"You weren't exactly open and communicative over the phone. I heard from mom that you had lost your job, which is a pity by the way," she added with a tilt of her head and forced sympathy that felt plastic. "And that you landed at a motel."
Old shame heated Tilly's face. She could feel Fae taking pleasure in her misfortune.
"Well, like I told mom, this is the historic Crescent Inn and it's clearly not a motel." It would be just like her mom to make small something she had found to be a big responsibility in her newadventure, and it would be just like her sister to grab onto that and run.
She looked around the space taking in everything with the critical eye of Nguyen women in her family. Where she saw things needed updating, she knew her sister saw bulldozers and caution tape.
"Hmm," Fae said with a scrunch to her perfectly pert nose.
They looked similar, in the face. Both Nguyen sisters had dainty facial features and big eyes framed by perfectly shaped black eyebrows. Their chins were works of art, as her grandmother would say.
But where her sister was tall and elegant, Tilly was shorter and had become, well, less slender.
She had learned not to shame herself years ago, but standing here with her sister after not seeing her since Christmas two years ago, it was difficult to push those old criticisms aside.
There was a reason she hadn't gone home for holidays.
She was holding tightly to the healing of her childhood self.
"And how is mom?"
They'd lost their dad a decade ago. He had been the kind of dad that was solid and there, but too often passive. She missed him in the moments of quiet when she wondered about her future and what she was doing. She missed him for the rare outings he took her on to the hardware store when he stopped to get her a vanilla iced yeast roll afterward.
Fae heaved a great sigh as she slid the handles of her seven-hundred-dollar purse into the crook of her designer arm. "She's mom."
A typical non-answer from her sister about anyone else's well-being.
"Okay, so in the years that I have lived here, you have never once come to Salem. Which begs the question," she paused fordramatic effect to the annoyance of her sister which showed in the slight purse of her lips, "What the hell are you doing here?"
Her sister's lips pursed impossibly harder. "I cannot believe you would say that to your sister. Your older sister."
Tilly sighed and softened her words. "I'm sorry. You're just not usually one to seek me out."
"Well," she shrugged a shoulder which somehow was an elegant gesture. "I am. Because I just need some support right now."
Tilly frowned. "What's going on? Are you okay?"
"Dustin has asked me for a divorce."
Tilly's mouth opened in silent shock. Dustin, her sister's successful, quiet husband, had always been kind and gentle. Frankly, she'd never understood his attraction to her sister, other than the physical. Where he was kind, she was not. Where he was gentle, she was sharp.
She remembered, rather unfondly, sharing a joke with him during the last family get-together and Fae's shrewd comment later in the pantry.
She'd grabbed Tilly's arm harshly, digging her too-long lacquered nails into Tilly's skin and leaning down close to hiss a warning.
She called her a name. Shamed her and made her feel like trash that the family had to deal with.
And that had been the last time she had gone home.
The following two weeks had been spent in Salem trying to undo the damage her sister and mom had done.
"Well, don't stand there like a stupid fish caught out of water. God, Tilly," her sister admonished and Tilly quickly closed her mouth shut.
"I'm sorry. Do you," she bit her lip trying to understand this dynamic. Where her sister had come to her when she was going through something.
"Just get me a room in this, weird hotel. I need to be away from home and I cannot handle Mom's judgment right now. And here is as good as any place to disappear for a while."
But the way she said it as she looked around with critical eyes implied it was in fact, not a good place to disappear.
