March now, which meant that just over a year ago, I’d seen her house. She did have some boxes and junk in one of the guest rooms, but nothing worthy of one of those hoarding TV shows. Not even close. Though, to a perfectionist like Ann, it probably looked that way.
“I’m sure it’s nothing a little elbow grease and a deep clean can’t fix.”
Ann snorted. “Right. I’ll just let you see for yourself. Good luck.”
Challenge accepted.
“Just don’t get too comfortable,” Ann said.
“What does that mean?”
“We have the meeting with the lawyer the day after tomorrow, but we should probably sell as quickly as possible. Property values are at an all-time high and—”
“Can we just not do this right now?” I drummed my fingers on the top of my car. The late afternoon sun had my shirt sticking to my back. I wanted to get out of the heat and out of this conversation.
“If not now, when are we going to talk about it, Clementine? I’d like to know.”
“Just … not now. Look. I’ll text you when I get in.”
Our goodbye was short, but they always were. I could count on one hand the number of phone calls Ann and I had that didn’t end with one or both of us angry.
“Oil and water,” our dad always said when we were growing up. I think he thought if he waited long enough, we’d grow up to be those sisters who were best friends, laughing about all their childhood bickering, the oil and water combining to make a pretty tasty dressing.
Dad was still waiting. But I’m pretty sure he was the only one.
I stopped for the night in Mobile, when I couldn’t drive anymore without falling asleep at the wheel. The Holiday Inn had popcorn ceilings, like my cheap Houston apartment that had never really felt like home, and like Nana’s beach cottage, which was maybe the only place I could remember that had felt like home.
“Count the popcorn,” Nana would say on nights when I stayed at her beach house, too excited or sunburned to sleep. But, of course, she never really made me count. She always caved to my requests and told me stories instead. Or she would sing, in her lilting voice, which I didn’t realize until I was much older was completely off-key.
“Oh, my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling, Clementine,” she would sing.
And from the matching twin bed just across from mine, Ann would sigh. A lot of my memories of Ann involved her sighing. Enough that I could catalogue the different kinds of sighs. There was the irritated one, the resigned one, and the one that usually meant Mom had started on the vodka too early in the day. It was like Ann was born as a tiny adult. But maybe that was what happens when you’re the older sister and your mother was … well, our mother.
I turned away from the hotel’s outdated ceiling when my phone buzzed on the bedside table. It was my boyfriend. No, my ex-boyfriend. With a groan, I swiped to answer, even though I knew nothing good would come of it. Calling a woman after you broke up with her that morning was like returning to the scene of a crime, expecting to see that person you murdered up and walking around again.
“Hello, Chuck,” I said.
“Can we talk?”
I rubbed my free hand over my forehead. At one time, the deep tenor of his voice had elicited shivers of delight. When did that change? Chuck may have been the one to do the breaking up, but I didn’t disagree with the decision. Like every other relationship I’d had, it was inevitable. When you’re thirty-one and don’t want to get married or have kids, most relationships have an expiration date. Overall, my pride hurt worse than my heart. Which made me a little more snarky than usual.
“Didn’t we already talk? This morning—when you broke up with me? Remember that?”
I could imagine Chuck slumped in his leather recliner, the top buttons of his white dress shirt unbuttoned, his tie undone, and his blond hair mussed from running his hands through it. I didn’t like how that mental image tugged at some invisible part of me.
No. It was done. We were done.
“Clem,” he said, a soft plea in his voice. “I should come over. Maybe this was a mistake.”
It could have been that the full weight of the day finally hit me, or maybe it was how his low sigh reminded me of