Chapter 19: The Price of a Sister

The bridal suite was my old bedroom at the lake house.

They'd taken out my bunk beds and put in a vanity with a ring of lights.

Roz sat at it in a white silk robe with her hair half pinned, and she didn't turn around when I came in.

"You got the money," she said to the mirror.

"I got it."

"Thirty-eight thousand. Every dollar."

"Where did it come from?"

"My own account. I've been saving for years." She picked up a brush. "So we're even."

"We're not even."

"The lawyer can stop writing letters. You can say loan, or gift, or anything you like. It's yours again."

I sat on the edge of the bed where my bunk used to be.

"What do you want for it?"

"I want you to stand up there for fifteen minutes and be my sister."

"That's all?"

"And hold the flowers." She turned on the stool and looked at me directly, for the first time since the dinner.

"I'll tell his mother the tent was a mistake. I'll say it was Mom's paperwork. Nobody has to say forged."

"And fragile?"

"I'll take that back, too."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because I'm offering," she said, "and I'm not an easy woman to say no to."

"You're offering me what's already mine."

Roz pressed her lips together.

Her face was perfectly made up, and underneath it something loosened.

"Do you know what Sundays were?" she said.

"No."

"Every Sunday, Dad drove me to the lake house for dinner."