PART3
Amelia had stopped the family ceremony, and suddenly everyone was waiting for her.
“Yeah, sweetheart?”
She was staring at herself in the mirror, but she wasn’t looking at the dress.
“If Dad marries Aunt Lina, is she still Aunt Lina?”
“Of course, sweetheart.”
Amelia frowned. “Even if she keeps saying she’ll be my bonus mom?”
I took a hard gulp.
“If Dad marries Aunt Lina, is she still Aunt Lina?”
“She’s still your aunt.”
Amelia nodded slowly.
“And you’re still her sister?”
I had to look away.
I couldn’t answer that.
She thought about what she’d asked for another few seconds.
Then she picked up the little white gift bag Lina had sent over for her and said, “Okay.”
“And you’re still her sister?”
Something about that “okay” stayed with me after my mother arrived.
***
Mom looked me up and down. “You’re really staying home?”
“I already told you I was.”
Mom sighed loudly.
“Annie, this bitterness has gone on long enough. Lina is your sister.”
I looked at her.
“Annie, this bitterness has gone on long enough. Lina is your sister.”
That was the part nobody in my family seemed interested in remembering.
Mom then said, “She deserves happiness too.”
Amelia stood beside the door, watching us.
I didn’t want another fight in front of her.
So I only said, “Have a good time, baby.”
Amelia hugged me.
“I love you, Mom.”
That was the part nobody in my family seemed interested in remembering.
“I love you too.”
Then Mom muttered, “You could try acting like a sister for one day.”
I shut the door after them before I said something I would regret.
My other three children argued over cartoons while I curled beneath a blanket and tried not to picture the ceremony three towns away.
“You could try acting like a sister for one day.”
Ryan standing at the altar.
Lina in white.
My parents smiling.
Everyone pretending there had not been another wife first.
Another sister.
Another baby.
I closed my eyes.
Everyone pretending there had not been another wife first.
And immediately heard Ryan’s voice from the day my marriage ended.
“Honey, I love you so much. I’ll see you soon at our usual hotel.”
***
I had come home early carrying grocery bags.
He hadn’t heard me.
“Honey, I love you so much. I’ll see you soon at our usual hotel.”
“I’ll make something up for her,” Ryan had said into the phone, laughing. “She believes everything I say like a complete idiot.”
The bag in my hand had slipped against my wrist.
One jar of pasta sauce hit the floor.
Ryan turned.
For half a second, neither of us spoke.
“She believes everything I say like a complete idiot.”
Then he looked down at the broken jar.
Not at me.
Not at my pregnant stomach.
At the sauce spreading across the tile.
“Who’s on the phone?” I asked.
He exhaled. “Annie…”
“Who?”
He didn’t even try to lie.
“Lina.”
My brain simply refused to understand the confession.
“My sister?”
He didn’t even try to lie.
Ryan sat down.
“We didn’t mean for it to happen.”
People love that sentence when they have already done the thing.
As though betrayal fell through the ceiling and landed on them.
I stared at him.
“How long?”
He rubbed his forehead.
“Almost a year.”
“We didn’t mean for it to happen.”
I was pregnant with our fifth child, with four children upstairs, and almost a year of Ryan’s lies suddenly had one name attached to them.
Lina.
***
I filed for divorce.
Ryan moved out.
Lina stopped calling me.
And somehow, I became the person everyone expected to behave gracefully.
I was pregnant with our fifth child, with four children upstairs.
My father said, “You can’t force a man to stay where he isn’t happy.”
My mother kept reminding me Lina was still my sister.
Then I lost the baby.
There was no dramatic scene.
No doctor blaming stress.
No neat explanation that made the timing easier to live with.
“You can’t force a man to stay where he isn’t happy.”
One day I was still carrying my child.
Then I wasn’t.
I went home from the hospital with empty arms and four children asking when the baby would come back.
Ryan cried when I told him.
He said, “I’m so sorry.”
I hung up.
I went home from the hospital with empty arms and four children asking when the baby would come back.
Three weeks later, he and Lina announced their engagement.
That was when I stopped expecting decency from either of them.
Now, months later, I was back on the couch with my children, trying not to think about the wedding happening without me.
Three weeks later, he and Lina announced their engagement.
***
Then my phone rang.
Nora, one of the only relatives who had never told me to “move on.”
I half-whispered.
“Hey.”
“Annie…”
Something in her voice made me sit up.
Then my phone rang.
“What happened?”
“You won’t believe what Amelia just did. You need to get here.”
I looked toward the kids.
“Why?”
