Winter Garden

Nina stood in the confusing jumble that was the Johannesburg airport and looked up at Danny. She knew he wanted to go with her, but she couldn’t imagine why. She had nothing to give him right now, nothing to give anyone. She just needed to go, to be gone, to be home. “I need to do this alone. ”

She could see that she’d hurt him.

“Of course you do,” he said.

“I’m sorry. ”

He ran a deeply tanned hand through his long, messy black hair, and stared down at her with an intensity that made her draw in a sharp breath. It got through, that look, hit her hard. He reached out slowly, pulled her into his arms as if they were alone, two lovers with all the time in the world. He claimed her with a kiss that was deep and intimate, almost primal in its power. She felt her heartbeat quicken and her cheeks heat up, although it made no sense, that reaction. She was a grown woman, not a scared virgin, and sex was the last thing on her mind.

“Remember that, love,” he said, drawing back but not looking away.

It was a kiss that almost softened her grief for a second, lessened her load. She almost said something, almost changed her mind, but before she found even the start of a word, he was pulling away, turning his back on her, and then he was gone. She stood there a minute, almost frozen; then she grabbed her backpack from the floor beside her feet and started walking.

Thirty-four hours later, she parked her rental car in the dark, snow-coated hospital parking lot and ran inside, praying—as she had for every hour of the transcontinental flight—that she wasn’t too late.

In the waiting room on the third floor, she found her sister positioned like a sentinel next to an absurdly cheery aquarium full of tropical fish. Nina skidded to a stop, afraid suddenly to say anything. They’d always handled things differently, she and Meredith. Even as girls. Nina had fallen often and picked herself back up; Meredith had moved cautiously, rarely losing her balance. Nina had broken things; Meredith held them together.

Nina needed that now, needed her sister to hold her together. “Mere?” she said quietly.

Meredith turned to her. Even with the length of the waiting room between them and bad fluorescent lighting above, Nina could see how drawn and tired her sister looked. Meredith’s chestnut-brown hair, usually so flawlessly styled, was a mess. She wore no makeup, and without it, her brown eyes looked too big for her pale face, her oversized mouth was colorless. “You’re here,” she said, moving forward, taking Nina into her arms.

When Nina drew back, she was unsteady, her breathing was a little erratic. “How is he?”

“Not good. He had a second massive heart attack. At first they were going to try to operate . . . but now they’re saying he won’t survive it. The damage is too extensive. Dr. Watanabe doesn’t think he’ll make it through the weekend. But they didn’t really think he’d make it through the first night, either. ”

Nina closed her eyes at the pain of that. Thank God she had made it home in time to see him.

But how could she lose him? He was her level ground, her North Star. The one person who was always waiting for her to come home.

Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked at her sister again. “Where’s Mom?”

Meredith stepped sideways.

And there she was—a beautiful white-haired woman sitting in a cheap upholstered chair. Even from here, Nina could see how controlled her mother was, how scarily contained. She hadn’t risen to welcome her youngest child home, hadn’t even looked her way. Rather, she was staring straight ahead; those eerie blue eyes of hers seemed to glow against the pallor of her skin. As usual, she was knitting. They probably had three hundred sweaters and blankets, each neatly folded in stacks in the attic.

“How is she?” Nina asked.

Meredith shrugged, and Nina knew what that movement meant. Who knew about Mom? She was alien to them, indecipherable, and God knew they’d tried. Meredith most of all.

Until the night of the Christmas play, all those years ago, Meredith had followed Mom like an eager puppy, begging to be noticed. After that humiliating night, her sister had drawn back, kept her distance. In the years between then and now, nothing had changed; neither had softened. If anything, the distance between them had grown. Nina had handled it differently. She’d given up on the hope of intimacy earlier and chosen to accept her mother’s solitude. In many ways they were alike, she and Mom. They didn’t need anyone except Dad.

Nodding at her sister, Nina left her and crossed the room. At her mother’s side, she sank to her knees. An unfamiliar longing caught her off guard. She wanted to be told that he would be okay.

“Hey, Mom,” she said. “I got here as quickly as I could. ”

“Good. ”

She heard a tiny fissure in her mother’s voice and that slim weakness connected them. She dared to touch her mother’s thin, pale wrist. The veins were blue and thick beneath the white skin, and Nina’s tanned fingers looked almost absurdly vibrant against it. Maybe for once it was Mom who needed to be comforted. “He’s a strong man with a will to live. ”

Her mother looked down at her so slowly it was as if she were a robot with a dying battery. Nina was shocked by how old and weary her mother looked, yet how strong. It should have been an impossible combination, but her mother had always been a woman of contradictions. She’d worried acutely about letting her children leave the yard, but hardly looked at them when they were in the house; she’d claimed that there was no God even as she decorated her holy corner and kept its lamp lit; she ate only enough food to keep her body moving, but wanted her children to eat more than they could stand. “You think that is what matters?”

Nina was taken aback by the ferocity in her mother’s voice. “I think we have to believe he’ll get better. ”

“He is in room 434. He has been asking for you. ”

Nina took a deep breath and opened the door to her father’s room.

It was quiet except for the mechanical sound of machines. She moved slowly toward him, trying not to cry.