Both girls were long and lean, but that was where their similarities ended. While Kitty had mousy brown hair that hung down her back, straight like mine, Mia’s was dark and coarse, and she wore it in a messy topknot. Their eyes were different too. Mia’s were dark and brooding, like her father’s. Kitty had the same eyes as me and her mother. The Walker eyes, as my dad used to say. Moss green, with a sunburst of yellow ringing each pupil. Samson’s eyes were that color, too, though his hair was the same dark blond as mine. Both he and Kitty reminded me of my sister, and Kitty resembled her more and more every year. They had the same delicate chin and nose, and looking at Kitty now gave me déjà vu, reminding me of the summers Beth and I had spent here as kids, especially since these were the same ivory couches we’d stretched outon when we would come to stay with our grandmother: one three-seater against the wall, and another one with a pullout bed before the TV. Mia looked a lot like I had as a teenager, with a chin she hadn’t yet grown into and a splash of freckles over the bridge of her nose. You could tell, despite the differences, that they were sisters. They just had that sibling something, even if I couldn’t name exactly what it was. As I looked at the two of them, a little of the tightness in my chest eased. I’d spent so much of my day worried that I hadn’t thought about how good it would feel to see them.
Mia glanced up from her phone before her eyelashes fluttered back down to the screen. “Hey, Jo. Toss those chips over here.” She reached out a hand and caught the bag without looking.
“Impressive,” I said.
“I’ve got great peripheral vision.”
I nodded to her phone. “No doubt because you spend so much time staring at that thing.”
“Actually,” Kitty said, “peripheral awareness is significantly lowered with cell phone use.” She turned to Mia. “Didn’t you read the article Dad sent us?”
Mia rolled her eyes. “Of course I didn’t.”
Kitty ignored Mia and stood to hug me. I held on tight, hoping to convey all the things I felt but couldn’t say.I’ve missed you. I love you. How are you so grown up? Are you okay?When we finally released each other, I prodded Mia to move her legs and make room for me on the couch.
“FYI, Mom is majorly pissed at you,” she said.
No surprise there. I sank deeper into the couch, wishing I could disappear completely. “Did she call?”
“She didn’t have to.” Mia crunched a chip between her teeth and tossed the bag to Kitty. “You know it’s bad when she stops using punctuation in her texts.”
Kitty sighed. “I tell her that improper grammar only weakens her argument, like Ms. Carter said, but she just gives me that look. Youknow the one.” She screwed up her face, furrowing her brow and making her eyes smolder. Exactly like her mother.
I groaned and hung my head in my hands. “She’s going to kill me.”
Mia clapped me on the shoulder. “Yup.”
“Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by content,” Kitty said, nodding soberly.
“Oh my God,” Mia groaned. “If you’re quoting that war book again, I swear I’m going to flush it down the toilet.”
Kitty picked up a book from the side table. “It’s fromThe Art of War.”
“Should you be reading that?” I took the book in my hands and flipped through the pages. Kitty had always haduniquetastes in literature. She’d learned to read before Mia had, devouring words wherever she found them. I’d only been nineteen at the time and hadn’t realized how unusual it was for a three-year-old to sound out the words on cereal boxes.
Kitty jutted her chin out. “Why shouldn’t I be reading ancient Chinese military wisdom? It applies to many aspects of modern life.”
“Because it’s making you a total weirdo.” Mia shifted her weight to drape her legs over my lap. “Isn’t she, Jo?”
I already had one sister mad at me (mine); I didn’t need to stoke the fire between these two. “I’ve been doing a lot of reading myself,” I said, thinking of item number twenty-seven—read twenty books. “Ever heard ofGone Girl?”
“Who hasn’t?” Kitty replied. “But I haven’t read it. I prefer nonfiction and poetry.”
She reminded me of my father in that way, who’d always had naval histories and poetry books on his nightstand. His copies of Whitman, Keats, and Dickinson now lived in my bedroom closet, though I’d pulled them out for Kitty to page through from time to time. “Have you readThe Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up?”
Kitty wrinkled her nose. “Not that kind of nonfiction.”
“What should we have for dinner? Leftover Chinese food?” I asked.
Kitty clutched her stomach and groaned. “No way, I’ll get indigestion if I eat any more.”
I stalked off to the kitchen to put away the milk and cereal and stared into the refrigerator. Except for the days when Nina dragged me out to dinner, I microwaved a Lean Cuisine and called it a day. But I had a feeling my lazy dietary habits wouldn’t work for this crowd. “Coffee and cereal,” I said, returning to the living room. “That’s all chez Jo has to offer you.”
Mia stuck her hand into the pocket of her oversized tie-dyed hoodie and tossed me an envelope. I peeked inside and found a wad of cash. Written on the outside in Beth’s neat handwriting:Expenses. How very Beth-like. She’d always been the organized one, but maybe that was because she’d had to grow up so quickly. When I moved in with her my junior year of high school, she’d stuck my class schedule on the refrigerator with an alphabet magnet, right beside the log sheets for Mia’s naps and Kitty’s feeding schedule. Each week she’d hand me an envelope withJoey’s Allowancewritten on the outside. I’d told her she didn’t need to do that. I was sixteen. I could get a job. But Beth wouldn’t allow it. She’d said school was my job.
“Pizza?” I set the envelope on a side table. “What do you like?”
Not long after I’d placed our order, my phone rang. “It’s your mom,” I said to the girls.
