Page 42 of The Better Sister

I read the message three times, making sure it sounded like the somewhat understandable musings of a bereaved widow.

I hit the send key and tried again to find sleep.

25

Four Months Later

Olivia hadn’t been kidding when she assured me she’d do everything she could for Ethan. It was the Thursday before Halloween, and she came by the East Hampton house because she was out for the weekend and wanted to check in on Nicky and me.

“That’s quite the display out there,” Olivia said as she stepped inside.

Nicky had gone to HomeGoods and bought an entire shopping cart of Halloween decorations. I had no memory of her enthusiasm for Halloween when we were younger, but apparently, she had become one of those adults who lived to answer the door all night for candy-demanding children.

Once we were settled into the family room—I still couldn’t bring myself to sit in the living room, where I’d found Adam—Nicky asked Olivia if she really thought that Ethan’s trial was going to start this time. In theory, it was scheduled for next week, but it had been set over twice before.

“It’ll be Thanksgiving soon,” Nicky said, “then Christmas. You told us at the very beginning that it would be a long process. I thought it would be next year. I want this all to be over sooner rather than later, but does that mean they’re confident if they’re ready now?”

“Or they don’t want me to have more time to prepare? Or they have a hundred cases and will figure out on Monday that the timing doesn’t work. Try not to read into it either way, okay? I still feel good about where we are.”

I knew that Nicky found comfort in Olivia’s original promise that she would tell us if she thought we were going to lose.

“Just think, though,” I said. “If we really go to trial and it all goes our way, Ethan could be home for the holidays.”

The possibility didn’t even seem real. Nicky and I had each found ways of breaking out from the paralysis that had weighed on us during much of the summer, but I felt like I was living two separate lives: one where I could be a normal person doing normal things when other people were around, and one where I was in complete panic and despair the minute I was alone with the idea of having absolutely no control over what was happening to Ethan.

Nicky made the drive to Islip to see him nearly every day, but I could only visit twice a week in my status as his aunt. I could see how nearly six months of confinement had worn on him. His face still lit up when he saw me, but his affect would quickly flatten. The irreverent and persistent sense of humor that I had once tried to tame was now undetectable. It seemed as if he was ready to go back to his “room” earlier and earlier with each visit.

I was starting to worry he was going along with the visits more for us than himself at this point. It was almost as if he was resigned to his current life in the detention center, which we disrupted with reminders of the world he had lost. As far as the timing of the trial went, I didn’t know whether to hope for another delay to postpone what might be an eventual conviction, or to hope for a quick disposition so we could bring him home before this experience transformed him into a stranger.

I hugged Olivia before she left, wishing her a good weekend, realizing I knew nothing about whom she’d be spending it with. I knew nothing about her at all, really, and yet she was in many ways the most important person in my life at that moment.

Once she was gone, I told Nicky I was going to a Soul Cycle class and then might drive out to Montauk to run the loop used for the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning. Two years earlier, I had placed second in my age group for the 10K, which wasn’t particularly competitive given that the loop was designed for a 5K, and only weirdos like me were willing to run it twice.

“Hard pass,” she said. “I’m going to ginsu this here pumpkin with jewelry designs for my Etsy page. Unless, of course, you want to help me.” She was at the kitchen counter with a perfectly shaped pumpkin, my best knife, and an array of jewelry parts lined up on a dish towel.

“Go to it, Holly Hobby. I’ll be back for dinner.”

Two hours later, I was catching my breath at Jake’s, the sheets piled at the foot of the bed. He used a remote control to trigger the ceiling fan.

“I remember when you didn’t want me to see you completely naked,” he said.

Those days were definitely over. I was lying in what the yogis called the dead man’s pose, arms and legs splayed. The air circulating over me felt like magic.

He turned on his side and kissed my shoulder. “God, I’ve missed you.”

We hadn’t seen each other in ten days. I tried to keep my distance when Adam was killed, but I found myself calling him over and over again about Ethan’s case. I trusted Olivia as much as I could trust someone I didn’t really know, but my inner control freak needed to run her every decision by another lawyer—which turned out to be Jake.

Before Adam died, I never allowed Jake to get too close, convincing myself he was simply a periodic escape from a temporary rough patch in my marriage. But once Adam was gone, and Jake was there for me—trulytherefor me—I remembered what it was like to feel not only loved but cared for. Protected. Safe. Adam and I had become broken, for reasons only we understood. And now I was the only one left, and I wasn’t going to tell anyone. It didn’t matter anymore. I was free to have a second chance—with Jake.

By July 4, we were seeing each other again. Now we actually felt like a real couple, at least when we were alone.

I didn’t realize I had fallen asleep until he was twitching next to me, muttering something about being wrong and that someone needed to stop. When it seemed like he was living inside a full-on nightmare, I shook his arm gently to wake him.

His head jerked from the pillow. “What?”

“You were having a bad dream.” I rotated to face him and wrapped my arm around his waist. “What was it? Driving off a cliff? Teeth falling out? An exam in that math class you totally forgot you enrolled in? That’s my biggie.”

He rubbed a palm against his close-cropped blond hair, as if he were trying to wake himself up. “If only it were so easy. Real-world bad dreams are much worse.”

---