Page 50 of The Better Sister

“No, of course not.”

“A client then?”

Catherine coughed, a gentle nudge that my curiosity was bordering on rudeness. She, of course, had no idea that Jake was anything to me other than one of Adam’s former coworkers. After that final year of secrets with Adam, I had gotten so comfortable with Jake that I almost forgot that, when push came to shove, I was still a liar.

Catherine and Jake left shortly after dinner to make it back to the city.

“You sure Catherine’s okay to drive?” Nicky asked, closing the door, newly unadorned, behind them.

“Please, Catherine hasn’t driven herself since 1986.” It was only a slight exaggeration. I knew for a fact that she had her housekeeper take the Porsche around the block once a week to keep the battery from dying.

“Must be nice,” Nicky said.

I began loading the dishwasher and then paused to pour another splash of Barbaresco.

“You sure you’re going to be okay for court tomorrow?” she asked, eyeing the glass in my hand.

I knew I had been drinking more than usual since everything happened with Adam and Ethan, but I never thought I’d see the day that Nicole Taylor, of all people, was lecturing me on my consumption.

“Honestly? No. And I could drink an entire case of this heavenly nectar, and it wouldn’t make one lick of a difference, one way or another. But, yes, I’ll be able to do whatever I need to do tomorrow.”

“You’ve always been good at handling anything thrown at you,” she said. “You’ll be fine.”

We worked side by side in silence, me loading dishes while she cleared the counters and hand-washed the pans.

“I keep thinking about when the trial started and you told Olivia you were willing to put yourself on the stand and say you were the one who did it. Did you really mean that?”

“A hundred percent. I’d do anything for Ethan. I mean, wouldn’t you?”

Of course I would. I would switch places with Ethan in a heartbeat, if it was possible. But it was Nicky who had thought of the possibility, not me.

“I’m sorry I never realized how much you cared about him.” My voice was low, and I cleared a lump that had formed in my throat. “I think it was easier for me to do what I did if I believed that you didn’t really want him.”

When I looked up, she was staring at me. Her sudsy hands dripped over the sink as hot water ran. “Wanting him,” she said, as if the words were foreign. “That’s really only a question when you first get pregnant, and, yeah, Adam and I thought about it. But once Ethan was born, it was never a question of want or not want. He was there. This little person. This new, amazing, unformed, demanding little guy was there. And he needed me. He needed... so much. And every single day, I felt like I was giving everything I was able to give him, and it was never going to be enough.” She wiped her face with the back of one of her hands, allowing the tears that were forming to blend with the dampness on her skin. “So, yes, I mean it when I say I’d do anything for Ethan. Going to prison for him would be way easier than it was to give him up so Adam could raise him without me. But... like you pointed out, they’d see my cell phone was in Cleveland, and it would only make Ethan’s case worse.”

I dropped a cleaning pod in the dishwasher, closed the door to run it, and took another sip of my wine. I knew I’d had too much, but I was past the point of caring.

“You were so quick to realize they’d be able to disprove it,” Nicky said.

“Too many crime TV shows.”

“No, but that’s okay. I know you. You’ve always assumed the worst of me.”

“No, I don’t. What are you even talking about?”

“Just don’t, Chloe. Okay? I’m fine with it. You checked my cell phone records. Or had the police do it. Or something. But it was obvious to me when you were immediately like, ‘Don’t be stupid. They’ll pull your phone records.’”

My first instinct was to deny it, but I wanted to stop repeating the same old patterns that had kept us practically estranged for a decade and a half. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Adam had just been killed. I didn’t know who I could trust.”

She shook her head. “Like I said, it’s fine. I actually get it.”

We reached the point where the kitchen could not be any cleaner short of a power wash before either of us spoke again.

“Do you even remember when we used to be close?” she asked. “And I know, you hate talking about the past. ‘So much drama,’” she said, impersonating me.

“I am an emotional robot, after all.” How many times had she called me that when I refused to reminisce about our childhood? I pushed past my first instinct and forced myself to answer her question. “And, yes, I remember. You used to rush home from school, ignoring the kids playing kickball in the street and Four Square on the corner, just so you could see me.” I would wait for her at the window starting a few minutes after three, like a dog waiting for its owner to return. She would take me to the park and push me on the merry-go-round until I screamed for her to stop, even as I giggled wildly. And when it was raining or too cold even for a couple of Cleveland girls, she’d put price tags on a bunch of stuff in the living room and we would play store. It was her way of teaching me how to add and subtract. I wasn’t sure whether I really remembered those early scenes or if the memories had been ingrained from all the times Nicky had reminded me of them.

“I was ten years old, and my best friend was a four-year-old. It was probably an early sign of stunted growth,” she said dryly.

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