“Why are you telling me this?”
A small pause.
“I know him a little better than the others,” she says.
Her gaze drifts across the room, unfocused, as if she’s seeing through it instead of at it.
“My mother…” She hesitates, then exhales quietly. “She had an affair with his dad.”
The way she says it, the small break in her voice, the way her fingers worry at the edge of her napkin, the color rising in her cheeks, tells me this isn’t common knowledge.
For the first time, her polish slips. And again, I wonder why she’s trying so hard with me. Why she’s showing me this more vulnerable side of herself.
There’s only one answer that makes sense.
She really does care about Carrson. Wants the best for him.
The thought that I could be that person hits harder than I expected because, until now, I’ve mostly seen him as a means to an end. But today in the woods, when I thought he might kiss me, when I desperately wanted him to, that wasn’t me seeing him as a tool.
That was me seeing him as a man.
I’m not sure what to do with that.
“It lasted a few years,” she says. “Mother used to take me over to Carrson’s house. Drop me off with him, then disappear.” A faint, humorless smile touches her mouth. “We were about ten when it started.”
I don’t interrupt.
Her eyes lower to her plate, her fork tracing a slow line through food she’s not eating.
“My mom was always a little…unpredictable,” she says. “But even she knew to walk away from Carr Ashford.”
That name rings like a bell.
How many times have I seen it in those articles? A hundred? A thousand? Before he died, Carr Ashford had a hand in every important committee and commission in Washington, D.C., and even more influence down here,in the South.
He wasn’t just a man.
He was a legend.
When she faces me again, her expression is clearer.
“I’ve seen Carrson his whole life,” she says. “He deserves to be happy.” Her eyes meet mine. “He’s earned it.”
She’s about to say more, but a girl a few seats down asks Lou to pass the potatoes. The brunette next to me leans in, asking about the weather in New York, and the moment dissolves. Soon I’m talking, answering questions, asking a few of my own. Laughter comes quicker than I expect, slipping out like it belongs to me, as if I do it every day.
For over a year, it’s been me and my parents, the three of us moving carefully around each other, everything shaped by grief. I’d forgotten what this was like, being part of something bigger, that keeps moving. That makes room for me without asking.
I used to have a sister.
Now I’m sitting in a room full of them.
They even call each other that. I hear it all around me, Sister Evelyn, Sister Lucy, Sister Sophia, the word passing between them like it’s second nature.
It should be awkward. It should make me envious, seeing how effortlessly they fit together.
Instead, it feels natural. Comforting.
I could get used to this.
