Page 74 of Take Me to the Wedding

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Samantha

If that little punk Miles hurt my sister, I swear he would soon have deep regrets. Caleb had helped me calm down, but I was still a muddle of emotions as I walked into his apartment and found Wynn sitting at a retro sixties red-topped aluminum table before a carton of Chinese rice and a half-eaten egg roll.

As she glanced up, my heart contracted with a painful pang. Because instead of a hoodie-wearing teenager, I saw the eight-year-old version of her sitting at Oma’s scarred oak table in her pink flannel mermaid jammies—eyes wide and tear-filled. Sad that our mother hadn’t shown. Again.

I’d been furious. It had been her birthday.

“Maybe she’s just late. Call her, Sammy,” she begged me. “Tell her it doesn’t matter how late she is. We’ll stay up and wait, won’t we?”

“Mom’s not coming,” I said. I did not want to say that. I hated saying it. But I had no choice.

I felt Oma’s hand on my shoulder. She passed me and went to sit next to Wynn, wrapping an arm around her.

“Tell her, Oma,” Wynn insisted, her little-girl voice high pitched with desperation. “Tell Sam she’s just late.”

I went and sat on the other side. I had no idea how to tell an eight-year-old that our mother was hopelessly and chronically unreliable. I wished, guiltily at times, that she would just leave for good. It would’ve been so much better than this constant rebleeding of wounds.

Our mother was already dead to me, and my anger at our impossible situation was making me cynical and bitter. But to kill all the joy and hope of an innocent eight-year-old? I couldn’t do it.

But I owed her the truth.

“Mom’s not coming because she’s sick, Wynn,” I said. Thinking back, I was only twenty-one with the forced maturity of a forty-year-old. “So sick that she can’t really be our mom. She—she tries but she’s got problems. In her head.”

Would she understand what a mental problem was? I didn’t have the words. I didn’t have a way to make anything right.

Then Oma stepped in. “Samantha is right,” she said firmly. “Your mother isn’t coming. But we have each other.” She gathered us up. “My sweet, sweet girls. I love you both so much. And I’ll never let anyone hurt you.”

Here in Caleb’s apartment, I felt just as desperate. Just as worried that I’d never say the things Wynn needed to hear. But I reminded myself that she’d come here, to me, and I could somehow handle this. With Oma’s loving memory guiding me, I closed the distance between us and pulled my sister into the biggest hug I could muster.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” I said. She immediately gave a sob. I squeezed harder, vowing to give her all the love I had and then some. “I really wanted you back for the summer but not exactly like this.” For a second, I dared to dream that she would stay. That we could somehow get back the closeness we used to have before Oma died. If only I could win back her trust.

She took a paper towel that was folded in half and placed under her fork as a napkin and blew her nose. “Miles and I had a huge fight. I left and—I didn’t know where else to go.”

“Did he—did he hurt you?” I could barely force out the words.

She shook her head. “He wouldn’t take my rent money. Like I’m some kind of sad sack or something. I told him that I work two jobs to make the stupid payment, and he needed to take it or else.”

Caleb cleared his throat. I’d forgotten he was there, lingering in the background. “Um—excuse me, ladies.” He pointed a crutch in the direction of the hall. “Sam, I’m going to go hang out over at your place.”

“Thanks, Caleb.” He’d done so much. And he just kept doing. For Wynn. Forme.

“Is he your boyfriend? I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on here.” Wynn watched Caleb clomp along through the door.

“No,” I said quickly. “Nothing’s going on.”

“Yet,” Caleb called over his shoulder on his way out.

I immediately knew that I should’ve been more honest. I was beginning to see that I spent a lot of time covering my own feelings—and struggles—to try to act like an adult around my sister. Being around Caleb had made me understand how closed off I’d become. And that if I didn’t make an effort to change, I was going to have a very lonely life—and not just romantically. “Actually,” I said, “I think he might be my boyfriend. Except last weekend, he broke his foot, and I got poison ivy all over my body, so I can’t really say what we are right now.”

“Youarehis screen saver,” Wynn noted.

“I’m hisscreen saver?” burst out of my mouth. Wynn looked at me with curiosity. I moved quickly on to what was bothering her. “So your boyf—Miles—refused to take your rent payment?”

“He like, knows I’m trying to save all the money I can. But that was so insulting. I can take care of myself.”

I heard the metallic click of crutches in the hall. Suddenly Caleb was back in the doorway. “Not to interrupt, but was he being… nice?”

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