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The cookies she’d bake us on the weekends.
My jaw clenched. Even back then, they’d been such a good team. What was important to one was important to the other. Simple as that.
I’d been missing that in my marriage. But their support of each other—it never wavered.
“Tans, I am trying to relax. I’m finally here and can spend time with my baby sister and her kids. This is what retirement looks like for me, not demoing an old house and trying to make it pretty again. I want peace. Haven’t I earned that?”
My sister, normally the first to tease me into submission, was quiet. I risked a glance at her, but she was staring out at the water.
Finally, she spoke. “Yeah, you have.”
“Thank you.”
“But not like this,” she added. “She didn’t ask for this any more than you did. And it’s not easy for me to say this, because I love having you here. Love spending time with you after all the hardships we’ve both been through.” Her voice got choked up, so she waited until it was steady again. “I watched you chase someone else’s dream for the last fifteen years—concussions and torn ligaments and sprained ribs and ... Lord knows what else.”
I kept my mouth shut because this was a common argument we’d had over the years—the crux of her issue with our dad.
“I’m not asking you to give up your dream for a peaceful retirement, if that’s what you want,” she continued, still facing the water. “But don’t act like him. Like you can’t possibly care about more than one thing at a time. That you don’t have the capacity for it.”
Her words hit true—an arrow slicing straight through my ribs.
“Don’t ignore me,” she said.
I glanced in her direction and tried to summon a defense. Angela used to say the same thing to me, in the middle of our arguments. When I was only focused on practice. Training. Watching film. Chasing, chasing, chasing.
It wasn’t true. I’d always cared about other things, but it was hard for me to prioritize anything over the thing that allowed me to take care of my family. And she’d never seen it that way.
It was shame—hot and steady—that I felt first. Tansy and I rarely talked about Dad. He’d focused all his energy on me, the athletic son who had the talent he’d never possessed. The sole positive thing he felt like he could do for me as a single parent. Tansy had been all but ignored, and she still bore the scars of that.
“That’s not what I’m doing,” I managed.
Tansy’s eyes locked on to mine. “You’re also terrible with women.”
My jaw set mulishly. “That is categorically false.”
My sister ignored me. “There’s a reason you’ve been single forever. Angela fucked you up bad. You get one look at a pretty face and you lose absolutely any ability to talk like a normal human being.”
“I didn’t tell you she was pretty.”
“You didn’t have to.” Her smile grew, and it was obnoxious. “You always did lose your shit over redheads.”
“I never would’ve told you that if I thought you’d use it against me.”
She tapped her finger to her chin. “Remember that girl in college who came up to you at the bar and made you trip over your own feet?”
“Chris tripped me,” I snapped. “Can we change the subject back to Charlotte? I wasn’t a dick to her because she’s a redhead.”
“So you do admit you were being a jerk?”
“She was handcuffed. To the house,” I said. I spread my hands out like that explained everything. “The house I don’t want to own, and she comes with it. I don’t want either of them in my life. That doesn’t mean I’m acting like I’m incapable of caring about more than one thing at a time.”
“Yeah, you are. You learned from the best. You don’t have to be her best friend, but don’t be that asshole who ignores his responsibilities because they’re inconvenient.” She stood from her chair and planted a soft kiss on my temple. “I’m going to check on the kids.”
It was an ugly assessment from one of the people who knew me best. Alone again on the deck, I stared up into the swaying fronds of the palm tree directly above me.
I still didn’t want the house, despite what I’d just done with the lawyer.
And I still didn’t have it in me to sell it outright.
