“He told me I should be nicer to people.”
“Oh?” I bit my tongue.Bold move, Jeffrey.
“He thinks it’s nice you started sending me letters, and that I should call you and answer your texts more often. For the record, I didn’t answer tonight because I was driving. You look very nice, but you were gone when I got here, so I didn’t get to tell you. I told him to butt out, then I burst into tears, because my hormones are a mess, and he apologized. Then he went to get my favorite ice cream from the parlor on Main Street. I packed some things and left while he was gone.”
Ironic, given the catalyst for their fight, that she would come here, but I kept that to myself too.
“I just started driving,” she said. “I wound up here. Hopefully your invitation to visit still stands.”
“Always.”
She narrowed her eyes, seeming to see me for the first time since her arrival. “Did you have a nice night?”
“Nope.” I lifted my cup, running my thumbs along the warm sides. “But it’s improving now.”
Annie’s lips formed a small, hesitant smile. “I’m sorry I’ve been so awful. I don’t want to fight with you anymore. We never should’ve been like this.”
“Why were we?” I asked, still unsure what exactly had gone wrong along the way.
“You stopped making time for me a long time ago, and it pissed me off.” Her expression turned self-deprecating. “I’m not completely over it.”
I rolled her words around in my head, trying to make sense of them. She was angry I didn’t spend more time with her? She could’ve tried being a little nicer once in a while. Maybe not taken every opportunity to either snap at me or avoid me. “I’ve been busy.”
“Busy,” she said in chorus with me. “Yeah. I know.”
I bristled. “I’ve been working more so you could work less. I’ve been exhausted all the time.”And growing bitter,I realized. “I barely do anything other than work and attend Saturday-night family dinners.”
“Hire help,” she said. “No one asked you to do everything.”
“You don’t think I’ve brought that up? Mom and Dad always say they’ll come in more often so we don’t have to hire help. Then they just don’t show up. I’ve been stuck in this cycle for years.”
She rolled her eyes.
“What is your problem?” I blurted the words that I’d held back for years.
“You’re my problem!” she said. “And Mom, Dad, and Jeffrey. You all treat me like a fragile little infant, and that was way before I got pregnant. You push me out of the serious conversations and only ask me about petty things that don’t matter. It’s as if none of you see me as a full-grown woman who has actual thoughts. I have a degree,” she said. “I have a brain. No one wants me to use it. And for the record, I am not fragile. I was a gymnast and cheerleader for twelve years. I couldbench-press my weight since I was eleven. I’m not some meek little thing you all have to protect and look out for.”
I blinked as confusion clouded my brain. “No one thinks you’re weak. We’re all half afraid of you.”
“Because I’m mean,” she said. “Just like Jeffrey told me.”
“Well, kinda.”
She laughed and crossed her arms over her bump. “Has anyone considered I’ve just been pissed off my whole life?”
I smiled. “What?”
She sighed. “I’m not blaming anyone for it, but Mom got cancer when I was small, and I don’t remember her being carefree or fun. I remember being smothered, micromanaged, and pushed. When you reminisce about your childhood with her, I feel left out, because all those happy days were before I knew her. My earliest memories are of her puking in a bucket after chemo and you rushing me away to get ready for school. The mom I had was dying, and the sister I wanted was becoming my mom. None of that changed when she got better. I just wound up with two moms. She clung to Dad, and you kept taking care of me. Everyone still treats me like that preschooler who needs rushed out of the room when something tough or uncomfortable comes up. And I resent never having a sister to talk with about boys and my period.”
I sat back in my chair, imagining our childhoods from Annie’s perspective for the first time.
“Sometimes I think I married Jeffrey just to have a partner. A lifelong confidant because fate had taken the one I was meant to have. Or maybe I was just in a hurry for the world to see I was an adult.”
“I know you’re an adult, Annie. And I’ve always been here for you. I tried to be whatever you needed me to be.”
“You tried to be my mother.”
“That may be the way you see it,” I said firmly. “But not once, for even a second, have I ever wanted to be your mother. I want to be your sister.”
