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"I know you will. But I'll tell you anyway." She leans forward as if she’s secretly excited to tell me what she has up her sleeve. And maybe she is.
All this time, I’ve pushed her away so that I could keep her safe, but the last couple of hours have had me regretting that decision. She has been safe, of course, and that’s my priority. I won’t jeopardize my sister for anything, but the way her eyes glimmer excitedly as we finally get to talking about things that matter tells me she’s missed me. And God knows I’ve missed her.
"My first goal is to open a long-term care facility for parentless children so that when they age out of foster care, they have a head start. I'm not talking about a group home or a foster facility. I'm talking about cutting out the middleman. A place where kids go to live with their case workers so there's no bouncing around. A place where they can get their education, where they can mentor other kids, where they're safe, and where they're all family."
I wonder if I should be insulted that Rhea thought I'd tease her over wanting to do something so pure. I have no desire to mock her goals, but I do wonder how she came by them.
When I remain quiet, Rhea takes it as a sign to carry on. "In addition to that, I've spoken to Alonzo about some real estate I'm interested in purchasing to implement that goal... and my other ventures."
"Like what?" I ask, intrigued.
"One life isn't enough for all the things I want to do and be." She sighs, leaning back now that she's reeled me in. "But that won't stop me from trying. I would also like to open my own gallery, and before you say anything, I have met a few great people who can help me along the way."
Art. Now that one doesn't come as a surprise. Not in the way that her humanitarian efforts do, anyway. Our mother had been largely obsessed with art of all kinds, most of which I saw no value in. But that hadn't stopped Father from chasing down priceless paintings in garish frames and odd sculptures that looked as though they'd been carved using Play-Doh and a butter knife. My father had sought to buy all our love. I wasn't certain it had ever worked, but he'd at least bought our time until his own ran out.
"Anything else?"
"Lots of things, but I'll tell you the last of my trifecta." She grins, almost like she’s challenging me. "I want to buy a hotel."
That breaks my façade; I raise a brow. "A hotel?"
"I know that sounds... ambitious."
"It's all ambitious." I agree. "I'm sure if anyone could make all her dreams come true, it's you. But why?"
"Why to which part?" She asks. But she doesn't offer me a chance to answer before deciding to explain it all. "Do you remember when we were young and we went to France on vacation?"
"Barely," I say honestly, recalling our view of the Eiffel tower from our hotel room. It hadn't been a glamorous vacation and had mostly faded into the recesses of my memory. Women always talk about Paris like it’s some sort of paradise, but I hadn't been fond of the city when we were there. Part of that may have been the crappy weather, but a larger part of it was almost certainly the fact that my dad had dragged us out there under the guise of a vacation, but we didn't do anything fun while we were there. In fact, he'd barely been with us the entire time.
"We went to the Louvre," Rhea says, reminding me of one of the boring things we'd done. "Because, of course, that was the most important thing to mom. I remember being just enchanted by it. The whole place itself is art, but when you consider the treasures inside... I'm not sure there's any other place in the world with that kind of magic. That's where I fell in love with art. Father left early, and then it was just Mom and I, wandering around for hours, staring at paintings and artifacts. You sulked around for the most part. And when it was time to leave, we had no car because Father went off and left us, so we walked back to our hotel."
"I do remember that." My voice is sour thinking about the receding form of my father’s back, his shoulders squared, looking completely unbothered by leaving his family alone in a foreign country.
After walking around aimlessly for hours, the walk through slushy snow back to the hotel was imprinted in my mind. I remember how much of it was yellow and melting into the dirty streets and how I decided then and there that Paris was probably the ugliest place I'd ever been. I’ve still never been back, and I’ve still not found a city I like less.
"Well, on the way we had just about a hundred grifters on the street trying to sell mom scarves, flowers, silly little trinkets. One man grabbed my arm and tried to get me to convince mom that I needed one of the berets he was selling."
The thought of someone grabbing my little sister’s arm spikes anger in me, but that was before I knew just how cruel the world was. Why hadn’t I seen that? Why hadn’t I done anything?
My anger with myself doesn’t burn long before reason breaks through. Though that man’s actions had certainly been uncalled for, I doubt that she was in any danger. "Paris has a fairly impoverished population." I concede. "They were incredibly pushy."
Rhea nods. "And mom said no to every single one of them up until we got just outside the hotel. They had guards on the street to chase away the beggars because, of course, they had to protect their image. But there was a man who was sitting against the building before we crossed the street. He was with his family, and when he got up, I noticed they were sitting on a piece of cardboard on the ground with one big blanket across them. I remember him walking straight up to Mom, and I'm not sure why, but I was scared of him. Probably because I'd gotten used to them pushing and pulling at me. But this guy took his scarf off and wrapped it around my neck because I'd lost mine somewhere at the Louvre. Mom thought it was just a good sales tactic at first, but he wouldn't take anything when she tried to hand him money."
I try to recall the memory, but we'd encountered so many beggars during that trip that they all blurred together. I also recall being in a foul mood after being dragged through the museum and trudging back to the hotel in snow that nearly swallowed our shoes, so I hadn't focused on anything more than getting back to the room and warming up.
"Mom asked why he wouldn't take her money, and he explained he wasn't trying to sell her anything, that the scarf was just a gift to keep me warm. He told her in what little English he could manage that he was only between jobs. He wasn't looking for anything, he just wanted to raise his kids to be a part of the good in the world. He didn’t know she was fluent in French.” She laughs, “Mom marched him right inside and demanded they hire him as their newest bellhop. And you know as well as I do, nobody ever refused, Mom."
I watch Rhea thoughtfully, wondering if she’s making this story up on the fly. "I don't remember any of that."
"You ran to the room as soon as we got to the lobby. Maybe it didn't matter to you, but it was kind of a defining moment for me. It was the first time I truly understood how lucky we were to have our family. I mean, Father was as imperfect as they come, but what is it that caused us to be born into all of this money and good fortune when there are people on the other side of the world with only a blanket between them? I still don't understand it." She sighs, her eyes drifting to where Claire is fast asleep, her head on her own shoulder again.
I don’t have the heart to tell her that luck has nothing to do with it, unless I count her as lucky enough to be on the right side of the divide. What we have wasn’t earned. It was taken off the backs of men and women and children, burdened to us by their pain, their trauma, their lives. I’ve worked hard to wash the blood off of our family’s money, but all it’s done is stained my own hands. But I won’t tell her any of that… not now, maybe not ever.
"So, you mean to tell me that everything you know about who you want to be was all discovered in one moment by the time you were ten?"
I can't help the envy I feel, but I hope I kept it out of my voice. I'd wanted to do a lot of things with my life at one time. But then I'd been pushed into this lifestyle I never wanted. Now, I’m in so deep that I don't even waste time thinking of who I used to be. Or who I used to want to be.
"In a way, yes. Mom asked that guy why they were on the street and whether they had any family to go to, and that's when he admitted he'd raised himself after his uncle died, and he just took whatever paying jobs he could get since he didn't have a proper education. Nobody ever gave him a chance until our mother forced the hotel manager to. She also paid his room for a year out, so they had a warm place to go." Rhea laughs, still clearly in awe of our mother’s tenacity. "I don't know if Mom had some sort of blackmail over the owner or if they just didn't want to risk losing our business, but I do remember asking her why she did it. She told me that it was because he'd reminded her of an important thing and that he was right. The world would only be a better place because of him raising his children to do good. She wanted to be a part of it.”
