Raine was quiet for a long moment, long enough that I began to feel embarrassed that I’d asked her in the first place. I concentrated on the blue of the sky and told myself only good things could happen beneath it.
“What does Norah think about my prodigal return?” she asked eventually.
“I haven’t exactly asked her.”
“Like that would stop her from sharing her opinion.”
“I don’t think she’s delighted by the prospect, if you want to know the truth.” I shrugged. “But why does it matter?”
“I’m not sure it does,” Raine said noncommittally.
There was another long silence. I wouldn’t have minded so much, I told myself, except time was slipping away and I had to catch a plane.
“I’m glad I got to see you again,” I said then. I snuck a glance sideways. “I missed you, you know.” I could hear the uncertainty in my voice, and hated it.
“I’m glad I got to see you, too,” Raine said. She flicked me an arch sort of look. “Maybe next time you come to San Francisco it will actually be to see me. And not . . . ” She shrugged as if enjoying a joke. “Other people.”
“I didn’t come to see Matt!” I was appalled. “How can you think that? I didn’t!”
“Of course you didn’t,” she soothed me. “Don’t worry, Courtney. I don’t blame you. He’s Matt Cheney. These things happen.”
To her, I was still the kid with the crush. It was so infuriating, I nearly screamed.
“I wanted to see you,” I told her, my voice as even as I could make it. “I had no idea he’d be here. You’re my sister.” I waved a hand in front of us, taking in the beautiful morning and the bridge in the distance. “And I really wanted to see San Francisco. It’s so beautiful here.”
“It is,” Raine said, but she sounded almost sad. She shrugged and looked around before looking back at me. “But it’s just a city, Courtney. Prettier than some, sure.” She wrinkled her nose a little bit as the breeze picked up. “Six years is a long time no matter where you are.”
“Let’s make sure it’s not another six years before we see each other again,” I suggested, trying to lighten the mood. I looked at my watch and swore. “I have to go,” I said helplessly. “I have to get to the airport.”
Raine looked at me for a long moment. I thought she might say something—about the years we’d been apart, or about the future, but she didn’t.
Instead, she leaned over and kissed me soundly on the cheek, like she was dispensing her blessing.
“Oh, Courtney,” she said in her sweetest voice. “I missed you, too.”
And then it was as if everything went into hyperdrive.
I got to my feet. We hugged good-bye. I took one last look at my sister’s face. Then I was racing back to the hotel, where Lucas was already waiting in the lobby.
“Cutting it a little close, don’t you think?” he asked. In a tone that might have started a fight, but we didn’t have any time for that.
“Let’s just get on the road,” I said.
“Wait a minute. Are you all right? You look . . . ”
“I’m just tired,” I said, warding him away with my hand. “I’m fine. Are you ready?”
“Let’s go,” he said.
Soon enough, we were in a taxi and on our way to the airport, where everything was rush and then wait, rush and then wait, until we found ourselves wedged into our economy seats at the back of the plane.
I took the window seat. Lucas took the middle, because, he said, he viewed air travel as an opportunity to catch up on his sleep. Since I was incapable of sleeping in any form of moving vehicle, be it on land, air, or sea, I needed something to amuse myself with. Even a view.
I felt as if I should protest when the plane pulled back from the gate. Stage a riot, start screaming; anything to get off the plane and back into San Francisco. But causing a scene was likely to get me thrown in jail, not delivered to my hotel room. I stayed quiet.
Lucas put his hand on my leg as the plane began to taxi down the runway. He tilted his head back. Within seconds, he was fast asleep and could, I knew, remain so for the duration of our trip across the country. It was already evening in Philadelphia. It would be the middle of the night when we arrived.
I kept a vigil as the plane took off. I thought I owed the life I might have led at least that much attention.
San Francisco disappeared, and then California, and the expanse of the country opened up before me, dragging me further and further into the dark.
Chapter Thirteen
We staggered into our stuffy apartment well after midnight, laden down with our bags and that stale airline smell, and collapsed across our bed without bothering to unpack a thing. The kittens celebrated our return by pouncing on our feet, swiping at us with their sharp claws, and then purring with their whole bodies and nuzzling into our necks when we lay down. Norah had obviously kept them well fed and in good spirits in our absence. Just one more task she completed to perfection, about which I was destined to feel guilty. She was good like that.
It was hard to maintain the level of gloominess I’d picked up during our flight home with two acrobatic and vocal furry animals leaping around the apartment. I was giggling without meaning to, as the kittens broke off from expressing their displeasure with us only to attack each other ferociously.
“Home sweet home,” Lucas said, nudging the ball of angry kittens aside with his foot. They squalled in protest and pounced on the offending foot—in tandem.
I don’t think I moved again until the next morning, when I woke up just long enough to watch Lucas swing out of bed and head for his office. Groaning, I pulled the covers over my head and went back to sleep.
Much later, I stretched languidly and reminded myself that I was still on vacation. Though our trip to San Francisco had seemed to take whole years, it had actually been only a few days.
A few strange days I was having trouble assimilating.
