27. Glory
Glory paced the floors of her room, her hands clenched around the smooth plastic case of her sister’s phone.
In all the excitement, Liberty had left it on the table by the door. And for no reason she could understand, Glory had impulsively picked it up.
A few months ago, Glory never would have believed she could survive without her own phone. She certainly wouldn’t have thought that Mom would take it and her life would get better.
She honestly hadn’t missed it in weeks, and she hadn’t even asked her mom to give it back since the day she started work at the resort.
But now…
Don’t intrude, her inner voice demanded. This is Liberty’s secret. She told it to you because she trusted you. Don’t prove to her that you can’t be trusted.
If only they still shared a room, Liberty couldn’t have kicked her out. Then Glory could have climbed in bed with her like before, and talked some sense to her.
But she knew what was happening right now.
Liberty was all alone, with that same stricken, dead-eyed look that had been on her face when she told Glory to leave. She was probably curled up in her bed, staring at nothing, hurting.
What am I supposed to do?
The idea of the capable, brilliant oldest sister she hero-worshipped falling further and further into herself was too sad to bear.
Liberty would never let Glory feel that way. Never. When Glory was small and Dad took Mom out for a night on the town, sometimes Glory felt sad and scared. Liberty would scoop her up and read her the funniest Mrs. Piggle Wiggle stories until Glory was breathless with laughter. Or she would let her try on her pretty dresses and costume jewelry.
But what was happening to Liberty right now was so much worse than a momentary sadness. She was mourning the baby she would never have, in spite of all her dreams and effort.
And now Teeny was here, obviously pregnant without even trying.
The whole thing was so cruelly unfair. And Glory couldn’t make it better.
But she knew who could.
“Liberty, please forgive me,” she murmured, opening her sister’s phone on the first try by entering her wedding anniversary as the code.
She looked around, even though she was alone in her room, and then opened the PhotoGram app. It was sort of an app for old people, but Glory had it on her phone too because Liberty used it.
And so did Chase.
Before she could change her mind, she took a photo of the ocean out the window. Moonlight reflected on the soft waves, encompassing Liberty’s dark mood in a strangely perfect way.
The photo would be geo-tagged, but Chase might be too old to know about that stuff, so she typed in the hashtag #driftwoodkey so there was no way he could misunderstand. Then she quickly hit post before she could change her mind.
A moment later, the photo appeared under Liberty’s profile along with the photos of Chase at the apple orchard and re-posts of baby photos her patients tagged her in.
It was done.
For better or for worse, it was only a matter of time now.
She can’t actually kill me,Glory told herself grimly. We’ve got too many witnesses here.
She shoved the phone back into her pocket and slipped out of her room. Before heading downstairs, she listened at Liberty’s door, but it was quiet inside. A wave of heavy sadness covered Glory like a blanket. It would have been so much better to hear Liberty sobbing than that hollow silence.
I did the right thing,she thought to herself as she headed downstairs.
She could hear Mom, Anthem, and Teeny in the kitchen talking quietly, so she slid Liberty’s phone out of her pocket and put it back on the table by the door where she’d found it, before heading back to the kitchen to see how her cousin was doing.