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“Alex’s cancer,” Elise added.
Tracey’s face looked puzzled. “You know about that.”
Elise nodded. “It’s in my mother’s diary. It’s apparently the reason she decided to keep her pregnancy a secret.”
Tracey’s lower lip trembled slightly. Slowly, she stood, looking at Elise with a much different expression.
“I don’t know what to do with any of this,” Tracey said, her voice cracking.
“Me neither,” Elise said. “I’ve never had a family outside of my mother and my twins.”
“That makes me even sadder,” Tracey admitted. “I truly believe that everyone should be forced to put up with all the turmoil of having a family.”
Silence fell between them. Slowly, Tracey turned toward the balcony and stepped back into the light autumn breeze. Elise joined her.
“Alex was sick for a long, long time,” Tracey said, speaking wistfully. “I think the stress of it nearly killed my parents. Mom calculated it once. She and Alex spent over a year in total in hospitals. She slept at his bedside all the time, watching over him. I think for that reason, Mom’s death has destroyed Alex even more than it got to the rest of us. He’s gotten even crueler, even angrier over the previous two years.”
“That’s really understandable,” Elise said.
Tracey made a small noise in her throat. “I don’t know. I have a hunch that your mother’s death hasn’t made you a cruel person unless my brother’s right about the fire at Willow Grove.”
Elise furrowed her brow. Before she could answer, however, Tracey laughed again and added, “I don’t believe it for a second. You had no idea what kind of mess you walked into. That’s pretty clear. But you don’t have a mean bone in your body.”
Elise’s eyes felt heavy, on the verge of tears. She snuck back into the bedroom, grabbed her mother’s diary, and returned, lifting it as some kind of proof.
“When I first read about my father, I fell in love with this story I had never heard about my mother,” Elise told her. Her voice cracked a bit. “All our lives, it was just the two of us. I didn’t have siblings. I didn’t have a father. She didn’t introduce me to anyone she dated until I was an adult. With this diary, I thought maybe I could find new pieces of her. Uncrack the code of my mother a bit more.”
Silence fell between them again. Tracey’s smile grew slowly.
“You missed so much,” she whispered.
Elise tilted her head, surprised at Tracey’s words.
“What do you mean?”
Tracey turned back toward the door. “You don’t have a ferry ticket booked yet, do you?”
“No.”
“Good. Because I want to spend the day with you, if you’ll have me,” she said. “I’ve always been the younger sister. Maybe I want to act the part of a big sister, if only for one day before you go.”
Elise stuttered slightly. “You really don’t have to do anything. I don’t want to be any more of a burden.”
Tracey’s smile was electric now. “We’ve spent all our lives apart. I think a few hours together won’t hurt either of us.”
