Betwixt

Chapter Two

It was six in the morning. All five sisters were gathered around the worn wooden kitchen table, seated on a mismatched array of stools. Sarah and Anna held mugs of coffee, and Alex, Caroline, and Kate cupped mugs of hot chocolate, with marshmallows floating in the hot creamy liquid.

Sarah sighed. "Alright. Kate has something very important to tell all of us." she said, squeezing her mug so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Caroline, Alex, and even Anna, who rarely listened to Sarah, turned towards Kate intently. Sarah often called the shots around the house, but when Kate had something to say everyone was willing to listen, because Kate was known for going days without talking to anyone.

Kate's four sisters stayed silent as she told the events that had occurred just a few hours previously. After she finished, everyone was silent. Sarah stood up, set her mug on the counter, and walked back down the hallway that lead to the bedrooms. Her little sisters looked after her, then back at each other- four sets of eyes green as grass in summer meeting each other, clouded with confusion. Stars twinkled outside the window that stood behind Alex and Anna, hung like Christmas ornaments from a sky black and infinite, peaceful and exactly the opposite of what each girl in the Ellis household felt at that moment.

Sarah returned, holding a black leather-covered book that none of the other girls had ever seen before. She held it out before her and said, tensely, as she set it down in the center of the table, "I've been saving this for you since mom left." She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. Anna reached for the book, but Alex slapped her hand away and shot her a glare.

Alex pushed the book towards Kate, and the others all gathered around her. Kate's fingers were trembling as she lifted open the front cover. The pages of the album were creamy and smooth, and on the cover page was printed five names in decorative handwriting.

Sarah Jasmine Ellis - born January 6th 1982

Anna Jess Ellis - born November 14th 1983

Caroline Jude Ellis - born December 8th 1984

Kaitlyn Jane Ellis - born March 23rd 1987

Alexandra Jade Ellis - born October 19th 1988

Kate ran her fingers over the ink that marked her name, there in between Caroline and Alex, permanently uniting them in script as dark as the sky outside. "Did mom write that?" whispered Alex, leaning up against Caroline. Sarah nodded.

Kate turned the page. There laid four photos of a baby, wrapped in a pink, blue, and white blanket. Her skin was red and her mouth was open, caught mid wail, and her eyes were scrunched shut. Kate was reminded of when how she squinted when she stepped out of the kitchen and into the blinding sunlight when she had been inside with Sarah canning vegetables all day last fall. "Is that you?" Caroline asked Sarah. Sarah nodded.

The fourth picture showed the baby being held by a younger version of the woman that had been in the front yard just a few hours prior. Her hair was messy and pulled into a twist on top of her head, but she was smiling ear to ear as she gazed down at baby Sarah, her long dark eyelashes casting shadows on the freckles that skipped across her nose. The girls stared in awe at the photo of their mother.

Finally, Caroline reached over Kate's shoulder and turned the page. There was Sarah, in a winter coat on a sled in the snow, Sarah, sitting in their living room on a rug that Kate didn't recognize, reading a book full of colorful pictures. Then there was Sarah standing in the side yard by the chicken coop, looking slightly less tumble-down than it did currently, sprinkling food from a bag of breadcrumbs to a flock of three black-and-white speckled chickens. Finally, Sarah, sitting on a large red box in front of a Christmas tree strung with white lights and hung with silver balls, wearing a green dress and tiny black patent leather shoes.