“I’m worried about what’s going to happen when we move out.”
I pushed back from my desk, hands landing on the arms of my chair and squeezing. “Move out? Move out where?”
“Move out home,” my sister said. She entered the office and took a seat across from me. “I don’t need to go to the hospital every week anymore. I got the all-clear.”
“You want to move out?”
“I want to gohome, Cal.”
I blinked at her. She didn’t want to be here. I fought to keep my breathing steady, to hide the pain slicing through my chest. She was leaving—like Deena. Like Gracie. Like every assistant. Like everyone. My presence was toxic, and Erica knew it.
She tried to soften the blow, even though we both knew the truth. “This place is beautiful. And your staff are wonderful, but it feels like I’m in a fishbowl sometimes. They creep around and clean up after me, but they hardly talk to me like I’m a person. I just want to be able to wear my pajamas and eat popcorn at midnight without someone calling me Ms. Frost and asking me if I need anything else.”
“They’re just doing their job.” And I’d trained them to perform at the highest level.
“And they’re great at it. But this isn’t home.”
I remembered the way Deena had gone back to her shitty little apartment as soon as I was out of town. It hadn’t made sense to me then, and this didn’t make sense to me now. They both said theword “home” as if it meant somewhere else. Somewhere away from me.
I sucked in a hard breath, then exhaled slowly. “Okay,” I said. “Of course. What do you need?”
“I love you, Cal. You know that, right? You’re the best big brother I could have asked for.”
I scoffed. That was a lie, and we both knew it. “I’ll help you move out. I’m guessing you want to go before Lila starts at school?”
My sister got up, came around the desk, and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. She rested her cheek against my head and held me while I sat utterly still. Then she let me go, looked at me for a moment, and walked out.
I listened to her footsteps fade. She would be gone soon. Just like everyone else. What would I have left?
Pain leaked out of the iron box where I’d locked it away. I clamped down harder, forcing my emotions to bend to my will. Gripping my chair, I took deep breaths until I had mastered myself again. Then I refocused on my computer and got back to work.
THIRTY-SEVEN
CALLUM
My sister moved backinto her house on a Thursday in late August. The sun was slanting over the roof by the time we finished, the air golden with its glow. She lived in our childhood home, a split-level home in Woodbury Hills. The kitchen was all dark cherry cabinets and even darker granite. There was a bar top and a cut-out window that overlooked the living room, which was accessible around a corner and down three steps. The whole house was full of tiny staircases and strange nooks. My bedroom had been in the basement, where the ceilings were low and the windows small and high. Now it was a playroom.
It was a modest, middle-income family home when we were growing up. Now it was worth a couple million—and to my eyes, it looked like an old, outdated dump.
But my sister let out a long sigh as she sank down on her sofa, and Lila let out happy squeals from her bedroom upstairs. They were home. Somewhere else. Away from me.
I stood awkwardly, checking her fridge for food and making anote to have my house manager deliver groceries by the end of the day.
“Hey, Cal?”
I turned, leaning my elbows on the bar counter to look down at the living room and my sister’s gaze. “You kicking me out?”
She smiled. “No. I just remembered something.” She pushed herself up and shuffled across the room toward the TV unit. Her movements were labored, and not for the first time, I wished she’d listened to me when I told her to put her things down and let my people deal with the move. She’d only had a few suitcases and a couple boxes of personal things, but she insisted on carrying them when I wasn’t looking. Like Deena. Stubborn.
And now she was sore, still weak from her treatment, and moving again.
“Let me get it,” I said, ducking around the corner and jogging down the three steps to join her in the living room. “What are you looking for?”
“This,” she said, brandishing an old videocassette. “I found it in the attic, and I bought a VCR off eBay. Then I got the diagnosis, and everything went to shit.”
She groaned as she bent over, and I took the videotape from her, glaring at her until she grinned and sat on the couch again. I found the VCR behind the glass door of the TV unit, turned it on, and fumbled with the remotes until the screen was on the right input. Then I put the tape in.
It was Christmas. I was on screen, brandishing an action figure over my head as I yelled at the top of my lungs. Gracie was beside me, clutching a Barbie box to her chest, a big, goofy grin on her face. Erica came into the frame, showing off her most prized childhood possession: her Skip-It ankle toy.
