“Some.”
“Then how come you look so grumpy?”
“Because I regret that Finley’s had to listen to you two fighting about TikTok. You do know, right, that we want to motivate her to wake up?”
Blair laughed. “Your brooding silence is going to motivate her to wake up?”
“I talk to her.” For hours and hours, in fact. “Why are you two here on a school morning?”
“I have PE and Hailey has ceramics first period. We got here at seven, and Mom gave us permission to stay until nine. It’s pretty rare for Mom to let us skip. You’re here early, even though I was counting on you to come at nine so that we’d get to miss all of first period.”
“I wouldn’t count on me for anything.”
Blair’s boots hit the floor with a thunk. “But I am counting on you. To finish fixing up my car.”
“Your sensitivity is amazing.”
“I wouldn’t count on me for sensitivity,” she shot back.
“The world doesn’t revolve around you, Blair. Your car is not my priority right now.”
“Okay, but remember: When Finley was giving us the tour of Furry Tails, she said she thinks it’s great that you’re going to get my car running before our sixteenth birthday. FYI, that’s on April twenty-first.” She stood. “I have to pee.” With a flap of the flannel shirt she’d tied around her waist, she was gone.
Hailey gave him a shy look of apology she’d probably given a million times before in regard to Blair.
He lowered to the sofa and crossed an ankle over the opposite knee. He had no idea how to talk to tenderhearted teenage girls, but since this was the first time he could ever remember being alone with Hailey, he felt obligated to speak. He heard himself say, “I wish you could have known Ethan.”
“I really, really wish that, too. I’ve always felt connected to him. I don’t believe in reincarnation or anything. I mean, I know I’mnothim. I just think he and I have a lot in common.” She rubbed her lips together as if trying to spread her pale lip gloss. “I relate with everything I’ve heard about his personality. And, of course, Blair’s my sister. Everyone says she’s a lot like you, so maybe I know a little bit about what it’s like for Ethan to have you as a sibling.”
He rolled that statement over a few times. “Blair’s similar to the person I became after Ethan died. The sibling Ethan knew wasn’t like that.”
“I—I guess what I’m trying to say ... is that I might know something about how the Ethan who’s in heaven feels about having you as a sibling.”
Her words struck him mute.
“If that Ethan were here,” she said, “I think he’d want me to tell you some things.”
He met the eyes of this sister who looked so much like his brother that it gave him chills. “Okay.”
“He’d want you to know that he doesn’t blame you. He forgives you. You’re his brother, and you would’ve protected him if you’d known the earthquake was coming. But you didn’t know it was coming.” A few seconds passed. “God was the one who took him. Not you or anyone else.”
His heart was thrashing. He had nowhere to hide.
“Here’s what you can do for Ethan now,” she continued in her quiet voice. “You can move forward. He doesn’t want you to feel guilty. He loves you, and he wants you to have a good future. A happy future.” She bit her lip. “We all do.”
Hailey, this sister he hardly knew, had seen him. Maybe everyone saw him ... and saw through him.
“I’m sorry that I haven’t been there for you,” Luke said. Finley had told him again and again that she wanted him to be there for his family. “I’m going to try to do better.”
“And I’ll keep praying for Finley. I’ve been asking Ethan to put in a good word for her with God. I have a feeling that Ethan is going to insist that she come back. For you.”
His throat went dry.
Blair reappeared. They gathered their things.
“We need to call Mom and tell her we’re done early,” Hailey said.
“Or,” Blair suggested, “we could just stay at the hospital until nine because what Mom doesn’t know won’t hurt her. There’s a donut shop on the first floor.”
