a question? We didn’t talk like this. We never had. This may have been the first time I’d asked my big sister for advice.
April blew out a long breath. “Wow. Well . . .” She looked around the kitchen, as if seeing it for the first time. “I mean, ‘all this’ took a really long time. When Robert and I first got divorced, it was pretty much me, a baby, and a tote bag full of diapers.”
“He really didn’t help you at all? No child support, nothing?” I’d never known the details of April’s divorce. I’d been younger than Caitlin when it had happened, after all.
“Nothing,” she said. “My lawyer tried to call his bluff. Told him that if he didn’t want to pay child support, he wouldn’t have any parental rights. Turned out he was fine with that. I mean, I could have fought it. Tried harder to get him to step up. But I was so . . .” She sighed a long sigh. “I was so tired, and I was too young to feel that tired, you know?”
“Do I ever.” I was thinking about Jake and me now. About how I’d come home one night last year from my second job, realizing I was twenty-three and my soul was exhausted. That night I’d felt much older than I had any right to. Yeah, I knew exactly what April meant.
“I figured the best way to stop feeling that tired was to stop fighting losing battles. Stop banging my head against a brick wall, trying to get him to do the right thing. I focused on what I had. Caitlin. Mom and Dad. You.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. You know what I did? I wised up and went home. I leaned on family. I was there with you for a long time, remember?”
“Kind of?” I fiddled with my mostly dry hair, searching my memory for the time she came back home in the early days of her divorce, baby Caitlin in tow. I’d come home from school and there they were in the kitchen with Mom. I’d helped Dad get my old crib down from the attic and set it up in the guest room. I couldn’t remember exactly how long they’d lived with us. “It felt like a while.”
“A year, almost.”
“A year? Was it really that long?” While in some ways it seemed like they’d stayed for ages, it felt like a blip in time in my memory. Even when we’d lived under the same roof, April and I hadn’t talked much, not the way sisters were supposed to. But I’d been busy being a kid, with lots of extracurriculars after school, and April had been a new mother trying to get back on her feet. We’d both been busy with our own stuff.
“I didn’t want to be there that long, but you know Mom. She insisted. Helped me get enrolled in those accounting classes, made you babysit Caitlin while I was in class or at home studying.”
“Is that what I was doing?” I remembered pretending Caitlin was my baby sister. I’d been so sad when they’d left again. At the time I hadn’t paid attention to what April had been up to. I didn’t remember college textbooks, or her studying. She was just . . . there. Funny how age gives you a change in perspective. I slumped a little in my seat with a mock pout. “Probably should have gotten paid if I was babysitting.”
April cracked a smile. “Talk to Mom about that. See if you can get back pay.” My smile in response matched hers; Mom was a skinflint through and through. Good luck getting cash out of her. “My point,” she continued, “is those months living at home helped me get back on my feet. Get an accounting degree, a good job, and eventually this house in this town. But it didn’t happen all at once. Starting over, especially that young and with a baby, was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I felt so alone. Probably like you did when Jake left.”
I nodded. “We had plans. Everything was figured out and then he . . .” My throat closed. I needed to talk about this, but I didn’t want to talk about this. It was hard to admit out loud how worthless someone made you feel. I glanced down at the fortune in my hand again. Ask the right question. The right question. A stone settled in my chest when I realized I hadn’t done that