I crawled out of bed and shuffled down the hall. I could hear Lucas hard at work behind his office door, so I just went into the kitchen and made myself some coffee. I padded out through the living room and over to my music stand and cello case. Putting my mug down on the nearby table, I bent to open the case and run my palm across the gleaming wood of my cello. Something eased inside my chest, the way it always did when I touched my instrument, even just to say hello. I closed the case, grabbed my coffee, and made my way through the swishing kitten tails to the small desk where I kept my laptop.
I settled down at my computer and checked my e-mail. Sure enough, there were no less than ten e-mails from Verena, each more over-the-top than the last. She was outraged that I’d left her hanging. I had better hurry up and tell her what had happened in San Francisco or she refused to be held accountable for her actions. Though, she warned me, they would be drastic indeed.
Of course, she used far more exclamation points and deeply unsuitable language.
I wasn’t sure exactly why I hadn’t called her or anyone else while away. I thought it had something to do with wanting to surround myself with San Francisco and keep myself safe inside that little bubble for as long as I could, so I could entertain all those what if notions. No wonder I’d been a little mournful to leave and get back to real life. Who liked leaving the safety of a bubble, particularly when it featured as many glorious views as San Francisco? I was just getting ready to call Verena and give her the full, pierced-bubble update when the house phone rang.
Norah.
I sat there for a long moment, staring at her name and number as it flashed on the caller ID. I could imagine how this conversation would go. And the truth was, I wasn’t at all sure I was ready to hear her comments about Raine, which she had no doubt been preparing the whole time we were gone. I knew with perfect clarity that if I picked up the phone, Norah would upset me.
But the guilt was too strong. And after all, she was the reason we’d come home to find the house clean rather than overtaken by cats. And our ca
ts were known to protest-poop in the middle of the bathroom floor when they didn’t like our absence, so who knew what she’d had to deal with?
More to the point, I worried there was something wrong with me for feeling this mix of guilt and foreboding every time her name came up on caller ID, especially after all the things she did for me. What kind of sister was I?
I snatched up the receiver on the eighth and final ring before the answering machine picked up.
“Hi!” I cried with far more enthusiasm than I felt. “How are you? Thank you so much for taking care of the cats. We had such a great time in California!”
I didn’t wait for Norah to respond; I launched into an animated description of the wonders of San Francisco. I talked about the hills, and my thighs, which would never be the same. I raved about the sun and the fog in equal measure. I went on and on, and it was easy to do because I meant every word I said. What I did not do was mention our prodigal sister or my encounters with Matt Cheney.
“I’m glad you had fun,” Norah said when I’d wound to a close, having outdone myself with a lurid description of sourdough bread with fresh butter.
“What a great city!” I cried, no doubt exhausting us both with the force of my enthusiasm.
“Yes, well, I’m actually on campus now, between meetings. I just wanted to see if you were still interested in Family Dinner tomorrow,” Norah said. There was a definite stiffness in her tone.
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I asked,” Norah said tartly.
“Um . . . ” I rubbed at my face. “I’ve never not been interested in Family Dinner before.”
This was, strictly speaking, untrue. But my not being necessarily interested in Family Dinners had never prevented me from attending them. Even when Norah got tricky and moved them to Friday night for no apparent reason.
Again, I felt a twinge. Maybe when Raine had said she had bigger dreams for me, she’d meant than this. Surely, extraordinary people didn’t suffer through Family Dinners every week, fuming and seething but still going back for more. Surely they were too busy being extraordinary.
On the other hand, maybe it was only the extraordinary people who could deal with the trauma of it all.
“Who knows what might have changed while you were gone,” Norah was saying in her tartest voice.
“Nothing’s changed as far as I know.” It was the right answer as far as Norah was concerned. I wished I knew if it was actually true, in a global sense. It would take a lot more thinking.
“Well, fine,” she retorted.
“Fine,” I said.
“Fine,” she said, her voice hurt, and she slammed down her phone.
And when I hung up a moment later, awash in guilt and formless anger, I realized that I was destined to feel about thirteen years old no matter which side of the country I was on.
Apparently, all it required was a conversation with one of my sisters.
The tension around Norah’s dinner table the following evening reminded me of many similar dinners we’d all shared when I really was a teenager. Even Lucas’s hand, protectively placed in its usual position on my thigh, failed to make me feel better. Mom was making the sort of light, interesting conversation that floated around the table and didn’t require any response. It was a kind of classy chatter I’d seen her wield at any number of charity events when talking to strangers. But it didn’t in any way divert attention from the focus of everyone’s attention.
Norah was in a rage.
I could tell from the faint pink along the edge of her ears and the tight way she held her lips together when she wasn’t speaking.
There were other tells.
The fact that her hair was in a messy sort of ponytail instead of its usual, scrupulous bun. The fact that her eyeglasses were slightly askew on her face. The fact that her eyes literally burned with temper. She’d been terrifyingly quiet ever since we’d entered her house.
With Norah’s disapproval hovering over the family like a rainstorm about to drench the room, we were all forced to make insipid conversation while we waited for the inevitable.
