This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I was supposed to make something of myself, to prove I could build a life on my own, without my family’s money or their approval. And yet hereI was, back under their roof, my children asleep in a bed that wasn’t ours, my hard-won independence hanging by a thread.
If I couldn’t rely on Scott, then I’d have to face whatever price came with letting the Carvers back into my life. And knowing them, it wouldn’t come cheap.
Melanie arrivedthe next evening looking the same. Crisp, clean, impossibly trim. And she’d recently had a baby. How? My body was still trying to remember what it looked like before Emma.
She hugged me tight, and for a moment, neither of us spoke. There were too many words, too many years between us. In the years since I’d extorted our parents in the study, I’d seen my sister only once. It was before her marriage, when she’d invited me to brunch at this very hotel. She’d asked me to be in her wedding, and I’d agreed—until the conditions, dictated by our mother, came out. No Scott. No Keith. No mention of where I’d been for the past three years.
I had no interest in hiding who I loved, and I turned her down. We hadn’t seen each other in person since. Occasionally we spoke on the phone, but the closeness we’d once shared was gone, replaced by a polite distance that neither of us seemed able to cross.
“I wear tutu?” Emma asked, thrusting her Barney & Friends contraption into Melanie’s hands like a tiny dictator issuing orders. Forget introductions. Tutu pushers didn’t do pleasantries.
“No tutu, Emmy,” I said. “You’re already dressed for dinner.”
Melanie laughed, her tone light and practiced. “Well, hello there, Miss Emma. I’m your Aunt Mel.”
“Aunt Mel?” I blinked. “Since when do you go by that?”
She smiled, but there was a flicker of discomfort behind it. “‘Aunt Melanie’ sounds so formal,” she said, smoothing her perfect hair. “I want to be relatable.”
“You don’t have to give yourself a middle-class makeover for them.”
Keith planted himself between his sister and the newly rebranded Aunt Mel, brandishing his trusty sword—a hanger I’d handed him in a pinch. “What’s the password?” he demanded in his best knight’s voice.
“Uhhh… Chanel No. 5?” she guessed.
“Wrong.” Keith raised the hanger.
“He’s five. Think disgusting,” I whispered to my sister with a smile.
“Oh, I’ve got it,” she said, eyes wide, charming Keith. “Booger picker.”
Keith squinted. “Nope.”
“Give me a hint.”
“Cowabunga,” he yelled.
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!” she shouted back.
The hanger was lifted, allowing Melanie passage.
“Who wants to watch cartoons?” I called. The kids were instantly sold. Once they were settled in front of the TV, I joined Melanie in the sitting area.
“They really shouldn’t be watching television, Michelle.”
I laughed until I realized she wasn’t kidding. “Oh, you’re serious?”
“Yes, it eats away at their brain cells.”
“At this point, if the Muppets want to raise them, I’m not standing in their way.”
“Okay.” Melanie cringed. “Never mind, then.”
I didn’t appreciate her disapproving tone, but I let it slide. “Where are your boys?”
Melanie had two under three. Pierson and Preston.
“At home.”
