No Perfect Hero(91)

“Swear jar,” I remind her mildly, picking out a few pieces of her dirty laundry to wash before it gets packed up.

“Shoot isn’t a swear!” she protests.

“It’s a substitute for one, and you know quite well what it is.” I pitch a shirt into the laundry hamper. “So what are you oh-shooting yourself over?”

“I left my new pencils in the car when it broke down,” she says, “but they’re not in there and I can’t find them anywhere.”

“Crap. Stewart must've taken them out at the shop.”

“Swear jar.”

“I won’t tell on yours if you won’t tell on mine.” I sigh. “I’ll probably see Stewart at work tonight, so I’ll ask if he can get them and bring them by when he has a chance, okay?”

“But I wanted to draw on the plane...”

“You can take my pencils.”

Tara perks, eyes lighting up. “The good ones?”

I grin. “The really good ones.”

She bounces and flings herself over to hug me. “Thank you!”

Chuckling, I give her a squeeze – then tense when my phone buzzes in my pocket. “Go find your flip-flops and wrap them up. I’ve got to take this.”

I won’t lie. Watching my niece race off, there’s a desperate hope inside me that the call is Warren, telling me everything’s all right and nothing has to change. But I’m surprised when I see my sister’s name on the caller ID.

Uh-oh. Did she see something about Bress on the news, or does she just have really good timing? It's hard to believe a murder in a small town would make it all the way to Hawaii, but still...

I swipe the call as I step outside onto the sunny deck, then lift the phone to my ear. “Hey,” I say awkwardly.

“Hey,” she answers, quiet and oddly dull.

“Ready to take your kid back?” I ask. It’s always flippant sarcasm with us, so I’m really not ready for her answer to be a choked sound that I realize is a sob, and then a single broken, sniffling word.

“No.”

Holy crap.

I can count on one hand how many times I’ve heard Marie cry since we grew up. On one finger.

Panic leaps through me, leaving me babbling, fumbling with the phone as if I could reach through it to push the off button and make her stop. “Oh—oh fuck, Marie, I’m sorry, it was just a joke, I—”

“No—no, it’s not your fault,” she says quickly, sucking in several loud gulps of air. “It’s not your fault. I miss Tara. I just...I don’t know how to tell her the news.”

Oh. Oh.

I guess Hawaii’s not going that well after all.

I go still, calming myself, listening to the faint little sounds on the other end of the line – the sounds of my sister trying to hold in her tears, and I suddenly wish she wouldn’t.

We’ve never been good at being a family, but she’s my sister.

And I want to be there for her.

“So tell me,” I urge quietly. “Tell me, Marie.”

“I don’t want to impose...”

“It’s not imposing,” I promise. “It’s never been imposing, and I don’t know why we created this idea that it is. We’re sisters. You can lean on me. I want you to lean on me.”

I know Marie. I know this is the moment she shuts down, retreats behind a neutral comment, pretends to be unaffected. Instead, I just get another sniffle, then, “John. John and me, we...” She chokes out a bitter, humorless laugh. “It’s over, and it’s my fault.”

“Oh, I doubt that. Sometimes two people just don’t work, and it’s not anyone’s fault. What happened?”

She doesn’t answer me until after several breaths there’s a tentative whisper. “Haley?”

Leaning forward, I prop my elbows on the deck railing. “Yeah?”

Out of all the things I expect Marie to say, the last thing is “I...I think I’m gay.”

Oh.

Huh.

While I stand there, blinking, trying to process that, Marie rushes on with a shaky laugh. “Oh, fuck. Or lesbian or whatever word I’m supposed to use. I can’t believe I just said that out loud to someone besides John...” Her next breath is half laugh, half sob. “It’s like I married him because I thought it would make me fit into who I’m supposed to be, and I do love him, just...not like that. And it’s not fair to him that I did this to him and had a kid with him and used him—”

“Hey. Hey, slow down,” I soothe. “Does he feel used?”

“That’s the worst part. He was so understanding. He just smiled and hugged me and said, ‘we had some good times, didn’t we?’ and then we both cried like idiots for like an hour, but...it was okay.” There’s a sound on the other end of the line, tissue paper ripping from a packet, then a sniffle. “And we both love Tara so much. We want to stay friends and be good parents to her. We don’t want to split up her family.”

“That’s a good start,” I say, and I don’t know when I started smiling but somehow I’m crying, too. But they’re happy tears even if I hate that my sister and brother-in-law had to struggle so much just to find what was right for them. “And just so you know, whoever you are, I'm always going to love the hell out of you.”