“What?”
“We’re very close. Sam calls us the von Trapps. My dad and sisters and me.”
“You mentioned your mother being gone?”
“Oh. Yeah. I was in middle school when she got cancer. Hannah’s a couple of years younger than me, and Otty was tiny.”
“Otty. I still don’t get her name. Is it like Audrey?”
She snort-laughs. “Nope. Her real name’s Hazel. Otty is short for Otter. Or in her case, Sweet Baby Otter. Because she was so little and so lost and blind-looking and just had, like, flappy little hands, a little open mouth, and she’s just Otty.”
At my expression, she giggles. “I told you. We’re weird.”
“Must have been hard, losing your mother at that age.”
“We figured it out. Eventually.” She’s silent for a moment and then goes on, eyes vague. “I remember drowning in toddler food and kid stuff, homework, laundry. Hannah disappeared into books. Otty cried and cried and cried and never, ever slept. She’d wet her bed and cry some more. Dad was in a deep, dark hole.” She huffs out a sound that’s possibly intended to be a laugh but is so full of pain that I have to fight the urge to take her in my arms. “It’s all so foggy. I remember the tightness in my belly every morning when I woke up. My head full of the things that had to happen in order for us to just survive. There was food, sleep, pee. Clothes so tight they chafed my underarms and dug blisters into my heels. My English teacher, Ms. Barcom-Tancredi…” She smiles. “She was the best. She’d give me sandwiches and make sure I actually ate them.” A grimace. “Another teacher slipped me deodorant. So embarrassing. And then there were the times I’d snort awake in biology to find half the kids staring at me.”
“That sounds hard, Rae.”
“It got better. The third year, I think, after…” She waves her hands, and I nod. “It was Thanksgiving, and Dad came home with this huge, overcooked turkey from the supermarket deli along with lumpy mashed potatoes and mushy peas. We had cranberry sauce straight out of the can, and to this day, it’s the only way I like it. Anyway, we were a unit that day, the four of us. A family in a way we hadn’t been for over three years. We talked about Mom and cried together. Otty nearly suffocated on mashed potatoes. We made our own, self-contained bubble. We just hunkered down until the outside world barely existed.” Rae blinks at me like she’s just waking up from the memory. “And then Sam came along. She’s the only person to ever burst the bubble. Actually, she sort of climbed into it.”
“So, you’re close, then, the two of you?” I don’t know why I’m asking these questions.
“Very.” She glances at her phone and jumps. “Oh, crap. I have to go.”
“Where to?”
“None of your business.”
“Fair enough.” Smiling, I watch her gather her things, waiting for her to say something about the climax denial. Instead, she only gathers momentum, getting more irritable as her purse falls and her jacket gets caught on her chair.
When I get up to help her, she puts a hand out. “Don’t come too close, Genghis. I’m grumpy enough to bite.”
“We’re back to that nickname, are we?”
“If the shoe fits…”
“How about you meet me at the club, and I’ll put you out of your misery?”
She glances at her phone and groans. “I have plans.”
“Bad ones?”
“Didn’t seem bad when I made them.”
“What is it?”
“Paint and Sip with my sisters.”
“Oh, really.” I reach for her hand and set a heavy silk pouch in her palm.
“What is this?”
I’m grinning widely when I say, “Please wear it tonight.”
Her growl is so cute that I want to bottle it.
“You’ll need to download the app. But it’s worth it. I promise.”
