Page 110 of Relentless

She released the shovel from her grasp and let it topple to the ground. “Fine, Maeve,” she snapped. “Have it your way.” Dusting her hands off, she took a clumsy step back toward the porch.

“Harper, stop,” Maeve called out after her. “I’m sorry.”

She turned on her heels to face her sister.

“I’m trying to be civil,” Harper exclaimed, her voice rising. “I’m doing my best, Maeve.”

Maeve dug the shovel deep in the snow, leaving it behind as she took a couple of steps toward her.

“We joke a lot around here,” Maeve explained, throwing her gloved hands into the air. “We’re not there yet, and I should have realized that.”

Yet.

The hopeful word caught Harper off guard.

She could never imagine them ever being so light-hearted and casual, but her younger sister seemed to exude hope regardless of the dour circumstances.

“How’d you do it, Maeve?” Harper begged for an answer, too weary now to restrain her nagging curiosity. “How did you ever heal?”

“I — well,” Maeve stammered. Looking down at her boots partially buried in the slushy wet snow, she seemed caught off guard by the question. Glancing at Harper, she adjusted her aviator sunglasses. “I don’t know about you, but I could use some coffee.”

Maeve trudged past her to the porch, leaving her shovel behind, jutting from the thick snow. She took her mug off the railing, and went up the stairs to the porch swing.

Grabbing her own mug from the snow, Harper felt foolish and exposed once again. She retreated up the steps, intending to disappear back into the house and into the quiet solitude of her bedroom.

Twisting the door handle, she heard Maeve call out her name.

“Harper.”

She rolled her eyes.

“The boots — I know.” Balancing on one foot, she attempted to pull them off her feet. “You don’t have to remind me every time.”

“Have a seat,” Maeve calmly replied.

There was a firmness in the request that made Harper pause. Her usual response would have been brash and cutting, but curiosity drove her to agreeability.

Making her way to the porch swing, she took a seat beside her sister. Only then did she notice the beautiful view of the pastures surrounded by snow-capped mountains. Harper quietly took a sip of her coffee, enduring the uncomfortable wedge of silence that lingered between them.

Maeve finally spoke up.

“I had Ruth,”

“How nice for you,” Harper bit back. She stood to her feet and pulled off her gloves, preparing to resume her hasty escape into the house. “ — I hadnobody.”

Maeve reached out and grasped her hand, stopping her before she could storm away.

“I’m sorry I left you behind, Harper.”

The heartfelt apology somehow made Harper feel worse.

“You did well for yourself, Maeve,” she deflected with a casual shrug. If she were honest, she had always hoped that the narrative of Maeve being an impoverished farmer’s wife had been true.

“Please sit back down,” Maeve requested.

Reluctantly, she conceded.

Thumbing the handle of the travel mug, Harper allowed herself to speak her mind. “I did everything I was supposed to do — everything to makehimhappy.” She ran her tongue across her white veneers as she considered. “I studied, went to the right college, found the right man,” Harper rattled off the lengthy list.

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