Page 115 of Home Tears

Dani swallowed.

“She was funny. She was sarcastic, opinionated, thoughtful, regretful. She had the hardest times with Aunt Kathryn, but she knew that Kathryn needed her and Julia. She sucked it up and was dutiful.” Jake laughed. “That was the only time—or the only person—that I ever saw her be nice for them, not for her. I know that makes her sound like a horrible person, but she wasn’t. I swear, Dani. She wasn’t a bad person at all. She turned different when she was around Julia and Kathryn, around some of her friends. But that wasn’t all of her.”

He added, an afterthought, “I wish you would’ve known that Erica. You would’ve been friends. It was that Erica I loved.”

Dani felt the first tear.

Jake continued, hoarse, “She’d always put cloves in our food. I hated it. They were awful, but Erica said that they had to be in there. They had a purpose and I should just be patient. She loved lilies. She had them in vases all over the kitchen, and she even put up a wallpaper border of lilies in our bedroom.”

Jake was allergic.

“I hated them, but—”

“You loved her.”

“She was mine. She was a part of me.”

Dani drew a ragged breath. “You were my best friend, and I lost you to her, but I’ve never admitted to myself that it wasn’t you I lost that night. It was her. I didn’t know her, and we never had a chance. We were never given a chance. So much shit in our family.”

A hole was there. It was widening.

“Erica kept a wall to the world. She lost her mother, and she had two older sisters. Julia kept it together by controlling everything. Erica told me she had to play along or Julia would’ve ‘freaked.’ Her words. And then she had you, but you pulled away before Erica knew what was going on. She was the youngest, Dani. She didn’t know better. It was too late when she did.”

Dani was already gone.

He added, “You were a kid, too.”

“I was broken.” Her fingernails curled into her skin. “We were all broken.” She looked at him, wiping away her tears. “Is there a time when you get over it? When you start to put it all behind you?”

“Yeah,” Jake breathed out as his radio sounded static, then a call from headquarters. He switched it off. “When you learn what’s broken you down and you start to rebuild it.”

“It’s that easy?”

“No, but it’s the only way if you don’t want to live half-lived.”

“Half-lived,” she echoed. “I wasn’t even living before.”

“She saw your mom. When she was close to going, she told me that your mom was there. You weren’t. Erica told me you were alive, and that your mom said you were coming home.” His voice hitched on a note. “Erica told me you’d be home real soon, but time kept passing. I lost hope. I started to think that she just went crazy in that time, but then…”

“I came home.”

He nodded. “She’s around, you know. I feel her, and sometimes when I’m not thinking, I’ll hear her. She’ll call my name like she’s just come home. I always know better, but I’ll walk down the stairs. I know she’ll not be there, but I still do it anyway.”

“I didn’t do right by Erica, and I should’ve.” She drew in some air, filling her lungs. “I loved my sister.”

“She loved you, too.”

She missed her sister. She missed the one she knew. She missed the one she didn’t know.

“Well.” Dani laughed. She needed a reprieve. Looking at Jake, he didn’t seem like he had more to say, and Lord knows, she was running empty on the tear tank. “That’s over now.”

“Yeah, it is. I’m relieved. Been waiting a while for that conversation.”

“Me, too.”

They leaned against his squad car. “I thought there’d be more tears.”

“Way more tears.”

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