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I close my eyes because I know that I’ve lost the lucid Rose and I’m going to have to wait for us to have our talk. I pull my hand from hers and get off the bed. I don’t feel right sitting next to a woman who only thinks she knows me.
When Rhea’s gaze falls on me, I see how much she looks like our mother. This girl standing before me looks identical to the pictures Bianca has kept for me.
“And what are you talking about?” She lifts her brow at her question.
“Just about your graduation this coming June. How I’m doing my best to get home in time. Hawking is making sure my plants aren’t dying, isn’t that right, Hawking? We all know your father doesn’t have a green thumb on either hand.” She laughs from behind me as I continue to take in my sister. There’s no way this girl is still in high school.
She crosses her hands over her chest and hitches her hip to the side. Her eyes narrow in on me. “Is that right, brother? You keeping our mother’s plants watered?”
“Now don’t test him, Rhea. We both know he’s too busy to have to take your lip, young lady.”
I look back at Rose who’s trying to look behind Rhea.
“Where’s Loa? I thought she’d be with you.”
“No, Mom, Loa’s at school. You remember?”
“That’s right,” Rose sighs behind me. “Always into her studies. She knows how important it is to your father that she gets through law school so she can work at your father’s firm. Always trying to please your daddy.”
“I need to get going,” I blurt out. I turn toward my mother and give a kiss to her cheek. “I’ll see you later.” She smiles back at me. Her eyes seem clouded, not as clear as they were when I first arrived. Another sign that I need to remember. Learning to read her and her mindset is extremely helpful.
“I’ll walk you out, brother,” Rhea says before I turn around to face her.
As soon as I pass her and make my way from the room, I feel her grab at my arm. “What the hell are you doing here?” She rises to her tiptoes trying to get into my face. The one has some fire in her gut.
“How old are you?” I ask without answering her question.
“Twenty, why?”
“So you aren’t graduating from high school, and you aren’t old enough to drink, yet you smell like alcohol? How about you tell me why that is?”
She rolls her eyes, dropping from her toes. “Oh please, don’t play the brother card now. It’s far too late for that shit.”
I rub my hand over my face. “I didn’t know I had a sister until Rose told me when I first showed up.”
“What do you mean first showed up?”
I take a deep breath, trying to calm my anger. “I’ve been here for a while.”
“Unbelievable,” she huffs.
“Yeah, maybe if you took the time to come and see our mother you would have known that. I haven’t seen a hide nor hair of anyone since I came to town. How the hell do you call yourself a daughter and not come and see her when she’s sick?”
“Don’t judge me. And she’s not sick, she’s an alcoholic.”
“Yeah, and it looks like you aren’t too far behind. Are you even in school?”
Her gaze drops to the ground. Of course, she’s not in school any longer.
“Where’s your dad?”
When she looks at me, her face is sullen. She shrugs. “Dad doesn’t give a shit about me. His only concern is Loa.”
I run my hand through my hair, pulling at its ends. I really don’t need this shit. “Look–”
“No, you look. My entire life I’ve lived in a shadow of two people. One being my brother, a ghost really, someone that my mother missed, but never enough to go find. Or maybe she knew you were better off without her, I don’t know. The existence of you has always been a mystery. Hawking, the name that we could never mention no matter how many questions we had. For the majority of my life, she’s lived her life as if she were in mourning. Never fully there for me, always living in the past and regret of whatever decisions she’s made. Then there’s Loa, my father’s precious first born. She walks on water and can never do any wrong in his eyes. But me, me, I have to look like my mother, share the eyes of a brother I never met, and own the look of disgust from my father.”
I take a step towards her, but she puts her hand up, stopping me.
