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“I really am sorry, Laney.”

“I know you are. The whole situation is stressful. It’s been one thing after another since we got back. It’s not bad enough the girls are in pain and suffering but then we have the rest of the shit storm to contend with.”

Nathan drives through the streets heading back to my house. There isn’t anything that I need to get ready for Amanda coming home. Maybe I’ll make her a makeshift bed on the couch in my room, so she doesn’t have to sleep alone tonight. We have enough rooms for each of the girls to have their own rooms, but still being so little it comforts me knowing they have each other to lean against before they come to me. I like knowing they are in their room together, being close, building a foundation to their relationship as sisters, and hopefully as best friends.

There may come a time when I’m no longer around, and as much as that thought pains me, I’m at peace knowing they have each other. Having Stella in my life has helped a lot since I lost my father, but it isn’t the same as having the blood relation of a sibling. The short time I’ve spent with Natalie and Nathan I can tell their bond runs deep. They’re the example I would like to set for my girls. The bond of siblings, more so because they’re twins.

“Words hurt, Nathan; things are said in the heat of the moment when tempers fly. I understand that.”

“You know that’s all that it was, right?”

“Yes, but the one thing you have to understand with Brad is the money subject has always been an issue for him. He didn’t come from anything. His parents are both gone. They didn’t leave him with anything, so everything he has, he’s had to work for. He never understood why I chose to continue to work on my degree and fight for my career. He thought we would ride out our lives with the money my father had left me. When I told him that wasn’t an option, he was frustrated with it. I never hid the fact that I had money and was well off, but I also never gave any indication that I was going to sit around for the rest of my life and not do something I wanted to accomplish. Even before my father passed, I wanted to become a nurse. I know some people, like my mother, think I’m delusional to work when I don’t have to. Brad was one of those people at first. But once he knew I wasn’t going to budge, he continued with school. At first I thought he was like her; but he wasn’t. I think he saw it as finally catching a break. After seeing his folks work to make ends meet and then still not have anything extra.”

“So throwing my abilities when it comes to his daughters in his face is a no-go zone?”

“A huge no-go zone.”

“You know that I don’t flaunt the money or my family’s name, don’t you? That’s not what it was about at all. I don’t want it to seem like that’s what I was trying to do.”

“I know, Nathan.”

“If it was like that, then I wouldn’t be any better than my father and I refuse to be like him.”

“I know that more than most, don’t you think? He and my mother are one and the same. They’ll always try to tear us down. Try to guilt us. We’re the exact opposite of what they want us to be. That fact is something they can’t stand. They’ll always try to bring us down to their levels.”

“Right.”

“But we can’t allow that. We can’t allow their filth to touch our lives and what we believe in. You, Nathan, are the best of your mother. Her soul and her goodness lives on through you. As long as you remember that, then no matter what your father says to you, it won’t matter. He can blow all the smoke he wants. If you never believe a word that comes out of his mouth, it will never matter how much smoke he blows, there will never be a fire.”

“I love you, Laney.”

“I love you, too.”