spoke in familiar tones, warm and worn. Standing there, Claire considered her life.
Yale.
Ainsley St. John.
Her mom, and the Bahamian cruise.
Shattered phones and broken dreams.
The Enright brothers, the Sullivan sisters.
She considered all the things she couldn’t control.
Exceller status seemed out of reach in the face of all that. Maybe it always had been.
Murphy was sprawled on the sofa in the den, hand in a candy dish filled with M&M’s. On television, a kid wailed in agony, tongue stuck to an icy pole.
“Hey,” Claire said, taking a seat beside her, and for a moment they quietly watched A Christmas Story, the light of each shifting scene flashing on their faces. There was strange comfort in this, just watching TV with her sister. Claire couldn’t remember when they’d last seen a movie together.
She wondered how many movies Murphy had watched on her own.
“Want some?” Murphy surprised Claire by lifting the candy dish. “No maggots. I checked.”
“I’m fine,” said Claire.
Then she saw a flash of hurt in Murphy’s eyes. Like this question wasn’t about chocolate; it was a test. A turning point, a line between past and future.
Murphy had asked all those questions over the years—questions Claire had found annoying. Claire had kept saying no to them, again and again. And at some point Murphy had stopped asking. She’d given up.
Now, here was a simple offer of Christmas chocolate.
Was Claire really going to say no again?
She knew what she had to do. Before Murphy could pull the dish away, Claire plunged her hand into the candies, took a fistful, and crammed the chocolate into her mouth. It was the most un-Claire thing she’d done in over two years. It was the most un-Harper thing. And what Claire did next was even worse: She chewed for a moment, then opened her mouth wide, producing a chocolate-stained smile.
Murphy looked at her, stunned. “Nice. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Me neither,” said Claire, licking her teeth free of sugar coating.
She felt alive, untethered from a weight that had been keeping her no more than an inch off the ground.
“What, there’s a party in here and I wasn’t invited?”
Eileen had come into the room with eyes similar to Mom’s: damp and pinked. She didn’t ask her question in anger, though. Claire knew Eileen’s voices. This was the one she used when she was sorry but couldn’t say it out loud.
Claire scooted over, motioning for Eileen to join them on the couch, and when she did, Claire made the move: She rested her head on Eileen’s shoulder. Which was how Claire said she was sorry, but not out loud. Sorry for being a Harper Everly asshole. For deciding Eileen was a Settler and cutting her out of her life. For focusing on Ivy Leagues and mythical Ainsley St. John for so long, she’d forgotten about her real-life sisters in very real Oregon.
She and Eileen had been close once—bound together by blood and love.
Two years ago they’d broken apart.
Now, on Christmas Day … maybe they could begin to mend.
As the Sullivan sisters silently watched TV, Claire felt an emptying sensation, as though the blood and viscous fluids in her had been poured out and her organs had been swept clean. That nagging sensation she had to say sorry again was gone. She felt new, like a clear blue sky.
DECEMBER TWENTY-SIXTH
THIRTY-THREE Murphy
Home looked smaller than Murphy remembered. There was green mold on the vinyl siding, and paint was peeling from the shutters. The driveway was cracked in a hundred places, and the spruce in the front lawn looked malnourished. Murphy had known these things about her house; she’d seen them every day. Only now, in the hard light of December twenty-sixth, they were depressing.
Had 2270 Laramie ruined her forever? A badly built starter home in Emmet couldn’t aspire to be a seaside Victorian mansion. Definitely not. But … it was home, and it was the only home Murphy had known. Before the closed bedroom doors, and in spite of the fights and silences, the sickness and death it had witnessed, this home had also seen good times.
Like the days of Cayenne Castle.
Mom pulled the Subaru into the carport, glancing in the rearview mirror for the umpteenth time to be sure Eileen’s Caravan was behind them. That morning Kerry had driven them to the towing lot where the van had been deposited. Eileen had asked what she’d owed for the fee, and Kerry had given her a lengthy once-over before saying, “What I want is for you to take a