I was in your shadow, Doris wanted to say, but that was too simple, and besides it would hurt Sylvia. “Nothing. Nothing big. Just a lot of little humiliations—nobody’s fault.”
Sylvia sighed. “Little humiliations like Mom bribing her best friend’s son to ask you to senior prom? I told her it was a terrible idea. But you know that generation—in their day it was a tragedy worse than the Titanic if they weren’t engaged by graduation. And how many of those teenage marriages lasted? Mom and Dad are almost the only ones left in their crowd.”
Doris smiled and shook her buzzing head.
Sylvia dropped her voice as footsteps creaked the ceiling above them. “That’ll be Mom.” She rolled her eyes. “Look. All I’m really saying is, life is short. It feels like two days ago we were the age of those cute twins snoring away in the den. If you like this guy as much as I think you do, why not take a chance on happiness?” She stared down into her coffee. “Even with all my big talk, I’d go for the gold if I had the chance.” She ended on a whisper.
Doris eyed her sister. “What chance? You said you never invited boyfriends to family things. So they didn’t get the wrong idea.”
Sylvia’s arms crossed tightly, her shoulders tense. “I lied. Well, I broke my rule. I thought that Gary and I . . . that it was something different . . . well, the short of it is, I did invite Gary. We’ve been dating an entire year! But the joke is on me—he turned me down.” She glanced away, and Doris’s stomach knotted when she saw the sheen of tears in her sister’s eyes.
All Doris knew about Gary was his name, and that he’d lasted longer than any of her sister’s post-divorce relationships. Well, it seemed that was no longer true. And it also seemed that Sylvia, contrary to appearances, did care.
So Doris said, “Thanks. I’ll consider your advice. If you’ll consider mine: back off of Brad. I realize I’ve barely met him, but what I’ve seen, I’ve liked. He’s no gold-digger. You can see it in those kids. They’ve been raised well. And Mom sees it as well—she’s about two seconds away from going full-bore grandmother all over Pink and Lon. I fully expect to catch her sneaking out to the shed and to get out that box of old princess dresses she made for us, and baking more babke just to see those kids eat. But she keeps sending guilty looks at you.”
Sylvia hissed out a sigh. “I know.”
“And Brad clearly adores Nicola—what?”
Doris hadn’t thought she could be any more surprised—until that moment. Sylvia turned away, wiped her eyes with an impatient hand, then briskly dumped out the last couple drops of coffee into the sink and moved to refill her mug. “I know,” she said over her shoulder, not meeting Doris’s eyes. “But Nicola is serious. If it was just a fling, I’d be fine with it . . . I just don’t want to see her getting really, really hurt.”
Like I did. The words hung in the air unsaid. Doris realized she had missed the boat on how deeply her sister had been involved with this Gary. And how much pain she was in over it falling apart.
Doris tried to find words of comfort. But before she could, Mom bustled in like a runaway train. “Your father wants his coffee. God forbid he pours it himself.” She lifted her hands toward the sky, but it was a complacent gesture, one Doris had seen all her life.
Sylvia put her hands on her hips, and there was the old Sylvia, head high, eyes bright, charismatic smile blinding. “We should start thinking about breakfast for the horde. Latkes again?”
Their mother wrinkled her brow. “We ran through most of the potatoes yesterday. All that’s left are the soft ones. Doris, I could never hold up my head again if your professor returned to his university and talked about eating soggy potato pancakes in my home.”
Doris caught a warning glance from Sylvia and realized that assuring her mother that Joey was unlikely to say anything about her cooking at the university, much less negative, would only hurt. If Mom wanted to think that Joey would be detailing his weekend to his colleagues, let her.
“I’ll start cracking eggs,” Doris said. She desperately needed to busy her hands while her mind whipsawed between what she had discovered about her sister and the memory of Joey’s soft lips. “Whatever we make, we’ll be starting with those.”
THIRTEEN
JOEY
Kisses sweeter than wine, was the phrase that kept repeating in Joey’s mind.
The morning air was shockingly cold, the snow squeaky underfoot. Their feet sank deeply with a chuffing sound. They walked into the trees so that their footsteps would not be seen to vanish abruptly, then they shifted to their animals. Joey, with long practice, kept himself partially in the real world and partially in the mythic dimension, enough so that he could see, but he could not be seen except as a v
ague silvery shape. More importantly, he would not leave prints.
Xi Yong’s qilin walked tranquilly in the air a few inches above the snow. He could not fly, but he could run with the wind without touching down. Guided by the light of the early morning stars and a sliver of sinking moon, they raced uphill toward the walled compound they’d found before the snowstorm.
Joey moved himself just enough into the real world to be able to sniff the scents on the clear, cold air. He could smell snow coming again, but there were no fresh human smells. Unsurprising. No vehicle would be able to drive. Though snowmobiles could, those were not silent—anyone running those would risk wakening everyone within miles.
If they decide to give chase, they won’t care about noise, Joey sent the thought to Xi Yong. What we must do therefore is prevent them from being suspicious enough for that, if we can.
Xi Yong’s implicit agreement came to Joey with the thought, What do you suggest?
The wolves won’t be able to avoid leaving tracks. Let’s try some fox trickery.
Xi Yong understood at once. Should I make a trail of what appears to be deer prints?
How about a herd. And I’ll create a pack of fox prints. Then no one will blink twice about prints of a couple of wolves supposedly on their scent.
Xi Yong ran up an adjacent slope, to where a rocky fall would prevent any snowmobile from navigating it. He shifted to his full form, then he ran downhill, veering close to the wall of Cang’s compound, and then away, as a deer would who smelled humans close by.