“This humidity . . . ” Mom breathed then, as if the weight of the air outside made it too difficult to complete her sentence, all of a sudden. Or, possibly, she didn’t want to incur Norah’s wrath. No one did, except Raine of course, and she was only at the table in spirit—in the form of Norah’s tangible fury. “Summer seems to get worse every year.”
“I don’t mind it,” Phil chimed in, looking up from whatever arcane problem he’d been worrying over in his head. “I grew up in the South. You want to talk humid, you should spend some time in a Tennessee July.”
“No, thank you,” Lucas said with a laugh. “I can barely handle Philadelphia humidity. I think Tennessee would kill me.”
I was far more concerned with the possibility that Norah might kill us all, possibly with the force of her glare, though I was afraid to voice that fear. Without looking at her directly, I forked in a mouthful of the chef’s salad she’d prepared, and wondered how everyone else could even pretend to care about the humidity with Norah bubbling just beneath the surface.
About five minutes later, she broke.
“I can’t believe no one’s going to bring up the elephant in the room!” she cried, dropping her fork and letting it clank against the china plate.
“I don’t think there’s any elephant in the room,” Mom said. She said it so dryly that I found myself studying her face for a moment, seized with the sudden radical notion that she was actually teasing Norah.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mom,” Norah snapped at her, entirely missing the dry tone. “We’re all dancing around the fact that Courtney went to California to see Raine.”
Had Mom said something like, “I don’t patronize bunny rabbits,” like the befuddled father in Heathers, I would have known she was having some fun at Norah’s huffy expense, but her face remained smooth. I found myself entertaining the idea that there were whole secret worlds behind her smooth exterior. It was unsettling, to say the least.
“Well?”
I was studying Mom, so it took me a moment to realize that Norah had turned her attention to me. I jerked a little bit in my seat when I felt her angry gaze on me.
“Tell us everything,” Norah demanded bitterly. “Go ahead.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it.
“I was happy to see her,” I said finally. I met Norah’s stare, feeling mutinous. Mostly because I felt guilty, which in turn made me mad. Why shouldn’t I see Raine if I wanted to? “I’m sorry if that upsets you.”
“I can’t believe you actually did this,” she said, and her voice was trembling. I couldn’t tell if it was from rage or pain, or both. “But I was the one picking up cat shit in your apartment while you were doing it, so maybe the real problem here is me.”
“All I did was visit her,” I said with a calm I didn’t feel. “Talk to her.”
“And what did she say? Oh wait, let me guess. It had something to do with Raine, Raine, and more Raine.” She pursed her lips with distaste. “And oh yes, I’m the villain, somehow, who drove her to ruin my wedding. Right?”
I didn’t like the fact that she was on target with that. I wanted her to be wrong about Raine. Which I thought she was, it was just that the surface looked a whole lot like what she’d described.
“What does it matter?” I asked, avoiding the question. “The fact is, she’s doing well. And so are we. Can’t we be happy about that?”
“I’m thrilled.” The acid in Norah’s voice could have peeled paint.
“We just talked,” I said with a sigh, wishing she would see it as an olive branch. “That’s all it was.”
“That is not all it was!” Norah cried out, and what hurt me was the genuine pain I could hear in her voice.
Lucas’s hand was back in place on my leg, emanating heat and quiet support. I took a deep breath, steadying myself for whatever she was going to throw at me.
So
I was surprised when my mother’s voice cut in instead.
“Norah,” she said, her voice unfamiliar in its sudden crispness. “Let’s not ruin a lovely meal.”
A gunshot across the dining room table couldn’t have produced more shock or awe. Mom usually suffered through Norah’s attacks, big or small, with resignation. The way she had the night Lucas and I had gotten engaged. This was . . . not the same, that was for sure.
I stared at my mother. A quick look around confirmed that everyone else was staring at her, too. Norah, in particular, was fighting off shock.
Mom, for her part, looked unperturbed. She was the only person at the table who continued to eat as if nothing had happened.
“Mom,” Norah said after a few moments had passed. “What are you—”
“This is neither the time nor the place,” my mother said, again in that crisp tone, which brooked no disapproval and which I didn’t think I’d ever heard before. Not directed at Norah, certainly.
“But—”
“Lucas,” my mother interrupted her, ruthlessly. She gazed across the table, as if at a gentle afternoon tea. “What business did you have in San Francisco? Had you been there before?”
I felt Lucas tense slightly beside me, but he gave no other outward sign. Dutifully, he began talking about his business, for all the world as if he thought his Internet security work was a rational segue.
At the head of the table, Norah sat still, frozen into place. When it became clear that Mom wasn’t kidding, and that the conversation had continued on despite her obvious fury, Norah quite evidently didn’t know what to do. I watched out of the corner of my eye as she swallowed a few times, then carefully placed her napkin next to her plate. Her fingers were trembling. I didn’t know why that made me want to hug her, especially when I knew that she was so prickly that if I tried, she’d take my head off. Or maybe take a swing at me the way she had once or twice when we were kids.
“Excuse me,” she said in a small voice that tried hard to be dignified, and then she rose from the table and disappeared into the kitchen. Moments later, Phil excused himself and went after her.