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But damn it, she wasn’t the one who comforted May. It went against the natural order of things. Allie was the jerk, and May was the fixer.
A gust of wind whipped her hair into her eyes. As she brushed it away, a howl rose from the parking lot. Not a crying sort of howl—a full-throated yell of the frustrated, angry variety. The kind of noise Allie made when she dropped her keys for the third time or broke a dish in the sink or whanged her funny bone on the door when she was trying to shove three dogs outside at once.
The scream said, I have fucking had it.
May never howled.
She also never jumped ship when the going got rough, but she was walking from the lot now, her long legs eating up the asphalt.
“Where’s she going?” Nancy said. “She’s supposed to get her hair done in an hour.”
“I’m not sure.” Allie lifted onto her tiptoes, her body straining to keep May in view as she winked in and out of sight between parked cars.
“May!” her mother called. “Where are you headed?”
May didn’t turn, didn’t slow, didn’t stop, and Allie found herself bouncing heels to toes. Straining toward her sister.
“Go on.”
“Hmm?” she asked.
“Go after her,” Mom said. “You’re dying to.”
But Allie didn’t want to go after May. She wanted to go with her. With an apologetic smile, she took off running.
“Wait up!” she shouted. “May!”
She had to chase her for a full block. Finally, she caught up with May as she was passing by the elementary school across the street from the museum.
“Where are you going?”
“I have no idea.” May sniffled and wiped her fingers beneath her eyes, then on her jeans. She didn’t slow.
“Mom’s going to have kittens if we’re not back there in a few minutes.”
“I’m finding it impossible to care about Mom right now.”
“Understandable.” Allie had to trot to keep up. She pressed her hand against the stitch forming in her side and tried to think what to say to this version of her sister. The one who howled. “I’m sorry he left,” she tried.
“I’m not.”
“You’re not?”
May cut a glance at her. “No. I was sorry for a minute, but now I’m really fucking angry that he left.” She kicked a stick off the road without even breaking stride. “He said the whole idea of our staying together was a fantasy, and I crumpled into this pathetic little paper ball of refuse, but you know what? He’s wrong. I don’t accept it. It isn’t okay with me. I know you have no idea, because I was gone for so many days, and then we were pretending he was Andy’s secretary so you didn’t get to know him. But he’s wrong. He’s plain wrong, and I can’t be sorry he left. I can only be irritated as fuck.”
Allie couldn’t remember ever hearing May swear so much. She tried to whistle, but keeping up with her sister was taking all her breath. “Mr. Un-fucking-believable is in the doghouse.”
“Mr. Un-fucking-believable is on the way to Ashland in his bee van,” May said. “So it’s not like he’s going to care that I hate him.”
“You don’t hate him. You love him.”
“Yeah. I told him, too, though a fat lot of good that did me. I think I’m having one of those weeks where you do one stupid thing and then every subsequent decision you make keeps getting stupider.”
“You’ll probably end up living in a cardboard box under the railroad bridge.”
May huffed. “God, I hope not. Though I am jobless now, so I guess it’s possible.”
“Nah. I’m sure in a few months, everything will be back exactly the way it was before.”
