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Harley squeezes my hand. Not sure if it’s pity or an accident. Because all of my sisters have changed except for me.
Each of them is partnered up, blissed out in love. And it all happened so fast too. Two short years and we went from five single sisters to four partnered sisters and little old me.
Don’t get me wrong, they worked to get there. Each of them came up against their own trials before they got to the tribulations.
I don’t want that for me. An accident forcing me into understanding love. Sure, I want kids someday. But I want that conventional marriage, the way the old school rhyme is ordered. Love, marriage, baby carriage.
It’s not that my sisters haven’t found happiness in their ways. I’m so proud of all of them. Maybe feeling a little left out. But happy they’ve found what they were looking for.
No, it’s because our mother had it the mixed up way. She and Dad met in college, got pregnant, and then, for the next however many years, she pretended to be the mother who loved us.
Until she gave up.
I wonder what her life would have been like if she’d never met my dad. Would she have ever become a mother? Would they still be together?
These questions aren’t helpful. But they’re always there in the back of my mind.
Anyway, I’m the last single Solace sister. The last one living at home with Dad. And given how I’m married to my work, I’m not sure that will change any time soon.
“I know we all have our own families now,” Amy says and then looks at me. “Our own lives.”
Thanks for the correction,I think, bidding myself not to roll my eyes.
“But I will always be here for you,” she says, her lower lip trembling. “First and foremost, you are my sisters. And I wouldn’t be even a quarter – no –a fifthof the woman I am today without you.”
The five of us all smile at one another, huddling closer together. We pull our interlocked hands into the center, like the center of a flower. Tears creep into the corners of my eyes, imagining each of my sisters falling away from this center point like petals.
We can say all we want that we will be here for each other. But life sometimes has a way of screwing that all up.
I have to trust them. Have to trust that they love me. That just because my life doesn’t seem as full to them I’m not just an appendix.
God, I hope I’m not.
“I love you guys,” Amy sniffles.
“We love you, Ames,” Dana says and kisses the side of her head.
“There you all are!” Dad’s voice cries from the mouth of the path. “Have I interrupted a moment?”
We all break apart and invite Dad into our embrace. “Just in time, Daddy,” Amy says.
“You’re crying again? Jeez, I thought you’d be cried out after your vows, but –”
“Daddy!”
Dad laughs and gives me a sidelong glance, winking my way. We have a special bond, ever since Amy moved next door to live with Hunter. We watch programs together and go for hikes. We sometimes talk in the middle of the night when neither of us can sleep.
And while Dad has never said it out loud, I know it would break his heart if I left.
So, while all my sisters move on, I’m stuck as the girl I’ve always been. Good, quiet Kira.
But I need more.
Something has to change.
4
ORLIE
