Page 27 of Read With Your Heart

“I’ll leave them here and you can decide which one you’d like best, or you can take them both. I only ask if you don’t like them you give them back so I can pass them to my niece.”

“Madison Carter. She’s your niece, right?” Lena asks with a little sass, like she doesn’t like Tricia’s niece, but Tricia doesn’t notice.

“Yes, she is.” Pride fills her aunt’s voice, and I notice Lena’s face pinch. She really doesn’t like the girl.

“She know these are yours?” Lena questions, going into her default mode of standoffish and mouthy.

Tricia shrugs. “I don’t know. My niece loves to raid my closet for some reason.” My guess is because Tricia has nice clothes, and a few expensive things maybe her parents don’t allow her to have otherwise.

“I’ll take them both,” Lena demands, and I hiss her name. She amends with, “Please. And thank you.”

“Did you bring us dinner?” Lys interjects, and Lena moves to show our sister the pan.

“Enchiladas, hermanita,” Lena purrs, and Lys inhales next.

“They smell like Mami’s.”

Fuck. She isn’t wrong, but I just don’t want to want this dinner.

“Are you gonna eat with us?” Lys asks, too hopeful, and Tricia looks up at me. I close my eyes a second. I cannot look at her. I cannot look at any of them. I’m being overruled by a house full of women, and none of them belong here.

“I think that’s up to your brother, who maybe had other plans this evening,” Tricia cautiously prompts. “Maybe another night.” Her voice drops. I opened my eyes while she spoke and watched Lys’s face fall. Lena glares at me, and Tricia avoids looking at me altogether. Her hands slip into her own lightweight jacket, and she smiles weakly at Lys who breaks into a coughing fit.

“Are you sick?” Tricia questions while Lys shakes her head but continues to cough into her elbow. Tricia steps forward and lays the back of her hand on Lys’s forehead. Lys closes her eyes like it’s bliss to have this woman’s touch on her, and I sigh, jealous of the tenderness she’s displaying toward my baby sister. Lys misses our mother, and I don’t blame her. We don’t even really know one another since I’m twenty-one years older than she is and wasn’t home when she was born. I’m just doing the best I can with strangers living in my home.

“She’s always coughing and sniffling. It’s annoying,” Lena groans.

“Do you have allergies?” Tricia asks, assessing my sister because now, apparently, she’s a freaking doctor, and the next thing she’s going to do is report me to some medical board for not looking after my sister’s health. I don’t have insurance for whatever Tricia has diagnosed Lys with, and I’m back to wanting her out of our house.

Lys shakes her head at Tricia’s question, but Tricia continues. “Would you know if you had allergies? Have you ever been tested for them?”

Nice dig, teacher. Gonna be an investigative reporter in your next life, maybe?

“I just cough like this whenever I start school,” Lys finally explains.

Tricia tenderly smiles. “Unfortunately, schools are commonly cesspools for mold, and with so many kids, it’s a Petri dish of germs. Maybe you just need a little allergy medicine.” Her voice suggests there’s no maybe about it, and she’s adding it to the list of things she’s going to do next for us.

“Don’t,” I snap, causing both my sisters to flinch, and Tricia turns on me. “Don’t act like you’re a doctor too and diagnose my sister.”

“I’m not a doctor.” She laughs like I’m joking. “I’m just trying to hel—”

“We don’t want your help. We don’t need your jackets, and we don’t want your dinner.” My fists clench at my sides. Then I’m reaching for the door, ready to suggest she leave, when Lys interjects.

“I want the jacket,” she says softly.

“And I want dinner. Your cooking sucks,” Lena adds.

“Well, you could help out and make it yourself once in a while,” I bark back. Then I meet Tricia’s eyes, reminded we have an audience. The brown-green turns to murky water, and I don’t like it. I don’t like how she’s looking at me with a mixture of compassion and censure, as if she understands my struggle but doesn’t sympathize with how I’m handling things.

I’m a fucking failure in her eyes. Great. Just fucking great.

Tricia stares at me another second and then slowly unzips her jacket. “I’d love to stay for dinner,” she says, inserting herself into the evening. I now have two choices: either join them or go out myself.

Too bad those enchiladas smell so good because I’m fucking outta here.

Lesson 12

Honesty is the best policy.