Piper
Late in the afternoon, I wake up on the couch, disoriented.
The sun’s hanging low in the sky. My mouth is dry and my forehead is clammy. I’ve been covered in the cherished ocean-blue knit blanket. I sit up, folding it back. My sister’s in the nearest armchair, holding her trusty mug in both hands.
“I want to talk to you,” she says.
“Give me a sec.” I go into the kitchen, guzzle a full glass of water, then take a can of Red Bull from the fridge.
I grab an apple too, because I skipped lunch in favor of walking to nowhere.
If Tati and I are going to throw down again, I need sustenance.
I fall into a corner of the couch, snack at the ready. “How’s Davis?”
“Improving. Henry’s sure been through a lot.”
“I haven’t talked to him,” I admit. “Because I’m scared, not because I’m selfish.”
I brace for judgment. Instead, Tati leans forward and says, “I know you’re not selfish. I shouldn’t have said that. You’re a teenager, and you’ve had a rough go of it. You’re doing pretty well, considering.”
I pick my jaw up off my lap, then give her a hesitant smile.
“Piper,” she says, looking remarkably serious for someone who just paid her little sister a compliment. “I need to tell you something.”
I pop the top of my Red Bull, then change my mind and set the can on the table. “Okay…?”
“You think I feel burdened. You think I’m stuck with you. You think Mom and Dad heaped this responsibility on me against my will and that I’m unhappy as a result. Is that right?”
It sounds extra rotten when she says it all aloud that way, but not untrue. “I mean, that’s the general impression I’ve gotten over the years, yeah.”
“Then I’m very sorry. Rarely does my unhappiness have anything to do with you. But I get frustrated and take it out on you. I’m not proud of that.”
In seven years, Tati has never once apologized to me.
For a moment, the world feels askew, like I woke up in a parallel universe.
But no. My sister’s sipping coffee, and I’m wearing my favorite denim cutoffs, and the eucalyptus-scented candle that’s lived a thousand lives on our coffee table flickers merrily.
I’m where I’m supposed to be. Except that for the first time, Tati and I are on equal footing—two sisters engaged in a mature conversation.
“I read somewhere that you’re your worst self with the people you love most,” I tell her. “Because you trust that they’ll forgive you. You know they’ll be there for you regardless.”
She smiles. “If that’s true, then you and I must love each other a lot.”
“I do love you, Tati. Even though I’m not always the best at showing it.”
“I love you too. So much that I think it’s time you know…” She purses her lips for a moment, then says, “Piper, Mom and Dad didn’t choose me to be your guardian. I fought for the privilege.”
I furrow my brow, then shake my head. “But…their will.”
She leaves her chair to join me on the couch, turning so we’re face-to-face.
“I don’t know where you got the idea that they had a will, but they didn’t.
I’m not sure why not. Probably because they never in a million years imagined that they’d die together, especially when you were still a minor.
After they passed, Grandma and Grandpa assumed they’d take custody of you.
That made sense on paper, I guess, because they’d raised a daughter.
And they had the money to provide for you. ”
For several months after my parents passed, my grandparents loitered in Florida, staying in a hotel near our house.
I’d always known Grandma and Grandpa to be warm and funny, but during that time, they were overwrought, short with me, and even shorter with my sister.
I figured their behavior and the exceptionally long visit were due to grief and the stress of helping to manage my parents’ affairs.
“If Grandma and Grandpa wanted to be my guardians, how come…”
“Custody doesn’t automatically go to grandparents in situations where there’s no will,” Tati says. “It was up to the court to decide guardianship based on your best interests. Grandma and Grandpa filed a petition. I did too.”
She lets her declaration hang in the air while I gape at her, hugging my middle like the wind’s been knocked out of me.
“They were furious with me,” she goes on. “There was a lot of arguing, mostly while you were at school. On that, we agreed: we wouldn’t bring our dispute into your world.”
“But if you wanted to take care of me, why wouldn’t they let you?”
