We both turn to spy a grinning man leaning on the counter. He must have snuck in during our conversation. Normally my brother is not so easy to ignore.
Today he’s dressed in his businessman attire, wearing a designer suit, his red hair—the same shade as mine—perfectly styled, and a watch that’s probably worth a month of my paychecks hugging his wrist. Shawn Newton and I live very different lives. But he’s always insisted our one shared parent means those lives need to overlap sometimes.
And what Shawn wants, Shawn gets.
For some reason, he’s always wanted a sister.
“Well”—Mrs.Cornfield smiles at my brother—“Billy’s got his eye on her. Wrote her the sweetest note—”
“Mom!” Billy growls. “So help me god, I will walk out of this kitchen and apply for a job at Beefies Steak House if you don’t quit it with the notes.”
Mrs.Cornfield’s mouth snaps shut, and she turns a set of horrified eyes toward the kitchen. “How dare you make such a terrible threat?”
As mother and son continue to bicker, I slip out from under her arm and lean my elbows on the counter across from Shawn.
“What brings you down from the big city today?”
My brother has a luxurious condo in DC—well, technically Arlington, Virginia, but it all seems like one city to me—that is walking distance to plenty of five-star restaurants. Still, he tries to make it to Cornfield’s at least once a week. It helps that we’re on the way to the private airfield his company flies him out of for business trips. But I like to think he’d still come by even if I were out of the way.
Shawn reaches over the counter to clasp the top of my skull with his huge hand until I swat him away.
“You may have heard,” he says, his voice overly casual, “that there was this wild plane that landed in the middle of the highway yesterday.”
“Hmm, sounds vaguely familiar.”
“Yeah, well”—his eyes narrow as he scans me from head to toe—“I wanted to make sure you’re all in one piece.”
Of course, he’d come in here and immediately be the sweet big brother he is. There’s a tiny part of me that wishes he wouldn’t. Because every bit of love and care Shawn offers makes me feel worse.
Because I’m a terrible sister who lied to him.
I hated misleading Shawn. But I was desperate.
A few years ago, I got a bill in the mail from the hospital—the first of many—that revealed just how expensive it is to keep a person alive when their body starts to grow cancerous cells.
At first, I was able to cover the costs with my savings and by taking on extra hours at Cornfield’s. Then Mom married her long-term partner, Marge, and got on her insurance. That coverage kept us afloat. For a while, we were managing.
But Mom had complications. Surgeries. ER visits. Unexpected expenses that insurance didn’t cover. Then her mental health dipped along with her physical health. All the while, the house the three of us lived in needed a lot of repairs we hadn’t expected.
My savings disappeared. The credit cards maxed out. Marge and I tried to keep the financial situation to ourselves so Mom could focus on healing, but I knew we wouldn’t be able to hide it forever.
Terrified that an unpaid bill would mean my mom would be denied lifesaving treatments, I sought out Shawn and asked my beloved big brother for a loan. He agreed before I’d finished half of my rehearsed speech. He wrote me a blank check and hugged me. I swore to him I’d work out a payment plan. He told me I could pay him back when I turned twenty-five and got access to my trust fund, like he did.
The one our father set up for me with a few million dollars inside.
The same type of trust Shawn came into on his twenty-fifth birthday.
My trust that…doesn’t exist.
I don’t know if our father lied to Shawn and said there was a fund, or if my brother assumed the money existed simply because he couldn’t fathom that his dad might want nothing to do with a daughter born from the affair Karl Newton had with his assistant.
Either way, worried that Shawn might rescind his offer, I let my mouth ramble.
“Of course,” I’d played along. “I’ll pay you back with my trust fund. When I’m twenty-five. This is just a loan.”
My twenty-fifth birthday is now four months away.
Four months until my loving brother finds out I’m a liar who took his money with no clear idea for how to pay him back.
