She could admit that her brief, pretty much one-sided interaction with the man in black on the plane had been difficult to shake off, even after the whirlwind that followed: landing and deplaning and passport control, all with Willa, followed by maybe the most chaotic meeting Layla had ever had with a patient’s family. Willa’s aunt and uncle—an effusive, quick-to-tears American woman and an elegant, fast-talking French man—showered her with a truly overwhelming amount of praise and gratitude, insisting that Layla simplymusttake some tangible form of thanks for helping and staying with Willa. At one point, the aunt had so forcefully tried to shove a stack of euros into her hands—“I insist, Iinsist!”—that Layla had cringed in embarrassment, and the uncle took over witha more sensible offer: a hired car to take Layla wherever she needed to be, to make up for whatever extra time she’d taken to wait with Willa.
In the end, agreeing to take a chauffeured car was better than taking a stack of cash, and once it pulled up—glossy midnight blue, with tinted windows and a brand-new smell—Layla decided that it couldn’t hurt to have a few private moments in that sort of pristine comfort.
The opposite ofThe floor is probably disgusting.
The opposite of that man in black’s expression, like it was Layla herself who inspired such revulsion.
But in the butter-soft back seat of the car, Layla still couldn’t forget it. Even as central Paris came into view, she couldn’t forget it. She wanted to see the panorama of the city with a mature, settled fondness, wanted to re-familiarize herself with its domes and spires and its great soaring tower, its rooftops and windows and balconies trailing flowers, its awnings and café tables and glass cases of delicious beauty.
Instead, it was the universe crashing into her.
These were streets she’d walked and sights she’d seen as a newlywed, with Jamie at her side, Jamie as the more experienced, well-traveled guide.
Disgusting, Layla kept thinking, and every time she did, she felt a rush of renewed frustration and shame.
No man should be able to ruinParis.
At the very least, not some random man on an airplane who she’d never really met.
Out of the car and inside the hotel lobby, though, with Emily’s voice ringing in her ears—You’re here!—Layla was reminded of the immediate task ahead.
So she smiled as Emily bounded into view, wearing a flowing knee-length dress so pale pink it looked almost white, perfectly bridal. It wasn’t the sort of boho style Emily used to favor, but Layla knew on sight that Manon—Emily and Jamie’s mom, and Layla’s former mother-in-law—had probably picked it out. Layla could remember standing before a dressing room mirror in a similarly blush-colored sundress a week before her own wedding shower, Manon nodding in approval from behind her.
“Em,” Layla said, and opened her arms.
Emotion clutched in her throat immediately as Em hugged her—tightly, fiercely—and for Layla, it felt like having the wound from the plane wrapped.
This wasright. It was right to be here for Emily.
As they both pulled back, Layla smiled, determined not to show Em the strange mix of relief and guilt and happiness and sadness that welled up in her. But Emily’s eyes brimmed with wetness, and when two big drops spilled over, Em didn’t bother wiping them away.
“You can’t know how much it means to me that you came,” she said, voice soggy, and that mix of emotion in Layla’s body reconstituted itself, dominated now by guilt. “You really can’t know,” Emily repeated.
But Laylacouldknow. She’d met Emily almost fourteen years ago now, when Layla was twenty and Emily was turning eleven, both of them on very different thresholds of growing up, and their bond had been quick, concrete. Layla was the big sister Emily never had, and Emily a sibling who—unlike Layla’s one, much older half brother, Vaughn—actually seemed to care meaningfully aboutLayla’s existence. When Layla and Jamie had finally told the family about their split—together, of course they’d done it together—Emily had been devastated. No one cried harder; no one asked more questions.
But why?
What did he do?
How will we stay close?
Will you promise to still be my sister?
Will you promise nothing will change?
By then, Em had been twenty-three, probably too old to be asking such grasping, desperate questions. But it was always there, that big- and little-sister dynamic between them. Layla remembered every one of her calm, dry-as-a-bone big-sister answers.
It’s not any one thing.
This isn’t his fault.
Of course I’m always your sister.
The important things won’t change.
She hadn’t intended for all of those answers to be a lie.
“Of course I came,” Layla said, though theOf coursefelt like another lie, given the last year and a half of pretty much avoiding everyone, so she added, “I’m really happy to be here.”
