The Four Seasons

“I said, everybody up. Time to go in.”

Ever the cooperative one, Rose climbed to her feet and offered her hand to Jilly. This time, Jilly went along, allowing Rose to take one hand and Hannah the other as they hauled her to her feet. She rose like a beautifully plumed bird, graceful, arms outstretched. A phoenix, Birdie thought with a wry smile.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Jilly moaned once she was on her feet, weaving.

“Too much booze,” Birdie said matter-of-factly as she stepped forward to grab hold of Jilly’s arm. “Can you walk?”

“I’m a model, chérie. I’ve strolled down runways in a lot worse condition than this.”

“Spare me the details. Okay then, one foot after another.”

Like a trooper, Jilly straightened her shoulders, fixed her direction. Then, releasing her sister’s hand, she paced through the snow with remarkable grace.

“You didn’t tell me your sister was so cool,” Hannah said, coming to her side.

Birdie saw the admiration in Hannah’s eyes and felt a sting of jealousy. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen anything but scorn in her daughter’s eyes.

A squeal caught her attention. She looked up in time to see Jilly wobble on some ice in the ridiculous spiked heels, then fall flat back into a snowdrift. Birdie hated herself for it, but a part of her was glad to see Jilly knocked off the pedestal a notch. She stifled her smile and hurried to help Jilly to her feet with Rose catching the slack. Jilly seemed to have used the last of her steam to make the distance to the porch; she was like a rag doll now.

In the light of the front porch, Birdie studied her sister with a physician’s eye. It had been ten years since she’d last seen her. Jilly still possessed a sultry sexiness that even women turned their heads to admire. Her hair was the color of flame and as thick and wild as ever. She wore much less makeup now so her face appeared more pleasing and natural. But Birdie didn’t like its pallor and gauntness, nor the puffy eyelids and the blueness of her lips. And Jilly was thinner. The bones of her face and even her hands appeared sharp under blue-veined skin. Intuition bred from years of training and experience recognized excessive fatigue and possible illness.

“Help me get her up, Rose,” she murmured.

Rose and Hannah both responded to the serious tone in Birdie’s request. The sisters each shouldered part of Jilly’s weight while Hannah opened the front door.

“I’m okay….” Jilly muttered.

“Sure you are. Now, take another step. Up, up, up,” and so on as they made their way up the front steps.

“Welcome home, Jilly,” Rose murmured as they ushered her into the warmth of their old family house.

Hours later, the dishes were washed and put away, the lights turned off and everyone settled into their respective rooms. The whole house seemed to sigh in peace. Rose sat before her computer, wide-awake. Coffee had been served when they all came in from the cold. Though she didn’t usually drink caffeine at night, that wasn’t what stirred her blood. There had been too much emotion and tomorrow promised more.

These dark hours were her favorite, when no one needed her or called her name. They were hers alone. Merry had always fallen asleep quickly and early and slept untroubled through the night. Occasionally illness would rouse her, but usually her breath purred and she dreamed of happy things. Rose knew this because she’d sit by her bed and watch her, envious of the gentle smile that curved Merry’s lips.

Her bedroom had once been their parents’ room. Rose had offered this largest bedroom to Merry after their mother died but Merry had rejected it, preferring the familiarity of her own lavender-and-lace-filled room. So Rose had moved in, using her old room as an office for her part-time job as a word processor. There were twelve rooms in the house, but her office was hers alone, filled with things that she had chosen for herself rather than inherited. Her desk was designed for her new computer. The bookshelves were installed to house her personal library. Everything here was here only because she wished it to be. She could come into this room, close the door and be free to explore her own interests, either through books or, more recently, the Internet.

She turned on the computer and, as she waited for it to boot, thought that Birdie was wrong to say chat rooms were only for lonely shut-ins. She knew this wasn’t true because her Internet friend, DannyBoy, traveled all across the country as a trucker. They didn’t go into personal details, didn’t exchange pictures or such, but she gleaned from what he wrote that being on the road so much was the reason he couldn’t meet nice young ladies. He wasn’t some pervert. He was kind and caring. A real gentleman who never was vulgar, or stupid, or chauvinistic. In fact, he was the nicest man she’d ever met, if only in cyberspace. They’d met months ago in a chat room for stamp collectors, and their conversations had soon drifted from stamps to whatever was on their minds. They’d liked what each other had to say and she wasn’t surprised when he e-mailed her privately.

As she clicked to her mail, she felt the familiar thrill to see his e-mail waiting for her. DannyBoy had been her greatest ally when she’d decided to buck Birdie’s directives and have her luncheon. He’d been the one to write words of condolences, sincere and heartfelt. Though she’d never seen his face, Rose could honestly believe DannyBoy was her best friend. She clicked open the e-mail.

Dear Rosebud,

All day I kept thinking and wondering if your sisters had come yet. I know how excited you are and how sad that the occasion for this get-together is your youngest sister’s funeral. I heard on the weather report about all that snow you folks in Chicago got. What bad luck. Hope it all goes okay. Let me know.

I’m in Texas now. The weather is pretty good, but the clouds are collecting and in these parts, we all keep our eyes on the sky and our ears tuned to the radio. Moving on soon, though, to the Midwest.

DannyBoy

She smiled, wondering as she always did what he looked like, how old he was, and if he was tall or short, fat or thin, balding or wore his hair in a ponytail. Not that it mattered, of course, though she couldn’t help but be curious. She put her fingers to the keyboard.

