“Hello?” I say.
“Hey, Mariah. It’s Chrissy.”
I wanted to be more prepared in case this call ever happened. My stomach twists so hard it burns. Even though things went decently between us over brunch, I hadn’t yet processed it all the way through.
“I know you weren’t expecting to hear from me. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“Just making dinner,” I say. “What’s going on?”
I switch the phone between my hands, my palms sweaty. My sister clears her throat.
“Nothing, actually. I just, um …” She clears her throat again. “I wanted to have a chance to talk to you without people around, you know?”
“I … Chrissy, I really don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. Just agree to meet me for coffee and I’ll do all the talking.”
Pacing a circle around my sofa, I wish Lance were here. He couldn’t make this decision for me, but he’d make me feel better about whatever decision I’d make. Just feeling his arm around me or seeing his crooked grin makes everything feel better.
“My schedule is pretty full,” I tell her. “Why don’t you just say what you need to say over the phone?”
“I deserve that.”
“This isn’t about who deserves what,” I sigh.
“Mariah … I’m sorry.”
The words I’ve wanted to hear my entire life are there, out in the open. I still, waiting for the relief that I expect to follow but nothing happens. “What are you sorry for?” I ask.
She groans. “I’ve been pretty horrible to you our entire lives. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes, I agree. I’ve agreed for the last twenty-seven years.” Bowing my head, the muscles in the back of my neck stretch. It seems to pull up a sickness in my stomach, though, as floods of memories cascade around me. “Why now, Chris? Why all of a sudden are you so sorry? Do I have nothing left you want?”
I don’t mean to spill such nastiness over the line, but it feels like a dam is broken. It’s like I’m stepping out of a shell I’ve worn for so very long and now I’m me, the little girl who has been tempered inside who can now come into the sunshine.
My laughter isn’t from joy or even amusement. It’s more from a disbelief that this conversation is actually happening.
“I mean it,” she insists. “This conversation should’ve happened a long time ago and I was too self-absorbed to see it.”
“So, you woke up this morning and realized what an asshole you’ve been to me? And you grew a conscience? Why is that hard to believe?”
“Because that’s not the way it happened,” she counters. “I’ll be honest, as terrible as this is going to sound, but the day I realized it—got an inkling of it—was the day I got married and you weren’t there.”
“Can you blame me? You were marrying the man I thought I would be marrying.”
“No, I don’t blame you,” she scoffs. “And I’m not sorry I married Eric because I believe he’s my soul mate. But I am sorry it hurt you and I want you to know, as unbelievable as this sounds, we didn’t get together until you were broken up.”
I had an entire little speech planned for this moment, one I didn’t think would ever come to fruition. It consisted of a bunch of name calling and fact pointing and trying to humiliate her to a level from which she would never recover.
Now that the moment is here, none of it will come to mind. All I can think is thank God. Thank God that prayer went unanswered. Praise Jesus that Eric didn’t ask to marry me. Where would that have landed me?
Glancing down at my shirt still wearing the signs of the flour from earlier, I feel a peace settle over me.
“You know what?” I ask, swallowing hard. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter, Mariah.”
“It doesn’t.” I wait for regret to hit me. “It doesn’t. Eric and I not being together was the best thing that ever happened to me in retrospect.”
“You really like Lance, huh?” she asks softly.
“Yeah,” I grin. “I do.”
The line rustles as she moves on the other end. “He seems like a great catch.”
“I haven’t quite caught him yet,” I laugh, the words coming easier now that I’m on my turf. “But I wasn’t really trying either.”
“That’s funny. I want you to catch him if you want to catch him. I want you to be happy.”
“I want to be happy too.”
I look at the tray of empty cupcakes from today. Lance makes me happy and I think I make him happy. But if I do, why does he still have the app updating on his phone?
I didn’t mean to see it and I almost wish I hadn’t. It’s just enough to make my anxiety need a shot of whiskey to settle. It’s probably nothing and he has every right to use the app. I just wish I knew for my own good.
My next statement is on the tip of my tongue and I try to taste it, work it around, before I say it. “I want you to be happy too, Chrissy.”
