Chapter 11: Please

Rachel was standing by the mailboxes in the lobby with her arms folded and her camel coat buttoned to the chin.

Flora and I came out of the elevator hand in hand.

We had pulled on jeans and sweaters in a hurry, and my hair was still wet from a quick rinse.

There were five other people in the lobby.

A man was sorting his mail, a woman held a toddler, and two teenagers sat on the bench with their phones.

"Florrie," Rachel said. "We need to talk."

"No, we don't."

"You told me you were staying with family. You didn't tell me you were sleeping with her."

Her voice carried.

The man by the mailboxes stopped sorting.

Rachel stepped closer and kept her voice sweet and loud.

"She's your stepsister, Flora. Your father is married to her mother. What do you think they're going to say at Thanksgiving?"

I felt Flora's hand tighten on mine.

I felt her start to speak, and I squeezed her fingers.

"I'll take this one," I said.

I looked at Rachel.

"You want to tell my mother?"

"Maybe I will."

"Do it right now."

I took out my phone, found my mother's number, and held it out toward her.

"Call her. I'll dial. She's home, she's making soup, and she answers on the second ring."

Rachel stared at the phone.

"Flora and I are not related," I said. "We met at a wedding, we're both adults, and I'm in love with her."

I had not planned to say it.

It came out of me plain and steady, in a lobby full of strangers.

Flora made a small sound beside me.

"That's all it is. It isn't a secret, and it isn't a scandal."

"You came to take her home, and she's already home."

Rachel's mouth opened and shut.

"You don't even know her," she said to me. "She'll leave you, she leaves everyone."

"I left you," Flora said.

"You checked my phone every night for three years. You called my clients."

"You told me that nobody else would put up with me."

She stepped forward, and her voice was calm.

"Robin looked up my records once without asking me."

"She told me about it herself, and I forgave her. You never told me the truth about anything."

"Go home, Rachel."

The toddler laughed.

The man by the mailboxes had stopped pretending to sort.

Rachel looked around at the five faces watching her.

Her cheeks went dark red.

She turned on her heel and walked out through the glass doors, and the door sighed shut behind her.

Nobody said anything.

Then the woman with the toddler gave us a small, tentative thumbs-up, and the teenagers on the bench began to clap.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Stepsister Moved Into the Guest Room at Thirty from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.