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“That’s not necessary. I don’t want to be paid back.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “I don’t want your charity.”
“It’s not charity. I did it for Celine.”
She cringes. Or maybe she shivers; I’m not sure which. She doesn’t look comfortable either way. A stray tear slips down her cheek but she’s quick to wipe it away.
“Right. Have you heard anything?” she asks. “About Celine? Dad?”
“We’re close to locating them.”
She shakes her head. “They should have been there today.” Her whole body slumps when she sighs. She looks so delicate and drained, and it bothers me more than I’m allowing myself to admit. “They should have been there to bury her with me.”
“I know.”
“I had to lie to everyone, you know,” she blurts, suddenly glaring at me. “With some people, it was easy. But I had to look my Aunt Marianne in the eye and tell her the lie you made up to explain their absence.”
“It was a necessary lie.” I feel like I’m scolding a child. It would be easier if she wasn’t acting like one. Exhausted or not, grieving or not, I expect her to at least see the sense in the strategy. “There’s no sense involving more people in this. It only puts them in danger.”
“Don’t lecture me; I know why I had to do it. That doesn’t mean I had to like it.”
I replace my urge to roll my eyes with a heavy sigh. “If you understand, then why are we debating it?”
She eyes me warily, reminding me of exactly why I can’t just swap out the two sisters. Taylor would never be able to assimilate into my world. Celine, on the other hand, will fit into whatever box I choose to lock her in.
I take a tissue from the bedside table and hand it to her. She takes it reluctantly, but instead of dabbing at her eyes, she toys with one corner of it until the threads start to fray.
“Mila mentioned that you lost your mother young,” she says suddenly. “Do you remember it?”
I wonder what exactly Mila has told her. I’m surprised that she’s said anything at all. She despises talking about our parents. “Yes, I remember it.” I nod once. The memories deserve nothing more.
“So you know what I’m feeling right now?”
“If it’s relief, then yes.”
“Relief?”She gapes at me. “That’swhat you felt when your mother died?”
“She was miserable for so long,” I admit, realizing even as I say it that no amount of explanation can properly convey what I felt when her internal war finally came to its inevitable conclusion. What I experienced just before that happened can’t be explained in a simple story, either. “She was depressed, among other things. It was easier watching her die than it was watching her live.”
I expect to be faced with disgust and judgment. After all, how could I expect someone like Taylor, someone who actually loves her parents, to understand what I felt about mine?
But instead of judgment, I watch as she furrows her brow.. “I suppose that makes sense.”
She might just be the first person who’s ever said that to me.
“Does it?”
She glances at me, her expression distant but thoughtful. “You recognized something in Mom, didn’t you?” she asks. “Something that you saw in your own mother.”
I feel my legs bend at the knees, and somehow, against my better judgment, I find myself sitting on the edge of her bed. She doesn’t flinch away from me. She just watches me with a weary sense of curiosity.
“Fiona was ready to go, Taylor. She’s been ready for some time now. I think the bullet gave her permission to say something she’d been waiting many months to say.”
Her bottom lip starts to tremble. “It’s weird—I keep digging up all these old memories that I didn’t even realize I had. It’s almost like…human nature’s way of trying to distract me from the fact that there won’t be any new memories.” She trips over the last few words, her face dropping into her palm. “Fuck me. I can’t seem to stop crying.”
“Then cry,” I tell her. “Cry until you run out of tears.”
“You should probably leave then,” she says. “I doubt you want to see me ugly cry.”
