Maybe we would laugh.
Maybe he would put his hand over mine while we stared together at that impossibly small image.
Instead, Melissa showed up at five-thirty without bothering to knock.
She tossed her coat over the armchair I had told her at least twelve times not to use as a coat rack.
Tyler immediately opened our refrigerator.
Diane settled herself at the kitchen island and informed me that I had cut the carrots too thick.
Then Grant came through the door.
Melissa reached him before I did.
“I’m worried about you,” she said.
That was Melissa’s special voice whenever she wanted something from her brother—gentle, injured, concerned.
I was draining the asparagus when I heard her continue.
“Rachel ordered three packages this month. You work constantly, and she just keeps spending.”
The packages contained prenatal vitamins, loose-fitting jeans, and a pregnancy book.
Every one of them had been paid for from my own personal account.
Grant appeared in the kitchen with his tie loosened.
“What did you buy?”
I looked at him.
“Things I needed.”
“Three boxes of things you needed?”
“They were personal items.”
Melissa laughed from the living room.
“What is she doing? Preparing to announce another emergency so you’ll feel guilty?”
No one laughed with her.
But no one told her to stop, either.
Diane gave me the patronizing smile she used so often.
“Rachel, sweetheart, nobody is accusing you. We’re simply saying Grant supports a lot of people. We all need to be mindful.”
That nearly made me laugh.
Grant wasn’t supporting those people.
I was.
For the past three years, I had been paying Tyler’s private-school tuition because Melissa was always supposedly “between opportunities.”
Fourteen thousand dollars a year.
I had covered several of Melissa’s insurance premiums.
Twice, I had paid for repairs to Diane’s car.
I routinely bought enough weekend groceries to somehow feed Grant’s entire family.
Every time Grant promised that he would “sort things out later,” I quietly stepped in because I hated confrontation and believed that helping was simply part of being married.
But later never arrived.
