Chapter 10: Siblings

Anne's newspaper didn't move.

Mr. Stanhope set his coffee cup down in its saucer without a sound.

Thatcher went very still beside me.

"Maisie," Anne said. "Is it true?"

Every eye at the table was on me.

I could have said no and stopped there.

It would have been true.

It also would have been the kind of true Dena was so good at.

"No," I said. "Nothing has happened."

Dena's face started to fall.

"Yet," I said.

Anne lowered the paper all the way to the table.

Thatcher put his hand flat on the tablecloth next to mine. Not touching.

"If it does," he said, "it's mine to answer for. Not hers. I'm the one who started it."

"You did not start it," I said.

"I burned the pancakes."

"That's not starting it, that's arson."

Anne made a sound that might have been a laugh if her eyes hadn't been so frightened.

Mr. Stanhope looked at his son for a long moment.

Then at me.

He was a quiet man. He said maybe forty words a day, and he chose them.

"She is your sister," he said to Thatcher. "In law. On paper. In front of every person who knows this family."

"Dad..."

"The foundation's name is on the children's home she came out of. If this gets out, they will say we adopted a girl for our son."

The word landed on the table.

"Not in this house," Mr. Stanhope said. "You will keep away from her."

He picked up his coffee again.

That was all.

Dena looked down at her plate with a sad little face.

Under it, she was glowing.

I put down my napkin.

"He's right," I said.

Thatcher turned to me.

"Not about you," I said. "About the house."

I stood up.

"I'm not going to be a scandal under your roof, Mrs. Stanhope. Not after you took me in. I'll move out."

"Maisie, that's not what anyone..."

"There's a housing list at the university. A girl in my hall dropped out last week. Her room's open until May."

Anne's hand went to her pearls.

"You can't afford a dorm."

"I've been saving since the garden center. And I have the library."

"This is your home."

"It isn't yet," I said gently. "I never let it be. That's on me, not you."

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