My beautiful, broken sister.
Not only broken by what happened on that horse, but how he’dtreated her after.
Seriously, the asshole Edgar Dawes of this world beat outthe deadbeat Edgar Dawes of my world by a mile.
“Maybe not, but you do know we all love you,” I told herfiercely.“You know we all love everything about you.”
She laced her fingers in mine and pressed our hands gentlyback and forth.
“I know.”
“You’re sure?”I pushed.
She kept doing the hand thing, which was sweet, and sad,because it was a childlike thing to do.
“Iknow,Sattie,” shestressed.
“And I know it’s confusing, but Momma and me were broughthere for you.”
Her brows drew down.“It’s not confusing.Love is notconfusing.People think I don’t know things.But I know the way Papa was, thatwas confusing.You and Momma, you aren’t confusing.Not at all.”
My smile at that was again bright, but this time genuine.
“I’m glad you know that.”
She held my gaze, and suddenly, her lower lip trembled.“You’ll make it so Lorie will make it so he won’t come back, won’t you?”
Mental note: Maxine absorbed a lot of shit that went onaround her.And that was okay, that was good.
But we had to see to her along the way as she did it.
“We’ll make that happen,” I whispered.
“Lorie took us out of the bad room.”
“Yes.”I was still whispering.
“Momma was strong, but we stayed down there a long time, andshe was getting scared.I could tell she was getting scared, even if she triedhard not to let me see.He made her stop being scared.”
“Yes, he did.”
“He said you sent him.”
My voice was throaty when I said, “I did, baby.”
“And then everything turned good.”
“I hope so.”
She jumped and I jumped, but her jump was to throw her armsaround me.
“Love you, sissy,” she said into my ear.
Then she let me go and darted from the room.
That was enlightening, frightening…
And beautiful.
