. Soft, like powder. Remember?” Then with a cocky smirk she added, “But I always had to drag you out here, even then.”

Though the words were slurred, Birdie smiled and nodded, remembering it all.

Hannah sat up and howled with laughter at seeing her mother dumped in the snow. There was a look of awe on her face; she couldn’t believe anyone would really dare to do that to her mother. Beside her, Rose, the traitor, was laughing so hard tears were icing on her lashes and she clapped her hands in the same spontaneous manner she used to when she was little.

Something deep within Birdie pinged; she could hear the sound in her mind as clearly as she heard the laughing of the three women she loved most in the world. It was a rare moment of intense beauty and joy. Their world, their senses, felt heightened. She breathed in the cool air, slowly and deeply, feeling the moisture slide down her throat and enter her lungs. The snow made her cheeks burn with cold. She imagined they were cherry red, like Hannah’s, and the sting made her feel alive.

What small miracle had transpired that allowed her to be kneeling in the new-fallen snow in the moonlight with her sisters, laughing like children. Playing, rather than fussing over details of the funeral?

She knew the answer, of course. Jilly. It had always been Jilly who started the games.

Ah, but it was cold, and late, her mind rushed to warn her. They couldn’t stay out here forever. Reality interfered. Suddenly, she was no longer a child but a grown-up, with an adult’s sensibilities. She knew that a drunk could get hypothermia and not even know it. She knew that there were countless details to be sorted out before the funeral tomorrow. The dinner had to be served. Jilly probably needed to get some food in her. And unlike her sisters, Birdie was a mother. A wife. A doctor. She had responsibilities.

In a flash, she felt herself projected out from the scene, becoming an outsider, looking in. She couldn’t play. She pushed a hand through her hair and looked again at Jilly, then at Rose, and finally her own daughter, Hannah, still making snow angels. Birdie felt very cold. Her fingertips were flaming red and her toes were numb. “Okay, everybody, time to go in.”

“Okay, Mom,” Rose called back, giggling at her own joke.

Birdie wanted to shout back that she wasn’t her mother. She didn’t want to be the mother. Slowly, she dragged herself to her feet, feeling every one of her forty-one years.