I Have Lost My Way(58)

She asks Sabrina to call her phone. Sabrina does, but the phone in Freya’s hand remains dark. And suddenly it makes sense. “I, uh, dropped my phone in the park,” she tells her sister. “That’s why the GPS thinks it’s there.”

“You might’ve knocked your antenna loose,” Alex says. “I can take a look.”

“Oh, thanks.”

Freya hands Alex the phone, and he hurries away with it, likely relieved to be away from the drama. Not that Freya can blame him.

“You should call Mom,” Sabrina says, handing over her own phone. “She’s frantic.”

Freya shakes her head. If she calls her mother, she will wind up talking to her manager, and she’s done being managed. “Can you just text her that I’m not dead?”

Sabrina taps at her phone. The response comes in almost immediately. “She wants you to call her,” Sabrina says, reading along as the texts fire in. “Now. She says it’s urgent. She says Hayden called and—”

“Stop!” Freya’s voice is loud and firm, and for once Sabrina listens. “I’m not here to talk to Mom.”

“I see.” Sabrina puts down her phone and walks over to the dining table, upon which is an open bottle of wine. She pours herself a glass. “So why are you here?”

Freya doesn’t have an answer. All she knows is that after all that’s happened today, with the miracle doctor and with Hayden and with Harun and Nathaniel, she needs to be here.

“To congratulate you,” Freya blurts. “On your engagement.” To her surprise, the tidings are sincere. She is happy that Sabrina is happy.

Sabrina holds up her hand, the tiny engagement ring throwing prisms against the wall. She marvels—less at the ring, it seems, than at her own good fortune. “Thank you,” she says quietly. She drops her hands in her lap. “Did Mom tell you?”

“Mom hasn’t told me a thing about you in two years,” Freya says. “I found out on Facebook.”

“I didn’t post anything.”

“Alex did. She said yes!”

“Ahh.” Sabrina smiles indulgently toward the room where Alex has gone to tinker with the phone. Then she looks at Freya. “Still stalking ghosts on Facebook?”

“Only yours.”

Sabrina’s eyebrow arcs in surprise. “Why?”

“Why? Are you serious? You’re my sister. At least I think you’re still my sister.”

“I don’t know. Am I?” Sabrina asks, her voice uncertain, as if she truly doesn’t know.

This rattles Freya. She’s used to the granite Sabrina. She came girded to confront that Sabrina. But she doesn’t know what to do with this tender, unsure person.

“Do you ever hear from him?” Sabrina asks.

“Who?”

Her sister’s eye roll is, at least, comfortingly familiar. “Dad.”

Not Solomon, but Dad.

“Not for a while,” Freya says. “What about you?”

“No. But I’m not you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’m not famous anymore. Or almost famous.”

“Neither am I.”

“But surely famous enough to get his attention.”

There’s pain in her sister’s eyes, and Freya wonders just which one of them has been trying to get their father’s attention all these years.

Freya shrugs. “I’m not famous, and if I’m almost famous, not for much longer.”

“What do you mean? Isn’t it all about to explode?” Sabrina blows out her hands, an identical gesture to the one Hayden made for them years ago.

“Mom didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Never mind.” She looks at Sabrina and takes a deep breath. It’s now or never. “Why did you sing ‘Tschay Hailu’ in Hayden’s office that day?”

The instant she sees the blood drain from her sister’s face, Freya understands that she isn’t the only one who’s replayed that day over and over again. Sabrina stands up to refill her wine, filling a glass for Freya too.

“Do you know what Hayden told me in his office that day?” she asks, handing Freya the wine.

“How would I?”

“I thought maybe he told you.” Sabrina shakes her head. “But then again, why would he?”

“What did he say?”

“He said I had a pretty voice, maybe even prettier than yours, and that I wrote a decent song, but that he wasn’t interested in me, only you. I asked why. He’d just told me that I was a better singer than you, and we both know I wrote better songs. He was blunt. He said I wasn’t interesting enough, wasn’t special enough, and wasn’t hungry enough.”

There are tears in Sabrina’s eyes as she continues. “And it wasn’t like I didn’t know. I’d seen how the fans reacted to you. Seen how much you needed that. But I was so pissed off. So I told Hayden he had it all wrong. You weren’t hungry. You were desperate. That our father fed you a story about being born singing and then disappeared, leaving you nothing but that false legacy and a pathetic white dress. I told him that every song you sang, from that very first viral video to ‘Little White Dress,’ was really about you trying to get him back.