Chapter 19 Sabrina
Georgetown, South Carolina
Present Day
The sound of Mariah’s car in the driveway got me off the sofa. I’d spent this week avoiding her, doing what I needed to do at the restaurant without uttering a word to her, but I couldn’t live like this. It was too stressful. Mariah had not made a single attempt to apologize for what she’d done last weekend, and I was going to confront her about it.
I barely let her get her feet in the house before I ambushed her. “I want to talk.”
Why she looked like she’d been out on a bad date, I don’t know, but she did.
“I’m tired.” She kicked off her sneakers and moved them into the foyer shoe rack.
I folded my arms over my chest. “I don’t care that you’re tired.”
Mariah looked at me, curious now. She almost looked amused for half a second. Exhaustion came back down on her heavy.
“Kenni and Grandma are already asleep. This is a good time.”
Planning to ignore me, she took steps toward the stairs, and I reached for her arm, stopping her. “Now.”
She looked down at my hand, and I removed it.
“I’ve had a horrible week.”
“So what? You likely caused whatever it is that made it so bad.”
I’d stunned her, but she did not say anything.
“You humiliated me last week.”
“You strolled up at two in the afternoon for an event you were supposed to open with us.”
“You didn’t want me there anyway. You don’t want me in Georgetown, in this house, possibly on the planet.”
Mariah flashed an irritated look at me, and this time she was the one folding her arms over her chest. “So much drama. Always.”
“I’m being dramatic? You didn’t have to do that in front of Dante.”
“I told you we were not selling your little projects.”
“Projects? What is wrong with you? Why are you so mean and controlling and toxic?”
Mariah dropped her arms and turned to go into the kitchen. She threw words over her shoulder. “I told you no.”
I followed her and watched her get a glass and pour water into it. After she drank, I said, “Dante told me to bring my sweet cakes.”
“He should have talked to me about it.”
“But this restaurant isn’t yours. You don’t have the only say.”
Mariah looked totally unfazed by this. She rolled her neck and put a hand on her hip. “Are you done? The event is over. I couldn’t give you your little moment back if I wanted to.”
I spent my life trying to understand my sister, but she gave me no space to have that grace anymore. “Why do you hate me so much?”
She put the glass in the sink. “I don’t hate you.”
“Yes, you do.” I took a deep breath, looked down at the floor and then back into Mariah’s eyes. I wanted to see her face when I said this. “It’s because of mother. I killed our mother. You should have had her instead of me.”
Mariah’s nostrils flared, and she looked away before giving me her attention again. “I don’t hate you.”
But she did. She struggled to even say the words just now. “You don’t think I have guilt? I never had her. How do you think I feel about that? You’re not the only one who has pain.”
“Are we going to start swapping our stories?”
“Why not? We are the only two people in the world who shared her.”
Mariah bit her lip. I could see her eyes getting wet.
“You had her for some time. You got to touch her, smell her, hear her voice, feel her presence. What memories do I have? All I have are pictures and videos.”
Mariah’s lashes fluttered wildly in disbelief. “I was six, Sabrina. You think I remember all that? Do you know how hard I struggle to remember things about her? Don’t romanticize my memories and accuse me of being blessed to have more time. All time did is taunt me by stealing her. That’s worse than not having her.”
“Easy for you to say when you don’t have my perspective.” I took a deep breath. “I wish we had more than this between us because this is sad and pathetic.”
“We had a chance to have more between us,” Mariah said. “You ruined that.”
I shook my head. I had no idea what she was talking about.
Mariah’s eyes narrowed with a grim concentration on the facts. “The cooking trip, Sabrina.”
I pulled my head back. She was talking about the trip we were supposed to take ten years ago. “The cruise?”
Mariah tossed up her hands. “Where else? It’s the only thing you and I planned to do together in our entire lives, and you bailed on me.”
“Mariah, I—”
“What? Didn’t know how important it was to me? I couldn’t go when you backed out. I needed you to pay your part, and I lost money I worked hard for.”
“But you said it was okay.”
“What was I supposed to do? Cry and beg you? I said that to you so you wouldn’t know how much you disappointed me.”
I went back to that in mind, but before I could think of something to say, Mariah spoke again.
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
“But we should. I didn’t know—”
“Sabrina! I have problems that are bigger than this conversation,” Mariah said. “But if you want an apology for embarrassing you. Fine. I’m sorry I embarrassed you, but that’s not going to change anything about the sweet cakes. We’re not selling them. Baking was her thing with me. Not you. I won’t let you keep dragging those old feelings up.”
We forgot where we were, having it out like this. We were sure to have woken Grandma. She was a light sleeper, but she didn’t come out of the room. Maybe she, like me, thought it was time to have it out with Mariah. Get the accusations and angry feelings on the table so we could decide what we were going to keep.
I followed my sister out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Once she reached her door, I called her name... low enough not to wake anyone, but firm enough to get her to stop moving.
“She wouldn’t want you to feel this way.”
“How would you know? You never met her.”
If she had stabbed me in the heart, those words wouldn’t hurt more. I felt tears wet my eyes. I sniffed hard to fight crying.
“If you want to do your thing at the markets, do it. I can’t stop you, but you won’t do it around me. I mean it. I’ll leave and let you figure out how to save Tabby’s on your own.” She opened her door and closed it behind her.
Once she was gone, I slid down the wall and sat for a long time, feeling the sting of the words she’d said about our mother and the cakes. That hurt so deeply, I wasn’t sure I would recover from the wound. But more than anything, I realized my sister was messed up. Angry and mean. I thought about her words: “I have problems that are bigger than this conversation.”
Something was going on with her and Vince. She didn’t mention him. But more than anything, there was the cruise. She was still upset about that all these years later, and I had no idea she was angry about it.
I dropped my face in my hands. I’d wanted a confrontation, and I got it. Now that I’d forced Mariah to talk, I wished I’d let her be.