The orphan sister, p.1
The Orphan Sister, page 1
THERE’S OLIVIA AND ODETTE. AND THEN THERE’S CLEMENTINE.
Sometimes, we were a team of three, but sometimes, there was them and there was me. They shared a placenta and amniotic fluid, they saw together with four eyes when they emerged, and used eight limbs like a spider. They shared language and secrets without speaking, and when they finally spoke, it was in words only they understood. I was part of it, but not equal. I had never felt I could stand beside one sister, Odette or Olivia, without the other shadowing us both. Until now.
Maybe that’s why I went to them each alone, maybe that’s why I had been digging into the crack of the arch, digging, cleaning like a restoration, only instead of repairing, I pried at the keystone.
A poignant, compulsively readable story capturing the magic, the mystery, and the dilemmas of sisterhood by critically acclaimed author Gwendolen Gross
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE ORPHAN SISTER
“A breathtakingly original novel. A haunting exploration of love, loyalty, sisters, hope, and the ties that bind us together—and make the ground tremble beneath us when they break. I loved, loved, loved this novel.”
—Caroline Leavitt, New York Times
bestselling author of Pictures of You
This title is also available as an eBook
“With exquisite language and an empathetic ear, Gwendolen Gross paints a gorgeous portrait of life, love, loss and sisterhood, and forces you to ask yourself: how far will you go for your family and what secrets can shatter even that bond? The Orphan Sister will linger long after you’ve turned the final page.”
—Allison Winn Scotch, New York Times bestselling
author of The One That I Want
“This charming portrait of an impossibly gorgeous and gifted family is something rare: a delightful confection, filled with humor and warmth, that also probes the complex nature of identity, the vagaries of romantic and filial love, and the materialism inherent in contemporary American culture.”
—Joanna Smith Rakoff, author of A Fortunate Age
“The Orphan Sister is engaging and sentence-perfect, wonderful in so many ways, but I love it best for its vibrant, emotionally complex main character Clementine. I felt so entirely with her, as she loves those around her with both devotion and complexity and as she struggles to achieve a delicate balance between belonging to others and being herself.”
—Marisa de los Santos, New York Times bestselling
author of Love Walked In
Praise for Gwendolen Gross’s previous novels
THE OTHER MOTHER
A Redbook Editor’s Choice
A featured alternate of the Doubleday Book Club,
The Literary Guild, and The Book-of-the-Month Club
“Documents the front lines of the Mommy Wars, but its real strength lies in exposing the complex inner battlefields motherhood can open up.”
—Publishers Weekly
“An electrifyingly complex and explosively gripping portrait of contemporary, have-it-all motherhood.”
—Booklist
“The battle of The Other Mother is a dark look into everything that tears us apart and brings us closest together.”
—Dame magazine
“A must-read. . . .”
—The Roanoke Times
“The depth of Gross’s portraits . . . renders a thoughtful account of how, for modern mothers, there is no easy choice.”
—Boston Now
GETTING OUT
“A winning novel from the author of Field Guide.”
—Booklist
“Funny, touching, and exhilarating.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Even committed couch potatoes should enjoy the graceful blending of outdoor adventuring and wry immersion in family dynamics that distinguishes this engaging second novel by Gross.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Witty, smart, and inspiring.”
—Jenny McPhee, author of The Center of Things
“Gross captures the erotic freshness of woods and avid outdoorsmen with perfect clarity.”
—Christian Science Monitor
FIELD GUIDE
“The certitudes of scientific research yield to the unsolvable mysteries of emotional connection in this accomplished debut. Gross’s deceptively spare style glistens with pungent language and precise aperçus.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Stunning. A remarkable debut.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred)
“This beautifully written debut novel offers appealing characters and provides a unique view into the sensuous scientific world of field study with all of its attendant hardships and marvels.”
—Library Journal
“Credible and inspiring.”
—Booklist
Also by
GWENDOLEN GROSS
_______
THE OTHER MOTHER
GETTING OUT
FIELD GUIDE
Gallery Books
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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New York, NY 10020
www.simonandschuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Gwendolen Gross
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
First Gallery Books trade paperback edition July 2011
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Designed by Julie Schroeder
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Gross, Gwendolen
The orphan sister : a novel / Gwendolen Gross.—1st Gallery Books
trade paperback ed.
p. cm.
1. Sisters—Fiction. 2. Triplets—Fiction. 3. Individual differences—Fiction. 4. Physicians—Family relationships—Fiction. 5. New Jersey—Fiction. 6. Psychological fiction. 7. Domestic fiction. I. Title.
