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We were a few hands in when she asked, “Do you miss Mom?”
I looked up quickly. “Of course, I do.”
Out of all of us, Cat spoke about Mom the least. I was pretty sure she missed her the most. I figured losing someone you loved was a relative experience in a sense. The way it was for me might not be the way it was for someone else. Cat had been the youngest, and she'd also carried more of the brunt of our dad. Flynn had a different dad from us, but his dad had simply been gone. He’d knocked up our mom, and that was it. She’d never heard from him again. I didn't know what was worse.
Later, when our dad’s health started to fail, and he needed our mom, he hung around more. That meant more arguments and more drinking. Nora and I had been a little older. Not that it had been easy, but we’d managed. He’d scared Cat, and we all knew it.
“I’ll always miss Mom,” I added. When she looked up quickly, I saw the sheen of tears in her eyes. “You okay?”
Her lips twisted. Her voice was a little thick when she spoke. “I've just been thinking about her lately. I'm eighteen now, and she's not here.” She swung her arm in an arc. “She didn't get to see that you guys built this. She didn't get to see everything Flynn and you did.”
A tear rolled down her cheek, and she swiped it away quickly. Cat did not like to be hugged when she was crying, so I waited.
“And, now I'm all grown up. She doesn't even get to taste the food that I cook.”
“No, she doesn't,” I said, my throat feeling tight.
“I wish you'd been here.”
“What do you mean?” I prompted.
“I understand why you went to college, but I missed you. It was so scary that night when she collapsed.”
I took a quick breath. I knew Cat wasn't trying to guilt me, but I still felt like hell about it.
“I know. I wish I'd been there too.”
“It wouldn’t have changed anything,” my little sister said softly.
I nodded. I’d mentally replayed what the doctor at the emergency room had told us the next day. He said we couldn't have stopped it. She had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, something that caused the heart muscles to thicken and could occasionally disrupt the heart’s electrical system and result in sudden death. Even though I’d intellectually believed the doctor, I harbored emotional doubts.
“I know,” I said, my voice ragged on the edges.
“Nora and I weren’t doing too great.”
“Nora was sixteen. She hated life,” I offered.
Cat giggled a little and swiped another tear away. “Thanks,” she said quietly.
“For what?”
“For always being there.”
“I wasn't there that night,” I pointed out.
“No, but you drove down from Anchorage in the dark and met us at the hospital. You convinced the court to let you be our guardian until Flynn could get here.”
It had taken Flynn weeks to get back. He was across the world on active duty in the Air Force at the time. As a young college kid, the judge had had his doubts about me. Having grown up in the area, I had several people support me, including a friend of our mom’s who promised to check on us regularly. They allowed me to be the temporary guardian until Flynn could get home. After that, I stayed home. I’d eventually finished my college degree, but in fits and starts with most of it online. I hadn't been able to bring myself to leave after that and hadn't wanted to.
“What if one of us has that?” Cat asked.
“We don’t. We’ve all been checked since,” I pointed out.
She took a breath. “I know, but I worry.” After a beat, she added, as if to herself, “All right, I'm done with this conversation.”
That was classic Cat. She didn't like being hugged when she was crying, and when she was done with a heavy topic, she just wanted to move on. We continued playing cards.
After I went to bed later and I knew Cat was in her room, I knocked lightly on the wall between my bedroom and Harley’s. A moment later, my door opened, and Harley tiptoed into the room.
