Sisterhood Everlasting - Ann Brashares [121]
And then there was Kostos. Out of the soil of more than a dozen years of disappointment, joy bloomed in every single thing she and Kostos did together, in every dumb thing. Sitting next to him in the car on the drive up, buying him a cup of coffee at the gas station (learning how he liked it for a thousand future times), sharing a Milky Way, getting lost on the back roads, her spilling her water bottle on her lap, him mopping at her skirt with two napkins.
There was sexiness in everything that passed between them: her putting change in his hand for the toll, him pushing her hair aside to see the map better. Every time he looked at her. Every time she looked at him.
And then there was that particular look they gave each other when they saw the queen-size bed made up and waiting in the magnificent barn loft intended for them. Every year of not having each other added something to that look.
How could they possibly wait? Kostos spun her into the bathroom and clutched her for a heated moment before they heard Bailey’s feet slapping across the wooden floor.
Tibby had given them the child’s dream of love, having all your needs met without having to ask, without even knowing what they were.
Lena recognized in each moment of that day, maybe in her happiness more than anyone’s, the hand of an artist. Tibby had spent the last fifteen years learning to write a script, and this was her gift to them, her masterpiece.
As Lena walked across the farmyard with Kostos to join the group for a spaghetti dinner in the big house, she looked up at the stars and gave Tibby thanks. She didn’t have to throw her thoughts far to know they reached her.
What was the best part? That was what Carmen asked herself as she lay on the yielding mattress that smelled like new, in a bedroom of the pristine cottage Brian insisted, crazily enough, belonged to her.
The best part was seeing Bee and Lena and knowing they were going to be okay. It was meeting Bailey for the first time, understanding without needing anyone to say it who she was. It was watching Lena and Kostos walking toward her holding hands. It was Lena’s happiness. It was Bee’s pregnancy and witnessing her and Eric’s obvious joy in it.
The saddest part, undoubtedly, was learning the truth about Tibby. The saddest thing was learning what she’d gone through. But maybe it was finally the happiest thing too, knowing she’d loved them all along, that they hadn’t failed her, knowing their time wasn’t over, that they’d lived the life they thought they had.
But as Carmen lay there, letting the thoughts breed and grow in her head, she pushed her fear aside and allowed the two things, the sadness and happiness, to mix. Tibby’s suffering had been outside of their friendship, outside of their control. It didn’t represent a failure of their bond. But Tibby had kept it from them, and that represented a different kind of failure. She hadn’t let them in at that darkest juncture in her life. They couldn’t have prevented any of it, but they could have given her comfort and they hadn’t. Why hadn’t they? Why hadn’t she let them?
Because we aren’t built for leaving, Carmen realized. Tibby hadn’t known how to leave them. There was no precedent. Maybe she hadn’t thought they could handle it. Maybe we couldn’t.
Carmen remembered the dream Tibby had once had that her great-grandma Felicia had gotten their Traveling Pants taxidermied as a graduation present. And she remembered Tibby describing her horror in the dream. But they have to be able to move! she’d screamed. Carmen wondered if they had forgotten that somewhere along the way. You had to let them move. Maybe you even had to let them go.
There were daffodils in a glass on the bedside table, and a few well-made pieces of furniture throughout the three small bedrooms of the house and the downstairs