“I am,” she whispers. “I carry this burden around every day and I don’t expect you to forgive me for being so awful to you. I just hope maybe one day we can start all over or start as the grown-ups we are now.”
“Can I ask you something?” I ask, heading back into the kitchen. “Why were you so awful to me? Why did you always try to trump everything that meant anything to me?”
The line quiets as I get out plates and dip out some stir fry. I think she might’ve hung up when she finally speaks again.
“My room was by Mom and Dad’s,” she says, so softly I almost don’t hear her. “I used to listen to them fight. Dad used to tell her he was leaving and they’d fight about us and he’d always say he was taking you. That you were the only one of us who had any sense.”
My jaw drags the ground at her confession. Is that true?
“I was jealous,” she says crisply. “He wrote off everything I liked as frivolous. He praised your grades. He loved your paintings and thought you were the next Monet and I couldn’t do anything to get his attention.”
“So you were a jerk to me?”
“I’m sorry, Mariah.” She hesitates. “When I had Betsy, one of the first things I noticed about her was her birthmark. It felt like the universe was mocking me, that I was so horrible my sister wouldn’t even be there with me. And then I imagined having another daughter and having one of them treat the other the way I treated you and I think I cried for two days.”
“Probably post-partum,” I say, taking a bite of chicken.
I hear Betsy cry in the background. Chrissy coos to her as the phone gets jolted all around. “Eric! Are you in here? Can you help me for a minute?”
“Hey, Chrissy,” I say, setting down my fork. “Go take care of your baby girl.”
The thought of that precious baby’s face makes me soften.
“Are you sure?” she asks. “I, um …”
“I’m sure. Thank you for calling me and for all the things you said.”
“I meant them, Mariah.”
I look at my reflection in the window over the sink. My little birthmark looks a little darker, a little more noticeable for some reason.
“I know you did. Just give me some time to think about things.”
“Absolutely. Thank you for taking my call.”
“Sure.”
“Goodbye, Mariah.”
Ending the call, food forgotten, I head into the living room and lay on the couch. The entire conversation, line-for-line rolls back through my mind as I dissect everything we both said.
I’m scared to believe her. I’m scared not to too.
Lance
“Hand me another box of nails,” Peck shouts from overhead.
Machlan grabs the last box on the tailgate of his truck and climbs the two bottom rungs and hands them to Peck. There’s a little patch of roofing on Nana’s shed that she uses to store her Christmas decorations and yard ornaments that she needed fixed. My skill set usually has me coming by to check her taxes or deal with insurance, but when Machlan and Peck said they were coming over, I figured it was better than sitting around the house ruminating.
Cross flies down the driveway in his Jeep, kicking gravel all over the yard. We laugh, knowing Nana will have his ass when she sees him again.
“Typical,” Machlan shouts. “Show up when the work is about done.”
“I’ve been on the phone.”
Machlan holds the ladder steady as Peck’s boot hits the top rung. “I bet.”
“Hadley called.” Cross gives Machlan a ‘you asked for it’ kind of look.
“How is she?” I ask.
Machlan glares my way, disappearing to the other side of the shed so he doesn’t have to hear. A part of me feels bad for asking knowing how hard it is for my brother to hear anything about her at all. Even though none of us are one-hundred-percent sure what actually transpired between them, it was enough to keep Machlan from settling down again.
“She’s good,” Cross says. “Had a question about the guy she’s been seeing for a while. Can’t say I like him much, but it seems like he’s around for the long haul.”
Peck’s hammer taps against the roof before he whips around and sits on his behind. “Here I am, doin’ all the work, and you guys will go inside and tell Nana what a great job you did. Such bullshit.”
“Keep it up and that ladder just might give out on ya on the way down,” Machlan says, coming back into view.
Peck grins, resting his arms on his knees. “So, Lance. With all this talk about Hadley, what’s going on with Mariah?”
“I wish I knew,” I say, feeling my stomach bottom out.
“She dump you already?” Machlan asks with a smirk.
“No, asshole, she didn’t.” Leaning back against Cross’ Jeep, I sigh. “It’s hard to explain.”