Chương 12
They spent two weeks barely speaking.
Daniel refused to mediate.
“You’re sisters,” he said. “Congratulations. Fight normally.”
Claire threw a dish towel at him.
Eventually she drove to Emily’s apartment.
Emily opened the door wearing sweatpants.
“What?”
“I brought nothing.”
Emily looked behind her.
“What does that mean?”
“No flowers. No gift. No expensive peace offering.”
“Okay.”
“I came to say you were right.”
Emily stared.
Claire frowned.
“You could make this easier.”
“I’m enjoying it.”
Claire pushed past her.
Emily smiled.
They ordered pizza.
Claire complained that Emily’s refrigerator contained four kinds of mustard and no usable food.
Emily told her to mind her own refrigerator.
Later, while eating on the floor because the puzzle still covered the table, Emily said, “I didn’t return the bag because I didn’t like it.”
“I know.”
“I returned it because I don’t know how to have a rich sister yet.”
Claire looked at her.
Emily stared at the pizza crust in her hand.
“I don’t want every difference between us to turn into something you can fix with money.”
Claire’s first reaction was defensiveness.
She let it pass.
“I don’t know how to have a sister at all.”
“That’s fair.”
“I buy everyone expensive things.”
“I noticed.”
“It’s a character flaw.”
“It’s at least adjacent to one.”
Claire laughed.
Then Emily said, “You can buy me socks.”
“Socks?”
“Nice socks.”
Claire considered.
“I can work with that.”
By spring, the broken chain from the pocket watch sat in a small velvet box in Claire’s desk.
The watch itself belonged to Emily.
That had required an argument.
Claire had initially insisted Laura had meant it for both of them.
Emily had offered to give it to her.
Claire had become angry.
“You can’t give me the thing Mom gave you just because I’m uncomfortable.”
“I thought you wanted it.”
“I do.”
“Then take it.”
“No.”
“That makes no sense.”
“I know.”
Eventually Claire said the watch should remain Emily’s because Laura had made an actual decision about it while alive.
Claire would not undo that decision merely because she had been hurt by other ones.
Emily agreed on the condition that Claire keep the broken chain.
“Why?”
“Because technically it belongs to your wedding.”
“That is a terrible joke.”
“I know.”
The watch was repaired by a jeweler who replaced the damaged crystal but preserved the engraving and the scratches on the silver case.
Emily wore it on a new chain beneath her clothes.
Claire noticed whenever the chain appeared at her collar.
She never stopped noticing.
Daniel and Claire held a small anniversary dinner the following year.
Not a recreation of the wedding.
Claire threatened to cancel when Natalie suggested that.
There were only fourteen people.
Emily came with Susan and David Carter.
Thomas came alone.
Judith was invited after months of difficult conversations but was seated at the opposite end of the table from Thomas because Claire had learned something from weddings.
Margaret arrived last.
Not late.
Simply last.
She stood inside Claire and Daniel’s house holding a bakery box.
Claire looked at it.
“What’s that?”
“Pie.”
“What kind?”
“Apple.”
“Did you make it?”
Margaret looked offended.
“Certainly not.”
Claire smiled.
Margaret had resigned from one board committee after the company completed its review of the incident. She remained a director.
The internet had mostly moved on.
The video still resurfaced every few months whenever someone made a compilation about weddings gone wrong.
Margaret hated that.
Emily did too.
They had that in common.
Dinner was awkward.
Thomas asked David Carter about fishing despite knowing nothing about fishing.
David knew even less.
Judith spilled water.
Daniel burned the garlic bread.
Natalie brought a bottle of wine everyone disliked but pretended was fine.
Margaret and Susan had a tense discussion about public schools that Claire deliberately interrupted before it became political.
Emily arrived twenty-two minutes late.
Claire looked at the clock when she entered.
Emily pointed at her.
“Don’t.”
Claire said nothing.
Her face said plenty.
After dinner, people moved into the living room.
Someone put music on.
Daniel began collecting plates.
Claire carried glasses into the kitchen.
Emily followed with the pocket watch in her hand.
Claire looked at it.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why is it out?”
Emily set it on the counter.
The silver case caught the warm light over the stove.
“I was thinking.”
“That’s dangerous.”
“I want you to have it for a while.”
Claire frowned.
“We settled this.”
“I know.”
“So why?”
Emily leaned against the counter.
“Mom gave it to me because she thought I might need proof.”
Claire looked at the watch.
Emily continued.
“I don’t.”
Claire looked up.
“You’re still not giving it to me.”
“I’m not.”
“Good.”
“I’m lending it.”
Claire smiled.
“That sounds legally different.”
“I checked with absolutely no one.”
Claire picked up the watch.
Her thumb found the rose.
The fifth petal still bent inward.
From the living room, Margaret laughed at something Susan said.
Thomas and David were arguing about whether a crab cake counted as a sandwich.
Daniel shouted from the dining room asking where they kept trash bags in the house he had lived in for three years.
Claire closed her fingers around the watch.
For most of her life she had believed family was something revealed by photographs, names, bloodlines, funerals, marriage certificates.
Then she had spent a year learning how little those things could accomplish by themselves.
Blood had proven Emily was her sister.
It had not taught them how to speak.
Laura’s letters had explained the past.
They had not repaired it.
Margaret’s apology had acknowledged harm.
It had not erased the moment her hand closed around Emily’s chain.
Thomas’s honesty had arrived twenty-eight years late.
Judith’s regret had not returned unopened letters to the dead.
Nothing had become clean.
Claire was beginning to distrust clean endings.
Emily opened the refrigerator.
“Why do you have Dijon mustard?”
Claire stared at her.
“You mocked my mustard.”
“You had four.”
“You said mustard wasn’t food.”
“It isn’t.”
“Then why do you have it?”
“Daniel eats it.”
“Coward.”
Claire laughed.
Emily shut the refrigerator.
Claire held out the watch.
“Take it.”
“You didn’t even keep it five minutes.”
“I don’t need proof either.”
Emily looked at the watch in Claire’s palm.
Then, instead of taking it, she closed Claire’s fingers around it.
“Keep it until next week.”
“Why next week?”
“Because I’m coming over.”
“You’re here now.”
“I mean Tuesday.”
“What’s Tuesday?”
Emily gave her an irritated look.
“We said we were going through Mom’s recipes.”
Claire had forgotten.
“Oh.”
Emily narrowed her eyes.
“You forgot.”
“No.”
“You absolutely forgot.”
“I got married a year ago. My memory is damaged.”
“That is not a medical condition.”
“Ask the internet.”
Emily laughed.
Claire slipped the watch carefully into the pocket of her sweater.
Behind them, Daniel entered the kitchen carrying a garbage bag he had apparently discovered without assistance.
“There you both are.”
“What?”
“Dessert.”
Emily looked at Claire.
“Margaret brought pie.”
“I know.”
“Do we trust it?”
Daniel stared at her.
Claire said, “It’s probably poisoned.”
“My mother apologized to you.”
“That does not establish pie competence.”
Daniel pointed toward the living room.
“You two are becoming a problem.”
Emily grinned.
Claire followed her out.
At the doorway she paused.
Her hand went to the pocket of her sweater.
The watch rested there, solid and familiar and no longer mysterious.
From the living room came overlapping voices, badly matched opinions, a burst of laughter, somebody telling Daniel the pie needed ice cream, Margaret insisting it did not, Susan disagreeing, Emily taking Susan’s side mostly to annoy Margaret.
Claire stood there listening.
Then Emily looked back.
“You coming?”
Claire removed her hand from the watch.
May you like
“Yeah.”
She crossed the room and sat beside her sister.
