Page 35 of Make Room for Love

“I just did.” Mira put her phone back in her pocket. “Why are you saying that?”

Mira was being too kind. Isabel had to tell her the truth and put an end to it. “Grace is getting married to her boyfriend Kevin in June. Her fiancé, I mean. I don’t like him. They’re both a couple years out of college, and she’s been working hard as a vet tech to support herself. Kevin doesn’t do anything. He works part-time and lives with his parents and streams himself playing video games online. WhenIwas his age, I was making 30 percent wages as an apprentice and working a second job after night school.”

Isabel’s indignation was rising dangerously. She was getting off-track. “Anyway, my sister loves him, and I respect that.” She didn’t even sound convincing to herself. “When Grace told methey got engaged, I tried to raise my concerns about him and told her that she should be with someone who’ll pull his weight and act like a grown adult.”

Mira nodded, frowning.

“It was bad. And I didn’t mean for it to become so ugly. But I said…” Isabel looked away, unable to meet Mira’s gaze. “I told her that Alexa wouldn’t want her to marry him either, if she were still here.” The shame of the memory burned. “I knew how bad it was as soon as I said it. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

She kept her gaze on the rooftops. “I fucked up so badly. Grace is the only sister I have left, and she’s getting married and starting a whole new life with him, and she won’t let me apologize and didn’t tell me when she scheduled her wedding. And she wouldn’t talk to me at Thanksgiving, and she didn’t ask me to be her bridesmaid even though we all— We all promised each other?—”

She took a few shaky breaths, forcing everything back down. She couldn’t cry in front of Mira. She could not.

“I’m so sorry, Isabel,” Mira said.

Mira’s unrelenting kindness was too much. It might have hurt less if Mira had just gotten up and left her alone. “I don’t need you to pity or coddle me. I know I fucked up.”

“I’m not pitying or coddling you.” Mira’s tone was still gentle, but with a sharp enough edge that Isabel turned to look at her.

Mira’s beautiful dark eyes were full of concern. Isabel was exhausted, and she was weak, and she wanted to drop to her knees with her head on Mira’s lap. She was losing control of herself.

Mira said, “Do you want me to tell you that you shouldn’t have said that?”

“You’d be right.”

“You shouldn’t have said it.” Mira sounded sincere, but there was no reproach in her voice. “I’m sorry. I know you love her and you want the best for her.”

“I do.” It was ridiculous to tell all this to Mira. But she had no one else to talk to aside from Cat, who was equally close with Grace and hated being their go-between. Now that Isabel had started, she couldn’t hold herself back from spilling everything. “Alexa would have wanted the best for her, too. That’s what I meant to say. But I said it in the worst way possible and I don’t blame Grace for anything.”

The moment Isabel’s life had truly changed had not been hearing the news. It had been seeing her family at the funeral, her parents looking older and frailer than she had ever imagined, Grace looking afraid and lost, all of them desolate. She had understood, in that moment, that she would be the one taking care of all of them from now on. There was no one else. And she wasn’t good enough.

“I don’t even know how to apologize to her.” Isabel ached from the effort of holding back tears, but she needed to say this. Part of her craved more of Mira’s tenderness, and part of her wanted Mira to run away after learning the truth. “I know Grace doesn’t just want me to apologize for what I said about Alexa. She wants me to apologize for saying what I said about her fiancé in the first place. And I can’t, and I told her I wouldn’t. I can’t lie to her.”

“Is that how you see it?” Mira said gently. “Either you’re honest with your sister, and you make her upset by telling her the truth she needs to hear, or you’re lying to her?”

When Mira put it that way, Isabel’s reasoning somehow seemed flawed, too simple. But what other option was there? “I guess so. I don’t know what else to do.”

“Do you think your sister is in danger with him?”

“No.He’s lazy, not abusive.” Isabel sighed. Maybe she needed some perspective. “I know it could be much worse. I should be grateful for that.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Well, I should keep that in mind, anyway. I know I’m alone in this. Even my parents have basically come around to him. God knows what they see in him. It’s not as though he has a great personality, as far as I can tell. Every time I’ve tried to talk to him, he hasn’t spoken more than five words.” At that, Mira smiled. “What?”

“Nothing.” After a second, Mira continued, “It’s just that if I were in his position, I would find you intimidating.”

Isabel couldn’t help laughing. The shame, the despair, the self-righteous anger loosened their grip on her. What remained was sadness and doubt. There was no easy way out of this, whatever she did.

“I just want Grace to have a good life.” Isabel faced Mira, who was still patiently listening. “She’s been through so much. She was just a few months out of college when Alexa died, and I know she misses her as much as I do, even though she rarely talks to me about it. I just want her to have a husband who will take care of her, not someone she has to spend all her time supporting. That’s what she deserves.”

“I know.” No judgment, no reproach, no false platitudes. It would have been easier if Mira had told her she was an irredeemably awful sister and person. Or that Isabel was right about everything—but she knew she wasn’t, even if she didn’t know how to fix it, and Mira wouldn’t lie to her.

Mira continued, “I was about the same age as Grace, it sounds like, when I started seeing Dylan. And Vivian and Frankie knew from the very beginning that he was terrible, and they tried to talk me out of it. But, ultimately, I think it’s hard to protect the people we love from that kind of pain, even thoughmy friends did their best. It doesn’t sound like Grace’s fiancé is that bad, or at least I really hope not. But I think he could step up and surprise all of you. Or he could have seemed wonderful at first, and then turned out to be awful. Or something else could happen that’s entirely out of your control or anyone else’s.”

Isabel nodded. She knew that all too well. She was reminded, too, that Mira’s sweetness didn’t come from being naive. “I know you want to protect Grace,” Mira said. “To be honest, I’m not sure there’s anything Vivian and Frankie could have said that would have convinced me to not move in with him. What would have made a difference was not being broke.” She smiled ruefully. “But they did decide to be there for me the whole time I was with him, and they made sure I knew that.”

The message was clear. Isabel put her face in her hands. “I need to apologize to her.” Despair crept back in. How the hell was she going to do that? “I want her to know I’ll always be there for her. But maybe she’s right to not think so. Because I haven’t been. I don’t know what to do.”

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