“Margot!” he yelps, his eyes going round with fear. Maybe he can tell I haven’t changed my clothes or brushed my teeth in over twenty-four hours. Maybe he can tell that I’ve been subsisting on shrink-wrapped airport salads, with one notable exception of an orgasmically delicious Starbucks cake pop that almost instantly gave me the shits. The point is, he should be afraid.Veryafraid.
“Where,” I say, stalking closer to him, “is my sister?”
The door squeaks open a little wider as Cooper backs up, either to escape my poisonous morning breath or to allow me into an admittedly charming front sunroom. I step in, and even out of my periphery, the hanging macramé plant holders and bright yellow throw pillows on rattan chairs feel like an extension of Savannah.
“Babe!” Cooper calls, turning to look at the inner doorway leading to the main house. “You’ve got a visitor!” He turns back to me, and after a second, he blasts me with a bright, lopsided grin that makes me want to hiss like a vampire caught in sunlight. “She’s going to be so fucking happy to see you.”
Before I can protest, he’s wrapping me in a neoprene-and-fermented-ocean-scented hug that lifts my tired feet off the ground and gives my compressed spinal column two satisfying pops.
“Gotta run,” he says when he sets me back down. “Swell’s coming in. Are you staying over with us?” He smiles at my responding “Uhh” like I’ve said,Sure am! I packed my jammies!“Awesome, Van’ll be so happy. Can’t wait to kick your ass in Scrabble tonight.” He clicks his fingers and points at me in a way that’s somehow not douchey. With one last disarming smile, he’s sidling past me toward his surfboard-laden Jeep.
I’m still getting my bearings when I see her materialize, staring at me from the inner sunroom door like I’m a ghost. A ghost with a large balsamic vinaigrette stain on her shirt and an eye twitch.
“Margot,” she says, shock leeching all strength from her voice. She’s always been beautiful, but after being separated from her for so long, I pick up on subtle shifts in her appearance. Her skin is bronzed like she’s been spending most of her time outside. The faint purple smudges that have always lived beneath her eyes are still there, but she’s not leaning on the doorframe like she does during a flare. She looks… strong. It’s clear she’s having one of those blissful stretches of good days we both treasure so much,but my fear that she’ll wither without me almost wants to believe it’s a fluke.
“You’re back early,” she says, and there’s no mistaking the anxiety in her voice.
“Of course I came back,” I say. “Your letter—”
“You shouldn’t have read it early,” she blurts. “I’m going to have a word with Dr. MD. He promised he’d keep the letters locked up somewhere safe!”
Under any other circumstance, I’d probably laugh, but thinking of Forrest—even if it’s just his underwear drawer—feels like a fork twisting up my insides like spaghetti. I can’t bring myself to respond, so I say the only thing I’ve been thinking since I read her letter. “What the fuck, Van?” I mean to say it angrily, but it comes out as a hurt whisper crammed with everyBachelorettebinge, overnight hospital stay, delayed publication date, and eight-hour bone broth I’ve lovingly simmered for her over the years.
She shrinks in on herself and suddenly looks younger. “You read the letters,” she says. “You know why I did it.”
“But youcan’tdo this!” I shout, surprising us both. At the stunned look on her face, I take a deep breath and try to lower my voice; to try for reason. “You know Cooper can’t dedicate enough time to you. I know you love him, but you need to live with someone who can drop everything when you’re in a flare.”
Her sandy eyebrows pinch together. “So what are you saying, Margot? That I’mneversupposed to move out? That I’m not allowed to build a life with someone I love if he doesn’t have a work-from-home job with limitless vacation time?”
“Webuilt a life together, Van! A home together! Doesn’t that count for anything?”
“Of course it does! It counts for everything!”
“Then how could you abandon it all without even telling me?” I demand.
Her face scrunches as she squeezes her eyes shut. “Because Inever would have had the strength to leave if you were here, and Ihadto get out of that house, Margot! You were living your whole life for me, and I was suffocating!”
Pain spreads through me, thick and black as an oil spill. For so many years, the story I’ve told myself has had only four words:my sister needs me. It’s only now that she’s run away from home that I realize I’ve had it all wrong. I’m the one who needs my sister. The proof is in her bright eyes and this beautiful new life she’s built for herself. One month of independence has transformed her in a way I hadn’t thought possible, and it cuts deeper than any words ever could.
My voice is shaking when I speak. “So all that about reinventing myself? Sending me to fuckingAlaska? It was all an elaborate bullshit way to get me out from underfoot so you could secretly build your little love nest with Cooper? So you could justleaveme, just like everyone you wrote about in your letters?”
Savannah angrily wipes a tear from her face. “You know that’s not true. Youknowthat’s not true, Margot,” she repeats. “I sent you to Alaska and moved out so you can finally have a life that isn’t shackled to my ups and downs. I did it because I need to see if I can live without someone monitoring my every twitch. I did it because, as much as you might want me to be, I’m not your Happily Ever After!”
I recoil like I’ve been slapped. She pauses, gathering herself with a breath. “Please,” she says, and she’s asking the impossible. She’s begging me to rise above my own wounded ego to see the bird’s-eye view she so clearly painted for me in her letters.
But the part of me that feels deceived and abandoned doesn’t want to rise above the trees. It wants to thrash around in the mud some more and maybe throw a little of it too. I don’t want to acknowledge that the love and care she put into crafting each one of those letters guided me through every moment of transformation I experienced in Alaska. But even now, there’s no denyingthat they did. Her words gave me strength and opened my heart enough to allow that brief but incalculably precious time with Forrest.
She’s staring at me with barely concealed panic, and I realize that despite all her careful machinations, she’s as terrified of losing me as I am of losing her. She knows she’s never moving back in with me, that an era has come to a close, but she doesn’t know if I’ll ever forgive her for leaving. I swallow hard as the desperation to keep her all to myself begins to battle a new kind of urgency. It’s the deep-seated need to always reassure her of my love. To comfort her and give her what she needs, no matter what it might cost me. In the end, my selfishness doesn’t stand a chance.
My eyes spill over like a child’s. “B-but how am I supposed to live without you?”
Her eyes widen with unexpected hope. After a moment, she half-laughs through her own tears and says, “Did you really just quote a Michael Bolton song andnotsing it?”
I give her a tremulous smile, wiping my eyes. “Believe it or not, quoting Michael Bolton wasn’t intentional.”
All at once she’s setting her coffee mug on the ground, only to immediately knock it over with her foot as she rushes toward me. I’m wrapped in her slender arms, and she’s hugging me harder than she’s ever hugged me before. I feel her strength and know that she’s been okay without me. I close my eyes as relief and gratitude pour through me, washing away petty jealousy and bitterness. I let my tears soak into her honeysuckle-scented hair, and for the first time since setting eyes on her, I let myself feel the sweetness of being home at last.
“I’m sorry I smothered you,” I say, my voice as nasal as a kazoo.