Dear DannyBoy,

Yes, they’re here! We had a terrible snowstorm but we’re lucky. Birdie and her family made it down and Jilly’s plane got in, though late. It’s so very wonderful! I really should go to sleep. Tomorrow is a busy day. I’ve a million things to do. I’ll have to get up early and polish the silver, set the tables, make the sandwiches. Oh Lord, the list never ends. But I can’t sleep. My blood feels like it’s racing yet my eyelids are so heavy. I haven’t slept well lately. I hate the darkness. I lie in bed staring at the ceiling until I see red spots before my eyes. I don’t know what I’m waiting for, but I have this sense something is going to happen. Maybe Merry is hovering nearby. Who knows? I hope I don’t sound crazy. I probably just need some sleep. But my sisters are here!

Take care,

Rosebud

She sent the letter. While she was scanning the Net, she was surprised to see another letter come in. Clicking over, she saw it was from DannyBoy. He must be online, she thought, feeling a sudden, almost intimate connection with him.

Dear Rosebud,

Go to sleep!

DannyBoy

4

JILLY AWOKE TO A PERSISTENT STRIPE of bright light seeping in from behind the curtains. It spread across the room playing with the shadows. She lay flat on her back, disoriented, drymouthed, in that limbo space between wakefulness and deep sleep. She was aware only of being very cold, and not knowing where she was. Blinking, she thought the bed was different. The walls…the smells.

Then suddenly in a rush, she knew.

She was in her old room, the one she’d shared with Birdie so many years before. She blinked again, then wiped her face with her palms. Her brain was awake now, absolutely, but her body wasn’t. Perhaps it was the jet lag, perhaps just the excitement of being home again after all these years, but she knew there would be no closing her eyes and falling back asleep. And for that, there’d be hell to pay. She’d had too much to drink last night. Her head was already pounding with a hangover and lack of sufficient sleep. A bad combination, and one all too familiar.

She licked her dry lips and dragged herself up to her elbows to take stock. She was wearing only a bra and undies. Rose and Birdie must have helped her out of her clothes. If she were in her own apartment in Paris she’d get up, boost the heat a bit, slip thick socks on her feet, then search around the kitchen for something to eat and perhaps something hot to drink. Maybe even listen to some music. But she didn’t want to wake anyone up, especially not Merry.

Jilly rubbed her eyes, waking further. No, she thought with a pang, she couldn’t wake Merry.

She dragged herself to a sitting position and took stock of the room. Nothing had changed. Her square white dresser was still covered with her collection of miniature boxes, each undoubtedly filled with the same costume earrings, buttons, pins and rings she’d carelessly tossed in eons ago. Birdie’s was topped with swimming trophies and medals attached to blue ribbons. There were two twin beds with matching swirling white wrought-iron headboards. On Birdie’s bed lay her favorite teddy bear, a big white one that was now as dirty and gray as the morning light. She looked down by her feet then cracked a smile, feeling more delight than she thought she would on finding her own teddy bear still there. It was a ratty, old-fashioned brown bear with stuffing sticking out from the roughly repaired seams.

“Hello, Mr. President,” she said, reaching out to pull the bear close, oddly comforted by it.

It was so eerie to see everything as she’d left it years ago. She hadn’t expected it to be the same. Rather, she’d thought all traces of the big bad sister would have been weeded out. It felt nice to see some trace of the young Jillian Season still remained. Rose was a sweetheart for putting her back in her old room. Oh, the dreams she’d had sleeping in this bed!

And the nightmares.

The last time she’d slept in here was in her senior year of high school, before she left for Marian House. When she’d returned, her mother had moved her to the guest room. It was all part of her mother’s infinite plan. Marian House was never to be discussed. Not even with—especially not with—her sisters. Her mother had arranged for Jilly to leave for a year’s study at the Sorbonne immediately after graduation. After all, she had painstakingly explained to Jilly, by going so far away, she wouldn’t have to deal with all those prying questions about where she’d been the previous months.

“It’s over Jillian,” her mother had said. “We never have to talk of this again. Everything can be just as it had been before. And you look so well. So slim!”

That was when Jilly knew the pretending had already begun. So, she went to France in the spring, upsetting her mother’s plan the following fall when she was discovered and hired as a Paris runway model and had refused to return home.

“But here I am again,” Jilly said to the stuffed bear, shaking the memories from her head. “I keep coming back. What is the matter with me? I thought I’d left it all behind.” In anguish, she squeezed the bear. “Why can’t I just let it go? Am I like you, you bear? Torn and badly mended at the seams, hmm?”

Ready or not, here I come, she thought as she crawled from the bed. She went first to her closet and, opening it, found it stuffed with her old clothes from the 1970s. Everything was still there. She grabbed a short lavender silk kimono, a favorite in high school, and slipped it on.

She moved slowly through the hall and down the stairs, cautiously, sniffing the air like a long-lost dog finding its way home. She paused to study a photograph or two on the stairwell wall, then paused again at the landing that overlooked the foyer and the front room. Dust motes floated in the sunbeam that poured in through the tall, gracious beveled glass windows. Jilly clutched the railing and stood, blinking, taking in the sight. Time could have stood still in this house. Last night she’d been too drunk to notice. But now, as she took in the heavy brocade curtains, the antique coatrack by the door, the crystal chandelier in the foyer, her mind slipped back once again to when she was seventeen years old and coming down these stairs for the last time.