“Two weeks. If there aren’t changes between now and then—changes I’ll discuss with him privately—you’re coming home. I’m going to trust you to be honest with me. If he backslides, if anything even close to what you went through last night happens again, I need you to tell me.”
“I hear you. I’ll keep you posted.”
Dr. Bowen pokes her head in. She sees me on the phone and lifts a brow.
“I’ve got to go,” I tell Mom. “His doctor just came in. I’ll call you later.”
When I’ve hung up, Dr. Bowen says, “He’s awake. Do you want to see him?”
Piper
Late in the afternoon, I wake up on the couch, disoriented.
The sun’s hanging low in the sky. My mouth is dry and myforehead is clammy. I’ve been covered in the cherished ocean-blue knit blanket. I sit up, folding it back. My sister’s in the nearest armchair, holding her trusty mug in both hands.
“I want to talk to you,” she says.
“Give me a sec.” I go into the kitchen, guzzle a full glass of water, then take a can of Red Bull from the fridge. I grab an apple too, because I skipped lunch in favor of walking to nowhere. If Tati and I are going to throw down again, I need sustenance. I fall into a corner of the couch, snack at the ready. “How’s Davis?”
“Improving. Henry’s sure been through a lot.”
“I haven’t talked to him,” I admit. “Because I’m scared,notbecause I’m selfish.”
I brace for judgment. Instead, Tati leans forward and says, “I know you’re not selfish. I shouldn’t have said that. You’re a teenager, and you’ve had a rough go of it. You’re doing prettywell, considering.”
I pick my jaw up off my lap, then give her a hesitant smile.
“Piper,” she says, looking remarkably serious for someone who just paid her little sister a compliment. “I need to tell you something.”
I pop the top of my Red Bull, then change my mind and set the can on the table. “Okay…?”
“You think I feel burdened. You think I’m stuck with you. You think Mom and Dad heaped this responsibility on me against my will and that I’m unhappy as a result. Is that right?”
It sounds extra rotten when she says it all aloud that way, but not untrue. “I mean, that’s the general impression I’ve gotten over the years, yeah.”
“Then I’m very sorry. Rarely does my unhappiness have anything to do with you. But I get frustrated and take it out on you. I’m not proud of that.”
In seven years, Tati has never once apologized to me. For a moment, the world feels askew, like I woke up in a parallel universe. But no. My sister’s sipping coffee, and I’m wearing my favorite denim cutoffs, and the eucalyptus-scented candle that’s lived a thousand lives on our coffee table flickers merrily. I’m where I’m supposed to be. Except that for the first time, Tati and I are on equal footing—two sisters engaged in a mature conversation.
“I read somewhere that you’re your worst self with the people you love most,” I tell her. “Because you trust that they’ll forgive you. You know they’ll be there for you regardless.”
She smiles. “If that’s true, then you and I must love each othera lot.”
“I do love you, Tati. Even though I’m not always the best at showing it.”
“I love you too. So much that I think it’s time you know…” She purses her lips for a moment, then says, “Piper, Mom and Dad didn’t choose me to be your guardian. I fought for the privilege.”
I furrow my brow, then shake my head. “But…their will.”
She leaves her chair to join me on the couch, turning so we’re face-to-face. “I don’t know where you got the idea that they had a will, but they didn’t. I’m not sure why not. Probably because they never in a million years imagined that they’d die together, especially when you were still a minor. After they passed, Grandma and Grandpa assumed they’d take custody of you. That made sense on paper, I guess, because they’d raised a daughter. And they had the money to provide for you.”
For several months after my parents passed, my grandparents loitered in Florida, staying in a hotel near our house. I’d always known Grandma and Grandpa to be warm and funny, but during that time, they were overwrought, short with me, and even shorter with my sister. I figured their behavior and the exceptionally long visit were due to grief and the stress of helping to manage my parents’ affairs.
“If Grandma and Grandpa wanted to be my guardians, how come…”
“Custody doesn’t automatically go to grandparents insituations where there’s no will,” Tati says. “It was up to the court to decide guardianship based on your best interests. Grandma and Grandpa filed a petition. I did too.”
She lets her declaration hang in the air while I gape at her, hugging my middle like the wind’s been knocked out of me.
