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“You’re suggesting I leave my husband? Are you serious?”
My mouth falls open. “I mean… No. Or, I was. But I was just—”
“I can’t leave Mitchell,” she hisses. “He’s my husband. I chose to marry him. We’ve built a life together.”
I nod. “I know. But if you’re unhappy—”
“So I should pull my kids out of the house and the life they know so I can be broke and happy? Like you are?”
I jerk away from her, shocked by the venom in her words. “I thought you were a happy drunk.”
“So much for the judgment-free zone! For God’s sake, I’m not drunk.”
“What am I supposed to think? I walk in on you downing an entire bottle of wine and then you’re actually honest with me for the first time in your life. You’re never like this when you’re sober.”
She crosses her arms tightly over her chest. She’s in a pair of loose linen pants and a silk shirt tucked into the elastic waist. There’s a dribble of wine across her boob. “Excuse me for thinking I could be real with you and you wouldn’t blow it out of proportion. Christ, Rayne, you always take things to extremes.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
She shakes her head. “Never mind. Nothing.”
“No,” I insist, “we’re here now. Let’s unpack some baggage.”
Maybe my sisters and I aren’t the closest sisters in existence, but damn we know how to have a guerilla-style therapy session.Brutal honesty is better than a pretty lie, Mom always said. And we lived by that.
She groans, then stiffens and unloads on me. “You just do everything at full speed. Mom needed a nurse, so you threw your life away to be with her. You wanted to reconnect with me, so you picked up and moved across the country to squat in my guest house. I mean, ever heard of video chat, Rayne? We could’ve reconnected without you moving into my fucking backyard.”
Panic clamps around my chest, but I try to power through it. “I’ll move out if that’s what you want. You’re the one who offered me a place to live. I figured it was fine, but—”
Lana reaches out and grabs my arm. She squeezes her eyes closed for a second and then looks at me. Her eyes are bloodshot but earnest. Her voice is soft. “I do want you here.”
“It doesn’t sound like it.”
“I’m having a shitty day,” she says. “That’s all. That’s why I’m drinking and confessing a bunch of silly shit. I mean, this is why I couldn’t hang out with Angela anymore. I tried to vent, and she’d get all defensive about her brother. I just thought you’d be able to listen, but—”
“I did listen, Lana. And it sounds like you’re not happy. I only want what is best for you.”
“Keeping my family together is what is best for me,” she says. Lana lets go of my arm and steps back to lean against the counter. I can practically see the wall she is building between us. This conversation is officially off-limits. “I’m not going to divorce him just because I’m bored. Life will get better.”
“Are you sure?”
She nods. “I have to be. It’s not like I have much of a choice.”
“Are you shitting me?”
“What?” she asks.
“You’re the one always going on and on about how I should have gone to school and gotten a degree!” I say. “Why don’t you make use of yours? You don’t need Mitchell to have a comfortable life.”
She crosses her legs at the ankles and looks down at her feet. “It’s been… it’s just been too long. I never even got a job after I graduated. Mitchell and I got married and we moved around so much for his job. Then the kids. No one would take my cute little business degree seriously after so many years of being a housewife.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know that,” she snaps. “Because I’ve talked to some of Mitchell’s friends about getting hired at their companies, and they basically laughed in my face. This is it for me, okay? This is my life.”
The thought of my sister putting herself out there and being made to feel small sends the familiar burn of rage through my chest. “I want the names of every person who laughed in your face,” I demand. “And if they suddenly start complaining about bi-monthly poop packages being left on their front porches, pretend you don’t know a thing.”
She laughs in spite of herself. When she looks at me, it feels almost fond. Warmer than it has been since I moved in. “They shouldn’t be punished for telling me the truth.”
