13. Jenna #2
“Oh.” One syllable for the man who left and the woman who somehow never did. “That’s why she’s drinking?”
“That’s why she started early. She never fully quit. Just cut back.” Hailey rubs beneath one eye. “On the bright side, at least I don’t have to keep making sure Dad pays his bills anymore. Apparently, he’s someone else’s problem now. Moving to Pennsylvania or something.”
“He should never have made his bills your problem to begin with,” I say. “He’s a grown-ass man who needs to stop looking to the women around him to ease his own burden.”
Hailey shrugs. “Was he really that bad to her?” she asks. “I know what he’s like now. But I remember them being happy. I remember laughter in the before.” Her eyes widen on the last word like it was a mystical time when the world still had color.
“They were,” I say, looking over my shoulder to the stairs Ma just stomped up.
“He was charming and funny and everybody loved him. The problem was, he loved too many women back. She kept forgiving him until there wasn’t much of her left.
” Another bump comes from upstairs, then I hear the creak of her mattress and breathe in relief because it means she’ll fall asleep soon.
“She loved him like crazy. And in the end it broke her.”
Hailey is quiet for a moment, pushing a piece of pasta around her plate. She was only ten when they split, while I was sixteen. So her memory of our parents together is different from mine.
“She wasn’t always like this,” I add, because it feels important.
Because every time I come back here, I meet the woman she became and have to remind myself there was a woman before.
“She was loud, obviously. Dramatic. But funny. She’d dance in the kitchen—Dad would come in and catch her about the waist and they’d spin and laugh and we’d cheer them on.
” I sigh at the memory. “And she used to sing when she cleaned.”
Hailey smiles faintly. “I remember the singing.”
“She had a voice.”
“She still does,” Hailey says. “Mostly it’s just weaponized now.”
I snort, and the sound startles me because it’s real.
“I’m sorry I left you with her. With him and their mess.”
Hailey lets out a short laugh. “Don’t lie.
You’re glad you got out. Hell, I’m glad you got out.
” She reaches across the table and takes my hand in hers.
“I know I give you shit about your lipstick and your fancy clothes and the way you started talking—but I don’t hate that you left, nen.
I hate that I can’t figure out how to do it too.
Every morning I get on a train to go make a mediocre man look competent, and I come home and make sure Ma took her pills, and until now, I’ve visited Dad every Monday to make sure he didn’t bet the water bill over the weekend, and I love you so much, and some days I could scream at you for an hour straight.
” She shrugs. “But most of the time I’m just glad. You deserve the life you have.”
“Do I?” My eyes sting and I have to look away.
This is the most honest my sister and I have been with each other in years, and naturally my first instinct is to make it worse by telling a joke.
“You know, I once paid twenty-six dollars for a salad that contained three leaves and a philosophical argument.”
Hailey squeezes my hand. “You know what I mean.”
“I do. But I don’t think I deserve anything.”
The admission sits between us, heavy and alive.
“Why wouldn’t you? You worked for it, didn’t you?”
“Well, yes . . .” I start, because I guess I deserve parts of my life.
The office, maybe. The apartment with the terrible water pressure and the view of the river.
The red-bottomed shoes I bought after my first bonus because I wanted to know what it felt like to walk into a room without hoping people wouldn’t look at my feet.
But the rest?
The friends who keep dragging me into their orbit. The man who texts to ask if I’m OK and offers to disappear so I can be comfortable. The husband I’m trying to legally dissolve before anyone notices I might already be attached to the idea.
Deserve feels complicated.
“There’s a but coming,” Hailey prompts.
“It’s just . . . it doesn’t feel real.” I squeeze her hand.
“This feels real.” I look around our childhood kitchen.
“Whenever I’m here, I feel like I’ve been trespassing in the life I built.
Like Chicago is a very convincing hotel room I’ve been allowed to occupy as long as I don’t touch the minibar. ”
Hailey’s face softens in a way that makes her look twelve for half a second. “Nen.”
“I’m fine,” I say, immediately, because apparently my emotional range has a trip wire.
“You’re not fine.”
“I’m functionally fine.”
“That’s not the same thing.” Hailey points toward the ceiling with her chin. “She’s going to be out for at least three hours. Maybe four if the wine was supermarket-strength, which, based on her monologue about international whoring, I’m guessing yes.”
“I’m guessing that means you think we should escape?”
“Hells yeah.” She stands and starts clearing plates with the decisiveness of a woman staging a prison break. “We’re going. Out. Into air. Like sisters. We’ll get the cake, maybe coffee, maybe walk around and talk about something that isn’t our dysfunctional parents.”
“I’ve heard of such topics,” I say, standing because if I stay seated, I’ll start saying things I can’t put back. “Mostly from documentaries.”
“Great. Put on shoes you can walk in.”
“I am wearing shoes I can walk in.”
Hailey looks down at my boots, then back at me. “Seriously?”
I roll my eyes dramatically and grab my purse. “Seriously. You’ll have to learn how to walk comfortably in heels if you want me to start recommending you whenever recruiters try and poach me from Bennett.”
Hailey gasps. “You’d do that?”
“If you’re serious about wanting to leave, absolutely.”
She rushes me like she’s about to hug me but stops. “Shit. What about . . .” She points at the ceiling.
I step toward her and take her hand. “She literally just called you a whore, Hails.”
“Correction. I’m only a whore if I leave.” She’s smiling, but there’s a tear trying to escape the corner of her eye. I swipe it away with my thumb.
“Then we can be whores together.”