over your own sister.”
“Was this before or after you stole all the cash from my wallet? Or from under my mattress? Or from my jewelry box? Or lied to me about ‘borrowing’ my car? Or told me you didn’t pawn Daddy’s stethoscope, but then Mom got a call from the pawnshop because they recognized his name?” Claire wiped rain out of her eyes. “I know it was before you stole my credit card and ran up thirteen grand in debt. How was Amsterdam, Lydia? Did you enjoy all the coffee shops?”
“I did, actually.” Lydia still had the little canal house souvenir the KLM stewardess had given her in First Class. “How did you enjoy knowing you turned your back on the last sister you have left?”
Claire’s mouth snapped into a thin line. Her eyes took on a heated gleam.
“God, you look just like Mom when you do that.”
“Shut up.”
“That’s mature.” Lydia could hear the immaturity in her own voice. “This is idiotic. We’re having the same argument we had eighteen years ago, except this time we’re doing it in the rain.”
Claire looked down at the ground. For the first time, she seemed uncertain of herself. “You lied to me all the time about everything.”
“You think I’d lie about that?”
“You were stoned out of your mind when he drove you home.”
“Is that what Paul told you? Because he picked me up from jail. You’re not usually stoned in jail. That’s kind of a no-no.”
“I’ve been to jail, Lydia. People who want to get high find a way to get high.”
Lydia snorted a laugh. Her goody-two-shoes baby sister had been to jail like Lydia had been to the moon.
Claire said, “He wasn’t even attracted to you.”
Lydia studied her face. This was an old line of reasoning, but she was saying it with less conviction. “You’re doubting him.”
“No, I’m not.” Claire pushed her wet hair back off her face. “You’re just hearing what you want to hear. Like you always do.”
Claire was lying. Lydia could feel it in her bones. She was standing there getting soaked in the rain and lying. “Did Paul hurt you? Is that what this is about? You couldn’t say it when he was alive, but now—”
“He never hurt me. He was a good husband. A good man. He took care of me. He made me feel safe. He loved me.”
Lydia didn’t respond. Instead, she let the silence build. She still didn’t believe her sister. Claire was just as easy to read now as when she was a little kid. Something was really bothering her, and that something obviously had to do with Paul. Her eyebrows were doing a weird zig, the same way Helen’s did when she was upset.
They hadn’t spoken in nearly two decades, but Lydia knew that confronting Claire always made her dig in her heels deeper. She tried a diversion. “Are you following this Anna Kilpatrick thing?”
Claire snorted, as if the answer was obvious. “Of course I am. Mom is, too.”
“Mom is?” Lydia was genuinely surprised. “She told you that?”
“No, but I know she’s following it.” Claire took a deep breath, then let it go. She looked up at the sky. The rain had stopped. “She’s not heartless, Lydia. She had her own way of dealing with it.” She left the rest of the sentence unsaid. Dad had his own way of dealing with it, too.
Lydia busied herself with closing her umbrella. The canopy was white with various breeds of dogs jumping in circles around the ferrule. Her father had carried something similar back when he could still hold down his job teaching vet students at UGA.
Claire said, “I’m Mom’s age now.”
Lydia looked up at her sister.
“Thirty-eight. The same age Mom was when Julia went missing. And Julia would be—”
“Forty-three.” Every year, Lydia marked Julia’s birthday. And Helen’s. And Claire’s. And the day that Julia had disappeared.
Claire let out another shaky breath. Lydia resisted the urge to do the same. Paul hadn’t just taken away Claire all those years ago. He’d taken away the connection that came from looking into someone else’s eyes and knowing that they understood exactly what you were feeling.
Claire asked, “Did you have kids?”
“No,” Lydia lied. “You?”
“Paul wanted to, but I was terrified of …”
She didn’t have to put a name to the terror. If family planning was the sort of thing Lydia had been capable of in her twenties, there was no way in hell she would’ve had Dee. Watching how the loss of a child had pulled her parents