Chapter 15: Terms for a Sister

Gabe drove me as far as the mailbox, and he would not go farther.

The address in Zanesville was a brick ranch with a ramp and a plastic deer in the yard.

He turned the engine off and kept his eyes on the windshield.

"She said alone," he said. "I'll be here."

"You can go home."

"I'll be here."

I had my hand on the door, and I did not open it.

"Say what you were going to say," I said.

"I wasn't going to say anything."

"You've had that face since the porch."

He rubbed the back of his neck.

"When this is finished," Gabe said, "you'll have the house and your mother's things back."

"You'll go back to your ward and your life. That's how it should be."

"And you?"

"I'll be the brother who left before the cake, and later the one who showed up."

"That's what you think I'll do. Thank you and go."

"It's what anyone would."

I looked at him.

"The life I had was a man who brought me papers to sign in my own kitchen," I said. "I am not going back to it."

"Claire."

"I want the one where you're in the next room. Is that clear enough, or do I have to say it louder?"

His hand on the wheel went white at the knuckles.

"It's clear," he said.

"Good. Wait here."

An older woman in a cardigan opened the door before I knocked.

She had Jessa's jaw and none of her softness.

"I'm her father's sister," she said. "She's in the kitchen. If she cries, you leave."

"Yes, ma'am."

Jessa sat at a Formica table in a gray sweatshirt with her hands wrapped around a mug.

Her hair was pulled back and her face was swollen from crying.

The green gown from last night hung over a chair.

I sat across from her.

Neither of us said anything for a while.

"I don't know what to call you," Jessa said.

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