Read Online The Sisters Montclair by Cathy Holton - Free Book Online

backpack toward her. She took out her
Psychology of Gender
textbook, and spent the next thirty minutes reading and making careful notes. She would send an email to Professor Dillard this evening explaining her absence from class today. She would ask Luke Morgan on Tuesday if she could copy his notes. This thought, so casually arrived at this morning, now roused a wave of unexpected nervousness. She put her pen down and rubbed her eyes, trying to imagine how she would ask him. After class? During class? Follow him out into the quad where the giggling sorority girls wouldn’t see her? She was so caught up trying to imagine how she would ambush him without appearing nervous or desperate that she only gradually became aware of whispering on the monitor.
    Immediately, she stopped daydreaming and listened.
    It was a low, repetitive sound. More like a murmur or a meditative chant. As she listened, Stella gradually became aware of individual words.
    Oh Lord, no. No.
    It was Alice’s voice. Low and anguished, but still Alice. Stella was relieved to realize this, and yet the suffering was so intense that Stella felt a catch in her throat, listening.
    Oh Lord, Laura.
    Stella closed her book.
    Please. Oh Lord, please.
    Stella shoved the book in her backpack. She got up and walked down the long, wide hallway to the bedroom but by the time she arrived, Alice was lying quietly on her back, sleeping peacefully.
    She slept for a long time and after she awoke, Alice seemed groggy and confused. Twice she called Stella,
Mary Ann
, and as they walked through the living room on their afternoon walk, Alice stopped and looked at a collection of photographs on a long sofa table. She pointed to one silver frame and Stella picked it up so she could see it better.
    “Who is that woman and those two children?” Alice said.
    Stella looked at the photo. “Isn’t that your sister?”
    Alice’s face clouded. She said, “My sister?”
    “Adeline.”
    She was quiet for a moment, staring. Then she made an impatient gesture with one hand. “Go put it in the bedroom and I’ll ask Sawyer when he comes if he knows who it is.” Alice sat down in a wingback chair near the fireplace and waited for Stella to do as she was told. When she came back, they continued their walk.
    Alice said, “There was this girl in the neighborhood where we lived when I was raising my family. Do you know the house I’m speaking of? It was a big house over on Hammond.”
    “So you didn’t raise your children in this house?”
    Alice stopped and turned her head, giving her a disdainful look. “Of course not,” she snapped. “I had a big house and two servants over on Hammond Road. I didn’t move to this house until after Bill Whittington died. After the children were grown. I’ve lived in this house for ten years.” She shook her head. “Twenty years. Oh I don’t know. A long time.” She started walking again.
    Behind her, Stella said gently, “So there was this girl in your neighborhood?”
    “She was a homely little thing. Pitiful really, for a girl to look like that. The other girls weren’t very nice to her, I’m afraid.”
    “They usually aren’t.”
    “The family’s name was Shufflebottom.”
    “Shufflebottom?”
    Alice chuckled. “When I came home and told Bill Whittington he said, ‘
Alice, someone is pulling your leg.
’”
    “I can see why he would think that.”
    “But that was their name. The father liked to work in the yard. He was from up there in Yankee Land but despite this he made a good citizen, he sang in the choir and kept his yard nice.”
    She stopped at the desk in the kitchen and picked up the glass of ice water Stella had waiting for her. She drank heavily and then set it down again.
    “They make me drink a lot of water,” Alice said. “They say I have to hydrate.”
    “Well, they say that’s good for you.”
    “It’s ridiculous.
Hydrate.
Why don’t they just say,
Drink some water.
And why do you have this napkin resting