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“God, in moments like this, I wish Dad was still here. He would’ve never let me date fucking Logan in the first place,” Ashley confesses. “And he could remind Mom to let me breathe every once in a while.”
My heart skips a beat.
This is the first time Ashley has acknowledged our father in years. At least, in front of me.
“If he was, he’d run Logan over with his race car and make it look like an accident,” I point out, and we laugh.
“I miss him so much,” she admits.
“Do you?” I can’t fend off the curiosity. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s just… you never talk about him. Not on the anniversary of his death, not on his birthday. I kind of thought you didn’t remember him.”
Still in my arms, she says, “I used to… talk about him, I mean. Back when we were kids, but Mom would get so weird whenever I mentioned him. She’d look at me like I was––”
“A four-legged monster?” I finish.
She chuckles. “Something like that.”
“I know the feeling.” I withdraw from the hug.
“I still go see him, though. I visit his grave every month when Mom thinks I’m having dinner with Rob.”
“You do?” The tears are back in my eyes in an instant.
She nods.
“Me too,” I confide.
“Are you serious?” she chortles. “You’re telling me we’ve both been going to see him in that creepy-ass cemetery alone when we could’ve gone together all this time?”
I laugh at how ridiculous it sounds when spoken out loud.
“Looks like it.”
“Jesus, Vee. Why have we never talked like this?” She exhales and grabs my hand.
“You mean aside from the fact that you’re always at some photoshoot? Or at an early lesson? Or making out with basketball players in a bathtub? Beats me,” I tease, and my sister grins.
“Let’s promise to never drift apart again, okay?” She offers me her pinky, because everybody knows a promise isn’t valid unless it involves a pinky swear. Joy flowing out of me profusely, I nod and lace my pinky around hers.
“Okay.”
* * *
“Where the hell have you been?” Mom blusters when we pad into the house twenty minutes later. We got carried away talking about Dad and Mom’s selective amnesia. She’s sitting at the kitchen island in the darkness, her stern features obscured by worry and her lack of sleep.
I almost didn’t see her, as the only source of light in the room emanates from the kitchen hood. Mom leaps off the swivel stool before I can blink and thuds toward us. She’s in her black satin nightgown, her short hair less tidy than usual.
“Out,” Ashley says without a thought for her survival.
Brave.
Stupid but brave.
“What the hell did you say to her?” Mom turns to me. “How did you convince your sister to lie and go to this delinquent party—”
“She didn’t make me do anything, Mom,” Ashley interrupts. “I went all on my own.”
Mom’s gaze shifts between Ashley and me for a moment as if she’s waiting for one of us to say “Psych.”