“There were a lot of reasons. I was twenty-five. I had no idea how to parent, and I was just getting on my feet financially. They wanted to keep you close—you’re a piece of Mom. But nothing they said dissuaded me.”
“But…why? Why were you so determined?”
“Because you’re my sister. I love you more than anyone in the world.
And Grandma and Grandpa wanted to take you back to Albany.
They would have moved you away from Gabi and the beach, enrolled you in a new school.
I thought it was cruel to rip you away from everything you knew, especially after you’d already lost so much.
Mom and Dad’s memory is here. If they couldn’t bring you up in Sugar Bay, I wanted to do it.
” She shrugs. “The judge saw it my way.”
I’m still staring at her, trying to keep my breath steady as my perception of the past is reshuffled like a deck of playing cards.
“After the custody hearing, Grandma and Grandpa left. I know they’ve kept in touch with you and I’m glad about that, but they’ve hardly spoken to me. I don’t think they’ll ever forgive me.”
I reassess the hand I’ve been dealt. My grandparents’ rushed departure. Their refusal to return to Florida. The Christmas and birthday cards they send, generous checks enclosed, made out solely to me.
“Do you regret it?” I ask quietly.
“Piper, god. Of course not. I miss them and I wish things could be different, but I’d choose my life with you no matter the consequences.”
“That’s kind of funny, because I’ve always felt like I ruined your life.”
“I have never said that.”
“You don’t have to. Our apartment, your job, your relationships, me—this isn’t what you imagined for yourself.”
“You’re right, it’s not. But that doesn’t mean I have regrets.
I don’t like my job, but a lot of people would say the same.
And you have nothing to do with my relationships, or lack thereof.
Do I wish you’d keep your room clean and stick to curfew?
Obviously. But you’re smart and determined and cool.
I like to think I played a part in some of that.
You bring me a lot of joy.” She sets her mug on the table and wraps me in a hug.
“Honestly, Piper. You’re the part of my life I’m most proud of.
I’m sorry for the times I’ve made you think otherwise. ”
I hug her hard and say, weepy, “I’ll clean my room when we’re done here.”
She laughs, letting me go. “Maybe when you’re finished, you can call Henry? He’s upset about his dad, but he’s very upset about whatever went on between the two of you.”
I frown, raising my mental ramparts. What business is it of hers?
She gives me an encouraging smile. Her sincerity infiltrates my defenses, and I make a resolution: From now on, I’m going to be real with my sister.
I tell her about Henry and Whitney. The text I peeked at. The sorrow that swallowed me when he let me leave with Gabi, and never came after me.
“I can’t forget his expression when he saw me with Damon,” I say. “It was half a second, but it was like…he wondered, Tati. I’ve never felt less understood.”
“I get why you’re upset,” she says. Not don’t be needy or quit being dramatic.
“But, like you said, it was half a second. He must’ve been surprised or hurt.
He didn’t have much information to go on.
And he’s a seventeen-year-old boy. He’s kind and smart and principled, but he’s not immune to messing up.
” She lifts her brows, a little smug. “And didn’t he redeem himself by punching Damon’s sleazy face? ”
I give her a reticent smile. “He told you about that?”
“He showed me his busted hand. Generally, I think it’s gross when dudes fight. But for him to step up and protect you that way…he’s got it bad for you, Piper.”
My cheeks warm because god, this is a weird conversation to have with my sister. Still, her good sense supersedes my hasty presumptions. Now that she’s laid it out so rationally, it’s hard to deny: Henry cares about me.
“What about the text?” I ask. “He told Whitney he was planning to go back to Spokane. He told me the opposite. You don’t think he’s playing me?”
“I don’t think he has it in him to play you, but you won’t know until you have a conversation with him.” She reaches over to squeeze my hand. “I’m not going to bug you about it again. I know you’ll do the right thing.”
The right thing? Me?
I cringe, hanging on to her hand, hoping her benevolence lasts through what I’ve got to say next. “Yeah, speaking of doing the right thing…now’s probably the time to tell you that I’m unemployed.”