On my ascent up the porch steps, Margot surprised me by stepping out of the shadows. I expected her to be angry about not taking her with me to roam Harbor at two in the morning, but her face was oddly clear. She didn’t look mad, or hurt, or surprised. Just… Stoic. Painfully, guilt-inspiringly so.
“Funny how your ride drives a black Lexus – the same car Mr. O’Sullivan drives. Lie to me and say that’s a coincidence.”
Patiently, she waited. Shamefaced, I said nothing.
“You warned me to stay away from him,” she calmly continued, still wearing her poker face. “You told me not to talk to him because you didn’t know if you could trust him. And now you’re driving around with him in his car at two in the morning. Is it worth it to ask you what’s going on? Or are you gonna hand feed me more bullshit.”
I sighed and took a seat on the old wooden porch swing. Dad always warned us it was close to falling apart, but none of us ever listened. It was perfect for star-gazing. Or much-needed sister moments.
“Margie, Dad and I – we’ve been keeping secrets from you,” I said.
Margie sat down beside me, and drawing our mother’s old-afghan closer around her pajamas.
“I know,” she replied, looking forward. “It’s not like I haven’t noticed. No one’s talking to each other – we’re all angry, depressed. But we don’t talk about it because… we’re not a family anymore.”
Stung, I looked at Margie and realized she was close to tears. And I knew it was because this was how she really felt. She really believed we weren’t a family.
“Margie, that’s not true,”
“Yes it is!” she shot back, angrily wiping her cheeks.
“No, it’s not,” I firmly replied. “You think Dad would be here right now if we weren’t a family? With Mom gone he doesn’t have to keep me. And he could’ve shipped you off to Grams – how many times has she offered to take you in.”
“Yeah, well, you know I’d never leave you,” she sniffed, dabbing at her eyes with a corner of the blanket.
“Yeah, because you know how much Grams hates me and that if you left you’d be totally bored without me,” I said with a grin, bumping her shoulder with mine. “And you know why that is?”
Margot gave a tiny, half-hearted smile and shrugged.
“Because we’re sisters. And sisters are family.”
I didn’t say it aloud, but the truth was I had never been so angry with our small, broken family, but neither had I loved them more. These three people had loved and accepted me more completely than anyone else my entire life – even more than the Fae, and perhaps just as much as my mother, Tierney.
“We’re not gone. We’re just a little lost.” I continued, finally catching Margot’s gaze. “But we’ll still be a family – no matter what.”
Margot paused.
“Promise?” she said, raising her eyebrows as she offered her pinkie finger.
“Promise,” I replied, accepting it with my own.
The hard part was over. Now came the hardest – revealing all my truths. I caught her up on all the big and little events over the past several days. All the things I hadn’t told her and knew that I should’ve. Because finally I had truly realized that I couldn’t protect Margie forever. By letting me face the Plasmaliks on my own, Westley had shown me that a little faith could actually go a long way.
We talked until a pinkish grey began to creep into the edges of the sky. And the more I explained the lighter I felt – from confessing the truth about Titania’s visit and my suspicions about Erica, to admitting that I felt guilty for having feelings for Danny so close to Dean’s death.”
“You don’t have to be alone forever just to prove how bad you feel about your ex,” Margot replied, covering a yawn with her hand. “Anyone who really knows you knows that you’re a good person and that you really cared about Dean. So if anyone deserves a distraction from life, it’s you.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling grateful for the strained encouragement as Margie stood from the porch, stretching her arms to sky with a groan.
“Speaking of really hot guys – Liam Troy asked me to the Fall Formal,” she said happily showing off her braces.
“Did he? When?” I replied, with a proud smile of my own.
“A few days ago. And he’s a sophomore – can you believe it?!”
Of course I could. Even with a mouth full of metal Margot was nowhere near as plain as she thought herself.
“Liam is pretty cute. Isn’t he on the soccer team?”
“Yep – and I hear he’s really good with his hands,”
We laughed.
“Hey, Tammy, I know I have to wear this stupid, puffy bandage so Dad doesn’t figure out how you healed me with Ambrosia but I can’t wear it to the dance tonight. It’ll look terrible, and I want this night to be perfect.”
“Just take it off and put it in your purse and then when the dance is over put it on again,” I suggested. “Liam and Dad never have to know.”
Margot stared down at the white patch of gauze secured to the top of her hand. When she looked up again, it was with a fierceness I only wished I could channel.
“By the way, if Erica really is the Knight – you and Westley had so better take her down. I don’t remember anything else funny happening to me when we were at the funeral. I mean, I definitely remembering Erica and I having a conversation but it wasn’t weird. She did accidentally pull my hair though…”
Margie absent-mindedly placed a hand against the top of her hair, our eyes slowly widening at the same time.
“That. Bitch. It wasn’t an accident. She totally pulled out a chunk of my hair for that spell, didn’t she?”
Grimly, I nodded as Margie shivered.
“And can’t buh-lieve she had the nerve to take away your chance to be at the funeral,”
I gave a listless shrug.
“She thinks I took her sister away. So far, taking away my chance to be at Dean’s service is probably the smallest price I’ve had to pay. What matters is I got to say good-bye. That’s enough.”
The last step was listening to his voicemail. How much longer would I allow myself to cling to this horrible guilt? It wasn’t a shield, it was leech, and it was time to finally be rid of its awful weight.
“Still, I feel like it was my fault.” said Margie with a heavy sigh. “You really didn’t have to come with me to the ER ya know –”
“I know I didn’t have to be there – I wanted to be there. Just one of the parts about being family, remember?”
“Well, I’m still sorry you missed the service,” she said quietly.
Now I stood from the porch swing as well and passed my sister a small, fleeting smile.
“Me too,” was all I could say.
* * *