Chapter Ten
Sebastian
Janine knocked the way she always did—three sharp raps and one long one. Our secret Morse code for: Get your ass to the door, I brought wine.
I smirked before I even reached the door.
When I opened it, there she stood in all her after-court glory—exhausted, but still somehow regal.
Her feet looked swollen in her sensible pumps.
Her blazer was draped over one arm, sleeves wrinkled, lapel smudged with what looked suspiciously like foundation from an irritated chin rub.
Her hair, once no doubt a sleek power bun, had started to fray at the edges, a few rogue curls escaping to frame her face like battle ribbons.
To me, she was the most beautiful woman in the world.
She held up a paper bag and her eyes sparkled. “Red or white?”
I leaned on the doorframe, arms crossed. “Depends. Are we drinking it or cooking with it?”
Her mouth twitched. “Smartass. We’re drinking it.”
“Good. Because if you were planning to cook with a bottle over twenty bucks, I’d have to revoke your legal license.”
She breezed past me into the apartment without waiting for an invite.
She knew she didn’t need one. Janine still lived in our childhood home.
Even after all these years, I had trouble going back there, facing the memories.
So my place had become our unofficial neutral zone. She knew this space as well as I did.
Her oversized bag hit the counter with a familiar thud. Without asking, she opened the cabinet above the sink and pulled out the corkscrew—the vintage one she’d gifted me when I landed the internship at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab.
“You still using this thing?” she asked.
“It works, doesn’t it?”
“It has earned a decent burial.”
“It has at least another five years in it.”
She grinned at that, teeth flashing in a tired face. “Only if you open one bottle per year.”
I wandered into the kitchen and leaned on the island while she opened the wine.
She knew not to touch the sea salt. She knew which knives were off-limits and which cutting board I considered sacrilege for raw meat.
The fact that she still remembered—after all these years, all these late nights, all the takeout cartons we’d once survived on—meant more than I could say.
Cooking together was our language. It always had been. We tried to have dinner together at least once every couple weeks. I was excited about it every time, and tonight was no exception.
We slipped into our usual rhythm, the kind that came from years of necessity, not trend. Side by side in the kitchen—me at the stove, Janine at the chopping board—we moved like old dance partners who’d learned each other’s steps back when grief was still raw and rent was paid in sacrifices.
She hummed some old Lauryn Hill tune she used to blast on Sunday mornings while scrubbing our home in Brooklyn.
The air filled with the scent of shallots sweating gently in butter, the kind of aroma that made my mouth water every time.
My knife worked its way through a pile of asparagus with quick, even thuds, and the chicken sizzled on the stove.
“You’re doing the plating,” she announced, flicking a slice of zucchini onto the tray I’d laid out. “You always make it look fancy.”
“That’s because you just dump everything in there, with no respect for structure.”
“It does the job, doesn’t it?”
I shook my head, genuinely offended. “There’s more to food than just filling your belly.”
“You’re such a food snob, baby brother.”
She let out a laugh, the kind that crinkled her eyes and made her toss her head the way she used to when we were kids and she’d finally beaten me at Scrabble with a word like ‘jurisprudence.’
God, I missed that sound.
It didn’t happen often anymore. These days, her laughs were softer, more measured, diluted by courtroom fatigue and too many nights spent with crime scene photos instead of people. I worried about her.
By the time we sat down, the kitchen smelled like a five-star restaurant.
Lemon zest cut through the richness of butter, thyme clung to the steam rising from the roasted vegetables, and the chicken—pan-seared, then finished in the oven—gleamed with a citrus glaze I’d tweaked three times until it tasted of perfection.
Janine poured the wine, a red so dark it was almost purple, and settled across from me at the small dining table. She kicked off her shoes under the table, nudging one foot against mine—an old habit, leftover from when we both needed comfort without having to say it out loud.
“How’s the Sanchez case?” I asked, lifting my fork.
She paused, taking a sip of her wine. “Frustrating. The judge pushed our hearing back another week. Still waiting on evidence paperwork.” She shook her head. “My client deserves better than bureaucratic delays.”
I nodded. “You’ll get him through it. You always do.” I took a bite of lasagna. “Remember that mock trial when you were in law school? The one about criminalizing poverty?”
Her expression softened. “God, I was so nervous. You stayed up until two in the morning listening to me practice my closing argument.”
“You didn’t need the practice. You had the whole courtroom crying by the end.”
She allowed herself a small, proud smile. “I remember. You waited up for me with coffee that night.” The corners of her mouth lifted. “You’ve always been my little anchor, Sebastian.”
My chest tightened. “You were mine too.” Before I could turn too sentimental, I raised my glass in a toast. “To Janine. The best cook, the better human, and the only reason I’m not in jail or coding at some hedge fund.”
She grinned, raising her glass. “To Sebastian. The best reason I never moved to Italy to write feminist crime novels.”
We clinked glasses gently.
I took a sip, then set mine down and picked up my fork again.
“You ever think about that?” I asked softly. “What your life would’ve been like if you didn’t have to raise me?”
She tilted her head, chewing thoughtfully. “Sometimes. In the abstract.”
“And?”
“And nothing.” Her eyes held mine, steady and clear.
“There’s no alternate version where I didn’t pick you, Sebastian.
Not one. Even on the days when I was crying in a bathroom stall between classes or trying to explain to your teachers why a sixteen-year-old needed to miss school for therapy—none of that made me wish I’d done it differently. ”
Guilt settled heavy in my chest, undeterred even after all these years.
“You could’ve had a family by now,” I said quietly.
She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I do have one. I have you.”
