Letting Go (Triple Eight Ranch) - By Mary Beth Lee Page 0,58
a long forgotten life.
“Oh baby, I’m so glad you’re here. We miss you.”
Cass reached down and kissed Momma on the top of her head as if she were a guardian angel come to make everything better, and bitterness welled in Anna’s stomach. She’d made the call, now she needed to deal with the reality. In a world with Cass, Anna would always be second best.
“I don’t miss her none. Not really. I don’t even know her.” Justine’s angry accusation slammed through the room. Even Killer quit barking his head off.
Mortification ripped through Anna at her daughter’s rudeness. At the thought that Justine was projecting what she herself had been thinking. She couldn’t just let it go, though.
“Go to your room, Justine.”
Momma didn’t need conflict. Not now. And she hadn’t raised her daughters to go fighting anyone else’s battles.
Justine narrowed her eyes and threw her napkin down on her plate with a huff. “What-ever,” she said, and she started to stomp out of the room, but Cass held out her hand.
“Wait.”
Momentary silence echoed through the kitchen, and Anna clamped down on her tongue to keep from telling her sister to butt out of something that wasn’t her business. Tension sliced through the room.
Finally, Cass continued. “Justine’s right. I don’t know her. Not really. I haven’t been home, but I’m here now. I’m sorry.”
Anna caught the sparkle of tears in her sister’s eyes and wished she could let the hurt and anger go. But it was a lifetime in the making. One I’m sorry wasn’t going to make it go away.
Instead, she settled for playing pretend. She was good at acting. Plus Momma needed them all.
“That’s right, Cass. You are here now.” Anna looked across the room where her oldest daughter stood waiting for judgment, her light tan arms across her tiny chest, chin up in defiance, chocolate eyes burning bright.
Their eyes met, and Anna knew her daughter was only responding to what she’d heard and felt smoldering under the surface ever since the phone call asking Cass to come home. Anna wasn’t going to punish her daughter. Not for the first offense anyway.
“You can stay and eat, but not another word.”
Justine squinched up her nose holding back tears and anger as she came back to the table.
When she passed by, Momma grabbed her wrist in her hand and smiled up at her. It wasn’t that far of a stretch. At seven, Justine stood tall and proud, at eye level with her sitting grandmother. “You’re a good girl, Justine. Don’t let that temper get you in trouble.”
Justine looked down where those soft older fingers held her wrist, and then her little face collapsed, and she threw her arms around her grandmother’s shoulders.
“Oh, Gran. I’m sorry. I just….” And the words dissolved into tears.
Anna’s heart broke as she watched her daughter hold her grandmother tight. Momma would probably go back to bed, and Justine’s tears would just be wasted.
Across the table Delia rolled her eyes in perfect imitation of Justine. “Such a drama queen. Can we eat? I’m funnished.”
“It’s famished, Delia, not funnished.” Justine settled into her chair with a long-suffering sigh. “Funnished isn’t even a word.”
Delia ate a noodle and talked at the same time. “Is so ‘cause I’m it.”
The tension of the moment was broken with a laugh.
Anna knew it would be back. She just wasn’t sure when.
*****
The answer came soon enough.
The girls and Momma were all in bed. Anna sat in Momma’s rocking chair flipping through the channels, and Cass was on her laptop checking e-mail.
Letterman started his Top 10 list, and Anna tried to listen, but it was something stupid about taxicabs and pedestrians, so she really didn’t care. The only cabs she’d ever seen were on TV, and who called people walking pedestrians anyway?
She flipped over to another station, but it was just the news. She tried another, but it was boring, too. PBS was a mix of static and voices.
She flipped back to Dave’s countdown. Number Five. Yawn. PBS. Static. Flip. Commercial. Flip. Number Three.
“Good grief already, Anna. You’ve just got four stations. How many times are you going to flip through them?”
Anna looked across the room where her sister sat, her face illuminated by the computer screen making her look like some sort of perturbed avenging angel. “I don’t know. How long you going to use the information superhighway to avoid talking to me?”
Cass rolled her eyes looking an awful lot like Justine. “I’m not avoiding you, Anna. I’ve just got a lot of work to