My Sister Stole My Second Life novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Coat

Maisie has Dena empty Thatcher's coat and the matching earrings fall out; Dena is banned from the house, and that night Thatcher tells Maisie what Dena says about the fire.

Nobody at the table moved.

The bracelet swung from Thatcher's fingers and caught the tent lights.

A woman in green pearls put her hand over her mouth.

"Well," Thatcher said to me. "That didn't take long."

Anne held out her palm.

He laid the bracelet in it.

She looked at it, then at me.

She didn't say anything, and that was worse than if she had.

I knew that silence.

In our first life, she had looked at Dena exactly like that.

"Mrs. Stanhope," I said. "Your earrings were in the same dish."

"Yes."

"Then whoever took the bracelet took the earrings."

"Maisie," Thatcher said. "Stop."

"My cardigan has two pockets. Check the other one."

He did, jaw tight.

It was empty.

"I went straight from the pantry into this tent," I said. "Two hundred people watched me walk across the lawn soaking wet. Then I went upstairs and changed. My sister dried me off with a towel on the way."

Dena's face didn't change.

But her hand went to the lapel of the navy coat.

It was still around her shoulders.

"Thatcher," I said. "Is that your coat?"

He followed my eyes.

"You know it is."

"Then you won't mind looking in your own pockets."

Dena laughed, a small breathless sound.

"This is crazy. Big sister, I know you're upset, but..."

"Then give him his coat."

She didn't move.

Thatcher crossed the tent to her.

"Dena," he said, not unkindly. "May I?"

"Of course," she said. "Of course. I just think it's sad that..."

He slid his hand into the right pocket.

Nothing.

He slid it into the left.

He stopped.

When he drew his hand out, two diamond studs lay in his palm.

The woman in green pearls said, "Oh, my God," out loud.

Dena's eyes filled so fast it was almost a magic trick.

"She put them there," she said. "She must have, when she... I don't even know how, but she..."

"I never touched that coat," I said. "You've been wearing it since the porch. He put it on you himself."

Thatcher looked at the earrings for a long time.

Then he looked at my sister.

Then at me.

He didn't say a word.

Anne stood up.

She took the earrings out of her son's hand and closed her fist around them.

"You're the girl from the orphanage," she said to Dena. "Maisie's sister."

"Yes, ma'am. I'm so sorry. I would never..."

"The coat stays here. You'll finish your shift in the van. You will not come into this house again."

"Mrs. Stanhope, please..."

"That's all."

Doreen had come in from the kitchen and heard the end of it.

Her face went from shock to calculation in about a second.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Stanhope," she said. "She's new to us. She doesn't know how things are done. It won't happen again."

She took Dena by the elbow, not gently, and steered her out through the kitchen.

The coat fell off my sister's shoulders onto the wet grass.

Thatcher picked it up.

He didn't say anything to me.

He didn't have to. He hadn't said anything at the sink either.

At ten, a rusted sedan pulled up the drive with one headlight out.

Lyle Purdy had come to collect his wife and daughter.

I watched from the side porch.

He got out and didn't close the door.

He stood on the gravel and looked up at the house.

At the brick, the slate roof, the lit windows, the three cars in the garage.

His lips moved.

I knew that face.

I had seen it the first time Thatcher dropped me off at the duplex, in another life.

It was the face of a man pricing something.

Doreen came out of the kitchen door with two catering bags.

Dena trailed behind her with no coat and her arms crossed.

Lyle opened the back door for her with a bow.

"How's my princess? Make any rich friends?"

The smell of beer reached me all the way across the drive.

Dena climbed in.

Doreen got in after her and slammed the door.

Through the back window I saw Doreen lean over, take a pinch of the soft skin above Dena's elbow and twist.

Dena's mouth opened.

No sound came through the glass.

I knew exactly how much that hurt. Doreen had done it to me for a broken plate.

The car pulled away with its one headlight bobbing.

I didn't feel sorry for her.

I tried.

I went upstairs, peeled off my second dress of the night and sat on the window seat in an old T-shirt with my hair in a towel.

At midnight, somebody knocked.

That was new.

"It's open."

Thatcher came in and stood just inside the door with his hands in his pockets.

He'd changed into a sweatshirt. His hair was wet.

"My mother says she owes you an apology," he said.

"She can give it to me herself."

"She will. She's like that."

He didn't leave.

"You said something tonight," he said. "That I was in the doorway."

"You were."

"I thought they were going to scare you. That's all."

"That's all you thought while you watched my face go under?"

His jaw worked.

"I didn't say I was proud of it."

"You didn't say anything at all. You were very consistent."

He looked at the floor for a moment.

Then he took his phone out and turned it so I could see the screen.

It was a long message from a number I didn't know.

I knew the voice in it, though. All those little hearts.

"Your sister wrote me tonight," he said. "After she got home."

"I'm sure she did."

"She swears she doesn't know how the earrings got in my pocket. She says she's scared of you and always has been."

He put the phone back in his pocket.

"She says the fire that killed your parents was you."

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