“That’s not what I meant. You could have a husband and children.”
“Maybe, or maybe not. You know my career was always my priority.”
There was a pause, not uncomfortable—just full. Like the space between one page and the next.
“I hate that you had to give up so much,” I said. “You were brilliant. You are brilliant. You could’ve been anything.”
She gave a wry smile. “I became a criminal defense attorney. That’s not exactly failure, Sebastian.”
“No, but—”
“But nothing,” she cut in, gently. “You were never a burden. Raising you didn’t ruin my life. It was my life.”
I swallowed hard and looked away, blinking fast.
“Sebastian, I wouldn’t have made it through losing them if I hadn’t had you.”
My throat was tight. I pushed food around my plate for a moment, then looked up again. “You ever think you’ll find someone?”
Her laugh this time was quiet and dry. “You mean someone who doesn’t run screaming when I show up late to dinner with crime scene photos in my bag?”
“I mean someone who deserves you.”
She reached across the table, placing her hand over mine. Her foot patted mine gently under the table.
“Sebastian, you don’t have to feel guilty for anything. My life is my choice. I like how things are. I like not having to account to a man, or worry about kids. I like our weird little tradition—cooking therapy, wine, and living vicariously through your very eventful love life.”
I let out a half-laugh, half-sigh. “It’s not that eventful.”
She raised a knowing brow. “Yeah, right. How’s Candi?”
I groaned. “Can we not talk about that tonight?”
“A thing of the past, is she?” she chuckled. “Is there someone else already, or are you taking a break to rest?”
I wiped my mouth with a napkin and leaned back in my chair. “There might be someone.”
My sister’s eyes lit up the way they did when catching a witness in a lie. “Oh? That’s vague. Vague is interesting. Who is she?”
“She’s…” I hesitated, trying to find the right word. “Different.”
Janine arched a brow, unconvinced. “Different how? Goth girl with a soul? Environmentalist with a machete? Give me a thread to pull, baby bro.”
I laughed despite myself. “Her name’s Jesse. She’s an artist and runs a hardware store.”
Janine tilted her head, a slow smile forming. “A woman of many talents.”
I nodded toward the painting in my hallway. “She painted that, and the ones in my bedroom too.” I cleared my throat. “She’s very talented. Remember Malcom Heffner from high school? He’s a gallery curator now. I mentioned her to him and he’s offered her an exhibit.”
She swirled her wine, eying me thoughtfully. “That’s interesting. She doesn’t sound at all like your usual type.”
“She’s not.”
“Tell me more. What’s she like?”
I looked down at my plate for a second, trying not to sound too eager, or too vulnerable. “She’s smart, practical, funny in this dry, no-nonsense way that sneaks up on you. Creative as hell. Paints, sculpts, makes things. She fixed my door the other day.”
My sister looked suitably impressed. “Really?”
“Oh, yeah. She’s incredibly competent.”
“Is she pretty?”
Something stirred inside my gut. “She’s gorgeous.”
Janine’s expression softened. “Interesting. Very interesting.”
Now that I’d stopped gushing, I felt squirmy under her gaze. “What’s so damn interesting?”
“It’s the first time you don’t lead with physical attributes when talking about a woman.”
I shrugged, starting to feel defensive. “It’s not the first thing that came to mind.”
Janine rested her chin on her hand, looking at me as though I’d just solved a puzzle she’d been working on for years. “Do you like her?”
“I think I might.” I met her gaze. “Which scares the hell out of me.”
“Good.”
I blinked. “Good?”
“Yeah. You should be scared. It means she matters.” She leaned forward, her voice quieter. “Sebastian, you’re a good man. But you live like someone who’s always on alert. Like you’re waiting for the floor to fall out again.”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t if I tried.
“If this girl helps you trust the ground beneath you—even a little—you owe it to yourself to explore that.” She nudged her foot against mine again, gently. “You deserve more than just surviving, kiddo.”
I stared at my sister, at this woman who’d carried both of our worlds on her back for so long, and realized that for all the times she’d saved me, she never stopped rooting for me.
“Thanks.” My voice was thick with emotion.
“Now,” she said briskly, grabbing her wine again. “Do I get to meet her, or are you going to keep this mysterious Jesse hidden like your high school porn stash?”
“I did not have a—okay, first of all—”
“Don’t lie to the woman who raised you.”
I chuckled, shaking my head. “Maybe. Someday. Let’s see how things go.”
“Fair enough.” She raised her glass again. “To love, fear, and weird conversations over chicken.”
I clinked it. “To sisters who know no boundaries.”
My apartment felt empty after Janine left, every corner buzzing with the echo of her laugh.
I pictured her walking back into the house we grew up in—the rooms still thick with ghosts—and I wondered, not for the first time, how she could stand it.
After the accident, we’d stayed there because we had nowhere else.
No aunts or uncles to take us in, no grandparents left to soften the blow.
Just the two of us, trying to survive in a house too full of memories.
We’d paid it off years ago, and she could have sold it, bought herself a fresh start. But she never did. She said it was easier that way, less hassle. I’d called bullshit at the time, and I still did. Clinging to that place gave her something, though I couldn’t name what. Purpose, maybe.
I cleaned the kitchen meticulously, every crumb wiped, every dish washed until it squeaked. I didn’t have a dishwasher and had never wanted one. There was something calming about the smell of detergent and the heat of the water on my hands, as I scrubbed away the day one plate at a time.
When the counters gleamed and the last glass was drying on the rack, I sighed, remembering the chore I’d been putting off.
Laundry.
With the enthusiasm of a man heading to the gallows, I hauled the basket out of the bathroom and started sorting.