“No.”
My muscles tensed as I waited for the bad news, or a verbal thrashing. When Annie remained silent, I nudged. “What’s up?” When she didn’t respond right away, I tried again. “Talk to me.” The words were an overdue plea.
Annie huffed. “Some pain in the ass keeps sending me handwritten letters like she thinks it’s the nineteenth century. One of them was pretty mean.”
I stiffened, thinking immediately of the letter I’d sent inspired by Benjamin Franklin. “She sounds terrible.”
“She’s not,” Annie said, with a sigh, and my heavy heart grew instantly lighter. “Why are you sending me letters, Emma?”
“I miss you,” I said. “And there are things I want you to know. Like the fact that I love you, even when you’ve been mad at me for years.”
“I’m not mad.” Annie paused, and silence gonged. For a moment I wondered if I’d somehow dropped the call. “I’m—I don’t know. Frustrated. Dissatisfied.”
“With?”
“You.” She groaned. “Us. Ugh!”
I tracked Cecily with my eyes as she snapped photos of the cafés and shops, backlit by the rising moon. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for letting things between us get this bad or go on this long. I’ve recently come to realize some things need said so other people don’t draw the wrong conclusions.”
“Are you sorry you called me a brat?”
A laugh broke on my lips, and I covered my mouth with one hand. “I don’t think I used that word, but I’m sorry if I made you feel bad. I’m taking a class, and we were assigned to write letters that put our negative feelings front and center, so I tried.”
“Well, you get an A,” she said. “I have been a brat.”
Tears welled in my eyes, and my hands dropped to my lap. “Can we please talk this out?”
“I think you’re ridiculous for taking this dumb sabbatical right now,” she said. “But I like getting your letters.”
My heart filled with hope as the first threads of repair wound through our rift. “Will you write me back?”
“I’d rather text,” she said. “I don’t want the things we say to take two days to arrive. I like the twenty-first century. I belong here, and so do you.”
“Then I’ll text,” I said.
I wasn’t as much like Emily as I’d hoped to be at this point, but I was sure she’d approve of anything that could heal my relationship with my sister.
There was a long beat of silence before Annie spoke again. “You haven’t mentioned my flowers.”
The words hung between us for several seconds before I understood what she meant. “You sent the bouquets?”
“I wanted to say I’m sorry for being distant and grumpy lately. And for being a brat before you left.” She exhaled long and slow. “I’m not good at writing how I feel, so I tried saying it with flowers. You’re living in the past, and I remembered people used to send messages in bouquets. I figured there was a fifty-fifty chance you’d know what they meant, and even if you didn’t, they’re still flowers, and you love those.”
“I do,” I whispered.
“At least tell me they’re pretty.”
“They’re perfect.” A wedge formed in my throat, and my eyes welled with unshed tears. Annie missed me, and not my busyness. She’d made an effort to reach me where I was, in Amherst, being overly dramatic while searching for my inner nineteenth-century poet. Even though she thought it was silly. “Thank you.”
Annie made a throaty and disgruntled noise. “Mom’s calling on the other line. She’s so far up my ass lately, she’ll probably meet the baby before I do.”
“Oh, sweetie,” I said. “That’s not where your baby is.”
“Gross. I have to go. Love you.” Annie disconnected before I could respond, but the overall conversation was an incredible win.
Cecily and I woke to the sounds of Davis working outside the next day. We’d slept until nearly lunch, so we made coffee and raided the fridge, then ferried it all onto the patio. The sun was warm, a minor resurgence of the extended summer, soon to be snuffed by fall.
We wore yoga pants and sweatshirts, our hair tied into matching messy knots.
