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“My plan is to someday run my own site. As soon as I get my shit together.” He drains his coffee and sets the empty mug in the sink. “I gotta catch the L if I hope to be on time. Late people aren’t handed promotions, or so the foreman keeps reminding me.”
“I had no idea you aspired to climb the company ladder.”
“I have potential,” he says, proudly. “That’s what Nate told me.”
My heart. Oh, my heart. Picturing Nate mentoring my brother flays me. I’ve been underestimating Walt for years. I’ve been swooping in on a wave of self-importance and telling myself I had to take on his problems. Nate knew what I didn’t. Walt needs someone to believe in him, not coddle him.
Don’t we all?
“At least consider taking some of the money,” I say, unable to fully sever the cord. “I don’t know what to do with it.”
“Whatever you do, don’t buy an apartment near mine.”
I make a peeved noise in my throat.
“Love you, sis. I don’t want you to hover.” Walt is ready to be free of the chains of his old life too. My over-involvement was one of them. “Lock up when you leave. Toaster pastries in the cabinet.”
“What happened to your juice cleanse?”
“I left my juicer in Ohio.” He grabs a packed lunch from the fridge, which is so responsible I don’t even know what to think, and then he kisses my cheek. “Go home, V.”
“Love you too,” I say.
Long after he’s shut his front door I linger over my coffee and think about Ohio. About the life I built there. About my job at CRBI, and my friend, Amber. About my apartment and my neighbor and the elm tree out front. But then I think of Nate and Grand Marin and the nights I spent curled around him in his bed and my chest seizes. How can I go back after behaving so poorly?
I finish my coffee and wash the mug and then lock the door behind me. I hail a taxi and take it to my old stomping grounds: the lush, wealthy, manicured lots of Fein Village. There’s another home I long to return to.
My childhood home.
The home of Vivian Steele, the woman who is trapped inside me, scratching at the walls. It’s time to set her free.
