Chloe tilts her head. "Why do you sound a little sad?"
"Nothing." Rhea picks at a loose thread on the blanket. Her shoulders go up and then down. Her voice goes smaller. "Sometimes I feel like I don’t belong here. Like I’m not supposed to be part of any of this."
The room goes still.
Something in my chest does a slow turn I have not felt in a very long time. Not since I was a boy myself, and someone I loved looked at me with that exact small expression, and I had no power to fix it. I have power now. I have very little else worth anything, but I have that.
I reach for her hand. My left one, the one with the old scar across the index knuckle wrapping around her smaller fingers. Her hand inside mine looks like nothing, like a sparrow inside a glove. I make sure my grip is gentle. I make sure she can pull away if she wants to. She does not pull away.
"Rhea." My voice comes out lower than I planned. I do not fight it. "I took two of the people you loved most away from you. I know I did. I know you suffered a lot. And the men who came after our family came after yours too. I am sorry for that. I am sorry if you have felt left out in this house. I am trying. I am trying to fill what was taken from you because of me and because of this house."
She looks at me. Her eyes narrow the way a kid's do when they are doing math the adults did not expect them to do.
"So you’re saying you’re doing all of this out of guilt?"
It hits like a tap on a bruise. Clean. Accurate. She is too quick.
"No, Rhea." It comes out before I have time to soften it, and I do not want to soften it. "That is not what I meant. I love youas my sister. I loved you before any of this happened. I am your brother. I will do everything I can to be worthy of that name with you."
She is quiet a moment. She looks down at her own hand inside mine. She moves her thumb a little, testing the weight of my fingers. The pulse in her wrist is faster than mine. I can feel it.
When she speaks again her voice starts very soft and grows as the words find their feet.
"Sometimes I think about it at night and I get mad." The thread on the blanket gets a small tug. "Sometimes I have bad thoughts I’m not allowed to say out loud. But whenever I remember how you treated me even when you didn’t know who you were, I’m reminded of who you really are. You didn’t choose any of this. I’m proud of you, brother."
My eyes fill.
I do not stop them. I have stopped them in a hundred rooms in front of a hundred men who would have used the tears against me. This is not one of those rooms. This is a small girl with crooked braids holding my hand on my own bed, telling me she is proud of me. I let it happen.
Chloe is crying too. I catch her in my side vision. Her hand has come up to her mouth and her shoulders are shaking in that quiet contained way of a woman who refuses to make the moment about her own tears. She does not look away from Rhea.
She reaches across the blanket and pulls Rhea into a hug from the other side, so the kid is sandwiched between us, her hand still in mine, her shoulder against Chloe's collarbone.
"You’re too grown for your age, you know that?" Chloe’s voice is thick. "I’m proud of you. We’re proud of you."
Rhea tucks her face into Chloe's shoulder for the smallest second. I feel her breath catch and let go. My free hand hasmoved to her back on its own and is resting there, wide and steady, the way I have wanted it to know how to rest since the first time I saw her. I do not say anything else. I do not need to.
Then she sits up like a kid who has remembered she is supposed to be tough, and she wipes her face with the back of her wrist in one fast aggressive swipe.
"Okay." She sniffs hard. "That was a lot. Let's do something not sad."
Chloe huffs a wet laugh. "What did you have in mind?"
"Movie." Rhea is already crawling toward the foot of the bed for Beom-Beom, who has slid down near my knee. "Something with talking animals. Or a fish. Or somebody with magic powers. I'll know it when I see it."
"That’s a strong product brief," Chloe says, and goes to fetch her laptop.
We rearrange ourselves. I end up propped against the headboard in the middle of the bed with two pillows behind my back. Rhea curls up on my left, her head against my ribs, Beom-Beom under her chin, one sock foot poking against my shin through the blanket and refusing to settle. Chloe comes back with the laptop balanced on a tray and slides in on my right, tucked under my arm, her shoulder fitting against mine the way it has fit since the first night she stayed. Her hair brushes the line of my jaw when she leans her head against me.
She picks something animated. Bright color palette. A coastal town somewhere warm, a small hero with too much courage and a sidekick that says smart things, a soundtrack guaranteed to live in my head for a week whether I want it there or not. Family-friendly. The kind of movie that knows children are smarter than adults give them credit for and writes for them anyway.
Rhea narrates inside of three minutes.
"He’s gonna lose his hat. Watch. Watch. There it goes. Told you."
"Shhh," Chloe says, warm, her hand finding Rhea's foot through the blanket and squeezing.
"That guy is the bad guy. The voice is too friendly. Real friends don’t sound that friendly."
