“Maybe Iwantto talk about it! Maybe I’m tired of pretending!”
“All right.” He held up his palms. “Angel, all right. You’re not my niece, you’re my— You’re my sister.”
Angel crossed her arms. Her chin was pointed up. “We look alike, and we don’t look like anyone else.”
“I know,” Cary said. He knew.
“You’re my only whole sibling,” she said. Angel had half siblings. And stepsiblings.
“I know,” he said.
“And Rex looks just like your baby pictures.”
Cary rubbed his forehead some more. “I don’t know why you sound so angry about this—I wasn’t intentionally keeping it from you.”
“Because you treat me like I’m nothing to you, Cary! And I’m actually trying tohelpyou—we’re the only sane people in this family!”
Cary nodded. He nodded too long. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Angel had started to cry. He didn’t know how to react to it. It wasn’t like seeing his mom cry. Or Shiloh.
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
She wiped her face on her sleeve. “I always looked up to you... but you don’t see me at all.”
Cary didn’t need another sister.
He didn’t need more family.
He was stretched so thin.
He sat at the kitchen table and talked to Angel. He listened, mostly. She wanted to tell him how she’d figured it out. (“And then Grandma told me she had a hysterectomy when she was thirty-five...”) She wanted to tell him about their dad—and their dad’s kids. One of them apparently looked like Cary. Suddenly the world was full of people with his eyes.
Cary tried to stay focused on this one person, sitting in front of him.
For the first time, he asked Angel what her plan was, where she was going from here.
She said she was moving in with her mom and Don. She didn’t have a choice. She was on a waiting list for housing assistance, but it would take a couple months. She could afford rent, but every place wanted a two-month deposit.
I can’t take this on,Cary wanted to say to her.I can’t take you on. I can’t be tied to this house and everyone who ever lived here, for the rest of my life. Siblings, aunts, cousins, neighbors, dogs, ex-husbands.
But he listened.
And he couldn’t deny that it was Angel who had convinced his mom to stay at the assisted living center... Angel who was moving the needle in ways that Cary couldn’t. Shewasthe only other halfway-sane person in the family. And she had three kids.
He kept thinking about Bailey, Renny and Rex.
And Junie and Gus.
Cary was stretched so thin, he felt like everyone could see through him.
He told Angel she could have his mom’s car. And the TV. (He was always going to make sure that she got those.) And he told her that he’d pay her security deposit—she didn’t have to pay him back. It was better if she didn’t try. It was best that she didn’t tell her mom about it.
Then he agreed to talk to Angel about his plans from now on. To strategize with her, regarding his mom. Her grandma. (Lois.)
“You really think Grandma doesn’t know that you know?” Angel looked like she felt almost sorry for Cary. “I thought for sure that she’d told you a long time ago.”
He shook his head. “I think she’s been calling me her son for so long, she’s started to believe it—she told me once that I was her easiest pregnancy.”
