“I know. It is.”
When we arrived at Tom and Cindy’s, Luke practically sprinted out of the house and up to the car. “Thank God you're here. Amy's beside herself and my mother drank a bottle of Chardonnay this afternoon and will not leave her alone.”
“Can't we get your dad to distract her?” I asked, rushing into the house with Luke and Eamon.
“He went to go pick up my Aunt Jan at her hotel. I think he got stuck in traffic.”
A whiff of familial trouble was in the air, but I couldn't dwell on that now. I had a sister to save. “Where is she?”
“My room. Upstairs. Take the hall to the left. It's the last door on the right.”
“Got it.” I took a few steps and turned back. “You guys are okay, right?”
Eamon and Luke looked at each other and shrugged. “Well, yeah. We're going to listen to music and start drinking.”
“Sounds like you two.”
I rushed up the stairs, wondering how in the heck they kept the white carpet runner so impeccably clean. When I reached the top landing, I was huffing and puffing. This house was way too big. There were actually three halls to choose from, but luckily, it was fairly obvious which way I should go. When I reached the door, I knocked quietly.
Amy opened it only a crack at first, peering at me with red-ringed eyes. “Thank you for coming.” She opened the door, seeming calmer than she'd been on the phone, so that was good. Luke's bedroom was like something you see in movies or TV shows about the private quarters at the White House. Fancy with a capital F.
Amy plopped down on the edge of the bed and plucked a tissue from the box on the bedside table, which was of course covered in some sort of enamel facial tissue cozy.
“Can I sit next to you?” I didn't want to assume anything at this point. I still wasn't convinced she didn't want to kill me.
She sniffled and wiped her nose. “Yes, of course, Katherine. Don't be obtuse.”
Obtuse? I reminded myself that she was getting married in fewer than twenty-four hours. All sense of sanity could very well be out the window for the duration. I took a spot right next to her. “I brought you a present.”
“You didn't have to get me anything. You showing up and still wanting to be my sister is enough for me.” She peered at me with her sweet blue eyes, which in many ways looked more broken down today than they had the day she got the letter. “Assuming you still want to be my sister.”
“Always.” I handed her the clamshell box covered in cream velour. “This is my gift to the bride. Eamon and I still got you guys a separate wedding gift.”
Amy started crying before she even opened it. When she lifted the lid and saw those pearls inside, she let out a gasp, her shoulders shuddering. “I can't believe you got it.”
“Eamon and I went back to Connecticut yesterday. We actually saw Grandma Price. We talked to her and everything.”
She closed her eyes and tilted her head back. “I am the worst piece of shit person on the planet, aren't I?”
I grabbed her hands and pulled them into my lap. “No. You are not. It's okay that you got mad at me. I would've gotten mad at me, too. But I hope you see now that I was in an impossible situation. I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t.”
Her eyes opened slowly and she dropped her chin to its normal height. “I know. I know that now.”
“What happened when you talked to Bill?”
“He said that his brother lost all touch with reality when he got sick and that the letter was the…let me see if I can get this right…he said it was ‘the pathetic ramblings of an unwell man’.” She made air quotes and everything.
“Wow.”
“I know. And then he said that he didn't see any resemblance between his family and me, and that he'd already contacted his lawyer about contesting the will. He hadn’t sent me the letter. Someone in Gordon’s lawyer’s office did. He also told me that he threw out Mom's things, which he called a bunch of old junk.”
For as much ill will as I'd harbored for Gordon Stewart over the years, his brother was eclipsing that. “What a jerk.”
She crossed her legs and looked down at the floor, sighing heavily. “I don't know what I expected. I never should've contacted him.”
“I’ll tell you exactly what you wanted. You wanted closure. You wanted some sense that things in the world had finally been set straight. That's what you and I have been looking for since the moment we first saw Mom kissing Gordon in the back room at Taylor & Daughters.”
She nodded, staring off, deep in despair. “I guess.”
