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Rada is staring at the pendant I’m twisting between my fingers. I tuck it back inside my t-shirt and give her a small smile. “Thanks. It’s old.”
“Another thrift store purchase?” she asks.
She’s trying to make conversation. If it were anyone else, I’d shut the conversation down. But she’s trying to become friends. I don’t want to scare her off. I don’t have many friends left.
“Not exactly,” I admit. “It was made for me. Sort of. By my best friend.”
“Oh. That’s really nice. Handmade gifts are the best. So personal.”
I nod. I can just end the conversation here. She’s not expecting anything further from me. She doesn’t suspect that there’s a story there that’s embedded itself so deep inside me that I fear I’ll never be able to move on from it.
“Her name was Clara,” I say before I can stop myself.
When was the last time I uttered her name out loud? I can’t even remember. And that, more than anything, makes me want to cry.
“‘Was’?”
I blink and Rada comes into focus. I’m dangerously close to tears, so I glance towards the cufflink collection I see behind a display pane of thick glass in Misha’s closet.
“Yeah. She… she passed away,” I whisper. “A long time ago.”
“I’m so sorry.”
I smile sadly and pull my necklace out again. “She was the sister I never had. Do you have any siblings?”
“Two older brothers and a younger sister. I’m not really close with any of them, though.”
I nod. “Family is who you choose.”
I’ve always believed that. Ever since I spotted Clara across Corden Park in that beat-up green trailer, wearing those purple Converse with the Sharpie’d smiley face on the toes, I knew she was my family.
Family is who you choose.We held onto those words throughout our childhood, while the world raged and boiled and tore itself apart around us.
We never thought to ask the most obvious question, though.
If family is a choice… what happens when you choose wrong?
25
MISHA
Is Paige really crying over her ratty old clothes?
It’s the only explanation I have for the misty sheen I see in her eyes as she stands in the closet with Rada.
The two of them are absorbed in whatever they’re doing, so I watch them through the doorway for a few seconds before Rada looks up and sees me. She trips over herself to stand at attention in front of me, head lowered to stare at the space between her feet. “Is there anything I can get you, sir?”
“No, Rada. Thank you. You’re free to go.”
She gives me a frantic nod and shoots a furtive smile at Paige before rushing out of the room. Paige drifts to the threshold of the walk-in, eyeing me with reluctance.
“I assume everything is to your liking,” I say.
She bristles. “You threw out almost all of my clothes.”
Her eyes clear, the sadness washed away by indignation. Turns out she wasn’t crying about the clothes, after all. Not to say she’s happy about my closet clear-out.
“They looked like dish towels and dirty rags to me. I figured you’d thank me for getting them off your hands.”
