Page 10 of The New Couple in 5B

“Well, I guess he’s one step ahead of me,” I say, covering my confusion.

“If you want to pick up the check, it will be ready this afternoon.”

Okay, that’s weird, right? Chad, who literally never does anything administrative, has called the landlord and asked for the return of our deposit. Which—I guess is a good thing? Money sooner rather than later, another deposit in our meager accounts rather than a withdrawal. But does that mean he knew we were getting the apartment? Would he not have told me? That he was sure enough we were moving to request our security deposit back?

I flash on something Dana said:Like you didn’t plan this all along.

Then,Run while you still can, Rosie.

But I push thoughts of Dana away, a hurt person, spewing her rage. There’s an explanation for it, I’m sure. And I have more important things on my mind.

The project is tugging at me. I’ll get to work today, head up to the Windermere and spend some time in the apartment.Ourapartment.

I shower and get dressed, silently saying goodbye to all the annoying things about our place—the slant in the floor, the leak in the bathroom, the cracked Formica floors in the kitchen. I am about to head out the door when my cell phone rings. I pull it from my pocket and see a number I don’t recognize but an area code I do.

Don’t answer, Chad would surely say.

But I do.

I don’t say anything when I engage the call. Standing by the front door of my apartment, I just listen.

Finally, a young female voice asks, “Rosie? Are you there?”

“Sarah?”

“Hi,” she says, blowing out a breath. “It’s so good to hear your voice.”

My little sister. It is good to hear hers too and it also hurts.

“I miss you,” she says.

Since I left for New York City ten years ago, a runaway essentially, fleeing abuse, chaos, madness, I haven’t talked to my parents at all. But I do occasionally speak with Sarah and my grandmother. I send them real paper letters, telling them about my life. When I got married, I wrote to let Sarah know. I always make sure she has my address and a way to reach me. In case she ever wants to leave, too.

“Everything okay?” I ask, a knot in my stomach.

“You know,” she says. “Life.”

“Mom and Dad?”

“The same.”

That doesn’t surprise me. I block my memories of my time growing up, the isolated house, the feeling of always being afraid. I got a free ride to New York University, and they gave me a job in the bursar’s office to cover my other expenses due to my condition of extreme poverty. Even though I have struggled to survive in this city, to leave my difficult childhood behind, I never once looked back. And I did it. I’m a survivor, if nothing else.

“Rosie,” she says. “I’m getting married. To Brian Jenkins.”

“That’s—great,” I say. She’ll be twenty in June. Brian was a boy from our Ozarks town; I don’t remember a thing about him except his father drank with mine, that they sat on plastic chairs out on the lawn in front of a bonfire and sometimes drank all night, laughing at nothing, sometimes fighting.

“I’m pregnant.”

Surprise, surprise. Still, it’s a bit of a knife in the gut. “I’m happy for you, Sarah.”

“Are you?”

“Of course.”

The silence between us is tense, heavy. It goes on too long and I think maybe the call has failed.

“I had a dream last night,” she says then, voice soft. “A bad one.”

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