The Sisters Read Online Free PDF Page A

looked at Bertie. Even from the back, as Mabel stepped into the hallway to tell him his breakfast was ready, she could see it in how he was leaning into the room, the way his head tilted, the way his hand pulsed on the knob.
    There was no decision then, only instinct. A light touch on his arm. A smile. A question about supper. Enough to break the spell, but for how long?
    Years ago, when Butcher had looked at her like that, Mabel had been alone, no one to interpret for her, too innocent, like Bertie was now, to know what it meant. Just like Bertie, she’d been standing before the mirror in a pretty dress, one from Mama’s trousseau, altered to fit—rich green shantung for her first Christmas dance. When Butcher’s eyes narrowed to a dark stare, Mabel hurried to explain it was Mama’s dress, one packed away the day she got the telegram saying her soldier husband had died of influenza. Still Butcher stared, and, heart banging, Mabel asked him if he minded her wearing Mama’s dress. He shook his head. “It’s right you should have her things. Suits you,” he said, smiling, so she believed him. And when she came home that night, out of the dark cold after the dance, Bertie already in bed, he’d been so kind to her.
    He’d built a fire and had made a pot of tea, leaving it on the hearth to keep it hot. She didn’t need to tell him how she liked it, with just half a spoon of sugar. Her hands were icy from the walk home, and when he passed her the cup, she was grateful for its warmth.
    “Was your mother showed me how to make a pot of tea right,” he said. “Used to boil it like coffee till it was so bitter you had to stir in a whole sugar bowl.”
    “It’s good,” Mabel said. “Just like Mama’s.” That wasn’t true. It was thick with tea leaves and he had let it steep too long by the fire, but the gesture had been thoughtful.
    He asked her about the dance then, supposed she had been the prettiest girl there, pretty as he’d heard tell her mother was at that age. Two girls, young widowhood, having to hire out to scrub anything other people wanted scrubbing—all these had taken Mama’s looks before Jim Butcher showed up to court her, persuading her he could turn her little patch of ground into a working farm. Now, poking at the fire, he said he missed her, felt bad for not having treated her more gently. In the quick rise of golden light, his eyes were sadness as he spoke her mother’s name, “Imogene.” At that moment, for the first time since he’d come into their house, Mabel felt a little tenderness toward him. Maybe he wasn’t the schemer she’d been sure he was, but really just a clumsy, well-meaning man who drank too much, uncertain of himself, uncertain of the world, after the war. “Terrible things he saw over there,” her mother had said. “Things nobody should ever see. Having to do things nobody should ever have to do.” There were so many men like that.
    It was past midnight when Butcher stood up, his cheeks flushed, and held out his hand to her. “Want to show you something.” He led her into his room, turned up the lamp on the bedside table. On the bed lay Mama’s stereopticon, the clamp full with cards. “Sit down,” he said, motioning to the bed. “I know how you like looking through this thing. Some pictures here you’ve never seen before.” He sat beside her and handed her the viewer. Mabel pressed it to her forehead, gasping at what she saw. The card was tinted, dozens of colors deepening the scene, and the lovely women, pinked with life, seemed so close she could touch them.
    There were five women, three standing on richly carpeted steps, one leaning against what looked like a marble column, and the other sitting on the tile beside a large square bath, all of them draped in lush silks—rose, teal, saffron, emerald, bronze. On their heads they wore matching turbans, some of them decorated with peacock feathers. Behind the women were long windows with tops like upside-down