“Just a few months,” Charlotte admitted. “But don’t worry. I’ll figure it out.”
What if she couldn’t? What would happen then? She no longer had Cliff and his money to rely on. She’d made that clear. Would she have no way of paying the bills?
“Do you have writer’s block?” Lilly asked, trying harder to understand the murky boundaries of her new situation—and the pitfalls and obstacles she might encounter.
“Maybe that’s it.”
“You don’t know? Have you ever had it before?”
“I hit some difficult patches with my first book.”
“How are you going to get over it?”
“That’s a good question,” Charlotte replied. “I guess I’m going to give myself permission to write something terrible.”
Lilly felt her eyes go wide. “Why would you do that?”
“I need to turn off my internal editor somehow. That bitch has a stranglehold on me.”
When she laughed, Lilly felt better. Because Charlotte wasn’t taking it too seriously, and she hadn’t felt the need to use different language than she would with Sloane—language more appropriate for children—Lilly felt more hopeful that Charlotte would be able to fight through her problems, even though Sabrina never could. “You’ll come up with something?”
Charlotte must’ve heard the fear in her voice because she got up to come around the table. At first, Lilly was afraid she’d try to take her hands or hug her or something, which made her go cold inside, but she didn’t. She just leaned against the table a foot or so away. “Even if I can’t write this book and my publisher won’t give me an extension, I’ll make sure you have what you need and we both get through this, okay?”
Lilly wasn’t convinced. Sabrina had always said she’d make things work, too—and never could. “How?”
“Because I’m capable and resourceful and I’ll find a way.”
Maybe that was true. Maybe Charlottewouldfind a way. But if times got even harder, it would decrease any chance Lilly had of finding a home with her half sister.
Charlotte’s phone went off, and she went back near her laptop to check who it was.
Lilly’s stomach sank when her half sister began rubbing her forehead as if she didn’t like what she saw on the screen. “Bad news?” she guessed, feeling the panic she’d battled so often start eating at her again.
“It’s my parents,” Charlotte replied. “I’d better take it.”
Lilly was curious about Charlotte’s parents. How she interacted with them. What her life had been like. If it’d been better than living with Sabrina. If it was Charlotte who’d been the luckier of the two of them, even though she’d been the one who was put up for adoption. But she didn’t want Charlotte to think she was in the way or being too nosy, so she said, “I’ll get some breakfast,” and went into the kitchen.
Lilly had left the room, but Charlotte carried her phone into her bedroom and closed the door anyway. She was doing her best to be kind and reassuring with her half sister, but this situation wasn’t easy for her, either. The way she’d been blindsided made it difficult to forgive her parents. She alsodidn’t want to be quizzed by them when everything was still so up in the air.
But she felt she owed them more than to grow sullen, angry and uncommunicative. They’d been good to her and weren’t totally responsible for this situation.
Still, suddenly feeling so indebted to them for the rights and privileges she’d taken for granted when she thought she was a natural-born child was part of the myriad emotions she was struggling with.
“Hello?”
“There you are,” Penny said. “How are things going?”
Charlotte could tell she was trying hard to compensate for the recent drama. “Fairly good, I guess.”
“What does that mean? What’s Lilly like?”
“She’s guarded, defensive, frightened—as you can imagine.”
“I was hoping you’d send us a picture, at least. I’d love to see her. Maybe we could even have a Zoom call where you introduce us.”
Her mother was obviously insecure about what was happening and eager to be part of it. But this was something Charlotte had to work through before everything could go back to normal. “I’m not ready yet.”
There was a prolonged silence. Penny wasn’t used to meeting with any resistance, not when they were getting along, and they were almost always getting along.