PS3557.R568O77 2011
813'.54—dc22 2011004839
ISBN 978-1-4516-2368-0
ISBN 978-1-4516-2369-7 (ebook)
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Readers Group Guide
For
CLAUDIA ROSE,
REBECCA S. COLAO,
AND SAMANTHA R. GROSS,
my sisters,
and for
CYNTHIA H. STARR,
sister in words.
ONE
When my sister Odette called to tell me Dad hadn’t shown up for rounds, my first guilty thought was that he’d had a heart attack on the Garden State Parkway, that his Benz had swerved, swiveled, and scraped against the railing near exit 142 until it flipped into the opposite lane like a beetle on its back, ready for the picking of crows. He’d fumbled for the aspirin he always kept in the cup holder, in a wood and silver pillbox he couldn’t unclasp when it mattered at last. Blood would mat the silvery-red mix of his still-thick hair, his eyes would be open, he’d be dead, and I’d never have a chance to prove him wrong.
Of course, my second thought was to feel horrible for my first.
“No, he didn’t say anything to me,” I said. I almost suggested she call Olivia, but I knew she didn’t need to, because Odette and Olivia, my twin sisters, know each other’s opinions, their desires and mistakes, without speaking in words. Though sometimes I am party to this peculiar frequency, sometimes I stand feeling like the last chosen for a team because they are identical twins, and I am their triplet, number three. I don’t match physically (they are four inches taller than I and my eyes are hazel green to their clear, cold blue) or hear as clearly in the ether of their silent communication.
“I think I’ll try Mom again,” said Odette. She was using her distinctive stage whisper that meant she wanted everyone standing in that hospital room at Robert Wood Johnson to know she was conducting important business on her cell phone. She was allowed to have a cell phone. She was a doctor.
“I can,” I sighed, thinking I didn’t want to.
“Just wait,” asserted Odette, but we both already knew I’d procrastinate awhile and then go seek out Mom.
“Dinner he would miss—rounds, no. I’ll start and give him another hour,” Odette finished.
If I were talking to anyone else, I’d have been unable to relinquish my frustration. Even Olivia didn’t root me to myself like magnet to steel.
I did feel calmer when I heard both my sisters’ voices. And I could tell them apart—Odette’s had an almost imperceptible deepness, a quiet, sad quality, a clarinet, while Olivia was all flute, in all circumstances. No one else could hear this, however.
We were polyzygots—they were identical, monozygotic, one egg and one sperm met and then split into two zygotes. I was fraternal—another egg, another sperm, but the same timing, which means I was like an ordinary sibling in terms of genetic material, and they were halves of a whole.
We had this special triplet quirk called Party Trick we developed in elementary school, time of Ouija boards and Monopoly (you would never want to play a strategy game with us; we knew how to team up and committed our own form of natural selection): we could speak word by word, each of us in turn, with the fluidity and natural cadence of a single person speaking. We were sleepover favorites when we were little; this was captivating, no matter how dull the subject. “We” “don’t” “like” “ham” “because” “it’s” “too” “salty.” It wasn’t practiced. We had a pact to do it whenever one of us asked—something we used rarely as adults, but still, it was always there, ability, connections, quirk, Party Trick.
In the middle of this crisis, I was struggling with my computer, trying to gain access to an online exam I needed to take in the next twenty-four hours. The server rejected my password. I was all ready, notes, coffee softened with Ghirardelli chocolate powder and half-and-half, a final exam indulgence. I had a bag of carrots and a bag of cheddar bagel chips and a giant sports bottle of water, even though I knew, from my undergraduate research, that bottled water is less stringently regulated than tap. I had my blanket and my most devoted mutt, Alphabet, who was lying on my feet as if he knew I wouldn’t walk him until I’d at least half finished the timed exam. You could only log out and back on once. I had to get an A. I hadn’t done as well on the lab portion as I meant to, but that was because I’d broken up with Feet (officially Ferdinand, an engineering graduate student from Spain who had fabulous dimples and little regard for my privacy), my brief boyfriend whose nickname should have kept me from giving him my phone number in the first place.
Sitting ready at my desk, I tried to log on. I used my password, dogdocClem, but the system said it was invalid. Dad always did this: he made us worry. He blustered in at family gatherings and brushed away queries about his lateness like lint from a suit. But somehow we all worried he was Not Okay—and I was the especial queen of worrying this—as if his Okayness held together the very universe.
I tried again, pounding the keys as I typed in my account number and the password. I was still invalid. I felt invalid. My head throbbed and I was still wondering whether Dad was all right. So instead of starting my exam, I apologized to Alphabet, restarted my computer, and got up to go see my mother.
