A Time for Us - By Amy Knupp Page 0,75

truth. You’re hiding out from everything, either at work or in your brother’s room.”

“I can look for a place to live.”

“That’s not what I mean, Rachel. You’re being deliberately obtuse. I like the idea of you living here for as long as you want to or need to. But if you’re going to stay, criminy, Rachel, get rid of the Yoda and the other teenage-boy decor! Is there nothing in your old room that you care enough about to go in there after? A flowered blanket? Some pillows? If not, go to the store and buy a couple things. Show me you’re alive!”

“I’ve been in there,” Rachel said in a low, crisp voice, finally daring to study the cut on her finger, only half seeing it. “When you were out of town. I started going through her stuff. Somebody had to. I sorted through her half-used makeup. Read the inscription on the book I gave her for what turned out to be her last birthday. Threw away her out-of-date magazine stash. How’s that for pretending she’s not dead?” She silently damned the tears that reliably sprang up in her eyes.

She could feel her mom’s entire demeanor morph from self-righteous to sympathetic. Rachel didn’t handle pity very well. Never had, never would. So when her mom tried to put her arm around her, she sidestepped and opened a drawer on the other side of the kitchen in search of a plastic bag for her veggies.

“I thought...” Her mom broke off. “It was your room, too, Rachel. I didn’t think it was my place to barge in and go through her things.”

“Right. That or you couldn’t handle it?”

“All this anger is so unlike you, Rach.” Her mom’s voice had become a swell combo of pity and concern.

“You know what?” Rachel said, making eye contact. “I have to get to work. I’m out of here.”

“Dammit, Rachel!”

As Rachel turned away, an ear-piercing crash stopped her. Her mom had shoved the pan with the bread on it across the surface of the stove into the back of the range. Bread lay scattered across the counter. “You’re doing it again. Running away from it all.”

Rage pumped through her, and she whirled around to face her mom again. “Me? What do you suggest I do instead? Take up baking and golf? Cut out of work early whenever possible? Is that the proper way to handle that my sister is dead?”

“Sweetie—”

“Don’t ‘sweetie’ me.”

“I’ve grieved for her every day of the nineteen and a half months since she died,” her mom said, her voice cracking, which made Rachel soften a little toward her. “I had a lot of major regrets to work through. It took me a long time. I’m still working through them, I suppose. But I absolutely do not use my hobbies to block out the hard stuff, Rachel.”

“Everybody is quick to tell me how screwed up I am, but you’re not even the same person anymore.”

“I am.”

“The mom I used to know? She did not cook or play recreational sports in her spare time. She didn’t have spare time. She was a lot like me—driven, dedicated to her career.”

Her mom nodded pensively. “I suppose I do seem like I’ve had a lobotomy, huh?” She smiled sadly but Rachel didn’t return it. Her mom leaned her backside against the counter. “When Noelle died, it did something to me. Did a lot of things to me, but what I’m talking about is the regrets. She’d been living here in this house for years, and yet I missed so much time with her. Because I was only focused on one thing.”

“Work,” Rachel guessed.

“You got it. Maybe it sounds clichéd, but it made me take a look at my life and decide what’s most important to me.”

“Healing people isn’t important?”

“Of course it is. I still love my career.”

Rachel narrowed her eyes at her.

“I do. I just love the other parts of my life, as well.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t have an established career to rest on. I have to fight for it.”

“That’s fine. Just...be sure you’re working your butt off to achieve something as opposed to hiding from something.” Her knowing look made Rachel squirm, and that renewed her irritation.

She’d gone in the damn bedroom. She’d started going through her sister’s stuff. She was working on it. At her own pace.

“I have to go,” she said, her jaw tight. “I guess I can only hope to someday be as enlightened as you.”

Grabbing her to-go dinner, such as it was, Rachel stormed