“No. Listen.”
She did.
“You don’t get to disappear again because being my sister becomes difficult. And I don’t get to drag you back into being twenty years old.”
She nodded.
“So what happens now?” she whispered.
“For once, I decide.”
She waited.
“We start small.”
“Okay.”
“You don’t disappear. You don’t decide what I can handle. You answer questions honestly.”
“I can do that.”
“Mom and Dad get their own anger. I’m not going to explain you to them or ask them to forgive you.”
“That’s fair.”
“I’m not trying to be fair. I’m trying to understand how to have a living sister after ten years of having a dead one.”
Clara looked down.
“What do you want from me now?”
I picked up my purse.
“Lunch.”
She blinked.
“Thursday.”
Three weeks later, I stopped at a bakery before meeting her.