Maybe he ran away, I thought, as I walked up to the conservatory. My father had built two additions for my mother: an art studio, because she had once casually mentioned she might like to take art classes again, and the conservatory of flowers, a long, inventive, difficult-to-maintain greenhouse that extended from the back kitchen into the lawn. She was usually there, my mother, though we had full-time gardeners for the roses and the vegetables that would be transplanted, after the last frost, into a raised plot by the three maidens’ fountain. Mom made exquisite botanical drawings, having taken a class at the New York Botanical Garden before we were born. Sometimes I thought she was simply a woman of too many talents and opportunities—each was diluted in the soup of all her possibilities.
Maybe he went up to the house in Vermont because he is getting senile and thought it was summer vacation. Maybe he’s had enough of keeping everything gripped in his fist and he let go; he went mad, like King George III.
I’d been mulling, for about six months, the possibility that my father might have early dementia, or even Alzheimer’s. I’d researched the topic when I should have been studying chemistry. Symptom one: memory loss that disrupts daily life. This was a disruption, for sure, though generally his focus on—and memory of—family commitments and plans had always been rigorously limited. Symptom two: challenges in planning or solving problems. No. Yes. Maybe. He had twice had Mom reschedule her plans for an anniversary party because he had forgotten about other commitments. But this wasn’t new.
“I’m going to have to go to the golf outing,” he said, the second time. “You don’t have to come.” My mother had sighed, dialing her party planner.
Symptom three: trouble with tasks at home, work, or leisure. No. He seemed to have no problems with work. Until now—not showing up for rounds. I was probably getting ahead of myself. I never used to get ahead of myself; I used to let the world unroll like a scroll, the beginning happening before the middle and the end, but ever since Cameron, I’d wanted more dimensions, I’d worried more about the unrevealed paper.
So when Odette called I should have just waited, I should have circumnavigated the mess of other people’s early and late, but I was a triplet, and triplets have extra arms, extra eyes, extra marginally obsessive worries. I thought of my father standing by his car, staring at his keys as if they were foreign objects. Last week, I’d been witness behind the carriage-house curtain as he stood like that for a moment; was he thinking, or was he lost inside his own head? Was this the beginning of a crumbled father? The beginning of interventions and wheelchairs? No. No. Maybe.
TWO
All the way from the carriage house, where I was living, to the main, where my mother lived mostly alone, but for the occasional large presence of my father, A Very Busy Man, I tried to stop visualizing an accident. He’d been hit by a truck as he tucked his car door shut, giving it the love pat I’d observed with nausea—and, if I’m being honest, a simultaneous pleasing familiarity—since he bought the car. It was now almost ten years old, a top-of-the-line Mercedes sedan. Dad bought his car when the twins neared the end of Harvard undergrad; Odette had teased him and called it a Nazi car when he drove his prize into the drive. It was April, spring break, and my mother’s three hundred daffodils from White Flower Farm smeared the lawn with cream and gold, trumpets of triumph.
Dad had turned the deep plum color of his quiet anger, and Odette giggled, Olivia giggling to match her anxiety. I felt the bubble of it, but refused to succumb.
“Nazis are not funny,” said my mother, holding her hands like stop signs in front of the twins, two twenty-year-old women who were home from Harvard, finishing their medical school applications. Harvard and Oberlin were the first step in our lifetime of long division. I had to listen harder to hear them whenever we reunited.
“Yeah,” said Odette, who was at the peak of her rebellion, which was a mild phase, and tolerated well, like many of the newer antibiotics. Olivia, because she was the same as Odette, rebelled quietly. She got a tiny, tiny tattoo of a rose just above her shoulder blade, much like the rose that had been named after our mother. She also had it removed in an operation she described as “excruciating, but elegantly successful,” the next year.
“But Mercedes did use the Jews in factories—I read,” I had said, wanting more, wanting my dad’s face to blossom into rage. We were just post-teen years; we were pushing out the margins of family. My father, who controlled everything, the money, the order of the house, the comings and goings. As long as I could remember, we asked him to be excused, we asked him if it was okay to go out, we asked him if we could speak at dinner, in subtle ways, waiting for one of his lectures to subside, like requesting to speak freely in front of a superior officer. Part of me thought of it as civility and respect, but that part was dormant.
“This subject is closed,” my father said. “The Holocaust is history, and this car is something I have desired for a long time and you girls won’t ruin it with your delayed adolescent lashings.”
“Hey,” quipped Odette. “I didn’t lash.”
Olivia furrowed her brow with insignificant rage, but said nothing.
“It’s okay,” he said, cupping Odette under his shoulder. He took my mother under the other arm, and Olivia leaned on Odette. They were like a family of birds in a single nest. Olivia reached for me, and Odette silently told me to come in closer, but I could only hold their hands.
