“Please. For me? I was really hoping you’d be there with me.” Frankie could do it alone, but that didn’t feel right. Plus, she’d have to explain to their mother why Harper wasn’t there and that could cause bad feelings. How much would their mother share if she knew only one of her daughters cared?
Harper frowned as she swallowed the sip of wine she’d just taken. “Be there? Have you already set this meeting up? It sounds like it.”
“No.” Frankie quickly shook her head. “Definitely not. All I did was locate her. I wanted to talk to you first before it went any farther.”
“Well, you’ve talked to me. And now you have my answer. Not interested. But if you want to, then go. It’s your decision. Your life.” Harper looked miserable. Like she’d just lost a friend.
Frankie’s gut sank. “I don’t feel like I should go without you. We’re family. And this is definitely a family thing.”
“Uh-uh,” Harper said, moving her head back and forth. “Don’t try to guilt-trip me into this.”
Frankie held her hands up. “I’m not, I swear. It just feels like something we should do together. You know, side by side in a show of solidarity. That we’re okay. That we not only survived but we made something of ourselves. That kind of thing. Plus, there’s strength in numbers and all that.”
Harper came around to the front of the couch and sat down. “I get what you’re saying. But I don’t think I could trust myself in a meeting like that.”
“What do you mean?” Frankie scratched Archie’s haunches.
“I mean I have a lot of anger when it comes to her. And being face to face with the woman who turned my world upside-down? I don’t honestly know how I’d react, but part of me thinks it wouldn’t be good.”
“I understand that feeling, but you’re a grown woman. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think you could handle it. And I’d set the meeting up somewhere public, too, so that would keep things neutral.”
Harper leaned forward. “Frankie, you’re not listening to me. I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this. My life is just fine the way it is. Without her in it.”
“I am listening,” Franke reassured her. “I just don’t want that to be your answer. I need this, Harper. I need to meet her and hear her out and have that information for my own healing. I want to know where I came from and something about my history. Ineedit.” She tapped her chest. “For me. For my mental wellbeing. So I can feel complete. I get you don’t feel the same way, so maybe I’m not as actualized as you or whatever, but there’s an empty spot inside me that meeting her will fill.”
At least that’s what Frankie had come to believe.
Harper’s brows bent but she stayed silent.
Frankie could feel her frustration getting the best of her, but losing her cool wouldn’t help. She had to talk to Harper like she was talking to one of her students. “I’ve never asked you for anything. But I’m asking for this. I understand it’s going to be hard for you. Maybe there’s something I could do for you so that we might reach a compromise. What do you suggest?”
Harper’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not one of your students.”
“You’re as stubborn as one.” Frankie smiled sympathetically. “I get that you don’t want to meet our biological mother. I felt the same way until the cancer scare. It made me realize how little I know about my past. On many levels, not just the medical stuff. And there’s a place in me, deep down, that really wants to know. Do you not feel that?”
Harper ran her fingers over Archie’s ear. “I did. Once upon a time. But I shoved that feeling down often enough that I learned to ignore it. I’ve moved on. I understand how the cancer thing could bring that up for you, though.”
“So will you do this with me? Please?”
Harper let out a long sigh. “I don’t know. It feels like a step backwards to me. But I’ll think about it, all right? Maybe, I don’t know, maybe I’ll feel different tomorrow. I doubt it, but who knows.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.”
Harper gave a short nod, then got off the couch. “I’m going to turn in. Today has worn me out.”
“The sun can do that to you.” Frankie got to her feet as well. “See you in the morning.”
Harper put her glass by the sink. “Sleep well.”
“You, too.” Frankie took her glass into the kitchen as Harper and Archie went to the bedroom. She rinsed both glasses, then wiped down the sink before grabbing her laptop and heading upstairs. She did her best to be quiet on the steps.
She didn’t hold out a lot of hope that Harper would change her mind, but she hadn’t said no, either. And tomorrow, Frankie would get another chance to talk her into it.
She understood her sister’s reasons for not wanting to meet their mother, she really did. Harper had always been much more independent. Much more capable of being on her own. She’d had to be, given the circumstances.
Frankie’d had an easier time of things. Her memories were all of her adoptive parents. All happy and warm and filled with the kind of goodness a childhood should be filled with. She knew that wasn’t the case for Harper.
She imagined if their positions were switched, she’d be against meeting the woman who’d caused so much upheaval and uncertainty in her life, too.
