Chapter 9: Two Cups of Tea

Edmund told me on Monday morning that the movers were booked for nine.

I told him I would stay at the cabin, and I took his truck at six.

I had promised Anthony I would stay out of my sister's way.

But she was packing my apartment, and that was in mine.

My own key still worked.

I let myself in and stood in my kitchen in a gray hooded sweatshirt with the hood up.

Camille was kneeling by the sink in a cream coat with her blonde hair in a clip and a canvas tote bag open at her knees.

A little fire was going in my stainless steel basin.

She was feeding it pages, one at a time, from the box of notebooks that used to sit by my bed.

I knew every page of them. Six years of dates and names, in blue ink.

"Camille."

She spun around.

The page in her hand dropped into the sink and flared.

She had been crying already, I saw. Her mascara was a mess.

Her eyes went to the hood, and I pushed it back.

For a moment she did not move at all.

Then she laughed, wet and relieved.

"Oh, thank God," she said.

She crossed the room and took my face in both hands, her thumbs on my cheekbones.

"You're warm. You're warm, Nor. You're not a ghost."

"No."

"I thought," she said. "On the landing, I thought I'd lost my mind. I thought I'd done it, that I'd really done it."

"Done what?"

"Killed you." She was weeping openly now. "I saw your coat in that boat, and I thought, she's gone, and it's my fault."

She hugged me hard.

I stood in my sister's arms with my own hands at my sides.

"Sit," Camille said. "Please. I'll make tea. You always liked it when I made tea."

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