Broken Read online

  “What makes you think anything’s bothering her?”

  “I can tell.”

  My mother fussed with platters of deli meats and cheese that we spread out on the counter. They’d all been pretty well picked over, the turkey tumbled with the roast beef and impolitely nudging the ham. My mother, fork in hand like a dagger, stabbed the slices and rearranged them into neatly segregated rows.

  I was no more willing to argue with my mother’s statements about a mother’s ability to judge what her children needed than I was with Adam’s mother. I wouldn’t have won against either one of them, in any case. Besides, what she was asking was nothing new.

  “Then you talk to her.”

  My clipped reply made her look up again, fork poised in the air. There’s nothing quite like pissing off your mother to churn your stomach. Mine, however, had been in an uproar for so long it didn’t seem to make much difference that my comment had made my mother’s mouth thin in that telltale way. It wasn’t only mothers who know their children; daughters know our mothers, too.

  “I think your sister could use your help,” my mother said stiffly. “With Evan traveling so much and the baby on the way, I think she’s got too much on her plate—”

  It was more of the same old story, the one my mother’d been telling since Katie was born. ‘Take care of your sister.’ It didn’t matter how old we were or what was going on in our lives, I was the older sister. The responsible one, the smart one…I was never the one who needed taken care of. Watching my sister with her husband and child, I couldn’t stand to listen to my mother any longer.

  “Mom, I can’t, okay?” I must have been sharp, because she flinched. “Get off my case about it. I can’t.”

  “Fine.” She bent back to her task. “Though I have to say I’m very disappointed in you. I think she could use someone to talk to. She needs you. I’m worried about her….”

  “She’s always the one you worry about.” The words, like acid, burned my throat. I sipped my drink to wash away the bitter taste of sibling rivalry, but it wouldn’t go.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” My mother turned, still wielding her fork.

  “Nothing. It means nothing.”

  I excused myself and sought solace in the den, abandoned at the moment in favor of the places serving food and drink. The small room had once been part of the garage, but my dad had converted it as his domain when I was in high school. The far wall had been built with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with photo albums and paperback novels. I recognized the faux white leather cover of my wedding album, and I yanked it from its place on the shelf.

  We’d had a simple ceremony. Struggling on Adam’s meager salary and with my bills for school, we hadn’t had the money or the desire to throw a lavish, traditional wedding. I’d bought my dress from a local thrift store and waitressed to pay for the wedding pictures. We both looked gorgeous.

  We looked happy.

  Married five years after me, Katie’d planned a vastly different affair. Bridesmaids, formal wear, a cocktail reception and a candlelight service. Both she and Evan had high paying, successful jobs and similar skills in the art of consumption. They’d spared no expense, either from their own pockets or their parents. Even their honeymoon had been lavish and exotic, a two week stay in Greece. Adam and I had gone to Niagara Falls for the weekend and went back to work and school the Tuesday after the wedding.

  We’d made different choices, my sister and I. I didn’t envy her the grand, expensive ceremony, or the five thousand dollar wedding dress; those were things that had been unimportant to me. Yet now, as I pulled her far thicker wedding album and laid it next to mine, resentment bubbled up. Not because she’d had her hair and nails done for professional portraits and looked like a princess while my photos weren’t as pretty. And not because she and Evan had served steak and lobster at their reception while Adam and I had been happy with chicken and fish.

  She’d always had more. More of my parents’ attention, more friends, more parties, more clothes. More sense of style, more money, more adventures. More of everything but grief.

  I didn’t hate my sister, but my mother’s admonishment, not the first and far from the last, had tipped me over an edge upon which I’d been teetering for a long time without knowing it.

  I felt like shit about it, too.

  I put the albums away. I needed to find my dad, wish him happy birthday and get home. Dennis was great and apparently Adam’s new best buddy, but he still cost time-and-a-half to work weekends, and I wanted to be able to buy a new car before the end of the year.

  The books on the shelf had shifted and wouldn’t allow me to replace what I’d removed. Irritated, I shoved them aside to make room for the wedding albums, and in doing so scraped my knuckles. The cut was shallow but bled, and I sucked them with a muttered curse.

  “You all right?” said Katie, her belly leading the way as she appeared in the doorway. “Sades?”

  “Fine.” I blinked back tears of fury while anger rose in my throat and threatened to choke me. “Just fucking dandy.”

  My sister had perfected the art of the pause. “Okay…”

  I couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t see her flushed cheeks or the bulge of the baby inside her. A baby I wasn’t having. A joy I didn’t want and wouldn’t ever have. I pushed my hair off my face and straightened my shoulders.

  “I’ve got to go home.”

  “Hey,” she said. “What’s wrong? Was mom giving you a hard time?”

  “No.”

  “Jeez, sorry, it looked like she was, that’s all. Sadie, what’s wrong with you?”

  It was just the question my mother had wanted me to ask Katie. I looked at her. She gave me a half smile, quizzical. She had no fucking clue.

  “Mom wanted me to talk to you. She’s worried about you. Again.”

  Katie rolled her eyes. Normally it would have made me feel better, and we might have shared a laugh at my mother’s overconcern. Today it only set my teeth further on edge. She had all the concern in the world, and didn’t need it.

  “Yeah, she’s been on me,” she said. “Thinks I’m not taking care of myself, or something. Hey, she takes Lily for me, though. Gives me have some downtime.”

  Caring for a grandchild was different than caring for a disabled son-in-law, there was no question of that. Knowing didn’t ease the surge of resentment flooding me. It was irrational, and I could do nothing about it.

  “Hey, maybe she’ll watch Lily and we can grab a movie next week?”

  “Katie, I told you, I can’t.”

  “Oh.” She sighed. “Because of Adam.”

  “Yes, because of Adam!” I snapped. “I can’t just leave him alone, Katie!”

  “I thought you had someone—”

  I cut her off. “Mrs. Lapp leaves at five-thirty and Dennis doesn’t come on duty until nine. It costs me money if they stay with him any other time, okay? It’s expensive, and I’m sorry if I don’t lead the grand lifestyle you’re used to, but that’s the way it is.”

  Without giving her time to reply, I shouldered past her. “I have to go.”

  “What bug crawled up your ass?” she cried. “God, Sadie, I just thought maybe you could use a break.”

  There were two people in my life who’d been able to drive me into a state of white-hot fury. Adam and Katie. The two people I loved most.

  “You don’t understand,” I snapped.

  “Maybe if you told me about it, I would!”

  “You never ask!” Our shouts grew progressively louder.

  “You never want to talk about it!” Katie’s fists clenched. “You never talk about him to any of us! We ask you how he’s doing and you give us one word answers, he never comes around anymore and when we go over there he stays upstairs. Lily barely knows him!”

  “I never talk about him because none of you like hearing about it! It’s uncomfortable and you’d rather not have all the details! It’s easier for you to just pretend it doesn’t exist.