That was the part nobody in my family cared to remember.
“I love you too.”
Then Mom mumbled, “You could try acting like a sister for one day.”
I closed the door behind them before I said something I’d regret.
My other three kids bickered over cartoons while I curled up under a blanket and tried not to picture the ceremony happening three towns away.
“You could try acting like a sister for one day.”
Ryan, standing at the altar.
Lina, in white.
My parents, smiling.
Everyone acting as though there hadn’t been another wife before her.
Another sister.
Another baby.
I closed my eyes.
Everyone acting as though there hadn’t been another wife before her.
And right away I heard Ryan’s voice from the day my marriage ended.
“Honey, I love you so much. I’ll see you soon at our usual hotel.”
I had gotten home early carrying grocery bags.
He hadn’t heard me come in.
“Honey, I love you so much. I’ll see you soon at our usual hotel.”
“I’ll make something up for her,” Ryan had said into the phone, laughing. “She believes everything I say like a complete idiot.”
The bag in my hand slipped against my wrist.
One jar of pasta sauce hit the floor.
Ryan turned.
For half a second, neither of us spoke.
“She believes everything I say like a complete idiot.”
Then he looked down at the broken jar.
Not at me.
Not at my pregnant stomach.
At the sauce spreading across the tile.
“Who’s on the phone?” I asked.
He exhaled. “Annie…”
“Who?”
He didn’t even try to lie.
“Lina.”
My mind simply refused to take in the confession.
“My sister?”
He didn’t even try to lie.
Ryan sat down.
“We didn’t mean for it to happen.”
People love that sentence once they’ve already done the thing.
As though betrayal fell through the ceiling and landed on them
