Page 129 of Cara & Gian: The Guzzi Duet

She set the bouquet of tiger lilies—Lea’s favorite flower—along the bottom with the rest. “You could have told me about what you were doing, Lea. I mean, I get why you didn’t tell me about Frankie, but you could have.”

“Who is Frankie?”

Cara stood from the grave, brushing off the bottom of her jeans as she faced Tommas. Her brother had been standing back on the path, far enough away that she didn’t think he would overhear her conversation with her dead twin, but apparently, he had moved closer.

“You shouldn’t spy,” she told Tommas.

He shrugged. “Believe it or not, but spying has saved my ass more times than I care to count.”

“Not this time.”

“So you won’t tell me who Frankie is?”

Cara pursed her lips, deciding there was no harm in giving the bare bones of the details. “Someone Lea was involved with. I didn’t know about it until a while ago.”

“Ah.”

She turned back to the grave, pulling a string of rosary beads from her jacket pocket. They had belonged to Lea, before her death, but her sister had left the rosary behind in Toronto on that fateful trip to Chicago.

Cara wanted to return them, as it was only one thing, but it was something she could let go of. She had been able to make a quick trip to her apartment before leaving Toronto to pack a bag, and had grabbed the rosary last minute. She hung the string of beads around the stone, letting the ivory cross hang over her sister’s name.

“The grave is well kept,” Cara said, wanting to fill the silence.

“I come a couple of times a month to say hello, and replace the flowers.”

“Do you think she hears you?”

“Do you?” Tommas asked right back.

Cara blinked away the tears threatening to fall. “We’re the same, her and me. Even our DNA is identical, Tommas. It’s like that time when we were five, and I fell off the swings at the park while she was home. I broke my wrist, and she screamed and held hers the whole way from the house to the park to find me; everyone thought she was crazy. Of course, she hears me. She’s always been inside of me, listening. I was the one who wasn’t talking for the longest time.”

“I think there’s a difference between her and you, now.”

“Oh?”

“She’s not alive, anymore, Cara. You are. What was cannot now be.”

She still felt like she was living for two some days.

Sometimes, it helped.

Other times, she thought she was failing somehow.

“I still wish they had cremated her,” Cara admitted. “Then I could have taken a piece of her with me.”

Tommas frowned. “I think you’ve taken quite a lot of her with you, if you think about it.”

Maybe.

Cara didn’t know.

“Are you going to tell me what that whole discussion was between you and Abriella this morning?” Cara asked, keeping her back turned to her brother. “I listened to the whole thing, by the way.”

Tommas snorted. “I figured you did.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I have another question instead, Cara.”