Page 6 of My Sister is Going to Kill Me

“Oh. The mules.” Mandy hoped she wasn’t blushing.

She scanned the animals, then pointed. “This one.” Mandy grabbed a handful of dry grass and offered it to the long-lashed beast. It had a shock of hair sticking straight up between its ears.

“Careful,” said Thor. “Sal likes to spit.”

Imogen took a big step back. “Are there any mules that don’t?”

“You’ll have to consult Marc on that,” Thor said, slapping the bigger man on the back. “He’s the transport guy on this crew. I got called up to raft guide, which means my mule-wrangling days are over. Marc’s head of the herd now.”

Imogen grabbed Marc’s massive forearm and steered him down the line with her, analyzing the assets of each animal.

“Congrats,” Mandy said to Thor. “Mule man to raft captain sounds like quite the promotion.”

“I’ll be president before you know it.” He grinned. “You ready for the rapids?”

“I was born ready. Not that I’ve ever done it before.”

“Open to adventure. Sweet. We could use a little more of that in this group.” Over by the pile of bags, a middle-aged man was bent over a white duffel with PK, both of them trying to muscle it shut. “That one, Charlie Sauvage, the CFO, I think? He told me he’d pay an extra grand if I could guarantee we’d get through every rapid without him taking a dip in the river.”

Charlie wrestled the duffel out of PK’s hands, shoved his foot inside, tried to zip it, got stuck, then toppled over.

“I may be easy, but I ain’t cheap,” Thor whispered. “I’m holding out for a better offer to dunk him.”

Was Thor flirting with her? At four in the morning?

“I just want to know if there are any troublemakers on the trip,” Mandy said. “Don’t want anyone cutting in on sister time.”

“You never know what surprises are in store,” Thor said. “Once there was a trio of accordionists who insisted on serenading us every night. It was cool at first, then it was torture, and then it kind of became cool again.”

Mandy shot a look at the bags piled high. She prayed there were no polka instruments inside.

“There’s plenty of trouble down in the canyon,” Thor said. “But mostly not the human kind. The risks here are extreme weather, falling rocks, folks not respecting the power of the natural world. Considering how many millions of people come here, there’s almost no serious crime.”

“So if we were to rummage through these bags later and someone’s accordion went missing . . .”

Thor winked. “We’re in the clear.”

He looked east, toward the suggestion of sun peeking over the North Rim. “Life on the river is simple. But not smooth. There’s always guests who make things challenging. Someone’s entitled kid who doesn’t want to be here. A couple on their way to breaking up.” Thor smiled. “A garden-variety blowhard or two.”

“That makes you . . . happy?”

“The pay is lousy and the hours are worse. But big waves make the river worth running.” He reached out and scratched Sal behind her ears. “People become their most essential selves on a rafting trip. It’s animalistic, you know? Getting to the heart of who we really are. In the canyon, there’s no hiding. No lying about how you feel or what you’re up for. Law of the wild. It’s all real.”

Thor looked hungry for it, eager. But his words sent a chill through Mandy. Real was for confession, not vacation, and ever since their mom had died fifteen years ago, she and Liv had kept things on the surface. It wasn’t as if that day fundamentally changed their relationship—they’d been on different paths since childhood. But before their mom died, they’d banged against each other, affection and frustration crackling in the same hot pan. After, it was as if they’d discovered that love was breakable. And what broke that day stayed broken. She and Liv started drifting, gliding by each other instead of bouncing off, two satellites on different orbits, avoiding collision at all costs. There were no more shouting matches, but also no more bone-cracking hugs. No more late nights arguing and laughing and shaking instant mashed potatoes into their mouths (okay, maybe only Mandy had done that).

Mandy looked over the rim into the dark fissure below. Fifteen years. No matter how many trips they took, how many rickety bridges they crossed, they’d never ventured back into that canyon of grief together. Was there a river of pain at its bottom? Of love? It had always felt too risky to find out.

Chapter Five

Jet lag always hit Liv hardest the second day after an international flight. She woke up groggy, and by the time she reached the trailhead, everyone but Mandy and Thor had hiked out, taking the good granola bars with them. At least her sister had gotten her coffee. Liv clutched the hot thermos like a security blanket, letting the caffeine drive her shuffling feet down the Bright Angel Trail.

At first, Liv fixated on every pebble in the path. She’d read the statistics: They were more likely to die walking in the canyon than rafting down the river. And these ten miles formed the steepest, longest hike of their trip. Mandy kept pointing at the looming cliffs and sighing deeply, as if she wanted to inhale the dizzying orange and red towers. But when Liv looked up, all she could see were the dark vertical cracks running down the spires, wide enough to swallow a person whole.

It was so early that even the birds were quiet, though Mandy did break the silence every twenty minutes to proclaim she’d seen a bald eagle, which turned out, every time, to be a rock. Liv focused on the people down the trail ahead of them. Their group formed a spindly line of singles and pairs, occasionally intersecting to share a word. Again, Liv got the feeling there was some connection among the seven other guests that she hadn’t yet pinpointed. They were from different places—Charlie, Devon, and PK from Vegas, Fiona from LA, Stefan from Amsterdam, and Imogen and her grandmother Lucinda from Montreal. Plus Liv, who lived out of her suitcase, and Mandy, who’d been in Austin since college. And Charlie and Devon’s missing sister. Liv wondered if she’d made it to the hike.

“Meet anyone interesting at the trailhead this morning?” Liv asked.

“A mule tried to inhale my hair scrunchie. And that guide Thor, the hot one? Turns out he’s funny too.”