“Please don’t say that.”
“Cat, I did. It happened.”
“Okay.” I drag in a long breath. “Okay. I’m sorry. I’m not mad.”
“You are. But I need to care about that a little less,” Maisie says, and I peek at her defiant pout. “I’m—I’m the one who reached out to Faust. I saw that you were working with him, and after that weird Instagram post, I messaged him.”
I’m speechless. Actually, totally done. I just blink, watching Maisie flip around the charm on her Bean necklace. A little piece of home.
Wait, I have one word. “Why?”
“You haven’t come home in like, what, three years? At least? And I know you don’t go to the doctor, and you never take time off work—and this was before I knew what you were doing.” She’s never spoken to me like this. Like an adult. “So I asked him to let me know if you were okay, because you never do. You always say you’re fine, but that can’t be true. I love you, I do, but you’re so controlling.”
“I… am?”
“You are. You control everything around you.”
“By saying that I’m okay?”
“Yes?” She frowns. “Lying doesn’t make it better, it just makes you feel like you’re in charge.”
God, what do they teach these people in college? I wipe my cheek preemptively, shifting to face her more. “So, you messaged this famous race-car driver to check in on your sister.”
“Yes. And he replied so fast.”
Of course he did. I drop my eyes to the comforter, a mess of painful feelings I can’t parse out. He still should’ve told me. One thousand percent. And… that’s all I’ve got. I’m so deeply drained. “What does this have to do with you and school?”
A line scrunches over her nose, creased between the freckles. “I’ve done something you may or may not like. And I don’t wantyou to get mad. But… but I only went to school because that’s what you said to do. And I went into fashion because you like it. But I want to go out there, Cat. I want to take risks.”
I start to sayI’d never get mad at you, then pause, my shoulders dropping. Man. I am bad with this. “Okay, risks.”
“I, I got a restaurant space.” She talks in a rush, overlapping herself. “I’ve been practicing for years, really, and it won’t be like Grandma’s—I’m not her, and I don’t want to be—but I want to try it out. I love cooking, and when Faust asked me what I do, I told him that, and he offered to invest. That’s what happened. And I knew you were going to be angry that I wasn’t finishing school and going to Paris, and I know that like one in three restaurants fail within the first few years, so that’s why I made him promise to let me be the one to tell you and—this is what I want to do. I’m doing it.”
She looks at me, wide-eyed, completely honest, and I don’t see myself in her, or Grandma, or Mom. Just Maisie. And I laugh, feeling another wave of tears. Happy and sad and proud and amazed.
“You’re such a surprise,” I say.
Then we’re hugging. Her curls are soft under my cheek, and she squeezes me so hard. “I’ve missed you. I miss Mom, and I miss Grandma, but I’ve really missed you.”
“Me too.”
“After Grandma left, it was like—” Maisie pulls back, wiping her nose. “It was like you left, too.”
Leftmakes it sound like she walked out on us, and that image, Grandma stomping out after kicking up her own arguments, makes me let out the tiniest, watery laugh. Because she’d never go. She never wanted to. And that’s the most painful part of death—sometimes, the people you love know that they’re leaving. There are tests, and medical charts, and pacing by windows that overlookhalf-empty parking lots, and it isn’t surprising, how the hours count down, days collapsing into those minutes between sleep and being awake, when you don’t feel like you’re anywhere at all. But Grandma didn’t want to leave. She clung to life, bartered with the doctors, sweet-talked nurses. At the end, she was so clear-eyed, so rooted, fighting so hard, that it felt like we were leavingher. That death took us fromherlife, not the other way around. That somewhere, she’s still cackling and flirting and cooking, sleeves rolled up, an extra spoon tucked into her back pocket, and the music’s louder there, and the colors are brighter, and the party is still going. But we couldn’t stay.
Icouldn’t stay in Waterfield after that.
“I’m sorry. I’ll be here more. As here as I can be.” My words stumble over themselves, this strange new territory covered in trip hazards. “I won’t vanish like that again.”
“It just happened so fast.”
But it didn’t. Not to me. There were weeks where the writing on the wall was legible. And I never faulted my dad for sitting in the waiting room while Mom slept, instead of sitting in her hospital room with me and Maisie. But he’d only made it through twenty minutes of Grandma’s funeral before he was in the parking lot outside the funeral home, rummaging around for his Marlboro Reds.
So I had to make it through the whole thing. The cemetery, lunch after, my sisters sobbing. I had to be the strong one. The person who got everyone through. And it worked, I think, for a bit; I replaced Grandma, and loved my family the way she had. Anchoring. Matriarchal. Controlling. Wearing her love felt like keeping her alive.
“It messed me up. Losing both of them has really done a number on me,” I confess. Faust’s words from our fight loop back aroundmy brain.You don’t want you.The rest floods in after that, his anger, all the awful things we’d said to each other. He’d lied to me like I’ve lied to everyone else, and maybe—part of me had been expecting that. Most of me, waiting for the worst in him.
Except…
