Your Family Is Waiting
by Helen Sinoradzki

The bookstore's paging system crackles. “Ann Schulman, please meet your party at the exit.” I've just ordered a latte in the coffee shop. It's fifteen minutes before the meeting time Elly set. My sister planned this trip. A week of girl time. Just Mom and us. We've had facials, mud baths, and mani pedis. We've had Lancôme make-overs and eaten decadent desserts from a two-page menu. We've shopped in every boutique on Nob Hill that accommodated Elly's wheelchair. She fumed if they didn't have ramps. She yelled at a salesperson when her chair got stuck in a doorway.

Every morning, when Elly raps twice and opens the door that joins our rooms, I want to close the drapes and crawl back in bed. She tries to swallow a sigh when she sees me in my bathrobe, but her face is clenched because I'm disrupting her schedule again. All the school-day mornings that Mom made her wait for me are in that room with us.

I was five, Elly seven when she got her wheelchair. From the beginning, she hated it when she needed help. She hated not walking to school. She hated the kids staring while Mom unloaded the chair and swung her into it.

It's Day 5 of girl time. After breakfast at a restaurant on Elly's list, we split up at the bookstore entrance, Elly waving at Mom to follow. She wasn't letting Mom loose in a store this big. She's convinced Mom's small memory lapses mean she's sliding headlong into dementia. Mom turned to me and lifted one eyebrow the way she did when Grandma said Elly was headstrong. I winked and went upstairs to armchair travel.

It's always been Elly's job to organize us. I get it that she needs the job.

The barista sets my latte on the counter. The bills she gives me as change are wrinkled. I smooth the creases before putting them in my wallet. Carrying my books and the latte is more than I can manage right now. “Sometimes I just hit a wall,” I say.

“Take your time.” The barista smiles, but her forehead is creased and the smile is tight. “I'm not going anywhere.”

“That was my sister having me paged.”

Her smile grows less forced. I've given her ordinary. “Sisters, they can be a pain. Mine's always bossing me around.” She laughs. “I can call the front counter for you.”

“Oh, no, that's all right. I have my phone.” But I don't. It's in the hotel room. I lied when Elly asked if I was sure I had it.

I manage to get the latte and the books to a table without disturbing the perfect white heart the young barista made. Its symmetry pleases me. I sip gently and the heart floats there, the white foam just touching the edge of my lip.

I stack the books in three piles by size and align their edges. One of the hardbacks is bigger than the one below it. I lift the stack, put it in its proper place, and realign the edges. The young man at the next table watches me. I shrug my shoulders and look down so he won't start talking to me. I like this city—its green spaces and the way old brick buildings rub elbows with sleek glass new ones—but I could never live here. The skies are too grey, the people too friendly. When I washed my hands five times in the rest room, the woman at the next sink smiled at me in the mirror.

The paging system crackles again. “Ann Schulman, your family is waiting for you at the exit.”

I open the top book, Travels in a Thin Country, and read several pages. The author traveled Chile, top to bottom, with just a backpack. I've always wanted to hike Patagonia, to stand at the tip of the continent and let the wind from Antarctica blow through my brain.

“Why didn't you answer your phone? Mother's tired.” Elly's voice is loud enough to make the young man look at her. “I had to have you paged. Twice.” Her wheelchair bumps his table. He grabs his mug, but not before coffee sloshes onto his papers. Elly doesn't notice. She shoves a chair away from the table. “Sit here, Mother.” Mom straightens the jacket of her new suit and sits between us. She's wearing her new Lancôme lipstick. Elly rolled her eyes when Mom bought Rouge in Love.

Elly lifts the basket of books from her lap and thumps it on a chair. Her arms are muscled. She's always said electric wheelchairs are for wimps. She piles books on the table haphazardly. My fingers itch to stack them and square their edges. I hide my hands in my lap and dig my fingernails into my palms. The night Elly came home from the hospital, I crept downstairs after everyone was asleep. The wheelchair gleamed in the light from a streetlamp. The seat was stiff, and the silver footplates were cold on my bare feet. I thought they were pedals, but when I pushed on them, the silver wheels didn't turn.

Elly sighs. “Mother, all these books are never going to fit in your suitcase.”

“I can have them shipped, can't I?” Mom turns to me and lifts her eyebrow.

I nod.

Elly snorts. “They probably charge a fortune.”

“I wasn't short of money the last time I looked.” Mom stands up. “I'll get us something to drink.”

Elly looks at her fingernails. “Coffee. Make sure it's from a fresh pot.” She doesn't wear polish so the manicurist buffed them. They gleam under the fluorescent lights.

Mom heads off.

Elly stares at the books. “She'll never read all these.”

My cup has traces of the perfect white heart.

“You left your phone in the room, didn't you?”

I hide the heart with my hand.