Free The Canterbury Sisters by Kim Wright

orchard and cleared the land, stories of how my father built the first cider press with coat hangers and the shell of a broken washing machine. The pond in the back, so bountiful that sometimes fish leapt unprompted into rowboats. How much I loved that pond, how I could swim before I could walk. Could I really swim before I could walk? Did the fish really leap into rowboats? Does it matter?
    Most families have their official stories, I imagine, and they tell them to each other over and over, each repetition reassuring both the speaker and the listeners that the world is an understandable place. I suppose you could even argue that the very act of telling a story is an act of faith, for it advances the belief that life truly has a beginning, middle, and end. The belief that we’re all headed somewhere, that the seemingly random events of our lives mean something, that tomorrow will be more than just a repeat of yesterday, all over again.
    “Here’s the gate,” says Tess, as we step off the country road and turn toward an open field. A small blue tile nailed to the fence shows a stick man walking with a staff and a pack on his back. Google was right. A trailhead like this would be easy to miss.
    “So this is where the official route to Canterbury begins?” Steffi asks, her voice doubtful. I think we were all expecting something more.
    “Our feet are now on the path,” Tess says as we step, one by one, over the muddy ditch and through the gate. She nods at Jean. “So begin whenever you wish.”
     The Tale of Jean 
    “My father didn’t think Allen was good enough for me,” Jean says. “That’s where it all starts. Maybe that’s where all love stories start. Daddy could be like that—critical, always measuring everyone around him, and so of course Allen was determined to do what he could to prove him wrong. He said he would provide for me and the kids, provide not just adequately but spectacularly, that’s what he always said. That he would not be content until our children went to the best schools and I didn’t have to work and we lived in a house . . . in the sort of house that even my father would have to acknowledge was a fine place.”
    But here she pauses, as if doubting herself already. “Of course it wasn’t just that. I don’t want you to think Allen was some sort of workaholic, one of those men who rose at dawn and left with a briefcase. He was always there for us, especially on Sundays. Those were our family days. Isn’t that true, Rebecca?”
    “This is your story, Mom.”
    “So it is. But where do you start the story of a marriage? I could tell you how we met. It was on a boat, on one of those cruises around New York Harbor, which is silly, but if I go back that far we will be halfway to Canterbury before we finish the first story, and that won’t do, will it?” Jean pushes back a strand of her golden hair with a nervous little titter, but no one says anything, so she goes on.
    “We had been married ten years when Allen got the chance to go to Guatemala with his company. He was in oil, you know. It was a huge opportunity, a much higher salary, and on top of that there was an additional cost-of-living stipend that they paid anyone willing to live out of the country for eighteen months or longer. The stipend was so generous we knew we could bank virtually all of his salary. This was our chance, and you don’t get many. He knew it and so did I. Most of the men didn’t take their families with them on these assignments, or at least not those going to Central America. Guatemala could be unpredictable in those days, especially if you got away from the tourist areas. Americans were often the target of kidnappers, and we had heard of one family . . . Well, we knew the people, actually, at least in a social sense, and they had a daughter, just fourteen . . .”
    “Skip that part, Mom,” Becca says. “No one needs to hear it.”
    “You’re right. It’s a dreadful story. Suffice to say